'The Bard Is a Very Singular Character': Iolo Morganwg, Marginalia and Print Culture (University of Wales Press - Iolo Morganwg and the Romantic Tradition)

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IOLO MORGANWG AND THE ROMANTIC TRADITION IN WALES

General Editor: Geraint H. Jenkins

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The memorial plaque to Iolo Morganwg and his son Taliesin in Flemingston Church

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‘The Bard is aVery Singular Character’ Iolo Morganwg, Marginalia and Print Culture

FFION MAIR JONES

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS CARDIFF 2010

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© Ffion Mair Jones, 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without clearance from the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.

www.uwp.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-7083-2195-9 e-ISBN 978-0-7083-2296-3

The right of Ffion Mair Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Printed in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham,Wiltshire.

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I Heledd Haf

‘The Bard is a very singular Character’ John Walters to Owain Myfyr, 29 January 1779 (BL Add. 15024, pp. 185–6)

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IOLO MORGANWG AND THE ROMANTIC TRADITION IN WALES

Other volumes already published in the series: A Rattleskull Genius:The Many Faces of Iolo Morganwg, edited by Geraint H. Jenkins (University of Wales Press, 2005; paperback edn., 2009) The Truth against the World: Iolo Morganwg and Romantic Forgery, by Mary-Ann Constantine (University of Wales Press, 2007) Bardic Circles: National, Regional and Personal Identity in the Bardic Vision of Iolo Morganwg, by Cathryn A. Charnell-White (University of Wales Press, 2007) The Correspondence of Iolo Morganwg, edited by Geraint H. Jenkins, Ffion Mair Jones and David Ceri Jones (3 volumes, University of Wales Press, 2007) The Literary and Historical Legacy of Iolo Morganwg 1826–1926, by Marion Löffler (University of Wales Press, 2007)

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Contents List of Figures Preface Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations

ix x xiii xiv

1. Introduction

1

2. ‘Ai ovn oedd?’ (Was it fear?): Iolo Morganwg as editor

11

3. ‘Ddoe, heddyw, ag yn dragywydd’ (Yesterday, today, and everlastingly): Iolo Morganwg as reader

75

4. ‘Aneirif bapirau didrefn’ (Countless disorderly papers): Iolo Morganwg the writer

153

Appendices Editorial Methods

217

I. Thomas Llewelyn, Historical and Critical Remarks on the BritishTongue

221

II. Iolo Morganwg’s books

237

III. Taliesin ab Iolo’s books

241

IV. Language Dialect Idioms and proverbs Grammar and morphology Vocabulary Terminology

243 243 253 260 268 275

V. Literature English poetry

281 281

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CONTENTS

viii

Translations into English Welsh strict-metre poetry Welsh free-metre poetry Anecdotes Welsh hymns Hymns – introductory material

292 293 299 302 303 305

VI. Miscellaneous Agriculture Archaeology Architecture Geology History Horticulture Names and family history Politics Religion Topography

313 313 313 315 317 318 323 324 324 325 328

Select Bibliography Index

329 339

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Figures Frontispiece: The memorial plaque to Iolo Morganwg and his son Taliesin in Flemingston Church Fig. 1

ii

The arrangement of the authentic ‘Brut y Saeson’ and Iolo’s two spurious chronicles,‘Brut Aberpergwm’ and ‘Brut Ieuan Brechfa’, The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales (1801–7), vol. II, p. 470

25

Fig. 2

David Thomas,‘Dafydd Ddu Eryri’, 1821, Oil

57

Fig. 3

John Pinkerton, stipple engraving by Ridley, Holl and Blood, published by James Asperne, 1807

91

Fig. 4

The Powys Provincial Eisteddfod, September 1824, Print

99

Fig. 5

William Owen [Pughe], A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (1803), vol. I, title-page

119

Fig. 6

Thomas Evans, Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau (1811), title-page

131

Figs. 7a, 7b

A list in Iolo’s hand of words beginning with the prefix ‘rhag-’, NLW 21286E, no. 1036

186–7

A diagram in Iolo’s hand of the ‘penllyw’, the stone set next to the corner stone, NLW 21286E, no. 1019

247

A diagram of ancient weapons in Iolo’s hand, NLW 21282E, no. 427

314

A diagram in Iolo’s hand showing architectural features in the Gothic style, NLW 21283E, no. 554

315

A drawing of an unidentified house in Iolo’s hand, NLW 21286E, no. 1037

315

A pencil sketch of a farmhouse, barn and chapel in Iolo’s hand, NLW 21284E, no. 661

316

A pencil diagram in Iolo’s hand showing a geological structure, NLW 21283E, no. 489

317

Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fig. 10 Fig. 11 Fig. 12 Fig. 13

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Preface This volume forms part of a seven-year project devoted to the life and work of the multifaceted Glamorgan stonemason Edward Williams, more commonly known by his bardic name of Iolo Morganwg. The project, entitled ‘Iolo Morganwg and the Romantic Tradition in Wales, 1740–1918’ and generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the University of Wales, commenced in October 2001, when members of the research team began transcribing the extensive collection of Iolo’s correspondence held in the National Library of Wales.These manuscript letters formed the backbone of The Correspondence of Iolo Morganwg, published in three volumes in 2007. The Correspondence offers a comprehensive picture not only of Iolo Morganwg’s life and work but also of almost half a century of life in Romantic Wales. It delves into the world of literary production in this period, the overlap between manuscript culture and the emergent and ever-strengthening culture of print, and reveals Iolo’s preoccupations with matters as diverse as architecture, agriculture, geology, social justice and radical Dissent. Moreover, it traces Iolo’s steps from theVale of Glamorgan where he was born and bred, to the counties of Kent and Devon (in the 1770s), into 1790s London, to north Wales at the turn of the century, and finally back to his ‘Bardic Lodge’ at Flemingston in Glamorgan. The Correspondence thus gives an all-encompassing view of Iolo Morganwg’s world, and has already proved invaluable to our understanding of him. It has opened the door to some of the first full-volume studies devoted to particular aspects of his work and legacy since Griffith John Williams’s ground-breaking study of Iolo’s Welsh-language forgeries, Iolo Morganwg a Chywyddau’rYchwanegiad, published in 1926.The year 2007 heralded the appearance of three such studies: The Truth against the World: Iolo Morganwg and Romantic Forgery by Mary-Ann Constantine, leader of the Iolo Morganwg project; Bardic Circles: National, Regional and Personal Identity in the Bardic Vision of Iolo Morganwg by Cathryn A. Charnell-White; and The Literary and Historical Legacy of Iolo Morganwg 1826– 1926 by Marion Löffler.All three studies represent cutting-edge views of Iolo’s work. Mary-Ann Constantine’s volume reveals the prevalence of forgery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, setting Iolo’s work, both spurious and authentic, side by side with that of Thomas Chatterton and James Macpherson. Cathryn Charnell-White explores the vision of Welsh history and literature which Iolo created, and his motivations for distorting historical sources and creating his own version of narratives relating to the past. Finally, Marion Löffler

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PREFACE

examines Iolo’s posthumous reputation – howVictorian Wales elevated him to saintliness, thereby denying his legacy of the radical elements which undoubtedly formed a key part of his life and work.To complement these works, a volume of essays on Iolo Morganwg, A Rattleskull Genius:The Many Faces of Iolo Morganwg, edited by the now former director of the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies and general editor of this series, Geraint H. Jenkins, was published in 2005 and reprinted in paperback in 2009. The present study is highly indebted to all the works mentioned above.With them, it shares the burning desire to restore the reputation of Iolo Morganwg and rescue his work from oblivion. Much twentieth-century criticism of Iolo centred on the ‘trickery’ of his forgeries – on how he misled the Welsh literary and historical establishment, as well as the general public, by producing and circulating false accounts of history and spurious literary works in genres as diverse as the Welsh cywydd, the medieval prose chronicle and the aphoristic Welsh ‘triad’. Griffith John Williams’s incomplete biography Iolo Morganwg:Y Gyfrol Gyntaf, published in 1956, stood apart from the hue and cry raised against the Glamorgan bard and stonemason by John Morris-Jones and others, and began the process of reinstating Iolo in the history of his country as a highly creative literary figure – ‘one of the nation’s great men, the most gifted Welshman of his day’ (‘un o w yr ˆ mawr y genedl, Cymro galluocaf y dydd’). For, in spite of the attention given to the fact that Iolo was a highly accomplished producer of literary forgeries, much of his work remained unexamined, and was confined to the manuscripts which he left at his death.This study deals specifically with the idea of ‘marginalization’ in relation to Iolo. It considers his marginalized and forgotten contributions to published works (chapter 2), his sometimes idiosyncratic but always highly revealing annotations to printed books and manuscripts (chapter 3), and, finally, his hoard of ‘scrap’ material which was left in the margins of his collection of correspondence (chapter 4). The Appendices provided at the end of the volume further ensure the restorative nature of this study by offering a selection of Iolo’s marginalia to his correspondence and an example of one of his most interesting and profusely annotated copies of printed books. Besides my debt to the above-mentioned publications by Geraint H. Jenkins, Mary-Ann Constantine, Cathryn A. Charnell-White and Marion Löffler, I am greatly indebted to them in person for their support over the years since the inception of the project. I also wish to thank former project members David Ceri Jones, Eluned Jones,Andrew Davies and Hywel Gethin Rhys. I have been particularly fortunate in securing the guidance of Geraint H. Jenkins and MaryAnn Constantine in drafting and refining the following chapters, and of Glenys Howells in copy-editing the material. My thanks also go to members of the staff of Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, and to Martin Crampin, Dafydd Johnston, Gareth Wyn Jones, John T. Koch, Barry J. Lewis, Prys Morgan and Ann Parry Owen.

xi

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xii

Members of staff at the National Library of Wales have been most helpful, and I thank them all for their assistance. Especial thanks are due to Charles Parry, who first brought to my attention the collection of Iolo’s printed books housed in the library, and to Huw Walters who has also facilitated my work by sharing his knowledge of the library’s holdings of books owned by Iolo. Geraint Phillips was also most willing to help with my enquiries regarding Iolo’s books in the National Library of Wales. Dr E.Wyn James of Cardiff University generously shared with me his work on Iolo’s annotated books in Cardiff University Library, and I am very grateful to him and the staff at the library for helping me to locate Iolo’s books there. I am also indebted to the staff of the University of Wales Press, especially Siân Chapman and Dafydd Jones, for their expert guidance and co-operation. Lastly,I thank my parents for their invaluable support.The volume is dedicated to my daughter Heledd.

December 2009

Ffion Mair Jones

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Acknowledgements The National Library of Wales: Figs. 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 National Portrait Gallery: Fig. 3 Powysland Museum: Fig. 4

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Abbreviations Bardic Circles

Cathryn A. Charnell-White, Bardic Circles: National, Regional and Personal Identity in the Bardic Vision of Iolo Morganwg (Cardiff, 2007) BBCS Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies BL Add. British Library Additional Manuscripts CBYP Taliesin Williams (ed.), Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain (Abertawy, 1829) CIM Geraint H. Jenkins, Ffion Mair Jones and David Ceri Jones (eds.), The Correspondence of Iolo Morganwg (3 vols., Cardiff, 2007) GPC Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (4 vols., Caerdydd, 1950–2002) Iolo Manuscripts Taliesin Williams, Iolo Manuscripts.A Selection of Ancient Welsh Manuscripts, in Prose and Verse (Llandovery, 1848) JMHRS Journal of the Merioneth Historical and Record Society JWBS Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society Literary and Historical Legacy Marion Löffler, The Literary and Historical Legacy of Iolo Morganwg 1826–1926 (Cardiff, 2007) LW Eiluned Rees, Libri Walliae:A Catalogue of Welsh Books and Books printed in Wales 1546–1820 (2 vols.,Aberystwyth, 1987) MAW Owen Jones, Iolo Morganwg and William Owen Pughe, The Myvyrian Archaiology ofWales (3 vols., London, 1801–7) NLW National Library of Wales NLWJ National Library of Wales Journal ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography OED Oxford English Dictionary PLP Edward Williams, Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (2 vols., London, 1794) Rattleskull Genius Geraint H. Jenkins (ed.), A Rattleskull Genius:The Many Faces of Iolo Morganwg (Cardiff, 2005) THSC Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion Truth against the World Mary-Ann Constantine, The Truth against the

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ABBREVIATIONS

WHR Williams: IM

World: Iolo Morganwg and Romantic Forgery (Cardiff, 2007) Welsh History Review G. J.Williams, Iolo Morganwg –Y Gyfrol Gyntaf (Caerdydd, 1956)

xv

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1 Introduction

. . . ydd wyv yn covio imi weled mewn t} hên garwr imi, pan oeddwn yn vachgen, amryw gopïau o Drïodd, wedi eu dodi y’nglud ar welydd ei neuadd. Peth cyfredin oedd hyn, meddai ev, yn yr hên amserodd; ni deallwn wrth hyn vod ein hên deidau yn caru doethineb yn well o lawer no ’u heppil. Pwy ynawr á ry ’nglud ar wàl ei barth unpeth à vo nag yn dysgu, nag yn arwyddo doethineb? neb ar à wn i. Gweled amryw bethau o’r vath hyn, yn enwedig Triodd Llelo Llawdrwm o’r Coett}, ar wal fenestr neuadd vy hên garwr, á dynoedd vy serch i gyntav at ddarllen hên iaith vy ngwlâd, a chwilio ei hen ysgrivèniadau; ac ni bu vychan y diddanwch à gevais yn yr hên lyvrau Cymreig. Yr wyv yn credu hyn yn vy nghalon, pe bai rhai pethau o’r natur hyn mewn print i’w dodi ar welydd mewn tai, y tynai hyny sylw llawer dyn ieuanc at bethau gwell nog y sydd yn awr vynychav yn cael eu gosod o’u blaen; ac nid cywilydd y byddai i ambell hên ddyn pengaled, a phengaled y gwelav i pob hên ddynion, ystyried ei bod hi ’n llawnoed bellach iddo ve neu hithau ymarver ychydig â doethineb. 1 (. . . I remember seeing at the house of an old relation of mine, when I was a boy, several copies of Triads glued on to the walls of his hall. This was a common practice, he said, in the olden days; we understand from this that our old forefathers loved wisdom much more than their progeny do. Who nowadays glues on to the walls of his home anything which teaches or denotes wisdom? Nobody as far as I know. It was seeing several things of this kind, especially the Triads of Llelo Llawdrwm of Coety, on the window-wall of the hall of my old relation that first induced me to read the old language of my country and to seek out its ancient writings; and the pleasure I had from the old Welsh books was not small. I believe this in my heart – that if some things of this nature were available in print to be set up on the walls of houses, it would draw the attention of many a young man to better things than are most frequently put before them nowadays. And there would be no shame in it if a few stubborn old men, and I find all old men stubborn, were to consider it high time now for him (or her) to practise a little wisdom. )

1

MAW, III, p. 199.

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2

The words quoted above appear in the guise of an introduction by Tomas ab Ieuan of Tre’r-bryn ( fl. second half of the seventeenth century) to ‘Llyvyr Triodd Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ (The Bards of the Isle of Britain’s Book of Triads), which was published in the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales (1801–7). They were, of course, composed by Iolo Morganwg, as were the series of triads which followed them. Ab Ieuan’s words portray two very different, semi-fictional worlds: the world in which he was brought up as a child and the present in which he writes. He remembers his noble ancestors, who lived in halls (‘neuadd[au]’) and whose moral conduct was perfectly regulated by a code solidified in the (ancient) literary genre of the ‘Triad’. 2 Triads, he suggests, were widely known and their wisdom-giving advice followed in this putative age (rather curiously in view of their strong mnemonic structure) as a result of their being attached in written form to the walls of the homes of the nobility. In ab Ieuan’s contemporary world of moral depravity, however, wisdom is unknown and unpractised. As a remedy for this state of affairs he suggests the mimicking of the noblemen’s ancient practice of affixing copies of triadic literature on to the walls of their halls. Triads should be printed and distributed widely and displayed on the walls of the more prosaic and lowly houses (‘tai’) of his contemporaries. This desire to unearth the supposed literary and moral marvels of the ‘olden days’ (‘yr hên amserodd’) and propel them into the present through the modern techniques of print culture represents one of Iolo Morganwg’s own principal obsessions as a literary producer. In ab Ieuan’s appeal for print rather than manuscripts we glimpse a model for much of Iolo’s life work: his endeavour to shift one form of written culture – that of the manuscript – into another – the more modern medium of print – largely in order to stimulate wisdom and moral uprightness. Thus did he characterize the new vogue for reading among his fellow Welshmen in ‘A Short Review of the Present State of Welsh Manuscripts’, the essay which prefaced the first volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology: A taste for books in their own language is now reviving, and gains considerably amongst the Welsh; than which nothing can more effectually secure their morals, and consequently their happiness; especially as there are not, and we hope never will be, in our language, any such immoral and otherwise pernicious publications, as in most other countries are the bane of morality, and of social happiness. 3

To a large extent, Iolo saw his own vocation in life as furthering a revival in aid of the ‘proper ends of genuinely civilizing our successive generations’. 4 2

3 4

Note that ‘neuadd’ may be translated simply as ‘dwelling’. See GPC. The sense of the moral superiority of ab Ieuan’s ancestors, however, makes ‘hall’, with its aristocratic and elevated connotations, a more appropriate translation here. MAW, I, p. xv. Ibid.

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Yet, to pinpoint Iolo Morganwg’s place in relation to a shift from manuscript to print culture is no straightforward task. The passage quoted above displays the complexity of his position and the ambivalence of his attitude towards the enterprise of printing. In the first instance, and most strikingly, Iolo did not evangelize in his own voice but, rather, engaged in an act of ventriloquism which allowed him to convey his views in the guise of a Glamorgan manuscript collector of an earlier generation. This in one respect validated the act of printing by offering it a historical precedent (just as the nobleman’s practice of committing the oral triadic literature to parchment validated the act of writing in the passage from ab Ieuan’s introduction). The desire to publish was not a new-fangled, modern ambition, but one of long standing. That ab Ieuan failed to realize this desire conferred upon Iolo, the man who succeeded on his behalf, a greater degree of achievement. In securing the printing of ab Ieuan’s work, Iolo had not only unearthed ancient literature (of contemporary value), but had also realized ab Ieuan’s cherished dream of public dissemination. Iolo thus comes of age as a specialist in the manuscript culture of his county and country, just as ab Ieuan’s professed vision is achieved. Nonetheless, the dynamics of public and private remain problematic. Iolo may have expected some degree of contemporary recognition for his contributions to The Myvyrian Archaiology, yet the sense of standing back from direct production and authorship remained strong in this, as in other, published works in which he was involved. Like Chatterton and Macpherson before him, Iolo chose literary forgery as a prime mode of expression, creating spurious prose chronicles, aphoristic literature, a bardic grammar and a rich body of Welsh poetry in both strict and free metres, a small portion of which was published during his lifetime or shortly after his death. 5 His choice may be seen as the result of the pervasive ‘anxiety of reception’ which beset poets and authors of the Romantic age: fear of an increasingly impersonal and anonymous reading ‘public’ and a desire instead to ‘speak to and for the people’. 6 Habermas’s seminal study, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, demonstrates how the dynamics of the ‘public’ were radically transformed during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in Britain, France and Germany. As royal courts lost their ‘central position in the public sphere, indeed [their] status as the public sphere’, that sphere instead began to ‘[cast] itself loose as a forum in which the private people, come together to form a public, readied themselves to compel public authority to legitimate itself before public opinion’. 7 In English coffee-houses, French salons and German Tischgesellschaften (table societies) and Sprachgesellschaften 5 6

7

On Iolo’s work as a literary forger, see Truth against the World. Lucy Newlyn, Reading, Writing, and Romanticism: The Anxiety of Reception (Oxford, 2000), p. 31. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, translated by Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 31, 25–6.

3

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4

(literary societies), authors were called upon to discuss their work, usually prior to publication, before an audience not determined by social class. 8 As the practice of nobles offering patronage to authors was abandoned, firstly for subscription (which ‘maintain[ed] certain features of the personal character’) and lastly for publication addressed to a ‘general public, completely unknown to the author’, poets and other authors became increasingly apprehensive about the way in which their productions might be viewed. 9 For instance, Wordsworth was beset by ‘an almost paranoid fear that poets were at the mercy of a hostile reading-public’. 10 Blake, himself a keen critical annotator of the literary productions of contemporaries, sought to present his own works on densely packed pages of print in which ‘there [was] no room left to write anything more’. The printed page of Blake’s works, among them Jerusalem, presented itself as ‘a wall of words’ in which there remained no space to record a critical reading by a member of the feared bourgeois public. 11 That Iolo shared this anxiety is in little doubt. The practice of withdrawing his claim to authorial rights over his own (forged) productions may be seen as a defence mechanism to lessen his vulnerability to public criticism. It released Iolo to play an editorial role in relation to his own work, a role in which he could be the advocate of the texts which he himself had produced, through a paratext relegated to the foot of the pages or through other editorial apparatus. By parading a host of fictional or semi-fictional figures on the pages of The Myvyrian Archaiology, for example, Iolo freed himself to become the first commentator on, and champion of, his own work. This strategy extended to providing a substantial paratext for his two-volume Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, which was published in 1794 and which he claimed as his own. 12 The notes, in some cases, almost appear to subsume the poetry itself, Iolo again becoming the first annotator of his own work. 13 Added at the end of the second volume is a list of bogus Welsh triads, complete with Iolo’s own translation into English and a prefatory ‘account’. 14 These have largely been seen as a nod to the druidic and 8 9

10 11

12

13

14

Ibid. , pp. 32–5, 37–8. Ibid. , p. 258, quoting Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art (2 vols. , New York, 1951), II, p. 548. An important facet of the new world of large-scale printing was the development of literary criticism as a profession. See Antonia Fraser, ‘Review Journals and the Reading Public’ in Isabel Rivers (ed. ), Books and Their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays (London, 2001), pp. 171–90. Newlyn, Reading, Writing, and Romanticism, p. 92. Jason Allen Snart, The Torn Book: UnReading William Blake’s Marginalia (Selinsgrove, Pa. , 2006), pp. 142, 143. On the device of playing the part of a self-educated journeyman mason (which may be seen as another mechanism of self-defence) in relation to Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, see Truth against the World, pp. 51, 61–2. Note how they are listed individually (in italic script) in the indexes to the volumes. PLP, I, pp. ii–x; ibid. , II, pp. v–viii. Ibid. , II, pp. 217–56.

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radical faction among Iolo’s readership, but another possible function for the material was to distance Iolo’s authorial claims to the volume. 15 His druidic work had already been presented to the world through the publication of The Heroic Elegies and Other Pieces of Llywarç Hen by his fellow Welshman William Owen Pughe in 1792. 16 To present them again in Poems, Lyric and Pastoral was both to lay his own claim upon them (now that they had attained a public following) and to muddy the waters of his authorial production as a ‘self-tutored Journeyman Mason’ and poet. 17 Although Iolo, as an author, feared the bourgeois public, he also readily participated in the act of critical reception in relation to the publications of other authors. If he pre-empted criticism of his own work (rather than prevent it, as Blake did) through his choice of a self-defence mechanism, he still availed himself of the right to figure among the critical and legitimizing voices of the reading public (this time exactly as did Blake). His printed annotations are complemented by manuscript annotations in his hand to an array of published books, an appreciable number of which were composed by contemporaries. An exploration of these annotations shows that Iolo not only benefited and drew inspiration from a wide-ranging literary diet but also, in some cases, vociferously confronted contemporary authors on the pages of their printed books. This again demonstrates Iolo’s ambivalent stance in relation to print culture – an attitude which both accepted products of value and use to himself and rejected elements which he found unpalatable. Unwilling to see certain authors flaunting their ideas in print, Iolo’s marginalia dispute their acceptance by the literary establishment. In one extreme case, Iolo’s annotations to a volume of hymns by Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi) built up, through a series of acerbic comments, a sense of challenge to the latter’s right to claim authorship of the work. 18 Mired in the controversy of alleged plagiarism, this annotated volume unsettles the authority of its named author and, in Blakeian fashion, ‘mount[s] a text of [Iolo’s] own in the spaces provided’ on the page. 19 Yet, it is not clear that the challenge posed by Iolo’s marginalia to printed books represents a meaningful opposition to their influence. Although many of his annotated copies were circulated during his lifetime, they constituted single artefacts and their influence in terms of leading public opinion on a work distributed through the mass 15

16 17

18

19

Mary-Ann Constantine, ‘“This Wildernessed Business of Publication”: The Making of Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (1794)’ in Rattleskull Genius, p. 135; Bardic Circles, p. 26. See Bardic Circles, pp. 13, 18–19, 29. PLP, I, p. xiii. Both Iolo’s contemporaries and future generations showed a greater interest in the triads and the notes to Iolo’s Poems than in the poems themselves. See Literary and Historical Legacy, p. 83. See NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Thomas Evans, Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau, wedi cael eu hamcanu at addoliad cyhoeddus; ag yn enwedig at wasanaeth Undodiaid Cristianogol (Caerfyrddin, 1811), discussed below in chapter 3. Snart, The Torn Book, p. 155.

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medium of print must have been limited. Thus Iolo’s manuscript marginalia to printed books oscillate between two extremes. On the one hand, they appear to challenge the authority of the status quo and revel in the right of a private individual to engage critically with the products of print culture. On the other, however, they display a frustrated (and often envious) response to the successes of published authors, especially if they were known to Iolo in person and were active in the Welsh literary and cultural sphere. The question for Iolo, increasingly as old age advanced upon him, was whether he could influence his country’s emergent institutions and increasingly ‘national’ culture through means which were largely marginal – both in his own printed works and through his critical engagement with the work of his contemporaries. Tomos ab Ieuan’s introduction to his triads in The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales brings to light another fascinating aspect of Iolo’s work in relation to marginalia and to the culture of the printed word in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. To a large extent (and surprisingly so) it focuses not on a public domain but rather on a private one. The ancient ‘hall’ is replaced by modern ‘houses’, both dwellings in which moral triads are glued, or envisaged as being glued, upon walls. In projecting the triads into the heart of a private as opposed to a public domain, Iolo appears to be bypassing the public sphere entirely. He places his triadic literature in the confines of a private world, a familial domain ‘of humanity-generating closeness’, in which ‘the idea of a personal cultivation as its own end’ is more than mere ideology. 20 In so doing he argues for the individual’s engagement with the material, irrespective of the age in which it was purportedly composed, and for the reader’s cultivation of his (or her) own morality through the inspiration provided by ab Ieuan’s diligent labours as a manuscript copyist. He speaks to ‘private selves’ on issues of ‘human’ import. 21 This suggests a romantic preoccupation with the individual soul, even though Iolo’s chosen mode of communication in many cases, including the ab Ieuan triads in The Myvyrian Archaiology, is a largely didactic, repetitive genre which does not, to all appearances, readily lend itself to inspired expression. This brings us to one final matter. Iolo’s depiction of a modern household whose walls are covered in the moral tenets of bygone days is not simply a vision of the world into which he would wish to propel his creations. It also evokes very strongly the world in which those didactic tenets were created – that is, Iolo’s own cottage in Flemingston in the Vale of Glamorgan, which he left at his death overrun with a ‘great quantity of books and papers’. 22 Iolo’s references to his ‘countless disorderly papers’ (‘aneirif bapirau didrefn’) indicate 20 21 22

Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, p. 48. Ibid. , p. 50. See further chapter 2, below. Geraint H. Jenkins, ‘On the Trail of a “Rattleskull Genius”: Introduction’ in Rattleskull Genius, p. 6; CIM, III, pp. 798–9, Margaret (Peggy) Williams, jun. , to Ann (Nancy) Williams, 4 November 1826; NLW, Dunraven 428: John Randall to William Perkins, 20 March 1828.

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the general state of chaos in which he lived – the material disorder which was paradoxically the scene for the creation of maxims designed to rectify and reform behaviour and morals. They also firmly embed him within a certain socio-economic class. For, in spite of his advanced state of literacy, Iolo, to the very end of his life, lived in material poverty. Forced to labour at his stonemason’s trade in order to provide a living for himself and his family, he not only lacked financial resources but was also perpetually short of time, with the result that many of his innumerable literary projects remained ‘castles in the air’. For a man in Iolo’s social position, crossing the boundary into the bourgeois public sphere depended not only on inspiration and talent but also on favourable material conditions. At times when he sensed that such conditions were conducive, he could muster the energy and human support to publish a work with some aplomb. Support in such cases invariably came from members of his own immediate family – staunch allies whose help did nothing to compromise Iolo’s strong sense of personal pride and reluctance to ask his social betters for material sustenance. For instance, his wife Margaret (Peggy) helped him to distribute Poems, Lyric and Pastoral among its Glamorgan subscribers, and his son Taliesin played a part in marketing Vox Populi Vox Dei!: or, Edwards for Ever!, a pamphlet which included poetry not only by Iolo but also by his daughters Margaret (Peggy) and Ann (Nancy). His daughter Peggy was also mentioned as a potential hand in folding the sheets and sewing covers on to Iolo’s proposed second volume of hymns in 1826. 23 Iolo’s more confident forays into the public sphere of print culture were thus often accompanied by an entourage of his closest personal relations, people who were intimately acquainted with him and with the conditions in which he produced his literary artefacts. Yet, these swiftly accomplished ventures did not include his forgeries, the secret of which he never disclosed, even to his beloved son Taliesin. 24 The reality of Iolo’s work as a writer, even within the private sphere of his Flemingston home, was largely known only to himself. The fourth chapter of this volume enters what John Morris-Jones, in a tone of accusatory bitterness, described in 1926 as ‘the workshop of a minter of counterfeit money, where one could see his moulds and the tools of his craft, 23

24

CIM, I, pp. 750–2, Margaret (Peggy) Williams to Iolo Morganwg, 28 April 1795; ibid. , III, pp. 482–4, Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 12 October 1818; ibid. , III, pp. 750–1, Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 17 January–4 February 1826. At the latter end of his life Iolo mysteriously wrote to his son of his desire to acquire ‘two or three old worn out types’ from the printing office of the Baptist minister and printer John Jenkins. He refused to explain his reasons, but added that he wished Taliesin would ‘try [his] hand at cutting a few wooden types’ in imitation of them. CIM, III, p. 727, Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 5 July 1825. Perhaps this reference reveals a secret plan to carry out the process of publishing in its entirety (from literary creation to the act of printing) within the confines of the family home. See Brynley F. Roberts, ‘“The Age of Restitution”: Taliesin ab Iolo and the Reception of Iolo Morganwg’ in Rattleskull Genius, p. 468: ‘[Taliesin’s] role was not to develop or even interpret his father’s ideas, but rather to digest and present them. ’

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with examples of his experiments and his improvements on various of his products’ (‘[g]weithdy bathwr arian drwg, lle gellid gweld ei foldiau ac offerynnau ei grefft, ynghydag esiamplau o’i arbrofion a’i welliannau mewn amryw o’i gynyrchion’). 25 Although this study refrains from echoing Morris-Jones’s selfrighteous glee at finally exposing Iolo, the sense of dealing with the minutiae of a craftsman evoked by his words is very real for any researcher who examines Iolo’s rich and varied archive in the National Library of Wales. In exploring the ‘great mound of tiny bits of paper’ (‘y garnedd ofnadwy o fân beprynnau’) which were extracted from Iolo’s cottage, we see in painstaking detail his highly creative approach to the linguistic study of Welsh and the composition of poetry and history. 26 In seeking out the individual soul across the chasm of an often hostile public sphere, Iolo was perhaps aiming to satisfy the romantic desires of a humble craftsman in relation to a dominant bourgeois culture. The degree of his success as a public figure involved in print culture in his own day is not especially striking. Of his many projects, very few achieved the status of print, and modern scholars working on his archive have largely been involved in reconstructing unfinished works or seeking to understand Iolo’s latent contribution to published works. 27 Yet, Iolo’s work, though it largely sidelined the habitual processes of the sphere of print culture, certainly made a posthumous impact. Marion Löffler has shown that the nature of the influence was uneven, with some aspects of Iolo’s legacy (most notably his political radicalism) brushed aside for the benefit of others. Nonetheless, both Iolo’s manner of working in scraps (discussed in detail in chapter 4) and his literary forgeries clearly left their imprint. A striking illustration of what we might assume to be Iolo’s complete faith in ‘scraps’ may be found in a brief note which he sent a few months before his death to a revered patroness, Lady Elizabeth Coffin Greenly. Thanking her for ‘her 20th annual benefaction’, Iolo described his confined state (as ‘an absolute cripple’) and concluded by wishing that ‘the divine blessing [should] attend Lady Greenly through all the endless duration of eternity’. 28 The sense of his impending death, placed side by side with the vision of eternity, endows this particular ‘scrap’ (carefully glued by Lady Greenly into a volume devoted to Ioloic ephemera) with immense value: not only does it send Iolo, as it were, to the realm of

25

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28

G. J. Williams, Iolo Morganwg a Chywyddau’r Ychwanegiad (Llundain, 1926), p. xiv, quoted by Löffler, Literary and Historical Legacy, p. 144. The translation used is by Löffler. Williams: IM, p. xii. In Bardic Circles, pp. 169–250, Charnell-White provides a reconstruction of Iolo’s ‘History of the Bards’, whereas G. J. Williams’s seminal Iolo Morganwg a Chywyddau’r Ychwanegiad unravels Iolo’s contributions to Owen Jones and William Owen (eds. ), Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym (Llundain, 1789). CIM, III, p. 767, Iolo Morganwg to Lady Elizabeth Coffin Greenly, 6 February 1826. The manuscript source is NLW 15525B, f. 71v.

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beatitude but it also captures and visualizes the sainthood-upon-earth which, with the assistance of such relics, Iolo was to attain after his death. 29 This study thus examines the varied ways in which Iolo confronted the challenge of leaving his mark on the coveted public sphere of his own days and of posterity – how, through indirect means, he exerted a lasting influence from the margins. If such methods (and the economic poverty which accounted to some degree for his failures in relation to the print culture of his day) left much of his œuvre hidden from public view, this study, together with its appendices which contain examples of previously unpublished Ioloic ‘scraps’, seeks to redress the balance in his favour, and reveal once more his remarkable versatility and the inspired work which he carried out within the private walls of his very own ‘Bardic Lodge’ in Flemingston.

29

Literary and Historical Legacy, pp. 16–25. The reverence with which contemporaries held Iolo’s manuscript scraps is further indicated by a request from James Petherick, Taliesin ab Iolo’s brother-in-law, for ‘a poetic flower or two out of your rich parterre; I mean a scrap of your manuscript to grace my scrap book already honor’d with one from your son & my brother in law. I can hardly expect you will write one on purpose, but a note from your voluminous compositions in your own hand writing is all I crave’. CIM, III, pp. 769–70, James Petherick to Iolo Morganwg, 4 March 1826. Material in Iolo’s hand was the subject of an enquiry by Penry Williams, on behalf of ‘Mr Smith, Keeper of the British Museum’, in February 1821. Smith’s collection of specimens of the handwriting of famous authors lacked that of Iolo Morganwg, and Williams addressed Iolo’s son in the hope of procuring ‘a few scraps by post’, both for Mr Smith and himself. NLW 21277E, no. 864, Penry Williams to Taliesin Williams, 14 February 1821.

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2 ‘Ai ovn oedd?’ (Was it fear?): Iolo Morganwg as editor

A friend of mine cannot bear his egotisms in the Myvyrian Archaiology. Mi Iolo Morganwg. Mi Iolo Morganwg [I, Iolo Morganwg. I, Iolo Morganwg]. I. M. I. M. so on – ad infinitum. 1

Thus wrote David Thomas (Dafydd Ddu Eryri) to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr) on 13 August 1804. At that time The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales was in limbo, the first two volumes having been successfully published in 1801, the third yet to appear in 1807. Thereafter, the ambitious project fell victim to internal warfare among its editors and veered into parlous financial straits with the collapse of Owain Myfyr’s fortune. 2 Dafydd Ddu’s unkind comments on Iolo’s ‘presence’ in The Myvyrian Archaiology have a clear bearing on issues relating to expression through marginalia and offer a starting-point for this chapter’s exploration of Iolo’s annotations in published books. What lay behind the Caernarfonshire man’s scorn of ‘Mi Iolo Morganwg’? Was there any good reason for his view? Thomas’s reaction to earlier work by Iolo – his theories regarding the ancient bards – was marked by awe-struck enthusiasm, the experience of reading it having rendered him as ‘a man half blind, seeing “men as trees, walking”’. 3 By degrees, however, as was often the case with Iolo’s friendships, the relationship cooled. In 1799 Iolo’s visit to Anglesey to copy manuscripts housed at Paul Panton’s mansion, Plas Gwyn, brought him into contact with Dafydd Ddu, and evidently led to hours of camaraderie (in spite of the ‘chain’ imposed upon the latter by his occupation as one of His Majesty’s tax-collectors). 4 If we are to believe Iolo’s retrospective account of the events of August and September 1799, however, the foundations for mistrust between the two men were already in 1 2

3

4

BL Add. 15029, f. 137r. Geraint Phillips, ‘Forgery and Patronage: Iolo Morganwg and Owain Myfyr’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 420–2. ‘[Yn] hanner dall, “yn gweled dynion megys prenau yn rhodio”’. CIM, I, pp. 424, 425 (trans. ), David Thomas (Dafydd Ddu Eryri) to Iolo Morganwg, 1 November 1791. Ibid. , II, pp. 222–3, 223–4 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to Evan Pritchard (Ieuan Lleyn), 23 September [?1799].

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place. Dafydd Ddu (whose behaviour towards Iolo was often decidedly uncivil) confessed in his beer the dark secrets of how he had acquired and kept several of Panton’s valuable manuscripts. 5 By the time Iolo wrote this account he had already received a copy of a lampoon of him composed by Dafydd Ddu under the pseudonym ‘Usteg Astud or the Mute Bard’, and had seen a copy of a letter from Thomas to Owain Myfyr in which he and William Owen Pughe, one of the co-editors of The Myvyrian Archaiology, were vilified. 6 Personal animosity aside, was the impression of Dafydd Ddu Eryri’s ‘friend’ (if indeed there was such a friend) of Iolo’s unbearable ‘egotisms’ in any way justified? It is worth noting that Dafydd Ddu, in the phrase quoted above, in fact initially attributed The Myvyrian Archaiology to Iolo alone: ‘A friend of mine cannot bear his egotisms in his the Myvyrian Archaiology. ’ Although doing so was probably a mere slip of the pen, it raises issues regarding the ownership or authorship of the work besides those already suggested by the invocation of Iolo’s ‘egotisms’. Such issues were ingrained in the development of literary editing from the Renaissance period onwards and were just as relevant during the eighteenth century. 7 In the 1730s a Grub Street author complained of the way in which editors appeared to appropriate to themselves the authorship of works created by earlier poets and dramatists. It seemed at times ‘as if the Authors Works were become [the] Properties [of their editors]’, he grumbled, citing the familiar-sounding ‘titles’ of ‘BENTLEY’s Horace, or THEOBOLD’s Shakespear’ with suggestive use of capitals. 8 Later in the century Samuel Johnson’s ‘saleable name’ was used in marketing editions of Shakespeare’s plays and in the Lives of the Poets. 9 In the latter case Johnson appears to have been a mere puppet of the publishers: he ‘did not edit the texts or see the book through the press’. 10 This practice of using renowned living poets as editors of the works of older, deceased authors, with a view to boosting the sale of edited works, showed the potential importance of the contemporary figure of the editor to the process of marketing older literary products. Editors retained an autonomous existence, however, beyond that granted to them by the publishing houses. They often displayed this 5 6

7

8 9

10

Ibid. , pp. 683–4, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 20 July 1805. Ibid. , pp. 682–4. For the lampoon, see ibid. , pp. 672–3, 674–6 (trans. ), Thomas Roberts to Iolo Morganwg, 25 June 1805. The letter in question may have been that of 13 August 1804 to Owain Myfyr, in which Iolo is ridiculed for ‘his deistical principles and silly notions concerning the Transmigration of the soul’. Any criticism of Pughe is limited to the remark that his Grammar of the Welsh Language (London, 1803) is ‘of no great use other than to intelligent scholars’. BL Add. 15029, ff. 137r, 136r. Evelyn B. Tribble, Margins and Marginality: The Printed Page in Early Modern England (Charlottesville, Va. , 1993); Marcus Walsh, ‘Literary Scholarship’ in Isabel Rivers (ed. ), Books and Their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays (London, 2001), pp. 191–205. Quoted by Marcus Walsh, ‘Literary Scholarship’, pp. 203–4. Ibid. , p. 201, and William St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 125–6. St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, p. 126.

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by referring to previous editors’ annotations, although in doing so they frequently reduced the task of editing into ‘an exercise in quarrelsome egotism’. 11 As the eighteenth century unfolded, the increasing adeptness of scholars ensured that editing was seen largely as a collaborative task, and all disputes were set aside for the greater good of producing the best ever edition. Each editor would build upon the work of his predecessors in a constructive spirit in order to ensure as full and correct a text as possible, together with an array of accompanying apparatus, designed to facilitate the interpretation of the material. 12 Like ‘THEOBOLD’s Shakespear’ and other edited English works, The Myvyrian Archaiology published in 1801 had a name attached to it – that of Owain Myfyr. He had only reluctantly bowed to the pressure of London-Welsh friends by substituting the intended title ‘Welsh Archaiology’ for The Myvyrian Archaiology, however, and the attribution was made in recognition of his generous financial support rather than in homage to his editorial skills. Although a popular figure within the circle of his London-Welsh acquaintances, Owain Myfyr was by no means Wales’s answer to Johnson. 13 He even feared that he would be ‘sneered at by some people’ (presumably by his Welsh friends) for attaching his name in such a public way to the volume. 14 To describe the work as ‘Iolo’s Myvyrian Archaiology’, as Dafydd Ddu did, is to bring the issue of editorial personality to bear on the work in a rather disconcerting way and, from Owain Myfyr’s point of view, modesty notwithstanding, with ominous implications. The following discussion seeks to consider how, if at all, Iolo as an editor of The Myvyrian Archaiology was able to assume a degree of author-like authority over the text. It will be seen that some aspects of the issues pertaining to the evolvement of the editorial persona in the world of English literary editing are not relevant to the Welsh case. In particular, the sense of rivalry among publishing houses over edited works during the course of the eighteenth century and previously does not feature here. 15 On the other hand, the development (and improvement) of 11 12 13

14

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Walsh, ‘Literary Scholarship’, p. 205. Ibid. , pp. 199, 206–9. For Owain Myfyr’s popularity, see Ffion Mair Jones, ‘“Gydwladwr Godi[d]og”: Gohebiaeth Gymraeg Gynnar Iolo Morganwg’, Llên Cymru, 27 (2004), 155. That he was known as ‘Owen Myfyr’ (rather than Owen Jones) ‘every where in Denbighshire’ is attested by Iolo in CIM, II, p. 188, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 14 June 1799. CIM, II, p. 78, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 26 April 1798. Iolo’s flattering response to the news of Owain Myfyr’s ‘modesty’ with regard to the naming of the publication is to be found in ibid. , pp. 97–8, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 7 August 1798. From around 1600 to 1710 a printer responsible for bringing into print the work of deceased authors would in effect have taken ‘private ownership’ of the material. In 1774, however, the regulations restricting the reissuing of earlier printed texts were lifted, thus ensuring a thawing of older material frozen in the ownership of the book industry. By 1780 there was ‘complete freedom’ within the industry. St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, pp. 50–3, 72, 76–7, 79, 122. In the case of The Myvyrian Archaiology, very little of the material printed had been published before. Besides, the 1780s ‘freedom’ in the printing world was well under way.

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editing as a process is certainly relevant in the Welsh case, and the discussion will consider the volume in comparison with earlier attempts at editing Welsh poetry. The quarrelsomeness of individual successive English editors is also clearly pertinent to the scene of literary editing in Wales, though perhaps less obvious in print at this stage. 16 Here, the argument regarding authority (and thus by extension ownership or authorship) migrates from successive published outputs to the very core of the Archaiology (Myvyrian, Ioloic or indeed Pugheian) as a single product.

Iolo Morganwg and The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales Iolo was, of course, only one of three editors of the ambitious project which bore fruit in the publications of 1801 and 1807. G. J. Williams unambiguously claimed that the Glamorgan man’s brief was to collect over and above that which had already been copied from the manuscripts of the Morris brothers housed at the Welsh School in London. 17 It is fair to note, however, that the earliest correspondence from William Owen Pughe to Iolo regarding The Myvyrian Archaiology specifically invited the latter’s input regarding ‘how the plan may be accomplished’, in particular with reference to ‘the orthography, the arrangement, &c. ’. 18 Iolo later complained about the editorial policy on orthography, claiming (with audacious irony) that Pughe’s choice was a deliberate ploy to secure false precedents in Welsh tradition for his own ‘hobbyhorsisms’ regarding the orthography of the language. 19 With hindsight, Iolo also criticized the layout chosen for one of the prose items included in the second volume,

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18 19

Iolo’s attitude towards Lewis Morris’s work, including the ‘Celtic Remains’, was particularly critical. He added editorial notes to the text c. 1794/5, which, however, remained unpublished until 1878, and even then some of the more unpalatable comments were extracted. See NLW 1735D; Lewis Morris, Celtic Remains, edited by D. Silvan Evans (London, 1878). On Iolo’s annotations, see Bardic Circles, pp. 97–8, 128. Iolo’s work itself became the focus of increasingly critical scholarly scrutiny following his death, one of his earlier and most vociferous detractors being Thomas Stephens of Merthyr Tydfil. Stephens’s critical examination of Iolo’s work, however, took the form of ‘scholarly and polemical articles, notes and letters’ to the leading Welsh journals of the mid-nineteenth century, rather than critical editions of Iolo’s work. See Literary and Historical Legacy, chapter 6. G. J. Williams, ‘Hanes Cyhoeddi’r “Myvyrian Archaiology”’, JWBS, X, no. 1 (1966), 10: ‘casglwr deunyddiau oedd ef [Iolo]’ (he [Iolo] was a collector of materials). Ibid. , 2–12; CIM, II, p. 79, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 26 April 1798. CIM, III, p. 150, Iolo Morganwg to Thomas Rees, 3 May 1813.

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‘Bonedd y Saint’ (Ancestry of the saints). 20 However, Pughe’s invitation to help with the architectural design of the volume was at the time all but dismissed out of hand by Iolo. ‘I have long been in the expectation of hearing from you respecting different things, and amongst others about the plan of printing the Welsh manuscripts’, wrote Pughe at the beginning of September 1798, conceding that he had been ‘obliged to begin, owing to the impatience of O. Myvyr, without the benefit of your advice. ’21 Iolo had in fact written to Owain Myfyr himself on the subject a month or so previously, and he responded with relative promptness to Pughe’s disappointed letter of early September. 22 However, neither letter fully engages with the proffered role of an editor whose voice might be expected to be heard with equal weight on matters relating to the design of the project. Rather than reach for a cosy relationship of the kind suggested by his London acquaintances, Iolo chose instead to lavish flattery on his patron (‘The name of Owen Myfyr must descend to future ages with transcendent fame’), while peppering his letter to Pughe with humble assurances of his wish to ‘be of service’. 23 Both letters ostensibly do little more (or little less) than sign up Iolo, heart and soul, to serve his London masters: ‘the best eight years of my life’, he later bitterly lamented, ‘did I waste in collecting and copying materials for Owain Jones’ Archaiology’. 24 Notwithstanding later resentment, Iolo at the time seems to have willingly taken on the ‘humble’ role of playing ‘our man in Wales’. His overwhelming sense of excitement at the prospect of gathering manuscript material located in private libraries and collections throughout Wales doubtless arose from his fascination with the genuine manuscripts of the Welsh poetic tradition. 25 Yet, this enthusiasm cannot be separated from the potential which Pughe and Owain Myfyr’s plan offered for the furtherance of Iolo’s activities as a forger. If many of Pughe’s editorial concerns were of no interest to him, the scope and contents of the proposed work certainly were. ‘I have some ideas on the subject of your intended publications 20

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23 24 25

NLW 13146A, p. 93: ‘[‘Bonedd y Saint’] consists of the simple names of the first Christians . . . written long before the ages of Religious or Chivalrous Romance appeared. Had those simple documents been printed in their original forms, the names and few anecdotes mentioned in their Chronological order they might have been useful. but the Editors of the Welsh Archaiology arranged them in an Alphabetical order, which may be termed a Dictionary of Saints, than which a more curious Dictionary could not have been well conceived. ’ Another minor criticism by Iolo of the editors of The Myvyrian Archaiology (clearly excluding himself ) is to be found in CIM, III, pp. 463–4, Iolo Morganwg to Evan Williams, 9 February 1818: ‘Y Pròl or Prolh (not Proth as erroneously written in the Archaiology)’. CIM, II, pp. 100–1, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 4 September 1798. Ibid. , pp. 97–100, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 7 August 1798; ibid. , pp. 102–6, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 29 September 1798. Ibid. , pp. 97, pp. 102–6. Ibid. , III, p. 497, Iolo Morganwg to Evan Williams, 12 December 1818. Ibid. , II, p. 103, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 29 September 1798. (‘You want no assistance at London on this occasion, but if it can be pointed out how I can be in Wales of service, I will do all in my power. Here I believe I may be of more use to you than at London. ’)

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which shall intrude on your patience in a letter that shall be sent in the course of this month with Edeyrn. They are not dogmas but humble conjectures’, he wrote to Owain Myfyr, subsequently picturing a vast panorama of material in ‘all branches’ of literature, which would ‘do honour to the nation, language and age that produced them’ were they to find their way into print. 26 His reference, in his letter of 29 September 1798 to Pughe, to ‘a very large and ancient folio manuscript in the mountains of Blaeneu Gwent [the uplands of Gwent]’, in parallel with the rapid and eager naming of other less dubious sources (including material at ‘the libraries of Mostyn and Gloddaith’), signalled the curious mixture of knowledgeable interest in the authentic on the one hand and the urges towards fabrication and consequent false attribution on the other. Iolo had already grafted forged material on to the publications of Owain Myfyr and Pughe, notably in their volume of the poetry of the fourteenth-century poet Dafydd ap Gwilym. He mentioned ‘an old book and in it twenty cywyddau by Dafydd ap Gwilym to Ifor Hael’, supposedly owned by ‘someone in the Uplands of Glamorgan’ while passing on these false Dafydd ap Gwilym cywyddau. 27 The idea of priceless manuscripts hidden away in the mountains of south Wales echoes the reference above to ‘the uplands of Gwent’ and inevitably raises suspicions about his intentions with regard to The Myvyrian Archaiology. The question of Iolo’s editorial input and presence in the published volume reflects the dichotomy between authentic and forged material, since Iolo’s egotistical forays, as we shall see, are much more prominent in cases where material composed by himself, and the reception thereof, is at stake. The first volume contains no Ioloic forgeries. It is prefaced, however, by what modern scholars have deemed an important (if largely neglected) dissertation entitled ‘A Short Review of the Present State of Welsh Manuscripts’, an essay which, as the numerous drafts in Iolo’s hand prove, was more or less entirely written by him. 28 ‘A Short Review’ constitutes a major part of the

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27

28

Ibid. , p. 99, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 7 August 1798. For the relevance of the broad range of literature proposed for inclusion in The Myvyrian Archaiology to Iolo’s work as a forger, see the discussion below of Iolo’s dissertation, ‘A Short Review of the Present State of Welsh Manuscripts’, MAW, I, pp. ix–xxi. CIM, I, pp. 301, 304 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 12 March 1788. The original text reads: ‘Y mae un ymlaeneu Morganwg yn dywe[dyd] wrthyf fod gantho hen lyfr ag ynddo ugain cywydd o waith Dafydd ab Gwilym i Ifor Hael. ’ Evidence that the credulous Pughe’s interest was aroused by this claim is to be found in ibid. , pp. 314, 315–16 (trans. ), William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 9 April 1788. It is described by Williams, ‘Hanes Cyhoeddi’r “Myvyrian Archaiology”’, 10, as ‘an essay of some achievement’ (‘traethawd a chryn gamp arno’). Its significance for ‘the development of a Welsh national consciousness’ is discussed in Truth against the World, pp. 94–100. Constantine suggests the order in which Iolo composed his drafts of the essay and notes the extent of Pughe’s editorial interference. Ibid. , pp. 95, 99–100.

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editorial scholarship upon which The Myvyrian Archaiology rested. 29 Mary-Ann Constantine’s reading of the essay suggests that it was crucially underpinned by the ‘authenticity debate’ fuelled by the ‘Ossian’ controversy of the 1760s. This controversy, combined with the long-running debate over the forgeries of Thomas Chatterton, rumbled on well into the next century, and was invigorated by the heated debate regarding primitivism and civilization to which the writings of John Pinkerton made a notable contribution (and, from Iolo’s perspective, a disreputable one). 30 It is clear in ‘A Short Review’ that Iolo speaks out for the whole of the proposed Myvyrian Archaiology, not simply for the first volume. His opening paragraph immediately engages with the issue of authenticity, while simultaneously mapping out the multivolume nature of the publication (‘hints, and even assertions, have of late been thrown out, that we have none [i. e. no ancient manuscripts], or none that are authentic; we will however advise such as entertain this opinion to suspend their judgement until the completion of this publication’). 31 These themes are developed further as the essay progresses: No one branch of literature ever exists amongst any people by itself, singly and alone; it is always accompanied by others; thus in Wales we have in our old manuscripts, besides poetry, history, geography, such as it is, astronomy, laws, ethics, devotional tracts, agriculture, grammar, vocabularies, criticisms, lives of saints, medical tracts of various ages; and all these by very numerous authors. Such are the natural and unavoidable circumstances of literary knowledge; before we can hope to establish a forgery, in any one single branch, it is absolutely necessary that we should forge in all, or most, of the others, that every thing may have its inseparable concomitants. 32

As Constantine notes in a discussion of similar comments sent by Iolo to Robert Macfarlan in June 1804, Iolo was clearly describing his own activities and, in the case of ‘A Short Review’, his intentions via The Myvyrian Archaiology, namely to print a range of forged materials in almost every imaginable discipline. 33 In fact, the appearance of ‘A Short Review’ at the beginning of the 29

30

31

32 33

For the range of apparatus, including prefaces, essays and various ‘accounts’, included in typical scholarly editions of the period, see the discussion of Thomas Tyrwhitt’s edition of the Canterbury Tales, published in four volumes in 1775, with an additional volume in 1778, in Walsh, ‘Literary Scholarship’, pp. 192–3. See Truth against the World, pp. 94–100. On the issue of primitivism, see Cathryn A. CharnellWhite, Barbarism and Bardism: North Wales versus South Wales in the Bardic Vision of Iolo Morganwg (Aberystwyth, 2004); Bardic Circles, chapter 3. MAW, I, p. ix. For the intended range of the volume, see Williams, ‘Hanes Cyhoeddi’r “Myvyrian Archaiology”’. MAW, I, p. xvi. Truth against the World, p. 98. For the letter, see CIM, II, pp. 604–8. The Gaelic-speaking Macfarlan’s admiration of ‘Ossian’ provides the context for this letter, in which many of the arguments of ‘A Short Essay’ are rehearsed anew, thus confirming Constantine’s view that Macpherson was a key spur to the contents of the published essay.

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first, utterly authentic, volume provided Iolo with a soap-box on which he could confidently vent his indignation against his perceived enemies (Macpherson and Pinkerton paramount among them), based on the firm grounds of authentic Welsh tradition. Not least among his defences was the rebuff inherent in producing a volume which made no attempt to secure an English readership, other than this introductory essay, together with the contents pages which arranged the poets chronologically and provided translated titles of their poems. ‘A taste for books in their own language is now reviving, and gains considerably amongst the Welsh’, he declared, later urging English and Scots readers to learn the language, ‘after the example of Sharon Turner, Esq. ’. 34 The material provided in the first volume is not a ‘translation’ in the guise of Macpherson’s ‘from the Erse’, but genuine poetry in a native tongue which ‘has altered but very little or nothing’ over the centuries, its strength implicit in its survival against ‘all the storms that, through almost two thousand years, have assailed it’. 35 Far from being engulfed in a state of ‘barbarism’, as Pinkerton and others would have it, the Welsh language was, to Iolo, a remarkably lucid entity, whose civilizing properties encompassed its people, past and present. Iolo, then, can be said to have used ‘A Short Review’ and, crucially, its particular placing within The Myvyrian Archaiology, as a means of ‘combat[ing] the objections to [the] authenticity [of the material]’. 36 His sword is doubleedged since it looks ahead to the forgeries which he was unquestionably in the process of producing, or had already produced, for subsequent volumes. Yet, Iolo’s claim to the authorship of this, one of the first items to appear in The Myvyrian Archaiology, was not a major feature of its make-up. Although his name was listed in ‘A Short Review’ as one of the possessors of manuscript collections in Wales, it took the pared-down form of ‘Mr. EDWARD WILLIAMS the bard, at Flimston’ rather than the ‘Iolo Morganwg’ which had so angered Dafydd Ddu’s friend. 37 It appears from his correspondence with Pughe that Iolo had been surprisingly pliable regarding improvements to the essay: ‘When I sent you my rough sketch of the preface I suspected very strongly that the parts you mention were improper, at least not sufficiently guarded in the 34

35

36 37

MAW, I, pp. xv, xix (note). For the increase in literacy among Welsh speakers in the Glamorgan in which Iolo was brought up, see Richard M. Crowe, ‘Thomas Richards a John Walters: Athrawon Geiriadurol Iolo Morganwg’ in Hywel Teifi Edwards (ed. ), Llynfi ac Afan, Garw ac Ogwr (Llandysul, 1998), p. 233. MAW, I, pp. xv–xvi. It is interesting to note that translation at this time was to a considerable degree viewed as a creative activity which conferred ‘authorship’ on the one who engaged in it. See R. J. W. Evans, ‘“The Manuscripts”: The Culture and Politics of Forgery in Central Europe’ in Rattleskull Genius, p. 53: ‘Many viewed “translation”, across languages or within different forms of the same one, as an original and creative activity. ’ That Iolo leaned towards this view is suggested by brief examples of his translations in the marginalia to his correspondence. See Appendix V (Literature), nos. 7, 8. CIM, II, p. 585, Iolo Morganwg to the Royal Literary Fund, April 1804. MAW, I, p. xi.

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manner of expressing my ideas. ’38 His claims to authorship in fact remained reasonably muted for many years. He made passing references to his work on the essay in an 1804 letter to the Royal Literary Fund (quoted above), and also mentioned it in a list of his substantial contributions to the whole of The Myvyrian Archaiology (which also included the preface to the second volume) in a letter to Evan Williams, the Strand publisher and bookseller. 39 By 1819, however, the injustice of not being acknowledged as the author of this essay (‘All ascribe it to William Owen’) grated so much that Iolo expressed a wish to publish it anew, thereby stating his authorial claim. 40 In spite of subsequent recantations, therefore, Iolo’s first contribution to the apparatus of The Myvyrian Archaiology was only latently self-serving (it prepared the ground for later forgeries in a context in which he could conveniently hide as only one of a triumvirate of editors). To all appearances, ‘A Short Review’ constituted a real service to a Welsh manuscript tradition which had been derided by ‘English antiquarian writers . . . for more than two centuries’ for having failed to appear in print. 41 In G. J. Williams’s view, the essay reveals that Iolo’s editorial standards were akin to those of our own day (‘Y mae ei safonau ef yn cytuno â safonau golygyddion heddiw’). 42 His care was demonstrated in the way in which he named the major scribes in chronological order, beginning with John Jones of Gellilyfdy, whom he praised for ‘his excellent practice of affixing dates to all his labours’. 43 Moreover, he painstakingly explained the nature of a manuscript tradition: the very fact that so many versions of a body of poetry had survived was testimony to the vigorous state of scribal activity in Wales. Each scribe made adjustments to the manuscript from which he took his copy, thereby ensuring that ‘copies, in a long succession of years, differ greatly from each other’. 44 Iolo refused to assume that the earlier copy was always the best, however, thereby signalling his understanding of the role of a responsible editor. A scribe might stumble across an earlier copy produced by ‘a negligent or unskilful transcriber’ and, if he was perceptive enough, would recognize this – such a scribe ‘detects its errors, and in his own way corrects them’. But even the adjustments made by one perceptive scribe were not definitive. Yet another transcriber ‘supplies the defect, on ideas of his own, very different sometimes from either of the others; so does a fourth, a tenth, and possibly a hundredth’. 45 In Iolo’s day, as the evidence for the truth of this 38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45

CIM, II, p. 359, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 26 January 1801. Ibid. , p. 584, Iolo Morganwg to the Royal Literary Fund, April 1804; ibid. , III, pp. 460–4, Iolo Morganwg to Evan Williams, 9 February 1818. Ibid., p. 513, Iolo Morganwg to Evan Williams, 17 April 1819. Ibid. , p. 267, Iolo Morganwg to John Herbert Lloyd, 1 July 1814. Williams, ‘Hanes Cyhoeddi’r “Myvyrian Archaiology”’, 10. MAW, I, p. xii. Ibid. , I, p. xvii. Ibid.

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description of Welsh scribal activity became increasingly apparent, the literary editor (or ‘judicious critic’ as Iolo would have us call him) came of age. In a situation where the original was no longer available, he could ‘only prefer that copy, which has the best readings; that has the fewest inconsistencies in sense, purity of language, manners, versification, and the like’. 46 Iolo’s impeccable critical standards, however, found little grounds for use in the editorial work which underpinned the initial volumes of The Myvyrian Archaiology. A combination of external factors (such as the reluctance of the aristocratic owners of the most precious manuscripts to permit access to them) and the controlling editorial role of Pughe meant that any attempt at establishing ‘the best readings’ often came to nothing. 47 Nevertheless, it is fair to acknowledge that a substantial number of variant readings of the poetry were provided in footnotes throughout the first volume, and that the sources (both for the main text and the variants) were stipulated. An illustration of the kind of scholarly standards to which Iolo and his contemporaries aspired may be seen in the ‘Afallennau’ (Apple-trees), a poem attributed to Myrddin. This is an interesting text since it offers an opportunity to compare the standards of literary editing attained in its presentation in the first volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology with two earlier appearances in printed sources, firstly in the work of Evan Evans (Ieuan Fardd), Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards (1764), and secondly in Edward Jones’s Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (1784). The earliest of the three publications, Evans’s Specimens, is an edition of the works of eleventh- and twelfth-century Welsh bards, arranged in three parts. The first, introduced by a preface, contains English prose translations of the originals, together with the ‘explanatory notes on the historical passages’ promised in the book’s title. The second includes a Latin dissertation on the bards, which discusses and quotes, very briefly, from the works of earlier poets, as well as the ones anthologized. It is here that a single stanza from the ‘Afallennau’ appears. The third part of the volume stands on its own feet as a Welsh publication, providing texts of the translated poems, together with an introductory letter of homage to the Morris brothers of Anglesey and an address (in Welsh) to the Welsh people (‘At y Cymry’). The texts of the poems are thus separated by some distance from the translations, which are given pride of place at the beginning of the volume and accorded the additional distinction of being provided with the footnotes to the poems, including the very scant

46 47

Ibid. Williams, ‘Hanes Cyhoeddi’r “Myvyrian Archaiology”’, 10–11. For references to the use made by the editors of The Myvyrian Archaiology of Evan Evans’s transcripts rather than earlier manuscripts of the same material, even when such manuscripts were in their possession, see J. Gwenogvryn Evans, Report on Manuscripts in the Welsh Language (2 vols. , London, 1898–1910), II, part 2, pp. 367–7, 816, 824, 834.

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notes of textual relevance. 48 This leaves the Welsh originals in a pristine condition, unhampered by any apparatus, a fact which belies the complexity of the Welsh manuscript tradition as we know Iolo to have understood it – and also Evans, judging by his passing references (and the evidence of his manuscripts). Evans disarmingly admitted that the single manuscript source which, according to his English preface, formed the basis of his edition, had its defects: ‘I have been obliged to leave blanks in some places, where I did not understand the meaning in the original, as I had but one copy by me, which might be faulty. When I have an opportunity to collate it with other copies, I may clear these obscure passages. ’49 Even though the overcoming of textual deficiencies through manuscript collation was a matter for future endeavour, the fact that he mentioned it indicates Evans’s awareness of the depth of the manuscript tradition. So do his claims to have ‘fumbled for the meaning and sense of the Bards, in many a place, both earlier and later’, which depict a candid attempt at overcoming the difficulties of interpreting vocabulary which had not, as yet, been included in any dictionary, either in print or manuscript. 50 Evans’s use of manuscript sources for the accompanying ‘historical notes’, however, was patently defective. The footnotes to the volume are peppered with admissions of not knowing and not remembering, and other instances of vagueness (‘I do not recollect what country this place is in’; ‘I cannot recollect who Myfanwy Fechan, the subject of the poem, is, but guess her to be descended from the princes of Powys’; ‘Rhen, son of Maelgwn Gwynedd king of Britain, A. D. 570. I do not remember the story alluded to here by the Bard’; ‘I know not where this country is’; ‘Elivri, the name of a woman, but who she was, or when she lived, is not clear’; ‘I cannot recollect at present who this person is, nor the occasion of his grief, though it is mentioned in some of our manuscripts’). 51 As a piece of scholarship, therefore, despite the reverence in which Evans was held as a wandering scholar, the Specimens displays a singular lack of self-confidence. 52 Myrddin’s ‘Afallennau’ next finds itself in print in Edward Jones’s prefatory essay, ‘An Historical Account of the Welsh Bards, and their Music and Poetry’. 53 48

49 50

51 52

53

See, for example, ‘Some lines are wanting in the original’. Evan Evans, Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards. Translated into English, with explanatory notes on the historical passages (London, 1764), p. 18. Ibid. , p. v. ‘[Y]mbalfalu am ystyr a synwyr y Beirdd, mewn llawer man, oddiwrth flaen ac ol’; ‘nid ydynt wedi eu heglurhau mewn un Geiriadur argraphedig nac ysgrifenedig a welais i’. Ibid. , pp. 104, 103. Ibid. , pp. 13, 14, 15, 18, 27, 28. On Evans’s travels in search of manuscript material, see Aneirin Lewis, ‘Evan Evans (“Ieuan Fardd”) 1731–1788: Hanes ei Fywyd a’i Gysylltiadau Llenyddol’ (unpublished University of Wales MA thesis, 1950), pp. 195–214; Gerald Morgan, Ieuan Fardd (Caernarfon, 1988), pp. 17–18. For the essay in its entirety, see Edward Jones, Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (London, 1784), pp. 1–29.

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Its presentation closely involved Iolo, who was requested by the younger John Walters, son of the Revd John Walters of Llandough and a friend of Edward Jones, to provide ‘an English prose translation of some elegant passage of the “Afallennau” or any other poem of Myrddin Wyllt’. 54 Iolo complied, and his translation quickly earned Walters’s boundless admiration: he declared it to be ‘as excellent as the original’. 55 However, the pages of Jones’s Relicks on which it appears displays its deficiency in terms of correspondence with the accompanying ‘original’. Additional clauses which tend to increase the pathos of Myrddin’s situation have been occasionally inserted, and Iolo betrayed his characteristic interest in personality through his invention of proper names from the common nouns of the text. 56 The description of the apple-trees elegantly spreading out their glittering branches, for example, was transferred into a vision of ‘a lovely nymph, whose hair flowed in beauteous ringlets . . . her name Gloywedd, with the pearly teeth’. 57 In spite of the oversights of a keen translator, Iolo’s contribution to Jones’s Relicks cannot but be seen as a breath of fresh air when compared with Evans’s earlier Specimens. Gone is the over-readiness to apologize, admit weaknesses and emphasize the arduousness of the task. Instead, Jones, via Iolo, confidently introduces the material, including dates and providing notes which drew on printed and manuscript sources. The textual work on the ‘Afallennau’ also appears to have shown a laudable degree of scholarship. Using as a basis Owain Myfyr’s copy of the poem, taken from William Morris’s manuscript ‘Y Delyn Ledr’, Iolo carried out Walters’s request by comparing it with his own two copies of the text, attempting to understand the minutiae of the language – deciding upon the most apposite forms for individual words and doing away with the unexpected attribution of the poem to Taliesin in one of his own copies of the text. 58 Assured of the value and accuracy of their scholarship with regard to the ‘Afallennau’ and other parts of the Relicks, Jones and his collaborators were able to omit some of the more diffident features of Evans’s Specimens. For example, the division of the text into English translation and Welsh original, hidden at the back but central to the tripartite structure of Evans’s volume, was dispensed with, and the texts of the ‘Afallennau’ and other poetry in the volume 54 55 56 57 58

CIM, I, p. 225, John Walters, jun. , to Iolo Morganwg, 12 December 1782. Ibid. , p. 226, John Walters, jun. , to Iolo Morganwg, 4 March 1783. Bardic Circles, p. 129. Jones, Musical and Poetical Relicks, p. 8. Walters asked Iolo to ‘do me the additional favour of revising it [i. e. Owain Myfyr’s copy] where the manuscripts differ’ and to send him ‘immediately, together with the promised notes, the most approved readings’. CIM, I, p. 226, John Walters, jun. , to Iolo Morganwg, 4 March 1783. Iolo’s copies of the ‘Afallennau’ appear in NLW 13092E, pp. 67–72. The first version is said to be derived ‘o Lyfr y Parchedig Mr. Walters o Landocheu’ (from the manuscript of the Reverend Mr Walters of Llandough). On the attribution of the poem to Taliesin, see a manuscript copy in Evans’s hand in NLW 2001B, p. 25.

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were produced in parallel with their translations. 59 This displayed confidence not only in the excellence of the translations themselves but also in the value of the originals to every reader. With respect to the ‘Afallennau’, the selection was also greatly amplified: Evans’s tentative one stanza exploded here into eight. By the time Owain Myfyr and William Owen Pughe were ready to embark on The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, many of the features of Jones’s Relicks appeared ripe for yet further development. The awareness of ‘a multiplicity of copies’ displayed by Iolo in ‘A Short Review’ was a strong feature of the work. For example, in the case of the ‘Afallennau’, the main text used was that which we know Owain Myfyr to have held since at least the early 1780s. This was the text from William Morris’s ‘Y Delyn Ledr’ – the same text as that used by Jones in his Relicks and one which was clearly in fairly general circulation among Welshmen of letters from the time of William Morris and Evan Evans onwards. 60 This time, however, there were twenty-two stanzas. Rather than attempt to dislodge the text, known and loved, from ‘Y Delyn Ledr’, the editors of The Myvyrian Archaiology inserted an additional fourteen stanzas and footnoted their source – a manuscript copy made by Evan Evans. 61 The act of scholarship carried out by Evan Evans on the ‘Afallennau’ is shown by this particular manuscript copy of the poem in his hand, Panton 33, to have been much more complete than the single stanza printed in his Specimens would suggest. The first nineteen stanzas in the Panton 33 version may have been taken from the fifteenth-century manuscript known as ‘Y Cwta Cyfarwydd’ (Peniarth 50). 62 To these Evans made emendations and offered alternative readings, before adding at the end four other stanzas taken from the thirteenthcentury Black Book of Carmarthen. At the top of his transcript, he noted also 59

60

61 62

The inclusion of original Welsh texts in parallel with English translations is a prominent feature of both ‘An Historical Account of the Welsh Bards, and their music and poetry’ and the essay which follows it, ‘Of the Welsh Pennillion, or, Epigrammatic Stanzas; and Pastorals’. See Jones, Musical and Poetical Relicks, pp. 1–29, 30–40. Evan Evans’s copy of seven of the eight stanzas published in Jones, Musical and Poetical Relicks, may be found in NLW 1983B (Panton 14), ff. 129r–130v. Evans may have copied the text directly from William Morris’s ‘Y Delyn Ledr’ (The leather harp) in 1758. Dafydd Wyn Wiliam, Cofiant Wiliam Morris (1705–63) (Llangefni, 1995), p. 171. The same stanzas appear in the first of the copies in Iolo’s hand mentioned above (note 58). This, in turn, as we have seen, had come from John Walters senior possibly through his contact with Evan Evans. Walters may have known Evans from as early as 1772 and had evidently received or copied manuscripts of his before 1775. See Lewis, ‘Evan Evans (“Ieuan Fardd”) 1731–1788: Hanes ei Fywyd a’i Gysylltiadau Llenyddol’, p. 381; CIM, I, p. 98, Iolo Morganwg to John Walters, 3 February 1775. The source is NLW 2001B, pp. 25–35, henceforth referred to as Panton 33. On the dating of ‘Y Cwta Cyfarwydd’ (Peniarth 50), see A. O. H. Jarman, Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin (Caerdydd, 1982), p. xxxvi. The ‘Afallennau’ appear on pp. 25–30 of the manuscript. It was previously part of the Hengwrt collection and Evans would have found it difficult to gain access to it because of the reluctance of the Hengwrt family to allow members of the public into the family library. Lewis, ‘Evan Evans (“Ieuan Fardd”) 1731–1788: Hanes ei Fywyd a’i Gysylltiadau Llenyddol’, pp. 212–14. See also note 63, below.

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his debt to a copy in the hand of the Renaissance scholar Dr John Davies. At least three manuscript sources, therefore, including one of the very earliest containing verses from the ‘Afallennau’, were consulted in the process of creating the transcript. 63 Having access to Evans’s Panton 33 copy of the ‘Afallennau’, the editors of The Myvyrian Archaiology were in a position to profit substantially from the latter’s scholarship. Yet, they limited their exertions to recreating almost verbatim Evans’s manuscript copy and notes, while simultaneously retaining as their ostensible main source William Morris’s text from ‘Y Delyn Ledr’. This calls into question the extent of the development – no development, in G. J. Williams’s opinion – between their period and that of Evan Evans. It appears that, in comparison with Evans, the confidence of this collective group of editors in the resonance and value of their material had increased, but that the level of their scholarship had not advanced a single step. The symbol of this confidence is the comprehensiveness of the text provided – the desire to provide all known stanzas relating to the poem and its legendary reciter Myrddin, which meant that this is one of the most inclusive versions of the ‘Afallennau’ known in manuscript or print. 64 This demonstrates that inclusivity was a prime factor in the composition of The Myvyrian Archaiology in a way which predates the obsessive interest of German historians from the 1820s onwards in going ‘beyond the printed texts’ and laying open as many manuscript sources as possible. 65 To reveal ‘authentically’ (the word refuses to recede) the broadness of the Welsh manuscript tradition appears to have been a deliberate editorial policy on the part of the compilers of The Myvyrian Archaiology. As William Owen Pughe emphasized in a letter to Iolo on the eve of the publication of the first two volumes: You must have seen, in what is already printed, that all the old things are given just in the state we found them, thus giving the real critics room to judge for themselves, as if the originals had been in their hands; but this plan, unavoidably, leaves the mere common readers to struggle with difficulties. 66

The idea of foregrounding the material ‘in the state we found them’ for the benefit of ‘the real critics’ was strongly present in the way in which some of the 63

64 65 66

The Black Book of Carmarthen, like ‘Y Cwta Cyfarwydd’, was housed at Hengwrt during Evans’s lifetime. Lewis, ibid., p. 405, suggests that Evans may have had access to the Black Book through the agency of Evan Herbert, a cleric and schoolmaster based in the Dolgellau area. For Herbert, see CIM, II, p. 221, note 2. Jarman, Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin, p. xxxvi. Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History (London, 1997), p. 48. CIM, II, p. 353, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 2 January 1801.

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Fig. 1 The arrangement of the authentic ‘Brut y Saeson’ and Iolo’s two spurious chronicles, ‘Brut Aberpergwm’ and ‘Brut Ieuan Brechfa’.

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material for the second volume was laid out on the page. The volume included the texts of five historical chronicles known as the ‘Brutiau’ – ‘Brut Tysilio’, ‘Brut Gruffudd ab Arthur’ (otherwise known as ‘Brut y Brenhinoedd’), ‘Brut y Saeson’, another version of ‘Brut y Tywysogyon’, forged this time by Iolo (and commonly known as ‘Brut Aberpergwm’), and ‘Brut Ieuan Brechfa’ (another forgery by Iolo). As the preface to the volume revealed, the principle of ‘collation’ was employed in bringing these texts into print. The first two ‘Brutiau’, those of ‘Tysilio’ and ‘Gruffudd ab Arthur’, were set out one beneath the other, with copious textual variations included at the bottom of the page. 67 A similar format was employed in the case of a second series of ‘Brutiau’. The top of the page was taken up by the genuine ‘Brut y Saeson’, the centre by the spurious ‘Brut Aberpergwm’, and the narrow section at the bottom by the (again spurious) ‘Brut Ieuan Brechfa’. 68 This layout facilitated the comparison of corresponding sections of the chronicles by any ‘real critics’ thus inclined. The inevitable temptation is to read the invariably fuller accounts of ‘Brut Aberpergwm’ as valuable glosses on the plain, matter-of-fact statements of the genuine ‘Brut y Saeson’. Even a determined student of the latter ‘Brut’ finds himself ‘checking’ its account against the fuller-bodied ‘Aberpergwm’ chronicle; the thirst for colour and anecdotal crumbs is compelling. The brief statement of ‘Brut y Saeson’ regarding the first landing of a pagan population on the shores of the British Isles reads simply ‘Dcclxxxxv. y daeth paganieit gyntaf y iwerdon ac y difeithwyt rechreyn’ (In 795 the pagans first landed in Ireland and Rechreyn was destroyed). 69 ‘Brut Aberpergwm’ amplifies this: Oed Crist 795, y daeth y Paganiaid duon gyntaf i ynys Prydain o Wlad Denmarc, ac a wnaethant ddrygau mawr yn Lloegr, wedi hynny daethant i Forganwg, ac yno lladd a llosgi llawer, ond o’r diwedd gorfu’r Cymry arnynt au gyrru i’r mor gwedi lladd llawer iawn o honynt, ac yna myned i’r Werddon lle y diffeithiasant Rechreyn a lleoed eraill. 70 (In Anno Domini 795 the black Pagans first came to the Isle of Britain from Denmark, and made great mischief in England. They then came to Glamorgan, where they killed and burnt a great deal, but the Welsh finally overcame them and drove them to the sea after many of them had been killed, and they then went to Ireland where they destroyed Rechreyn and other places. )

67 68 69

70

MAW, II, pp. 83–390. Ibid. , pp. 468–582. Ibid. , p. 474. The account given in ‘Brut y Tywysogyon’ reads ‘Pump mlynedd a phedwar ugeint aseithgant oedd oed krist pan ddoeth y paganyeid ywerddon ac ydistrywyd rechrenn. ’ The editor cites ‘Rydychen’ (Oxford) as an alternative reading for the place name ‘rechrenn’. Thomas Jones (ed. ), Brut y Tywysogyon: Peniarth MS. 20 (Caerdydd, 1941), p. 3. MAW, II, p. 474.

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The kind of addition made here by Iolo was perfectly consistent with the leading characteristics of the composition as described by the astute scholar Thomas Stephens, who saw that the additional material presented in ‘Brut Aberpergwm’ was ‘always of a kind to make the narrative more vivid’. 71 Another notable feature of this small episode was the way in which it projected partisanship by providing history with material that fuelled contemporary debates. The pagans were black (perhaps physically so, or only in a figurative sense); they came from Denmark (land of the Goths so praised by Iolo’s enemy Pinkerton); they attacked England (and were thus implicitly enemies to that state, not breeders of its civilization); they were defeated by the Welsh (presumably of Glamorgan). Surviving correspondence shows that it was Pughe’s idea to place the text of ‘Brut Aberpergwm’ in parallel with the other two, the most notable of which was the genuine ‘Brut y Saeson’. Referring to Iolo’s ‘Brut Aberpergwm’, Pughe wrote: Your specimen of ‘Brut y Tywysogion’ [The Chronicle of the Princes] is quite a different composition from the one now printing. It will therefore be necessary to print it. I have proposed to insert it after the other, printing ‘Brut y Saeson’ [The Chronicle of the Saxons] along with it, page for page according to the dates, similar to the 3 copies you have of ‘Brut y Breninoz’ [The Chronicle of the Kings]. 72

However, the reference to the similarity of this scheme with ‘the 3 copies you have of “Brut y Breninoz”’ suggests that Pughe may have been following an example previously brought to his attention by Iolo himself. Iolo’s introductory remarks to his forged chronicle were printed in the preface to the second volume (signed ‘The Editors’, as in the case of ‘A Short Review’ in the first volume). A draft in Iolo’s hand also survives, in which the words ‘The following Copy of Caradog [meaning ‘Brut Aberpergwm’]’ are replaced by ‘The Copy of Caradog which is here collated with the Saxon chronicle’. 73 The last phrase (which also appears in the printed preface) reflects the editorial principles, and the fact that they do not represent Iolo’s original intentions regarding the manner of imposing ‘Brut Aberpergwm’ upon the world demonstrates that he did not bank on ‘collation’ in print. 74 If collating the texts was Pughe’s idea, however, 71

72

73 74

G. J. Williams, ‘Brut Aberpergwm: A version of the Chronicle of the Princes’ in Stewart Williams (ed. ), Glamorgan Historian, 4 (Cowbridge, 1967), p. 209. CIM, II, p. 345, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 21 November 1800. Pughe also mentioned the idea of printing in parallel ‘Brut y Breninoz’ and ‘the shorter copy which probably may be called Tysilio’s’. CIM, II, p. 174, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 3 June 179[9]. NLW 13113B, pp. x–xi. Williams maintains that ‘[I]t was not [Iolo’s] original intention to publish Brut Aberpergwm in The Myvyrian Archaiology’, and that it had been composed c. 1790. Williams, ‘Brut Aberpergwm’, pp. 209–10, 218.

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then Iolo clearly had no qualms about any additional danger of detection by means of a layout calculated to reveal differences and additions. Perhaps he could relax in the knowledge that ‘the real critics’ of his age were in fact ‘mere quacks compared with [the] scholars of the previous century’. 75 If so, the offer to collate ‘Brut Aberpergwm’ with a genuine source (whether prompted by Iolo or not) must have seemed to him a golden opportunity to promote his own version of the medieval history of Glamorgan and Britain at large. This exploration of some of the apparatus and editorial features of the first two volumes suggests hidden ways in which Iolo may or may not have influenced the publication. But they do not justify Dafydd Ddu’s objections to Iolo’s selftrumpeting presence in, and attempt at ownership of, the volumes. Such a presence barely makes itself felt in the first volume. The first Ioloic note is to be found underneath the text of an awdl beginning ‘Bryt ar olut byt’, ‘from Paul Panton’s book’ (‘O L. P. P. ’): Mae peth ar goll o’r awdl uchod: nid oes enw ai cant wrth yr awdlau, o’r un yn dechreu. – Kyn bwf [sic] gwas grudlas gredyf anvon hyd yma – ond y mae achos i veddwl mai G. M. D. a’i cant: os natef, rhyw fardd o Forganwg; tebygid. – IOLO MORGANWG. 76 (Some of the above ode is missing: there is no name next to the odes, from the one beginning ‘Kyn bwf [sic] gwas grudlas gredyf anvon’ up to here – but there is reason to believe that they were sung by G[ruffudd ap] M[aredudd ap] D[afydd]: if it wasn’t him, it was probably some Glamorgan bard. – Iolo Morganwg. )

The attribution of three odes (‘Kyn bwyf gwas grudlas gredyf anvon’, ‘Synhuyrus Deus Duw goruchaf’ and ‘Bryt ar olut byt’) to Gruffudd ap Maredudd is, as it happens, incorrect, a fact not in itself surprising since the correct attribution of this poetry is a field riddled with problems. What is more interesting is Iolo’s suggestion that the poems, if deemed not to be the work of Gruffudd ap Maredudd, could be attributed to a Glamorgan poet. In the case of the first two poems, he was correct, for they are the work of the fourteenth-century poet Casnodyn, who hailed from south-east Wales. Both poems, which are addressed to an aristocratic Welshwoman from Anglesey, refer to the poet’s southern roots. 77 The third poem is neither the work of Gruffudd ap Maredudd 75 76

77

Ibid. , p. 219. MAW, I, p. 465. Iolo also refers to a ‘Ban ar goll yma’ (a line missing here) with reference to ‘Synhuyrus Deus Duw goruchaf’. Ibid. , p. 464. ‘Cyn bwyf gwas gruddlas greddf’ is edited under the title of ‘Moliant merch o Fôn’ (Eulogy to a girl from Anglesey), and ‘Synhwyrus Dëus, Duw goruchaf’ under the title ‘Moliant merch Gruffudd ab Iorwerth’ (Eulogy to the daughter of Gruffudd ab Iorwerth) in R. Iestyn Daniel (ed. ), Gwaith Casnodyn (Aberystwyth, 1999), pp. 35–7, 38–41. For Casnodyn’s provenance and self-reference to his origins, see ibid. , pp. 1–2, 4–5.

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nor Casnodyn, but rather a praise poem by Sefnyn to the wife of an Anglesey uchelwr, Dafydd Fychan. 78 Sefnyn, like Gruffudd ap Maredudd, is known to have had strong links with Anglesey, and the commutation of either poet’s work from one end of Wales to another appears to be rather careless scholarship. Iolo may have known that the early source for much Anglesey poetry was the Red Book of Hergest, which was committed to paper for Hopcyn ap Tomas of Ynysforgan near Swansea by Hywel Fychan and a team of scribes c. 1400. 79 However, this hardly explains his misunderstanding of the provenance of the poetry. A more likely explanation is that, having read Casnodyn’s references to his home patch in ‘Caerllion’ (Caerleon) and the area between ‘Taf a Thawy’ (the rivers Taff and Tawy) in the first two poems, Iolo was in ‘southern mode’ and read with a preconception of southern provenance in his mind. If this was the case, a single line of the third poem, reading ‘Rodyat Angharat ynghaeryd gyngalch’ (Angharad is a giver of gifts in whitewashed fortresses), is almost certain to have confirmed his bias. 80 Iolo’s love of his native county spurred him to take an interest in its architecture; he took particular delight in the pristine whiteness of the typical Vale cottage. In his lengthy footnote to ‘Stanzas written in London in 1773’, published in Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, he quoted not only two printed sources, but also several Welsh poets, as testimony to the prevalent practice in Glamorgan of whitewashing the walls of cottages and houses. 81 Two of the poetic citations in the Poems footnote were attributed to Dafydd ap Gwilym, but in fact appear in the appendix to the 1789 edition of his work and are thus easily dismissed as forgeries by Iolo. 82 This indicates the complexity of the processes in which Iolo involved himself, first of all forging a complete cywydd, from which he then extracted illustrative couplets to promote his vision of Glamorgan. This practice of honing in on a single couplet or even a word was typical of Iolo’s methods as a reader, as we will see from the evidence provided in his handwritten (as opposed to his printed) marginalia. In the case of this ode, 78

79

80 81 82

‘Brut ar olut byt’ is in fact a praise poem to ‘Angharad, wife of Dafydd Fychan from Trehwfa and Trefeilir’ by Sefnyn. Nerys Ann Jones and Erwain Haf Rheinallt (eds. ), Gwaith Sefnyn, Rhisierdyn ac Eraill (Aberystwyth, 1995), pp. 9–11, 25–7. Prys Morgan, ‘Glamorgan and the Red Book’, Morgannwg, XXII (1978), 42–60; Daniel Huws, ‘The Medieval Manuscript’ in Philip Henry Jones and Eiluned Rees (eds. ), A Nation and its Books: A History of the Book in Wales (Aberystwyth, 1998), p. 31; Ann Parry Owen (ed. ), Gwaith Gruffudd ap Maredudd iii. Canu Amrywiol (Aberystwyth, 2007), p. 1. Iolo appears to have known of the contents and probably had seen the Red Book of Hergest, held at Jesus College, Oxford, as had many of his contemporaries. See, for example, CIM, II, p. 169, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 28 May 1799. MAW, I, p. 465. PLP, I, pp. 17–19. The couplet ‘E gâr Bardd y wlâd hardd honn, / A’i gwinoedd a’i thai gwynion’ is from the cywydd ‘I Yrru y Fwyalchen at Ifor Hael i Faesaleg’; ‘Tesog fore, gwnâ r llê’n llonn, / Ag annerch y tai gwynion’ is from the cywydd ‘I Yrru yr Haf i Annerch Morganwg’. See Owen Jones and William Owen (eds. ), Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym (Llundain, 1789), pp. 521, 524.

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misattributed to Gruffudd ap Maredudd, we may visualize what Iolo would have noted regarding the line which describes the ‘whitewashed fortresses’ from which Angharad bestowed her gifts. It seems very likely that he attributed the ‘whiteness’ to Glamorgan and turned a determined blind eye to the possibility that Anglesey may have boasted houses with similar characteristics. This in turn may be the logic behind his comment on the authorship of the poem (‘probably some Glamorgan bard’). The second and last instance of Iolo’s self-declared involvement in the first volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology is to be found in a note upon an ode by Casnodyn to Ieuan ap Gruffudd. 83 Iolo noted the unusual cyrchgymeriad between two stanzas of the ode: Gst gynnal heildal haelder gyr Ieuan Gar ieuanc Nud arver Gosgedic Nur eilic Ner Gosgord loyfford Eliffer Erclff 1 gryf Selyf seil wledic Ryderch Ryd Ieuan wayw yssic Aryf aer didaryf urdedic Ar glot y tri glut y tric . . . 1

Mae y Cyrchgymmeriad yn hynod yma, ac yn dangaws yr achaws o vod y sill gyntaf o bennillion Tawddgyrch Cadwynawg yn govyn bod yn dechreu val y maent. – Iolo Morganwg. 84

(The cyrchgymeriad is odd here, and shows the reason why the first syllable of the stanzas of a tawddgyrch cadwynog need to start as they do. – Iolo Morganwg. )

The normal practice, as Iolo rightly pointed out, would be either for a word, a related word-form, or the consonants in a word at the end of a stanza to be repeated at the beginning of the next. 85 Here, however, ‘Eliffer’ has metamorphosed into ‘Ercwlff’ (Hercules). 86 Iolo’s intrusion appears to be perfectly legitimate and sensible editing, even though The Myvyrian Archaiology, as we have seen, appeared to refrain from interpretation of any kind.

83

84

85 86

The real addressee of the poem is in fact Ieuan Llwyd of Glyn Aeron, son of Ieuan ap Gruffudd Foel. Daniel (ed. ), Gwaith Casnodyn, p. 93. A footnote to the text in The Myvyrian Archaiology records a more correct variant title from a manuscript in the possession of Edward ‘Celtic’ Davies: ‘I Ieuan Llwyd ab Ieuan ab Gruffudd o Ogerddan’. MAW, I, p. 423. MAW, I, p. 424. For a modern edition of the poem, see Daniel (ed. ), Gwaith Casnodyn, pp. 17–22. John Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod (Rhydychen, 1925), pp. 293–4. See Daniel (ed. ), Gwaith Casnodyn, p. 98.

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The second volume again provides very little by way of justification for Dafydd Ddu’s rant against Iolo’s egotism. The latter noted his (pretended) relationship with ‘Brut Aberpergwm’ with the claim that ‘I Iorwerth ab Iorwerth Gwilym copied it from the Book of the Reverend Mr Richards in the year 1790. And I made another copy of it for Owain Myfyr in the autumn of the year 1800’ (‘A minnau Iorwerth ab Iorwerth Gwilym ai copiais o Lyfyr y Parchedig Mr. Richards yn [y] flwyddyn 1790. Ac ai dadgopiais ef i Owain Myfyr, ym Mesyryd y flwyddyn 1800’), repeating the claim at the end of the text. 87 Iolo’s only other appearance is in notes to the text named ‘Henwau Plwyvau Cymru’ (The names of the parishes of Wales), which he copied from one of Paul Panton’s manuscripts. 88 The text gives details of the parishes in each commote in every Welsh shire. Iolo’s first ostensible interference comes at the end of the listings for Cardiganshire, where the text, following a carefullynumbered list which clearly names sixty-two parishes, declares that the number of parishes in the county is sixty-four. Iolo candidly wrote: ‘Ni ellais i, a bod yn ovalus, gael onid dau a thriugain o blwyvau ar lawr yn yr ysgriven o ba un y tynais i hyn o beth’ (Even though I took every care, I was not able to find more than sixty-two parishes down in the manuscript from which I took this material). 89 Similar corrective comments regarding the number of parishes in Carmarthenshire and Breconshire, both undersigned ‘Iolo Morganwg’,90 were followed with more forthright criticism of the text as it related to Glamorgan. Following the entry for the commote of Glyn Ogwr, Iolo wrote: ‘Y mae y plwyvau o hyn allan blith draphlith, dwyrain a gorllewin, deau a gogledd’ (The parishes henceforth are haphazard, east and west, north and south);91 and at the end of the Glamorgan entry: Mae yma gamsyniadau mawrion; Cant ac wyth arhugain yw rhivedi plwyvau Morganwg: y rhai a nodir fal hyn † a chwanegais i: gadawer y plwyvau, a’r manau ereill, a nodir velly, allan, ac ev a gair gwir adysgriv o’r Llyvyr o ba un y tynais i hyn. Iolo Morganwg. 92 (There are substantial errors here. The number of Glamorgan parishes is a hundred and twenty-eight: those noted thus † were added by me: leave out the parishes and the other places thus marked and you will find a true transcript of the book whence I took this. Iolo Morganwg. ) 87 88

89 90 91 92

MAW, II, pp. 468, 582. Ibid., pp. 613–28. Iolo dates the copy 6 August 1799. The original is to be found in NLW 1986B (Panton 17), ff. 92r–110v. MAW, II, p. 620. Ibid. , pp. 623, 624. Ibid. , p. 625. Ibid. , p. 626.

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An array of footnotes, either correcting or objecting – ‘Nid plwyv. I. M. ’ (Not a parish. I. M. ), or ‘Nid yn Ngwyr. I. M. ’ (Not in Gower. I. M. ) – peppers the bottom of the pages, perhaps demonstrating Iolo’s notorious egotism or perhaps merely a self-righteous (but not necessarily misplaced) indignation at the ignorance of the compiler of the original text. 93 In any case, Iolo’s longer note, explaining his use of the sign †, demonstrates his desire not to transgress against the self-imposed editorial standards of The Myvyrian Archaiology. The preface to the second volume states clearly: ‘Old manuscripts should always be published as we find them, even with all their supposed errors and imperfections. ’94 Iolo could not refrain from assuming the role of ‘the learned critic’ in the case of this last text, but he was careful (or at least apparently so) to reveal the trail of his actions, thus enabling the reader to enter into the process of reconstructing the original should he or she wish to do so. 95 In the discussion above, we have seen the concerted effort of the editors of The Myvyrian Archaiology both to collect extensively and to collate various versions of the texts which were printed. In comparison with earlier attempts, such as those of Evan Evans, at putting Welsh poetry (let alone prose) into print, The Myvyrian Archaiology was strikingly bold and comprehensive, even if the level of the investigative and critical scholarship behind the material leaves something to be desired. The editors evidently saw none of these shortcomings (unless we view Iolo’s very occasional forays into editorial commentary as an indication that he, at least, was itching for a say in matters relating to attribution, versification and the veracity of the claims made by the texts). By and large, they seem to have regarded the work as a landmark publication – a definitive text of a substantial body of Welsh poetry and prose of the kind to appear only once in a generation. This is suggested by their plans for further work based on its contents. One possibility, or indeed expectation, was that translations of the manuscripts should be made ‘in the progress of archaeology’, and that ‘a reference [might] be commodiously made to any particular volume of this collection, so as to preclude the necessity, or the use, of republishing the original manuscripts’. 96

93 94 95

96

Ibid. Ibid. , p. xi. Careful comparison of the printed text with the version in Evans’s manuscript reveals that Iolo did in fact make unsignalled additions. For the final entry, that for Monmouthshire, for example, eight parishes were added by Iolo, together with the usual tally of parishes at the end, unaccountably omitted in the manuscript in this case. It is as if Iolo had tired of playing the conscientious editor and simply wished to get to the end of his task as painlessly as possible. The added parishes are Porth Ysgewydd, Caldicot, St P}r, Rhogied, Sudbrwg, Tredelerch, Meiryn and Llan Leirwg. Ibid. , pp. 626–8. CIM, II, p. 78, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 26 April 1798. Iolo’s interest in publishing translations of the work published in the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology, including the material associated with the names of Catwg, Geraint Fardd Glas, Dyfnwal Moelmud and Hywel Dda, is revealed in draft proposals to be found in NLW 21400C, no. 15.

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Plans for future translations, a task for which Iolo had some aptitude, would not have departed from the fundamental nature of The Myvyrian Archaiology’s editorial stance, which was decidedly ‘hands-off’: ‘To discriminate between truth and error, to detect mistakes, in short to sift truth from the chaff, which may be seen amongst it, is the business of the learned critic, the philosophical historian, and not that of the publishers of ancient documents. ’97 So claimed ‘The Editors’ in the preface to the second volume, thereby defining their role by contrast with those of the ‘critic’ and the ‘historian’. Yet, while apparently denying themselves any interpretative role, the editors, with Iolo at the fore, might be said to have actively courted controversy by placing The Myvyrian Archaiology in the context of the great authenticity debate of its day. As we have seen, ‘A Short Review’ provocatively invited both the ‘learned critic’ and the ‘philosophical historian’ to engage with the material. The inclusivity of the volumes might also be viewed in the context of an effort to encourage argument and engage minds. In a letter to Pughe, shortly after the intention to publish The Myvyrian Archaiology had been announced, Iolo praised an earlier publication, the Cambrian Register, for laying out the various wares of the long-standing controversy regarding the Trojan origin myth of the British people: The Cambrian Register exceeds all expectations that I had, though I believed, from your being concerned in it, that it would be a good thing . . . It was well judged to give Geoffrey and Hywel Dda in the orthography of the manuscripts. I am highly pleased with every thing else in the volume, even with Lewis Morys’ sophistical defence of ‘Brut y Brenhinoedd’ [The Chronicle of the Kings] in his letters. It was right to publish even these, for the controversy about the authenticity of Geoffrey’s history should be once more revived. The discussion should be again brought before the public, in hopes that we shall be able to settle the matter for ever . . . The literary world would see that the Welsh are no longer in spite of truth bigoted to their Trojan history, as it has been generally supposed they were. 98

This sense of publicizing and promoting argument, and reaching clearer and more correct conclusions, in the face of an on-looking crowd of English observers (which was presumably what Iolo meant when he evoked ‘[t]he literary world’) was ever-present in the background to the publication of The Myvyrian Archaiology. It informed its editorial apparatus, from the pugnacious prefaces of the first volumes to the meticulous detail of the footnotes to the poetry and the inspired layout of some of the prose items of the second volume.

97 98

MAW, II, p. xi. CIM, II, p. 84, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 12 May 1798.

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All these facets drew attention to the plurality of sources and the depth of the manuscript tradition. They did so in the original language, a fact which provided the editors (Iolo paramount among them) with grounds for reproaching Macpherson’s Ossian, which had revealed itself to the world in translation first. 99 Unless Dafydd Ddu Eryri was more aware than most people of Iolo’s unique authorship of the prefatory essays to both volumes and the particular way in which they implicated him in questions of authenticity and forgery, on the basis of the content of the first two volumes of The Myvyrian Archaiology his view of Iolo’s ‘egotisms’ was misplaced. With the appearance of the third volume, however, the situation was drastically transformed. The preface to this volume signalled change. Gone was the earlier prefatory obsession with proving authenticity (presumably for the benefit of Wales’s prestige in the outer world of British antiquarianism and literary studies). In its stead we find a bland promise of a ‘summary’ of the contents of the volume: The following summary of the various remains of ancient lore comprehended in the third volume of the ARCHAIOLOGY OF WALES is necessary to be introduced here, with a view that those persons into whose libraries the book may find its way should have a general idea of the materials therein, so as to create in them an inducement for its preservation, and for exciting the curious in such researches to investigate its contents. 100

The reader of these remarks might be forgiven for believing that The Myvyrian Archaiology as a whole was largely a monument, rather than a book with which he might actively engage. It is as if the authenticity debate (and any other) had been won and no longer needed to be invoked. Yet this volume, in what amounts to a scathing irony, is almost the sole preserve of Iolo’s printed forgeries. If the foregrounding of issues relating to authenticity was relinquished in the third volume, the editorial apparatus as a whole was not. Instead of providing a vigorous and self-defensive preface the editorial hand here took a stranglehold on the material-proper and subsumed it in notes, either inserted into the main flow of the text or relegated to the foot of the page. The voice of the (historically real) seventeenth-century manuscript copyist Tomas ab Ieuan of Tre’r-bryn constantly interrupts the material, providing it with a framing narrative and, in fact, appropriating some of the arguments raised in the prefatory essays in 1801. A further voice, indelibly present this time, was that of ‘Iolo Morganwg’ himself, now revealing the traits which earned Dafydd Ddu’s disgust. 99 100

Truth against the World, pp. 95–6. MAW, III, p. v.

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One avenue of editorial intrusion open to Iolo (as opposed to wholescale intrusion via forgery) was offered by the template for the editorial policy of the 1801 volumes, namely to publish ‘[o]ld manuscripts . . . as we find them, even with all their supposed errors and imperfections’. In a note to the text of ‘Doethineb Catwg Ddoeth’ (The wisdom of Catwg the Wise), Iolo belaboured the point: Dalier sulw: Lle gwelir y pyncynon bychain hyn . . . . dan air yn yr ysgriven, ve ei hargrafid yn lletbeilythyr, val y mae Masgnacho; arwydd a chofadwriaeth yw imi ddal sulw manol ar y gair cyn ei ysgrivenu a’i silliadu vel ag y mae yno; ac er vy mod yn meddwl ei vod yn gamsyniadol yno, etto dewisais ei adael val ag y cevais i ev yn yr ysgriv, o ba un y tynais yr adysgriv hwn; gan veddwl mai galledig yw vod y gair yn y modd hyny yn arwain at ei wir dadogaeth, ac y gallai mai nid camysgriv yw y cyvryw eiriau ymhob man; yn enwedig yn y rhai annilys eu tadogaeth, ymhlith pa rai gellir cyvriv y gair Masnach. Ve welir ambell waith arall yr hen sillyddiaeth neu lythyriaeth ar’ air neu vwy mewn hen bethau; y mae hyn mewn rhan yn canatâu barn vod y peth à gynnwys y cyvryw yn ledhenaidd, ac er yr amser pan arverid y cyvryw lythyriad neu silliadaeth; ac heblaw y cyvan, dengys y cyvryw eiriau nodiedig mai nid o wallsyniad y maent lle eu gwelir, eithyr imi gymmeryd peth goval yn y gwaith. Iolo Morganwg. 101 (Take note: Where these small dots . . . . are seen under a word in the text, it has been printed letter-for-letter, as in Masgnacho. This is a sign and record of the fact that I looked in great detail at the word before writing it, and spelt it as it is there. And, although I thought that it was erroneous there, yet I chose to leave it as I found it in the text from which I took this copy, thinking that the word in this form might lead us to its true etymology and that such words throughout might not be errors, especially in the cases of words of unauthentic etymology, among which can be counted the word Masnach. On some other occasions the old spelling or orthography of one or several words may be seen in old material; this partially allows the conclusion that the source which includes it is rather old, and from the time when such spelling or orthography was in use. And besides everything else, the marking of words in this way shows that they are not present on account of error, but that I took some trouble in the work. Iolo Morganwg. )

Although ostensibly Iolo was simply highlighting issues of editorial high standards and transparency here, he used them to usher in a defence of the authenticity of his material. Focusing on an individual word, he maintained that the modern orthography of the word ‘masnach’ was ‘of unauthentic etymology’ and that the unfamiliar ‘masgnach’ was in fact the genuine form. 102 The effect of this was to allocate the word ‘unauthentic’ to a modern context and, by implication, 101 102

Ibid., p. 1. The examples cited in GPC s. v. masnach, masgnach reveal that both forms are of equal antiquity.

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to suggest that the opposite was true of Iolo’s own material, though he cleverly did not overstate the implication of his view that ‘old orthography or spelling equals old manuscripts’ and chose instead only to suggest this conclusion (‘this partially allows the conclusion . . . ’). That Iolo ‘took some trouble in the work’ in relation to individual words is beyond question: the planting of, and focusing on, single words was typical of his strategy as a word-minter and a forger. 103 As well as underscoring words which were designed to suggest the antiquity of his sources and offer him an opportunity to play with words – a favourite pastime – in print, Iolo suggested corrections to material apparently defective in terms of formulaic progression. Much in the way that he had drawn attention to the unsatisfactory cyrchgymeriad ‘Eliffer / Ercwlff’ in the ode attributed to Casnodyn in the first volume, Iolo found the pattern in the following examples worthy of comment: Nid deddvawl ond doeth, Nid doeth ymryson*, Nid diymryson ond cyttundeb. *Qu. ? ond diymryson. I. M. 104 (Legality is not found without wisdom, Contention is not wise*, Lack of contention cannot but lead to agreement. *Qu. ? ‘Wisdom is not found without a lack of contention’. I. M. )

By correcting in such a tame and uncontroversial manner (‘Nid doeth ymryson’ and ‘Nid doeth ond diymryson’ amount to the same thing in terms of meaning) Iolo, like an amiable companion, gently conveyed the impression of a (supposed) manuscript tradition which lay, warts and all, behind this material. 105 This was consistent with his depiction of the tradition in ‘A Short Review’ and in the preface to the second volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology. Transmission over centuries was a murky, less-than-perfect affair, and Iolo’s business was to illustrate materials as he had found them. The wealth of the manuscript tradition on which the third volume was based is further suggested by the frequent footnote references to alternative readings 103

104 105

See, for example, G. J. Williams’s analysis of Iolo’s forged cywyddau in Iolo Morganwg a Chywyddau’r Ychwanegiad, in which the unravelling of the deceit is often propped up by careful analysis of words minted by Iolo. See also the discussion of Iolo’s linguistic work in chapter 4, below. MAW, III, p. 21. See also ‘Mae gwall yn hwn’ (There is an error in this) or ‘Mae rhyw wall yma’ (There is some fault here), ibid., pp. 292, 313, 316.

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from a (usually undesignated) ‘Ll. arall’ (another book). 106 Iolo not only invoked a manuscript tradition but also created the aura of an anecdotal, non-scribal tradition which offered the possibility of an organic oral conduit for the material now published: Ac val hyny y cevais hwn yn Llyvyr Mr. Cobb; llyvyr à ysgrivenwyd yn swydd Vrecheiniawg ynghylch y vlwyddyn 1600. Davydd Maelienydd a’i cant medd ereill: ve gasgloedd Davydd Maelienydd, sev Davydd Bâch ab Madawg Gwladaidd, lawer o’r cyvryw bethau yn nghyd; ond pwy mewn gwirionedd à gant yr un uchod nis gwn; mi a’i gwelais yn Ngwynedd dan enw Dewisbethau Mabwaith Hengrys o Iâl; Dewisbethau Taliesin, mewn llyvyr arall; Dewisbethau serchawg yw enw arall á gair arno mewn rhai llyvrau. Iolo Morganwg. 107 (And thus I found this in the book of Mr Cobb, a book written in Breconshire around the year 1600. Others say that Dafydd Maelienydd sang it. Dafydd Maelienydd, or Dafydd Bach ap Madog Gwladaidd, collected many such things; but who in truth sang the above I do not know. I saw it in Gwynedd under the name of ‘The trivial choice things of Old Cyrys of Iâl’; ‘The choice things of Taliesin’ in another book. Another name by which it is called in some books is ‘The charming choice things’. Iolo Morganwg. )

The date of inscription for the ‘Choice things’ in question, entitled ‘Llyma Ddewis Bethau Bardd Ivor Hael’ (These are the choice things of Ifor Hael’s bard) is given as ‘around the year 1600’, and although Iolo made it clear that the variant attributions of the material were all taken from ‘books’, the proliferation of names, the ‘others say’ – whether in writing or speech is not specified – suggests the long-standing orality of the material. 108 The impression of a vivid and living tradition is enhanced by footnotes which draw attention to the continuing use of certain words in the texts by Iolo’s contemporaries in Glamorgan and surrounding counties. Ten lines attributed to Catwg Ddoeth, and entitled ‘Trywiau’ after the first word of each line (‘Tryw’), are followed by a note querying ‘Should it not be Rhyw instead of Tryw?’ (‘Ai nid Rhyw à ddylai vod yn lle Tryw?’) Having asked the question, Iolo immediately dismissed his own suggestion as a prelude to a full discussion of the word. He provided examples

106 107 108

Ibid., passim. Ibid., p. 122. The bard of Ifor Hael, of course, was Dafydd ap Gwilym, or Dafydd Morganwg, as Iolo called him in the note which follows the ‘Choice things’, supposedly transcribed from the manuscript. MAW, III, p. 122.

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of derivatives of ‘tryw’, gave its meaning, and claimed that it was still in use ‘on the borders of Glamorgan and Breconshire’. 109 Providing a range of names in association with the material as in the quotation above was typical of the text of the third volume. Another example surfaces in the case of ‘Dewis Bethau Deio Maelienydd’ (Deio Maelienydd’s choice things), material initially attributed to Dafydd Maelienydd (himself a shadowy figure with multiple names), but to which Iolo added: ‘a gellir barnu yn ddigon hybwyll nad oedd Davydd Maelienydd amgen yn y byd na chynnullydd y cyvryw bethau â hwn yma’ (and it may be prudently judged that Dafydd Maelienydd was nothing more than the collector of such things as this). 110 Dafydd ap Gwilym is then credited with the authorship. This playing around with names of characters, both well-known and unknown to Iolo’s contemporaries, while building up a fictitious sense of a ‘tradition’, also diminishes or snuffs out interest in accurate attribution. The possibilities are dizzying; ridiculous, almost to the point of revealing, at least to a reader who is in the know, the forger’s sense of glee in having published anything. It is as if Iolo is saying: ‘Who cares who wrote it, if it’s good?’ This sentiment was in fact voiced in the volume in Tomas ab Ieuan’s preface to the material attributed to Catwg Ddoeth: nid gwaeth i ti’r Cymro caredig o ben pwy daethant à weli yma, ac nid oes nag yn well nag yn waeth i neb beth ydynt, nag o bwy ydynt, ond eu bod yn ddoethineb ac yn wirioneddau. Digon i ti eu bod velly. 111 (It matters not to you, kind Welshman, from whose mouth the things which you see here emanated, and it is neither here nor there to anyone what they are, nor from whom they came, as long as they constitute wisdom and truths. It is enough for you that they should be thus. )

In a note to ‘Casbethau Owain Cyveiliawg’ (Owain Cyfeiliog’s hated things)112 Iolo provided evidence regarding the authorship of other ‘books’, this time

109

110

111 112

Ibid., p. 131: ‘ar gyfiniau Morganwg a Brecheiniawg’. Further weight is given to the contemporary Glamorgan connection by the inclusion of an example of poetic usage attributed to Dafydd Lewis of Merthyr Tydfil, 1760. Ibid., pp. 130–1. Elsewhere Iolo provided a contemporary linguistic context to an example in the text by querying the attribution of the material to Owain Cyfeiliawg with ‘Ieuan Gyfylog, medd llyvyr Mr. Cobb o Gaer Dyv: Cyfoled ag Ieuan Gyfylog, meddant yn Morganwg’ (Ieuan Gyffylog, says the Book of Mr Cobb of Cardiff. As foolish as Ieuan Gyffylog, they say in Glamorgan). Ibid., p. 122. See also the glosses on the words ‘enraith’ and ‘prydd’ in ibid., pp. 273, 277, both of which claim that their meaning was peculiar to Glamorgan. Ibid., p. 126. On Dafydd Maelienydd’s various appellations, see ibid. , p. 123, and CIM, II, p. 408, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 31 January 1802. MAW, III, p. 4. Ibid., pp. 122–3.

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choosing to attribute the material to Dafydd Maelienydd (perhaps contributing to the construction of this figure as a collector of material associated with the twelfth-century prince Owain Cyfeiliog). He added: ‘Chwilied yn mhellach à welo yn addas, ac o bwys. Iolo Morganwg’ (May he who considers it appropriate and of consequence to search further, do so. Iolo Morganwg),113 thus displaying both confidence that detection was well-nigh impossible and a sense that proving the origin, discovering the sources and deciding upon the attribution was not important in the light of the plurality of ‘books’ and traditions. Through the apparatus of the third volume Iolo deconstructed the attempt to impose a detailed chronology upon the Welsh poetic and, to a lesser extent, prose tradition as seen in the first volumes of The Myvyrian Archaiology. The blurring of the central text with framing devices and intrusions in a host of voices, including not only that of ‘Iolo Morganwg’ himself, further suggests this anti-scholarly pursuit, even though the trappings of editorial meticulousness are repeatedly invoked, at least in a superficial sense. As the process of finding a scholarly and historically accurate progression of sources and authors became increasingly mired in confusion and complexity, a space was created for drawing attention to the contemporary resonance of the material. This impulse was especially strong in the apparatus to the third volume. Nowhere is this more apparent than when, in the midst of a serious collection of Welsh proverbs claimed to originate in the collection of the Renaissance scholar Dr John Davies of Mallwyd, we find one whose sentiments evidently echo those of the celebrated English eighteenth-century poet Thomas Gray: Chwerthin á wna ynvyd yn boddi [A madman laughs while drowning]. Moody madness, laughing wild, Amid severest woe. GRAY. 114

Gray’s lines dramatize and romanticize the simple sentiment of the proverb, thus raising its import into the realms of sensibility and feeling. Further intrusions in the catalogue of proverbs are attributed to the Welsh poets Iorwerth Fynglwyd, Dafydd ap Gwilym and Iolo Goch. These echo more clearly the wording of the original and as such were designed to ram home the wisdom of the message. 115 113 114

115

Ibid., p. 123. Ibid., p. 152. The quotation comes from Gray’s ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’ in Designs by Mr. R. Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray (London, 1753), pp. 8–13. On Dr John Davies’s collections of proverbs, in both print and manuscript, see Daniel Huws, ‘John Davies and his Manuscripts’ in Ceri Davies (ed. ), Dr John Davies of Mallwyd: Welsh Renaissance Scholar (Cardiff, 2004), pp. 114–15; Caryl Davies, ‘The Dictionarium Duplex (1632)’ in ibid. , pp. 165–6. MAW, III, p. 152.

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Elsewhere in the volume Iolo included his own poetry – wooden englynion in praise of ‘Doethineb’ (Wisdom) and of the triads which promoted it. 116 In many respects, therefore, the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology disposed of the literary historian’s chains in relation to the past. It revelled instead in undercutting the sense of a fixed, stagnant or historically conditioned truth by presenting material whose main import was not who wrote it or whence it originated but how it spoke to the contemporary reader. Iolo’s notes suggest a continuing, still-developing tradition which, in the last resort, simply needs to be read and understood by the individual. This reflects the Romantic notion of cutting across the boundaries of the centuries and finding truths of universal relevance. Yet, in some instances, the nature of that truth was indelibly linked with some of Iolo’s Enlightenment preoccupations. If Gray’s words, hard on the heels of a Welsh proverb, invoked a romanticized madness as an escape from ‘severest woe’, lines attributed to Iolo Goch focused on the issue of the unruly tongue (a topic touched upon in a misogynist context in the body of many of the triads in the third volume), and how it might be controlled. This suggests the strong didactic undercurrents which made the triads an appealing genre for imitation in Iolo’s view. 117 One of the ways in which Iolo’s concerns were shuttled to the foreground in the third volume was through the references to religious creeds, specifically to Trinitarianism and Catholicism. A triad promoting the view that the godhead is divided into three figures among a collection of ‘[T]riodd Moes, o Lyvyr a Elwir “Y Casgliad Didrevn”, eiddo Iarll Macclesfield’ (Moral triads, from a book entitled ‘The Disorderly Collection’, owned by the Earl of Macclesfield). The earl in question, George Parker, was the still-living dedicatee of the third volume, but this did not deter Iolo from forging material and falsely attributing it to his collection. 118 Inserting such a triad served the purpose of authenticating the material; after all, a Trinitarian creed was a long-standing belief. Yet, to be able to draw critical attention to it through the editorial apparatus served another purpose for Iolo. Rather than vent his own spleen against Trinitarianism, he inserted a footnote into the text, attributing it to another: ‘Nid wyv yn coeliaw vod personau y Drindawd yn dri pheth. Iago ab Dewi’ (I do not believe that the

116 117

118

Ibid., pp. 127, 275. The proverb ‘Da daint rhag tavawd’ is expanded into ‘Da daint rhag tavawd, daw dydd, / Yn nghilvach savn anghelvydd’. Ibid. , p. 152. For Iolo’s misogynism, see Cathryn A. CharnellWhite, ‘Women and Gender in the Private and Social Relationships of Iolo Morganwg’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 379–80. Didactic sentiments regarding the conduct of women are to be found in the two series of triads, ‘Triodd y Gwragedd’ and ‘Triodd y Gwragedd Priod’ (‘The triads of women’ and ‘The triads of married women’). MAW, III, pp. 242–3, 243–4, 276–8. Morfydd E. Owen, Y Meddwl Obsesiynol: Traddodiad y Triawd Cyffredinol yn y Gymraeg a’r Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales (Aberystwyth, 2007), pp. 18, 22.

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persons of the Trinity are three substances. Iago ab Dewi). 119 Although the early eighteenth-century manuscript collector and copyist Iaco ab Dewi was a Dissenter, there is no evidence to suggest that he held anti-Trinitarian views, and it would be anachronistic to suppose him a Unitarian, properly speaking. 120 Iolo’s projection of his own views or readings of his own material via a historical figure was a process of planting precedents in Welsh tradition for the theories which were important to him in his own life; reinvesting the past with the seeds of his own immediate preoccupations. His disgruntled comments regarding Pughe’s illegitimate choice of orthography for The Myvyrian Archaiology are strikingly resonant in this context and clearly reveal more about their author than their subject. For Protestants, the thorn in the side of the Welsh manuscript tradition was Catholicism. Evan Evans’s Specimens invoked the shadow of the ‘monks’ upon Welsh history in his remarks ‘To the Welsh’ (‘At y Cymry’): Nid oes genym ddim Hanes am ein Hynafiaid o’n hawduron ein hunain, ond oddiwrth y Beirdd yn unig, o flaen Gildas ap Caw; yr hwn sydd yn ein goganu, ac yn ein llurginio, yn hytrach nag ysgrifennu cywir Hanes am danom; ond fo wyr Hanesyddion yr achos: heblaw hyn, i mae ei waith ef wedi myned drwy ddwylo’r Meneich; Gwyr a fedrai yn dda ddigon, dylino pob peth i’w dibenion eu hunain. 121 (We do not have any history of our ancestors by our own authors, other than from the Bards, prior to Gildas ap Caw, who satirizes us, and distorts [the facts regarding] us, rather than write a correct history about us. But historians know why. Besides, his work has gone through the hands of the monks, men who are more than adept at depicting everything to their own purposes. )

The penchant of the great Welsh monastic institutions for perverting the truth regarding the early history of the Welsh as a people is invoked in the voice of Tomas ab Ieuan in the preface to the material in the third volume, much of which is claimed to have been derived from Catwg Ddoeth, a Ioloic amalgam of the saint Catwg and the Latin author Cato:

119 120

121

MAW, III, p. 191. Iolo fabricated the history of a group of seventeenth-century Welsh Unitarians, purportedly known as ‘Gw}r Cwm y Felin’. See CIM, I, pp. 518–19, Iolo Morganwg to Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain), 29 August 1792. In view of this, the suggestion that Iaco ab Dewi held similar views may have rung true to him. On the lengthy history of the ‘[d]ispute over the Trinity’, see the brief summary in Iain McCalman (ed. ), An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture 1776–1832 (Oxford, 1999), pp. 740–1. Evans, Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards, p. 101.

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Y Pabyddion á ddodasant lawer peth ar enw Catwg na ddaeth erioed nag yn nag am ei ben ev; a chymmaint ag oedd yn amlwg i’m deall i o’r pethau hyny mi á ymwrthodais â hwynt; ond ve all vod yma rai pethau nas gellir yn hawdd wybod p’un ai Catwg ai rhyw un arall a’u dywaid; canys val y gwedais o’r blaen, pob peth cyfelyb iddei eiddo ev á ddodid arno . . . 122 (The Catholics attributed many a thing to the name of Catwg which, beyond any question, never came to pass on account of his intellect. And whatever was obviously so to my understanding I rejected. But there may be some things that it is difficult to know whether it was Catwg or someone else who said them, since as I said before, everything similar to his work was attributed to him . . . )

Here, the principle of giving the texts ‘as we find them, even with all their supposed errors and imperfections’ has lost all influence, and we are openly informed of a process of censorship, which was diligently attempted if not achieved with a perfect degree of success. 123 The shortcomings of Tomas ab Ieuan’s supposed bowdlerization are a tribute to the centrality to the third volume of the ideal of an evolving tradition, in which attribution is very much an imperfect science (‘But there may be some things that it is difficult to know whether it was Catwg or someone else who said them’). It might also arise from Iolo’s realization that, by including material relating to Catholicism, he could have some fun at the expense of a faith which he apparently despised. This would seem to have been the case in a short series of triads attributed to Gwilym Saer and developed in a fabricated prose anecdote attributed to Ivan Wiliam ‘o’r Ferm’ (from the farm) in the parish of Llanfleiddan, near Cowbridge, Glamorgan. 124 Here, the outsider ‘saer’ (whether a carpenter or a stonemason, like Iolo, is not specified, for the Welsh word may signify either occupation) is turned into a hero at the expense of the self-important officials of the Catholic Church. This episode, together with the alleged censorship,

122 123

124

MAW, III, p. 4. On Catwg Ddoeth, see Williams: IM, pp. 289–94. The following are examples of references to Catholic practice found among the maxims attributed to Catwg Ddoeth: ‘Y daith ni vydd pellach er gwrandaw oferen’ (The journey will be no further for having listened to a mass), ‘Cargyvlwyn Catwg Ddoeth’ (Catwg Ddoeth’s Gift to his Kinsman), MAW, III, p. 6; ‘Na vid esgud dy law ar lw anudon . . . / Na chyrch ar grair dy air yn greulon’ (Do not swiftly lend your hand to pledge a false oath . . . / Do not pledge your word cruelly upon a relic), ‘Cynghorion Catwg Ddoeth’ (The Counsels of Catwg Ddoeth), ibid. , p. 7; ‘Nag anmharcha ’th riaint na bugelydd allor’ (Do not dishonour your parents nor the guardian of the altar) and ‘Na amharcha ’th Dad na bugail yr allor’ (Do not dishonour your father nor the priest of the altar), ‘Deivregwawd Catwg Ddoeth’ (The Mystical Song of Catwg Ddoeth), in two different versions, ibid. , pp. 8, 9. MAW, III, pp. 256–7.

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reflects the strength of Iolo’s anti-Catholicism and of the anti-Catholicism of his day. 125 The reference to Tomas ab Ieuan’s suppression of Catholic dogma is also a sign of the contrary tides of thinking inherent in the make-up of this volume. Although Iolo sought to infuse a sense of universality through the largely didactic character of the maxims included, the desire to suggest a pure tradition, ancient and uncorrupted (in this case by centuries of Catholicism) still held some currency for him. Tomas ab Ieuan exhorts his readers to profit and improve their lives from the example provided by the maxims (‘[ll]es a gwellâad buchedd’), irrespective of who composed them, but is unable to abandon the unifying and centralizing figure of Catwg: Cadw enw y gwr sydd wrthynt ar dy gov gyda pharch; rho’th ail ddiolch i Gatwg, er nad wyt yn addolwr saint; ac yn ddiweddav na varn yn angharedig arnav vinnau, os dygwydd itti weled yma ryw bethau na vot lwyr voddlon iddynt . . . 126 (Remember the name of the man which is attached to them with respect; give your second thanks to Catwg, even though you are no saint-adorer; and lastly, do not judge me unkindly if you happen to see here some things with which you are not perfectly content . . . )

Iolo himself, of course, is automatically exonerated from blame – granted the pardon so earnestly sought by Tomas ab Ieuan – both for the inclusion of unpalatables and, presumably, for censorship, since it was Tomas ab Ieuan and not he who acted as censor. In reading the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology, then, we may find ourselves on the one hand in the presence of a heightened degree of scholarship, and on the other bewilderingly dissociated from the need to answer difficult questions about attribution and authorship. Thus, as readers, we are released from editor-like responsibility (in a way which was not possible in the case of the earlier volumes, with their scrupulously detailed footnotes and parallel texts), and rendered free to savour the messages of the texts. Rather than resting his laurels on his earlier descriptions of the Welsh manuscript tradition (in ‘A Short Review’ and in the preface to the second volume), Iolo brings the 125

126

In spite of a vigorous current of anti-Catholicism in England since the days of Elizabeth, the situation among Welsh speakers from the seventeenth century onwards was possibly more ambiguous. On a perceived shortage of anti-Catholic sentiment among eighteenth-century monolingual Welshmen, see Crowe, ‘Thomas Richards a John Walters: Athrawon Geiriadurol Iolo Morganwg’, p. 230. On the uncertainty regarding the extent of anti-Catholic sentiment among the same group of people during the civil wars, see Lloyd Bowen, The Politics of the Principality: Wales c.1603–1642 (Cardiff, 2007), pp. 239–40. MAW, III, p. 4.

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tradition to life, leading us, through the mediation of Tomas ab Ieuan and other copyists of the past, into the Narnia beyond the wardrobe doors. Once we are there, the material itself uncannily displays a remarkable contemporaneousness. It is this – the didactic and doctrinal import of the material, its messages regarding how to live and which religious creeds to avoid – which Iolo, in part, may have wanted his readers to grasp. The framework of the third volume provided him with the opportunity to express these messages in an unobtrusive manner to his own satisfaction. The question ‘why’ Iolo forged material has perplexed generations of scholars. Although no easy (and no single) answer is to be found, the most recent studies, which contextualize his activities within contemporary frameworks, are much more likely to provide answers than the outright rage expressed by his earliest detractors. 127 One of Iolo’s very first attempts to break into print demonstrates characteristics which could be associated with the material presented in the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology. ‘Dywenydd Morganwg’, an anthology which never in fact saw the light of day, was intended to provide a satirical outlook on the life of Iolo’s contemporaries in the Glamorgan of the 1780s via a host of caricature-like voices, some of which were as if risen from the dead. 128 A mixture of didactic components (including misogynist elements), a depiction of a glorious past – a Glamorgan of the Golden Age – and sheer enjoyment in fabricating a fictitious world are evident in the surviving material linked to this venture. In The Myvyrian Archaiology’s third volume, Iolo recreated a similar project, this time successfully put into print. Publishing his work had become increasingly important to Iolo and, from the second volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology onwards, he began to reappropriate this impulse to the luminaries of the past. In the preface to the second volume he depicted Caradog of Llancarfan, the reputed author of the Welsh historical chronicle ‘Brut y Brenhinedd’ (The Chronicle of the Kings), as an early printer, who produced mass copies of texts for a wide-ranging audience: Caradoc very possibly, and even most probably, was, like most of his age who furnished the literary part of the community with books, a copyist, or compiler of history, by profession; preparing for sale copies of different prices, ample or brief, in various proportions, according to a variety of prices, for purchasers of various descriptions;

127

128

Truth against the World, for example, may be considered a riposte to John Morris-Jones’s straightforward (though not unsubstantiated) accusations of deceit. For the latter, see Literary and Historical Legacy, pp. 140–2. CIM, I, pp. 150–3, 153–7 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg [and Thomas Williams] to the readers of ‘Dywenydd Morganwg’, [?May 1780]; Cathryn A. Charnell-White, O’r Cysgodion: Llythyrau’r Meirw at y Byw (Aberystwyth, 2007), pp. 16–24. Charnell-White notes the particular strength of Iolo’s desire to criticize behaviour and appropriate blame via the satirical element of the ‘infernal genre’.

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again, copies intended for one part of Wales might contain what might not have been equally interesting in another part, and there of course omitted . . . 129

The description of Caradog’s activities substantiates Iolo’s theory that manuscript transcription is an uneven, imperfect science (‘Truth requires not a severe formality of language’). 130 This is an astute point of view, largely based on a sound understanding of the Welsh poetic tradition. However, the description also fits Iolo himself (or at least Iolo’s ideal self ) like a glove. It leans strongly towards committing the anachronism of depicting in Caradog’s age an industrious hive of print-culture – the compilation of material, tailor-made for the individual purchaser. By 1801 Iolo was perfectly familiar with all aspects of the process of transferring ideas, via the written word, into saleable commodities. His interest in manuscripts and his own creative work as a poet and antiquary had already spanned several decades. He had survived the ‘wildernessed business of publication’ in successfully bringing his Poems, Lyric and Pastoral through the press in 1794, and had also kept a grocery and a bookshop at Cowbridge in the latter part of the 1790s, where his experiences had taught him about the fickle ways of book-buyers. 131 Moreover, Iolo was acutely aware of regionalisms within Wales and had already shown an interest in producing a Glamorganspecific journal. 132 By projecting himself and his own activities and aspirations upon the historical figure of Caradog, Iolo created a niche for his own ego, a doppelganger, a second self. This besserer ich was a successful professional – ‘a copyist, or compiler of history, by profession’ – something towards which Iolo strove with little success throughout his life. Caradog was not the only one to aspire towards dissemination through (in his case, at least, utterly anachronistic) print culture. As seen in the introductory quotation to this chapter, the primary framing voice of the third volume, that of Tomas ab Ieuan, was also intent upon publishing: Yr wyv yn credu hyn yn vy nghalon, pe bai rhai pethau o’r natur hyn mewn print i’w dodi ar welydd mewn tai, y tynai hyny sylw llawer dyn ieuanc at bethau gwell nog y sydd yn awr vynychav yn cael eu gosod o’u blaen; ac nid cywilydd y byddai

129 130 131

132

MAW, II, p. viii. Ibid. , p. ix. For Iolo’s frustrated attempts to see his English poems through the press, see Mary-Ann Constantine, ‘“This Wildernessed Business of Publication”: The Making of Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (1794)’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 123–45. For a satirically-slanted list of books ordered by Iolo for his Cowbridge shop ‘about the year 1798’, see NLW 13146A, pp. 128–31. Note, however, Charnell-White’s view that ‘Dywenydd Morganwg’ was written with one eye on the London-Welsh audience. Charnell-White, O’r Cysgodion: Llythyrau’r Meirw at y Byw, pp. 17–18.

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i ambell hên ddyn pengaled, a phengaled y gwelav i pob hên ddynion, ystyried ei bod hi ’n llawnoed bellach iddo ve neu hithau ymarver ychydig â doethineb. 133 (I believe this in my heart – that if some things of this nature were available in print to be set up on the walls of houses, it would draw the attention of many a young man to better things than are most frequently put before them nowadays. And there would be no shame in it if a few stubborn old men, and I find all old men stubborn, were to consider it high time now for him (or her) to practise a little wisdom. )

A late seventeenth-century manuscript collector might indeed have considered print culture as a means of spreading the word on moral issues. Historical figures made use of the still innovatory technique of printing for this purpose, most notably Stephen Hughes, who was responsible for the posthumous publication of the poems of Rees Prichard among other things. 134 That Tomas ab Ieuan ( f l. second half of the seventeenth century), living in Glamorgan a little later, should have harboured the same desire is not in itself remarkable, therefore, and as a fiction this is potentially credible. Our real concern, however, is why Iolo should have wanted to plunge under cover here. Was it simply impossible to preach ‘wisdom’ in one’s own voice at the turn of the eighteenth century? Did Iolo’s desire to satirize types (young and old), a feature reminiscent of the ‘Dywenydd Morganwg’ material, naturally lead him to expression within a fictitious framework? Did the alleged wisdom of a past hold more value than that of a modern preacher ever could? Was Iolo in some respect – whether out of fear or practical concerns – constrained from publishing in any way other than incognito? Or was The Myvyrian Archaiology simply too good an opportunity to spread his literary wings and simultaneously pull a fast one upon the men from north Wales resident in London? An affirmative answer to any, or all, of these questions might provide us with a key to the forger’s impulse as it developed within Iolo. There is no doubt that the expression of satirical-didactic material (in which the didacticism was perhaps stronger than the satire) was an objective close to Iolo’s heart. Its early manifestation in ‘Dywenydd Morganwg’ has already been mentioned. A later 133

134

MAW, III, p. 199. Dafydd Williams, or Dafydd o’r Nant, the seventeenth-century vicar of Pen-llin near Cowbridge, was yet another historical figure to whom Iolo appropriated an intention to publish: ‘Dywed Mr. Richards o Langrallo awdur y geirlyfr Cymraeg, bod yn Llyfreugell Tre Groes lyfr mawr yn cynnwys holl waith Dafydd o’r Nant yn ei law ei hunan wedi ei barottoi iw argraffu’ (Mr Richards of Coychurch, author of the Welsh dictionary, says that a large book containing the entire œuvre of Dafydd o’r Nant in his own hand prepared to be printed, is to be found in the library of Tre-groes). NLW 13146A, p. 264. For Prichard and Hughes, see ODNB s. v. Rhys Prichard and Stephen Hughes; Nesta Lloyd (ed. ), Cerddi’r Ficer: Detholiad o Gerddi Rhys Prichard (Cyhoeddiadau Barddas, 1994); Geraint H. Jenkins, ‘Apostol Sir Gaerfyrddin: Stephen Hughes c. 1622–1688’ in idem, Cadw T} Mewn Cwmwl Tystion: Ysgrifau Hanesyddol ar Grefydd a Diwylliant (Llandysul, 1990), pp. 1–28.

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incarnation took the form of a remarkably large number of Unitarian hymns. Moreover, Iolo also used the englyn metre for expressing what cannot be described as other than stiff and uninspired moral sentiments. The traditional free metres of his county – triban Morgannwg in particular – also delighted him: poems in these metres contained a strong current of truism and didacticism. 135 Among these examples of Iolo’s work was an intriguing mixture of genuine and forged material. The former was paramount in the case of both the hymns and the englynion, which suggests that Iolo was able to find avenues for expressing this itch to sermonize without resorting to deceit. Yet, very little of this material (a small proportion of the hymns alone) ever found its way into print. Hymns aside, Iolo himself appears to have been wary of the possibility that his didactic material might not be attractive to a contemporary audience. He defended his collections of triads in a letter to Owain Myfyr in a bid to secure their inclusion in the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology: Amongst the triades you have here, there are a few which, though the sentiment be finely moral, the expression may be thought indelicate. You may from your own opinion, or from that of some squeamish critic, exclude such things, but this will be doing a great injury to the cause of our ancient literature. In those ages of good sense, though destitute of modern refinement, strong and impressive language, figures, similes, &c. were deemed the most proper things imaginable on many occasions. For example, no language can be more proper to chastise or castigate an ungrateful scoundrel than that of the following proverb: ‘Cos dîn taeog ag ef a gâch yn dy ddwrn’. In all our collections of English proverbs we find another exactly like it: ‘Scratch a churls arse and he will shit in your fist. ’136

Since Iolo’s defence raised the spectre of Macpherson and Chatterton, who ‘ruined their causes by their excess of refinement’, he was clearly engaged here in an attempt to authenticate his own forgeries. His material, he believed, was self-evidently authentic for it smacked of ‘indelicacies’, typical of ‘any people in their first sylvan or even pastoral state of society’. But Iolo had not planted unseemly expressions in his forgeries simply to render them more credible, for he appreciated the fact that ‘many of our most judicious modern moral philosophers insist upon it that the over strained delicacy and squeamishness of the present age are rather strong symptoms of degeneracy than of improvement in morals’. In other words, he had a moral agenda in mind. With Tomas ab Ieuan, he believed that disseminating didactic material would do good.

135

136

For Iolo’s hymns, englynion and free-metre poems, see chapter 4 and Appendix V (Literature). For fuller studies of the material, see P. J. Donovan, Cerddi Rhydd Iolo Morganwg (Caerdydd, 1980), a selective edition of the free-metre poetry, and Cathryn A. Charnell-White (ed. ), Detholiad o Emynau Iolo Morganwg (). CIM, II, pp. 689–90, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 30 July 1805.

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While this points to a possible motive for Iolo’s attempts to publish the triads and other items in the third volume, to envisage Tomas ab Ieuan’s desire that the ‘improving’ material might be glued on to the walls of people’s homes is rather optimistic in the context of an expensive literary monument like The Myvyrian Archaiology. There was very little likelihood that this material (in its original format, at least) would ever have become accessible to the lower reaches of society, and Iolo might have been better off writing a popular ballad and getting it printed immediately on a single sheet. 137 But perhaps he did not intend to preach to the ‘mere common readers’, to quote William Owen Pughe. His aim instead was to make an impression on the ‘literary world’, to preach to it of morals and force upon it a sense of the wealth of his own native county’s literary heritage. He wished to entrench his maxims within the Welsh tradition and within the print culture, and thus to ensure their preservation. It is in this sense that Iolo’s ego became a crucial factor in The Myvyrian Archaiology. He relinquished authorship and relegated himself to the role of the saviour of this material. There was no better way of depositing (in an enduring fashion) a substantial amount of his own work on the world than through the medium of the printing of the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology. 138

Guarding the ‘Secret’: Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain A stanza in the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology, attributed to an ‘Old bard’ (‘Hen Vardd’), reads as follows: Deunaw o gampau dawnus, A roed ar Wgawn ab Rhys, Ac ungamp ddrwg ar Wgawn Yn divwynaw’r deunaw dawn.

137

138

For the ignominious uses to which unwanted or unsellable printed books were put in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, see St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, pp. 26–8. Iolo himself made a joking reference to the kind of practices described by St Clair in a letter to Pughe: ‘I have made an attempt at a kind of preface, with a character of Dafydd ap Gwilym as a poet, according to my ideas of the matter. I will soon send you this. It may do for lighting a pipe, or may be applied to another certain use, if good for nothing else. ’ CIM, I, p. 324, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 23 July 1788. Note that the process of disseminating to a wider audience the body of didactic literature contained in the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology was well under way before Iolo’s death, with the publication of Dillynion Doethineb Cenedyl y Cymry: sef, Detholion o Driodd Moes a Defawd, a Thriodd Doethineb Beirdd Ynys Prydain. Hefyd, Athrawiaeth y Bardd Glas o’r Gadair (Dolgellau, 1819). Iolo’s name was in no way attached to this 96-page booklet, which was published on behalf of ‘I. Llwyd’. The stimulus for producing it was said to be the dearth of copies of The Myvyrian Archaiology and its steep price (‘Mae y llyfrau hyny yn brinion, ac yn ormod pris i’r werin allu eu prynu’). See p. 3.

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(Eighteen blessed feats Were given to Gwgawn ap Rhys, And Gwgawn was given one bad feat That spoiled the other eighteen. )

At the foot of the page, keyed into the ending of this stanza, is a note: ‘Pa gamp ddrwg oedd hono? Ai ovn oedd? Iolo Morganwg’ (Which bad feat was that one? Was it fear? Iolo Morganwg). 139 The following discussion considers whether ‘fear’ in any way contributed to Iolo’s relationship with print culture, specifically in relation to the production (and subsequent history) of his bardic grammar, ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’. First of all a general overview will be taken of Iolo’s position with regard to the parallel worlds of published scholarship and the eisteddfodau, both of which opened up to him through his involvement with the Gwyneddigion Society from the 1770s onwards. The attractions (for the launching of the ‘Cyfrinach’) of the alternative world of the coterie audience will then be considered. Iolo’s expectations of his chosen ‘select group’ were in this case disappointed and may have pushed him towards multiple revisions of the work, which was eventually prepared for publication during the 1820s. The fact that one coterie refused to endorse his ingenious metrical system and that he was obliged to resort to a second group of potential supporters meant that personal factors feature strongly in the editorial apparatus of the posthumously published Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain. However, other issues also made an impact upon the editorial and scholarly apparatus of the final publication. Most pressing among them was Iolo’s sense that, in extreme old age, he needed to pass the baton of his bardic vision to a new generation. He also found himself, as he prepared extensive explanatory notes to accompany the text, quibbling with his younger self regarding minor aspects of the main thesis of the ‘Cyfrinach’, sections of which had been composed as early as the mid-1780s. He simultaneously took a revisionary view of some of the leading concepts in his life’s work through the apparatus of the published volume, showing his delight at the ingeniousness of his own metrical system and elevating the figure of the teuluwr or domestic bard, to whom he had attributed the forgeries of the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology. Recent scholarship has commented on the indirect courses taken by Iolo in order to reveal the secrets of his vision of Bardism to the world. Through intermediaries such as William Owen Pughe and Owain Myfyr, Iolo managed to graft his own ideas on to the publications of others, perhaps, as suggested by Cathryn A. Charnell-White, in an effort at ‘testing the waters’, or alternatively as

139

MAW, III, p. 45.

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‘a way of eschewing criticism’, to quote Geraint Phillips. 140 Iolo’s correspondence with Pughe and Owain Myfyr shows how he frequently imposed on their credulity by forwarding forged material with his letters, all of which was received in good faith. 141 Iolo was also able to impose himself on the literary productions of others simply through conversation: accounts of him appear in various degrees of disguise in the work of Benjamin Heath Malkin and Robert Southey; he was also deferentially referred to as a knowledgeable source by Sharon Turner. 142 Iolo’s Poems, Lyric and Pastoral provides the curious phenomenon of an authorial voice using its own work as a peg on which to hang and thus present to the world a host of additional and largely unrelated material, including forged Welsh triads and couplets falsely attributed to Dafydd ap Gwilym. Letting the voices of fictional or semi-fictional characters of his own making float in the manner of a ventriloquist in the work of others and in his own productions may be seen as the secret of Iolo’s successful imposition of his forgeries upon the public. Yet, it remains unclear whether the lack of public recognition to which this method of working condemned him satisfied his ego, since it called for the separation of his name from his work (and any fame attendant upon it). As Charnell-White has noted, as early as 1789 Iolo had made the claim that Bardism lived on in his own person, a claim which suggested that he must have wished to ensure his own centrality in (or control over) the world created by his forgeries to some degree at least. 143 The notion that Iolo was a living embodiment of Bardism suggests that not only did he wish to be viewed as central to the existence and continuation of the institution but that he also felt a degree of guardedness towards the world of

140

141

142

143

Bardic Circles, p. 24; Phillips, ‘Forgery and Patronage: Iolo Morganwg and Owain Myfyr’, pp. 408–9. For one such example of an early date, see CIM, I, pp. 159–64, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 10 July 1780. On Iolo’s excellence as a communicator in speech, see the evidence provided in Elijah Waring, Recollections and Anecdotes of Edward Williams, the Bard of Glamorgan, or, Iolo Morganwg (London, 1850), p. 68, referred to in Bardic Circles, p. 29. For Malkin’s portrait of Iolo, see Benjamin Heath Malkin, The Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography, of South Wales (2nd edn. , 2 vols. , London, 1807), I, pp. 195–204, and for Southey’s inclusion of ‘some lines in Madoc . . . intended to describe and gratify [Iolo]’, see Glenda Carr, William Owen Pughe (Caerdydd, 1983), pp. 256, 263. References to information supplied by Iolo, notably from ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’, are to be found in Sharon Turner, A Vindication of the Genuineness of the Ancient British Poems of Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, and Merdhin, with specimens of the poems (London, 1803), pp. 226–7. Damian Walford Davies’s uncovering of the Romantics’ attitude to Iolo (‘Poor Williams’) suggests that his presence in company was arresting, and not only in a pitiable sense. Damian Walford Davies, Presences that Disturb: Models of Romantic Identity in the Literature and Culture of the 1790s (Cardiff, 2002), pp. 167–76; idem, ‘“At Defiance”: Iolo, Godwin, Coleridge, Wordsworth’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 147–72. The claim that he and Edward Evan of Aberdare in Glamorgan were the sole remaining druidic Welsh bards is to be found in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1789. Bardic Circles, p. 14.

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print culture. For Iolo, publishing was perhaps the highest material aspiration, a goal for which, in the case of Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, he was prepared to make a gargantuan effort. Yet, it appears that he often held back from pursuing his ambition, not only because of practical obstructions, but because of his predilection for building ‘castles in the air’ or having ‘too many irons in the fire’, too many scraps of loose paper, intricately but obscurely connected, which dogged his progress. 144 ‘Ovn’ (fear) may also have been a factor in Iolo’s relationship with the world of print. In the earlier days, this can be accounted for by failed printing ventures such as ‘Diddanwch y Cymru’ (c. 1773). 145 This disappointment may lie behind his later lacklustre avowal to Owain Myfyr that he had no interest in publishing his extensive collection of Welsh vocabulary: ‘Yr wyf weithiau yn coleddu rhyw ledfeddyliau am ysgrifenu geirlyfr Cymraeg, nid iw argraffu, eithr iw gyflwyno i Gymdeithas y Cymrodorion neu i ryw lyfreugell arall’ (‘I sometimes cherish some vague plans of writing a Welsh vocabulary, not to be printed, but to present to the Cymmrodorion Society or to some other library’). 146 Owain Myfyr’s response reveals the change of attitude towards printing and the release of scholarship into the public domain which had occurred among Welsh men of letters in the late eighteenth century: Digrif ddigon dy glywaid yn son am ysgrifennu geirlyfr. Bardd pen xwiban yn myned i ymboeni a geirlyfr! Taw, taw Iorwerth! Cymwysax gwaith yw hwnnw i ben haiarn anghelfydd o fath Myfyr. Ai gladdu hefyd ai guddio mewn llyfrgell? Wfft iti bellax! Onid oes eisoes ormodedd o ysgrifennadau Cymreig yn y cyfryw ddiwyg a xaethiwed? A xwanegi di ynfydrwydd? Nid rhyfedd yn wir i’r hen feirdd wneuthur hynny gan nad oedd yn eu hamser hwy yn bod y gelfyddyd drefolaidd o argraphu. Na atto rhinwedd a gwladgarwx iti wneuthur felly ond bydded it hau ffrwyth dy gelfyddyd ac i eraill fedi dywenydd a gwybodaeth. (It is very amusing to hear you speak of writing a vocabulary. A frivolous poet bothering himself with a vocabulary! Hush, hush, Iorwerth! That is more appropriate work for a clumsy blockhead like Myfyr. And to bury it, too, and hide it in a library? Fie to you again! Is there not already a surfeit of Welsh writings in such a restricted condition? Will you add to stupidity? No wonder indeed the old bards did so because the urban craft of printing did not exist in their time. Let not virtue and patriotism allow you to do the same, but may you sow the seeds of your art, so that others may reap delight and knowledge. )147 144 145

146

147

For these considerations, see chapter 4. A letter to his brother Thomas in August 1774 shows that, even though now removed to Deal in Kent, Iolo still had plans to salvage ‘that indiscreet affair’ and ‘save [his] reputation’. CIM, I, p. 79, Iolo Morganwg to Thomas Williams, 26 August 1774; Jones, ‘“Gydwladwr Godi[d]og . . . ”: Gohebiaeth Gymraeg Gynnar Iolo Morganwg’, 151–2. CIM, I, pp. 174–5, 175 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 15 February 1781. Ibid. , pp. 180, 182 (trans. ), Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr) to Iolo Morganwg, [1 April 1781].

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Owain Myfyr was a hugely important figure in the process of overturning the ancient kind of ‘virtue and patriotism’ which locked up, guarded and refused access to, and the dissemination of, a body of poetry retained in manuscript form alone. 148 His generous sponsorship of The Myvyrian Archaiology triggered the replacement of this now outdated culture with a modern culture of print. That the change was not entirely smooth to Owain Myfyr on a personal level, and that it might have involved a degree of ‘fear’ for him as for Iolo, is suggested by his qualms at the possibility of being ‘sneered at’. His popularity and close involvement with the social side of the Gwyneddigion’s activities may have grated against this new persona of ‘publishing editor’ or sponsor. As shown in William Davies Leathart’s biography of the society, much of the impetus behind the establishment of the Gwyneddigion Society rested on the desire to promote Welshness in a convivial setting, encouraging practices such as penillion singing, which were absent from the older and more austere Cymmrodorion Society. 149 The catalogue of members, with their colourful cognomens, was the strongest binding feature of Leathart’s work, published in 1831. 150 Very little weight was placed on the society’s publications. True, Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym received due attention, but The Myvyrian Archaiology was mentioned only in passing in 1801, and was completely ignored in 1807, a year which ‘deserves mention, only for the publication of a volume of Welsh melodies, by M. Bartholomew’. 151 Composed on the basis of the evidence of still-surviving members, the biography’s gloss on the Gwyneddigion may have reflected the membership’s sense of what lay at the heart of the society. Moreover, the use of oral testimony, providing ‘such information as . . . books could not have afforded’, in itself strengthens the impression of a personality-based institution. 152 An important facet of the sociability of the society was the development from the late 1780s of the Gwyneddigion eisteddfodau, which were modelled on the

148

149

150 151 152

In ‘A Short Review’ Iolo attacked the affluent owners of important manuscripts for restricting access to their collections. MAW, I, p. ix. See also Truth against the World, p. 94. Conversely, those landowners who allowed editors access to their libraries (Paul Panton of Plas Gwyn, Anglesey, Thomas Johnes of Hafod Uchtryd and George Parker, Earl of Macclesfield) were acknowledged by means of flattering dedications at the beginning of the volumes. On the ‘shift in outlook’ which lay behind the planning and publication of The Myvyrian Archaiology, see Truth against the World, pp. 93–4. William Davies Leathart, The Origin and Progress of the Gwyneddigion Society of London instituted M.DCC.LXX (London, 1831), pp. 10–11. Ibid. , p. 15. Ibid. , pp. 19–20, 40, 45. Ibid. , pp. vi–vii. On Leathart and his connections with surviving members of the Gwyneddigion, see R. T. Jenkins and Helen M. Ramage, The History of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion and of the Gwyneddigion and Cymreigyddion Societies (1751–1951) (London, 1951), pp. 101–2.

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more informal poetical and musical meetings of the society from its earliest days. The management of such gatherings – and their conversion into large institutions – was arguably as significant to the development of a new sense of Welsh patriotism as the publication of ancient Welsh texts. Iolo’s attitude towards the eisteddfodau proved to be even more loaded with introspective sensitivity than his attitude towards what might be dubbed Owain Myfyr’s new ‘print culture patriotism’. In fact, when faced with what must have appeared to him the unsettling if not threatening scene of competitive meetings, print culture provided for Iolo a means of escape – a way of overriding the adjudicatory process and triumphing as an individual. Iolo’s sensitivity to criticism, especially from London-Welsh quarters, may have been aroused by an exchange in 1776 with Robert Hughes (Robin Ddu) and Owain Myfyr regarding his early strict-metre poem ‘Cywydd y Daran’. 153 When, in 1780, the Gwyneddigion Society held a competition for the best elegy to Richard Morris, the deceased former president of their sister institution, the Cymmrodorion Society, Iolo refused to take part, in spite of Owain Myfyr’s zealous encouragement. 154 It was only when the winners had long been announced that Iolo submitted an impressive elegy, urging Owain Myfyr to have it published, but sadly to no avail. 155 Iolo’s son Taliesin was evidently aware of this anti-competitive streak in his father. The older Iolo spurned the eisteddfodau of the newly-established Cymreigyddion societies in the 1820s, and his son’s love-hate relationship with them shows that he was torn between the desire to impress his contemporaries by playing a full part in the cultural revival at Merthyr Tydfil and elsewhere in south Wales at the time, and what appears to have been an inherited reluctance to compete, based in part at least on fear of

153

154

155

CIM, I, pp. 109–13, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 25 January 1776; ibid. , pp. 113–16, Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr) to Iolo Morganwg, [?February 1776]; ibid. , pp. 118–21, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), [?March 1776]. See also Jones, ‘“Gydwladwr Godi[d]og . . . ”: Gohebiaeth Gymraeg Gynnar Iolo Morganwg’, 154–5. CIM, I, pp. 165, 166 (trans. ), Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr) to Iolo Morganwg, 22 August 1780. Ibid. , pp. 204–10, 211–17 (trans. ), 217–18, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 2 September and 13 October 1782. It is clearly stated that Iolo deliberately delayed sending his cywydd ‘until [he] had heard that the Cymmrodorion had given the medal of honour to the best poet in their opinion to sing on the same subject’ (‘oni chlywn roddi o’r Cymrodorion eu bath anrhydedd ir bardd goreu yn eu barn hwy a ganasant ar yr un achos’).

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failure. 156 The intense prickliness of both father and son in the face of criticism is seen at its best in the saga of the competition to compose an ode ‘On the Shortest Day’ (‘Ar y Dydd Byrraf’) as revealed in a series of letters to one of the offending adjudicators, David Saunders (Dafydd Glan Teifi), written in March 1823. 157 Iolo was unable to overcome his susceptibility to being bruised by the competitiveness of the eisteddfodau. Fear of failure remained a strong disincentive. In 1791 he jokingly wrote to his London friends that he ‘hope[d] to be at the next eisteddfod, not as a candidate, but ym mantell Tegau Eurfron [in the cloak of Tegau Eurfron]’, thus envisaging his participation at such meetings incognito only. 158 The sense of fear and the need to disguise himself are both pertinent factors in his relaunch into print following the disastrous affair of ‘Diddanwch y Cymry’. Print made ventriloquism and disguise possible, even if it could only be attained through the patronage of the very people who sponsored the eisteddfodau – prominent members of the Gwyneddigion Society, whose acquaintance Iolo had made upon his arrival in London in the 1770s. Iolo’s fear of exposure or, in Lucy Newlyn’s phrase, ‘anxiety of reception’, developed against the backdrop of the culture of print, sponsored by the Gwyneddigion, and the parallel world of eisteddfod-driven social conviviality, which was virtually the sole preserve of the same society. 159 In the early days Iolo submitted himself with apparent good grace to the ribaldry and high spirits of the Gwyneddigion, while simultaneously showing reluctance to expose himself in print. 160 Yet, as the Richard Morris elegy competition shows, even as early as 1780 Iolo had begun to feel alienated from the social and eisteddfodic scene. By the late 1790s Owain Myfyr’s pleas that he should make his appearance at the ‘Crindy’, the hub of London-Welsh activity, were falling on deaf 156

157

158 159 160

Taliesin’s conflicting attitudes towards competitions are displayed in his letters to his father during the 1820s. Declarations of interest in competing at various meetings are to be found in CIM, III, pp. 674–5, 19 October 1823; ibid. , p. 716, 28 October 1824; ibid. , pp. 723–4, 8 May 1825. Contrary statements indicating the intention to cease competing for a variety of reasons, including the intemperance of the Merthyr poets, are to be found in ibid. , pp. 65–6, 12 September 1823; ibid. , pp. 729–30, 4 August 1825; ibid. , pp. 731–2, 28 September 1825. Iolo’s attitude towards his son competing is shown to be a mirror image of his own behaviour in the case of the Richard Morris elegy competition: ‘If you have given up your intention of becoming a competitor at Wrexham, I shall rejoice. Yet I would wish to persevere in attempting an ode on the subject and, if you can succeed, time enough to have ready printed at the time to take it with you there, but not as a competitor. ’ Ibid. , pp. 681–2, Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 22 March 1824. Ibid. , pp. 640–3, 643–8 (trans. ), 648–50, 650–2 (trans. ), pp. 652–4, 654–5 (trans. ). See also E. G. Millward, ‘Merthyr Tudful: Tref y Brodyr Rhagorol’ in Hywel Teifi Edwards (ed. ), Merthyr a Thaf (Llandysul, 2001), p. 22. CIM, I, p. 401, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 1 August 1791. Lucy Newlyn, Reading, Writing, and Romanticism: The Anxiety of Reception (Oxford, 2000), part 1. See Jones, ‘“Gydwladwr Godi[d]og”: Gohebiaeth Gymraeg Gynnar Iolo Morganwg’, 152–4, 157–8.

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ears, as Iolo put greater and greater distance between himself and London-Welsh society (‘Crindy orators frequently make enquiries about you. I have promised them as often that you would be shortly here. Dont make me tell men lies’). 161 Notwithstanding his aloofness, however, Iolo clearly did seek something from the London-Welsh scene. He was keen to explore the territory between the two extremes of outright exposure – print and eisteddfod – by tapping into the more serious, literary wing of the society. Like Wordsworth, who throughout his career ‘disclosed an almost paranoid fear that poets were at the mercy of a hostile reading-public’, Iolo found coterie audiences more palatable and was able to use them to advance the progress of Bardism into the public sphere. 162 The meeting point between verbal and written exchange in a coterie or literary club setting which lay beneath the public sphere of print culture is beautifully demonstrated in the manuscripts of David Samwell (Dafydd Ddu Feddyg), surgeon to Captain Cook and an active member of the Gwyneddigion. The surviving correspondence between Iolo and Samwell is peculiarly onesided: ten letters have been preserved in the latter’s pen, but none survive in Iolo’s hand. These letters of Samwell’s are characterized by their brevity, their undated status, and their predilection for expression in rhyme. They often simply tender Iolo friendly invitations to dinner, query his whereabouts, or postscript a companionable outing, such as that to Laurence Sterne’s grave, on 13 August 1791. 163 A sense of a culture of conversation cutting into the world of the written and printed word is further suggested by the handwritten marginalia to printed books owned by Samwell. 164 In one Samwell manuscript preserved in the National Library of Wales, the surgeon’s copy of Evan Evans’s Specimens has been bound with his copy of Rhys Jones’s Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru (1773) – two texts which must have helped shape and preserve his love of his native poetic tradition. 165 Notes inside these books in Samwell’s hand reveal that he took them with him on his distant overseas voyages: ‘David Samwell Uliatea Decr. 6th 1777’ notes one, and ‘David Samwell on board his Majesty’s Ship the Discovery Decr. 3d 1778’ another. 166 The value of these bound books to Samwell appears to have accumulated over time. Not only do they include 161

162 163

164

165

166

CIM, II, p. 149, Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr) to Iolo Morganwg, 25 October 1798. See also ibid. , I, pp. 722–3, Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr) to Iolo Morganwg, [?1795]. Newlyn, Reading, Writing, and Romanticism, pp. 92, 99–104. An invitation to dinner is to be found in CIM, I, pp. 633–4, [?1794]; Iolo is sought with some exasperation in a brief ditty in ibid. , p. 680, 7 June 1794; the poem ‘On visiting the grave of Sterne’ is to be found in ibid. , pp. 411–12, 21 August 1791, where not even Iolo’s address escaped Samwell’s urge to break into verse. For the notion of handwritten annotations as ‘conversations with books’, see Heather J. Jackson, Romantic Readers: The Evidence of Marginalia (London, 2005), chapter 2. See also chapter 3 below. David Samwell’s copies of Evans, Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards and Rhys Jones, Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru (Amwythig, 1773) are bound together in NLW 4582C. NLW 4582C, f. ii.

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his written responses to the printed texts (not always flattering in the case of Evans’s work), but they also appear to have been a repository for material relating to contemporary ‘bards’. The originally blank pages at the beginning and end of the bound printed volumes have been covered with information concerning a range of literary figures and quotations from their works. Material in Iolo’s hand is to be found among these notes. Under the heading ‘Beirdd Morganwg’ (The Bards of Glamorgan), the Flemingston bard had written a chain of names delineating the connection – via a system of pupilage – between the Elizabethan poet Llywelyn Siôn and ‘Dafydd Ddu’ himself. 167 The latter is listed among Iolo Morganwg’s disciples, together with ‘Gwilym Owain’ (Pughe), ‘Gwallter Mechain’ (Walter Davies), ‘Iago Twrbil’ (James Turberville), ‘Gwilym Ifan’ (unidentified) ‘ag eraill’ (and others). 168 To Iolo Morganwg’s name Samwell added a note, stating that he had written ‘yr hanes odduchod, heddyw Awst 26 1792 yn nh} Dafydd ddû Feddig no. 117 Lôn y Llyffethr, Llundain’ (the above account, today, August 26 1792, at Dafydd Ddu Feddyg’s house, no. 117, Fetter Lane, London). The excitement which this ritual must have provoked is easy to imagine. It was into this kind of select coterie setting that Iolo, in 1791, attempted to introduce one of the texts with which his own name has been associated most ostensibly (and notoriously) by posterity. 169 Iolo probably began work on ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ while incarcerated in Cardiff gaol for debt during 1786–7. Like his fictionalized alter ego, Robert, Duke of Normandy, imprisoned in Cardiff Castle in the twelfth century, he may have found himself drawn to writing poetry to while away the long hours of seclusion. 170 The poems served as examples of the various metres of a new system of Welsh versification, explained and described at length in the surrounding prose of Iolo’s bogus grammar. It was composed primarily in order to rectify the deficiencies which Iolo (and others before him, including the Anglesey-born Goronwy 167

168

169

170

Ibid. , ff. xv–xir. This material is quoted in Geraint and Zonia Bowen, Hanes Gorsedd y Beirdd (Abertawe, 1991), pp. 26–7, and in Bardic Circles, p. 138. NLW 4582C, f. xir. No reference to a Gwilym Ifan (?William Evan(s)) is to be found in Leathart’s Origin and Progress of the Gwyneddigion Society. With regard to Iago Twrbil, previous scholarship has suggested that he flourished between 1751 and 1787 (see CIM, I, p. 71, note 1). This note, however, suggests to the contrary. The marginalia to Iolo’s correspondence, discussed in chapter 4, includes a fascinating reference to Iago’s address which corroborates the evidence of Samwell’s manuscript, NLW 4582C, as to his turning in London circles: ‘James Turberville, No. 33 [——] Prison, [——] London’, NLW 21280E, no. 83. The note is to be found on a letter from Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain) to Iolo Morganwg, dated 28 July 1806 (CIM, II, pp. 800–2). For John Morris-Jones’s scathing attacks on Iolo’s classification of Welsh metres, see Cerdd Dafod, pp. 372–9, and also his article ‘Gorsedd Beirdd Ynys Prydain V’, Cymru, X, no. 59 (1896), 293–9, reprinted in Literary and Historical Legacy, pp. 200–6. For the accepted theories regarding the inception of ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’, see Williams: IM, pp. 376, 423, 443.

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Fig. 2 David Thomas, ‘Dafydd Ddu Eryri’, 1821, Oil.

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Owen) had perceived in the accepted classification of the Welsh metres, associated with the Carmarthen eisteddfod of c. 1453 and the name of Dafydd ab Edmwnd. 171 Rather than introduce the ‘Cyfrinach’ as his own work – a laudable, contemporary attempt at improving Welsh metrics – Iolo chose to promote the grammar by giving it a fictitious historical framework which lent it a degree of antiquity equal at least to that of Dafydd ab Edmwnd’s system. His own personal concern in its progress was written into the text, however, since it promoted the notion of a ‘chain’ of influences offered to Samwell for safekeeping in his bound copies of the works of Evan Evans and Rhys Jones, by bringing to life the voices of two of the earlier links in the chain – Llywelyn Siôn and Edward Dafydd – through the medium of one of the later links, Iolo himself. The launching of ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ must have relied strongly on Iolo’s own presence as a ventriloquist on behalf of his Glamorgan predecessors. By keeping the manuscript close to his person, Iolo controlled its dissemination, thereby avoiding the ‘anxiety of reception’ which plagued the printed authors of his day. Evidence for the nature of Iolo’s early intentions regarding the ‘Cyfrinach’ has survived in his correspondence. It confirms the view that the work was initially intended to impress a limited group rather than a larger and more impersonal public. The earliest clear reference is to be found in a letter from Dafydd Ddu Eryri in November 1791 in which he craves more information about the old metrics and the ‘Cyfrinach’ itself. 172 Shortly afterwards, in a mysterious letter to a friend, Dafydd Ddu wrote: y mae rhwymau (i gadw’r gyfrin) mewn grym o oes i oes, o Dad i fab, ac o fardd i fyrddiwn . . . y mae rhai pethau a allant fod yn llesol tra byddont yn gyfrinach rhwng ychydig. ond os dadguddir hwynt i’r cyffredin y maent yn colli eu gwerthfawrogrwydd, ac yn cael eu cam arferyd yr un peth a ellid ei ddywedyd am y Gyfrinach hon. 173 (There are bonds (to guard the secret) in operation from age to age, from father to son, and from [one] poet to a myriad . . . There are some things which can be beneficial while they are secrets between a few, but if revealed to the masses they lose their value, and are misused. The same may be said of this ‘Cyfrinach’. )

171

172

173

Ibid. , pp. 375–8; Bardic Circles, pp. 16–17; CIM, I, pp. 159–62, 162–4 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 10 July 1780. CIM, I, pp. 423–4, 424–6 (trans. ), David Thomas (Dafydd Ddu Eryri) to Iolo Morganwg, 1 November 1791. This letter was presumably in answer to a lost letter which we know that Iolo had been intending to write since 1 August 1791. See ibid. , p. 400, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 1 August 1791. NLW, Cwrtmawr 411B, no. 1, David Thomas (Dafydd Ddu Eryri) to John Roberts, 13 September 1791.

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Further dissemination in manuscript form among the privileged ‘few’ is attested during the 1790s and at the turn of the century: Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain) was offered a copy for transcription in 1795;174 Pughe badgered Iolo to bring the ‘Cyfrinach’ with him to London so that he could complete his copy of it in 1797, and repeated his request a year later;175 Hugh Maurice completed a copy in 1801 and was duly praised for his labours in an englyn by Robert Davies (Bardd Nantglyn). 176 Iolo’s concern about the reception of the work was reflected in his letter to Gwallter Mechain: After you have carefully read and considered the twenty four principles of versification, you will be convinced that all the metres that can be conceived belong to one or the other of those classes, or to some combination of any two, three, or more of them . . . I wish you may think it worth transcribing. I am very partial to the system, and wish it was extensively known. 177

The last phrase contradicts the sense of Iolo’s guardedness, and paves the way for the gradual change of view which led to several subsequent (often frustrated) attempts at bringing the ‘Cyfrinach’ into print. Yet, before Iolo began to speak of and plan publication, the nature of the project had changed dramatically. Writing in 1806, he claimed that the reception of the work had been marked by narrow-minded prejudice, both by Owain Myfyr and Siôn Ceiriog (stalwarts of the Gwyneddigion Society) and, later, when he took the book with him to north Wales in the summer of 1799, by Dafydd Ddu Eryri and John Williams, Llanrwst. 178 The implicit claims made in the ‘Cyfrinach’ regarding the superiority of its own Glamorgan classification over that of the north-Wales-born Dafydd ab Edmwnd apparently bruised the egos of these north Wales men. It may well have been this rejection of his work by its chosen audience which prompted Iolo to seek publication. Pughe’s offers to print the work were greeted with prevarication. 179 Iolo presumably felt the need to find a new 174

175

176

177 178 179

CIM, I, pp. 723–4, Iolo Morganwg to Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain), 7 January 1795. NLW 1673B contains extracts from the ‘Cyfrinach’ in Davies’s hand, probably copied from an early draft rather than from the printed version. NLW 13228C contains Pughe’s 1800 transcript of the ‘Cyfrinach’, up to the end of the thirteenth chapter. For his requests for Iolo’s copy in order to complete his own, see CIM, II, p. 28, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 12 August [?1797]; ibid. , p. 73, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 1 April 1798. The englyn by Robert Davies is to be found in NLW 13236B, p. 20; the transcript itself is in NLW 122C. CIM, I, p. 723, Iolo Morganwg to Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain), 7 January 1795. Ibid. , II, pp. 741–2, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 12 January 1806. For Pughe’s offers, see CIM, II, pp. 705–6, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 18 September 1805; ibid. , pp. 768–9, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 4–5 March 1806. It is worth noting that Samwell, a friend on whose support Iolo might have been able to depend, had died in 1798.

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avenue for printing the work, untainted by the patronage of the north Wales Londoners. As early as 1804 he mentioned the name of the Carmarthen printer John Evans as a possible ally. 180 The search for a new audience among his south Wales acquaintances gathered pace from this very year, when Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi), recently released from Carmarthen gaol, expressed his delight at the ‘Cyfrinach’ – ‘a very excellent treasure’ (‘trysor tra rhagorol’) – upon which he reflected with increasing respect and recognition of its value. 181 During 1805 Glyn Cothi produced two transcripts of the text. 182 Another interested party was Iolo’s own son, Taliesin, who wrote from his lodgings at David Davis’s Neath Academy in 1813: ‘I want J. D. Rhys very much, & “Cyfrinach y Beirdd”. Send both in the box. ’183 Manuscript circulation continued within Wales when Peter Bailey Williams, rector of Llanrug and Llanberis, prepared a transcript in 1818. 184 The turning point for the work, however, occurred when the Powys Cymmrodorion undertook to publish it, following the successful first provincial eisteddfod under their auspices, held at Carmarthen in 1819. At the turn of the New Year, 1821, Taliesin ab Iolo attended a meeting of literary-inclined Welsh clerics at Kerry in Montgomeryshire on his aged father’s behalf, and was pleased to report that these men – the founders of the Powys Cymmrodorion Society – were ‘unanimous in their wish to have [the ‘Cyfrinach’] published immediately’. The only possible obstacle might have been that Iolo’s copy had possibly vanished forever with Eliezer Williams (the brother of Peter Bailey Williams), to whom it had been lent following the Carmarthen eisteddfod, and who had died in January 1820. 185 However, Taliesin was quickly able to dispel any fears on that account. He was aware that Peter Bailey Williams had a transcript and had written to him on the subject. If that were to fail, Taliesin claimed, ‘Dewi Silin has a copy verbatim et literatim’. 186 The whole history of the tentative introduction of the ‘Cyfrinach’ to the world first via one coterie, then via another, is built into the ‘edition’ of the work (heavily freighted with bogus scholarly apparatus) which Iolo prepared for 180 181

182 183 184 185 186

Ibid. , p. 640, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 9 November 1804. Ibid. , pp. 629, 630 (trans. ), Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi) to Iolo Morganwg, 17 October 1804. See NLW 1367A and NLW 4430B. CIM, III, p. 167, Taliesin Williams to Iolo Morganwg, 7 August 1813. The transcript is to be found in NLW 817B. CIM, III, p. 598, Iolo Morganwg to [?Thomas Burgess], 10 November 1821. For Taliesin’s letter, see CIM, III, p. 582, Taliesin Williams to Iolo Morganwg, 26 January 1821. David Richards’s copy is to be found in NLW, Cwrtmawr 232C. B. G. Owens and R. W. Macdonald (eds. ), A Catalogue of the Cwrtmawr Manuscripts (Aberystwyth, 1980), I, p. 268, indicates that the latter was copied from Hugh Maurice’s 1801 transcript (NLW 122C), and that the paper bears an 1811 watermark. Maurice’s variants in orthography have been retained. For Iolo’s successful trip to Carmarthenshire in search of the ‘Cyfrinach’, see CIM, III, pp. 598–9, Iolo Morganwg to [?Thomas Burgess], 10 November 1821. NLW 13177B, p. v, includes a note indicating that the manuscript had been borrowed by Eliezer Williams.

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publication following the triumphant meeting at Kerry. 187 What Iolo felt to be a rejection of the work by its first chosen audience led to a politicization of the printed version (in terms of a north–south divide), as argued by Cathryn A. Charnell-White, who relates the shift in patronage to ‘the transformation of the primacy of Glamorgan from the subtext in its earliest manuscript manifestation to the main thesis in the printed text of Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’. 188 That the ‘Cyfrinach’ was far from being a finished product when Iolo emerged from Cardiff gaol in 1787, or reached London in 1791, is in little doubt. Charnell-White dubs it ‘a “History of the Bards” manqué ’ and relates it to Iolo’s lifetime ambition of producing a complete historical account of Welsh Bardism. 189 Whenever publication was in view, the ‘Cyfrinach’ changed, chameleon-like; it assumed additional parts or even prepared to subject itself to ‘abridgement’. 190 Iolo’s personal sense of chagrin towards north Wales is clearly revealed in the final, published version, which appeared posthumously in 1829. As Charnell-White points out, Iolo’s ‘scathing footnotes’ (for which Taliesin offered a mild apology in the introduction to the publication)191 were aimed at contemporaries from Gwynedd, such as Dafydd Ddu Eryri and William Owen Pughe, and not simply at the historical figure of Dafydd ab Edmwnd, whom Iolo blamed for the propagation of a metrical system which ‘consists in nothing but what every man of sense will confess to be disgraceful to human reason’. 192 In spite of the cantankerousness displayed in the notes to the ‘Cyfrinach’, however, the ‘editing’ of the work did not rest solely on Iolo’s animus against north Wales. To appreciate its mission in its entirety calls for a consideration both of the development of the text itself, and that of its apparatus and editorial outlook. A prominent feature of the 1829 version was the presence of two Gwynedd bardic grammars, those of Simwnt Fychan and Tudur Aled. 193 Iolo politicized the question of their inclusion and indicated the part played by the poets of north Wales, ‘all in an uproar against me’, in the decision to include Tudur Aled’s treatise in addition to his own preferred version, that of Simwnt Fychan (‘the best treatise by far that was ever written on the Northwalian system of versification’). 194 Yet, as he pointed out at the same time, Llywelyn Siôn, scribe of the earliest surviving copy of the ‘Cyfrinach’, had also intended to include the

187

188 189 190 191 192 193 194

The work was finally published posthumously as Edward Williams, Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain (Abertawy, 1829). Bardic Circles, p. 35. Ibid. , p. 37. CIM, II, p. 749, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 6 February 1806. CBYP, p. xv. CIM, III, p. 622, Iolo Morganwg to [David Lewis Jones], 6 May 1822; Bardic Circles, pp. 35–7. CBYP, pp. 171–206, 223–8. CIM, III, p. 622, Iolo Morganwg to [David Lewis Jones], 6 May 1822.

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‘system of Tudur Aled’. The idea of placing his own system of versification in parallel with that of the status quo was thus an ingrained part of the production, rather than an afterthought. Further evidence of this is to be found in Iolo’s communications with Pughe during 1806: I did not intend it [the ‘Cyfrinach’] in preference . . . [to] the north Walian system. I intend, indeed, that it should appear in competition with that, but not to the exclusion of a single iota of the Northwalian system, for I have by me a great variety of systems that have in different ages prevailed, and so far from be[ing] inclined to suppress either of them am I, that nothing could prevail with me to do [so]. I would not upon any account do it. I would not so violate the fidelity of history. 195

This defence of his intentions was followed a month later by a ‘copy of a manuscript treatise on Welsh versification by Captain Middleton’, which Iolo claimed to have found in the (spurious) John Bradford copy of the ‘Cyfrinach’, intended ‘as an appendix’ to teach the Carmarthen system. 196 He offered to send ‘an abstract or abridgement of the principles of versification in “Cyfrinach y Beirdd”’ to be published alongside Midleton’s treatise in the Greal, a London-Welsh publication. 197 This ‘abridgement’ was put forward with a view to producing, as if in parallel, texts setting out both the south and north Wales systems. This, Iolo claimed, ‘would be laying both systems before the public, leaving [them] to judge of each as they please’. 198 The similarities with the layout of the ‘Brutiau’ – both forged and authentic – are clear. Again, the idea of placing authentic (or at least semi-authentic, as in the case of Iolo’s adaptation of Midleton’s work) and forged material side by side reveals Iolo’s overwhelming confidence in his own work and in both the excellent taste and the critical and scholarly ineptitude of his audience. Since poetry was a thriving concern in Welsh circles throughout Iolo’s lifetime, to formulate a head-to-head contest for supremacy between one system and another was not merely an academic exercise or an attempt to hoodwink

195 196

197 198

Ibid. , II, p. 741, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 12 January 1806. Ibid. , pp. 745–6, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 6 February 1806. The copy in Iolo’s hand which was sent to Pughe is to be found in NLW 13229B, ff. 1r–26v, dated ‘Flimstone in Glamorgan, second of February 1806’ (‘Trefflemin ym Morganwg Chwefror yr ail, 1806’). Iolo had a similar copy among his own manuscripts, in NLW 13096B, pp. 201–36, and it appears that the treatise was of his own making. Iolo’s manner of explaining the existence of this document is characteristically convoluted. As the preface to the Ioloic version explains, the authentic grammar of William Midleton (Gwilym Ganoldref ) had already been published twice, once during Midleton’s lifetime. Edward Dafydd, collator of the ‘Cyfrinach’, found a copy different from the printed one, which Iolo described as a version amended by Midleton post-publication. NLW 13229B, f. 2r. CIM, II, p. 749, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 6 February 1806. Ibid.

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the public. Taliesin’s apology for Iolo’s wounding footnotes in the printed Cyfrinach touches on his father’s real interest in ensuring that the Welsh language and its literature thrived: Bernir, fe allai, bod rhai o’i sylwadau cwrr dalen yn lled flaenllym, ond gallaf ymhelaethu, yn gydwybodol, na tharddasant, yn y mesur lleiaf, oddiwrth unrhyw deimlad anghyfeillgar, eithr oddiwrth ei wrthneuaeth i’r llygredigaeth ag oedd ef yn ei weled yn ymdannu dros y Iaith Gymraeg; ag yn ei hollol annhrefnu. Yr oedd gantho barch mawr, fal y rhan fwyaf, i ymdrechiadau gwladgar gwrthddrychau ei wrthddadl, ond yn cyfrif dyledswydd arno i gyhuddio camsyniadau. 199 (Some of his marginal comments will, perhaps, be considered rather severe, but I can assure, with good conscience, that they did not in the least measure spring from any unfriendly feeling, but from his objection to the corruption which he saw spreading over the Welsh language and rendering it in a state of complete disorder. Like most, he had great respect for the patriotic efforts of the objects of his opposition, but considered it his duty to expose errors. )

However much we may chuckle at this unlikely vision of a genial old Iolo, the sense of wanting to infuse new life into the poetic institutions of Wales was central to the ‘Cyfrinach’. From its covert origins among the bardic fraternity of Glamorgan in the 1780s, where Iolo was revered as a poetic genius, to Iolo’s disappointed expectation that it should be viewed as ‘a valuable acquisition amply supplying the defects of the common system’, to his steadfast sidelining of the Gwyneddigion and the provincial eisteddfodau, there are ample indications that Iolo had hoped that his own system would gain the patronage of the establishment. Much of the editorial apparatus – both prefaces and copious footnotes – were geared towards spurring others to evaluate the state of literary production within Wales. An incomplete draft of an ‘English Preface’ to the ‘Cyfrinach’ in Iolo’s late hand, in which he simply could not refrain from attacking Pughe, ‘who from the original ran[k] of a Cattle Drover’s boy is come say a pig drover s boy by {his} dint of the most assuming assonance . . . ’, was in essence a plea for the improvement of Welsh letters. 200 Notwithstanding the glories of the past – including the translation of the Bible, several dictionaries and grammars, and a versification of the psalms ‘greatly superior to that of Sternhold and Hopkins’ – Welsh poetry ‘soon became Stationary, and tho capable of being improved into excellency still remains in its infant [sic] excepting a few Instances . . . indeed notwithstanding the number of our

199 200

CBYP, p. xv. NLW 13157A, p. 214.

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present Publications we cannot say that our Literature is improving’. 201 One of the footnotes to the published Cyfrinach reiterated the sense of needing to review the metrical system and produce a version which would even be an improvement on Iolo’s own: Pei cynnullid yr holl fesurau amrafaelion a welir yn aml yng ngwaith Hen Feirdd gwir awengamp Gwynedd, a’u trefnu’n reolaidd herwydd rhyw ag ansawdd, yn Gwlwm neu Ddosparth gelfyddbwyll, nid mawr y byddai’r gwahaniaeth ryngthi a Dosparth Morganwg, ag fe allai y byddai’n well, yn gymmaint a bod mwy o wir oleuni gwybodaeth ym mhob celfyddyd a rhywiogaethau dysgeidiaeth, am danom yr oes honn, yn des haf cannaid, nag a welwyd yn yr oesoedd y cynnullwyd, y deallwyd, ag y trefnwyd Dosparth Morganwg. Ymroed rhyw ddyn goleubwyll, at hynn o waith; Beirdd Powys! y mae rhai o honoch wedi rhoi llaw ar y gorchwyl, ewch rhagoch. Cam dros y trothwy yw hanner y daith; Llaw ar y gorchwyl yw hanner y gwaith. Medd diarheb odledig gyffredin ym Morganwg. Yr Eryr, medd hen ddiarhebcoel, yw’r unig creadur mewn bod, a ddichon, gan mor gryf ei lygaid, edrych ar yr haul; rhowch glust, chwi Eryron cylch y Wyddfa! cywion Dafydd Ddu! trowch eich golygon at nattur, at wir egwyddorion ymbwyll, at gyfiawn ansawdd celfyddyd. Edrychwch atti; nag ymlwygwch yn ol; rhag cael eich cyfrif ym mhlith BON Y GLER. IOLO MORGANWG. 202 (If all the various metres which are often seen in the work of the truly inspired old bards of Gwynedd were assembled and arranged regularly, according to kind and class, into a group or classification of expert judgement, there would be no great difference between it and the Glamorgan classification, and perhaps it would be better, in so far as we are surrounded by more of the true light of knowledge in each art and each branch of learning in this age, like the haze of a bright summer, than was seen in the ages when the Glamorgan classification was assembled, interpreted and arranged. May some man of enlightened sense apply himself to this task. The bards of Powys! Some of you have already put your hand to the task. Go forth. A step over the threshold is half the journey; A hand to the task is half the labour, says a common rhyming proverb in Glamorgan.

201 202

Ibid. CBYP, pp. 182–3.

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The eagle, according to the old proverbial belief, is the only creature in existence who may look at the sun, on account of his strong eyes. Listen, you eagles of Snowdonia! Chicks of Dafydd Ddu! Turn your sights towards nature, to the real principles of sense, to the rightful qualities of art. Look to it; do not bend yourselves backwards, lest you should be numbered among the lowest class of poets. Iolo Morganwg. )

Although a measure of partisanship was evident in the wholehearted support given to the Powys bards, and the attempt to hijack the ‘Eagles’ of Dafydd Ddu Eryri, an avowed enemy, Iolo appears to be outlining a genuine project for research and improvement here. Not least among the tools of such a project would be his own work, notably the ‘Cyfrinach’. Iolo, in fact, had been calling for the study of his spurious grammar for some time and, as indicated in the preface to the printed Cyfrinach, was content with the results of the researches of Gwallter Mechain. 203 An important function of the editorial apparatus to the published work may thus be said to be the encouragement of its readers’ critical involvement – as individuals and bardic fraternities – with the ideas which it presented, almost irrespective of their historical basis and with a view to fine-tuning Welsh prosody and rendering it as perfect as humanly possible. As Iolo himself claimed with regard to improving the state of Welsh poetry in his unfinished preface to the work, pieced together by his son after his death: ‘Yn hynny gellir dywedyd am danaf, yng ngeiriau’r brenin Dafydd, fy mod wedi pentyrru golud (yn fy marn fy hunan o leiaf ) ag nis gwnn pwy a’i casgl’ (In this respect it can be said of me, in King David’s words, that I have provided a heap of wealth (in my own opinion at least) and I do not know who will gather it). 204 The process of editing the ‘Cyfrinach’ for publication in the 1820s may well have also presented itself to Iolo as one of studious reconsolidation and refinement. The development of the work is represented by the changes between the copies found in NLW 13177B and in NLW 21320B, manuscripts to which Iolo referred, respectively, as ‘Ysgrif hen’ (old copy) and ‘ysgrif y Gwasg’ (press

203

204

For an appreciative comment regarding Gwallter Mechain’s winning 1819 essay, published in Two Essays, on the Subjects Proposed by the Cambrian Society in Dyfed, which gained the respective prizes, at the Eisteddfod, held at Caermarthen, in July, 1819 (Caermarthen, 1822), and discussed further in chapter 3, see CBYP, p. xvii. Gwallter had been encouraged to study the ‘Cyfrinach’ from as early as 1795. See CIM, I, pp. 723–4, Iolo Morganwg to Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain), 7 January 1795. The same plan of study was proposed to Pughe in 1804: ‘take half a year to study the Welsh prosody and versification. Begin with John David Rhys and end with “Cyfrinach y Beirdd”. ’ Ibid. , II, pp. 638–9, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 9 November 1804. CBYP, p. xv.

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copy). 205 Besides notes denouncing his enemies and challenging his Powysian friends to produce a bardic treatise to equal the ‘Cyfrinach’, Iolo’s ‘press copy’ demonstrates that he needed to make corrections to his own earlier work, and his techniques for doing so made use of the experience which he had accumulated in pseudo-editing since the production of the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology nearly twenty years earlier. One such technique was to make claims regarding the obscurity of the original manuscript. Iolo’s ‘old copy’ of the dissertation on the Welsh language, attributed to Llywelyn Siôn, included the words ‘ag y mae’r Gymraeg a’i golwg ar bob peth yn uniongyrch at y nod cyfiawn, ag at sylwedd ai medr’ (and the Welsh language looks in everything directly towards the just goal, and to sylwedd ai medr). 206 The last three words were underlined in a later hand, and queried in the margin with two question marks. Iolo presumably had difficulty understanding what he himself had meant by the words when he came to read them again. In his press copy (and the printed version of the Cyfrinach) he added a note to these words: ‘Nid hawdd deall y cynysgrif yma, achos briw ynddo’ (It is not easy to understand the original manuscript here, because of damage to it). 207 Such a strategy at this point had a threefold purpose. It satisfied Iolo’s urge to control the contents of his published work and to ensure its correctness; it eliminated a textual anomaly to which others (who had seen and made transcripts of the ‘Cyfrinach’) would have already been party; and it invoked the existence of a ‘cynysgrif ’ – an old, authentic manuscript copy lying behind Iolo’s edited version. Elsewhere, Iolo clearly came across examples which he now considered to be erroneously classified. One such, attributed to Dafydd Llwyd Matthew, was presented as a ‘Proest cyfnewidiog Triban’ in Iolo’s ‘old copy’. 208 Sideways in the margin he inserted a note, presumably at a later date, which reads: ‘Nid Proest yw hwnn mae’n debig i’r awdur gamsynied o wallofal ag anghof yma. Jn. Bradford’ (This is not a proest. The author probably made a mistake here due to negligence and forgetfulness. Jn. Bradford). 209 In Iolo’s ‘press copy’ the erroneous example was extracted and replaced by two others, one of which was accompanied by an intriguing anecdote about a pair of infant twins who escaped from their beds at night to visit Llangynwyd churchyard where their mother was buried:

205

206 207 208 209

See NLW 21320B, f. 100r. The two manuscripts will henceforth be referred to in the discussion under the titles of ‘old copy’ and ‘press copy’. All references given will be to the manuscript numbers. NLW 13177B, p. 14. NLW 21320B, f. 14r; CBYP, p. 14. NLW 13177B, p. 132. Ibid.

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Y Tywydd brwnt o’u bronn, Gwynt a glaw hyd gerllaw’r Llann, Dann nawdd a’u gwelawdd Duw Gwynn

Dafydd Edward o Fargam ai cant, am frawd a chwaer gefellod dan deirblwydd oed yn dianc o’u gwely liw nos yn y Pîl ag yn myned i Fynwent Llangynwyd i ymofyn am eu Mam a gladdesid yno. 210

(The foul weather against their bosoms, Wind and rain until [they were] within reach of the church, Under the protection of our blessed Lord, who saw them. )

(Dafydd Edward of Margam sang it, about a twin brother and sister under three years of age who escaped from their bed at Pyle at night time and went to Llangynwyd churchyard to search for their mother who had been buried there. )

The material is then footnoted with the information that it came from the ‘Llanharan manuscript’ of the ‘Cyfrinach’. 211 Iolo therefore conveniently ‘discovered’ another source for his work as a pretext for correcting a mistake of his own. By adding a pathetic anecdote to his second replacement example he glossed over the error and ensured that his reader appreciated the value of the stand-in Llanharan manuscript. A third instance of Iolo’s disagreement with himself over the contents of the ‘Cyfrinach’ is to be found in the Triads (‘Trioedd Cerdd’) which precede the treatise’s foray into the intricacies of Welsh metrics. Iolo’s ideas about the bardic order – its Gorseddau, rites and membership – were subject to revision throughout his lifetime. 212 On the subject of the classes of members and their various functions, Iolo’s writings are both profuse and contradictory. A draft which Cathryn A. Charnell-White has related to Pughe’s essay on Bardism in The Heroic Elegies and Other Pieces of Llywarç Hen (1792) contained a list of five orders, including the Druid and the Ovate. 213 An essay of a similar date (the early 1790s) mentioned a division into ‘four essential classes’. 214 Yet another, undated, essay, published posthumously in the Iolo Manuscripts, claimed that ‘The bards of the island of Britain are divided into three kindred orders’ (‘Tair Achen wahanred y sydd ar Feirdd Ynys Prydain’) and named them as ‘poets, or primitive bards positive, called also – Primitive bards according to the original institution’, ‘Ovates’ and ‘Druids’ (‘Prydydd, sef Prifardd pendant, neu Brifardd Cyssefin’, ‘Ofydd’, and ‘Derwydd’). 215 None of these essays mention 210 211 212 213 214 215

NLW 21230B, f. 100r. Ibid. , f. 100v. Bardic Circles, pp. 122–3. Ibid. , pp. 172–4. Ibid. , p. 183. Iolo Manuscripts, pp. 54–5, 437.

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the name teuluwr; yet, this figure featured in the ‘Trioedd Cerdd’ included in the ‘Cyfrinach’ from its earliest known manifestation. 216 G. J. Williams argued that one of the main spurs to the creation of the ‘Cyfrinach’ was Iolo’s desire to explain what was recounted in the authentic medieval bardic grammars about ‘Domestic Poetry’ (‘Cerdd Deuluaidd’). Iolo believed that the term indicated free-metre as opposed to cynghanedd or strict-metre poetry. 217 More recently Huw Meirion Edwards has argued that the section in the ‘Cyfrinach’ on this particular kind of poetry was Iolo’s ‘greatest departure from tradition’, and thus by implication the crux of the work’s originality. 218 Revising his triads for publication, Iolo appears to have disliked his earlier representation of the teuluwr (the domestic poet) and of the membership of the order in general. To a triad naming as the three poets (cerddor) the bard, the ovate and the domestic poet (‘Tri rhyw Gerddor y sydd; Bardd, Ofydd*, a Theuluwr*’) Iolo added the note: ‘*Yr un peth, a’r un parth Gradd, yw Derwydd a Theuluwr, medd Meyryg Dafydd’ (The Druid and the Domestic Poet are the same thing, and of the same kind of grade, says Meurig Dafydd). 219 In another essay, dated c. 1815 by Charnell-White, Iolo expressed the same view as his alter ego, Meurig Dafydd, in what was clearly an attempt to elevate the teuluwr and his kind of poetry to the status of the universally-revered Druid. The contribution of the teuluwr was described as the composition of the kind of material which was published in the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology. Simplified in terms of metre, his work ‘was adapted to [the] understanding and general mental acquirements of families, of youth, females, servants, and those in general of the lower classes, who equally with the higher and more learned, were entitled to and equally wanted instruction and mental information as well as amusement’. 220 This concentration of attention in c. 1815 on the teuluwr – the figure and the ideal behind the forgeries in the third volume – shows Iolo’s renewed interest in elevating his own agenda both in terms of metrics and in promoting the importance of morally weighty contents. 221 A second attempt in the early

216

217 218

219

220 221

NLW 13170B (ii), pp. 46–8, contains triads nos. 1–40, one of which includes a reference to the teuluwr. Ibid. , p. 47. Williams: IM, p. 57. Huw Meirion Edwards, ‘A Multitude of Voices: The Free-Metre Poetry of Iolo Morganwg’ in Rattleskull Genius, p. 107. NLW 21230B, f. 40r; CBYP, p. 44. No note is to be found in the equivalent place in NLW 13177B, p. 49. Bardic Circles, pp. 251, 264. The strength of Iolo’s interest in the teuluwr preceded the publication of The Myvyrian Archaiology’s third volume and was intimately related to its contents. See CIM, II, p. 410, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 31 January 1802; ibid. , p. 689, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 30 July 1805. Notes on the teuluwr and two sets of ‘Triads of the Domestic poet’ (‘[T]rioedd y Teuluwr’), dated post 1809, are to be found in NLW 13087E, pp. 244, 245–6. The notes place the teuluwr in the context of bardic ritual. See ibid. , p. 244.

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‘Cyfrinach’ triads to place the teuluwr within the bardic orders was dismissed out of hand in the published version: Tri rhyw Gerddor Tafod y sydd; Bardd, ag arno y mae canu yn gelfydd ar fawl a doethineb, ag Ofydd, ag arno y mae canu ar serch a diddanwch; a Theulüwr, ag arno y mae canu er lles a diddanwch gwaith y Bardd a’r Ofydd*. *Amlwg yw nad oedd Awdur y Trioedd uchod yn deall yn iawn beth oedd gwir Ddefodau Beirdd Ynys Prydain. Gweler Trefn Gorsedd ar ddiwedd y Llyfr hwnn. 222 (There are three kinds of poet: the Bard, and he must sing skilfully in praise and with wisdom; the Ovate, and he must sing of love and amusement; and the Domestic poet, and he must sing for the benefit and amusement of the work of the Bard and the Ovate*. *It is obvious that the author of the above triads did not properly understand the real rites of the Bards of the Isle of Britain. See the Gorsedd Order at the end of this book. )

To suggest, as is done here, that the function of the teuluwr was simply to facilitate the reception of the Bard’s and Ovate’s work was clearly anathema to Iolo by the 1820s and militated against his attempt to secure a place in history for the marginalized triadical and aphoristical genres, as well as for free-metre poetry. His earlier relaxed attitude towards the figure of the teuluwr possibly stemmed from his confidence in the value of his work on the free metres of Welsh poetry. By the 1820s, however, the teuluwr had amassed a range of other functions, including the task of carrying on his shoulders the weight of the third volume’s forgeries. Issues relating to authenticity in the whole of Iolo’s œuvre thus made their way into the notes for this final publication. From its inception, the ‘Cyfrinach’ was a multilayered work, and Iolo’s part in its creation was disguised by his insistence that it had many authors. Huw Meirion Edwards has noted Iolo’s ‘uncanny ability to adopt a multitude of styles and voices’ in his free-metre poetry in the ‘Cyfrinach’ and beyond. 223 But it was not only the poetic examples of the ‘Cyfrinach’ which drew on a number of disparate voices. The main thesis to the earliest version, the opening address of Llywelyn Siôn, presented the work as a treasure handed down from generation to generation, and named Lewys Morgannwg and Meurig Dafydd as Llywelyn’s predecessors in the labour of assembling material for the unique 222

223

CBYP, pp. 46–7. The note also appears in NLW 21320B, f. 42r, but is not to be found in NLW 13177B. The promised ‘Gorsedd Order’ did not in fact appear in Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain (1829). Edwards, ‘A Multitude of Voices’, p. 121.

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and ancient Glamorgan classification. To the basic tenets of the classification, Llywelyn Siôn added examples, some of them from the work of ‘authoritative bards’ (‘beirdd awdurdodawl’), others from his own pen. 224 Llywelyn Siôn’s treatise was sufficiently complete to be published, according to Iolo’s fictionalized account. It was only the vissicitudes of a ‘half-reformed priesthood’ (which Iolo characterized as the remains of ‘popish tyranny’ or ‘the Church-andKingism of those days’) that prevented him from doing so. 225 Additions were made by Edward Dafydd ‘about 200 years’ later. 226 This adding of a layer clearly indicated a development in the production of the work – whether because its publication in the 1790s was hindered by Church-and-Kingism or not. As Iolo prepared his final ‘press copy’, the desire further to muddy the authorial waters was apparently irresistible. Although the urge to provide additional examples (as was purportedly done by Edward Dafydd) was by and large rejected, several new attributions to existing examples were made. ‘Lewys Morgannwg sang it to Neath Abbey (the time of Henry the Seventh)’ (‘Lewys Morganwg a’i cant, i Fonachlog Glynn Nedd, (amser Harri’r Seithfed)’) claimed one such note; ‘Dafydd o’r Nant’, according to tradition’ (‘Dafydd o’r Nant, medd Traddodiad’), said Iolo in another, expounding on the ‘I know not who sang it’ (‘Ni wn i pwy a’i cant’) of the earlier text. 227 The most significant new voice, however, was that of John Bradford, Iolo’s own bardic teacher. 228 By ensuring that Bradford’s presence imposed itself on the text at regular intervals, Iolo nearly elevated him to the role of co-editor of the published ‘Cyfrinach’. His first appearance was in a strictly editorial mode, and noted with his initials, ‘I. B. ’: ‘Yr hynn a welir ymma rhwng nodau cynghlo [fal hynn] ag mewn mannau eraill, geiriau EDWARD DAFYDD ydynt, a’u cynnysgrif mewn ingc coch. I. B. ’ (The words between square brackets [thus] here and elsewhere, are those of Edward Dafydd, and found in red ink in the original manuscript. I. B. ). 229 This refers back to Iolo’s ‘old copy’ of the ‘Cyfrinach’ which was written in ink of two different colours, with the linking prose sections in red. To mention here the colour scheme of the ‘old copy’ is to privilege those who

224 225 226

227 228

229

NLW 13170B (ii), p. 5. Bardic Circles, pp. 169–70. Ibid. , p. 170. Note that Edward Dafydd is nowhere to be seen in the earliest manuscript source, that of NLW 13170B (ii). CBYP, pp. 130, 146–7. So Iolo claimed in his marginalia to Samwell’s copies of Evans’s Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards and Jones’s Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru. See NLW 4582C, f. xv: ‘Dysgyblion Sion Bradford oeddynt Mr. Lewis Hopkin, a fu farw ynghylch 1770, y Parchedig Edward Evan o Aberdaer, ym Morganwg, yn awr yn fyw (1792) a Iolo Morganwg, neu Iorwerth Gwilym’ (Siôn Bradford’s pupils were Mr Lewis Hopkin, who died around 1770, the Revd Edward Evan of Aberdare in Glamorgan, now living (1792) and Iolo Morganwg or Iorwerth Gwilym). CBYP, p. 58.

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had access to Iolo’s ‘transcript’ of it and suggest the materiality of the tradition behind the published work. 230 Curiously, however, Bradford then went on to use square brackets for his own intrusions to the text as much as those of Edward Dafydd, so that the reader’s understanding of the provenance of much of the prose sections is ambivalent. Bradford’s intrusions were, on the whole, brief and to the point. They usually simply added alternative names to some of the metrical classes, or offered brief glosses on the text. 231 At one point he entered an unresolved argument about the excellence or otherwise of an example taken from the poetry of Lewys Morgannwg. The main text, that of Edward Dafydd, prevaricated as to whether the example was a ‘gwagorchest’ (an empty feat) or a ‘[g]orchest ragorwaith’ (an excellent feat); Bradford was prepared to commit himself to declaring the excellence of the example, noting how the parts of the stanza were linked together by the devices of the toddaid or through the medium of rhyme (‘Gellit barnu mai hwnn sydd orau fal Toddaid, am fod yr holl rannau yn ymgadwyno’n doddeidgyrch neu’n odlgyrch y naill a’r llall. J. B. ’). 232 Bradford’s interest in metre was represented at length in a note to an ‘Awdl Gorchan ar y Gyhydedd Hir’ attributed to Dafydd o’r Nant. 233 Together with the use of capitals in the text of Dafydd o’r Nant’s awdl, this note draws attention to the ingenuity of the composition, the intricate linking together of the words through internal rhyme and through cynghanedd which overruns the boundaries of individual lines and joins successive lines together. Iolo followed his mentor in a note on another example attributed to Dafydd o’r Nant, this time a ‘Cadwyngyrch Ganghennau’n amrafaelryw’. Whereas the bracketed text (Edward Dafydd’s) followed this example with a denunciation of the folly of the Carmarthen classification, Iolo himself intervened in the published text with a note devoted to extolling the metrical complexities of the example: Gellir dodi hwnn ym mhlith y Cynghogion yn hyttrach na than Ansawdd Llostodyn, am ei fod yn dwyn ynddo’n gyfun Ansawdd Llostodyn a Chadwyngyrch, a phob un o henynt yn gwbl a pherffaith yn y pennill hwnn. IOLO MORGANWG. 234

230

231 232

233

234

For a discussion of the importance of ‘the materiality of . . . Welsh sources’ to Iolo in the context of the authenticity debate of his day, see Truth against the World, pp. 97–9. See, for example, CBYP, pp. 87, 89, 90. Ibid. , p. 97. Bradford’s note has been added in a confined space and in a late hand to NLW 21320B, f. 87r, but is missing from NLW 13177B, p. 112. CBYP, p. 91. The note was in italics, as was a note on the previous page. While the latter was clearly signed with Bradford’s initials, it is only by implication (the recurrence within a short space of italic script, otherwise little used throughout Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain) that the longer note discussed can be attributed to him. In NLW 21230B, f. 81r, the section in question is both bracketed and underlined. It is absent from NLW 13177B. CBYP, p. 128.

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(This can be put among the Cynghogion rather than under the ansawdd of llostodyn, since it bears jointly the ansawdd of llostodyn and cadwyngyrch, each one complete and perfect in this example. Iolo Morganwg. )

Here, the respective roles of text and footnotes were reversed, the main thesis carrying the brunt of scorning the Carmarthen classification, while the footnote, claimed by Iolo, savoured the possibilities of the ‘Cyfrinach’ system for multiple classification – for the breaking down of rigid and proscriptive metrical barriers. If Iolo’s ‘real’ voice can be said to be carried in the apparatus as opposed to the main text of the published Cyfrinach, this suggests that his interest in the work, at the end of his life, was as much in the metrical possibilities and the avenues open for their refinement as in the age-old tradition of north–south antipathy. The sharing both of a delight in the metrical feats accomplished in the treatise’s examples and of a duty as editor of the material ensured a certain fusion between Iolo and his one-time mentor Bradford in the published text of Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain. The question why Iolo should have wished to have Bradford by his side at this stage is a puzzle. A clue as to the reason might be found in John Morris-Jones’s conclusion regarding Iolo’s œuvre: that Bradford was a co-forger of much of that body of work. 235 Bradford was vaguely contemporary with much of Iolo’s protracted audience, and to have his voice declare with good faith the excellence of the system must have provided Iolo with yet another buffer against accusations of forgery. If the document were ever to be proved a forgery, then Iolo might easily be excused from blame since he had been privy to it only through his own teacher. 236 Did ‘fear’, then, play any part in the delay of the publishing of the ‘Cyfrinach’? Its gestation and early dissemination in the context of Iolo’s relations with a small number of significant figures on the contemporary Welsh literary scene suggests that, initially, it was meant to side-step the anxiety-ridden world of print culture. Iolo later appeared to have changed his mind regarding the publication of the work, perhaps in response to the lukewarm reception of the privileged: Dafydd Ddu himself, notwithstanding his initial raptures, was little impressed with the poetic examples of the treatise when he finally laid his hands on the

235

236

Bardic Circles, p. 131. The implied accusation was made in John Morris-Jones, ‘Derwyddiaeth Gorsedd y Beirdd’, Y Beirniad, I (1911), 71. Conversely, as Charnell-White has pointed out, the successful imposition of his forgeries upon the public might lead to Bradford being given the ‘national recognition he deserved’. Bardic Circles, p. 130.

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manuscript in 1799. 237 This mixed reception among those perhaps deliberately selected as sounding boards for the work may account for the difficult passage of the ‘Cyfrinach’ into print. Several copies of proposals for the publication have survived, following the Powys Cymmrodorion’s expression of intent to publish. Among them, found at the beginning of Iolo’s ‘old copy’, presumably just safely returned to him after being borrowed by the now-deceased Eliezer Williams, is one example clearly naming ‘Taliesin, ab Iorwerth’ as the publisher. 238 Perhaps Iolo knew that the publication of the ‘Cyfrinach’ would be a labour preserved for posterity. Perhaps his procrastinatory techniques, which involved not only blaming the rogue printer of the work for the delay in its appearance but also making substantial additions to the text on his own initiative, were subconsciously geared towards this end. 239 Edward Dafydd’s ‘Llyfr maeth’ (Foster book), thus termed ‘since it was not generated by myself’ (‘am nad yw o’m cenhedlad fy hun’),240 was held by Iolo until it was too late for him to hear the voices of his critics.

Conclusion This chapter began by invoking Dafydd Ddu Eryri’s view of Iolo’s egotisms as the editor of The Myvyrian Archaiology. An exploration of the part played by 237

238 239

240

NLW, Cwrtmawr 411B, no. 3, David Thomas (Dafydd Ddu Eryri) to David Owen, 1 November 1804. Writing of the time of Iolo’s visit to Anglesey in 1799, Dafydd Ddu claimed ‘bu’r Gram gyda mi yr wyf yn meddwl rai wythnosau. ond ni chefais ddim cymmaint o flas arno ac yr ysgrifenais odid ddim ohono. Nid oedd y penillion oeddynt ynddo werth dim yn y byd yn fy ngolwg, oherwydd eu bod ar destynau ysgawnion, y rhan fwyaf, debygaf’ (I had the Grammar (i. e. the ‘Cyfrinach’) in my possession for a few weeks, I believe, but I did not find so much enjoyment from it as to copy barely anything from it. The stanzas which it contains were worth nothing at all in my view, because they were mainly on light-hearted topics, I suppose). However, he did acknowledge the beauty of the ‘athrawiaeth’ (instruction). NLW 13177B, p. i. On Iolo’s view of Job James, the Merthyr Tydfil printer of the ‘Cyfrinach’, see CIM, III, pp. 621–2, Iolo Morganwg to [David Lewis Jones], 6 May 1822. On the additions to the text, see ibid., p. 630, William Jenkins Rees to Iolo Morganwg, 2 August 1822; ibid. , p. 669, Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 22 September 1823. That Iolo was to the end still toying with the idea of producing a second volume of the work, entitled ‘Y Barddas’, is suggested by surviving proposals in his hand for the publication of ‘Llyfr Lyfr [sic] y Barddas, sef ail Lyfr Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ (The Book the Book [sic] of ‘Barddas’, namely the second book of Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain), also named ‘Llyfr y Barddas – sef Derwyddoniaeth Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ (The Book of ‘Barddas’ – namely the Druidism of the Bards of the Isle of Britain). See NLW 21300C, no. 36. Earlier references to ‘Y Barddas’ are to be found in CIM, II, pp. 705–6, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 18 September 1805; ibid. , p. 741, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 12 January 1806; ibid. , p. 746, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 6 February 1806; ibid. , p. 766, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 4 March 1806. It appears that this additional volume or section related to the rites of the Bards, their beliefs about the divinity and other esoteric matters. See, for example, NLW 13087E, p. 62. CBYP, p. 2.

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Iolo’s paratext to that work and to the earlier (yet posthumously published) Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain has shown his varied strategies for disguise – among them, his love of layering his texts with ‘a multitude of voices’ in a way that unsettles the sense of a single, authentic authorial voice. The effect of the numerous forays of ‘Iolo Morganwg’ and his co-authors, editors and manuscript copyists into the apparatus of these printed works is complex. A reader might, as Tomas ab Ieuan counsels in the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology, cease to care about ‘authenticity’, ostensibly a crucial factor in the scholarly presentation of the material both in the latter work and in Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain. A melting pot in which countless voices have a say, and which rests on the foundation of a vibrant but far from static or rigid manuscript tradition, appears to teach its readers not to concern themselves excessively with the idea of an all-important ‘source’. Instead, they are led to savour the messages of the texts, and to apply their teachings to their own lives, whether for the purpose of ensuring the moral rectitude of their conduct or, for the bards among them, in order to improve their understanding of, and capacity for, expression in the poetic art. Iolo’s published forgeries therefore register as highly contemporary – to place them in the past appears to be merely a manner of investing them with a prestige usually reserved for ‘ancient’ material. This may be a fair way of evaluating how Iolo might have wished his works to be appreciated on their release into the public sphere. However, it leaves his sense of his own position in relation to their public incarnation and their reception unaccounted for. How did he view his claims to authority over these works and the accompanying responsibility for bearing the brunt of public criticism of them? His choice of speaking in disguise must in part be linked with his misgivings about the impersonal nature of the reading public – fears which were not unknown to other poets and authors among his contemporaries. The convoluted history of the composition, distribution and publication of Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain demonstrates Iolo’s need for assurance that his work was acceptable in a coterie setting prior to launching it into the world at large. The boldness of the grammar’s thesis and the degree of self-worth which its author must have harboured in creating and promoting it were apparently at odds with this temerity in relation to print culture. This in turn makes Iolo’s psyche particularly rich and multifaceted, and not easily reduced to that of a simple egotist, as Dafydd Ddu would have it.

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3 ‘Ddoe, heddyw, ag yn dragywydd’ (Yesterday, today, and everlastingly):1 Iolo Morganwg as reader

Introduction In 1802 Iolo Morganwg wrote an address to the people of south Wales in which he rebuked them for deserting religion. 2 He sought to reintroduce Christianity into their lives by reinstating the centrality of the Bible and the act of reading it. Yet, although Iolo argued for the need ‘to search the Bible without bias’ (‘[chwilio] y Beibl yn ddiduedd’), there is little doubt that he himself assiduously explored the Scriptures with the avowed aim of finding ‘Unitarian passages’ within them. 3 As the South Wales Unitarian Society took shape, the most pressing goal of one of its prime movers was to transmit a specifically Unitarian reading of the Scriptures to his fellow countrymen, ‘so as to show them as well as we can what are the true doctrines of the Bible’ (‘er dangos yn oreu ag y medrom iddynt, beth yw gwir athrawiaethau y Beibl’). 4 Iolo thus took his place on a battleground over the Christian religion which placed the Bible and the act of reading at its very core. An agenda for educating through the written word – carefully interpreted according to Unitarian belief – was, however, extended in Iolo’s writings beyond the reading of the Bible. In his vision of a Unitarian south Wales there existed prescriptions regarding what other books or kinds of books should be read in an ideal community of followers: It is recommended to every Religious Congregation to furnish itself, according to its abilities with a small and well-selected Library suited to their circumstances and 1 2

3

4

The quotation comes from NLW 13145A, p. 282. ‘Annerch Cymry Deheubarth’ in ibid. , pp. 280–8. A slightly altered version of this material was published in [Edward Williams], Rheolau a Threfniadau Cymdeithas Dwyfundodiaid yn Neheubarth Cymru (Llundain, 1803), pp. 3–14. NLW 13145A, pp. 281–2. For a list of references to, and brief quotations from, the Bible, headed ‘Unitarian passages of Scriptures’, see ibid. , pp. 466–85. Ibid. , p. 283. Cf. [Williams], Rheolau a Threfniadau Cymdeithas Dwyfundodiaid yn Neheubarth Cymru, p. 7. For Iolo’s part in founding the Unitarian Society of South Wales, hard upon the heels of the trial for sedition of Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi), see Geraint H. Jenkins, ‘Thomas Burgess, Iolo Morganwg and the Black Spot’, Ceredigion, XV, no. 3 (2007), 24.

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situations, as well chosen books on Theology and Ethics, Medical books with a medicinal Chest, so as to enable every one to prescribe for himself, his family, and poor neighbours, a few books on agriculture, Horticulture &c may be of important [?use] to Country Congregations for the purposes of instructing themselves and neighbours in those important Labours of a state of innocence and rectitude. also a few well-chosen books on the Laws of our Country that by consulting such they may be able in some, and we hope in many, cases, to find such advice and information, to prevent those great curses and disgrace of people professing themselves Christians. Law Suits. thus shall they imitate him who went about doing good. 5

This list of material for reading and instruction parallels to a large extent the areas of Iolo’s own attempts at literary creativity. The emphasis on ‘Ethics’ and ‘the Laws of our Country’ calls to mind the forged contents of the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology, and the list in its entirety echoes that produced by Iolo in his ‘Short Review’ at the beginning of the first volume of the same work. 6 A similar desire to uphold an attitude of moral rectitude is evident in some of the poems contained in Iolo’s Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, with their emphasis on elevating simple virtue above the glory of warmongering. 7 These fields can confidently be stated as the areas of literary production which interested Iolo and, perhaps, the areas which attracted his own attention as a reader. In an age in which the popularity of the novel as a genre was increasing several-fold, Iolo’s interests focused on more serious kinds of reading. Poetry, even, in spite of his own talent as a poet in both Welsh and English, is absent from this list of Unitarian recommendations. 8 This may reflect Iolo’s general view of the more creative forms of literary expression. In August 1774 he berated his brother Thomas for being ‘little better than mad’ in deciding to leave London in the summer for the countryside, arguing that ‘it savours somthing of indiscreation, that near a kin to madness, for you to entertain such romantic notions of the pleasures of the country, when you had (one should think) more experience than the poets and novel writers that very often turn your brains’. 9 If novel writers and poets distorted reality in Iolo’s view (or at least had the potential to do so), writings in the genres named above as suitable for Unitarian congregations bore a relation to the needs of simple people to live in a ‘state of innocence and rectitude’ through honest labour, and to protect themselves from the evils of disease (via literature on medical issues) and the law. The latter field in 5 6 7 8

9

NLW 13145A, p. 207. MAW, I, p. xvi, quoted on p. 17 above. See chapter 4. On the popularity and high rates of production and publication of both poetry and novels from the 1780s to the 1830s, see William St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 172–4. CIM, I, p. 79, Iolo Morganwg to Thomas Williams, 26 August 1774.

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particular was closely associated with an ability to follow Jesus’s example in ‘doing good’, and Iolo was possibly indicating the need of honest and upright people to be able not only to defend themselves but also others weaker than themselves against the malice of legal processes largely beyond the simple man’s comprehension. 10 To examine Iolo’s Unitarian conceptions of reading, then, is to link the activity firmly to concerns of social and moral import. Iolo recommended that Unitarian congregations, ‘in Long winter Evenings and at all other Convenient times’, should assemble under the direction of ‘some heads of families and others properly qualified . . . to read such books of agriculture, Horticulture, medical Books, Law books as have been mentioned and to bring as often as convenient their young families with them to listen to such readings, that by such means they may be enabled to do good as they go about. and be more effectually enabled to fulfill their duties to their Neighbours, duties which are inseperable from their duties towards God’. 11 In an age when literacy and book production were increasing appreciably, reading often remained a shared activity. Fostered by circulating libraries, reading societies and bookshops, it was an act carried out in company for mutual pleasure and benefit. 12 Iolo himself was acutely aware of the possibilities of communal circulation. Lengthy lists of books have survived in his hand under titles such as ‘Books at present in my possesion proper for a circulating Library Sepr. 1st. 1795’ (118 items); ‘Reading Society’ (90 items); ‘Books lent to unknown persons since 1804’ (110 items); ‘Books out’ (26 items). 13 These all betray the marks of (sometimes careless) lending and a real generosity regarding the dispersal of reading matter. 14 Iolo also appears to have recognized the need of an individual or a society to acquire their own copies of books and, through his contacts with booksellers in London and Bristol, to have attempted to facilitate the acquisition of books on behalf of others. In August 1825 he wrote a curt letter to the Flemingston 10

11 12

13 14

Iolo’s own readiness to step in to defend poor and deprived people against the criminal justice system is repeatedly in evidence in his correspondence. See, for example, the part which he played in the Court Colman case, his work on behalf of the young William Morgan from Llantrisant, destined for execution, and the case of the destitute Cati Caerffili. CIM, I, pp. 34–5; Cathryn A. Charnell-White, ‘Women and Gender in the Private and Social Relationships of Iolo Morganwg’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 374–6. NLW 13145A, p. 208. Heather J. Jackson, Romantic Readers: The Evidence of Marginalia (London, 2005), pp. 38–58; St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, chapter 13. NLW 21407C, nos. 1, 2, 5, 6. On Iolo’s apparently casual attitude regarding the whereabouts of his books, see CIM, II, p. 4, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 1 January 1797 (‘I was much surprized not long ago by Mr Dyer and Roberts who told me of your books being still in Star Court. Take care that they are safe and come up for them soon’). In ibid. , III, pp. 597–9, Iolo Morganwg to [?Thomas Burgess], 10 November 1821, Iolo relates the story of how he lost a box of manuscripts and ‘some scarce old printed books’ following the 1819 Carmarthen eisteddfod, through no fault of his own in this case.

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churchwarden John Spencer asking for the return of his own prayer book. He claimed to ‘have long ago informed the parish . . . that [he] would procure one from London as cheaply as any one can do it’, but that his offer had ‘not been accepted’. 15 During the late 1790s he kept a bookshop at Cowbridge, to which customers could come to order books and thus satisfy their reading needs. Iolo’s list of the books requested, however, shows his frustration at the lack of savoirfaire shown by the public – the petty bourgeoisie of Cowbridge and its vicinity – regarding books. 16 They barely seemed to have understood the concept of authorship and had very low levels of literacy. 17 Moreover, in spite of a few orders for the work of Tom Paine and ‘Bonyparty’, other books sought by Iolo’s customers displayed their ‘passive & non resisting’ nature. 18 It was not his customers alone whose choice of books displeased Iolo. He was also irritated by the kind of books produced and recommended by major bookselling firms in London. On the reverse of a leaflet listing books ‘Printed for, or sold by, Darton and Harvey, no. 55, Gracechurch-street London’, Iolo wrote: Messrs. Darton & Hervey, when they gave me this Catalogue, told me that it consists of Such Books as are recommended for the Family Libraries of Friends: if so, it shews how little has been supplied by their own society, even in Theology: and it consists of several that strongly tend to harden the human heart, for such must be the effects of many things that are contained, even abound, in several of the books of this Catalogue. E. W. 19

The care for the tenderness of the ‘human heart’ in this familial context once more displays Iolo’s sense of reading as a social activity with consequences of a social, moral and spiritual nature. Aware of the needs of audiences and of their potential fallibility, he played the role of a commentator who knows what

15 16 17

18

19

CIM, III, p. 731, Iolo Morganwg to John Spencer, 15 August 1825. NLW 13146A, pp. 128–31. Iolo’s sardonic entries regarding his customers’ requests include ‘Reading made easy for a little Boy six feet high and 28 years of age’; and ‘A Farrier book. for a rich farmer, qu? by what author – Damn athars [sic] I hates um all, Ill have no athar [sic] book’. Ibid. , p. 128. CIM, I, pp. 810–11, John Reed to Iolo Morganwg, 30 March 1796. Reed suggested that Iolo ‘would do well to leave tag rag & bobtail & settle at Swansea, where you will find greater liberality of sentiments & perhaps much more business’. On the orders for Paine and ‘Bonyparty’, see NLW 13146A, pp. 128–31, and for the popularity of Paine’s Rights of Man during the 1790s in three Gloucestershire book clubs, see St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, p. 256. NLW 21403E, no. 66.

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material should be made available to the reading public and despairs of the choices made by the powerful magnates of the book trade. 20 The considerations brought to the fore here primarily reveal Iolo’s dogmatic views regarding people’s reading habits. They communicate a sense that reading for him was seen in the light of a process of guiding others – ranging from members of his own family to neighbours, acquaintances and posterity itself, as will emerge in the following discussion. In his function as an annotator of books he considered it a duty to rectify the deficiencies of an English book trade and a body of authors given to producing books ‘that strongly tend to harden the human heart’ and other failings. In a Welsh-language context he found himself at the forefront of a brave effort to curb the linguistic and poetical follies of an emergent Welsh establishment. Iolo’s annotations to printed books often strike their reader as the musings, if not of a producer of books, then certainly of a man conversant with the processes of production. As a reader he was closely entangled in the meshes of print culture, reacting swiftly to contemporaries known to him in person or merely as prominent voices within authorial circles. Yet, Iolo’s reading cannot be confined to a process akin to proof-reading material in print and making the necessary changes to it through annotation, often for the benefit of others. What did he himself gain from reading? Was his sense of what others should be reading in any way a reflection of what he enjoyed or chose to read himself? There are ample indications of the books which passed through Iolo’s hands and which it is fair to assume that he would have read. Besides lists of the kind mentioned above, there is also the testimony of autobiographical writings such as the material included as a preface to Poems, Lyric and Pastoral which describes Iolo’s early reading habits, together with the vast evidence of his correspondence and manuscripts regarding which works he perused during his lifetime. 21 Furthermore, some printed books owned by Iolo and containing annotations in his hand have survived in collections found in the National Library of Wales, Cardiff Central Library and the Salisbury Library at Cardiff University. 22 While bringing to the fore the evidence for the full range of Iolo’s reading is important to the concerns of this chapter, its emphasis will lie on how Iolo read. It will also focus 20

21

22

Iolo, of course, was not alone in fearing the effects which unsuitable reading matter might have on delicate minds. On the general denigration of circulating libraries, which made reading material (often characterized as novels alone) accessible to a mass readership, see Jackson, Romantic Readers, p. 44. Conduct books, the production of which was widespread in the Romantic period, may be seen as the governing classes’ attempts to provide a foil to improper reading. See St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, p. 277. PLP, I, pp. xv–xvi. For references to works perused by Iolo, see the index to the Correspondence. CIM, III, pp. 803–69. I am strongly indebted to Mr Charles Parry for helping me locate Iolo’s books in the National Library of Wales. I am grateful also for the assistance of Dr Huw Walters and of the library staff at the same library. The Cardiff collection was very kindly brought to my attention by Dr E. Wyn James of Cardiff University.

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on his marginal annotations as a way of probing this question. The annotations reveal how Iolo’s sense of an ‘unchangeable truth; the same yesterday, today, and everlastingly’ infringed upon his reading in contexts which may (or may not) be of a more private nature than those discussed hitherto. Iolo often appears to have found in books the truths which he sought and confirmation of preconceived ideas. Yet, in view of the extent of his reading, and bearing in mind Cathryn A. Charnell-White’s description of his ‘intellectual magpie-ism’, it would not be fair to say that Iolo never extracted anything new or developed his own ideas from his reading. The following discussion aims to establish a fuller picture of Iolo’s activities on the fringes between being influenced by books and seeking (from the margins and with varying degrees of credibility) the power to influence through their medium. It is no straightforward task to disentangle from the surviving annotations in Iolo’s hand in printed books and in a small number of manuscripts what might be considered his private reading space (the space in which he might record influence) from a shared reading arena (in which the purpose of his marginalia tended towards persuasion and manipulation of the opinions of others). Since material potentially belonging to both spaces may well be found within a single book or manuscript, it is almost impossible to unravel Iolo’s unselfconscious or self-directed remarks from ones written with the intent to guide or steer the course of another reader. Yet, it is desirable to map out the different tenors of annotation found within Iolo’s collection. Only by doing this can we arrive at an understanding of the extent of his struggle with the products of the print (and to some extent the manuscript) culture of his day and gauge the measure of the hold that those cultures had upon him. We begin therefore with an exploration of the annotations which might be characterized as demonstrating Iolo’s gleanings from his readings. Some of these may be seen as part of an intermediary stage in Iolo’s thinking on subjects of genuine interest to him in view of his own work and the development of his ideas. Other annotations may register simply as his personal reactions to the reading matter before him in each case. These may have been written with nothing further in view than to grant him the satisfaction of having recorded his own response. Secondly, the chapter will explore marginalia which may be considered to be of a more public nature. Such annotations were occasionally written ostensibly to influence others, and in some cases produced a dialogue between two individual annotators, both of whom recorded their (contradictory) responses to a given text. As well as a literal debate with contemporaries through the medium of annotation, the concept of ‘public’ marginalia involves exploring Iolo’s complex relationship with the contemporary Welsh establishment. It provides us with a view of Iolo’s annotating activity as a reflection of his urgent desire to partake in the shaping of aspects of the Welsh public domain, especially in relation to the eisteddfod movement of the 1820s. Thirdly, the

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related world of Iolo’s annotations to publications by close acquaintances will be explored. While personal factors often register highly in the production of marginalia to the work of William Owen Pughe and Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi), the scale of Iolo’s annotations also betrays his frustrated wish that his opinions regarding such men and their literary products might be heard and preserved beyond the confines of the margins of his own copies of their works. Lastly, Iolo’s relationship with his son Taliesin will be considered, using the evidence of both men’s annotations to printed books and manuscripts. Taliesin’s voice as an annotator was activated primarily after his father’s death. This provides us with a revealing angle from which to compare Iolo’s sense of the value of his annotations for posterity with the reality of his posthumous reputation.

Affinity and inspiration One of the most recent criticisms on Iolo’s work has emphasized his predilection for harvesting ideas from secondary sources. Most notably, Cathryn A. Charnell-White, noting his intellectual opportunism and describing him as both a ‘bricoleur’ and an ‘intellectual magpie’, has argued for a view of Iolo which takes into account the influence of ‘social networks’ – the popular press, contemporary events and the scholarship of the day – on Bardism. 23 That Bardism was a modern construct drawing on such sources was remarked upon by Iolo’s mentor, John Walters, following the publication of Pughe’s The Heroic Elegies and Other Pieces of Llywarç Hen in 1792. This included a sketch of the history of Bardism, the contents of which had been strongly influenced by Iolo. Walters suggested that the institution described was ‘cooked up from obscure scraps of the ancient Bards, and the Cabala (the pretended arcana) of the modern ones; a superficial acquaintance with the Metempsychosis; and these ingredients spiced with an immoderate quantity of wild Invention’. 24 The sense of seeing and importing ideas, finding parallels and using them either as integral elements in Bardism or as touchstones against which Bardism might be compared in a manner calculated to elevate its grandeur and antiquity, may be gleaned from examining some of the printed books which have survived among Iolo’s collection and in which he made annotations proving his readership and his interest. One relevant book in the context of Iolo’s interest in the theory of metempsychosis is an anonymous English translation of The Lives and

23 24

Bardic Circles, pp. 3, 19, 52. A letter from John Walters to Edward (‘Celtic’) Davies, 3 May 1793, quoted in Bardic Circles, p. 24.

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Most Remarkable Maxims of the Antient Philosophers, the original work of François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon. 25 Iolo’s copy of the book was second-hand, having previously been owned by a certain John Forster, whose name is inscribed on the title-page, and a Moses Brown, whose name appears on a blank page at the beginning of the book. This multiplicity of owners makes it difficult to attribute to Iolo each one of the numerous markings in ink and pencil contained within the book, many of which consist of stars, crosses, the sign of a pointing hand and the word ‘note’ followed by up to three exclamation marks. Yet, in view of the general pattern of his approach as an annotator of printed books, at least some of the instances of ‘note![!!]’, a few cross-references to material within the book and the occasional word or two in the margins, may with a reasonable degree of confidence be attributed to him. 26 The markings suggest a keen interest in the contents of Fénelon’s work. Iolo’s greatest contribution, however, is to be found on the empty pages at the end of the book, where he added a bewildering assortment of material. Much of this defies a clear or immediate relation to the contents of a book devoted to outlining the life-stories and major beliefs and achievements of a series of twenty-six philosophers from the ancient world. Yet, Iolo’s interest in the book itself does not go completely unsignalled in this medley, for the pages include what must either be an exhortation to read or an affirmation that he had already read the sections devoted to the lives of the philosophers Bias and Anacharsis. 27 The most curious feature of these last pages in Iolo’s copy of Fénelon’s work is a sketch of the three circles of being, labelled ‘Cylch y Ceugant’ (The Circle of Vacuity), ‘Cylch y Gwynfyd’ (The Circle of Bliss) and ‘Cylch yr abred’ (The Circle of Transmigration). Since there are very few other references in Iolo’s work to this notion, it appears that it was an adjunct to the concept of Bardism rather than an integral part of it, possibly inspired by Iolo’s wish to pander to William Owen Pughe’s interest in the esoteric. 28 One of the references appears in a letter which he sent to Pughe in 1793, a year after the publication of the latter’s Heroic Elegies. The letter in question contains a series of thirty-three Welsh triads entitled ‘Trioedd Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ (The Triads of the Bards of the Isle of Britain), among which is to be found: 25

26

27

28

François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon, The Lives and Most Remarkable Maxims of the Antient Philosophers (London, 1726). The present study has involved consulting fifty-five volumes annotated by Iolo (thirty-six in the National Library of Wales, five in Cardiff Central Library and fourteen in Cardiff University Library), and as such is underpinned by a detailed awareness of Iolo’s habits as an annotator. Iolo’s interest in the latter is signalled by the presence in the National Library of Wales of Iolo’s sparsely annotated copies of six out of the seven volumes of Jean Jacques Barthélemy’s Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece, translated from the French [by W. Beaumont] (2nd edn. , 7 vols. , London, 1794), vols. I–V, VII. See Appendix II. Bardic Circles, pp. 23, 29.

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Tri chylch hanfod y sydd: cylch y ceugant, ag nis gall namyn Du[w] ei dreiglo; cylch yr abred, a dyn a’i treiglwys; a chylch y gwynfyd, a dyn a’i treigla. (There are three circles of essence: the circle of vacuity, which no one other than God can traverse, the circle of transmigration, which man has traversed, and the circle of bliss, which man will traverse. )29

This triad contains a clear reference to the theory of metempsychosis, which Iolo and Pughe had already imported into their joint vision of the bardic institution, describing the beginnings of mankind as originating ‘in the lowest point of existence’ and progressing ‘by a regular train of gradations [to] the probationary state of humanity’, in which man might choose to prioritize good over evil or vice versa. When he died a good man might expect to enter ‘a more exalted condition’ in which he would ‘[pass] from one gradation to another by a kind of renovation, without being deprived of the consciousness of his prior conditions’. An evil one would return to the base condition where his existence had begun. 30 Iolo’s diagram of the three ‘circles of essence’ may be related to the sense of hierarchical gradations, perpetually narrowing as souls approach the nearest point to the inaccessible ‘circle of vacuity’. It may be a refinement on the description given in the Heroic Elegies, drawing some of its impetus from Bardism’s preoccupation with the ‘circle’ as a shape. 31 What part Fénelon’s Lives . . . of the Antient Philosophers played in its instigation is a difficult question to answer. Antiquity’s conjectures regarding the transmigration of souls are very much present in the book, which discusses, for example, the origin of the theory in the work of Pythagoras and its development in the work of Plato. 32 One striking image invoked by Fénelon is that of the ‘circular form, which is call’d the via lactea or milky way’, as observed at ‘night time when it is calm weather’: some of the ancients fancy’d that this was a road which the lesser deities pass’d thro’ as they went to the council of Jupiter maximus; others thought that it was the place where the souls of heroes floated up and down after being separated from their bodies . . . 33 The description visualizes a circle in the sky above, frequented either by ‘lesser deities’ or by ‘the souls of heroes’. Moreover, it suggests a further circle beyond 29 30

31

32 33

CIM, I, pp. 565, 569 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 18 June 1793. William Owen, The Heroic Elegies and Other Pieces of Llywarç Hen, Prince of the Cumbrian Britons: with a Literal Translation (London, 1792), pp. xxix–xxx. The ‘Cylç Cyngrair, or the Circle of Federation’ set in place in stone at the outset of a Gorsedd ceremony is invoked in ibid. , p. xxvii. Fénelon, The Lives . . . of the Antient Philosophers, pp. 83–5, 145–6. Ibid. , p. 102.

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– the circle in which ‘Jupiter maximus’ is to be found. Bardism’s God of the ‘circle of vacuity’, as described in Iolo’s triad, is not to be visited in any ‘council’, the latter’s system thus in part spurning the pagan beliefs which surely form a part of its make-up. There is no marginal note to relate the diagram of the ‘circles of essence’ at the end of Iolo’s copy of Fénelon to this description, and no way either of proving, even if there were a certain link, that Iolo’s system was inspired by the book rather than simply brought into mind by it. It thus evokes one of the central conundrums of interpreting marginalia, as described by Heather J. Jackson: ‘in conversations with books as in conversation proper it is hard to say whether an opinion is being expressed in the conversation or formed by it. ’34 Published in 1726, Fénelon’s Lives . . . of the Antient Philosophers, which was most probably read by Iolo in the early 1790s, can hardly be considered a cutting-edge publication. This, of course, does not necessarily disqualify it from having had an influence upon Iolo, even if such an influence was limited merely to affirming some of his previous ideas or prompting ephemeral additions to his grand bardic system. Other books in his collection brought Iolo into the company of contemporary scholars and show how closely he kept abreast of the more striking currents of contemporary intellectual thought. Iolo’s interest in the ground-breaking work of Sir William Jones on the civilizations of India and their possible links with European societies and cultures is revealed by references to the latter and his work in Iolo’s manuscript notes. 35 Half-Welsh by birth, Jones built upon the observations of earlier travellers to the east as well as prominent thinkers such as Voltaire regarding the similarities between the Sanskrit language and those of western Europe. In doing so, he and others, including Charles Wilkins and Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, not only set forward a theory regarding the roots of European civilization but also revealed in English translations the formidable beauty of Sanskrit verse and the intricacies of Hindu 34 35

Jackson, Romantic Readers, p. 136. NLW 13146A, p. 95, includes material ‘Ex Sir Wm Jones’ works Vol. I p. 92’. Iolo’s interest in Indian civilization is further signalled in the same manuscript by his quotation from a review of ‘Dr. Taylor’s Hindu Drama’. Ibid. , p. 89. NLW 13158A, pp. 139–41, has extracts from John Shore, Baron Teignmouth’s Memoirs of the Life . . . of Sir William Jones. Iolo’s correspondence shows that he had read Sir William Jones’s translation of Institutes of Hindu Law, or, the Ordinances of Menu according to the Gloss of Cullúca (Calcutta and London, 1796), and Charles Wilkins’s translation of The Hĕĕtōpădēs of Vĕĕshnŏŏ-sărmā, in a Series of Connected Fables, interspersed with Moral, Prudential, and Political Maxims (Bath, 1787). See CIM, II, pp. 161–2, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 20 December 1798; ibid. , pp. 288–90, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 17 June 1800. Iolo’s familiarity with Asiatic Researches or, Transactions of the Society, instituted in Bengal, for inquiring into the History and Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences, and Literature, of Asia, four volumes of which were edited by Jones (1788, 1790, 1792, 1794) is signalled in CIM, II, p. 286, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 8 June 1800. For a full bibliography of Jones’s published works, see Michael J. Franklin (ed. ), Sir William Jones: Selected Poetical and Prose Works (Cardiff, 1995), pp. xi–xiv.

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law. 36 Through the preservation of Iolo’s copy of Halhed’s A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits (1781),37 we are able to reconstruct Iolo’s response to the burgeoning oriental scholarship of his day. Halhed’s translation was created at the request of Warren Hastings, the governor of Bengal from 1772 to 1785, who was himself a capable linguist. 38 Hastings had commissioned the original from a group of indigenous pandits with the intention that Hindus should be judged by a native civil justice system as opposed to that of the empire which ruled over them. 39 In presenting the code Halhed insisted on the essential and age-old truths behind it, the character of which, he argued, contrary to the general belief of westerners, did not lie in the realm of superstition and primitive darkness. 40 His translation would offer ‘a complete confutation of the belief too common in Europe, that the Hindoos have no written laws whatever, but such as relate to the ceremonious peculiarities of their superstition’. 41 The general views rehearsed here echoed those of the heated literary authenticity debate with which Iolo grappled in his prefatory essay to The Myvyrian Archaiology. Iolo’s approval of Halhed’s comments regarding the literal veracity of the mythology of the Hindu people is reflected in the words ‘Just’ and ‘Note!!!’ in the margins of the book, and it suggests that, as a Welshman whose cultural inheritance was habitually scorned by English and Scottish antiquaries, he was able to internalize this positive view of a conquered people’s often disregarded traditions. 42 The Gentoos’ belief in the literal and non-allegorical interpretation of the ‘doctrine of creation’ is granted Halhed’s full assent in the text. He states, to the approving harmony of Iolo’s marginal cross and ‘Note’: nor can it be otherwise, unless the progress of science, instead of being slow and gradual, were quick and instantaneous; unless men could start up at once into divines and philosophers from the very cradle of civilization, [x] or could defer the profession of any religion at all, until progressive centuries had ripened them into a fitness for the most abstracted speculations [Note]. 43

36

37

38 39 40 41 42 43

Rosane Rocher, ‘Discovery of Sanskrit by Europeans’ in E. F. K. Koerner and R. E. Asher (eds. ), Concise History of the Language Sciences: From the Sumerians to the Cognitivists (Oxford, 1995), pp. 188–91; Caryl Davies, Adfeilion Babel: Agweddau ar Syniadaeth Ieithyddol y Ddeunawfed Ganrif (Caerdydd, 2000), pp. 301–4. Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits. From a Persian translation, made from the original, written in the Shanscrit language (London, 1781; first published 1776). On Warren Hastings, see ODNB. See ODNB s. v. Nathaniel Brassey Halhed; Halhed, A Code of Gentoo Laws, p. ix. Halhed, A Code of Gentoo Laws, pp. x, xi, xiii–xv, xvii. Ibid. , p. x. Ibid. , p. xiii. Ibid. , p. xv.

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That Iolo resisted an allegorical reading of the Welsh tradition is revealed in his marginalia to A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths by John Pinkerton, of which more shortly. In undermining the credibility of the Swedish hero Odin, Pinkerton declared triumphantly: ‘Here is the secret: ODIN NEVER EXISTED. The whole affair is an allegory. ’44 Iolo’s interest in this revelation, which included the unveiling of fraudulent literary activity, was clearly if only briefly highlighted in the margins, but Pinkerton’s conclusion that many of the literary products of early civilizations are ‘Mere poetry . . . and not history’ was contested with the remark: ‘No such Poetic Tales in the Welsh. ’45 In the company of Halhed, unlike that of Pinkerton, Iolo found safety. Here were views which he could appropriate to a Welsh context and use as foundations or support for his efforts to elevate the literary and historical legacy of his own country. Much of the remainder of Halhed’s book concentrates on the means by which the laws of the Hindus were preserved for posterity, namely through their incarnation in metrical stanzas of varying length and patterns. Iolo’s annotations show how he read the various metrical examples given in the book with an eye on Welsh metrics, noting against them the names of the metres ‘Clogyrnach’, ‘proest cadwynog’, ‘cyfnewidiog’, ‘unodl’ and ‘ynglyn’. Scattered throughout the remainder of his copy are further indications of his determination to link the ancient civilization of the Hindus – now patronized by the governing classes of the British Empire in India – with that of Wales. He saw in the reference to ‘the three modes of being’ a parallel in the Welsh triads. 46 He ‘Note[d]!!!’ with interest the descriptions in the Hindu ‘Shasters (or scriptures)’ of a theory of metempsychosis, and linked the Welsh word ‘coll’ (lost) to the Hindu concept of the ‘Collee Jogue’ or the age, according to Halhed, ‘in which all mankind are corrupted, or rather lessened, for that is the true meaning of Collee’. 47 He also provided Welsh parallels for several other words raised by Halhed, highlighting the similarity between the Hindu ‘Roy’ (a ‘prince’) and the Welsh ‘Rhi / Rhwy’; the Hindu ‘Dewtah’ (rendered by Halhed as ‘the Deity’) and the Welsh ‘Duw-ta[d]’; and the Hindu measure of ‘puns’ and the Welsh ‘punt’ (a pound sterling). 48 The interest in language shown by Iolo as a reader of this book, however, was not 44

45 46

47

48

John Pinkerton, A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths. Being an Introduction to the Ancient and Modern History of Europe (London, 1787), p. 181. Ibid. , p. 183. Halhed, A Code of Gentoo Laws, p. xxxiii. The triad quoted above in relation to Iolo’s reading of Fénelon’s Lives . . . of the Antient Philosophers may well have been present in his mind in reading this reference. Iolo’s interest in the theories of metempsychosis expressed in Halhed, A Code of Gentoo Laws, are indicated in his marginalia on p. xliv, as well as his makeshift index to the volume, inserted on a blank page at the end. For his note on the ‘Collee Jogue’, see p. xxxvii. Ibid. , pp. lxxxv, 232, 258.

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limited to this exercise in seeking parallels. He was also fascinated by Halhed’s statement: ‘The Shanscrit language is very copious and nervous, but the style of the best authors wonderfully concise. ’49 This view of Sanskrit chimes with theories regarding the excellence of the Welsh language with which Iolo would have been familiar from his tutelage by John Walters and other Glamorgan linguists. 50 Like Greek and Arabic, Halhed continues, the Sanskrit ‘has a prodigious number of derivatives from each primary root’. 51 Iolo appears to have borne in mind the notion of a language’s ability to expand on its root elements in a copious and muscular fashion when he later came across the following passage in Halhed’s text. It depicts the vices which a man must be able to keep at bay in order to carry out ‘public business’ successfully. Described in Sanskrit ‘under the general term Opadhee’, they constitute a peculiar kind of folly which, Halhed claimed, was unique to the Asiatic world: The folly . . . specified is not to be understood in the usual sense of the word in an European idiom, as a negative quality, or the mere want of sense, but as a kind of obstinately stupid lethargy, or perverse absence of mind, in which the will is not altogether passive: it seems to be a weakness peculiar to Asia; for we cannot find a term by which to express the precise idea in the European languages; it operates somewhat like the violent impulse of fear, under which men will utter falsehoods totally incompatible with each other, and utterly contrary to their own opinion, knowledge, and conviction; and it may be added also, their inclination and intention. A very remarkable instance of this temporary frenzy happened lately in the supreme court of judicature at Calcutta, where a man (not an idiot) swore upon a trial, that he was no kind of relation to his own brother who was then in court, and who had constantly supported him from his infancy . . . 52

Iolo’s marginal annotation shows him at pains to prove that, notwithstanding the failure of other European languages to pin down the meaning in translation of ‘Opadhee’, the Welsh language, through its reliance on derivatives and its innate ability to be concise, possessed the qualities needed to attempt a translation. He provided not one but three Welsh words to supply the deficiency of neighbouring European tongues: ‘Gwrthbwyll’, ‘Amhwyllgarwch’, ‘Gwrthymbwyll’. 53

49 50 51 52 53

Ibid. , p. xxii. Davies, Adfeilion Babel, p. 160. See also the discussion of Iolo’s linguistic activity in chapter 4. Halhed, A Code of Gentoo Laws, p. xxii. Iolo has marked these words with a cross in pencil. Ibid. , pp. xlviii–xlix. All three words suggest an absence of ‘pwyll’ (deliberation, judgement, sense) or of the more reflective ‘ymbwyll’. NLW 13146A, p. 132, contains a list in Iolo’s hand of forty-nine items under the heading ‘Pwyll, and its’ derivatives & Compounds’, none of which exactly match the three forms given here, however. On Iolo’s interest in the concept of ‘madness’, see the discussion of his annotations to Pughe’s Dictionary and note 140 below.

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Iolo’s marginalia thus serve as points of rapprochement between Wales and India, Welsh and Sanskrit. Towards what did such comparison lean? Sir William Jones was at the helm of research into ‘the cradle of civilization’ in an age when centuries of searching for a root which could link the various cultural inheritances of Europe and settle once and for all the fascinating question regarding the beginnings of languages and traditions were about to reach a climax. 54 Even so, Jones cautioned against reaching extravagant conclusions: In drawing a parallel between the Gods of the Indian and European heathens, from whatever source they were derived, I shall remember, that nothing is less favourable to enquiries after truth than a systematical spirit, and shall call to mind the saying of a Hindu writer, ‘that whoever obstinately adheres to any set of opinions, may bring himself to believe that the freshest sandal-wood is a flame of fire:’ this will effectually prevent me from insisting, that such a God of India was the JUPITER of Greece . . . 55

To what extent can Iolo be said to have exercised the same restraint? His excitement at points of reference between newly published Asiatic research and contemporary work (including his own research) in the field of Welsh literature suggests that he viewed this new fountain of information with the eye of an opportunist. His delight in the discovery of parallels between Welsh and Sanskrit surfaced in his correspondence to his London acquaintances Owain Myfyr and William Owen Pughe, to whom he composed letters on 17 June 1800, betraying his engrossment in this topic. 56 The missive to Pughe contained a lengthy list of metrical examples taken directly from Halhed’s volume. Iolo concluded this list with a comment designed to suggest unique parity between Welsh and Sanskrit: ‘Y mae mesurau eraill yn llyfr Mr Halhed a geiriau cyrch iddynt ar ddull ein englynion ni, yr hynn ni wyddys am dano mewn un iaith arall yn y byd, hyd y gwyddom ni. ’ (‘There are other metres in Mr Halhed’s book which contain internal rhymes in the manner of our englynion, something which is not known in a single other language in the world, as far as we know. ’)57 In the letter to Owain Myfyr he revelled in the wealth of material emanating from oriental quarters, mentioning key texts and expressing his astonishment at the ‘affinity between the Braminical theology (and learning in general) and the bardic or druidïcal, even in their mensuration’. So numerous were the similarities, indeed, that: ‘It is well for our ancient literature that these 54 55

56

57

Rocher, ‘Discovery of Sanskrit by Europeans’, p. 190. William Jones, ‘On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India’ in idem, The Works of Sir William Jones (6 vols. , London, 1799), I, pp. 231–2, reproduced in Franklin (ed. ), Sir William Jones: Selected Poetical and Prose Works, p. 349. CIM, II, pp. 287–91, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 17 June 1800; ibid. , pp. 291–7, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 17 June 1800. Ibid. , pp. 294, 295 (trans. ).

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things are found in our oldest manuscripts, and even in print . . . otherwise the whole learned world would unanimously have sworn that, like Macpherson in Scotland, some Welshman had forged all these things in imitation of the Hindoo literature. ’58 Simply to hear Iolo mention the concept of ‘forgery’ immediately suggests the defensiveness of a guilty party, in view of his own predilection for similar activity. Having flattered Owain Myfyr on the success of The Myvyrian Archaiology, Iolo proceeded to discuss his own collection ‘of proverbs of common use in Glamorgan’, many (though not all) of which he claimed to be ‘ancient’. Their formidable age was linked to the theory of early Welsh involvement in the territory of Hindu civilization. These two cultures, ‘though for so long a time seperated . . . still retain, almost entire, almost unchanged, their ancient and the primeval theology, mythology and learning, their ancient sentiments even to the minuteness of a proverb & compound word’. 59 Iolo’s enthusiasm appears to have suggested to him a new direction for the future volumes of The Myvyrian Archaiology – a volume with an emphasis on theology, mythology and expression in the proverb genre. Pughe, who almost certainly saw this letter to Owain Myfyr and was privy to the latter’s response to it, wrote back to Iolo on 30 June, diplomatically suggesting that ‘Before any thing is touched upon with respect to Asiatic Researches, your “History of the Bards” must be first published and afterwards, by degrees, surprising things may be brought to light’. 60 Iolo’s marginalia to Halhed’s volume, together with the suggestions found in his correspondence, show how he mulled over some of the more exciting and novel courses of contemporary scholarship and attempted to forge links between them and Welsh tradition with a view to astounding the ‘literary world’ beyond the confines of his own native country. To what extent was Iolo’s superimposition of Wales over India contrived as opposed to being a sign of genuine interest? His overtures to Pughe and Owain Myfyr on the subject suggest that he had a printing and publishing agenda in view. Yet, this does not necessarily preclude the possibility that, as he read Halhed’s book, he believed that he was finding hard evidence of highly fascinating links between two distant cultures. Iolo’s acceptance of the theory which maintained that the

58 59 60

Ibid. , pp. 288, 289. Ibid. , p. 290. Ibid. , p. 302, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 30 June 1800. This prohibition may be considered a sacrifice not only of Iolo’s but also of Pughe’s own real interest in oriental scholarship and in the esoteric. A paragraph of the letter in question is dedicated to Sanskrit–Welsh overlaps, including the extraordinary similarity between the Sanskrit alphabet and Iolo’s devised ‘Coelbren y Beirdd’, with regard to ‘arrangement, number of vowels, consonants and classes, &c. ’ In ‘Diddordebau Ieithyddol Iolo Morganwg’ (unpublished University of Wales Ph. D. thesis, 1988), I, p. 17, Richard M. Crowe suggests that Iolo kindled Pughe’s interest in Sanskrit.

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forefathers of the Welsh nation issued from Asian territories is shown in many of his writings. 61 He appears to have imbibed this notion from evidence provided by contemporary historians and antiquarians, among them the little-loved John Pinkerton. As Iolo pointed out to Owain Myfyr: Even Pinkerton, that most likely of all men living to oppose our claims to ancient civilization, admits that the Cimbri came from the shores of the Caspian Sea into Europe. He has thus removed every possible difficulty of deriving the Cimbri and their learning from the same aboriginal stock as the Magi of Persia and the Bramins of India. 62

Iolo’s copy of Pinkerton’s Dissertation on the Origins and Progress of the Scythians or Goths shows in its marginal annotations attempts to unravel the puzzle regarding the identity (separate yet related, in his view) of ‘Cimmeri’ and ‘Cumbri’, by releasing a colony of the early Welsh people to settle in Scandinavia, as well as permitting the main troop to have issued from Asia. 63 Pinkerton’s Dissertation, however, does not appear to have been formative in determining Iolo’s views on this subject. As the quotation from his letter to Owain Myfyr suggests, Iolo was only too happy to find in Pinkerton corroborative evidence for theories already established in his own mind via other authors. 64 The sentiment behind the quotation is one of delight at having caught Pinkerton inadvertently supporting his own view of the Welsh case for ancient and elevated origins. This comes as no surprise if we consider the genesis of Iolo’s relationship with Pinkerton – a man whom he never met, yet upon whom he showered insults of the most personal nature. Mistrusted as the author of anti-Welsh letters to the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1788, Pinkerton was loathed by Iolo. 65 His assessment of Pinkerton’s ability as a historian and a ‘philosopher’ is revealed in the annotations to his copy of the Dissertation. Each hint of uncertainty in Pinkerton’s rhetoric is pounced upon – his use of the words ‘seems’ or ‘hypothesis’ and his ‘perhapses’. When, for example, he suggested that the name ‘Cumri’ arises ‘Perhaps from proceeding in troops, Cymmar . . . ’, Iolo inserted a sign 61

62 63

64

65

Bardic Circles, p. 80; NLW 13146A, p. 46; Crowe, ‘Diddordebau Ieithyddol Iolo Morganwg’, I, p. 43. CIM, II, p. 289, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 17 June 1800. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Pinkerton, A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths, pp. 5, 34, 47, 49, 50. On the historical difference between the ‘Cimbri’ and the ‘Cummeri’, see Crowe, ‘Diddordebau Ieithyddol Iolo Morganwg’, I, p. 43. ‘Littleton’ is quoted as an authority on this matter in Iolo’s copy of Pinkerton, A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths, p. 50. For the background, see Cathryn A. Charnell-White, Barbarism and Bardism: North Wales versus South Wales in the Bardic Vision of Iolo Morganwg (Aberystwyth, 2004), pp. 7–8; Bardic Circles, pp. 54–7; and CIM, I, pp. 352–3, Iolo Morganwg to Sylvanus Urban, [?1789]. On the general scorn in which the Welsh language was held in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century English writing (an attitude which coloured Pinkerton’s views), see Bardic Circles, pp. 46–9.

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Fig. 3 John Pinkerton, stipple engraving by Ridley, Holl and Blood.

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against the word ‘Perhaps’, and an accompanying note in ink: ‘Perhaps! such perhapses of ignorant coxcombs are very curious things frequently. ’66 Yet, what angered Iolo most was Pinkerton’s essentially Anglo-Saxon perspective, one which denied Welsh history and the Welsh language any weight in the tableau of early British civilization. To the tune of Iolo’s accusations of lying (‘Celwydd’) and frank contradiction (‘not so!’), Pinkerton refuted the existence of early Welsh monuments (‘In Gothic we have a monument of the fourth century . . . In Celtic we have no remain older than the eleventh century; and the interpretation is dubious’); he argued that ‘the oldest names in Wales as in other parts south of Humber are Gaelic, not Cumraig’; and maintained that ‘The Welsh, as all know, is, even in its most ancient remains, full of Danish and English words’, to which claim Iolo retorted, ‘who are the all who know this!’67 From every angle, Iolo pulls askance at Pinkerton, showering his theories with scorn or meeting them with straightforward denial. Yet, the ridicule apparent on the pages of Iolo’s copy of the Dissertation is incongruously accompanied by signs of genuine interest in Pinkerton’s topic. The following quotation illustrates the uneasy coexistence of scorn and a desire to assimilate Pinkerton’s ideas: The latest and best [†] Natural Philosophers pronounce the flood impossible; and their reasons, grounded on mathematical truth and the immutable laws of nature, have my full assent [would-be Philosopher]. The Jews believed the earth was a vast plain, and that the rain came from a collection of waters above the firmament, (Genes. I. 7. ) as the earth floated on another mass of waters; (Gen. VII. 11. ) both of which were opened at the deluge. As such waters are now mathematically known not to exist; and the earth is found spherical; the effect must cease with the cause. M. de Buffon has shewn that all the earth was at first under sea. And the opinion of a deluge, which Grotius (De Verit. Rel. Christ. ) shews to have been common to most nations, certainly arose from the shells found even on the tops of mountains. [The Clouds are above and the central waters (Llyn Llion) under every part of the surface of the earth] [†] Pinkerton Means those of his own class, that is a Bastard Breede between knave and Fool. 68

Abuse aside, this passage’s description of the Jewish belief in the existence of a fund of waters underneath the surface of the earth clearly inspired Iolo. His 66

67 68

NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Pinkerton, A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths, p. 49. Ibid. , pp. 49, 195, 222. Ibid. , p. 33.

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description of the physical location of clouds and floating waters mimicked that of Pinkerton. Moreover, it added to the picture a Welsh term for the undersurface (or ‘central’) waters: ‘Llyn Llion’. It seems hardly likely that the term was coined directly on this page as Iolo read Pinkerton’s Dissertation. Yet, ‘Llyn Llion’ was particularly vivid to Iolo at the time when, judging by the evidence of the date with which he inscribed his copy of the book (1792), he read and most probably made his annotations to it. 69 Rachel Bromwich suggested 1791–2 as the period during which Iolo assembled The Myvyrian Archaiology’s ‘Third Series’ of triads, two thirds of which constitute his adaptations of authentic material in this genre. 70 The remaining forty-two triads, Bromwich argues, were Iolo’s original work, though they may have drawn on ‘folklore which was still orally current during his lifetime’. 71 These original forty-two triads include two which mention ‘Llyn Llion’, both of which emphasize the ‘irruption’ of the lake as a cause for ‘a deluge [which] covered the face of the whole earth’, although they say nothing about the location of the lake, or its positioning ‘under every part of the surface of the earth’. 72 Bromwich noted that Sir John Rh}s had linked the triads with the story of the deluge and Noah’s ark, and there can be little doubt of the pertinence of this suggestion. To see Iolo inserting the reference to the lake, Llyn Llion, at around the time of the composition of The Myvyrian Archaiology’s ‘Third Series’ against this passage in Pinkerton’s Dissertation confirms this. It reinforces a sense that Iolo’s appropriation of Jewish or patriarchal legend to a Welsh context – via triadical literature in the Welsh language – was an attempt to claim a slice of the ancient mythology of mankind for a Welsh audience. Iolo’s reason for doing so was undoubtedly based on the belief that the Welsh people had originated in eastern territories before emigrating westwards and eventually settling in the Isle of Britain. The applicability of the term ‘Llyn Llion’ at this point in Iolo’s reading of Pinkerton’s Dissertation, and his readiness to pluck it from his store of knowledge and commit it to pen and paper in this place, suggests an intelligence constantly searching for points of reference and comparison as a means of enriching experience. Iolo’s predilection for such thinking is apparent in one of his other sparse references to ‘Llyn Llion’. Whereas his friend Pughe was fascinated by the possibilities of interpreting, in a mythological context, the significance of 69

70

71 72

The evidence of the handwriting is consistent with a 1790s date. Charnell-White notes that Iolo had mislaid his copy of the book by 1804. See Bardic Circles, p. 56, note 54. Rachel Bromwich, ‘Trioedd Ynys Prydain: The Myvyrian “Third Series”’, THSC (1968), 299–338; eadem, ‘Trioedd Ynys Prydain: The Myvyrian “Third Series”’, THSC (1969), 127–55. Bromwich, ‘Trioedd Ynys Prydain: The Myvyrian “Third Series”’, THSC (1968), 301. Ibid. , 306–7. The triads in question are nos. 13 and 97. For the latter, see Bromwich, ‘Trioedd Ynys Prydain: The Myvyrian “Third Series”’, THSC (1969), 140. The original Welsh ‘Third Series’ is to be found in MAW, II, pp. 57–75, with triads nos. 13 and 97 on pp. 59 and 71.

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Iolo’s theories regarding the lake or the glades of ‘Llion’,73 Iolo’s attitude towards his own creation was considerably more blasé. In a letter to Pughe, he nonchalantly referred to the lake in the context of a contemporary sweep of rain and floods: Here in Wales we have had neither snow nor frost but a deluge of rain inferior only to torriad Llynn Llion [the overflowing of Llion lake]. We are in all directio[ns] [o]bstructed by great floods;

before going on to discuss a new scheme for encouraging careful record-keeping of the weather in every part of Wales, in Pughe’s London and elsewhere in England, ‘that we might thence have a comparative [v]iew and correct account of the meteorology of Wales, and that compared with [th]e meteorology of England’. 74 Past and present melted into one in Iolo’s febrile imagination, leaving a perplexed but delighted Pughe to ponder at length the meanings of Iolo’s forged mythology. 75 The superimposition of Welsh mythology and history continues in Iolo’s reading of Pinkerton’s Dissertation with annotations of the latter’s English and Latin terminology with Welsh alternatives: ‘Theodoric’ becomes ‘Tewdric’, ‘Morimarusam’ changes into ‘Môr Marw’, and ‘Cylipenum’ is replaced by ‘Cil y penn Bay or recess of the headland’. 76 Yet, Iolo’s annotations of the Dissertation do more than simply reconfirm his own system of mythology and historical research, as his work on the Welsh triads appears to have done. 77 He was also on the prowl for new ideas. Pinkerton’s description of the Gallic and Celtic way of life included a record of Dion’s claim ‘that they lived in cars; that is like their neighbours the Sarmatae’. Iolo had nothing but scorn for such a notion: ‘Living in Cars &c!!!’78 Yet, some years later, in May 1798, he informed Pughe of a new set of triads in his possession entitled ‘Trïoedd y Cludeu’. Promising to send a translation of them to London for publication in the Cambrian Register, he claimed that they were ‘jurisprudential and seem, at

73 74 75

76

77

78

CIM, II, pp. 404–6, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 8 January 1802. Ibid. , p. 399, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 5 December 1801. Ibid. , pp. 404–6, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 8 January 1802: ‘Your ideas concerning the identity of Gwezzonau Llion [the glades of Llion] and the Azores are very curious . . . ’. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Pinkerton, A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths, pp. 197, 198, 200. Writing of the way in which Iolo provided Welsh versions of Latin names in his ‘Third Series’ triads, Bromwich argued that Iolo thereby ‘demonstrated his fundamental desire to reconcile the native with the foreign sources for early British history’. See Bromwich, ‘Trioedd Ynys Prydain: The Myvyrian “Third Series”’, THSC (1968), 301. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Pinkerton, A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths, p. 153.

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least to me, to be extremely ancient’. 79 Among his papers Iolo noted that ‘Trioedd y Cludau’ had been created by a society in a nomadic condition, and that they portrayed a people whose ‘Towns or villages were little, or nothing, else but a number of Caravans or moveable habitations, {dwellings}’. 80 Such commutation, from treating an idea with derision to using it as an inspiration for a major piece of work, shows the complexity of Iolo’s responses to Pinkerton’s volume. In all three books hitherto examined we have considered Iolo’s reading primarily as that of a man caught up in a stream of scholarship (of varying degrees of contemporaneity) and intent upon investing Wales with a unique position within this framework. Although Iolo’s marginalia to printed books cannot be compared with the profuse working annotations produced by Coleridge in his copies of Shakespeare’s plays, for example, they certainly bear clear traces of a mind categorizing (via indexes) and picking, magpie-like, at the crumbs of the work of others. 81 Yet, some of Iolo’s annotated books may tentatively be approached as volumes which were read with no deliberate agenda in mind. Leaving behind the currents of contemporary scholarship in areas of keen interest to him, we find examples of annotation conducted with no clear outcome in view – a kind of marginalia which simply provided a record of Iolo’s response for its own sake. Such examples may be considered as part of a process of conducting a dialogue with books, in a manner not uncommon to annotating readers contemporary with Iolo, although no examples of highly sustained annotation by Iolo have come to light. 82 A possible contender for finding Iolo unselfconsciously reflecting his own thoughts in the privacy of the margins of a book is a copy of Romæ Antiquæ Notitia: or, The Antiquities of Rome by Basil Kennett. Iolo’s copy was of the first edition of 1696, but the book had been republished seven times by 1794, and was thus clearly still highly marketable. Iolo’s notes are extremely sparse. This, however, ensures that the little there is speaks volubly, since we are forced to consider why Iolo broke into writing at these points alone. Iolo’s first burst occurs on p. 139, in response to the following passage:

79 80 81

82

CIM, II, p. 85, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 12 May 1798. NLW 13088B, pp. 73–4. George Whalley (ed. ), Marginalia [Samuel Taylor Coleridge]: Vol. 1, Abbt to Byfield (London, c. 1980), pp. lxii, cxvii; Jackson, Romantic Readers, pp. 227–8. See Jackson, Romantic Readers, chapter 2. On the richness of Coleridge’s ‘conversation’ with his books, see his daughter Sara’s remarks: ‘he seems ever at my ear, in his books, more especially his marginalia – speaking not personally to me, and yet in a way so natural to my feelings, that finds me so fully, and awakens such a strong echo in my mind and heart, that I seem more intimate with him now than I ever was in my life. ’ Quoted by Whalley in his introduction to Marginalia [Samuel Taylor Coleridge]: Vol. 1, Abbt to Byfield, pp. lviii–lix.

95

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Verbera, or Stripes, were inflicted either with Rods (Virgae) or with Battoons (Fustes). The first commonly preceded capital Punishments, properly so call’d: The other was most in use in the Camp, and belong’d to the Military Discipline.

Opposite, in ink, Iolo wrote: ‘Note! so Jesus Christ was scourged before his Crucifiction. ’83 On p. 141, the text continues its depiction of Roman forms of physical punishment: The Cross and the Furca are commonly taken for the same thing in Authors; tho’, properly speaking, there was a great difference between them. The Furca is divided by Lipsius into Ignominiosa and Poenalis. The former Plutarch describes to be that piece of wood which supports the Thill of a Waggon: He adds, that ’twas one of the greatest Penances for a Servant who had offended, to take this upon his Shoulders, and carry it about the Neighbourhood . . .

Iolo retorted briefly: ‘still used in Wales’. 84 What are the effects of such notes? They both bring the pain of physical torture closer to home. In the second case, the note literally transmits a scene from ancient Rome into a contemporary Welsh context. In the first, the sense of pain is internalized by drawing comparison with the plight of Jesus at the hands of the Roman authorities. For Iolo the Christian, Jesus’s pain would have been inscribed on the heart; the pain of punished people in his own Wales also appears, from other testimony, to have particularly disgusted Iolo. His view of capital punishment was expressed by his actions in 1813 on behalf of William Morgan, a condemned twenty-two year-old labourer from Llantrisant. Iolo went to great lengths to assemble a petition for the young man’s pardon, explaining to his son Taliesin that he would attend the scene of the execution in Cardiff only if he knew beforehand that the sought-for-pardon had been granted: This day week is the day appointed for execution. I will endeavour to be then at Cardiff. If I am then assured that the reprieve has been obtained, I will attend to see the awful spectacle, otherwise not. I never yet saw an execution, and never will if I may be able by any possible means to avoid such a sight. 85

Iolo’s sole two comments in Romæ Antiquæ Notitia thus bespeak his humanity – his hatred of the organized murder of execution and of physical and public punishment. 83

84 85

NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Basil Kennett, Romæ Antiquæ Notitia: or, The Antiquities of Rome (London, 1696), p. 139. Ibid. , p. 141. CIM, III, p. 189, Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 8 October 1813.

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Iolo’s only other impression on his copy of Kennett’s book is to be found in a brief index inserted at the back of the volume, in which he noted: Juries, 134, 135, 136, Spies and Informers, 138. 86

All that can be gleaned from this is that Iolo saw in ancient Rome, with all its cruelties and injustices, a mirror of the society in which he himself lived. His experience during Pitt’s ‘Reign of Terror’ in the London of the 1790s led him to encounter modern-style ‘Spies and Informers’, as he outlined in a letter to his wife Margaret (Peggy) in 1794: There are a set of wretches employed by government to go about daily to examine the papers of suspected persons, of whom I am one. It is for this reason that I am now in a field writing this least the bloodhound should come in whilst I am writing . . . I will go to Mr William Owens to write the [————] out of the informer’s way. 87

Iolo’s portrayal of his own experience echoed the following indexed passage from Romæ Antiquæ Notitia, down to the verbal reverberation of ‘Wretches’: as the Kings before, so the Emperours afterwards were themselves Judges in what Causes, and after what manner they pleas’d; as Suetonius particularly informs us of almost all the Twelve Caesars. ’Twas this gave occasion to the rise of the Mandatores and Delatores, a sort of Wretches to be met with in every part of History. The business of the former was to mark down such Persons as upon Inquisition they pretended to have found guilty of any Misdemeanour . . . This mischievous Tribe, as they were countenanc’d and rewarded by ill Princes, so were they extremely detested by the good Emperours . . . Pliny reckons it among the greatest Praises of Trajan, that he had clear’d the City from the perjur’d Race of Informers. 88

Perhaps Iolo – in his personal plight rather than in his capacity as a humane empathizer with others – derived comfort or courage from the comparison, and felt strengthened by his reading of a book which linked his own persecutors with the evil-doers of ancient Rome. He did not date his annotations or indeed the copy itself, but the resonances suggest that he was either in the midst of the crises of being informed upon as a radical in 1790s London, or else had already lived through that experience. All in all, the tenor of the annotations, including 86 87 88

NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Kennett, Romæ Antiquæ Notitia, inside the back hard cover. CIM, I, p. 701, Iolo Morganwg to Margaret (Peggy) Williams, [?20 October 1794]. Kennett, Romæ Antiquæ Notitia, p. 138.

97

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the index references, suggest a testimony to personal experience and reveal a man whose ability to feel sympathy for others was well-developed. 89

‘[C]am-ddaliadau g{yrgam’ (Crooked misconceptions): Annotating and the public sphere The material hitherto explored may be seen as belonging to Iolo’s personal world, whether as a man of letters seeking influences for producing his own work or as a private individual recording or reflecting his experiences. The following section examines Iolo’s position within the contemporary establishment on religious, linguistic and cultural fronts. It considers how he navigated his position in relation to the status quo, measuring up the successes and failures of his own work to influence and steer the course of an emergent Welsh establishment. The material considered provides proof that Iolo shared his annotations with others, and viewed the margins of books and manuscripts as a space for debate, not only with the texts themselves, but with other interpretations of them. This opens up the possibility that some of his most disapproving annotations of contemporary works were intended for circulation. The margins of such works, irrespective of whether they were circulated or not, appear to have been the site for Iolo’s active efforts to mount resistance to the increasing Anglicization and Anglicanization of the Welsh establishment as represented in the 1820s eisteddfodau. The pugnacious nature of his writing suggests that, rather than characterize these annotations as marginalized expressions of frustration, it may be more accurate to represent them as attempts at countering the self-congratulatory voices of those whose publications placed them in the favour of the Welsh public domain. The annotations considered here often strongly suggest a shared readership in which Iolo bore the flag of a guide and setter-to-rights. His interest in communities of readers is indicated by the already-mentioned lists of books in his possession which he lent to others. Shared literary experience is also signalled by the spurious insertions in Iolo’s hand in David Samwell’s bound copy of Evan Evans’s Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards and Rhys Jones’s Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru as discussed in chapter 2. 90 Iolo’s sharing of 89

90

Note that ‘Kennet’s Roman History’ is included in a list of ‘Books at present in my possession proper for a circulating Library’, NLW 21407C, no. 1. The inclusion of the title in the list need not indicate, in this case, that Iolo intended to distribute his own annotated copy. However, note the contradictory evidence regarding Iolo’s lending habits provided by the annotations to his copy of David Richards, Cywydd y Drindod ([Gwrexam], 1793), discussed below. Note that Samwell presented Iolo with a copy of William Mason, An Heroic Postscript to the Public, Occasioned by their Favourable Reception of a Late Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers, Knt. &c. (London, 1774). He inscribed it ‘From Dafydd ddu Feddyg To Iolo Morganwg Yswain Llundain Awst 18 1791’. There are no annotations. I am grateful to Mr Charles Parry for drawing my attention to this volume.

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Fig. 4 The Powys Provincial Eisteddfod, September 1824, Print.

books, however, was not always as clearly self-serving as it may appear from the Samwell example. He could also share his views in annotations or involve himself in annotating debates with others on a fairly level playing-ground. A case in point is that of a manuscript known as ‘Y Piser Hir’. 91 This is a compilation of Welsh strict-metre poetry, ranging in date from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, in the hand of the Revd David Ellis. Ellis was vicar of Cricieth in Caernarfonshire from 1789 until his death in 1795, but had previously held various curacies, including those of Llangeinwen and Amlwch in Anglesey. It may have been during his Anglesey days that he came into contact with the redoubtable poet and schoolmaster David Thomas (Dafydd Ddu Eryri), to whom he bequeathed a large number of his manuscripts, including ‘Y Piser Hir’. 92 Iolo’s visit to Anglesey in 1799 took him to Dafydd Ddu’s home at Traeth Coch (Red Wharf Beach), where he copied material from Ellis’s manuscripts, 91 92

NLW Minor Deposit 55B. For Dafydd Ddu Eryri’s reference to his acquisition of David Ellis’s manuscripts, see CIM, I, pp. 764–5, 767–8 (trans. ), David Thomas (Dafydd Ddu Eryri) to Iolo Morganwg, 4 July 1795.

99

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and where he may well have added annotations to ‘Y Piser Hir’. 93 Ellis had already included a small number of comments on the poems transcribed, and Iolo conducted a dialogue with those remarks which was clearly intended for the eyes of Dafydd Ddu and others. Many of Ellis’s notes, controversial from Iolo’s perspective, relate to views on denominational matters. For example, Morys Roberts’s ‘Cywydd Dydd y Farn’ (Cywydd on Judgement Day) prompted the Anglican vicar to comment: Morys Roberts o’r Bala oedd yn byw yn Amser, y Frenhines Ann. gwr difrifol oedd, fel y tebygwn wrth ei waith, ond ychydig a wyddai am Rëol Barddoniaeth gywrain, nid oedd ychwaith yn cyttuno a’r Llywodraeth, fel y tystia’r ymryson a fu rhyngddo a Robt. Williams o’r Geulan goch, yr hwn oedd wir aelod o Eglwys Loegr a deiliad gwir i’r Frenhines. D. E. (Morys Roberts of Bala lived in the age of Queen Ann. He was a thoughtful man, as we can see from his work, but he knew little of the rule of ingenious poetry, neither was he in agreement with the government, as is proven by the debate which he undertook with Robert Williams of Geulan Goch, who was a true member of the Church of England and a faithful subject to the Queen. D. E. )

Clearly incensed by the comment, Iolo wrote his own response underneath: O Ddiawl! ai ymneilltuwr oedd? nid rhyfedd ynteu chwilio am fai neu haeru yn anwireddus ei fod ar gywydd difai Morys Roberts. Iolo Morganwg. 94 (To hell! Was he a Dissenter? No wonder, then, that he should seek, or untruthfully claim to have found, a flaw in Morys Roberts’s faultless cywydd. Iolo Morganwg. )

This impetuous remark is followed by the confident inscription of Iolo’s full bardic name, underlined for emphasis. There is no question about Iolo’s perspective on this matter, and he probably cared little for Dafydd Ddu’s sympathy with High Anglicanism when writing his view. Yet, when Ellis began to attack 93

94

NLW 13129A, pp. 1–10, contains, in Iolo’s hand, a list of Welsh poets extracted from David Ellis’s manuscript collection. Iolo claimed to have made the copy at Dafydd Ddu’s home in August 1799. NLW 17B, another Ellis manuscript, also contains an annotation by Iolo Morganwg on p. 444. To Ellis’s appreciative comments on the publication of John Rhydderch’s Grammadeg Cymraeg (Y Mwythig, 1728), Iolo added: ‘Cystal y gwyddai Sion Rhydderch Reolau Barddoniaeth ag y gwyr Buwch wau Sidan’ (Siôn Rhydderch knew the rules of poetry no better than a cow knows how to weave silk). Iolo’s campaign against Rhydderch is further advanced by his marginalia to BL Add. 14878, f. 98r, in which he claimed that many manuscripts belonging to the Glamorgan collector Tomas ab Ieuan of Tre’r-bryn were borrowed by Rhydderch, but were never returned. NLW Minor Deposit 55B, p. 396. Both Ellis and Iolo’s notes are quoted in O. M. Edwards (ed. ), Beirdd y Berwyn 1700–1750 (Llanuwchllyn, 1902), p. 20.

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the fifteenth-century poet Hywel ap Dafydd ab Ieuan ap Rhys (Hywel Dafi) for his Catholic faith, Iolo found himself on rather shakier ground. A firm antiCatholic by nature, and reluctant to agree with the comment of an Anglican, he trod a fine line between capitulation to one of two despised faiths. 95 A marginal note (not necessarily in Ellis’s hand, for the ink is a different colour from that of his other notes) comments on Hywel Dafi’s description of his visit to Rome and of the blessing given him by the church authorities there: Mi a aethym dygyn daith, Yn lan dan ei law unwaith, Ni ddel ynof o’m gofwy, Bechod mawr heb iechyd mwy. (I went once, it was an earnest journey, To receive blessing under his hand; As a result of my visit, I will no longer be A great sinner unredeemed. )

‘[C]elwydd Leidr’ (lying malefactor), says this note, objecting presumably to the concept of redemption through the Pope’s blessing. Iolo objected to the accusation on the basis of historical and factual accuracy. Hywel Dafi was clearly not lying regarding this practice, but was simply reporting his experience: nage leidr! yr oedd, ac y mae fyth, y Pab yn gosod ei law ar ben{nau} y rhai a rotho efe iddynt ei fendith. I. M. (no malefactor! The Pope used to, and still does, lay his hand upon the heads of those to whom he gives his blessing. I. M. )

Yet, Iolo could not allow his antipathy towards Catholicism to pass unnoted. In the harsh voice of a caricature-figure, not unlike some of the colourful personages of his intended 1780s publication ‘Dywenydd Morganwg’, he added: celwydd Leidr? nid Bendith eithr melldith y cyfan a gaid erioed o law a than law’r Pab. Bedo’r Bastwn. 95

For Iolo’s dislike of Catholicism, see, for example, a passage of his work quoted in Bardic Circles, p. 71, in which he dismissed the faith as ‘Popish Superstition’. The same phrase is routinely used in CIM, III, p. 378, Iolo Morganwg to the Revd [?], 30 December 1815. For a more balanced view, see ibid. , I, pp. 587, 591 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to the publisher of Cylch-grawn Cynmraeg: neu Drysorfa Gwybodaeth, 27 July 1793. On nineteenth-century Welsh attitudes to Catholicism, see Paul O’Leary, ‘A Tolerant Nation? Anti-Catholicism in NineteenthCentury Wales’ in R. R. Davies and Geraint H. Jenkins (eds. ), From Medieval to Modern Wales: Historical Essays in Honour of Kenneth O. Morgan and Ralph A. Griffiths (Cardiff, 2004), pp. 197–213.

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(A malefactor? All that was ever had from and under the hand of the Pope was a curse and no blessing. Bedo’r Bastwn. )

When, at the foot of the cywydd, a further interjection appeared (this time certainly by Ellis) in the form of a vicious attack on Dafi’s faith, Iolo resorted to his rational voice in praising the poet for leaving an accurate record of his time and of its faith: Gresyn fod y Bardd celfyddgar hwn yn un o Deulu Annwfn, neu Ddisgyblion y Pâb, oni bai hynny, ni buasai’n addurno cymmaint o Goel-grefydd a Chelwydd, a’r cyfryw hardd wisg odidog ag ydyw’r Cywydd uchod. D. Ellis Chwefror 28 1788 Clod a moliant i’r Bardd am hyn o hanes Rhufain ai chrefftwriaeth offeiriadol yn yr oes honno. Iolo Morganwg. 96 (It is a shame that this skilful poet is one of the Family of the Underworld, or the pupils of the Pope. Were it not for that, he would not adorn so much false religion and untruth in the fine, splendid apparel that is the above cywydd. D. Ellis February 28 1788 May the poet be praised and revered for this much of the history of Rome and its priestcraft in that age. Iolo Morganwg. )

Having judged Ellis for allowing religious bias to cloud his judgement as a literary critic, Iolo himself concealed his own bigotry under the supposedly cool and objective historical perspective of the ‘learned critic’. An echo of this battle may be found in the editorial apparatus to Iolo’s Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain, in which Gwilym Tew’s ode to the Virgin Mary of Pen Rhys (‘Awdl y Wyryf Fair Wenn o Benn Rhys’) was accompanied by a note which deflated the symbolic vestiges of Catholicism:

96

NLW Minor Deposit 55B, p. 207.

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nid achos ond chwerthin am benn y mabiaith gwrthbwyll a pha un y mae’n Hen Athraw bolfras yn son am ei Fair Forwyn, ei Fair Wenn; a phethau eraill, digrif yn hyttrach na ffiaidd eu clywed . . . Y mae’r Awdl honn, er maint a ddywedais am ei hammherffeithrwydd, yn deilwng o’i chadw; y mae’n dangos yn oleudrem helynt ein Mydryddiaeth yn yr oes derfysglyd honno; a threigl ei diwygiad o well i well, hyd amser Eisteddfod gyntaf Caerfyrddin . . . 97 (there is cause for nothing save laughter at the expense of the unprudent frivolity with which our big-bellied old professor speaks of his Virgin Mary, his Blessed Mary, and other things, comical rather than abhorrent . . . This ode, in spite of all I said of its imperfection, deserves to be preserved. It illuminates the course of our prosody in that turbulent age, and its revolution for the better until the time of the first Carmarthen eisteddfod . . . )

In the mature Iolo’s view, even a poor poem which sang the praises of a ‘misguided’ faith was a historical record. 98 Iolo once more entered a debate-in-the-margins regarding religious views in his copy of Cywydd y Drindod (1793), the work of his old friend David Richards (Dafydd Ionawr). The Flemingston bard was well-disposed towards Richards, praising him as late as 1811 as ‘the best poet in our country in my opinion, especially in the old cynganeddion and metres’ (‘Y prydydd goreu yn ein gwlad yn fy marn i ydyw ef, yn enwedig ar yr hen gynghaneddau a’r mesurau’). Yet, he did not ‘wholly agree with him in every point of my religious creed’ (‘n[i]d wyf yn llwyr gydfyned ag ef ymhob pwnc om credo grefyddol’). 99 In his prefatory remarks to Cywydd y Drindod, Dafydd Ionawr had maintained that: Our first Parents, through the guileful artifice of Satan, having transgressed the sole Command of the Almighty, both they and their posterity became subject to Death,

97 98

99

CBYP, pp. 213–14. The same view is expressed in Iolo’s manuscript papers: ‘[A] natural and easy kind of poetry was much used . . . in the times of Henry 8th, Edward 6th and Elizabeth in favour of the Reformation by Twm ab Ifan ap Rhys[,] William Cap Du and others. Of these pieces or songs, we have a great number preserved. We have also several in favour of the opposite papistical side of the question, and when the dissention from the Church of England took place about the middle of the 17th century, we have many such songs on each side of the question. These songs afford us some historical knowledge not elsewhere to be found. It has in all ages been the uninterrupted practice of the Welsh poets to record in verse the events and occurrences of their own times, and possibly there is no country in Europe whose history can be collected so completely from its poetry as that of Wales’. NLW 13138A, pp. 91–2, quoted in Bardic Circles, p. 270. CIM, III, pp. 68, 70 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to [?], 6 May 1811.

103

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both temporal and eternal. The second Person in the ever blessed Trinity undertook to pay the Ransom, and to restore mankind into favor with God. 100

This reference to the Trinity made Iolo’s Unitarian blood boil, and he remarked brusquely at the foot of the page, ‘who told you so?’ Disconcertingly, a further annotating hand answers this rhetorical question with ‘The Bibl’. The same voice, which expounded on this response on a clean sheet (at some point glued into the volume following the preface), offered a rhapsodic defence of Dafydd Ionawr’s assumption, based on the evidence of the First Epistle of John: Y Bibl I Ioan 5, 7. Mae tri yn tystiolaethu. Sylwn mae tri. ond pa un or tri yw’r un y dywed Paul mae trwu ei farwolaeth ef y cymodwyd ac yr heddychwyd ni ag ef ei hyn. Nid y cynta oblegid y Tad yw. Nid y trydydd oblegid yr Ysbryd Glan yw. Am hynu yr Ail yw sef y Gair Dywed y bibl ddarfod i’r Gair roddi ei hun drosom ni yn iawn DROS ein pechodau Efe fu farw DROS bawb fe brofodd farwolaeth DROS pob dyn yr hwn ai rhoddodd ei hunan DROSOM mewn pryd DROS yr anuwiol y cyfiawn DROS yr anghyfiawn hefyd fe ddywedir i’n mae trwyddo ef mae in gael ein hadferu i ffafor neu heddwch a Duw efe yw’r drws y ffordd y cyfryngwr trwu ei waed ef maer pell yn cael ei ddwyn yn agos yr ang[h]yfiawn yn cael ei gyfiawnhau yr aflan ei olchi y dy ei ganu y gwan ei nerthy maer dyrfa sydd yn y nef yn canu am y gwaed ai golchodd fellu y canaf finau a chwithau hefyd os ewch {awn} ir Nef [page turn] Rwyf yn ddiolchgar i chwi am ei fenthig. (The Bible I John 5, 7. Three give testimony. Let us note, three. But which one of the three is it of which Paul says that it was through his death that we were reconciled and made at peace with him? Not the first, since he was the Father. Not the third, since he is the Holy Ghost. Therefore, it is the second, namely the Word. The Bible says that the Word gave himself on our behalf as atonement FOR our sins. He died FOR everyone; he experienced death FOR each man, he gave himself FOR us, in time FOR the ungodly. The just FOR the unjust. Also it is said to us that it is through him that we may be restored to favour or to peace with God. He is the door, the road, the mediator. It is through his blood that the distant is brought near, the unjust is justified, the evil is cleansed, the black is whitened, the weak is strengthened. The heavenly host sings about the blood which cleansed it. So shall I and you too if you go {we go} to Heaven. [page turn] I am grateful to you for lending it to me. )

The identity of this earnest writer, who clearly wished to impart the zeal of his own creed and include Iolo in his vision of the blessings attendant upon true believers, is unknown. It may be that he (or possibly she) never returned this book to Iolo, and never completed the letter above in defence of 100

Cardiff University Library, Salisbury Collection, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Richards, Cywydd y Drindod, pp. xix–xx.

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Trinitarianism. It is hard to believe that Iolo would have gone to great lengths to preserve this sheet of pro-Trinitarian views, or at least that he would have done so without rebutting its views once more on the remaining blank space on the reverse. In any case, the debate, and the existence of marginalia in a second hand in this copy of a book clearly owned by Iolo, suggests his readiness to lend already-annotated books. In other words, his annotations did not register on a private level alone, and he was perfectly content to let others see them. He may even have consciously courted their reading of them. 101 What, apart from confirming Iolo’s radical religious stance, would the anonymous borrower of this book have gleaned from the annotations of its owner? In spite of Iolo’s praise of Dafydd Ionawr’s ability as a poet in 1811, the annotations to Cywydd y Drindod were extremely critical of the latter’s use of language in poetry. Iolo frequently noted ‘barbarisms’ in the language – his examples included the adding of the ‘monkey tail’ suffix ‘-ol’ to adjectives such as ‘parodol’ and ‘hynodol’, and uses of the auxiliary verb ‘gwneud’, e. g. in ‘os gwnewch brofi’ (if you will prove), both features of contemporary Welsh which grated on Iolo’s ear. 102 Two lines on one page are glossed with the word ‘Billingsgate’, their inharmonious clamour reminding Iolo of the famous London fish market which he probably frequented during his years in the capital. 103 He also called into question Dafydd Ionawr’s mastery of the techniques of cynghanedd. Like a seasoned eisteddfod adjudicator, Iolo seized on examples of ‘pengoll’ (leaving the latter part of a line without cynghanedd), ‘proestio’ (partial rhyming) and ‘trwm ac ysgawn’ (a rhyme between a short and a long syllable), and criticized inaccurately applied metaphors. For example, to Dafydd Ionawr’s ‘Crwm lwythau ar gangau’r gwydd’ (Bowed burdens on the branches of the trees) he exclaimed, ‘Ffolineb! crwm yw’r cangau nid y llwythau!’ (Folly! It is the branches that are bowed, not the burdens!) Elsewhere, he insisted that the conceit was foolish (‘Dychymyg ffol’). 104 At one point Iolo declared in disgust that ‘the language of this book is filthy abomination’ (‘Budredd tommenllyd yw Iaith y llyfr hwn’) and in his critique of a description of the rich harvest of fruit in the Garden of Eden he seems to imply a complete failure on the part of the poet to release himself from the grasp of Miltonian expression and produce an epic of the fall that is intrinsically Welsh in character: 101

102

103

104

On the value in which annotated books were held in Iolo’s time, see Jackson, Romantic Readers, pp. 58–9. Cardiff University Library, Salisbury Collection, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Richards, Cywydd y Drindod, pp. 28, 38. For Iolo’s comments on these matters, see, for example, CIM, III, pp. 671–2, Iolo Morganwg to Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain), 23 September 1823 (it is here that Iolo describes the suffix ‘-ol’ as ‘those monkey tails of the Southcottian dialect’); ibid. , pp. 755, 761 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 27 January 1826. Cardiff University Library, Salisbury Collection, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Richards, Cywydd y Drindod, p. 50. Ibid. , pp. 23, 27, 31, 36.

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Ebr Efa, mae ’n bêr yfed Dw’r glân hyd raian a red; Pur felys pêr afalau, Pêr yw eirin i’r min mau: Oh Addaf! er pereiddied Dw’r glân hyd raian a rêd; Os yw felys afalau, Os pêr eirin i’r min mau, Geiriau dy fin a gerais, Mwy pêr o lawer dy lais. (Eve said, ‘It is sweet to drink The clean water that runs along the gravel; Very sweet, mellow apples, Sweet are the plums to my mouth. Oh, Adam! In spite of the sweetness Of clean water which runs along the gravel, If the apples are sweet, If the plums are delicious to my mouth, It was the words of your mouth which I loved, Your voice is much sweeter. ’)

Iolo bracketed these repetitious lines: Dynwared Milton. os nad oedd gwell aeron ym mharadwys nac eirin ac afalau gwell genyf ardd fach yng Nghymru. 105 (Imitating Milton. Unless there were better berries in Paradise than plums and apples I prefer a small garden in Wales. )

This torrent of criticism seems to give the lie to Iolo’s claims of a warm regard for Dafydd Ionawr as a poet, irrespective of religious beliefs. Yet, when read in the wider context of Iolo’s annotations to Welsh poetry, the marginalia to this particular volume simply reaffirm the impression that Iolo was an incorrigible critic of Welsh usage. In the first instance, this habit was linked to his perception of a north–south divide within Wales, the south carrying the banner of more pure verbal expression, while the north had succumbed to the vices of

105

Ibid. , pp. 24, 25. For Milton’s description of Eve’s preparation of a feast of grapes and berries, see John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V, lines 331–49. This passage in Richards’s Cywydd y Drindod also gives rise to an attack by Iolo on the ‘Barb[arism]’ of the form ‘Ebr’, and the folly of the final couplet, which displays an excessive love for sound rather than sense (‘ffolineb – caru swn yn fwy na synwyr’).

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‘Deudneudism’ – a barbaric and low form of expression, further tinged by the Cockneyism of the north Wales expatriates living in London. 106 Yet, Iolo was not averse to criticizing ‘barbaric’ elements in the work of south Wales writers, and did not even except himself from scrutiny. In a letter to Gwallter Mechain in 1823 he claimed: ‘I have noticed a disgusting number of north Walian barbarisms in my Welsh introduction to Cyfrinach y Beirdd. ’107 His annotations to Cywydd y Drindod also noted with the word ‘fault’ (‘bai’) usages which he specifically described as ‘S. walicism[s]’. 108 Iolo was convinced that the Welsh language was being led astray at a critical juncture in the process of its crystallization into a national standard. With the growth of the printing industry, which was thriving in several parts of Wales as well as in London, and the development of provincial eisteddfodau whose competitors were drawn from all over Wales, the Welsh language was acquiring a national dimension on a scale unique in its history. The printed voices of contemporary poets and of the fledgling institutions which supported their work were of paramount importance in this process. Iolo was not alone in arguing the need for new terminology to express the essence of all-Wales institutions such as the provincial eisteddfodau. The 1823 eisteddfod, by setting as the topic of the awdl competition the establishment of St David’s College, Lampeter, implicitly linked itself with a revival in Welsh letters and learning. Eos Dyfed, a compendium of prize-winning poems at the eisteddfod, mentioned one of the earliest Welsh institutions of learning, that of Caerllion (Caerleon) where, so it claimed, a college under the direction of Dyfrig educated substantial numbers of youths from Gwent and other parts of Wales in the fifth century. 109 This early institution was a lone precursor to the establishment of St David’s College in 1822, a venture which, following hard

106

107

108

109

Charnell-White, Barbarism and Bardism, p. 16; Bardic Circles, pp. 111–14. In an 1805 letter to Owain Myfyr, Iolo complained of the ‘cockneyisms that so numerously appear in the Welsh writings of London, and of which that little trifle, “Gosodaethau’r Gwyneddigion” [The rules of the Gwyneddigion] is as full ag yw uffern o gybyddion [as hell is of misers]’. CIM, II, p. 707, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr) and William Owen Pughe, 21 September 1805. His copy of the ‘trifle’ in question here has survived, annotated in a hand consistent with the date of this reference. Cardiff University Library, Salisbury Collection, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Gosodaethau a Rheolau Cymdeithas y Gwyneddigion, a sefydlwyd yn Llundain, B.A. 1771 ([Llundain], [1799]). CIM, III, p. 672, Iolo Morganwg to Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain), 23 September 1823. On Iolo’s complaints about the Welsh used by Unitarian writers in south Wales, see Crowe, ‘Diddordebau Ieithyddol Iolo Morganwg’, I, p. 18, and the reference therein to NLW 13128A, p. 502, which includes a list headed ‘Unitarian Barbarisms’. Cardiff University Library, Salisbury Collection, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Richards, Cywydd y Drindod, pp. 99, 104. Cardiff University Library, Salisbury Collection, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Eos Dyfed: sef, Rhai o’r Cyfansoddiadau, a anfonwyd i Eisteddfod Caerfyrddin, Medi . . . 1823. At y rhai y ’chwanegwyd, Hanes yr Eisteddfod (Caerfyrddin, 1824), p. 4.

107

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on the heels of the successes of the provincial eisteddfodau since their inauguration in 1819, would re-establish the fortunes of the Welsh language following a long period of neglect. As Iolo read these self-assured comments, he evidently felt that they rivalled his own interest both in the early monastic tradition of learning in Wales and in the contemporary Welsh-language scene. In a note to the text’s reference to Caerleon he wrote: Caerllion super Usk. seems to [be] a Roman school. or a school of Roman rather than British Literature, see Triad &c Llanilltud and Llancarvan appear to have been schools wherein British as well as Roman Learning flourished [———————— ——————] Cattwg Ddoeth [——] Bonedd y Saint. 110

Iolo had laboured hard to provide a prominent place in the history of monastic learning for Llanilltud Fawr or Llantwit Major, seat of St Illtud, by weaving into sparse historical accounts his own inventions regarding the brilliance of this institution. A version of his history of Illtud’s school found its way into David Williams’s The History of Monmouthshire (1796), and would thus have been in circulation well before the establishment of both St David’s College and the provincial eisteddfodau. 111 The preference given in Eos Dyfed to Caerleon may therefore have surprised or perhaps angered Iolo. His note countered the bias towards Caerleon by insisting on the uniquely ‘British’ character of two Vale of Glamorgan schools – those of Llantwit and neighbouring Llancarfan – although he was careful to report the coexistence of Roman with British learning at these schools, since the civilizing influence of Rome was an important adjunct to the refinement of south Wales as opposed to north Wales barbarism. 112 Just as he found himself drawn to annotate what he saw as a misapplication of ideas in the case of the early history of Welsh learning, Iolo also felt a need to insert ironic exclamation marks against the description in Eos Dyfed of the mission of the new college and its allies, the provincial eisteddfodau. The text reported the contents of the sermon delivered by the Revd J. Davies, vicar of Llandingad: Fe sylwodd y Pregethwr deallus hefyd, fod yr hen Gymraeg – Iaith y cyffredin bobl trwy agos yr holl Dywysogaeth, wedi bod yn hir dan gwmmwl, – wedi ei hesgeuluso, – ond fod yr Eisteddfodau yn awr, yn dechreu codi ei phen, i’w llewyrch dechreuol – ac nad oedd ormodd i ddisgwyl oddiwrth GOLEG DEWI – y byddai iddo ei hadferu i’w phurdeb cyssefin, a’i dysgleirdeb gynt; – y byddai iddo gyhoeddi i’r byd y trysorau 110 111

112

Ibid. David Williams, The History of Monmouthshire (London, 1796), pp. 45–53. See further CIM, II, pp. 118–32, Iolo Morganwg to David Thomas, 20 October 1798. Charnell-White, Barbarism and Bardism, p. 12; Bardic Circles, pp. 61–2.

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Cymmreig, rhai a orweddasant, er ys oesoedd, yn llyfr-gelloedd Boneddigion, dan lwch hynafiaeth. 113 (The learned preacher also noted that the old Welsh language – the language of the common people almost throughout the Principality, long under a cloud – had been neglected, but that the eisteddfodau were now beginning to raise its head to its customary radiance, and that it was not too much to expect from St David’s College that it would restore [the language] to its native purity and its wonted lustre; that it would publish to the world the Welsh treasures which had been lying for ages in the libraries of gentlemen, under the dust of antiquity. )

Iolo’s exclamation marks, placed towards the latter end of this passage, call to mind his earlier attempts to collect the treasures of the Welsh manuscript tradition from the libraries of uncooperative landowners. Iolo may well have felt that the Revd Davies, in suggesting that the work of St David’s College was breaking new ground in this respect, showed an impertinent disregard for his own efforts. A sense of the older man’s greater knowledge and distaste at the fledgling institution’s self-assurance is tangible here too, though it is hard to gauge to what extent Iolo’s annotations display a sense of marginalization as opposed to an ironic smugness at the folly of others. When the report on the eisteddfod of 1823 described the excitement of concerts, the engraved medals for winners, the eloquence of orations delivered on the occasion and the mottoes used to symbolize the unity of the institution, it stumblingly sought to realize its own aspirations regarding the Welsh language. The text provides translations into Welsh of the English terminology required to describe the various activities which occurred at the eisteddfod. In doing so, it attempts to modernize the language in parallel with the contemporary cast of the eisteddfod as a festival. In Iolo’s copy of the book, however, the insertion of alternatives to the published text’s translations suggests that the terminology used was far from set in stone. Concert-going of the type instigated at this and other provincial eisteddfodau was, of course, an imported phenomenon and still very new in Wales in the 1820s. Thus, the term ‘y Gôr-Gynghan’ for ‘concert’ was easily liable to reconstitution as ‘Cynghangor’ in Iolo’s copy. 114 Likewise, Iolo found himself suggesting an alternative Welsh name for the Royal Harmonic Society which came from Bath to present the concert. The printed text’s ‘y Gymdeithas Gynghaneddol Freiniol’ was a very literal rendition,

113 114

Cardiff University Library, Salisbury Collection, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Eos Dyfed, p. 90. Ibid. , p. 91. Hywel Teifi Edwards considers the concert as a step towards the Anglicization of the eisteddfod: ‘In the essentially English concert, the Welsh identified with the metropolitan culture. ’ Hywel Teifi Edwards, ‘The Welsh Language in the Eisteddfod’ in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed. ), The Welsh Language and its Social Domains 1801–1911 (Cardiff, 2000), p. 297.

109

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with unfortunate overtones in view of the prominence at the eisteddfod of a different kind of ‘cynghanedd’ – the ‘cynghanedd’ of Welsh strict-metre poetry. Instead Iolo offered ‘Cymdeithas goslefgerdd Caerfaddon’. 115 Elsewhere, Iolo’s annotations display his superior knowledge of Welsh grammar and the precise meaning of Welsh vocabulary. Eos Dyfed translated the term ‘engraved Medal’ as ‘Tlysyn bathol’. Iolo disputed the term on two counts. He vehemently disliked the use of the suffix ‘-ol’, and suggested instead ‘Tlysyn bath’, adding that ‘bathiedig’ means ‘minted’, ‘as arian bath’ (like minted money). It is ‘Creifiedig’ which correctly translates the word ‘engraved’. 116 Thus Iolo’s annotations displayed his awareness of the precise meanings of words in both languages, with an insight crucial to the work of creating viable new terminology for the Welsh language. A final example of disputing the official terminology may be found in Iolo’s suggestion for the text’s ‘Testun-wers’ (motto) – ‘Gair cysswyn’. This latter term was an important one to Iolo. He bandied it in one of his last items of correspondence (a self-declared ‘letter of importance’), written in a shaky hand by a very infirm old man with weak eyesight. 117 Between 17 January and 4 February 1826, while struggling ‘to do all in my power by using a candle in the middle of the day’, Iolo composed a dedicatory greeting on behalf of the Merthyr Tydfil fraternity of poets to the bards of Wales. It included an account of what he believed to be the disastrous decision of the Carmarthen eisteddfod of c. 1453 to adopt Dafydd ab Edmwnd’s system of versification at the expense of the much more flexible and enlightened system of Llawdden and other Glamorgan bards. The result of this, according to the well-rehearsed text of ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’, was that the Glamorgan bards retained in isolation the pure essence of the Welsh bardic tradition, and preserved it intact over the centuries. The aim of the dedicatory greeting sent to Taliesin in 1826 was to link the contemporary Merthyr Tydfil fraternity of poets with Llawdden and his descendants, thereby investing them with the glory and the responsibility of sustaining and promoting the mission of Iolo’s bardic myth. In reading the greeting one is aware of a desire to introduce terminology clearly neither believed nor expected to be widely known by its target audience. Like the author of the essay in Eos Dyfed discussed above, Iolo provided Welsh terms followed by English renditions for the sake of clarity. For example, he glossed ‘graddenwau’ as ‘titles or official names and appellation’, ‘gorfodrif ’ as ‘majority in number’, and ‘canlyniadau diymdor’ as ‘uninterrupted succession’. These

115 116

117

Cardiff University Library, Salisbury Collection, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Eos Dyfed, p. 92. Ibid. , p. 98. For an example of Iolo’s railing against the use of the suffix ‘-ol’, see Appendix V (Literature), no. 25. CIM, III, pp. 753, 756, 758–9 (trans. ), 763 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 17 January–4 February 1826.

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were all terms relating to the functions and rites of the Gorsedd as Iolo would have it proceed through the medium of the Merthyr bards. ‘Gair cysswyn’ made its appearance here, as Iolo described the various mottoes of the Chairs of Glamorgan, Tir Iarll and the joint Chair of Morganwg, Gwent, Ergin, Euas, and Ystrad Yw. There is an urgency to Iolo’s writing in this letter – an awareness that the end is nigh, and a desperate yearning to find a pathway for his own brand of radical bardo-druidism which would supplant the Church-andKing mould. Iolo’s reading of Eos Dyfed is a reflection in some respects of his outsider status in relation to the 1820s eisteddfodau. The publication reported how the Llandingad vicar, in his address at the meeting, saw fit to denigrate Dissent and especially the more radical brand which Iolo represented: mae cam-ddaliadau g{yrgam yn cael eu tannu trwy’r Dywysogaeth gan rai a sydd yn gwadu Duwdod Crist, a grym ei adgyfodiad Ef, ac yn ysbeilio y Cristion iselfryd o angor ei enaid, a’i unig obaith am fywyd. 118 (Crooked misconceptions are being spread through the Principality by some who deny the Godliness of Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and who pillage from the lowly Christian the anchor of his soul, and his only hope for life. )

These words were bracketed by Iolo, and subjected to the cursory remark ‘Celwydd!’ (A lie!) This interchange buried within the pages of Iolo’s copy is in fact a wan reflection of the great debate into which Iolo was throwing his life and soul – that of ensuring a rational basis for hope and the anchoring of souls as opposed to the age-old system of the church, which rewarded the privileged and perpetuated a hierarchical division between the powerful and the weak. Small wonder that Iolo inscribed three exclamation marks against the quotation by the Anglican author of the essay of Isaiah’s words: ‘A sicrwydd dy amserau a nerth Iechydwriaeth fydd doethineb a gwybodaeth’ (And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of the times, and strength of salvation). 119 In his eyes, there was little wisdom to be found in this institution – in its ‘toasting’ of ‘several loyal petitions to king and country’ (‘Cyfeddwyd llawer arch ffyddlon dros y brenin a’r wladwriaeth’), or in its false attribution of noble pedigree to the eisteddfod’s president, George, Lord Dynevor:

118 119

Eos Dyfed, p. 89. Ibid. , p. 87. The quotation is from Isaiah 33: 6, and the English translation is from the King James Bible.

111

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[C]ymro glân eirian wr, A’i deidiau’n rhes o DEWDWR! (A pure Welshman, beautiful man, Whose grandfathers descend in a line from Tewdwr]!),

to which couplet Iolo testily responded with ‘Nag ydynt. I. Morg. ’ (No, they do not. I. Morg. )120 What was the function of these marginalia? They may suggest the undercurrent of an alternative system – one which prized Rational Dissent, scorned reverence for royalty, and believed that the self-congratulatory attitude of the eisteddfod towards its achievements in the spheres of language and literature was a misguided aberration in view of the existence of a Ioloic system of greater truth and value. Iolo’s experience as a transcriber of manuscripts in the early years of the century and the achievement of The Myvyrian Archaiology are glossed over in Eos Dyfed. The only sign of recognition is a passing reference to ‘Geirion Fardd Glâs’. This was an erroneous reference to a character created by Iolo and for whom he wrote a body of didactic or ‘wisdom’ literature included in the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology. Iolo patiently corrected the name to ‘Ceraint’ in the margin, but made no further comment. Did he note these errors on the part of the emergent institution – both in knowledge of detail and in recognition of himself – in a state of frustration and anger? Do the marginalia to this copy simply marginalize Iolo as a representative of radical Dissent in the post-revolutionary world? In expressing them, does he in fact enact his own silencing? The question of Iolo’s radical legacy has recently been explored by Marion Löffler in a study which demonstrates that this part of Iolo’s legacy was silenced by the first generation of biographers and heirs to his manuscript collection, who chose to play down the rational basis for Iolo’s Unitarianism and his Bardism, and set up instead the figure of a harmless old saint, with impeccable morals. 121 Yet, to uncover the actions of Iolo’s heirs after his death is not the same as unearthing his own plans for his legacy. The annotations to Eos Dyfed suggest a mind brimming with devices to counter the institution’s selfassured progress, and not simply by reference to the past. This is most clearly

120

121

Eos Dyfed, pp. 100, 106. The reference to toasting king and country drew three exclamation marks from Iolo, which possibly reflected his scorn not only of the monarchical servility of the institution but also of the Welsh term offered for ‘toasted’. At first glance it suggests that the toasters rendered themselves inebriated together (‘ar y cyd’, though ‘cy’ strictly speaking does not have the meaning of ‘cyd’ [together]). The word was surely a blunder for ‘cydyfwyd / cydyfed’ (to drink together). ‘Tewdwr’ refers to the Welsh ruler Rhys ap Tewdwr (d. 1093), King of Deheubarth from 1079. See ODNB s. v. Rhys ap Tewdwr, which refers to Iolo’s own spurious claims about Rhys in ‘Brut Aberpergwm’ and the Iolo Manuscripts. Literary and Historical Legacy, chapter 5.

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seen in the point-for-point linguistic exercise played out by Iolo in the margins of the book – his replacement of each of Eos Dyfed’s translations from the English with an alternative. At least one of these (‘Gair cysswyn’) was a term imported from Iolo’s own rival system of Bardism, which he attempted to channel through the Merthyr Tydfil fraternity of bards. Iolo’s copy of this book was a robust rebuttal of the status quo and provided him with a space for confirming and further working out the parameters of his own system. The great avenue open for Iolo in the early years of the eisteddfod was that offered by the literary branch of the institution, devoted to the publication of ancient manuscripts. 122 In the first of the new eisteddfodau, held at Carmarthen in 1819, Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain) was awarded a prize for an essay comparing the metrical system instigated by Dafydd ab Edmwnd at the Carmarthen eisteddfod of c. 1453 with the Glamorgan classification of the metres of Welsh poetry. The topic itself must either have been set by Iolo, who was one of four adjudicators of the literary competitions in 1819, or was highly influenced by him, since the Glamorgan system was of course his own, as set out in the as yet unpublished ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’. 123 It seems more than likely that it was Iolo who awarded the prize for the essay to Gwallter, for he was delighted by the manner in which it espoused the Glamorgan system and strongly put forward the case for its reinstatement (as Gwallter naively believed) at the expense of that of Dafydd ab Edmwnd. Three years later, the essay was published, together with other material relating to the 1819 meeting, in Two Essays, on the Subjects Proposed by the Cambrian Society in Dyfed (1822). Iolo’s copy of this publication has survived and includes profuse annotations of Gwallter’s essay. In this copy, the physical presentation of the marginalia in relation to the text leaves no doubt as to the confidence and authority of the annotator. There is a deliberate mirroring of the features of the printed scholarly apparatus of the volume, specifically in the keying in of various signs in Iolo’s hand within the text, which draw attention to neatly inscribed footnotes at the bottom of the page. There are also several ‘ticks’ against Gwallter’s assertions, and large pencil signs against statements which evidently greatly pleased the annotator. 124 Iolo is here therefore both mentor and commentator, clearly

122

123

124

For an account of the literary clergy who patronized the publication of ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ and other publishing projects, see Bedwyr Lewis Jones, Yr Hen Bersoniaid Llengar ([Penarth], [1963]); R. T. Jenkins and Helen M. Ramage, The History of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion and of the Gwyneddigion and Cymreigyddion Societies (1751–1951) (London, 1951), chapter 5. On Iolo’s role as an adjudicator at Carmarthen 1819, see Geraint and Zonia Bowen, Hanes Gorsedd y Beirdd (Abertawe, 1991), p. 89. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Walter Davies and John Jones, Two Essays, on the Subjects Proposed by the Cambrian Society in Dyfed, which gained the respective prizes, at the Eisteddfod, held at Caermarthen, in July, 1819 (Carmarthen, 1822), pp. 21, 45 (for ticks) and passim (for signs).

113

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revelling in some of the sentiments expressed in favour of his own system. The following statement, for instance, was rewarded with a large appreciative sign: I cannot, with any regard to truth, forbear being of opinion, and that not slightly grounded, – that the measures adopted at Carmarthen, in 1451, upon the suggestions of D. ab Edmund, were so far from being useful, that they were on the contrary, in their consequencies, highly injurious to the art he professed to cultivate and improve. 125

Gwallter’s view of the unnatural degree of complexity attendant on ‘Gorchest y Beirdd’, a metre supposedly created by Dafydd ab Edmwnd, received similar approbation: Now when I have a mind to write good sense in such a metre as Gorchest y Beirdd, and so begin – and the language itself does not afford words that will come in to finish with sense and Cynghanedd too; – what must I do? – why this – to keep Cynghanedd I must write nonsense to the end of the metre, and cramp, and fetter good sense. 126

Yet, in spite of his general approval of this ‘very ingenious essay’ – signalled in a draft letter of 1822 – Iolo did not abandon his critical acumen in reading the work. 127 He noted gaps in Gwallter’s knowledge of the Welsh tradition, both in terms of the understanding of the intricacies of metrics and in the awareness of those who had upheld Welsh poetry throughout the ages. Gwallter, in Iolo’s view, erred in stating that the free metres of the ‘traethodl’ and ‘dyri’ had not appeared in The Myvyrian Archaiology’s first volume, and he rectified the mistake with ‘yes they do By Prolh. &c’. 128 Likewise, Gwallter’s belief that no Welsh poetry between the eighth and the twelfth century had survived was challenged with a vigorous footnote: From this retreat of the native Britons commences the first chasm in our poetical annals; for we have but few, [†], if any, pieces extant between the conclusion of the first Epoch in the eighth century, and the commencement of the second Epoch in the twelfth, which took place under the auspices of the illustrious son of Cynan, the patron of both [Note!!!] poetry and music . . . [† We have Cuhelyn Fardd, Gwynfardd Dyfed &c in the beginning of the 10th Century – Ceraint Fardd Glas &c, in the 9th Century, Gwgan Bardd [——] als

125 126 127 128

Ibid. , p. 41. Ibid. , p. 43. CIM, III, p. 624, Iolo Morganwg to [?], [?June 1822]. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Davies and Jones, Two Essays, p. 25; MAW, I, p. 492.

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Gwgan farfog in the 11th and at the same time Caradavc Llancarvan our famous historian, and Llefoed wyneb y Cawr with Robert Duke of Normand. &c in the 12th. Century. E. W. ]129

Each of these names were either fabricated characters or historical ones to whom Iolo had attributed some of his own forgeries. That he had a purpose besides that of his own satisfaction in setting these names down is suggested by a later note, this time promoting Rhys Goch ap Rhicert, whom Gwallter had unforgivably omitted from a list of twelfth- to fourteenth-century poets: The other Bards of this period are too numerous to be named. Among them were princes, and sons of princes: Owain Cyveiliawg of Powys: – Hywel, son of Owain Gwynedd; – Llywarch Brydydd Moch; – Gwilym Ryvel; – Davydd Benvras; – Llygad Gwr; – Elidyr Sais; – Bleddyn Vardd; y Prydydd Bychan; – Einyawn Wàn; – and, though somewhat later than the rest, but inferior to none, Casnodyn. [† Rhys Goch ap Rhys ap Rhiccert, or more Correctly Rhys Goch ap Rhiccert ap Einion ap Collwyn wrote from about 1150 to 1200. I am persuaded in my own mind that manner of writing was the prototype of that of D. G. (give a fe[w] specimens). ]130

The encouragement to ‘give a fe[w] specimens’ suggests that Iolo (at least in his own mind) was preparing a second edition of this essay for publication, complete with corrections and additions to compensate for the defects of the original. No evidence exists to prove that this ever became a clear plan, but the essay represented a huge coup for Iolo in its rebuttal of the traditional system. Moreover, it may well be considered as the spur to the decision of a group of literary parsons to patronize the publication of the complete system of Glamorgan versification as represented in ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’. As the second chapter’s exploration of the ‘Cyfrinach’ suggests, Iolo also had plans (in parallel with his schemes via the Merthyr fraternity of his son Taliesin) for a take-over of the metrical field of Welsh poetry, in alliance with a group of Powys clerics headed by Gwallter: ‘Beirdd Powys! y mae rhai o honoch wedi rhoi llaw ar y gorchwyl, ewch rhagoch’ (The bards of Powys! Some of you have already put your hand to the task. Go forth). 131 That the enterprise was not limited to a south Wales coterie is emphasized not only by the choice of the mid-Wales Powysians as advocates in this late footnote to the ‘Cyfrinach’, but also by the opening out of the field of influence of Llawdden and his disciples beyond Glamorgan, as indicated in Iolo’s marginalia to Gwallter’s essay. As Gwallter pondered the question ‘Why the Silurian Bards did not enter their 129 130 131

NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Davies and Jones, Two Essays, p. 16. Ibid. , p. 23. CBYP, p. 183.

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protest [against Dafydd ab Edmwnd’s metres] “in the face of the sun, and in the eye of light” at the Bardic Assembly at Caermarthen’, Iolo interceded with: It is, I think, sufficiently clear that they did enter it, and Llawdden’s Englyn in its self goes a great [way] to prove this. Even some of the Northwalian Bards of that time protested against those innovations, [?o] Wm Tegid, Gutto’r Clynn, &c it does not appear that it [was] adopted in North Wales before the first Eisteddfod at Caerwys in 1525, wherein Tudur Aled a Nephew ([——], son) of David ab Edmund was appointed Judge on the merits of the production exhibited at that Eisteddfod at the Caermarthen gorsedd Gutto’r Glynn opp[ozed] {[———]} Tudur Aled in Welsh and English. 132

The opposition suggested here between two bards of the following century, Guto’r Glyn and Tudur Aled, is evoked again as Iolo, in response to Gwallter’s deduction that ‘a great number of the metres were [at the time of the Carmarthen eisteddfod of c. 1453] unknown’, pointed out: They were known to be unknown or not to be well known in Glamorgan, but the Bards of Morganwg saw the necessity of investigation & Enquiry but this was not far understood by the other Bards there present or at least by most of them Gutto’r Glyn one of the [?Rhagland], of learned Bards understood it very well: Tudur Aled went with his uncle D. E. 133

Thus Guto’r Glyn becomes a late and non-native champion of Iolo’s system, thereby chiselling a route for the ‘Cyfrinach’ in an all-Wales context. The choice of Gwallter as a spokesperson for, and a patron of, the system is curious in another sense. How could Iolo with equanimity allow a cleric to perpetuate his own ideals? Perhaps it was simply a case of opportunism. Gwallter was there, lent a willing ear, had a voice which spoke to the great and the good of the institution and, by virtue of not being too closely embedded with the London set so despised by Iolo by this time in his life, could provide an avenue for the dissemination of Bardism. Writing to Gwallter in September 1823, Iolo explained his own reasons for not competing at the provincial eisteddfodau: Being a bard of the Chair of Glamorgan, and under the sacred restriction of a tremendously solemn vow, I cannot be a competitor at an eisteddfod or Gorsedd for money, or from any other selfish motive. I do not disapprove of pecuniary rewards. They are useful stimulants to young writers to qualify themselves for writing

132 133

NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Davies and Jones, Two Essays, p. 47. Ibid.

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on better principles. Thus is learning and wisdom often obliged to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. 134

There is a resignation to the principle of compromise in these words. In grafting his Gorsedd on to the Anglican-sponsored eisteddfod movement of the 1820s, Iolo accepted the lesser of two evils. He warded off the danger of oblivion, yet bowed to the necessity of using, as disseminators of his ideas, people whose religious and political beliefs jarred against his own.

‘Gwenith Cwm Twrch’: Reading one’s enemies Gwallter Mechain’s 1819 prize essay was arguably the most positive affirmation of Iolo’s influence in the products of 1820s print-culture. The essay clearly noted its debt to ‘the book known as the Archaiology of Wales – London, 1801’ (‘y Llyvr a elwir Archaiology of Wales, – Llundain, 1801’). 135 In his copy Iolo glossed this reference with the words ‘h.y. Yr Iuddew mawr difedydd’ (i. e. The great unbaptized Jew). Since The Myvyrian Archaiology was a work in which Iolo himself had played a major part, any abusive comments upon it risked putting into the shade not only his collaborative work on the first volume, but also his forgeries in the second and third volumes. The question of Iolo’s attitude towards one of his own great achievements in the contemporary world of print culture was clearly linked to the demise of his friendship with the other two editors, Owain Myfyr and William Owen Pughe, the latter of whom was still alive and a widely revered public figure when Iolo wrote this disparaging comment. Following his quarrel with his two colleagues, Iolo relinquished his part in the authorship of this publication and the authority attendant upon it in order to tender cacophonous criticism from the sidelines. Perhaps he was more comfortable with this role than with fame and reverence, at least if shared with people he no longer loved or liked. Yet, the questions of the ownership of ideas and of the right to recognition were clearly not comfortably resolved by Iolo’s dissociation with perhaps the grandest of his past printing ventures. Many of the concerns of the discussion in the previous section of this chapter resurface in the following exploration of Iolo’s annotations to the works of one of The Myvyrian Archaiology’s triumvirate of editors, William Owen Pughe,

134 135

CIM, III, p. 672, Iolo Morganwg to Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain), 23 September 1823. Two Essays, p. 51. NLW 1673B, pp. 1–139, includes extracts from ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’, together with notes on ‘[C]yhydeddau a Mesurau’ in Gwallter’s hand (pp. 142–81). His annotated copy of the 1819 essay is to be found in NLW ex961, and indicates that he, at least, took seriously Iolo’s exhortation to work further on the system of metrics set out in ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’.

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and of the south Wales Unitarian minister Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi), a man with whom Iolo, at least initially, shared much common ground. The Welsh-language publications of both Pughe and Glyn Cothi represent successes within the public sphere. Iolo was utterly incapable of viewing these achievements with equanimity, however, since both men had fallen from grace in his view and become confirmed enemies before the appearance in print of their greatest contributions. Iolo’s annotations to these works thus lose the constructiveness of the marginalia explored in the previous section. Rather than measuring his own influence on the public sphere and suggesting an alternative path to that of the establishment, he became embroiled in a battle for recognition, in which he implied that Pughe and Glyn Cothi had usurped his place in the public domain. In the case of Glyn Cothi’s 1811 collection of hymns, the reader of Iolo’s annotations is left in no doubt that the latter believed that his own work had been plagiarized. In Pughe’s case, the reaction is more nuanced, since the renowned London-Welsh lexicographer merely reproduced Ioloic forgeries – work to which the latter could not possibly lay unique claim. These annotations may be read as testimony to the frustrations of (a forger’s) marginalization. They represent the bitter cries of a man who felt that he did not realize his own ambitions, whereas others were successfully able to do so. Iolo’s copies of four printed books by Pughe have survived in the National Library of Wales. These offer an insight into Iolo’s uneasy relationship with the world of print, a world into which he consistently sought entry, yet from which he simultaneously withdrew throughout his long career. Pughe was a seminal figure in Iolo’s distribution network, from the time of the publication of Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym in 1789 to The Heroic Elegies and Other Pieces of Llywarç Hen in 1792 and A Dictionary of the Welsh Language, finally published in two volumes in 1803. Iolo’s presence in the latter tour de force is tangible in some of the Dictionary’s entries, among them exemplifying ‘adages’ such as the following listed under ‘Trindawd . . . The trinity’, which betrays a Unitarian religious affiliation: Na çais ymweled a’r Drindawd, Oni çeisi yn yr undawd. Attempt not to seek for the Trinity, unless thou lookest for him in the Unity. Adage. 136

Pughe had benefited from the help of many correspondents who had generously submitted lists of words known in their own patch in Wales, and he 136

William Owen [Pughe], A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (2 vols. , London, 1803), II, s. v. Trindawd.

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Fig. 5 William Owen [Pughe], A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (1803), vol. I, title-page.

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acknowledged Iolo’s contribution in the preface to his Dictionary. 137 But Iolo’s interest, as the annotations to his copy of the Dictionary’s first volume indicate, did not end when the work was published. In a letter dating from 1803 he informed Pughe of another collection of Welsh words, hoping that it might ‘not be too late yet [for] these’. He pinned these hopes on the possibility that Pughe might consider forming an abridgement of the work, ‘by retrenching your prodigiou[s] number of unnecessary derivatives, the import of which could never have been misu[nder]stood, and reducing the whole to about a twelve shilling volume’. 138 It may well have been in this revisionary spirit that Iolo read his copy of the work, glossing, correcting, and adding to Pughe’s entries in a manner calculated both to tighten some of the definitions and enhance the sense of the local and idiomatic usage which lay behind many of the words listed. Iolo’s precision contrasts, sometimes comically, with Pughe’s studied avoidance of using any word which might offend delicate tastes. Under ‘Ynvyd’, for instance, Pughe included the illustrative example: Po henav y Cymro ynvytav vyz. By so much the older the Welshman the most simple he is. Adage. 139

By underlining ‘most simple’, and suggesting instead ‘more madman’, Iolo eschewed the nicety which prevented Pughe from putting his finger on the more precise translation of the word. 140 To Pughe’s unclear and roundabout definition of ‘Ymyslotiad’, ‘A being dabbling or flopping one’s self in water’, Iolo added simply the words ‘a slut’. Elsewhere, Iolo’s love for his native Silurian dialect came to the fore in his annotations to the Dictionary. His note on the word ‘Ysgwer’ was uncharacteristically lengthy on account of this affection. Against Pughe’s definition of the word as ‘A kind of musical composition, so called’, Iolo added in the margin ‘x a small harp. Glam. ’, before expanding on his theory at the bottom of the page:

137

138 139 140

Glenda Carr, William Owen Pughe (Caerdydd, 1983), p. 72. For Pughe’s thanks to Iolo ‘For various communications, and for assistance of the most valuable kind’, see Owen [Pughe], A Dictionary of the Welsh Language, I, ‘Introduction’ (unpaginated). CIM, II, p. 508, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 7 June 1803. Owen [Pughe], A Dictionary of the Welsh Language, II, s. v. Ynvyd. Iolo was not averse even to considering himself in some way ‘mad’. See his retrospective account of meeting the poet William Cowper, who suffered from debilitating bouts of depression, in the autumn of 1793. Iolo concluded that ‘we are not always the best judges of the state of our own minds . . . “Ni {yr dibwyll ei fod yn ddibwyll” says one of our Welsh proverbs, i. e. the madman never knows that he is mad. Hence you may think, as many others do, that I am mad myself ’. CIM, III, p. 587, Iolo Morganwg to Jonathan Rees, 28 March 1821.

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x Ysgwêr, or Isgywair, in Glam is a small harp, usually played upon on horseback, at weddings, &c was frequently to be seen about the middle of the 18th. Century, but is now very seldom to be met with.

This cannot be claimed as the first recorded example of such a definition of the word ‘ysgwer’ or ‘isgywair’. Nearly ten years earlier the second edition of Edward Jones’s Musical and Poetical Relicks (1794) had offered the same meaning: Englyn i’r Isgywair Vâch. Stanza on the Isgywer, or small Harp [:– so called from the key which it was tuned in; or, perhaps, a little Harp, such as was formerly used to play on horseback, the bottom of which had two cross feet, something like a camp stool, to keep it steady on the horse’s shoulders. 141

It may have been Iolo who furnished Jones with the notion of the ‘isgywair’ as a small harp. If this was the case, Jones did not acknowledge that this meaning was (in Iolo’s view) particularly linked to Glamorgan. As always with Iolo, however, it is impossible to be certain whether or to what extent a usage described as ‘Silurian’ was in fact derived from the language (and the customs) with which he would have been familiar in the Glamorgan of his day. It is even possible in this case that it was Iolo who had borrowed from ‘Humstrum Jones’, falsely laying his own region’s claim to the instrument and the practice of playing it on horseback. The ‘isgywair’ was a tangible entity – an instrument which may or may not have been known to Iolo and his contemporary fellow natives in Glamorgan. In the annotation of Pughe’s ‘Furviad . . . A forming’ as ‘atom. Glam. ’, it is harder to envisage a context outside Iolo’s own linguistic work. The earliest example of the word ‘atom’ recorded in the OED dates from 1477; in Wales, ‘ffurfiad’, defined in agreement with Pughe as ‘a forming, a fashioning, formation . . . structure, creation’, has examples from the early seventeenth century onwards. 142 Iolo’s interest in the notion of measurement and particularly in ‘the least division of space’ may have originated in his reading of translated material on Hindu theology. His desire to graft the Hindu concept that this most minute division was represented by ‘an atom of the sun’s rays or sunbeams’ on to a Welsh context is signalled in a passage from a letter which he sent to Owain Myfyr in 1800. Iolo claimed to see a Welsh parallel to the ‘Braminical’ notion that ‘the least division of space . . . is an atom of the sun’s rays or sunbeams’ in the text known as ‘Araith Gwgan’, which contains the phrase ‘Fal nad elwn yn ôl fy nhroed, nag ym mlaen fy nhroed, faint y mymryn

141 142

Edward Jones, Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (2nd edn. , London, 1794), p. 100. See GPC s. v. ffurfiad.

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ym mhelydr yr haul fis Mehefin (So that I could go neither backwards nor forwards – not even as little as an atom of the sun’s beams in June)’. 143 To suggest that the definition of ‘ffurfiad’ as ‘atom’ was based on Glamorgan usage is, almost certainly, to reduce an entire county into the Flemingston cottage of one of its most famous sons. Iolo used his legitimate interest in dialect as a prop on which to rest the weight of his own inventiveness. There is no doubt, however, of the goodwill with which Iolo made his annotations to Pughe’s Dictionary. Even when correcting misprints or other errors he remained peculiarly sanguine. 144 His annotations indicate a sympathetic reading, in line with his comment to Pughe in 1803, that ‘I cannot help thinking [that a] few mistakes have crept in’ but that they ‘are far more numerous in Johnson’s Dictionary than in yours, and you have had [a] thousand difficulties to struggle with for one that he had’. 145 Yet, in so far as Iolo did find faults with the Dictionary, he was loath to forget them. His annotations reveal his annoyance at Pughe’s generic misnomer for the Welsh prose tales of the ‘Mabinogi’. To Pughe’s claim that they were ‘dramatic’ tales, he noted: ‘Those tales are narrative and not Dramatic. ’146 There is no reason to suppose that this note was added any later than the other annotations in the volume, so that when Iolo complained of the same thing many years later in a letter to his friend Evan Williams, the Strand bookseller, his memory (or alternatively, his system of marginal annotations) served him very well: In many other instances, Mr O. seems never to have deeply studied the principles of the belles lettres. One is his call[ing] the tales of the ‘Mabinogion’ dramatic tales. If any epithet besides that of romantic be applied, let it be epic, for the writer in his own person relates the leading parts of the tale; others, like Homer, Virgil, Milton, &c. , he puts into the mouths of his characters, whereas in dramatic writing, the author never utters a single syllable, unless it may be contended that ‘enter ghost’, ‘exit devil’, ‘exeunt omnes’, ‘aside’, ‘whispers’, &c. are supposed to be spoken by him. It is the characters or persons of the drama only, and none others, that speak in dramatic writings. 147

143

144

145 146

147

CIM, II, p. 288, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 17 June 1800. ‘Araith Gwgan’ was published in prose and verse versions in Dafydd Jones, Cydymaith Diddan (Caer Lleon, [1766]), pp. 42–9, 130–40. Iolo’s copy of this book is now kept in the Salisbury Collection in Cardiff University Library. The misprint ‘Angels’ for ‘Eingyl’ is simply corrected in the margin with ‘angles’; the example given of ‘Clwn’ meaning ‘Compact, close, or firm’ rectified to ‘Clun Castle’. The latter was an egregious blunder, but Iolo took it in his stride, and resisted the temptation to ridicule. CIM, II, p. 508, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 7 June 1803. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Owen [Pughe], A Dictionary of the Welsh Language, I, ‘Introduction’ (unpaginated). CIM, III, p. 521, Iolo Morganwg to Evan Williams, 12 May 1819.

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This passage forms part of a sustained critique of Pughe, a critique on which Iolo must have dwelt for some years. Over a decade had elapsed since the last letter had passed between Iolo and his one-time friend in 1808. 148 Pughe’s doubtlessly well-intentioned attempt at humouring Iolo in this letter clearly did not succeed in attracting further correspondence from Glamorgan. The London-Welshman’s carps at Unitarianism, the assertion that the Methodists ‘are the only people now that give currency to any books in Wales, and indeed the only readers of books in their mother tongue’, together with his claim that he himself was ‘sink[ing] much deeper into what you term infatuation’ in his devotion to Joanna Southcott, can have done little to placate Iolo and patch up a very fragile friendship. 149 1808 was also the year in which the linguistic sequel to Pughe’s Dictionary of the Welsh Language, a grammar entitled Cadwedigaeth yr Iaith Gymraeg, had left the press. The difference in Iolo’s feelings for Pughe as an individual are evident in the annotations to his copy of the new book. 150 Above the official title, Iolo wrote an alternative: ‘Grammar of the Willowenian Dialect of the Welsh language’. At the end, he noted his impression of the author and his work: Our English Reviewing Critics, very frequently, properly and Justly, tell the authors of Books under their consideration that a man will write never the worse for having some trifling knowledge of that which he takes for his subject.

Then, displaying the flair of a true translator, he brilliantly extracted the irrelevance, to a Welsh audience, of ‘English Reviewing Critics’, while retaining the sentiment of the original as the starting-point for an uncompromising and highly original critique: Ni ysgrifenai neb un fawr neu ddim gwaeth, pe bai yn deall rhyw ychydig o’r peth ar ba un y mae’n myned i ddifwyno papur Gwynn Glan ag inc du tywyll iawn mor Dywyll a[g] ymhenn[y]dd tragywyddnos ei Siol naw modfedd o drwch ei hunan. (A man would write little or no worse if he understood something of the subject upon which he is about to ruin clean, white paper with very black ink – as black as the eternally benighted brain of his own nine inch thick skull. )

148

149

150

Ibid. , II, pp. 849–51, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 18 May 1808. This was in response to a letter from Iolo, for which see ibid. , pp. 846–9, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 27 April 1808. On the full causes of the breakdown of Iolo’s relations with Pughe, see Glenda Carr, ‘An Uneasy Partnership: Iolo Morganwg and William Owen Pughe’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 454–60. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of William Owen Pughe, Cadwedigaeth yr Iaith Gymraeg (Bala, 1808).

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This manner of summing up his response in abusive alternative titles and pithy résumés featured prominently in Iolo’s annotations to the remainder of the works published by Pughe before Iolo’s death in 1826. On the cover of his copy of Coll Gwynfa, Pughe’s translation of Paradise Lost, Iolo noted ‘Milton Lost eheu!!!’, one of his many acerbic comments on this work. 151 The makeshift cover to Pughe’s three-canto poem in praise of the legendary hero Hu Gadarn was adorned with ‘Gorchestion Bongleraidd William Owain sef y Dr Pendronig a Llywydd y Lleu’ (The bungling feats of William Owen, the giddy doctor and the chief of brightness), and within, Iolo inserted his own versification of a proverb which, he noted in a barely legible hand, was commonly used in Merioneth, according to the learned Rhys Jones of Blaenau, to describe poetry of a clumsy or unskilful nature (‘anghelfydd’): Gwenith Cwm Twrch, cnwd gwanaf y Dyffryn, A diffrwyth i’r eithaf Us man drwy’r holl gan a gaf, Dan olwg yd ni welaf. Iolo Morganwg a’i cant. 152 (The wheat of Cwm Twrch, the weakest harvest in the valley, And utterly barren; I find chaff through the entire song, Hidden by it, I cannot see the corn. Iolo Morganwg sang it. )

This kind of annotation has been described by Heather J. Jackson as a means to ‘[sum] up a reader’s assessment of the book and [serve] as a reminder (a) that it had been read before and (b) of how worthwhile it seemed at that time’. 153 Jackson argues that such a note, though it appears at the beginning of a book, was generally the last thing to be written, and that ‘usually it passes over the hesitations and ambivalence of the earlier notes so as to make an unambiguous

151

152

153

NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of John Milton, Coll Gwynfa, translated by William Owen Pughe (Llundain, 1819). He launched a fuller critique of the translation in a letter to Evan Williams of the Strand, also in 1819: ‘I had some time ago received a manuscript specimen of his “Paradise Lost” (alas how truly lost). He has fallen away from Milton as much or more than Adam fell from God. ’ CIM, III, p. 520, Iolo Morganwg to Evan Williams, 12 May 1819. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of William Owen Pughe, Hu Gadarn, Cywydd o III Caniad (Llundain, 1822). The alternative title (‘Gorchestion Bongleraidd’) derided Pughe’s Southcottian fervour and the honorary degree of D. C. L. awarded him by Oxford University in June 1822. For the latter, see Carr, William Owen Pughe, pp. 207, 272; eadem, ‘An Uneasy Partnership’, pp. 459–60. Jackson, Romantic Readers, p. 256.

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statement’, perhaps useful for a future reader of the same copy. 154 Iolo’s comments on Pughe’s works clearly do serve a summing-up function; the use of the englyn metre, of all Welsh metrical forms the most apt for epigrammatic expression, in itself suggests this. Yet, in Iolo’s case, the hostility of these recapitulative notes suggests a mind which was no longer capable of exercising cool deliberation of the kind suggested by Jackson. In the case of Hu Gadarn Iolo reverted to a course highly characteristic of his annotations of Welsh poetry. This might be described as a point by point ‘project of destruction’, in which countless words were underlined as erroneous, or were corrected, or ridiculed in the margins. 155 To some extent, Pughe had invited such treatment by stating in his opening address to fellow poets that one of the main purposes of writing Hu Gadarn was: dodi cynllun o ymwrthodi [ymwrthodi] ag arver rhy gyfredin, ac àr gynnydd, gàn ysgrivyddion yr oesoedd diweddarav, o [o] anavu y GYMMRAEG, mewn amryw voddion, i ddiva cywirdeb ac i dywyllu synwyr ei hymadroddion, ac yn bènaf gènych chwi y Beirdd, er cadw cynghanedd ac odlaeth o vlaen pob amgen o ragorion. 156 (to put forward a plan for rejecting a custom, all too common and on the increase among the writers of the most recent ages, of injuring the Welsh language in many ways, and destroying correctness and obscuring the sense of its idioms, and mainly among you, the poets, in order to sustain cynghanedd and rhyme above all other merits. )

Iolo’s annotations (inserted in square brackets in the original quotation above) provide a critical chorus to Pughe’s own use of language, sustained throughout the introduction and escalating into a climax of ‘note! note! note!’ (‘sylw! sylw! sylw!’) as Pughe writes of his own concerted efforts to avoid the errors customary among his contemporaries: ymgeisiais yma y byddai glan vy ngorchwyl vy hunan oddiwrth y [sylw! sylw! sylw!] brychau crybwylledig; canys mwy y govalais am gywirdeb iaith a chrynôad synwyr, no manylu am y cynghaneddion, à ynt deced [x] yn eich golwg chwi y Beirdd. 157 (I attempted here to ensure that my own work should be free from the aforementioned faults [note! note! note!]; for I took more care to ascertain correct language and compression of sense than to go into detail regarding the cynganeddion, which are so dear in your view, you poets. ) 154 155

156 157

Ibid. Ibid. , p. 244, where Jackson comments on Francis Douce’s annotations of Thomas Warton’s History of English Poetry (4 vols. , London, 1774–81). NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Pughe, Hu Gadarn, pp. iii–iv. Ibid. , pp. iv–v.

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The poem itself was subjected to similar treatment, as Iolo noted with glee Pughe’s mistaken or otherwise ridiculous usages. Sometimes, however, Iolo overreached himself. To the lines: Bydd adar gwar yn gware, Mwyn eilwyon llwyn pob lle (Gentle birds will play, The sweet eilwyon of the bushes everywhere),

Iolo added, ‘eilwyon, ie alawon, ho! ha! he!’158 Yet, the word ‘eilwy’ (with the plural ‘eilwyon’) is listed as an authentic form in GPC, which provides examples from the fifteenth century and offers the meaning ‘a needy one, a suppliant, ?a host’, any of which could be used as an appropriate translation in this context. To find Iolo erring in this way demonstrates the ad hoc nature of his annotations. Whereas the annotations in some of his books, such as those neatly set out in his copy of Gwallter Mechain’s work in Two Essays (1822), suggest an erudite approach, his copy of Hu Gadarn gives the impression that he wrote the annotations in fury. Pughe, revelling in the civility of the culture to which he felt that he was able to make a lasting contribution, included the following triad on the cover: ‘Tair rhan Iaith y sydd: rhan feddyliedig, rhan ddywededig, a rhan ysgrifenedig’ (There are three parts to language: what is thought, what is said, and what is written). Iolo responded curtly with ‘Dadyrddwr ffolineb a’i dywawd’ (It is the clamourer of folly who says it). 159 If this was an off-the-cuff response, as the spirit of the remainder of the volume’s annotations suggests, then Iolo would hardly have had time to consult the body of Welsh triads, both authentic and fictitious, to which he was privy, in order to discover that this particular example belonged to the former category. It was published in The Myvyrian Archaiology as one of a collection originating in the manuscripts of the seventeenth-century antiquary Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt. 160 Unless Iolo had a truly elephantine memory he could not, without consulting his manuscripts or his copy of The Myvyrian Archaiology, have disassociated wheat from chaff in this respect. Thus, to deride the use of this aphorism in Hu Gadarn was Iolo’s frustrated response to the fear that, by employing a triad (a genre which he had fervently championed for many years), Pughe had somehow usurped his own place in the literary culture of Wales.

158 159 160

Ibid. , p. 71. Ibid. , cover. For the entire series in question, see MAW, III, pp. 134–8. This particular triad is on p. 138. It reached The Myvyrian Archaiology’s editors via the manuscripts of Ieuan Fardd. See NLW 2003B (Panton 35), p. 114.

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Elsewhere, the potential for a further display of frustration was triggered by an error committed by the binder of the volume. Page 61 was misplaced, with the result that Pughe’s note on a couplet describing the mythological dwarf or mermaid Gwenhidwy as it appeared on p. 60 was incomplete. Iolo provided the missing material in the form of another couplet which named the character: ‘Haid o ddefaid Gwenhidwy / A’u naw hwrdd yn un a hwy’ (A flock of Gwenhidwy’s sheep, / And their nine rams all as one). He had drawn Pughe’s attention to these lines many years previously, when he sent them with a note ‘For the 2d edition of Cambrian Biography’, arguing that knowledge of such mythical figures was essential for ensuring an understanding of the work of the Welsh poets. 161 He (probably deliberately) misattributed the authentic lines to Rhys Llwyd ap Rhys ap Rhicert, thus erroneously linking them with his selffabricated Glamorgan love-poet and hero Rhys ap Rhicert. When the error in the binding becomes apparent, however, it transpires that Pughe had also quoted this exact couplet in his own note on p. 61. Iolo may well have been simply tidying up the careless work of the printer, but it is hard to avoid the impression that he was annoyed by Pughe’s use of material which he could with justification have considered his own. Iolo appears in these annotations to have been redundantly treading on the toes of the more renowned Pughe, who had absorbed his teaching and was able to use it to enhance his own reputation. In doing this, he made no reference to his debt to Iolo. This omission may well appear pardonable to us, if not to Iolo, since Pughe could not have realized the extent of (the forger) Iolo’s involvement with either the triad genre or Rhys ap Rhicert. The direct measuring up of one ego against the other – Iolo’s against Pughe’s – in fact became a persistent theme in Iolo’s marginalia to Pughe’s publications. In the introduction to his Dictionary, Pughe described his early arrival in the capital: Familiar with the name of London . . . from its being, in our rustic conversations, the primary point in the geography of the world, it became my second home in May 1776.

Iolo at this point calculated (correctly, since Pughe was born in August 1759) that the younger man was ‘16 years of age’ upon his arrival in London. 162 Since nothing in the appearance of the note suggests that it was added later than other annotations in the same volume, Iolo’s interest in Pughe’s biography might be said to stretch back many years. What did he mean by drawing attention to Pughe’s 161 162

CIM, II, pp. 524–5, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen [Pughe], 1 August 1803. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Owen [Pughe], A Dictionary of the Welsh Language, I, ‘Introduction’ (unpaginated). For Pughe’s birth, see Carr, William Owen Pughe, p. 1.

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youth when he removed himself from the remoteness of south Merioneth in order to settle in the metropolis?163 An older and more cantankerous Iolo might have developed this annotation into a note on Pughe’s conversion to ‘Cockneyism’ and a resultant lack of touch with unsullied and idiomatic Welsh. He might also have been torn with resentment that Pughe had managed, at a much younger age than he, to make a name for himself in London. None of this is indicated in the merely factual note which appears in the 1803 Dictionary, but the tendency to set his own biography head-to-head with Pughe’s reemerges again in Iolo’s copy of the 1822 Hu Gadarn. Inside the front cover, Iolo noted: To be published in Novr. 1824. Memoirs of the Life of Edward Williams The Glamorganshire Welsh Bard, and Author of Poems, Lyric and Pastoral in the English Language (publish in 1794. 2 vols 12. mo Johnson St. Pauls’ Churchyard.

To this he added in a scrawly hand: These memoirs will contain an account of the present state of Literature in the Welsh Language, some account of the Eisteddfodau, &c, lately established in Wales.

‘Edward Williams’ clearly felt the need to compete with Pughe by citing his own authorship of ‘Poems, Lyric and Pastoral in the English language’, and had he completed his proposed memoirs he would surely have seized the opportunity to misrepresent Pughe’s contribution to Welsh culture in an effort to curb the fame of the younger man. 164 The perils of close friendship with men of shared interests were also known to Iolo on the home turf of South Wales Unitarianism. He and Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi), the first Unitarian minister in Wales and an assiduous collector of Welsh manuscripts, had been friends since c. 1795. 165 When the latter was arrested and charged with sedition in 1801, Iolo leapt to his defence and, following Glyn Cothi’s incarceration, became the moving spirit behind the founding of the South Wales Unitarian Society, a cause for which he laboured

163

164

165

Carr, William Owen Pughe, pp. 5–6, considers whether Pughe had ever left home prior to his arrival in London, and treats with suspicion the claim that he was educated in Altrincham. Iolo was busily doing just this wherever else he could find ears to listen. See, for example, CIM, III, pp. 634–6, 636–8 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to David Davis (Dafis Castellhywel), 3 January 1823. Geraint H. Jenkins, ‘“A Very Horrid Affair”: Sedition and Unitarianism in the Age of Revolutions’ in Davies and Jenkins (eds. ), From Medieval to Modern Wales, p. 179. On Glyn Cothi’s ownership of a sizeable hoard of the manuscripts of Iaco ab Dewi, see Garfield H. Hughes, Iaco ab Dewi (Caerdydd, 1953), pp. 51–2.

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tirelessly from its inception in 1802 until his own death. 166 A report that Glyn Cothi was conducting an illicit affair with a female prisoner during his incarceration led to widespread consternation and censure from his supporters. It is not clear to what extent Iolo’s view of his friend was influenced by this story. The account given of the affair by David Davis, Neath, was sensationalist in tenor and appears to have been based, at least in part, on hearsay. This seems to be particularly true in the case of the portrayal of Glyn Cothi silently standing by during one of his wife’s visits to Carmarthen gaol while his alleged mistress ‘thr[e]w a shovelful of live embers into the breast of a woman that was the mother of nine of his own legitimate children’. 167 When the unfortunate man was released, Iolo was one of the beacons of friendship to which he attached himself. Glyn Cothi’s letters to Iolo reveal his attempts to arrange meetings between them and portray the hostile environment which he encountered when he was set free. 168 Since no replies to Glyn Cothi’s letters have survived, it is impossible to be certain how the Flemingston Bard responded to these cries for help. We know, however, that Glyn Cothi was given a copy of Iolo’s ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ in 1804 and, in view of Iolo’s reluctance to share his most highly prized creations, this can be taken as an indication of continued goodwill. 169 Yet, by 1820, there can be no doubt that the two men were sworn enemies. In a letter to a fellow Unitarian, Iolo wrote: I believe Thomas Evans to be a man of no principle, beyond that of mere outward appearance, or rather that he is a man of very bad principles. I strongly suspect him to be at heart a rank infidel. 170

Perhaps the stain of the alleged affair at Carmarthen gaol coloured this view, even at a distance of almost two decades. Nowhere is the tension between the two men more evident than in the history of the publication of their respective volumes of Unitarian hymns, Glyn Cothi’s Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau, wedi cael eu hamcanu at addoliad cyhoeddus; ag yn enwedig at wasanaeth Undodiaid Cristianogol, which appeared in 1811, and Iolo’s Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch, which left the press the following year. Iolo had 166 167

168

169 170

Jenkins, ‘“A Very Horrid Affair”’, pp. 177–8. CIM, II, p. 545, David Davis to Iolo Morganwg, 17 September 1803. Further on this alleged liaison, see Jenkins, ‘“A Very Horrid Affair”’, pp. 193–4. CIM, II, pp. 557–8, 25 October 1803; ibid. , p. 559, 12 November 1803; ibid. , pp. 615–20, 12 July 1804; ibid. , pp. 629, 630 (trans. ), 17 October 1804. These letters reveal that Glyn Cothi’s wife was among his most vociferous enemies, and contain claims that she had been conducting an adulterous affair during his absence. See chapter 2, above. CIM, III, p. 539, Iolo Morganwg to [Thomas Davies], 27 January 1820. On Glyn Cothi’s character, see Geraint Dyfnallt Owen, Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi): Trem ar ei Fywyd (Darlith Goffa Dyfnallt, n. p. , 1963), p. 17.

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been occupied in composing poetry for religious worship for some years – as early as 1794 if we are to believe the claims made in the introduction to his Salmau. 171 To see his friend stealing a march on him in publishing a volume of hymns must therefore have been a disappointment. The particular circumstances of the composition and distribution of Iolo’s own psalms, however, meant that much more than a mere tinge of envy at seeing a rival forestalling his own production was involved here. Letters to Iolo from David Davis, Neath, during the year 1810 reveal that four manuscript volumes of his hymns were circulated among leading figures in the South Wales Unitarian world that year. Iolo’s anxieties on this count are reflected in Davis’s assurances that ‘None of them were copied’ (at least at Aberdare) and his repeated claims that he had the hymns now ‘faithfully [kept] . . . under lock and key’. 172 Iolo’s apprehensions focused on the possibility that others might take advantage of his generosity and copy some of his work, passing it off as their own. He may have been justified in his fears, for the kind of scenario which this evidence evokes is far from unique in the history of publication in this period. The danger of plagiarism may be seen as inherent in a dual culture of manuscript and print, in which attractive manuscript material might sometimes circulate widely prior to being published. 173 That Iolo’s worst fears were realized is suggested by the accusation found in the introduction to the printed hymns: Gwêl ambell darllenydd fod mewn hymnau a gyhoeddwyd yn ddiweddar linellau, a mwy nag un llinell ynghyd, yr un peth â rhai geffir yn fy salmau i. Bu’m ysgriflyfrau i, flynyddau yn ôl, yn nwylaw llawer un, a chan un gweinidog ar daith drwy y ran fwyaf o ddeheubarth Cymru. Nid myfi yw’r benthyciwr. Y mae’n chwith gennyf orf[od] dywedyd hyn yn gyhoeddus, ond heb ei ddywedyd buasai hyn yn cael ei ddywedyd am danaf fi. 174 (Some readers will see that hymns lately published contain lines, and more than one line together, which are the same as what is to be found in my psalms. Years ago, my manuscripts were put in the hands of several people, and taken by one minister on a journey through the greater part of south Wales. It is not I who am the borrower. I regret to have to say this in public, but if I did not say this it would be said of me. )

171 172 173

174

Edward Williams, Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch. Cyfrol I (Merthyr Tydfil, 1812), p. [iii]. CIM, III, pp. 13–14, 22 May 1810; ibid. , p. 17, 10 June 1810; ibid. , p. 34, 7 October 1810. For another example, see St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, p. 158. Fears about plagiarism would of course not have beset Iolo in the case of the manuscript circulation of forged works such as ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’. The text quoted is taken from a draft version of Iolo’s introduction, see Appendix V (Literature), no. 25. A similar, if a little more elaborate, explanation is given in the published book. See Williams, Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch. Cyfrol I, p. vi.

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Fig. 6 Thomas Evans, Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau (1811), title-page.

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It is with these considerations in mind that we may approach Iolo’s copy of Glyn Cothi’s Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau, preserved in the National Library of Wales. The book bears the marks of a furious reading by a person who was convinced that an outrageous act of plagiarism had occurred. This was nowhere more evident than on the title-page of Iolo’s copy; forsaking his tendency to forego marks of ownership on his books, he wrote very clearly above the title the words ‘Iolo Morganwg ai piau’ (Iolo Morganwg owns it). 175 Scattered throughout the copy are accusations of ‘theft’: ‘Lladrad’, ‘Lladron’, ‘dau leidr’. 176 The use of the plural in many of these accusations is unexpected and difficult to explain. Perhaps Iolo (who was certainly no stranger to bouts of paranoia) believed that Glyn Cothi had colluded with others in plagiarizing his work. 177 Yet, it is not always clear that overt plagiarism was the real (or at least the only) bone of contention in Iolo’s annotations of Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau. One of the hymns included by Tomos Glyn Cothi, ‘Yr Iechydwriaeth Gyffredinol’ (The general deliverance), was deliberately surrounded by Iolo’s version of a hymn in the same metre (‘y mesur hir’ or ‘long metre’) and on the same theme of salvation. Both hymns deal with the announcement by Jesus of God’s tenderness and forgiveness to mankind; envisage the subsequent resurrection of the dead from their graves; describe the promise of eternal life tendered to all men and the jubilant hearing of the message by the dead. Glyn Cothi offers six stanzas to Iolo’s four, using the additional verses to warn mankind of the need to think seriously about the day of judgement. Iolo’s version, on the other hand, contains no cloud to darken the triumph of the vision of eternity, which is communicated vividly by the amalgamation of ‘bloeddio’ (to shout) and ‘canu’ (to sing) in the verb ‘Bloeddganwn’ (let us shout our song). This joyfulness in contemplating the world to come reflects Iolo’s strong faith in God’s mercy and goodness and in the bliss of heaven. 178 To enter it in his copy of his one-timefriend’s published hymns may simply have been his instinctive optimistic response to Glyn Cothi’s more gloomy and didactic song. At the foot of his alternative version, Iolo noted his name and made a cross-reference to number ‘[?8]25’ in the ‘Casgd. mawr’ (the large collection), presumably indicating that a neatly-written-out copy of the same hymn was to be found in the latter 175

176 177

178

NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Thomas Evans, Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau, wedi cael eu hamcanu at addoliad cyhoeddus; ag yn enwedig at wasanaeth Undodiaid Cristianogol (Caerfyrddin, 1811). Ibid. , pp. 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 21, 45. See the introduction to the Salmau, quoted above, where Iolo refers to the fact that the hymns had been placed ‘yn nwylaw llawer un’ (in the hands of several people). According to W. Rhys Nicholas, Iolo elsewhere imputed that Thomas Williams of Bethesda’r Fro had plagiarized his hymns. See W. Rhys Nicholas, ‘Iolo Morganwg a’i Emynau’, Bwletin Cymdeithas Emynau Cymru, I, no. 2 (1969), 15. See the discussion of Iolo’s correspondence with David Davis, Neath, regarding theological issues in chapter 4 below; CIM, III, pp. 71–2, 72–3 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to the publishers of the Eurgrawn [Wesleyaidd], [?June 1811]; and Jenkins, ‘“A Very Horrid Affair”’, pp. 182, 195.

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manuscript. 179 He also noted beneath his own hymn ‘Gwaith 5 munud’ (Five minutes’ work), suggesting the ease with which he had composed the work. To place it in parallel with a hymn by Glyn Cothi on the page thus evokes not only a latent accusation of plagiarism, but also a bravado attempt to demonstrate his own superior ability as a hymn-writer. Moreover, it records Iolo’s desire to distance himself from Glyn Cothi’s views on man’s relation to God. Elsewhere, too, the annotations to this volume depart from Iolo’s admitted obsession with Tomos Glyn Cothi’s act of plagiarism. The detail of the annotations portrays a meticulous and biting critique to which Iolo would scarcely have subjected his own work. Anglicisms in syntax are scorned, the use of auxiliaries deprecated, as are weak rhymes (‘awdl foethus ni – ni’ [a rich rhyme ‘ni – ni’]) or the use of words merely for ‘Rhyme sake’ (‘R. S. ’ is Iolo’s shorthand for this). 180 Some of Glyn Cothi’s ideas are castigated as ‘low’, the expression at times scorned as ‘Rhapsodical’, and the metaphors deemed ‘incongruous’ or ‘misplaced’. 181 Alongside a stanza reading: Ein cysur a’n gorfoledd yw, Rhagluniaeth Duw’n wastadol; Diysgog ei lywodraeth gref, Drwy’r ddae’r a’r nef yn hollol (God’s providence is the cause Of our constant comfort and jubilation; His powerful rule is utterly unwavering Throughout earth and heaven),

Iolo wrote, ‘french wine rather cobwebs’, referring perhaps to the expression of these sentiments or to the sentiments themselves, or both. 182 In the index, an entry for ‘Crist, ei ffurf o Weddi’ was annotated ‘nage! Ni ddywed Iesu Grist ffolineb erioed’ (No! Jesus Christ never uttered a word of folly), which suggests that Iolo did not comply with the notion that Christ needed prayer. 183 The couplet ‘Pob cystudd blin er chwerwed yw, / Daioni Duw a’i trefna’ (Each painful affliction, in spite of its bitterness, / God’s graciousness will put to 179

180

181 182 183

I am grateful to Dr Cathryn A. Charnell-White for unearthing a parallel to the hymn inscribed by Iolo on this page of his copy of Evans’s Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau. The psalm in question, entitled ‘Newyddion da’, is to be found in NLW 21344A, p. 13. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Evans, Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau, title-page (‘two auxiliaries’), p. 2 (‘awdl foethus’). For ‘RS’, see passim. On p. 8, the line ‘Amlygrwydd maith o gariad’ is annotated with ‘amlygrwydd cariad – amlygrwydd o gariad sydd Saesneg wedi ei ysgrifenu a geiriau cymraeg. Manifestation of Love’ (‘amlygrwydd cariad’ – ‘amlygrwydd o gariad’ is English written with Welsh words. ‘Manifestation of Love’). Ibid. , p. 2 (‘low ideas’, ‘Rhapsodical’, ‘misplaced’); p. 6 (‘incongruous’). Ibid. , p. 9. Ibid. , p. iii.

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order) was greeted with ‘Duw’n trefnu pethau heb rith o sylwedd’ (No shred of substance in the notion that God orders events), harking back again to the probable objection to ‘Rhagluniaeth’ (Providence) which gave rise, at least in part, to the ‘french wine rather cobwebs’ note. 184 There is some evidence to support the theory that Iolo had disagreements on theological grounds with Glyn Cothi. In 1816 Taliesin, who was at the time a lodger at the house of a certain Mrs Greenhouse in Merthyr Tydfil, wrote to his father complaining that he had been requested to leave his rooms following a fiery discussion conducted there between Iolo and Glyn Cothi. 185 Iolo wrote back in defence of his own conduct, letting slip that the subject of the conversation had been the Priestleyan doctrine of ‘necessarianism’. 186 It is fair to assume from other evidence that Iolo would have stoutly defended the notion that events come to pass as a result of causes rather than from a preordained divine programme. 187 His preoccupation with the correct interpretation of the doctrine is indicated in his annotations to a copy of William Belsham’s essay ‘On Liberty and Necessity’,188 translated into Welsh by Tomos Glyn Cothi under the title Traethawd Byr ar yr Athrawiaethau o Ryddid ac Angenrheidrwydd Philosophyddawl and published in Carmarthen in 1809. 189 The essay attempts to elucidate the arguments on both sides of the controversy regarding ‘the subject of Liberty and Necessity’ for the benefit of ‘those who do not possess leisure or inclination to toil through the numerous volumes to which this controversy has given birth’. Iolo’s annotations to it are almost exclusively limited to the section setting out the arguments in favour of necessarianism. Here, he inserted a multiple series of triple exclamation marks, made a claim of ‘misapprehension!!!’ (‘camsyniad!!!’) and quibbled ‘This is to allege not to prove!’ (‘Haeru nid profi yw hynn!’)190 Very few of the annotations can unambiguously be claimed for Glyn Cothi himself. 191

184 185 186

187

188

189

190

191

Ibid. , p. 19. CIM, III, p. 391, Taliesin Williams to Iolo Morganwg, 11 February [1816]. Ibid. , p. 394, Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 19 February 1816, and the note therein on necessarianism. On Iolo’s advocacy of necessarianism, see Jenkins, ‘“A Very Horrid Affair”’, pp. 181–2, where an anecdote relating another argument on the subject, this time with Glyn Cothi’s brother, Rees Evans, is discussed. William Belsham, ‘On Liberty and Necessity’ in idem, Essays, Philosophical, Historical, and Literary (London, 1789), pp. 1–15. For Iolo’s copy of William Belsham, Traethawd Byr ar yr Athrawiaethau o Ryddid ac Angenrheidrwydd Philosophyddawl, translated by Thomas Evans (Caerfyrddin, 1809), see Cardiff Central Library 2. 1020. Cardiff Central Library 2. 1020, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Belsham, Traethawd Byr ar yr Athrawiaethau o Ryddid ac Angenrheidrwydd Philosophyddawl, pp. 4, 5, 7, 9. Only a very small number of annotations clearly dispute the translator’s choice of a Welsh term. For example, the word ‘ffaeledd’, as a translation for ‘fallacy’ in the original, is ridiculed with ‘ffaeledd ha! ha!’ and peremptorily corrected at the bottom of the page with ‘ffaeledigaeth’. Neither word carries the precise meaning of ‘fallacy’, according to GPC.

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Rather, Iolo was anxious to dispute the original’s interpretation of the doctrine and display his wariness regarding misrepresentations of the philosophy. Glyn Cothi himself was only the butt of Iolo’s disapproval in so far as the essay that he had elected to translate on this important subject was, in the latter’s view, a poor choice. Theological and philosophical concerns, which were clearly of immense concern to Iolo, merged with literary, linguistic and personal factors in his copy of Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau to produce a sardonic reading of his former friend’s work. Since the collection of hymns contained annotations written in pencil and in ink, it is likely that the book underwent more than one critical perusal, with new layers of criticism added at different times. Yet, Iolo’s fundamental attitude to the work is unlikely to have altered a great deal from the moment when he first laid his hand upon it, in spite of what is suggested by the following quotation from a draft review of the collection regarding his change of heart: Pan gwelsom yr hymnau hynn gyntaf, ag yn newydd o’r gwasg, yr argraff gyntaf a wnaethant arnom oedd gradd o foddlondeb am nad oeddynt yn cynnwys nemmor neu ddim o’r twylldduw{wyf}yddiaeth a gair agos ym mhob hymnau eraill a welwyd hyd yn hynn yn y Gymraeg. dim o’r synniadau a’r meddyliau a’r daliadau ofergoel a geir yn hymnau Wm. Wms. ag eraill, oddiwrth ba rai y mae’r deall nas dallwyd gan fwg y pwll diwaelod, a syfrddandod breuddwydbwyll crefydd yr Anghrist. dan nawdd y cyfryw flaendyb ag a fu’n effaith y blaenargraff a wnaethant arnom, gwnaethant eu ffordd yn y byd ryw ronyn bach, a thros ryw ychydig amser, ond ail ddarllain ail glywed eu canu ag {au hail} ailystyried megis Prydyddiaeth a’n gyrrodd yn anorchfygol iw dwyn wyneb yn wyneb a’r cyfryw reolau ag y mae’r cenhedloedd a’r oesoedd dysgediccaf o’n byd ni wedi eu sefydlu au cadarnhau fal egwyddorion anhepcoriadol Prydyddiaeth a mydryddiaeth, a gwae ni o’u pwyso yng Nghlorianau y cyfryw egwyddorion, canys ni au cawsom yn brîn dros benn, yn brin i’r eithaf ym mhob peth y mha un ac ym mha rai y mae rhagoriaethau prydyddiaeth yn gynnwysedig. 192 (When we first saw these hymns, new from the press, the first impression they made upon us was a degree of satisfaction because they included none or hardly any of the false theology which is to be found in almost all the other hymns seen so far in the Welsh language; none of the superstitious ideas and thoughts and beliefs found in the hymns of William Williams and others, from which their intellect differs in not being blinded by the smoke of the bottomless pit and the dreamy-sensed stupor of the Antichrist’s religion. Under the protection of such prejudice that had an effect on the first impression which they made upon us, they made their way in the world a little bit, and for some small space of time. But rereading, singing them anew and considering them again as poetry led us unassailably to set them face to face with the rules which the most learned nations and ages in our world have established

192

NLW 13145A, pp. 322–3.

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and confirmed as the indispensable principles of poetry and versification, and woe be to us from weighing them in the scales of such principles, for we found them very lacking, completely deficient in everything in which the excellencies of poetry are contained. )

To all appearances this passage contradicts Iolo’s true response to the book as preserved in his annotations. Whereas the marginalia demonstrate his comprehensive critique of Glyn Cothi’s work, this commentary picks and chooses which aspects of the work to praise and which to condemn. The draft review, however, may be seen as an ingenious piece of political positioning as opposed to a representation of Iolo’s honest (and in this case private) views regarding the book. He here negotiated his stance regarding Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau in the public sphere in the light of his ‘party colours’ as a Unitarian. It was of paramount importance to him not to tender any public criticism of the theological basis upon which Unitarianism was based. As a result, to contrast Glyn Cothi’s work favourably with that of William Williams, Pantycelyn, and other fervent Methodists, served the purpose of upholding the principles of Unitarian belief. Iolo chose to limit his (intended) public criticism of the book to its author’s deficiencies as a poet, and was thus simultaneously able to level a barb at a personal enemy and sustain the claims of Unitarianism to theological superiority. In private readings (of the hymns and the translation of Belsham’s essay) and in confrontational debates with Glyn Cothi, Iolo could vent his true feelings on the critical theological questions upon which his Unitarian faith was based. As if to bind together in his private library two one-time friends, Iolo chose to echo his comment on Pughe’s Hu Gadarn by reverting once more to Rhys Jones of Blaenau’s Merioneth proverb in order to sum up his view of Glyn Cothi’s hymns: Edrycher ar y plant bychain occo, y maent yn cynnull cringoed ag yn eu plannu’n restri, ag yn galw gardd a pherllan ar a wnant; ond coed heb y naws lleia o irder ydynt; sych a chrin i’r eithaf; nid oes na ffrwythau; na blodau; nag y chwaith gymmaint a dalen werdd, ar un o’r plangoed: y maent yn barod i’r Tan gan syched ydynt; ag i’r tân y gweddant am nas gellir defnydd arall yn y byd ohenynt: ni allaf lai na gweled y tebygolrwydd trylwyr y sydd rwng y berllan honn a Llyfr Hymnau. T. Evans. Us gwenith Cwm Twrch, Us i g}d heb ddim yn }d, ebe Rhys Jones y Prydydd. 193

193

NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Evans, Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau, inner front cover.

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(Look at those little children yonder. They are collecting withered trees and planting them in rows, and calling what they do a garden and an orchard. But they are trees without the smallest whiff of freshness, utterly dry and withered. There are no fruit nor flowers, nor as much as a green leaf on any of the planted trees. They are ready for the fire by how dry they are, and to the fire they should go for they could be put to no other use in the world. I cannot fail but see the thorough likeness between this orchard and T. Evans’s hymn book. The chaff of the Vale of Twrch’s wheat, All chaff, and no wheat, said Rhys Jones the poet. )

The future: Iolo Morganwg and Taliesin ab Iolo Iolo was able to vent his feelings fully against his more successful contemporaries in the margins of his copies of their publications. This makes marginal annotation in his hands a particularly revealing genre, in which what might be termed as the basest feelings of ill-will and envy find an all-too-comfortable niche for expression. Yet, as we have seen, Iolo’s late annotations were far from being uniformly self-destructive. They often betrayed his efforts to channel his own unique and highly original ideas into the public arena. The winning essay written by Gwallter Mechain for the 1819 Carmarthen eisteddfod and published three years later may be seen as a benchmark against which Iolo sought to measure the success of his ideas and map out in the margins any improvements, as a spur to his own involvement in preparing ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ for the press. The other avenue open to Iolo for influencing posterity came through the agency of his son Taliesin. Dubbed in childhood ‘Taliesin yr ail’ (Taliesin the second) in homage to one of the earliest known Welsh poets, Taliesin was invested with a huge burden of responsibility with regard to his father’s teachings and his inheritance. 194 The young man appears to have leant heavily on his father’s learning, even surreptitiously seeking the latter’s help in composing poetry to be submitted to eisteddfodau. 195 Taliesin’s dependence on his father’s guidance is nowhere more graphically displayed than on the reverse of a printed advertisement for the work of Sir Walter Scott, dated 1810, where notes most probably relating to the church of Llangyfelach are followed by two englynion 194

195

CIM, I, p. 368, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 12 November [1790]; Brynley F. Roberts, ‘Mab ei Dad: Taliesin ab Iolo Morganwg’ in Hywel Teifi Edwards (ed. ), Merthyr a Thaf (Llandysul, 2001), pp. 57–93; and idem, ‘“The Age of Restitution”: Taliesin ab Iolo and the Reception of Iolo Morganwg’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 461–79. For a particularly incriminating example, see CIM, III, pp. 674–5, Taliesin Williams to Iolo Morganwg, 19 October 1823, which Taliesin, understandably in view of the contents, concluded with the exhortation: ‘Do not let this letter fall under the eye of any one. ’

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found on a gravestone in the churchyard. 196 Most of this material was originally written by Iolo in pencil, but it was later erased and rewritten in ink in his son’s hand. Alongside the englynion, Taliesin wrote, in ink, the words ‘Yn llythrenol fal ar y garreg’ (Literally as on the [grave]stone). He thus made a permanent copy of Iolo’s perishable pencil tracing, using the mould of his father’s hand: Gwel rybydd beunydd mewn byd tra gallech Tro gwella dy fywyd fal mi di ddewi’n ddiwyd fedd i orwedd yn fyd. (Daily see a warning in the world while you are able Turn, improve your life; Like me you will become diligently silent Lying mute in a grave. )

Taliesin’s act of tracing over his father’s letters, his insistence on the ‘literal’ nature of the transcription, and the very message of the englyn – spoken by a mute deceased – map out the lessons about reading (and about writing) which he may have imbibed from his father. A sense of selecting literal truths is strongly present in Taliesin’s reading of the past, and nowhere is his adherence to the principle of verbatim reproduction more rigid than in dealing with his father’s legacy of truths ‘the same yesterday, today, and everlastingly’. Taliesin’s tutelage in reading is apparent in several surviving books and manuscripts among Iolo’s collection. Among these appears a manuscript in which Iolo’s annotations were particularly cantankerous, and his exhortations to ‘note’ (‘Dal sylw!’) rather more frequent than usual. 197 The poems include a cywydd by the poet-soldier Tomos Prys (c. 1564–1634) of Plas Iolyn to his son, Siôn Prys. One section was enthusiastically annotated by Iolo: Na chred i th frawd llwyr gnawd llog Os yw heddyw yn swyddog [Dal sylw!] . . . Gwilia fo wrth wrando r iaith yn cau lugad golugiaith [Dal sylw!] Gwilia warr gam ar glyw r gog [Dal sylw!] Cyffelyb i gyffylog . . .

196 197

NLW 21403E, no. 65. See NLW 13064D.

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Ac na ’mddyried fo{’m} credir I un dyn a bryno dir [dal sylw!]. 198 (Do not give credit to a brother entirely of your own flesh If today he is an officer [Note!] . . . Beware of him when listening to {?his} words, Closing his eye (a very cold language). [Note!] Beware of the hunchbacked upon hearing the cuckoo [Note!] – Similar to a woodcock; . . . And, well may I be believed, You should not trust any man who might buy land [Note!]. )

The spur to the annotation here appears to have been Iolo’s wholehearted endorsement of the poet’s sentiments. He evidently felt a strong urge to approve the advice of the father to his son regarding the untrustworthiness of officers, landowners and hunchbacks. This enthusiasm probably indicates that Iolo intended the manuscript copy of this poem – notes and all – to be read by his own son, Taliesin, towards whom, in all likelihood, Iolo’s agreement with Tomos Prys was directed. The eagerness of Iolo’s endorsement of the poetry’s sentiments was matched by his readiness to correct errors of attribution elsewhere in the same manuscript. The original scribe attributed ‘Cywydd . . . yr Iesu’ (A cywydd to Jesus) to Dafydd ap Gwilym, but Iolo wrote ‘Nage! nage. E. W!’ (No! no. E. W!) The attribution of another poem to ‘Ieuan tew brydydd Ifangc floruit Anno 1580’ (the young poet Ieuan Tew, floruit anno 1580) was countered with ‘Nage, Ieuan Tew hen oedd y Prydydd o Gydweli’ (No, Ieuan Tew the elder was the poet, from Cydweli). 199 In one case, Iolo’s note on the authorship of a poem named ‘Cywydd y Daran’ (The cywydd of the thunder), ‘D. G. medd ynghylch deugain llyfr a welais i. I. Morganwg’ (Dafydd ap Gwilym say around forty manuscripts which I have seen. I. Morganwg), was echoed in a rather pompous note by Taliesin himself, a note which proves that he did indeed read the manuscript after his father had annotated it, and followed the latter’s lead in researching this point at least: Eglur yw wrth amryw dystiolaethau ac hefyd wrth Lafarddull y cyfansoddiad mai Gwaith Dafydd ab Gwilym yw’r cywydd hwnn. (Ab Iolo)200

198

199 200

Ibid. , p. 27. The text is corrupt. One substitution (in curved brackets) has been made here, based on the critical edition of W. Dyfed Rowlands, ‘Cywyddau Tomos Prys o Blas Iolyn’ (unpublished University of Wales Ph. D. thesis, 1998), pp. 222–3. NLW 13064D, pp. 21, 37. Ibid. , p. 15.

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(It is clear from several testimonies and also from the idiom of the composition that this cywydd is the work of Dafydd ap Gwilym. (Ab Iolo))

Taliesin’s discipleship of his father – a thorny issue for the younger man throughout his lifetime – is in fact revealed in a vivid and tangible way through the records of the annotations provided by both. Two clearly definable processes may be seen at work in the marginalia of father and son, and Taliesin’s annotating activity in both cases mirrors that of Iolo. The first of these relates to the process of reading for information, which could then be employed to prop up a theory largely preconceived (but not to the extent that renders it incapable of further development in its minutiae). This stream of annotating activity may be seen in Iolo’s selection of vocabulary and ideas relating to his grand vision of bardo-druidism in manuscripts of Welsh poetry which he owned or perused. The word ‘Derwydd’, the name ‘Tir Iarll’, the reference to ‘Torri pedair llythyr[?en]’, to ‘Mesuryd’, and to the druidic orders and costumes (‘Gwisg werdd’; ‘Tair Gradd’ exemplified by Iolo as ‘Prifardd, Ofydd, a Derwydd’) are all repeated in the margins of manuscripts in Iolo’s own private collection. 201 Just as he read the Scriptures in search of evidence to support his Unitarianism, so did he read material relating to the Welsh poetic tradition with a view to finding incontestable truths about its bardic past, truths which corresponded to his own preconceived vision of that past. It seems likely that the carefully noted examples of Bardism in manuscripts such as these were intended as a crop of evidence to be harvested at a later date for Iolo’s own writings on the theme of the origins of the Welsh bardic tradition. Yet, at least one other person was made privy to Iolo’s findings. In teaching his son the secrets of Bardism, Iolo, more than anything else perhaps, taught Taliesin how to read. A record of the son’s approach to the poetry of the Welsh tradition is preserved in the following anecdote regarding the ‘nod cyfrin’ (mystic symbol) recounted by the cleric and antiquary Thomas Price (Carnhuanawc): Now all this I thought to be the mere production of the leisure hours of old Iolo Morganwg, or some other person in modern times; but one day, by accident, I happened to open upon an ancient englyn in the Myfyrian Archaiology, attributed to Gwenddydd . . . ‘Gwyn ei fyd y genau yn frwydd gyfeistrin, A lefaro trigeir o’r heniaith gysefin. ’ ‘There,’ said Ab Iolo, ‘that’s Druidism’; and he directed my attention to so many expressions bearing upon the same subject, that I was completely mystified, and was obliged to acknowledge there appeared to be something handed down in these poems in concealed meanings, and which could not be made out by ordinary readers. 202 201

202

NLW 13066B (‘Derwydd’); NLW 13078E, p. 4 (Tir Iarll); NLW 13071B, p. 61 (‘Torri pedair llythyr[?en]’); NLW 13064D, pp. 49, 50, 51 (‘Tir Iarll’; ‘Gwisg werdd’; ‘Mesuryd’; ‘Tair Gradd’). Letter of 13 May 1840, quoted in Literary and Historical Legacy, p. 177. Further on Carnhuanawc’s conversations with Taliesin, see ibid. , p. 82.

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Taliesin’s absorption of the principle of reading in order to find evidence to support a preconceived notion provided the backbone of his essay in defence of the ‘antiquity and authority of “Coelbren y Beirdd”’ (Traethawd ar Hynafiaeth ac Awdurdodaeth Coelbren y Beirdd ), which won him first prize at the Abergavenny eisteddfod of 1838. In view of his admission that the libraries in which his father had found material on the history of the wooden alphabet known as the ‘Coelbren’ had burnt to the ground, leaving no trace of authentic evidence, Taliesin had to resort to quoting ‘authoritative references . . . in the compositions of the old Bards, and others, to the habit in question’ (‘[c]yfeiriadau awdurdodol . . . yng nghyfansoddiadau yr hen Feirdd, ac eraill, at y cyfryw arferiad’) in order to prove the veracity of his father’s claims. 203 His appendices, including extracts from old grammars and triads as well as from the works of the Welsh poets, illustrate the frequency of references to words such as ‘gw}dd’ (trees), ‘peithynu’ and other derivatives (to cover with boards), ‘saer’ (carpenter), ‘coed’ (wood or trees), ‘bwyall’ (axe) and ‘naddu’ (to cut with a chisel), and, according to Taliesin, constituted ‘not the tenth part of that which I collected with this aim in mind’ (‘nid y ddegfed rhann o’r hynn a gesglais gyda’r cyfryw amcan’). 204 Taliesin’s technique of ‘drawing Druidism’ from the evidence of manuscripts formed a central part of the curriculum which his father appears to have prepared for him. Among the collection of Iolo’s books in the National Library of Wales, a substantial number owned by Taliesin have survived, many of which were presented to him and inscribed by well-wishers – a sure indication of his influence in the public sphere during the 1830s and 1840s. 205 Others, however, were clearly either owned by Taliesin in the first place, or shared with (or inherited from) his father. A copy of the second volume of William Sewel’s The History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People called Quakers is inscribed with the name ‘Taliesin Williams Gileson Nr Cowbridge Glamorganshire’, and was therefore probably acquired and read during 1811–12 when the young man kept school in the villages of Gileston and St Athan prior to his first appointment as a ‘writing master’ at David Davis’s academy in Neath. 206 The book was heavily

203

204 205

206

Taliesin Williams, Traethawd ar Hynafiaeth ac Awdurdodaeth Coelbren y Beirdd, yr hwnn a ennillodd ariandlws a gwobr Eisteddfod y Fenni, 1838 (Llanymddyfri, 1840), p. 12. Ibid. , pp. 38–52. Thomas Price (Carnhuanawc), An Essay on the Physiognomy and Physiology of the Present Inhabitants of Britain; with reference to their origin, as Goths and Celts (London, 1829), presented by ‘H. Jones To his respecting friend (Taliesin ab Iolo – ) Merthyr Nov 4th 1829’; Richard Newcome, An Account of the Castle and Town of Denbigh (Denbigh, 1829), presented ‘To Mr Taliesin Williams, With the Printer’s Sincerest Regards’ and dated ‘Merthyr Sept 27 1830’; and Francis Thackeray, Researches into the Ecclesiastical and Political State of Ancient Britain under the Roman Emperors (London, 1843), presented to Taliesin by his father’s friend, John Montgomery Traherne. All three copies are housed in the National Library of Wales. Roberts, ‘“The Age of Restitution”’, p. 463; idem, ‘Mab ei Dad’, p. 61.

141

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marked with crosses, stars, exhortations to ‘Note!’ and a series of exclamation marks, mostly in pencil, but with a few in ink. It is impossible to prove who was responsible for these marks, but entries on pp. 247 and 357, the former a brief ‘Note!’, the latter a more extended annotation, leave us in no doubt that Iolo had in fact perused this copy. He, too, was responsible for inserting a tab on the front cover, noting the name of the author and title of the book. The young Taliesin, therefore, may well have been guided in his reading of this key text of Quaker belief and pressed to ‘read the Scriptures, and friends books, and take heed to what thou readest to obey it, as far as thou understandest; and pray often unto the Lord, that he will give thee his knowledge, and open thy understanding in the things of his kingdom’. 207 As an annotator in his own right, Taliesin’s interest appears to have revolved around books which engaged with literary and historical Welsh studies, rather than texts relating to radical Dissent. With the exception of Sewel’s History of the . . . Quakers and a copy of his father’s second volume of psalms, proof-read by the son prior to publication, none such have survived among what might be considered Taliesin’s collection in the National Library of Wales. 208 Yet, Taliesin carefully annotated several historical and literary titles published in the years after Iolo’s death, among them the fourth volume of Samuel Astley Dunham, A History of Europe during the Middle Ages (1834), Rice Rees, An Essay on the Welsh Saints or the Primitive Christians (1836), Walter Davies and John Jones (eds. ), Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi (1837), and Francis Thackeray, Researches into the Ecclesiastical and Political State of Ancient Britain under the Roman Emperors (1843). He also carefully perused a copy of Sharon Turner, A Vindication of the Genuineness of the Ancient British Poems of Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, and Merdhin (1803). 209 He inscribed the latter with his name, ‘Taliesin ab Iolo Morganwg’, even though it had clearly at some point belonged to his father, whose hand is to be seen in four separate annotations within its covers. 210 One of these answered Turner’s claim that ‘We cannot expect to find these Welsh bards noticed by the Anglo-Saxons. I have already given a very striking proof

207

208

209 210

NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of William Sewel, The History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People called Quakers (3rd edn. , 2 vols. , London, 1795), II, p. 257. The passage is marked with a star in pencil. NLW, an unbound copy of Edward Williams, Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch. Cyfrol II, includes minor corrections only. Taliesin’s boldest incursions include suggesting the additional meaning of ‘rhyfedd iawn’ (very strange) to the word ‘Certh’ (which he also corrected from ‘corth’), and inserting another entry, ‘Claf, ymweled a’r’ (Patient, to visit) in the volume’s index. See pp. 230, 234. These copies are all held in the National Library of Wales. See appendices II, III. NLW, Iolo Morganwg and Taliesin Williams’s copy of Sharon Turner, A Vindication of the Genuineness of the Ancient British Poems of Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, and Merdhin, with specimens of the poems (London, 1803), pp. 60, 113, 139. Two of the four annotations appear on page 113.

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of the contempt of the Anglo-Saxons for the Welsh language. ’211 Although Turner only mentioned this as part of a theory to explain to the wider audience of British antiquaries how the work of the poets whom he elevated in his study had remained hidden from (English and Scots) view for centuries, the statement taken out of context may well have seemed offensive to Iolo as a Welshman, and he duly turned it on its head with his marginal comment, ‘no welsh writers ever notice a Saxon writer’. 212 The task of annotating the remainder of the volume was taken over by Taliesin, who assiduously celebrated the place of Glamorgan, of Druidism and of his father’s teaching within the covers of the book. Authoritatively signing his note ‘AB IOLO’, Taliesin’s retort to Turner’s claim that ‘Wales is scarcely mentioned’ in the poetry to Urien and Myrddin was: But Urien was Prince of Rheged, a District now partly in Glamorgan and partly in Caermarthenshire, when he became the subject of the eulogies here noticed. The names of several localities in that district are mentioned in the poems alluded to. Taliesin resided at Llychwr, as Urien’s Domestic Bard for some years. There are more extensive allusions to Silurian Localities and persons in the Cynfeirdd, than commentators have hitherto conceived. 213

Iolo’s beliefs on this matter were published in the posthumous Iolo Manuscripts, in which a ‘short notice’ devoted to Urien’s ‘heroic achievements in war’ saw him well-established in the Gower area of Glamorgan, thereafter known as ‘Rheged’. 214 Within Turner’s book, Iolo’s druidic vision was represented by his son in annotations pointing out the concordance between ‘The Elegies of Llywarch’ and the ‘aphoristick stanzas that were the vehicles of oral instruction by the Druids’, and explaining the name of Iolo’s self-created hero Ceraint Fardd Glas, mentioned by Turner, as ‘Blue-Bard. So called from the unicoloured robe of blue worn, at the Gorsedd by the Chair-Bard’. 215 Taliesin evidently felt the need to put the record straight regarding Turner’s comments on ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’. The author noted: ‘The book was last transcribed and revised by Edward Davydd, who died 1690 . . . The collection was made before him, by Llywelyn Sion who flourished in 1580, and died in 1616 . . . Mr. Owen has only added, in parentheses, the dates of the persons and things mentioned therein. ’216 In naming third-in-line Mr Owen (William Owen Pughe), Turner 211 212 213 214 215

216

Ibid. , p. 113. Ibid. Ibid. , pp. 156–7. Iolo Manuscripts, pp. 70–1, 457–8. NLW, Iolo Morganwg and Taliesin Williams’s copy of Turner, A Vindication of the Genuineness of the Ancient British Poems, pp. 190, 272. Ceraint’s work is again mentioned in a marginal note on p. 269 of the copy, where his ‘Englynion y Gorugan or the Triplets of Acts’ are cited. Ibid. , p. 227.

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failed to make the all-important link between the early champions of the ‘Cyfrinach’ and their modern-day incarnation, Iolo Morganwg. Taliesin noted in pencil: ‘The whole [was] given to him [i. e. Pughe] by E. W. who also communicated to him the materials nearly verbatim, of his Pref. to Llyw. Hen. ’217 In all these annotations Taliesin showed the authority of a man determined to correct misconceptions – nowhere more confidently so than when, at the end of the book, he alternately endorsed and dismissed Turner’s sources of information, including one cited from The Myvyrian Archaiology. Well-tutored by his father, he knew that he could reject ‘the Dialogue between Arthur Cai and Glewlwyd Welsh Arc p. 167’ and that between ‘Arthur and Gwenhwyfar’ as ‘spurious’, and yet sanction ‘Englynion y clyweit’ as ‘Original’. 218 Nevertheless, he was far from confident in making assertions which deviated from the letter of his father’s teaching. Turner, who relied heavily on information provided by Iolo in producing this study, included the latter’s account of his discovery of the Samson stone at Llantwit Major in August 1793. 219 He included a diagram of the stone, with a parallel rendition of the ancient inscription in the Roman alphabet. Taliesin inserted in pencil against this the comment: The word tegam, if so it was originally, seems unintelligible, I am, sometimes, inclined to suppose that the termination, at first was thus ARTMALI REX A (Amen) This is a mere suggestion (Ab Iolo). 220

How Taliesin could justify transforming the existing reading of ‘ART / MALI: TEC[A] / N’ into ‘ARTMALI REX A’ is not immediately apparent, but it may have reflected his own observations of the stone at close quarters. 221 Whatever the case may be, the diffidence of the proposition contrasts sharply with the confidence of Taliesin’s other annotations, which suggests how difficult it was for him to forge his own path and develop his own ideas on subjects so heavily loaded with his father’s presence. Taliesin’s annotations to the other publications mentioned above, dating from the 1830s and 1840s, predominantly record from the margins a Ioloic scholarly undercurrent to the main thesis of the books. Rice Rees’s An Essay

217 218

219

220 221

Ibid. Ibid. , p. 269. ‘Englynion y Clyweit’ were a genuine production of the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century, and Taliesin’s understanding of their status was thus accurate. See further CIM, II, pp. 349–50, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 19 December 1800. NLW, Iolo Morganwg and Taliesin Williams’s copy of Turner, A Vindication of the Genuineness of the Ancient British Poems, pp. 137–9. Ibid. , p. 139. For Iolo’s work on the Samson stone and a facsimile reprint of his own copy of the inscription, see CIM, I, pp. 596–600, Iolo Morganwg to Robert Nicholl, 5 September 1793, esp. p. 598, and ibid. , II, pp. 136–8, Iolo Morganwg to David Thomas, 20 October 1798.

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on the Welsh Saints considered the part played by the earliest saints in the foundation of the Welsh church, using as its source material an amalgamation of classical works and some of Iolo’s own fabricated compositions on this theme. The book referred to the triads published as the ‘Third Series’ of The Myvyrian Archaiology, and to ‘the Silurian copies of Achau y Saint’, both Ioloic sources, but did not always accord the preference to this material in teasing out the truth by comparison with classical accounts: In a conflict with classical historians the Welsh traditions must give way, and if the foregoing prove a correct interpretation of the meaning of Tacitus and Dion Cassius, the claims of Bran ab Llyr to be considered the founder of Christianity in Britain must be surrendered. 222

Taliesin opposed this sentiment with ‘By no means’ pencilled in the margin. This peremptory dismissal of Rees’s conclusion rested on the conviction that the latter’s knowledge of the Welsh sources left something to be desired. The annotations scattered throughout the volume repeatedly called into question Rees’s acquaintance with the facts of the partially spurious tradition set up by Taliesin’s father. The linking of place names to saints’ names was a particular bone of contention between annotator and author, the former often challenging the claims of the latter with brief corrections. In a section entitled ‘A list of Chapels and Churches in Wales’, Taliesin allowed his own superior knowledge of his native county to interrupt the flow of Rees’s text by adding information which had been overlooked or by simply correcting errors: Eglwys Brewys, St. Brise [No it is called after Sir Wm De Bruce Breos or Brewis who built the Chapel, and separated it from Lantwit] . . . Caerffili, St. Martin [originally St. Cennydd, hence Senghenydd] . . . Llandymor, an extinct church in Gower [Dinwr ap y Caw] . . . Llanhary, Illtyd [no Garrai] . . . Llantryddid, Illtyd [no Treuddyd Sant o Gôr Illtyd] . . . Llanhenog or Llanhynog, St. John the Baptist [Henwg Sant the father of Taliesin]. 223

222

223

NLW, Taliesin Williams’s copy of Rice Rees, An Essay on the Welsh Saints or the Primitive Christians usually considered to have been founders of churches in Wales (London, 1836), p. 79. Ibid. , pp. 336, 337, 344.

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Taliesin noted on the inner side of the back cover his conclusion, having read the book in some detail: ‘The publication of the Silurian copy of Bonedd y Saint a desideratum’, referring himself also to the ‘Pantlliwydd Black book for the Achau there’. He was clearly therefore measuring up the extent to which his father’s researches had been successfully disseminated from the evidence of contemporary publications, and the reading of this book appears to have been a spur to his work as editor of the Iolo Manuscripts, which included ‘Achau a Gwelygorddau Saint Ynys Prydain. O Lyfr Hir Thomas Truman o Bant Lliwydd’ (The genealogies and lineages of the saints of the Isle of Britain, from the Long Book of Thomas Truman of Pant Lliwydd), together with six other items relating to the saints, all drawn from supposed transcripts made by Iolo Morganwg. 224 A direct reference to Rees’s volume is to be found among the copious notes prepared by Taliesin for the Iolo Manuscripts, setting out the case for more careful interpretation of place names in conjunction with the names of saints: Professor Rees, in his valuable Essay on the Welsh Saints, considers, (pp. 82, 307,) that the Church of Porthkery, Glamorganshire, was dedicated to St. Curig; an opinion that he appears to have adopted rather from the seeming identity of names, than any decisive authority. He enumerates two saints of the name; and the only difficulty he insinuates is – to which of them this church was dedicated; leaving the difference between Ceri and Curig unnoticed. It must be acknowledged, that Genealogies of a secondary character, and apparently depending on the same conceived identity, countenance his opinion; which, however, upon mature examination, appears untenable. 225

Material relating to the saints continued to preoccupy Taliesin in his reading of an early edition of the work of the fifteenth-century poet Lewys Glyn Cothi. He made two references to ‘Bonedd y Saint’ and corrected an assertion which overlooked Iolo’s history of Illtud’s college at Llantwit Major. 226 Other notes echo Ioloic sources (the ‘Cymreigyddyn’)227 and Iolo’s practice as an annotator, the son noting druidic overtones in the line ‘Uwch o bwnc hwdiwch y bêl’, with ‘Dwyn y bel (Tir Iarll)’, and juxtaposing Lewys Glyn Cothi’s use

224 225 226

227

See Iolo Manuscripts, pp. 100–53. Ibid. , p. 345. NLW, Taliesin Williams’s copy of Walter Davies and John Jones (eds. ), Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi: The Poetical Works of Lewis Glyn Cothi (Oxford, 1837), pp. 5, 6, 96. For booklets headed ‘Cymreigyddyn’, nos. I, II, V, VI, see NLW 13155A. Many of these have been left blank inside, but the first number contains vocabulary lists, with a specific emphasis on Silurian usage.

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of the idiom ‘Duw yn vach’ with ‘Duw yn dyst (Siln)’. 228 In all of this, Taliesin appeared as the mouthpiece for his father’s legacy, sometimes responding to passages with a pedantry characteristic of Iolo, such as when he noted against an author’s ‘It is a true, but by no means extraordinary fact . . . ’: ‘True fact! as if there could be a false fact. ’229 Taliesin’s habits must have been imbibed from hearing his father loudly criticizing printed books or, at a later date, from perusing his father’s annotated copies. For instance, Iolo’s string of accusations that Pinkerton lied about the Welsh in A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths were taken to heart by his son. Taliesin found one more ridiculous than any noted by his father in Pinkerton’s claim that ‘They therefore who derive any English words from Celtic only shew a risible ignorance: for the truth is, that the Celtic are derived from the English’. He trumped his father’s indignation with ‘Bravo! What shall we have next? Ab Iolo. ’230 To what end did Taliesin add comments to his father’s books and, more significantly, annotate a number of new publications from the 1830s and 1840s following his father’s death? He was clearly bent on publishing at least some part of the massive archive left by his father, and he added to the basic tenets a copious body of notes, to the annoyance of members of the Welsh Manuscript Society who had undertaken to publish the work. As Brynley F. Roberts has shown, Thomas Price (Carnhuanawc) found Taliesin’s insistence on ‘making the work a vehicle for [his own] opinions’ particularly distasteful. 231 The latter’s interest rested with the literary, mythological and historical aspects of Iolo’s archive, with Druidism accorded a high degree of attention. He may have circulated his annotated books: his correspondence suggests that he lent books to others, including some which had belonged to his father. Lady Charlotte Guest thanked him for lending her Iolo’s copy of Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym (1789) in a letter of November 1837 and in November 1842 she enquired whether he had a copy of the ‘Cambro Briton’ which she might borrow for a few days. 232 228

229

230

231 232

NLW, Taliesin Williams’s copy of Davies and Jones (eds. ), Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi, p. 127. On the druidic ‘golden ball’, see Iolo Manuscripts, pp. 217, 218. NLW, Taliesin Williams’s copy of Samuel Astley Dunham, A History of Europe during the Middle Ages (4 vols. , London, 1833–4), IV, p. 266. For a similar annotation by Iolo himself, see NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Evans, Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau, p. 89. The stanza ‘Cyhoeddi llwyr faddeuant rhad, / A wnaeth ein Tad trugarog; / Y ffordd yn rhwydd amlygodd ef, / I deyrnas nef odidog’ (Our merciful Father / Announced complete and graceful forgiveness; / He openly revealed the way / To the splendid kingdom of heaven) is rudely interrupted with Iolo’s ‘odidog, hynny yw y nef y sy’n odidog, ag nid y nef nad yw felly. ha! ha! ha!’ (Splendid – that is the heaven which is splendid rather than the heaven which is not so. Ha! ha! ha!) NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Pinkerton, A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths, p. 195. This page almost certainly already contained two annotations, reading ‘Celwydd’ (A lie) in Iolo’s hand, when ‘Ab Iolo’ added his own grist to the mill. Roberts, ‘“The Age of Restitution”’, p. 477. NLW 21272E, no. 192, Lady Charlotte Guest to Taliesin Williams, 17 November 1837; ibid. , no. 199, Lady Charlotte Guest to Taliesin Williams, 17 November 1842.

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In December 1839 Lady Augusta Hall (Gwenynen Gwent) sent Taliesin a letter from the Revd W. J. Rees, editor of the Book of Llandaf, seeking his father’s remarks on the ‘Ll[annerch] copy’. 233 Iolo’s books and his annotations on books were therefore in demand among the generation of scholars who followed him, and Taliesin, with an ‘unrivalled and detailed knowledge of the Iolo papers’ ensured that his father’s work did not disappear from view following his death. 234 Still, there remains a question over the areas of Iolo’s work which Taliesin promoted and those which he repressed. Current scholarship has argued convincingly that Iolo’s radical legacy was suppressed by the first generation of heirs to his papers, and if this is the case, then Taliesin must shoulder most of the responsibility. 235 Yet, in fairness to Taliesin, even if he did emphasize the scholarly attitude of his father’s legacy, he did not suppress wholly his own response to political and religious issues. In defence of Druidism, a favourite hobby-horse of his, Taliesin focused on the way in which Christianity, its original precepts unheeded, had led to indescribable evils. In his Researches into the Ecclesiastical and Political State of Ancient Britain under the Roman Emperors (1843), Francis Thackeray embarked on a ‘consideration of Druidism’, claiming that it was ‘By their fruits ye shall know them’: Whatever the original doctrines and intention of Druidism might have been, a system which for centuries produced no good effect upon the people generally must have become wofully degenerate and corrupt.

Taliesin vigorously stepped in to defend what clearly struck him as a personal attack on his father’s legacy: Let us contemplate the Slave Trade (so recently abrogated by some nations) and the enormous destruction of human beings by war, horrid war, and then ask – What has Christianity, so truly and purely Divine in its (unobeyed) precepts produced in good effects?236

233

234 235

236

Ibid. , no. 219, Augusta Hall (Gwenynen Gwent) to Taliesin Williams, 8 December 1839. W. J. Rees edited and translated the Book of Llandaf under the title The Liber Landavensis, Llyfr Teilo, or the ancient register of the Cathedral Church of Llandaff (Llandovery, 1840). On Rees’s edition, see J. Gwenogvryn Evans and John Rhys (eds. ), The Text of the Book of Llan Dâv Reproduced from the Gwysaney Manuscript (Oxford, 1893), pp. vii, xiii. Roberts, ‘“The Age of Restitution”’, pp. 477–8. Geraint H. Jenkins, ‘Perish Kings and Emperors, but Let the Bard of Liberty Live’ (Aberystwyth, 2006), pp. 3–5; Literary and Historical Legacy, chapter 5; Marion Löffler, ‘The Relevance of Absence: Radical Iolo and Victorian Wales’, a paper delivered at a one-day conference entitled ‘Iolo Morganwg: Farewell to the Old Sorcerer’, held by the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, 5 July 2008. NLW, Taliesin Williams’s copy of Thackeray, Researches into the Ecclesiastical and Political State of Ancient Britain, p. 36.

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Save that Taliesin did not differentiate between Christianity and Church-andKingism, this could well have been one of Iolo’s own comments. Yet, the fire in Taliesin’s belly upon reading this volume, presented to him by the antiquary John Montgomery Traherne, was rather muted when commenting on political issues. Writing of the loss of power sustained by the eleventh-century ruler Iestyn ap Gwrgant at the hands of the Norman lord, Robert Fitzhamon, he bemoaned the folly of revolt: In whatever point of view, as to historical fact, the apparently romantic anecdote here introduced, may be considered, it faithfully depictures the rapid results of revolt, in its portraiture of the sad bereavements, destitution, and wretched vassalage that immediately befell all grades of Iestyn’s subjects, after his overthrow. While the restless mind of this prince proved inimical to public repose, his unrestrained passions naturally created feelings of deep-rooted revenge in the breasts of some of his powerful subjects, who, consequently, swerved from their fealty to him, in the day of his need. But the spirit, whether vindictive or ambitious, that would aim at the total subversion of an old government, rather than the constitutional correction of abuses, will ultimately reap of the devastating whirlwind, – the sure result of ‘sowing to the tempest. ’ The progressive reforms so indispensably necessary to the institutions of any country, should, with a view to permanency, be the fruits of time and cool deliberation; – not the crude produce of popular excitement, that, like hastily harvested hay, may be accumulated to conflagration. 237

Taliesin had been privy to the political upheavals of Merthyr Tydfil in 1831. It is difficult to suggest what his father’s response to those events might have been. Would he have taken a more moderate, progressive view of the question, as his son appears to have done? Clearly, Taliesin did not endorse the punishment dealt out to Lewsyn yr Heliwr and Dic Penderyn, for he played a part in organizing petitions on their behalf, as his father had done for William Morgan of Llantrisant almost twenty years earlier. 238 Perhaps Taliesin’s alliance with the classes intent on change through reform rather than through a popular uprising was not fully inconsistent with his father’s politics, but a predictable direction in which to develop them.

237

238

Iolo Manuscripts, pp. 381–2. See also Jenkins, ‘Perish Kings and Emperors’, p. 4. Traherne’s donation to Taliesin of the copy of Thackeray’s Researches into the Ecclesiastical and Political State of Ancient Britain, is indicated by a note in the latter’s hand, dated 8 February 1844, glued to the front of the book. On Taliesin’s involvement in the violent events of 1831 in Merthyr Tydfil, see Gwyn A. Williams, The Merthyr Rising (2nd edn. , Cardiff, 1988), pp. 97, 182, 201. Williams describes Taliesin as ‘a pained but candid friend of the Anglican church’ and an ‘admirer of Josiah John Guest’. Ibid. , p. 75.

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Conclusion What can be said in conclusion regarding the body of annotations of which the examples discussed above form only a representative fraction? Jackson’s pioneering work succeeds in establishing marginalia to printed books as a genre in its own right – a literary form which, like any other, has left both ‘mundane’ and inspired pieces of work. Her studies reveal that some examples of marginalia from the Romantic period were projects intended for both contemporaries and posterity, and in that sense they were composed to enhance or to rival the printed books in which they appeared. 239 She also demonstrates that the value and fascination of marginalia often increases when a personal relationship between author and annotator is involved. For instance, by annotating Johnson’s Rasselas for William Augustus Conway, a friend many years her junior, Hester Lynch Piozzi acted as an intermediary between the author of the book (intimately known to her) and the intended reader of a particular copy of it (also an acquaintance). 240 Iolo’s marginalia certainly provide a lasting record of his responses as a reader and there is little doubt that at least some of his annotations were intended for the eyes of others. Personal factors are very much present in his annotations to books composed by contemporaries, whether he knew them (as in the case of William Owen Pughe and Tomos Glyn Cothi) or simply considered them rivals in the battle of Welsh literary and cultural heritage against Anglocentric scholarship (as in the case of John Pinkerton). But there is another distinctive factor to Iolo’s annotations. It arises from his troubled and far from straightforward involvement in printing and publishing. The complexity of Iolo’s relationship with the dominant print culture of his age meant that annotation became for him a channel of attack, primarily in a destructive sense, against voices comfortably entrenched within the status quo. Through ridicule, persistent interference with suggestions for improvements, and acerbic comments on the value of printed books in his collection, Iolo sought to question the authority of those with established reputations in their respective fields, all the more so if they were personal enemies. As an alternative to their offerings, he provided tantalizing glimpses of the parallel manuscript culture into which most of his life’s work was poured and by which it was preserved. Iolo’s annotations to printed books therefore oscillate between a sense of frustration and fury – clear signs of his own marginalization – and the promotion of different means of influencing the channels of future Welsh learning. They simultaneously reflect the dissatisfaction of a man relegated to the margin of the dominant culture and the inventive mind of a visionary seeking ways of protruding his own powerful legacy onto future generations. 239 240

Jackson, Romantic Readers, chapter 3. Eadem, Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books (London, 2001), pp. 103–12.

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It is this sense of the importance of posterity to Iolo as an annotator which makes an exploration of his son Taliesin’s marginalia to printed books so significant. Taliesin acted as a spokesperson for the veracity of Iolo’s creations and his annotations carry forward the debate between printed culture and the latent Ioloic manuscript culture. Taliesin’s annotations reveal the extent to which he was determined to realize the dream of printing his father’s work and to bring the private material of his manuscripts into the public domain. Like his father before him, he did not live to see the fulfilment of his labours – the Iolo Manuscripts were published a year after his death. Moreover, his efforts to ensure the continued influence of his father’s work, besides being blind to the fact that Iolo was a literary forger, were highly selective. By limiting himself to defending the latter’s bardic and druidic legacy, Taliesin left significant aspects of Iolo’s political and radical work almost untouched. Nonetheless, to acknowledge this does not diminish the importance of exploring Taliesin’s annotations. They tell their own story about the projection of Iolo’s legacy and echo the findings of Löffler regarding Iolo Morganwg’s posthumous reputation. Iolo’s annotations to printed books, however, must not be seen solely in relation to his negotiations with the complex issues surrounding futurity. They also serve as a valuable indication of how he approached reading as a process. They reveal how adept he was at honing in on elements of interest to himself when reading, sometimes flaring up tiny morsels into original literary projects, as in the case of Pinkerton’s reference to ‘Living in Cars &c!!!’ He assiduously searched for his own experience in the foreign territories or ages to which his books often took him, likening aspects of Roman civilization to the penal system in eighteenth-century Wales, or, through linguistic creativity, providing parallel terminology for Sanskrit concepts in the Welsh language. Even while expanding on his own field of knowledge through reading, Iolo was constantly searching for connections with his own experience – as a radical, as a Welshman, and as a humane champion of the lowly. This suggests that reading for Iolo was a highly subjective process which involved juxtaposing his own person with the world of printed (and manuscript) text. His annotations enact the process of bridging the gap between the reported information represented in such texts and his own experiences (and aspirations) as an individual. The importance of the self to Iolo in reading reaches gargantuan proportions in the annotations to the work of his rivals, Pughe and Glyn Cothi. Here, to a large extent, the ‘self ’ invades the printed text, so much so that objectivity is all but wiped out of sight. Yet, these ‘annotations of envy’ preserve nuances of interest beyond recording the more unpalatable aspects of Iolo’s personality. In the case of Glyn Cothi’s hymns – perhaps the most extreme example of spiteful marginal commentary conducted by Iolo – exploration of the larger context of the annotation helps in revealing particular strains within it. Not all of these can be dismissed as related to Iolo’s personal grudges against the author. Most

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notably, some of Iolo’s comments reveal his genuine preoccupation with theological questions and the battle which he waged, even within the conclave of south Wales Unitarianism, for the acceptance of his own interpretation of the Christian faith. Iolo’s annotations thus open up new channels of discovery regarding his life and work. They offer a glimpse of his working methods and record the inventiveness and creativity of his approach to reading (and subsequently using for his own purposes) a vast range of textual material. They also bring us closer to the man himself and reveal some of the most pressing personal concerns which beset him during his lifetime.

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4 ‘Aneirif bapirau didrefn’ (Countless disorderly papers): Iolo Morganwg the writer

[Samuel Taylor Coleridge] . . . who with long and large arm still collected precious Armfuls in whatever direction he pressed forward, yet still took up so much more than he could keep together that those who followed him gleaned more from his continual droppings than he himself brought home . . . But I should misinform you grossly, if I left you to infer that his Collections were a heap of incoherent Miscellanea – No! – the very Contrary – Their variety conjoined with the too great Coherency, the too great both desire & power of referring them in systematic, nay, genetic subordination was that which rendered his schemes gigantic & impracticable, as an Author – & his Conversation less instructive, as a man. 1 With your concurrence I will continue to make corrections in it at intervals of leisure and watch an opportunity of publication that may be attended with honour and profit to the author – if profit may be expected by an author in this iron, this golden age, indeed, of literary merit but iron age of its rewards. 2 Like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Iolo Morganwg lived with the frustration of having a mass of loose, disorganized papers lying about him continuously and being unable, largely because of the material conditions in which he lived, to exercise the magic wand of ‘Coherency’ upon them. A brief survey of the contents of the Llanover manuscripts in Iolo’s hand, a total of eighty volumes, shows the overwhelming prevalence of ‘miscellanea’ among Iolo’s literary remains: 32. 5 per cent of the manuscripts are described as ‘miscellaneous papers’ bound together. Militating against this fragmentary material are a host of ‘composite volumes’ (40 per cent of the total number of manuscripts), and further volumes and notebooks. Some of the material in the latter categories is described 1

2

George Whalley (ed. ), Marginalia [Samuel Taylor Coleridge]: Vol. 1, Abbt to Byfield (London, c. 1980), p. cxxv. CIM, I, pp. 189–90, John Walters, jun. , to Iolo Morganwg, 13 April 1781.

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as being ‘of an extremely varied nature’,3 whereas other items take the form of ‘home-made booklets’, or are labelled by Iolo as ‘commonplace books’. 4 In the latter cases a clear attempt may be seen on Iolo’s part to structure his own reading and thoughts. The idea of writing in commonplace books presented itself to Iolo in 1803 on reading John Locke and it was seized upon enthusiastically as a means of regulating the mass of information which he wished to offer to the public in the long-standing (and ultimately unfulfilled) project of writing a ‘History of the Bards’. 5 A year later he wrote in detail of the organization of his ‘evenings or nights’ (daytime being given over to making a living as a stonemason) for the benefit of the variety of projects in which he was involved at the time: 3 evenings inviolably to the ‘History of the Bards’, and a fourth, if not urgently called for by accidental occasions; two for the agricultural business; one (Sunday) for arranging my own poetry, Welsh and English; and the seventh to write and answer letters, settle my little accounts &c. 6

The result of this careful appropriation of time for a range of different activities, Iolo claimed, was that ‘I keep in each department my chain of ideas unbroken and in regular connections, or so in a great measure’. In spite of his own best efforts, however, Iolo’s activities as a writer were often of a more fragmentary nature than otherwise. It is as if he were unable to assemble and bring to public attention a single vision of a past which excited him so much. Although the material conditions in which Iolo lived were a significant factor in his failure to bring many of his projects to fruition in print, they do not account entirely for this failure. Recent scholarship has amply demonstrated Iolo’s troubled relations with the world of publishing in an age, as Lucy Newlyn has argued, when authors ‘experienced extreme anxieties in relation to the machinery of production’. 7 In fact, one of Iolo’s very first attempts to break into print nearly brought him into disrepute: his projected ‘Select Pieces of Ancient Welsh-Poetry’ (possibly known also as ‘Diddanwch y Cymru’) failed

3

4

5

6 7

See, for example, the description in the NLW Handlist of NLW 13157A. NLW 13158A is said to contain ‘miscellaneous notes, jottings, etc. ’ in Iolo’s hand. NLW 13133A consists of booklets containing Welsh triads. For Iolo’s collection of commonplace books, see NLW 13088B (‘Common Place Book. No II’); NLW 13107B (‘Common Place Book No. III’); NLW 13108B (‘Common Place Book. No. IV’). CIM, II, p. 493, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 7 June 1803 (‘I have lately made myself master of Mr Lock’s method or principle of a common place book’). On ‘The History of the Bards’, see Bardic Circles, pp. 26–32, 169–250. CIM, II, p. 637, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 9 November 1804. Lucy Newlyn, Reading, Writing, and Romanticism: The Anxiety of Reception (Oxford, 2000), p. 14.

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to appear, to the material loss of his subscribers. 8 It is no wonder that not long afterwards he declared that ‘nothing could ever induce me to publish my works’. 9 Behind the frustration of Coleridgean ‘schemes gigantic & impracticable’ there lay for Iolo a keen sense of the callousness of the reading public – an ‘anxiety of reception’, in Newlyn’s words. This made hiding behind forged documents, introduced through the publications and the voices of others, a preferred option to that of laying out his wares openly in what was described by his Glamorgan friend, the younger John Walters, as an ‘iron age’ for the rewarding – both material and in terms of appreciation – of literary merit. Iolo’s method of working in a multitude of disciplines, but in the form of ‘tantalizing snippets’, suited what became his chosen mode of disseminating his vision of the historical past and its relation with the present. 10 There is no better way of viewing Iolo’s ‘many faces’, to quote the subtitle of the recently published volume of essays on his multifaceted life and works, A Rattleskull Genius, than by examining a sample of his loose papers, papers which – unlike the marginalia to printed books and the entries and loose sheets found among the collections of others, printed or otherwise – made no direct pretensions to publication or dissemination. Choosing a sample of papers for the purpose of a close analysis of Iolo’s work as a writer is a task fraught with difficulties. As already shown, nearly a third of his bound manuscript volumes consist of nothing but miscellaneous papers. In the case of the volumes, archivists have attempted to bind together related material. This is demonstrated in the National Library of Wales’s schedule of the collection, where items are listed under generic titles such as ‘Word Lists, &c. ’, ‘Barddoniaeth, &c. ’, ‘Madog and the Discovery of America, Welsh Indians, &c. ’, ‘Dunraven Castle’, ‘Trioedd Pawl &c. ’ or ‘Triads. Miscellanea’, and ‘Extracts from the Scripture; Rules of the South Wales Unitarian Society’. 11 Another bound collection of papers placed in order by the cataloguers of the National Library of Wales is Iolo’s collection of correspondence, which was deposited at the library in 1954 and subsequently bound into seven large and heavy volumes, the correspondents’ letters arranged alphabetically within their covers. From a cataloguer’s perspective, this particular collection may have posed less of a challenge than some of the other loose papers; the decision to follow an alphabetical arrangement removed the necessity of dating the numerous undated letters and thus obliterated one of the most formidable challenges 8 9 10

11

See CIM, I, p. 52, note 2, and ibid. , p. 65, note 1. Ibid. , p. 111, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 25 January 1776. Geraint H. Jenkins, ‘On the Trail of a “Rattleskull Genius”: Introduction’ in Rattleskull Genius, p. 9. See NLW 13091E; NLW 13099B; NLW 13104B; NLW 13119B; NLW 13143A; NLW 13145A. Note, however, the inescapable ‘&c. ’ and ‘Miscellanea’ creeping in upon these attempts at organizing the collection.

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of the collection. The newly published edition of Iolo Morganwg’s correspondence uses this seven-volume collection as its cornerstone – of the 1,230 letters included in this edition, the overwhelming majority are taken from these volumes. 12 The presence of a number of letters in other volumes of the Iolo Morganwg archive in the National Library, however, highlights the difficulties of presenting the correspondence as a collection. The reasons for their separation from the letters of the main collection are varied, but among the dislocated letters are to be found some which masquerade as anything but letters; covered as they are with extraneous material in Iolo’s hand, they may well not have drawn attention to themselves as items related to the correspondence. 13 The existence of material unrelated to, but written on, the same paper as Iolo’s correspondence is not simply restricted to a few ‘dislocated’ examples. A statistical analysis shows that such material is to be found on 13 per cent of the letters in question – a relatively high proportion which alters the view of the collection as a clearly defined entity. In fact, a sense of jostling between the correspondence as ‘literary gems’ and as anything but, appears to have been powerfully present in Iolo’s own mind. 14 Just as Iolo structured his reading for the ‘History of the Bards’ or tried his best to divide his time in order to fulfil his many projects, he also attempted to put his letters in order. A high proportion are endorsed in his hand, often, presumably, shortly after they were received. Others show signs of further reading and attempts at classification. For example, on the back of a letter dated 1772 Iolo, clearly referring to a group of other letters as well as the one in question, wrote: Old Letters from my Father, Brothers, Wife, &c. Exd. August 26 1812. 15

In the collection of Iolo’s printed books in the National Library of Wales, discussed in chapter 2, one is protected by a home-made cardboard folder, with the year ‘1825’ written upon it in Iolo’s hand. 16 This may well have been a

12 13 14

15 16

CIM, I, p. xi. See for example CIM, III, p. 633, John Hughes to Iolo Morganwg, 7 December 1822. Geraint H. Jenkins, ‘“Literary Gems”: The Correspondence of Iolo Morganwg’, a lecture delivered at a one-day conference entitled ‘The Welsh Bard and Druid: Iolo Morganwg’, held by the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, 30 June 2007. NLW 21283E, no. 614. The book in question is a copy of the second volume of Iolo’s Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch, unbound. See NLW, uncatalogued collection of Iolo Morganwg’s printed books.

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repository for correspondence dating from that year, and the two examples together suggest that Iolo employed both chronological and personal criteria in organizing his correspondence to his own satisfaction. Further endorsements and brief marginal comments show that in reading through his letters Iolo was also interpreting them and setting the record straight – in the manner of his marginalia to printed books – with regard to the ‘facts’ concerning his relations with sometime friends, now turned enemies. This latter aspect is clearly demonstrated in the correspondence between Iolo and Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr) during 1806, the explosive year which brought their relationship to a dramatic close. 17 Iolo’s reply to the latter’s bitterly accusatory letter of 11 March 1806 shows that he had re-read their correspondence, as indeed he had been requested to, ‘from the year 1798’, and was able to quote from it in his own defence. 18 To Owain Myfyr’s letter, Iolo added comments expressing stupefaction at the accusations made: Owen Jones, March 11th 1806. Gwaetha celwydd, celwydd coch. Rhyfedd! Rhyfedd! Rhyfedd! Rhyfedd! (The worst lie is a barefaced lie. Strange! Strange! Strange! Strange!)19

A much later example of marginalia related to the contents of the correspondence serves to show once again Iolo’s engagement with his enemies. This draft, dated c. 1821 and addressed, most probably, to the then recently deposed MP for Glamorgan, John Edwards of Rheola, Neath, is a request for assistance towards the costs of putting through the press Iolo’s ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ – forged documentation of the Glamorgan system of versification designed to rival the prevailing system of twenty-four metres established by Dafydd ab Edmwnd at the Carmarthen eisteddfod of c. 1453. 20 Appended to the draft is a brief marginal comment in Iolo’s hand stating: ‘Dafydd Ddu and others of his kind – I know who I have to contend. ’ An initially promising acquaintance, David Thomas (Dafydd Ddu Eryri) eventually became an outspoken critic of Iolo, especially of his propagation of a south Wales system of versification which rivalled that by which he lived and taught in north Wales. Iolo records the animosity as early as 1806:

17

18

19 20

For the causes of the dispute, see Geraint Phillips, ‘Forgery and Patronage: Iolo Morganwg and Owain Myfyr’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 403–23. See Owain Myfyr’s letter in CIM, II, pp. 769–72, and a draft of Iolo’s reply, dated 5 April 1806. Ibid. , pp. 784–96. Ibid. , p. 772. Ibid. , III, pp. 569–70, Iolo Morganwg to [John Edwards], [?1821]. John Edwards was MP for Glamorgan between 1818 and 1820. R. G. Thorne (ed. ), The House of Commons 1790–1820 (5 vols. , London, 1986), III, pp. 675–6. For Iolo’s support of his 1818 campaign, see CIM, III, pp. 477–9, Iolo Morganwg to John Edwards, 6 July 1818.

157

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. . . that Dafydd Ddu Eryri and several others – who, being perfectly masters of the common system and [had] previously, as I had intentionally led them to do so, acknowledged its gre[at] defects in the least objectionable parts of it, and its glaring absurdities in other parts – that they should, when produced to them, reject our south Walian system with openly and rancourously expressed and professed prejudice, made me greatly wonder. It is obvious envy. They felt their own idolized system melt into nothing before it, like a slight sprinkling of sn[ow] before the sun of a clear midsummer noon. 21

Iolo’s marginal ‘I know who I have to contend’ offers a glimpse of his pentup nervous tension as he prepared for a final lash of the whip against the threat from his rivals in north Wales. The begging for patronage in the letter proper represents an activity which Iolo fervently disliked. 22 Here, however, there is a deliberate building up of a sense of alliance: to have John Edwards’s name as a subscriber to the prospective publication, Iolo claimed, ‘would encourage me to apply to a few more of those gentlemen who are favourable to your interest in this county’; then, with a clever twist, recalling the time of his jubilant campaigning in favour of Edwards’s candidacy for the 1818 election, he added: ‘It is in vain for me to apply to any others. ’23 The marginal note, read in conjunction with the letter, enhances a sense of the politicization of publishing ‘Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain’, the note further projecting the process of publication in terms of alliance, contest and Iolo’s dogged determination in the quest for victory. That Iolo revered his manuscript letters, placed them in order, used them as evidence in personal battles, and employed them to spur on his own determination to succeed is demonstrated by the examples of endorsements and marginalia outlined above. He also shared the view of others – such as Evan ‘Skinflint’ Williams, the Strand bookseller – that his own letters provided valuable critical insights into several fields of learning. In a letter to William Owen Pughe in 1808, in which he appealed for a renewal of the friendship between them following the rift with Owain Myfyr, Iolo claimed to have composed draft letters which he intended for Pughe’s perusal, but, apparently, never sent. These, he claimed: consist of thoughts on our language, on its different dialects, on the difference between the ancient poetical construction and idiom and the grammatical structure of our

21

22

23

CIM, II, p. 742, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 12 January 1806. On Dafydd Ddu’s ‘rival Gorseddau and eisteddfodau’, see Bardic Circles, pp. 144–7. On Iolo’s ambiguous (or ungracious) attitude towards patronage, see, for example, Phillips, ‘Forgery and Patronage: Iolo Morganwg and Owain Myfyr’, p. 411; Whitney R. D. Jones, David Williams: The Anvil and the Hammer (Cardiff, 1986), pp. 171–2. CIM, III, p. 570, Iolo Morganwg to [John Edwards], [?1821].

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old prose, a subject not yet handled by any grammarian in print; a very long one on the vestiges of ancient bardism discoverable in our old poetical manuscripts; on the peculiar characteristics of the versification of different periods, as well as of different parts of Wales at particular periods; on history; on national manners; on the harp, never mentioned by the Gogynfeirdd till after the death of Llewelyn; on the ancient literary dialect and its characteristics; on the modern literary dialect – its origin and its peculiarities, with the best means of improving it; on our ancient song writing; and on a variety of other topics. 24

He mentions the possibility of publishing this material in Evan Williams’s Cambrian Register: three of Iolo’s letters were eventually published in this journal in 1818, thus finally giving the editor the satisfaction of involving Iolo in the enterprise, an investment which he had earnestly sought since 1795. 25 In spite of this (entirely natural) view of the letters as a complete collection – enhanced by the publication, nearly two hundred years after Iolo’s death, of The Correspondence of Iolo Morganwg – there is some justification for viewing and arranging the material contained in the seven volumes deposited by Iolo Aneurin Williams according to alternative principles. To enshrine the volumes as correspondence alone denies, to some degree, the material context of their genesis and their preservation, by Iolo as much as anyone. For as well as annotating certain letters and referring to (or permitting, in his own lifetime) the dissemination of others, Iolo also approached his correspondence as material artefacts – or, to put it bluntly, as paper. As the practices and comments of poets such as Wordsworth and Southey demonstrate, paper was an extremely valuable commodity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Wordsworth went to great lengths to take a book by Coleridge apart so that he could use the blank spaces around the poems for his own work, while Southey commented with some exasperation on the dire shortage of paper (and its consequent high cost) in a letter to Anna Seward in 1808. 26 When, in 1826, Iolo begged his son Taliesin to relieve some of the privations of his latter days by getting ‘a single article of clothing mended’ for the first time in many years, and ‘an old fashion low waisted pair [of trousers]’ tailor-made for him out of ‘a bit of ordinary blue or drab cloth’, these needs were set alongside those of acquiring ‘a quire of good writing paper . . . and 5 or 6 sheets of good post [paper]’ to

24 25

26

Ibid. , II, p. 848, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 27 April 1808. See, for example, CIM, I, p. 776, Evan Williams to Iolo Morganwg, 25 September 1795: ‘In a few weeks we shall begin to arrange the materials for publication & hope that the worthy bard will contribute his mite towards this new volume. I should be glad to hear from you on the subject as well as to receive your kind communications. ’ Whalley (ed. ), Marginalia [Samuel Taylor Coleridge]: Vol. 1, Abbt to Byfield, pp. lxx–lxxi; lxxi, note 1; Kenneth Curry (ed. ), New Letters of Robert Southey (2 vols. , London, 1965), I, p. 471.

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enable him to pursue his literary and political projects. 27 An exploration of the marginalia to the seven-volume collection of correspondence suggests that Taliesin provided for the latter need, partially at least, by supplying waste paper from the Commercial School which he ran at Merthyr Tydfil from 1816. 28 Between 1820 and 1826 eleven letters were apparently composed on scraps of paper salvaged from the school: underneath a layer of correspondence written by Iolo is to be found a variety of material in the neatly-formed hands of various pupils, their names often undersigned. The material includes a description of the orang-utan and its characteristics, rows of repeated words and letters, an outline of the geography of South America, a list of the names of Welsh counties, and a quotation from Alexander Pope’s poem to John Kyrle, ‘The Man of Ross’, a figure whom we know to have been a hero of Iolo’s from the late 1770s and whose presence in the work of Taliesin’s pupils testifies to the old man’s continued influence over his son. 29 Iolo did not resort solely to using waste paper provided by others. He also clearly searched his own collection of correspondence for spare paper, often returning to the same scrap on several occasions – sometimes separated by many years. Retrospective endorsements, such as the comment ‘not important’, found on some of the letters, most probably served to remind him that he could return to these sheets when he was short of paper. 30 On an incomplete draft letter concerning his work on a freestone quarry at Pyle in Glamorgan, addressed most probably to Thomas Mansel Talbot and dated 17 June 1782, he expressly wrote ‘Waste Paper. 1810’. 31 Iolo used the reverse side of this letter (referred to in what follows as the ‘Talbot letter’) to draft another letter, this time to the editor of the eventually abandoned venture known as the ‘Cardiff Gazette’. 32 This was probably composed in late 1812, two years after Iolo had first drawn attention to the existence of the ‘waste’ paper. The two draft letters are not the only written items on this sheet, however, and although the others are less easily dated, their presence suggests a complicated and multilayered use of the paper. On the reverse of the 1782 draft, together with the 1813 draft, are to be found lines from two separate poems in the cywydd metre, one of which is headed ‘from DG’, i. e. the fourteenth-century poet Dafydd ap Gwilym:

27 28

29

30 31

32

CIM, III, p. 777, Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 30 May [1826]. Brynley F. Roberts, ‘“The Age of Restitution”: Taliesin ab Iolo and the Reception of Iolo Morganwg’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 464–7. See NLW 21286E, nos. 978, 985, 987, 996, 999, 1008, 1035, 1040, 1041, 1043, 1044. For Iolo’s interest in John Kyrle, see CIM, I, p. 171, Iolo Morganwg to Thomas Mansel Talbot, 23 August 1780. Cf. NLW 21282E, nos. 359, 446. NLW 21285E, no. 791. For the letter itself, see CIM, I, pp. 200–1, Iolo Morganwg to [Thomas Mansel Talbot], 17 June 1782. CIM, III, pp. 134–5, Iolo Morganwg to the editor of the ‘Cardiff Gazette’, [?15 December 1812].

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Achles yr ednod achlân, Yn gwyddori’r gw}dd eirian! Minnau, fardd rhiain fainir, Yn llawen iawn mewn llwyn ir, A’m calon fradw yn cadw cof, A’r enaid yn ir ynof. Addwyned gweled y gw}dd, Gwaisg nwyf, yn dwyn gwisg newydd. 33

123

(And above {on a tree} a dark-blue linnet Pouring out a song in high spirits, And under my head a pillow Of fine feathers, the wild canopies of the wood, And above my head, my birch tree, A fair shining fortress of coverlets.

123 123 123

Wholly the shelter of the birds, Instructing the splendid woods! I, the poet of a graceful girl, Full of joy in a verdant grove, My languishing heart retaining the memory, And my soul vigorous within me. How pleasant to see the woods, Splendid joy, wearing a new dress. )

123

From DG Ag uwch ben {ar bren} linosen lus Yn heiliaw cerdd yn hwylus, A than fy mhen obennydd O fanblu, pebyllt gwyllt y gw}dd, Ag uwch fy mhen, fedwen fau, Gaer loywdeg o gwrlidau.

123 123 123

IOLO MORGANWG THE WRITER

161

vide ‘Cywydd y biogen’

vide ‘Cywydd y biogen’

Iolo’s bracketing of lines 3–6 and his note ‘vide “Cywydd y biogen”’ in the right-hand margin indicate a connection between these lines and a poem by Dafydd ap Gwilym. 34 Brackets also join lines 1–2 and lines 7–8, but no explanatory note is provided. Finally, lines 9–14 are left unbracketed and unannotated although (unlike lines 3–6) these lines are to be found in the most

33 34

NLW 21285E, no. 791. For the cywydd ‘Cyngor y Bioden’, see Thomas Parry (ed. ), Barddoniaeth Dafydd ap Gwilym (2nd edn. , Caerdydd, 1979), pp. 167–71. The lines bracketed by Iolo do not appear in this edition of the poem nor in the most recent scholarly edition of the cywydd, for which see , poem 36 ‘Cyngor y Bioden’ (‘The Magpie’s Counsel’).

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recent edition of ‘Cyngor y Bioden’. 35 The copy of the poem which is to be found in Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym (1789), a publication now famed for Iolo’s clever insertion of his own forged poems, however, does include lines 3–6,36 but in this case their presence does not signal a clear forgery by Iolo, since the lines are also to be found in the cywydd ‘Lladrata Haf ’ (‘Stealing Summer’), as edited on the Dafydd ap Gwilym website, where two reputable sources are cited. 37 This confusion of sources and poems appears to have happened before Iolo’s day and is therefore not attributable to him. His own contribution lies in the two separately bracketed couplets which, it seems fair to assume, he composed himself, perhaps noting them only once, on this scrap of paper. ‘[V]ide “Cywydd y biogen”’ is precisely the right way in which to refer to the extract from the medieval poet’s work, for Iolo is using Dafydd as a starting-point for weaving his own poem, making his own adjustments to the text. In fact, he is clearly working with the tools of the craft of forgery: in the tradition of manuscript copyists, he takes the liberty ‘to revamp the text in an arbitrary manner’ (‘i ailwampio’r testun yn fympwyol’), as if he were a real copyist, drawing upon more than one source at a time and trying to weave the various strands into a satisfactory whole. 38 By working in minute detail and keeping in close contact with the original, deviating no more than a single couplet at a time, Iolo grafts his own forged lines not only on the poem itself but also on the manuscript-copying tradition in which he was so well versed. 39 A second fragment on the Talbot letter consists of further lines in the cywydd metre. They correspond exactly to lines found by G. J. Williams, in his exploration of Iolo’s manuscripts, on the reverse of a ‘Report of a Meeting of Gentlemen and Woolgrowers of Glamorgan in Cowbridge 16 April 1806’, where they are entitled ‘Cywydd yr Adar. D[afydd ap] G[wilym]’. 40 It is impossible to determine whether Iolo was at work on this forgery in 1806, or whether the marginalia to the Talbot letter predated the example found by 35 36

37

38

39

40

See , poem 36, lines 17–22. See ‘Cyngor y Biogen’ in Owen Jones and William Owen (eds. ), Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym (Llundain, 1789), p. 394, lines 9–12. See , poem 41. The sources cited for these four lines are NLW, Peniarth 49 and NLW, Wynnstay 2. Further confusion exists between the poem ‘Lladrata Haf ’ on the Dafydd ap Gwilym website and the 1789 edition of ‘Cyngor y Biogen’: lines 9–10 of ‘Lladrata Haf ’ appear as lines 69–70 of the 1789 ‘Cyngor y Biogen’. See ‘Rhagymadrodd: Confensiynau’r trawsysgrifiadau a’r stemâu’ (my translation). On the nature of the Welsh manuscript tradition and its advantages for a literary forger, see Truth against the World, pp. 29–30. Morfydd E. Owen identifies a similar process at work in Iolo’s activity within the tradition of the Welsh triad. See Morfydd E. Owen, Y Meddwl Obsesiynol: Traddodiad y Triawd Cyffredinol yn y Gymraeg a’r Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales (Aberystwyth, 2007), pp. 20–1. G. J. Williams, Iolo Morganwg a Chywyddau’r Ychwanegiad (Llundain, 1926), p. 39. Williams was not aware that a copy of these lines also existed in the correspondence marginalia. The text from the marginalia is to be found in Appendix V (Literature), no. 12.

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Williams. It seems fair to speculate, however, that the fragment may first have been noted in the Talbot letter marginalia during the 1780s, the heyday of Iolo’s interest in the poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym. Also included as marginalia to the Talbot letter is a list of ‘Books at Wm Morris’. The man in question may have been William Morris of Holyhead in Anglesey. He died in 1763, some years before Iolo ever visited north Wales, and his manuscripts were dispersed to several quarters. 41 An analysis of the titles on Iolo’s list indicates that all the identifiable books were published before Morris’s death and thus might credibly have belonged to him, though we can only conjecture as to how – and when – Iolo came to record them in this way. On the other hand, he may have been referring to some other William Morris. Iolo would often leave books at other people’s homes or at the various lodginghouses which he frequented, sometimes forgetting to claim them for months or even years. This may well be a list of such books, intended as a reminder of their whereabouts. 42 It is impossible to determine exactly when the blank paper on the Talbot letter was used, but the following chronology may be tentatively suggested: the composition of a draft letter in 1782; the writing of fragments of bogus Dafydd ap Gwilym poetry (perhaps as late as 1806); the list of ‘Books at Wm Morris’ (which cannot be dated); and, finally, a second draft letter in 1812. Although the items are in no way connected – possibly even in the case of the Dafydd ap Gwilym material – they share a common form in that they are all drafts or notes, not intended for public view. They all consist of preparatory work in which Iolo was involved behind the scenes, and to highlight the items of correspondence at the expense of the other items is to distort to some extent the view in which Iolo may have held this particular scrap of paper. Clearly the initial draft letter did not merit an endorsement, whereas the Dafydd ‘fragment’ did. This single example reveals that Iolo’s correspondence was far from being a closed collection describable only by the language of correspondence endorsement. As Iolo in his old age increasingly sifted through his correspondence, he would often note the marginalia to the letters in tandem with, or at the 41

42

William Morris’s manuscript of Welsh poetry ‘Y Delyn Ledr’ (The leather harp) had come to the hands of his brother Richard and subsequently those of Owain Myfyr and the London Welsh. In a letter dating from 1783 Owain Myfyr tells Iolo how Robert Hughes (Robin Ddu yr Ail o Fôn) had recently been transcribing Goronwy Owen’s letters to William Morris, now in the hands of the latter’s son-in-law, the customs officer Thomas Jones. See CIM, I, pp. 241, 244 (trans. ), Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr) to Iolo Morganwg, 14 October 1783. The following year Iolo relates his own experience of reading a herbal by William Morris, which was in the possession of Dr Thomas Williams of Caernarfon. Ibid. , pp. 257, 259–60 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 8 August 1784. Iolo had visited Dr Williams as early as 1772. On Iolo’s book-lending habits, see chapter 3.

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expense of, the letters themselves. Further examples of this are to be found on the reverse of a 1794 draft letter addressed to ‘Mr Humstrum’, i. e. Edward Jones (Bardd y Brenin). This draft, probably written in the heat of a turbulent moment during the Church-and-King riots, is a vivid indictment of Jones’s behaviour. In high dudgeon, Iolo threatened him with ‘such a literary drubbing as ever any scoundrel had’. 43 The endorsement of the item, however, coolly notes ‘Humstrum and Oecumenical Councils’, the second section of the phrase referring to an additional item on the same piece of paper, in Iolo’s hand, which notes the dates of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, from the earliest, held at Nicaea (in 235 according to Iolo, but almost a century later in the view of current scholars) to the seventh in the eighth century. 44 This material was probably the result of Iolo’s extensive reading, and it is entirely characteristic of him to have recorded it in this way. Another draft letter, possibly for the attention of the solicitor William Rees around the year 1786, again demonstrates Iolo’s anger at a perceived injustice: it invites the addressee to release money owed during the year in which Iolo was imprisoned in Cardiff gaol for debt. 45 The endorsement wholly ignores this draft – perhaps in a subconscious attempt to suppress the memory of a painful period – and notes instead the contents of an unrelated item on the same piece of paper with the words ‘Anecdotes of Lantwit’. 46 The item in question provides a written record of local information which Iolo claimed had been passed on to him orally by a certain John Evan of Llantwit, who, in turn, was reporting information heard from ‘Mr Edwards of Landaff when Steward of Lantwit Court’. This chain of information held that ‘the first Earls of Pembroke and Lord Glamorgan’ had been responsible for the construction of Colhugh Quay, near Llantwit Major, ‘of which’, Iolo added, ‘they have the following proverbial Rhyme’: From old Robin Goch and his Coxcomb Crew, From the Red Wine of Margam which made me to spew. And from the Contrivance of the Quay of Colhugh Good Lord deliver us.

A footnote to the poem adds: ‘N. B. This red wine of Margam is said to have been made from a vineyard which the monks had planted. ’ Iolo’s endorsement practice ignores the serious issues of the original draft letter in favour of anecdotal material, the authenticity of which must remain uncertain. 43 44

45 46

CIM, I, p. 626, Iolo Morganwg to Edward Jones (Bardd y Brenin), [?1794]. For details of the first seven ecumenical councils, see Norman P. Tanner S. J. (ed. ), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (2 vols. , London, 1990), I, pp. 1–156. The endorsement is to be found in NLW 21286E, no. 1022. CIM, I, pp. 285–6, Iolo Morganwg to [?William Rees], [?1786]. NLW 21286E, no. 1015.

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These examples of marginalia in the Iolo Morganwg correspondence demonstrate the tug-of-war between letters proper – some seen in terms of records for posterity, others as testimony in personal disputes – and the variety of ways in which paper could be used. The last example, noting local oral tradition, highlights a particular feature of this material – its proximity to daily material life. This is not to say that the story reported by Iolo as ‘Anecdotes of Lantwit’ was recorded verbatim: in fact, it could be interpreted as a deliberate laying down of a credible trail in order to take the supplementary step of adding spurious material to it and producing another twist to the tradition. In this respect, the same process is at work as in the case of the Dafydd ap Gwilym example, which takes ‘Cywydd y biogen’ as the attested basis for developing similar lines of poetry. This sense of altering minutiae, grafting small additions on to a larger, fuller picture, is central to Iolo’s work, and the presence of this method in the correspondence marginalia lends it material vitality and enduring value. Before considering in more detail this aspect of the marginalia, however, it may be worthwhile to consider briefly that which Heather J. Jackson, in her study of marginalia to printed books, describes as ‘mundane marginalia’ as it relates to the correspondence. 47 The term can usefully be applied to gain a clearer view of Iolo’s material condition but it also – as will be argued later – enhances the reading of the more ‘precious’ examples contained in this body of material. The ‘mundane’ examples in question consist of data such as calculations and figures, often noted down with no attending words to explain their derivation; lists of names (and sometimes initials alone), and individual names and addresses; or bills and lists of daily necessities, such as the following on a letter dating from 1785: [?Shir]t – 2, 3yds. 1s. or [—] p yd. frock for the little [———————] purple & white. shift for the little, Irish or [?s]weeting cloth, 1. ½ yd. for two, if upwards of ¾ [?broad], [?1s 4d P] Apron. Check broad [—] yd [—] in Length. 4s p yd. –1 yd [——] one breadth in an apron. peticoat, middle [————] Check hankerchief Mother in Law 1s. 48 ||

47 48

See Heather J. Jackson, Romantic Readers: The Evidence of Marginalia (London, 2005), chapter 2. NLW 21281E, no. 266.

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This item, which mentions family members (‘Mother in Law’, ‘the little’, etc. ), shows Iolo’s care in budgeting for his dependants, together with his absorption in the details of the clothing to be procured – the colours and styles of the dresses and aprons are set out in some detail. 49 In the case of names noted by Iolo, we enter very markedly a scene of orality, memory and curiosity. Many of the names were jotted down as aide-memoires, sometimes with accompanying instructions to jog Iolo’s memory or even a short narrative to be related to a third party, as when Iolo noted on a letter probably written in 1812: Joan Thomas much be[tter] than she has been, tolerably now but would be glad, and anxious – money for which he had cheese. desires love. Family well all but eldest Daur. fears small pox. all rest well. very anxious to see him. 50

This is the kind of anecdotal material which Iolo sometimes introduced into his correspondence; by acting on behalf of others as a writer and messenger he displayed the close fabric of communal interaction within the Glamorgan society in which he lived. 51 His travelling – mostly by foot very late into his life – enabled word-of-mouth contact to develop into a useful network-building tool. A marginal item on an address sheet probably linked to an 1814 letter names ‘Thos. Davies Shoemaker. / Spelman Street Caermarthen’, and then adds ‘Remember at Mr. Moggridge’. 52 Iolo’s correspondence reveals his connection with John Hodder Moggridge during the years 1813–15, and it is possible that Thomas Davies of Carmarthen wanted to establish, through Iolo, some kind of contact with Moggridge in his capacity as a social reformer and a Unitarian. 53 Yet other letters show how Iolo was alive to possibilities and people who formed connections with ideas and interests of his own. For example, on a

49

50

51

52 53

This item is datable before the birth of Iolo and Peggy’s third child Taliesin on 9 July 1787. The two little ones in need of clothing were Margaret (Peggy) Williams, jun. , baptized on 7 July 1782, and Ann (Nancy) Williams, baptized on 29 January 1786. Iolo’s mother-in-law, Elinor Robert(s), died, aged eighty-seven, in August 1791. See CIM, I, p. 507, note 3. NLW 21285E, no. 891; CIM, III, p. 101, Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, [?8 February 1812]. See, for example, the following material passed on via a letter to Taliesin and Nancy at Merthyr on behalf of a Flemingston neighbour in 1824 (the similarity of name is coincidental): ‘Jane Thomas, our next door neighbour, has a cousin at Merthyr named Henry Whitting. He keeps Pendarren gate, and also keeps a shop there. Jane Thomas’ daughter and William Pierce, her husband, came to Merthyr about 2 months ago, where he got employment. Jane heard some time ago that they had both been dangerously ill, and that she still continues to be so. Her mother begs of Nancy to go to Pendarren gate and enquire how they are, and how a letter may be directed to them, and begs also that Nancy would write a few lines directed to Jane Thomas of Flimston near Cowbridge, as soon as she can conveniently. ’ CIM, III, p. 683, Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 22 March 1824. NLW 21281E, no. ?192 (thus numbered in the manuscript). CIM, III, pp. 163, 171, 255, 259, 347, 362.

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1795 letter, Iolo noted, ‘Mr. Ash. Sweet-maker – Temple-street has studied the Welsh –’;54 and on an 1801 letter, he wrote: Mrs. Banks China Shop Corner of Soho Square Sister of Mr. Evan Williams of Pentyrch. 55

Evan Williams, Pentyrch, though not mentioned in the correspondence itself, possibly surfaces in yet another marginal scrap, in which he appears to be named with a host of other poets, including Iolo himself. The item in question is to be found on the dorse of a letter from William Owen Pughe to Iolo, dated 1 April 1798, which mentions the forthcoming Gwyneddigion eisteddfod to be held at Caerwys and begs Iolo to arrange ‘a Gorsedd upon the business’, namely the business of preparing a translation of Gray’s work for one of the competitions of the eisteddfod. 56 In Hanes Gorsedd y Beirdd Geraint and Zonia Bowen interpret Iolo’s marginalia to this letter as his response to this request from Pughe, and they may well be correct. It is curious, however, to note the presence of the date ‘April 21st, 181[?8]’ on the reverse of the paper. Written in a different direction and in ink, whereas the list of names is in pencil, it may simply be a late endorsement of the letter. On the other hand, it may suggest that Iolo’s list of names was composed much later than 1798, and was not a direct response to Pughe’s request. Bowen and Bowen read the last two items on the list, ‘Md. Offeiriad Pentyrch’ and ‘Md. T. Richards’, as names: ‘Mr. Md. Offeiriad Pentyrch’ and ‘Mr. T. Richards’. 57 They were, however, more likely to have been shorthand for ‘marwnadau’ or elegies to the priest of Pentyrch (whom we may identify with the Evan Williams, above) and to a T. Richards, possibly Thomas Richards, Iolo’s revered linguistic teacher and mentor who had died in 1790. In that case, the meeting planned, whatever its date, would have had a distinctly Glamorgan flavour. Iolo’s use of the blank space on a letter from Pughe, urging, from London, the calling of a Gorsedd meeting, may have sparked off his later use of the paper to describe a Gorsedd held in his own county. The marginalia to the original letter may thus in fact display Iolo’s resistance to the London-Welsh call and assertion of his Glamorgan identity, rather than his compliance with Pughe’s wishes.

54 55 56 57

NLW 21283E, no. 558. NLW 21282E, no. 345. CIM, II, pp. 70–3, William Owen Pughe to Iolo Morganwg, 1 April 1798. Geraint and Zonia Bowen, Hanes Gorsedd y Beirdd (Abertawe, 1991), p. 41.

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At times Iolo’s habit of noting names bordered on the macabre. Understandably, as a man who made a living from inscribing gravestones, he spent some time in cemeteries recording the names and details found on such stones. 58 On an 1812 letter he reproduces the epitaphs of five members of the Jones family of Fonmon, beginning with the notorious Cromwellian Philip, who established the Jones line at the Glamorgan mansion. 59 Iolo and his family admired Philip Jones’s descendant Robert Jones (d. 1793), and an early letter from Iolo’s father to his sons in London reports the birth of Jones’s eldest son. 60 Iolo’s copy of the epitaphs includes a reference to the lettering type to be found on the stone – ‘(Capitals Roman)’ – indicating the stonemason’s eye for detail and an awareness of the material quality of the lettering as well as its meaning, a characteristic very apposite for a man who, by 1812, had fabricated his own early Welsh alphabet, ‘Coelbren y Beirdd’. Other epitaphs are noted in the correspondence marginalia, including an example on a letter sent from William Owen Pughe in London to Iolo, ‘to the care of Mr. Tho. Edwards o’r Nant Denbigh N. Wales’. Iolo must have had this letter close to hand when, shortly after receiving it, he visited a cemetery in Conwy and noted on it the details found on three gravestones. 61 His selection exhibits his interest in death-bydisaster (Thomas Leanders ‘drowned on Conway Bar 6th. of Octr. 1794’), in beneficent bequests (of the Conwy mariner, William Davis, Iolo writes: ‘NB He has Left five pounds for the use of ye poor [—] Conway, And five pounds for the use of the poor at Caerlly, ye interest at Ester Day for Ever’), and in longevity (Lowry Owen died ‘aged 102’). 62

‘[T]he genius of the language’: Iolo the linguist 63 The most mundane marginalia enable us to view Iolo interacting with people and news, exercising what we know from other evidence to be a keen social 58

59

60

61

62

63

For Iolo’s work as a stonemason, see Richard Suggett, ‘Iolo Morganwg: Stonecutter, Builder, and Antiquary’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 197–226. On Philip Jones and corruption in the Civil War and Commonwealth period, see Stephen K. Roberts, ‘Llygredd Gwleidyddol yn Ne Cymru, 1600–1660’ in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed. ), Cof Cenedl XXI: Ysgrifau ar Hanes Cymru (Llandysul, 2006), pp. 63–94. CIM, I, p. 78, Edward William(s) to Iolo Morganwg, Miles, John and Thomas Williams, 5 December 1773. NLW 21282E, no. 337. Iolo sent Owen Jones a letter from ‘Aberconwy’ on 22 July 1799. CIM, II, pp. 199–203. On Iolo’s interest in longevity, see Literary and Historical Legacy, pp. 12, 84, 110. For his interest in disastrous deaths, see a marginal note to an 1818 letter, which notes ‘Roden a family in Denbigh, one of which fell into a deep pit (lead ore [?]) in [?] March 1818’ – details presumably taken from a newspaper report. NLW 21280E, no. 90. The quotation comes from an item of marginalia in NLW 21283E, no. 615, reproduced in Appendix IV (Language), no. 39.

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conscience, and struggling with the financial and material demands of daily life. Yet, the marginalia are not limited to this use alone. They are also a repository for Iolo’s thinking on some of the main themes of his own intellectual work as a linguist, a poet and a historian. A statistical analysis of the material displays an overwhelming preponderance of items relating to language and literature, and the remainder of this discussion focuses on this material which, though fragmentary, presents in most cases items that have never emerged from manuscript form. To separate this material from the approach suggested by the ‘mundane marginalia’ previously discussed appears both unnecessary and undesirable, since Iolo’s ‘ear-to-the-ground’ methods are also relevant to his activities in almost all other fields. The marginal poetry and linguistic material demonstrate as successfully as anything else how he instinctively reached for pen and paper in order to capture and develop a single detail. One field in which the relationship between the oral and written word is particularly vivid is that of dialect. As Richard Crowe has shown in his doctoral dissertation and in several articles, Iolo was particularly attracted to this field of study, though care needs to be taken lest the researcher’s own interest in the subject should overpower the evidence for Iolo’s linguistic work in other directions. 64 The evidence provided for Iolo’s activities in the correspondence marginalia displays a wide-ranging compass of interests, including recording vocabulary, idioms, proverbs and dialectical forms; coining terminology; commenting on grammar; and exemplifying vocabulary in poetic examples. It is extremely difficult to divide these interests into categories in some cases since Iolo’s interests overlap, as when, for instance, he exemplifies dialects in poetry. In other items it is difficult to determine where Iolo the recorder of material as heard orally becomes the creator of new vocabulary. Iolo’s linguistic activity in the correspondence marginalia often represents the working out of associations, both oral (heard in the head of a Glamorgan man, vividly aware of the language transmitted to him in a social as opposed to a familial domain) and scholarly. In the second case, as both Crowe and Caryl Davies have demonstrated, Iolo was instructed by a prestigious line of Glamorgan linguists whose work in the field reflected theories about language developed in Wales and beyond since the Renaissance. 65 Iolo had a clear sense

64

65

Richard M. Crowe, ‘Diddordebau Ieithyddol Iolo Morganwg’ (unpublished University of Wales Ph. D. thesis, 1988), II, p. 3. Crowe’s published work on Iolo Morganwg as a linguist includes ‘Iolo Morganwg a’r Tafodieithoedd: Diffinio’r Ffiniau’, NLWJ, XXVII, no. 2 (1991), 205–16; ‘Iolo Morganwg: An Eighteenth-Century Welsh Linguist’ in Cyril J. Byrne, Margaret Harry and Pádraig Ó Siadhail (eds. ), Celtic Languages and Celtic Peoples: Proceedings of the Second North American Congress of Celtic Studies (Halifax, NS, 1992), pp. 305–14; ‘Iolo Morganwg and the Dialects of Welsh’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 315–31. Caryl Davies, Adfeilion Babel: Agweddau ar Syniadaeth Ieithyddol y Ddeunawfed Ganrif (Caerdydd, 2000), pp. 155–68.

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of an intellectual background as a linguist through his mentors Thomas Richards and John Walters (and, we may add, Thomas Llewelyn, judging by the evidence in Iolo’s annotated copy of the latter’s Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue, published in 1769). 66 Moreover, his detailed knowledge of Welsh-language grammars and dictionaries – demonstrated again by his annotated copies of such books – suggests an active engagement with the grammarians of the past, from Dr John Davies (whom he revered as the restorer of the Welsh language ‘[to] its primitive purity’), to the oft-abused Siôn Rhydderch. 67 Many of these relations belong to the period immediately preceding our first true acquaintance with Iolo, which begins c. 1770 through the voice preserved in his correspondence. 68 His interest in the Welsh language appears to have preceded the earliest letters. His relationship with Siôn Rhydderch’s Grammar, if we are to believe the shakily inscribed note on his copy, began as early as 1763 when he bought the book from a Glamorgan acquaintance: ‘Gan Hen William Roberrt, a elwid William or Ydwal, yn Llancarfan Y prynais i Llyfr hw[n] am hanner Coron ynghylch y Flwyddyn 1763’ (I bought this book for half a crown from old William Robert, who was called William of the Ydwal, Llancarfan, around the year 1763). 69 Moreover, an upbringing and youth spent in the Glamorgan of the 1750s and 1760s would have imparted to him a keen sense of the importance of the Welsh language and of its revival. 70 Iolo’s interest in language, therefore, was already well developed by 1770 and was presumably invigorated by his acquaintance with John Walters, rector of Llandough. Ample proof of this invigoration is to be found in a series of draft letters dealing with linguistic matters, written in Kent between

66

67

68

69 70

For Iolo’s linguistic teachers, see Richard M. Crowe, ‘Thomas Richards a John Walters: Athrawon Geiriadurol Iolo Morganwg’ in Hywel Teifi Edwards (ed. ), Llynfi ac Afan, Garw ac Ogwr (Llandysul, 1998), pp. 227–51. On Iolo’s copy of Thomas Llewelyn, Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue (London, 1769), see Appendix I. On Iolo’s reverence for Dr John Davies, see Crowe, ‘Diddordebau Ieithyddol Iolo Morganwg’, I, p. 60. Davies’s work is represented in Iolo’s surviving collection of printed books in the National Library of Wales by Antiquæ Linguæ Britannicæ, nunc communiter dictæ Cambro-Britannicae, à suis Cymraecae vel Cambricae, ab alijs Wallicæ, Rudimenta (Londini, 1621) and a translation of a religious work by Robert Parsons entitled Dyhewyd y Cristion, yn Ddwy Ran (4th edn. , Llundain, 1802). For Iolo’s abuse of John Rhydderch, Grammadeg Cymraeg (Y Mwythig, 1728), see chapter 3, and his description of it as Rhydderch’s ‘almost worthless Grammar’ in CIM, II, p. 159, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 20 December 1798. On Iolo’s acquaintance with Walters, which began c. 1769–70, see CIM, I, p. 51, note 4, and Crowe, ‘Thomas Richards a John Walters: Athrawon Geiriadurol Iolo Morganwg’. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Rhydderch, Grammadeg Cymraeg. Brian Ll. James, ‘The Welsh Language in the Vale of Glamorgan’, Morgannwg, XVI (1972), 16–36, esp. 24; Eryn M. White, ‘The Established Church, Dissent and the Welsh Language c. 1660–1811’ in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed. ), The Welsh Language before the Industrial Revolution (Cardiff, 1997), pp. 235–87; Ffion Mair Jones, ‘“Gydwladwr Godi[d]og . . . ”: Gohebiaeth Gymraeg Gynnar Iolo Morganwg’, Llên Cymru, 27 (2004), 140–52.

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September 1774 and February 1775 and addressed to Walters. 71 These drafts, the final two of which were dispatched, were composed over a period of five months and show an increasing engagement with the work of other linguists as Iolo found his bearings and confidence as a linguist. Mary-Ann Constantine has argued convincingly that the spur for the initial letter was Iolo’s wish to take issue with his arch-rival-forger, the Scotsman James Macpherson. Macpherson had recently published An Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland (1771), in which he audaciously, in Iolo’s view, claimed that the Scottish people – the ‘Gaël’ – were the direct descendants of Caesar’s ‘Gauls’ and thus the earliest Celtic inhabitants of the Isle of Britain. Iolo offered an alternative etymology for the Latin ‘Gallia’ (Gaul) – namely ‘the British “gâl” which signifies the same as “iâl”, pleasant, delectable, white, &c. ’,72 a permissible derivation, considering that ‘part at least of France is by all allowed to be one of the finest countries in Europe’. 73 As the series of draft letters developed, the interest in Macpherson waned, perhaps ‘suppressed’, as Constantine notes, or, alternatively, simply outgrown. 74 Iolo showed instead a wish to engage with far more prominent and reputable linguists, among them his Glamorgan mentor Thomas Richards, the Anglesey antiquarian and man of letters Lewis Morris, and Edward Lhuyd himself. He also quoted from Nathan Bailey, author of An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1721), and William Borlase, author of Observations on the Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall . . . With a Vocabulary of the Cornu-British Language (1754). 75 Whereas Iolo resorted to the two giants, Morris and Lhuyd, in a strictly factual capacity in the earlier drafts, by the later versions he was prepared to question their authority, declaring of Morris: ‘He has indeed collected a vast deal of very useful materials, but his criticisms on our antiquities are not worth a farthing, I think. ’76 A key method to Iolo’s etymological work as displayed in these draft letters is the practice of isolating particles and terminations, defining their meaning, then considering their impact when placed in combination with other elements in various nouns or adjectives. Many of Iolo’s linguistic marginalia are clearly related to the concerns of the correspondence drafted to Walters during the 1770s. A significant proportion

71 72 73 74 75

76

CIM, I, pp. 80–7, 87–8, 91–5, 96–100, 102–4. Ibid. , p. 81, 18 September 1774. Ibid. , p. 93, 19 January 1775. Truth against the World, p. 90. I am informed by the Cornish specialist Dr Benjamin Bruch that Borlase was not a particularly enlightened commentator on the language and traditions of Cornwall. CIM, I, p. 104, Iolo Morganwg to Edward William(s), 3 February 1775. Ibid. , p. 92, Iolo Morganwg to John Walters, 19 January 1775, contains a factual reference to ‘“Elgain”, the ancient name of a country in Scotland (Lewis Morris)’. Iolo questions Lhuyd’s etymological work in ibid. , pp. 97–8, Iolo Morganwg to John Walters, 3 February 1775.

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of the notes were in fact written on the same paper as the drafts themselves and constitute working examples of Iolo’s efforts to detect the connections between words in a particular way. They demonstrate clearly that he was greatly exercised by the science which underpinned his assertions and that he felt some apprehension about the minutiae of his presentation to his mentor, though it is important to note that Iolo’s self-confidence in the field of lexicography was sky-high by the mid-1770s. 77 The margins of a draft letter to Walters dated 18 September 1774 are littered with several lists of words. The longest among them is made up of words arranged under the heading ‘in “-a” or “-ia”’. 78 This title refers to the terminations of each of the listed words, and may be seen to underpin the following paragraph from a letter to Walters dated 19 January 1775: ‘A’ & ‘ia’ are terminations in the Welsh pretty common and when affixed to adjectives make them substantives and added to substantives make them adjectives and sometimes (I think) make impersonals personals. Thus ‘maluria’, ‘gwipia’, ‘mygoria’, ‘cwtta’, ‘cwla’ (‘cwla’ in north Wales in general signifies mean or despicable and in Merionethshire it signifies sickly; it is from ‘cwl’). ‘Almaica’ (John Dafydd Rh}s) is the name of a man. ‘Almaic’ or ‘almaig’ from ‘al’ & ‘maig’ signifies a chief or sovereign. ‘A’ added makes it personal and a proper name. 79

The list found among the marginalia to Iolo’s draft letter of 18 September 1774 includes a small number of proper names – ‘Dona, enw santes’ (the name of a female saint), and ‘Rhita’, Iolo’s mythological giant. 80 The majority of the words, however, are common nouns, examples of which are to be found in a variety of sources, including Davies’s Dictionarium Duplex (1632), Lhuyd’s Archaeologia Britannica (1707) and Thomas Richards’s Antiquae Linguae Britannicae Thesaurus (1753). Iolo’s grouping together of the forms ‘gwepia’ and ‘gwipia’, for example, suggests a debt to Davies, who notes ‘gwipia, Idem quod Gwepia’, 77

78

79 80

See ibid. , pp. 109–13, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 25 January 1776, in which Iolo notes (p. 111): ‘I think I may safely say that I have the greatest collection of Welsh words of any man living. ’ Of Walters Iolo claimed: ‘I have a very high opinion of Mr Walters’s abilities, but he has not had that encouragement that can ever induce him to write any thing in Welsh after the completion of his Dictionary. ’ The impression of Iolo’s unstinting admiration for Walters is rather tainted by a passage from a letter to his wife Margaret (Peggy), in which he instructs her: ‘Try whether you can not pump out of him [Walters] some things that he hears from the country and what he thinks of my poems &c. Observe whether he has the language or the looks of envy. ’ Ibid. , p. 728, Iolo Morganwg to Margaret (Peggy) Williams, 12 February 1795. For the letter, see CIM, I, pp. 80–7, Iolo Morganwg to John Walters, 18 September 1774. For the list, see Appendix IV (Language), no. 52. CIM, I, pp. 94–5, Iolo Morganwg to John Walters, 19 January 1775. ‘[A]wena’ and ‘gwenna’ in the same list may also have been intended as proper nouns, as may ‘bala’.

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while the form ‘hwta’ for the (now) standardized ‘hwde’, which has the meaning ‘plenty’ or ‘abundance’ when used as a noun, may be linked to Iolo’s perusal of Lhuyd and Richards, both of whom note this variant. 81 Although Iolo makes no reference in this initial list to words of specific Glamorgan extraction – he usually notes ‘Glam’ in cases where a word cited is known to him, by ear perhaps, as local to his own area – it is possible that an awareness of the spoken language may lie behind some of the citations in this first list, including some words not recorded in GPC. In the latter category are the words ‘allda’, ‘egwya’, ‘gwipra’, ‘meiria’, ‘plesca’ and ‘proca’ (the latter defined by Iolo as ‘an augre’). To these may be added known oral forms such as ‘bola’ from ‘bol’, meaning ‘stomach’, still in use in south Wales; ‘clopa’, meaning ‘head’ or ‘skull’, and in use in the spoken language of Cardiganshire and south Wales (that Iolo’s sense of the word was linked to oral usage is suggested by the name ‘Siôn Clop’, which he adds to his list); ‘cwla’, a common word in spoken language (‘Ar lafar yn gyff. ’), according to William Owen Pughe in A Welsh and English Dictionary (1794), and known to Iolo from the evidence of his draft letter of 19 January 1775 as a dialectical word in north Wales (‘“cwla” in north Wales in general signifies mean or despicable and in Merionethshire it signifies sickly; it is from “cwl”’); ‘cwta’, which as a noun carries the meaning ‘hare’ or ‘bob-tailed hare’ and is common in spoken language; ‘dawn’, used orally especially in south Wales to mean ‘rhwyddineb ymadrodd’ (fluency of speech), ‘hwyl wrth bregethu’ (used of a preacher warming to his subject) or, in the plural form, ‘pregethwyr dawnus’ (talented preachers); ‘partha’, noted by Iolo in NLW 13117E, p. 186, as ‘partha, tame, [Glam]’; ‘pia’, a variant form of ‘pi’, magpie, noted by Walters in 1776; and ‘trwsa’, meaning ‘a truss (of hay)’, heard in Glamorgan at the beginning of the twentieth century in the form ‘trwsâ’. 82 These examples indicate that Iolo’s involvement with words was largely a patchwork of reliance upon previous sources and, quite possibly, upon his own ear and his own dialect. This list is not merely a list of words for its own sake. As the passage quoted above suggests, Iolo was seeking to demonstrate how the terminations ‘-a’ and ‘-ia’ adjust or change the grammatical function of words. It is by no means clear, however, that the radix of each of the words listed can be separated cleanly from either of these terminations. In the first example listed, ‘aferchwa’ or ‘archwa’, for instance, the true division of the word is ‘ar’ and ‘chwa’, rather than ‘archw’ and ‘a’, as Iolo would have us believe. 83 In other instances, such as ‘bola’, ‘clopa’ or ‘cala’, the added ‘a’ merely provides a variant (often oral) form of the main word. In the case of ‘cwla’, which Iolo, as we have seen, 81 82 83

See GPC s. v. gwipai, gwip(i)a, gwib(i)a; and s. v. hwde. See GPC s. v. the various words. GPC s. v. archfa.

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clearly derives from ‘cwl’, giving an adjectival meaning (poorly, ill, etc. ), it is not obvious from which of the listed forms of ‘c{l’ (none is cited for ‘cwl’) this is meant to derive. Although ‘c{l1’ in GPC, meaning ‘fault, blame, offence; sin, wrong’, may be the most likely contender, no relation between the words is suggested in the dictionary. In including the words ‘gwepia’ and ‘gwipia’, Iolo entered what was already a minefield. His assumption appears to be that these forms are derived from the word ‘gwib’, which serves as both a noun and an adjective, meaning ‘sudden movement’ or ‘swift, sudden’. The termination ‘ia’, according to Iolo, confers upon ‘gwepia’ and ‘gwipia’ a personification or personalizing of movement into the form of a bird – the sparrow-hawk. It is in fact probably only present in these forms as a result of the process of metathesis, the real termination being a truncated form of ‘-hai’ (‘gwib’ + ‘-hai’). 84 Iolo’s underlying motive for compiling this list of words terminating in ‘a’ or ‘ia’ is revealed in a letter dated 3 February 1775, which was addressed to his father but intended for John Walters’s perusal: If this remark on the Welsh terminations ‘a’ & ‘ia’ will hold good, what a surprising number of Latin words will be found to be entirely and purely Celtic. One for instance, ‘melwawd’, is very common in the Welsh poets, from ‘mêl’ & ‘gwawd’, and from ‘awd’ or ‘gawd’ it will be ‘melawd’. And as ‘aw’ change into ‘o’ when another syllable comes after, the adding [of ] ‘ia’ (which makes the word more energetic), will give us ‘melodia’, melody, and this I think without deviating in the least from the strictest propriety and purity of the Celtic. And I believe upon a strict examination the Latin will be found to be only a dialect of the Celtic, but not properly a different language any farther than the Irish is from the Welsh. 85

The logic of the argument seems to be that, if the terminations ‘-a’ or ‘-ia’ can be demonstrated to be purely and originally of Celtic extraction, any Latin words which use them can be further analysed for elements of Celtic roots (‘mêl’, honey, and ‘awd’ or ‘gawd’ in the example given; the evidence would suggest that the latter, ironically, was forged by Iolo himself ). 86 The terminations have an organic existence in Welsh – to ‘[make] the word more energetic’ – and are thus natural and original components of the language. 87 Iolo’s desire to make

84

85 86

87

GPC s. v. gwipia. Note, however, that under ‘gwepia’, GPC states that the termination is unknown (‘anhysbys’). CIM, I, p. 103, Iolo Morganwg to Edward William(s), 3 February 1775. GPC s. v. awd 2, which cites NLW, Llanover C 25, 149, and notes the transmission of the word, given the meaning ‘ode’ or ‘song’, and presumably created on the pattern of the English word ‘ode’, into the 1793 version of Pughe’s Dictionary. Note, however, the apparent contradiction regarding the Celticity of the termination ‘ia’ in ‘The Cisalpine Gauls called a coat of mail “albesia”; probably this is only “albais” (from “pais”) Latinized’. CIM, I, p. 98, Iolo Morganwg to John Walters, 3 February 1775.

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Welsh a root language behind Latin, rather than a language which derived words from the Latin, is evident throughout the 1770s correspondence, and leads to such claims as ‘“Honor” [——–] is anoth[er] Latine word evidently derive[d] from the Celtic. Our “hawnt” is its radix, here’, a significant appropriation in view of the importance of the concept of honour to the Roman world and of its absorption into the English psyche. 88 A similar claim is made regarding ‘bellum’, a word denoting another key area of activity for the Roman empire: ‘bêl’, war, tumult, whence ‘rhyfel’ (from ‘rh}’, which see in Richards [Antiquae Linguae Britannicae Thesaurus], and ‘bêl’ and ‘bela’, to wrangle, which see also in Richards). Some may say that ‘bêl’ is a coruption of the Latin ‘bellum’; but ‘Beli’ (Bellinus) derived of ‘bêl’, signifying warrior, hero or the like, was a name amongst the Britons and Gauls, long before the Roman conquest. Besides, the Latin is evidently of Celtic extraction. I think I could put this in a stronger point of light than any have done hitherto. Perhaps you think this a bold assertion. 89

Bold or not, Iolo was entering a hotly contested field of enquiry – that of the origin of languages and the priority of one, or a particular family of languages, over another. Dr John Davies noted that all European languages were derived from either Latin or Slavonic, with the exception of Welsh, which could claim for itself a coveted position as a ‘mother tongue’. 90 Davies’s patriotic zeal for his mother tongue, however, was considered by others to be a handicap for his lexicographical work. The philosopher G. W. Leibniz, for instance, commenting on the word ‘agricola’, noted that it was clearly one of several Latin words imported into Welsh as a result of the Roman conquest, a fact which John Davies was extremely reluctant to acknowledge. 91 In favour of the Celtic languages (and on behalf of unscientific and popularized lexicography), the Breton abbé Paul-Yves Pezron provided in Antiquité de la nation et de la langue des Celtes (1703) vocabulary lists showing Latin words which derived

88

89

90

91

Ibid. , p. 87, Iolo Morganwg to [John Walters], [?1775]. On the Roman concept of ‘honour’ and its resonance in late eighteenth-century England, see J. E. Lendon, Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (Oxford, 1997), pp. 25, 26, 26, 32. For the concept of ‘honour’ in English popular ballads and its absence from corresponding ballads in the Welsh language, see Siwan M. Rosser, Y Ferch ym Myd y Faled: Delweddau o’r Ferch ym Maledi’r Ddeunawfed Ganrif (Caerdydd, 2005), p. 56. CIM, I, p. 110, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 25 January 1776. For further instances of deriving Latin from Celtic in the 1770s correspondence, see ibid. , pp. 84, 85, 87, 88 (under ‘Marginalia’), 91, 95, 96, 98, 99. Davies, Adfeilion Babel, pp. 13–14. Note, however, that John Davies considered even Welsh as subjected to the Hebrew, which he believed to be the source and model of all languages. Ibid. , p. 55: ‘gwêl . . . yn glir mai un o’r geiriau Lladin a ddaeth i’r Gymraeg mewn canlyniad i goncwest y Rhufeiniaid oedd hwn, megis llawer o eiriau eraill, ffaith yr oedd John Davies yn gyndyn iawn i’w chydnabod. ’

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from the Celtic and which were still spoken in Brittany and in Wales. 92 Iolo’s view would have received some encouragement from the work of Edward Lhuyd, who believed that Greek and Latin were derivative tongues, whose root-elements or root-words were not native to themselves (‘yn cynnwys llawer o eiriau o ieithoedd eraill . . . oherwydd ni chynhwysir eu gwreiddiau ynddynt eu hunain’). 93 In his etymological work on place names in Italy, France and Spain, Lhuyd claimed that a Welshman or Irishman could ‘write an etymologicon of the languages [spoken] there better than anybody’ (‘ysgrifennu etymologicon o’r ieithoedd yno’n well na neb’). Although Lhuyd was reluctant to make excessively sweeping claims – he preferred to emphasize a sense of connections between ‘neighbouring tongues’ rather than make arresting statements concerning the priority of Celtic over Latin – he seemed convinced ‘that there are some manifest Tracks of the British in the Roman language’, and was an influential voice in this argument, winning over Welsh men of letters throughout the eighteenth century, among them Goronwy Owen and Lewis Morris. 94 In view of this, Iolo’s statements regarding the priority of the British tongue over Latin were hardly revolutionary. His claim to be able to ‘put this in a stronger point of light than any have done hitherto’ must have rested on his painstaking exemplifying lists, and perhaps on the sheer volume of his examples, a proportion of which were forged for his own convenience and inserted into contextualizing poetic examples. 95 The method of isolating terminations and particles was largely derived from Lhuyd and others, but was seized upon with fresh vigour by Iolo in the marginalia lists and the early correspondence. Lhuyd, in contrast, when comparing vocabulary from different languages, 92

93 94

95

Ibid. , p. 65. Pezron was followed in Wales by Theophilus Evans, who believed that the Romans borrowed words from Welsh. Ibid. , p. 129. Ibid. , p. 79. The words quoted are those of Caryl Davies. Ibid. , pp. 79 (quoting Archaeologia Britannica, pp. 22–3), 80, 81–2, 86, 89. On Lewis Morris and Goronwy Owen, see ibid. , pp. 178–9, 183. Following upon the heels of John Davies, whose Dictionarium Duplex is a treasury of exemplifying extracts from the Welsh poetry of the Gogynfeirdd and Dafydd ap Gwilym, Iolo felt a real need to show words at work within a historical milieu, rather than divested of their context. Examples of forged couplets or single lines of poetry, attributed to a range of medieval poets, have survived among the correspondence marginalia. A particularly fruitful example is to be found in one of the series of draft letters to John Walters, dated 25 January 1776, in which Iolo attributes a host of lines to Meurig Dafydd, Ieuan Gethin, Lewys Morgannwg and Dafydd ap Gwilym, together with several ‘anonymous’ examples. See Appendix IV (Language), no. 56. I am assured by Dr Ann Parry Owen that none of the examples contained in this item are to be found in her comprehensive database of medieval Welsh poetry, even where variations in orthography and other possible minor changes are taken into account. On the importance of the work of the medieval poets in the compilation of the Dictionarium Duplex, see Caryl Davies, ‘The Dictionarium Duplex (1632)’ in Ceri Davies (ed. ), Dr John Davies of Mallwyd: Welsh Renaissance Scholar (Cardiff, 2004), p. 162, and Nerys Ann Jones and Morfydd E. Owen, ‘John Davies and the Poets of the Princes: Cognoscere, Intellegere, Scire’ in ibid. , pp. 171–207.

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would determine the earliest in the first instance by considering which language provided the most clear and straightforward derivation; secondly, by establishing in which language a word was first recorded; and only thirdly, by breaking up the word into a one-syllable root. 96 It is the latter approach which attracted Iolo, and in exercising it his work demonstrates a real knowledge of the unique characteristics of the Welsh language and a drive to explore them in painstaking detail. The marginalia demonstrate his extraordinarily close reading of Welsh as a language – his awareness of its ‘genius’, a concept which he would have internalized from his reading of, and possibly acquaintance with, Thomas Llewelyn, as well as with John Walters. 97 In one marginal item he lists fiftyseven words which take both the consonants ‘m’ and ‘b’ as their initials in Welsh, noting that ‘[t]hese words are to this day so doubtful that we cannot ascertain the true orthography but use them indiscriminately’, thus showing his awareness of permissible fluidity within the language, so that his etymologies may be found to ‘[admit] no variation of the letters but what is regular, and which the genius of the language requires’. 98 In a much later item, dating from c. 1818, his habit of breaking words into various ‘native’ elements leads him to question the precise form of the word ‘prysur’ (busy): Brysyr – brys a gyr gyr brys – gyr ar frys – not ‘prysyr’, forsan. 99

Iolo logically suggests that ‘brys’ (a hurrying) and ‘gyr’ (a driving) gives ‘brysur’ rather than the accepted form ‘prysur’. A sense of the way in which mutation affects consonants is also present in Iolo’s analysis: ‘ar frys’ suggests a radical ‘b’ rather than a ‘p’. 100 GPC’s derivation of ‘prysur’, however, suggests that it is linked to the Latin words ‘pressorium’ (wine-press) or ‘pressura’ (meaning ‘gwasgiad’, ‘a pressing’), and thus the ghost of words in Welsh derived from Latin roots returns to haunt Iolo. 101 He is likewise concerned with the ‘genius of the language’ in his scathing attack on the efforts of Dr John Davies (and other 96 97

98

99 100

101

Davies, Adfeilion Babel, p. 89. On the concept of a language’s ‘genius’, see Crowe, ‘Diddordebau Ieithyddol Iolo Morganwg’, I, pp. 8, 37, and Davies, Adfeilion Babel, pp. 166–8. Unpublished marginalia to Iolo’s draft letter to John Walters, dated 19 January 1775 (see CIM, I, pp. 91–5), reproduced in Appendix IV (Language), no. 40; the second quotation (‘. . . the genius of the language . . . ’) is from the marginalia to NLW 21283E, no. 615, and appears in Appendix IV (Language), no. 39. Appendix IV (Language), no. 41. The letter ‘p’, preceded by the preposition ‘ar’ would mutate to a ‘b’ rather than an ‘f ’. Double mutations (p > b > f ), though sometimes heard orally – e. g. ‘i fobl’ instead of ‘i bobl’ (to people) – are not grammatically correct. GPC s. v. prysur1, prysur2.

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grammarians) to ‘[apply] to the Welsh language the technology of the Latin grammar’, attempts which he believed to be doomed to ‘absurdity’. Davies’s error was to have attempted to describe the Welsh process of mutation in terms of Latin-like declensions. The latter, however, affect nouns only, whereas in Welsh, as Iolo notes, ‘we shall be at some difficulty in attempting to prove that all the parts of speech . . . are not declinable’. 102 Iolo’s characteristic play with words and with the concepts of lexicography which he had inherited takes a comic turn in one example from the correspondence marginalia. The unscientific work of linguists such as Rowland Jones was the butt of general hilarity, even during his lifetime, and Iolo enjoyed demonstrating how utterly wrong an etymologist’s derivations could be. There is considerable humour in the list of Welsh words for animals set side by side with English and Latin phonological ‘equivalents’ and with similar sounding words in Welsh, which is to be found on a letter dating from 1813: A rule that is pretty general will not hold universally: hwch – hog bwch – buck . . . But: march – merch buwch – bwch adder – otter gwadd – g{ydd llo – llew. 103

Some of the incongruities are comical – a ‘llo’ (calf ) suddenly metamorphosizes into a ‘llew’ (lion), and a ‘horse’ becomes an ‘ursus’ (Latin ‘bear’). To end his list and, by implication, to emphasize the futility of the whole enterprise, Iolo adds a joke at his own expense and that of his brother poets: ‘“Bard” and “bird” will do, you will possibly say, because both are flighty. ’ It was this kind of etymologizing which earned the scorn of prominent linguists such as Sir William Jones who, in an address to the Asiatick Society, declared his wish ‘to enter my protest against conjectural etymology . . . and principally 102

103

Appendix IV (Language), no. 49. The tendency of grammarians to ‘expect an old Archbishop [i. e. the Celtic] to dance a Jigg & Rigadoom [sic] with boys & girls’ [i. e. the Greek and Latin languages] was criticized by Lewis Morris, who noted that his friend Goronwy Owen ‘hath been some years a laying a foundation for a Welsh rational Grammar, not upon ye Latin & Greek plan, but upon the plan that the Language will bear’. Hugh Owen (ed. ), Additional Letters of the Morrises of Anglesey (1735–1786) (2 vols. , London, 1947–9), I, p. 224. Appendix IV (Language), no. 46.

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against the licentiousness of etymologists’ whereby a word such as ‘CUS or CUSH . . . instantly becomes coot, goose, and, by transposition, duck, all waterbirds, and evidently symbolical; it next is the goat worshipped in Egypt, and by a metathesis, the dog adored as an emblem of SIRIUS . . . ’. 104 Although, like Jones, Iolo knew its potential for abuse, he was interested in the idea of primitive monosyllables providing the basis for the language: a list of monosyllables ending in ‘o’ is to be found as marginalia to an 1821 letter, with some of the words expanded into verbal forms (‘rho – dyro, dyry’). 105 This may have been the immediate result of his reading (or re-reading) of Llewelyn’s Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue, in which the theory that ‘compound’ verbal forms are created from ‘primitives’ is expounded. 106 More than anything, however, Iolo’s linguistic work appears to have been underpinned by a sense of the proximity of the Welsh language to its speakers. In a draft letter to Evan Evans he criticizes both English and Latin for their un-rootedness and even predicts to the former the fate of the latter: Has the Latin in any degree continued as a language popularly spoken ever since the Roman period in Wales do you think? I think that I could produce notices of popular Latin in some parts of England from the Roman ages down to the Conquest, and possibly till a later period, but the Norman language superceded both it and the Saxon. I lament the loss of the Saxon language. Had it underwent the gradual self culture of time it would have become a most noble and powerfully significant language, much superior to our modern English (which, however, is one of the best of modern languages) because (like your Welsh language, according to your account of it) its words would have been all from roots of its own which would have been popularly understood by the common people, which our present English never will, never can be. It will experience, sooner or later, the fate of the Rom[an] Latin which was a powerful language, but too artificial. It was only a learned language to even the provinces of Italy, and when Rome fell its language fell, and the popular dialects of the country found their level in the present Italian language, which then as now had strong tinctures of the Gallic and Helvetic dialects. 107

It is this sense of the organic nature of Welsh which informs Iolo’s other keen linguistic interest – his work with the dialects of Welsh. As we have seen, orality is a concept present in Iolo’s working with words and his etymologizing from the date of the earliest evidence. Again, this interest or emphasis

104

105 106 107

Quoted in Davies, Adfeilion Babel, p. 300. See also a list very similar to the one quoted by Iolo in Crowe, ‘Diddordebau Ieithyddol Iolo Morganwg’, I, p. 75. Appendix IV (Language), no. 50. Llewelyn, Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue, pp. 86–7. CIM, I, p. 142, Iolo Morganwg to Evan Evans (Ieuan Fardd), [?April 1779].

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is not unique: Lhuyd preceded Iolo in this as in so many other respects. 108 A list highlighting Glamorgan (and, to a lesser extent, Monmouthshire and Gwentian) vocabulary and usage is to be found in a letter probably dating from as early as 1775, which suggests, in accordance with the evidence deduced from Iolo’s other early linguistic work, that spoken language was one of his pressing interests from the outset of his career as a linguist. 109 This list is notable for its detail in including the whole range of parts of speech in the case of individual words; for example, the first word listed – the noun ‘tranglwm (taranglwm)’ – is accompanied by a definition of its adjectival meaning (‘crude, hasty &c. ’), and by its verbal form (‘tranglymu’). ‘Tranglwm’ is exemplified in the Welsh phrases ‘tranglwm o ganu, o gywydd, o ’stori, o beth &c. ’ and then defined as ‘a song, poem, story, or any thing else hastily put together’. 110 Iolo’s entry for ‘gweirlod’ is likewise all-inclusive: gweirlod – a meadow, Silurian; plur. ‘gweirlodydd’ gweirlodi – to turn to meadow, so they say, of lands that have been some time under corn, are left to run to grass, and when that begins to appear in considerable quantities, they say ‘mae’r tir, y maes, y cae &c. yn gweirlodi’. In Monmouthshire, where the pronunciation is in gene[ra]l [m]ore correct than in Glamor[gansh]ire, they say ‘gwrlod, gwrlodydd &c. , gwrlodi’. Query whether the true orthography is not ‘gwyrlod’ &c. from ‘gwyr’, verdant, from whence ‘gwair’ seems also to be derived, or rather corrupted. The vulgar pronunciation in Glamorgan is ‘gwerlod’, ‘gwerlodi’ &c.

The exemplification once again provides an example of common usage (‘they say . . . ’), and an awareness of various pronunciations in the neighbouring counties of Monmouthshire and Glamorgan. Iolo the etymologist is unable to distance himself from the dialect-collector scene, the trail provided by attention to pronunciation leading to a satisfactory root – ‘gwyr, verdant’, a form probably linked in Iolo’s mind with the word ‘gwyran2, gwyrain2’ in GPC, defined as ‘grass’ (examples of Iolo’s notes about the word and its usage in poetry are provided). 111 GPC’s articles on ‘gweirglodd, gweirglod’, ‘gweirgloddaidd’ and ‘gweirgloddiaf, gweirgloddaf, gweirlodaf: gweirgloddio, gweirgloddi, gweirlodi’, together with those on ‘gwyrlod’ and ‘gwyrlodaf: gwyrlodi’, include many citations from Iolo’s manuscripts, which demonstrate an attention to detail

108 109 110 111

Davies, Adfeilion Babel, p. 72. Appendix IV (Language), no. 1. None of the forms of ‘tranglwm / taranglwm’, noun, adjective nor verb, are included in GPC. GPC s. v. gwyran2, gwyrain2. In NLW 13117E, p. 202, Iolo defines ‘gwyrain’ as ‘those kinds of grasses called poa’s or what is most peculiarly called grass’.

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comparable with that shown in the quotation above and extremely valuable, even though Iolo’s derivation for this family of words is shown to be incorrect. 112 Subsequent examples in this list show that Iolo’s ear was finely tuned wherever he travelled. Examples of Gwentian forms are provided, together with words said to be in use in Devon, where Iolo worked during 1779: g[urry?], Devonshire – a barrow, a wheel, gurry – ‘gyrrai’ creen, ibid. – a shivering, ‘cr}n’ ffarth – a path, ffordd.

The implication is that these English words are in fact corruptions – or dialect versions – of Welsh words. Although ‘ffordd’ and ‘cr}n’ are attested Welsh words,113 ‘gyrrai’ does not appear in GPC. The link with the idea of movement through the initial syllable ‘gyrr’ (a verbal form meaning ‘he / she drives’) is obvious; the added termination ‘ai’, although an inversion of the ‘ia’ termination discussed in the Walters correspondence of the mid-1770s and its accompanying marginalia, may be said to fulfil the role of ‘[making] the word more energetic’ or personifying the action implied in ‘gyrr’ by giving it a material reality in the form of a wheelbarrow. 114 The OED confirms Iolo’s claim that ‘gurry’ is a local Devonshire word, citing examples (in the form ‘gurry’, ‘a handbarrow; a small car or sledge’ and ‘gurry-butt’, ‘a dung-sledge’) from 1796 onwards. The origin of the word, however, is not noted. Joseph Wright’s work on English dialect cites usage of ‘creen’ (with the meaning ‘to complain’) in Devon and Cornwall, and gives the French craindre as a possible root. This in turn derives from the Gaulish Celtic word which gives us the Welsh word ‘crynu’ (to shiver). Iolo’s definition in this case is shown to be astute, whereas in the case of ‘farth’, cited in the OED as an ‘alleged synonym of farrow’ with an example from 1688, ‘a farth, a farrow of pigs’, no conceivable point of reference with Iolo’s ‘a path’ is apparent. 115 In the material under ‘trôn (Gwent)’, Iolo provides an early example of his later interest in Druidism: 112

113

114 115

GPC s. v. gweirglodd, gweirglod; gweirgloddaidd; gweirgloddiaf, gweirgloddaf, gweirlodaf: gweirgloddio, gweirgloddi, gweirlodi; gwyrlod; and gwyrlodaf: gwyrlodi. The word ‘gweirglodd’ is shown to derive from ‘gwair’ (grass) + ‘clawdd’, ‘gwair’ having changed into ‘gwyr-’ or ‘gwr-’ in south Wales, and the final ‘dd’ replaced by a ‘d’. Moreover, the ‘g’ has been lost to give the forms ‘gweirlodd, gweirlod, gwrlod’. GPC s. v. gweirglodd, gweirglod. See GPC s. v. ffordd and cr}n, cryn 2. The verb ‘crynaf: crynu’, of which ‘cr}n, cryn’ is the root, is shown in GPC to have corresponding Cornish and Middle Breton forms, but none of English extraction. CIM, I, p. 103. See the quotation above. OED s. v. gurry 2; farth. On ‘creen’, see Joseph Wright (ed. ), The English Dialect Dictionary (6 vols. , Oxford, 1981; 1st edn. , London, 1896–1905), I. I am grateful to Professor Prys Morgan for drawing my attention to this interpretation.

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trôn, Gwent – a circle, i. e. , ‘tro-on’, as ‘gwron’, by contraction. Hence ‘athronddysg’, perhaps – i. e. the circle of science, cyclopœdia.

The correct derivation for ‘trôn’ is the English ‘trone’, a form of ‘throne’ with the meaning, in Welsh, throne or circle. 116 Iolo’s etymology hears the word ‘tro’ (a rotation, or turning), with the termination ‘-on’ as in the word ‘gwron’, meaning a hero. 117 It is a little surprising that, by citing a comparison with ‘gwron’, he avoids hearing ‘-on’ as a plural termination here: ‘tro-on’ suggests the standard plural form ‘troeon’, and might have led to an understanding of the word as ‘turns’ or ‘rotations’. Iolo’s insistence on a single circle suggests that he was already thinking in terms of the druidic stone circle, his interest in Druidism and its most impressive monuments having been dramatically awakened in late 1776 or in the early part of 1777, when the misfortune of ‘two days sick on the road’ led to an opportunity to view and write an account of the ‘mountaineous tumulus at Abury’ or, to give it its usual name, Silbury Hill, in Wiltshire. 118 Seeing Silbury Hill prompted Iolo’s interest in the whole of the Marlborough Downs and Salisbury Plain, including nearby Stonehenge. The importation of ‘trôn’ into the word ‘athronddysg’, a word of fifteenthcentury origin and in fact compounded of ‘athrawon’ (teachers), contracted into ‘athraon’, + ‘dysg’ (learning), enacts the druidization of learning, although Iolo at this stage also had an eye open for a Latin model (or should it be called a ‘derivation’ in view of his confident declaration that ‘the Latin is evidently of Celtic extraction’?), the word ‘cyclopœdia’. Another citation of ‘trôn’ in Iolo’s work corroborates information provided in the marginalia item in claiming a Gwentian usage or origin, and then adds the following related usages of the word: ‘Tron bendith eu mamau – fairy rings. Trôn Gwyddoni old druidic circles of stones. hinc athronddysg cyclopoedia – troon, (as gwron –) contracted. ’119 For Iolo, the word ‘gwyddoni’ has clear druidic connotations, and ‘trôn’ is here drawn into the same context. 120 In view of these associations (‘Trôn Gwyddoni’ and ‘athronddysg’), it may be possible to suggest that the noun ‘athroniaeth’ (philosophy, metaphysics), the first examples of which are to be found in Iolo’s

116 117 118

119 120

GPC s. v. trôn. GPC s. v. gwron. CIM, I, p. 123, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 12 January 1777. For a discussion of Iolo’s account of Silbury Hill, see Jon Cannon and Mary-Ann Constantine, ‘A Welsh Bard in Wiltshire: Iolo Morganwg, Silbury and the Sarsens’, Wiltshire Studies, 97 (2004), 78–88. See NLW 13155A, p. 5. This is also partially quoted in GPC s. v. trôn. See GPC s. v. gwyddonaf 1: gwyddoni and gwiddon 1; and Bardic Circles, p. 245, where the idea of the Druids’ practice of ‘inscribing upon wood’ is linked to ‘[t]he etymologies of a great number of words in our language’, ‘gwyddon’ being one of them.

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work, is, on the pattern suggested in the marginalia item for ‘athronddysg’, based on ‘trôn’, with its druidic undertones. 121 Coining and etymologizing come hand in hand with Iolo’s work on dialect in some of the examples above, showing once again that it is not possible to divide his linguistic work into clear-cut categories. Indeed, the interaction of etymological work and the recording of dialect to some extent muddies the water of Iolo’s dialectical activity: ‘trôn’ may be a Gwentian dialectical form (probably because of the proximity of the county to England and the consequential ease of transmission of English words), but Iolo’s zeal for tracing words to indigenous origins and his belief (or, at least, his ideal) that words in the Welsh language are ‘all from roots of its own’,122 lead him not only to fail to recognize etymologies which depend upon words borrowed from another language but also to invent dialectical forms at times, to his own satisfaction. ‘Trôn’ may well have been a Gwentian form, but ‘Trôn Gwyddoni’, with its druidic connotations, almost certainly never was. Where careful examination of the marginalia fails to provide evidence that is indisputably objective and untampered with, however, it shows once again Iolo’s painstaking attention to detail and the way in which a single element (in this case, individual words) could be – and were – worked upon in detail, all with a view to supporting an overarching vision of the importance of Wales and its language. Another lengthy list of dialectical forms found among the marginalia centres on the opposite end of Wales, Anglesey, and was probably the result of Iolo’s visit to the island from August to October 1799. 123 The list’s main point of interest lies in the names of sea-animals, plants, foods and crops, but there are also examples of more fanciful vocabulary, such as the word ‘lloerddarn’ (literally ‘a piece of the moon’) defined as ‘a segment’,124 and yet another example of Iolo’s interest in fairies, demonstrated by the phrase ‘trefa’r tylwyth teg’ said to mean ‘fairy ring’ (compare the Gwentian ‘Tron bendith eu mamau’ cited above). As in the previous dialectical marginalia item discussed, Iolo shows his understanding of the contextual usage of different words. One example is his list of phrases containing the verb ‘mynychu’: 121

122 123

124

GPC s. v. athroniaeth. The word is said to be compounded of ‘athron’ + ‘-iaeth’, ‘athron’ presumably considered as a contraction of ‘athrawon’, as in the case of GPC’s explanation of ‘athronddysg’, although this is not explicitly stated. It is noted that the meaning of the two examples cited from Iolo’s Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain is not precisely known, but a link to the sense of ‘cyclopaedia’ or a circle of knowledge is quite possibly present in Iolo’s usage. CIM, I, p. 142, quoted on p. 179 above. For letters addressed from Beaumaris during this period, see CIM, II, pp. 209–12, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 13 August 1799; ibid. , pp. 212–15, Iolo Morganwg to William Owen Pughe, 13 August 1799; ibid. , pp. 216–21, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 18 August 1799; ibid. , pp. 222–5, Iolo Morganwg to Evan Pritchard (Ieuan Lleyn), 23 September [?1799]); ibid. , pp. 226–9, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 5 October 1799. For the list in question, see Appendix IV (Language), no. 7. Note that ‘lloerddarn’ is not cited in GPC.

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mynychu – to frequent a place or the doing of any thing. ‘Mynychu Llannerch y medd, mynychu meddwi, mynycha hynny &c. ’ (to frequent Llanerch y medd, to get drunk, he attends that, &c. )

The recording of the Anglesey place name Llannerch-y-medd among the examples cited above authenticates the usage of a particular word in a specific location and adds to the sense of Iolo’s on-the-ground involvement in the collecting of this material. A similar example outlines once again the essential authenticity of the process involved in compiling this list. Iolo notes the word ‘llygeirian’, ‘a red fruit like currants. Grows in Trefoesen meadows, Môn’. ‘Llygeirian’ is one form among many cited in GPC meaning cranberries or cowberries. 125 This particular form is cited in the work of the sixteenth-century poet Huw Arwystl who hailed from the commote of Arwystli in Montgomeryshire (though he also uses ‘llygeirionn’), in the related lexicographical work of Thomas Wiliems of Trefriw (1545/6–1622) and Dr John Davies, and finally in a letter from William Morris of Anglesey to his brother Richard. 126 This list of sources does not constitute a usage peculiar to Anglesey, though the Morrisian form, listed here with no variants, suggests that it was the most familiar form to an Anglesey ear, a fact which appears to be confirmed by Iolo’s noting of the word in this list. Iolo’s citation is further enriched by the fact that he has noted the precise location for his sighting of the fruit – Trefoesen meadows in the parish of Llanbabo. The authenticity of at least some of the material in this list is further suggested by the example ‘brawddeg’, defined, as a twenty-first century Welsh speaker would expect, as ‘a sentence’. It is interesting that Iolo felt the need to record this as an ‘Anglesea word’ in 1799; the implication is that it was not familiar to him. Had he consulted his copy of Thomas Richards’s Antiquae Linguae Britannicae Thesaurus, however, he would have seen this word, with an example of usage taken from the work of Richard Morris, a fact which confirms the impression that this indeed was a word known in Anglesey. 127 The first example of the word cited by GPC, however, is not from Richard Morris’s work but from Henry Perri’s Eglvryn Phraethineb (1595). This work was based on that of William Salesbury, but added to it a host of new terms in the field of rhetoric, one of 125 126

127

GPC s. v. llygaeron, llygeuron, llygeirion, llygeirian, &c. For John Davies’s acquisition of Thomas Wiliems’s work on herbs and plants, itself heavily dependent on William Salesbury’s herbal (llysieulyfr), see Davies, ‘The Dictionarium Duplex (1632)’, pp. 150–1. Salesbury’s herbal has been published by Iwan Rhys Edgar (ed. ), Llysieulyfr Salesbury (Caerdydd, 1997). Appropriately, the Morrisian reference to ‘Llug-eirian’ appears in a letter from William Morris, at Holyhead, to his London-based brother, Richard. John H. Davies (ed. ), The Letters of Lewis, Richard, William and John Morris, of Anglesey, (Morrisiaid Mon) 1728–1765 (2 vols. , Aberystwyth, 1907), I, p. 278. See Thomas Richards, Antiquae Linguae Britannicae Thesaurus: Being a British, or Welsh–English Dictionary (Bristol, 1753) s. v. brawddeg.

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which was the word ‘brawddeg’. Although he was a Flintshire man by birth, Perri lived in Anglesey for a time, following a period of study at Oxford (where he matriculated in 1578–9) and prior to his appointment as canon of Bangor in 1612–13. 128 If it is true that Iolo heard ‘brawddeg’ used in Anglesey at the close of the eighteenth century, it would seem that this term had a particular currency in the county in which it had most probably been created. It is worth noting that Iolo – probably at a later date – went on to coin the word ‘brawddegeg’ (not recorded in GPC ), thus entering the field of terminology-making, but using as his basis a word heard on his travels in north Wales. Once again, a fluid process of authentic record-making and further theorizing or coining out of material gathered in this way is to be seen at work. 129 The correspondence marginalia are also a repository for Iolo’s very deliberate coinages, and reveal the way in which he played with words for this express purpose. A striking example from a visual perspective is to be found in an 1820 letter, which is covered in bracketed groups of words which all begin with the prefix ‘rhag-’. 130 Iolo’s interest in word-coining was in line with a reputed Glamorgan, if not a Welsh, tradition, as is suggested by the following passage from the work of Thomas Llewelyn, marked for attention by Iolo in his own copy: Some languages, if I may so speak, treat their original stock like a spendthrift, or like the slothful servant, take no pains to improve it: they ever use these materials in their first condition, or in their stinted and dwarfish state: while others have laboured and manufactured them, compounded and decompounded them so as surprizingly to vary, to increase and multiply their first and original quantity. 131

Iolo’s work on compound forms including ‘rhag-’ in the list in question is both a celebration of existing vocabulary including this prefix and a deliberate labouring or manufacturing of further examples. Two-thirds of the sixtythree words listed, completely absent from GPC, appear to be of Iolo’s own creation, though a small proportion of these (four in number) can be said to

128

129

130 131

CIM, II, p. 196, note 1; DWB s. v. Henry Perri; ODNB s. v. Henry Perry; G. J. Williams (ed. ), Egluryn Ffraethineb: sef Dosbarth ar Retoreg, Un o’r Saith Gelfyddyd (Caerdydd, 1930). For ‘brawddegeg’, see Crowe, ‘Diddordebau Ieithyddol Iolo Morganwg’, II, p. 90. The citation comes from NLW 13089E, p. 321. NLW 21286E, no. 1036. NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Llewelyn, Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue, p. 87.

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Fig. 7a A list in Iolo’s hand of words beginning with the prefix ‘rhag-’.

have pre-existing related forms. 132 Of the twenty words (almost a third of the total) which have earned their place in GPC, one, ‘rhagddatgan’, is exemplified by reference to Pughe’s 1803 Dictionary. In view of the nature of the friendship between Iolo and Pughe, it may thus be considered as a Ioloic form which successfully and swiftly attained lexicographical acceptability. To note this, however, only serves to demonstrate the poor rate at which Iolo’s coinages entered the currents of the Welsh language in terms of usage and acceptation. 133 The list in question may suggest why this should be so. The problem with the kind of material which it represents lies not only in its material inaccessibility – it was buried in Iolo’s cottage during his lifetime and currently lies hidden

132

133

‘Rhagweddiad’ can be seen as a derivative of the nouns rhagwedd 1 and rhagwedd 2 listed in GPC; ‘rhagweini’ as related to ‘rhagweinydd’; ‘rhagseilio’ to ‘rhagsail’ and ‘rhagsylwi’ to ‘rhagsylw’. With the exception of rhagwedd1, which appears to have been near-obsolete by the nineteenth century, however, and thus may have been ‘newly’ coined by Iolo, all these examples are twentieth-century coinages, and their presence in GPC clearly owes nothing to Iolo’s work as a linguist. Glenda Carr, William Owen Pughe (Caerdydd, 1983), pp. 72–3, notes Pughe’s acknowledgement of Iolo’s assistance, through the provision of manuscript vocabulary lists, in the preparation of A Welsh and English Dictionary (2 vols. , London, 1793–1803).

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within a group of manuscripts prized as letters of correspondence – but also in its uninviting lexicographical guise. Unlike the colourful and detailed work on dialects, there is very little here by way of contextualization. The logic behind the groupings of the words is unclear, and rarely does Iolo provide translations for his coinages: only eight examples are followed by an English rendition: ‘Rhagaroll, recommend’; ‘Rhagarddwyn to recoment [sic]’; ‘Rhagddarserch, prediliction [sic]’; ‘Rhagymbaid, previous cessation’; ‘Rhagsefydlu preestablish’; ‘Rhagddarbwyll, forecas[?t]’; ‘Rhagddisgwell, } to view or look beforehand’; and ‘Rhagymgof – recollection’. The discussion of Iolo’s dialectical work revealed examples of the material in the marginalia cropping up elsewhere and finding their way into GPC’s illustrative examples. It appears to have been Iolo’s habit to use material from the marginalia and develop it at a later stage. This is suggested by the example of ‘trôn’ quoted above: the material found in NLW 13155A under the heading ‘Glam, words and Monm’ is an elaboration on the marginalia entry on the word which has imported it into a better formulated and more ambitious list of words. In the case of the ‘rhag-’ coinages of 1820 or later, this process most probably did not occur, either because of Iolo’s old age and the challenge posed by various other interests, let alone ill-health, or simply because of the nature of the material – its scientific, closely-worked detail, further elaboration of which might not have been easy. Among the ‘rhag-’ derivatives on the page, in the same hand and ink, Iolo’s vivid connection with the spoken language makes an unexpected infiltration in the left-hand column:

Fig. 7b Detail of Fig. 7a

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Ffraw, Euas & Gwent original in idea, prompt at inventing Awen ffraw. Rhyw beth yn ffraw iawn ynddo.

‘Ffraw’ seems to be the ideal word to describe Iolo’s characteristic lexicographical attempts at ‘inventing’, but can only reluctantly be applied to the list in question. In the tightly-packed space of this particular page, a reference to oral usage is a welcome breath of fresh air. Although the words beginning ‘rhag-’ convey Iolo’s skills as an inventor of words, they seem to lack the sense of a sharp ear for phrase and usage which characterizes the greater part of his linguistic work.

‘[L]ike one with a conscience quite calm in his breast’: Iolo the poet 134 The foregoing discussion touches on a mere fraction of the examples of linguistic work in Iolo’s correspondence marginalia. Further examples are to be found in the appendix to this volume. As mentioned previously, Iolo’s voluminous poetic work is the class of material which, along with the linguistic work, makes the most forceful impression on the reader of these notes and fragments. The poetry included can be fairly easily classified into four major categories: English poetry, Welsh strict-metre poetry, Welsh free-metre poetry, and Welsh ‘psalms’, together with musical notation, possibly intended for the singing of the hymns. The following discussion considers a small number of these poems, retaining an awareness of the possibility of overlaps in interest between the various categories of poetic expression used by Iolo and across the boundaries of the languages in which he composed. The discussion will reveal that a central preoccupation of Iolo’s poetic work as found in the incomplete drafts of the correspondence marginalia is the struggle between confronting the evils of state and society on the one hand, and the individual’s need for calm and contentment on the other. To some extent this is a conflict which resolves itself as Iolo becomes older and shows increasing preoccupation with achieving serenity and peace, choosing the Welsh language as the medium in which to explore this condition. Yet, the sense of conflict is present even in the English poems composed during the 1790s or earlier, which shows that, in order to appreciate fully Iolo’s poetic œuvre, his compositions in both languages must be considered. 134

The quotation comes from a draft of the poem ‘The Mountain Shepherd’, found as an item of marginalia in NLW 21285E, no. 786, and reproduced in Appendix V (Literature), no. 2(b).

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That Iolo was from an early age conversant with two languages and with their respective literary traditions is in no doubt. His preface to Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, though generally believed to be a romanticized account of his childhood and youth, reveals his early bent for English literature, which was fostered by his caring and well-educated mother. His interest in Welsh literature, as G. J. Williams has amply demonstrated, was awakened during his youth by his social connections in the Vale of Glamorgan at a time when the language was finding a new lease of life in the area. 135 And although Iolo frequently sang the praises of the Welsh language and insisted on its organic relationship with the country in which it was spoken as opposed to the artificialness and foreignness of English, he was in fact knee-deep in bilingualism, and could hardly be said to have a preference for Welsh over English (note the linguistic balance, or imbalance, of his correspondence). 136 A revealing passage on the issue of bilingualism occurs among material which he intended, or at least drafted, for his chef d’œuvre, ‘A History of the Bards’: It is a recommendable thing, I believe, to make use always of such words, expressions, figures, &c. as may with sufficient ease, be translated into other languages, without recurring to the unfortunate expedient of an awkward and nerveless periphrasis. Every language should be friendly to its neighbours, keep in idiom and construction as near to them as purity can admit. Languages should so accommodate each other that what appears in one may be with [?ease] transfer’d into the other. What practicability may attach to such ideas, I know not, it must be decided by those of whose number I am not: the learned in languages. 137

The ideal stated here, that neighbouring languages should ‘keep in idiom and construction as near to [each other] as purity can admit’, needs to be read with caution. Elsewhere, apparently in line with the ideal in question, Iolo complained of the way in which ‘periphrasis’ disguised the meaning of an original in translation: the Scriptures, he argued, ‘abound with expressions which literally translated would shock modern hypocritically-delicate ears’. Their translators, he claimed, endeavoured in every possible way ‘to disguise those things by rendering passages periphrastically rather than literally’. 138 Periphrasis, therefore, could be seen as a calculated attempt at misrepresentation, the translator deliberately losing hold of, and distancing himself (and his readers) from, the message of his original. In other scenarios, however, Iolo saw periphrasis as the result of an 135

136

137 138

On Iolo’s early reading in English, see PLP, I, pp. xv–xvi; on his involvement with Welsh poets during his youth, see ibid. , p. xvi; Williams: IM, pp. 111–31. For Iolo’s apparent bias in favour of the Welsh language, see the discussion above. On the preponderance of English-language letters in his correspondence, see CIM, I, p. 5. Quoted in Bardic Circles, p. 234. CIM, II, p. 691, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 30 July 1805.

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all too close connection between the original language of a text and that into which it was to be translated. The Greal, a Welsh-language magazine published between 1805 and 1807 under the patronage of two London-Welsh societies, the Cymreigyddion and the Gwyneddigion, was decried by Iolo for its ‘Anglicized and becockney’d idiom’: I have somewhere read of a German artist who could spin an ounce of gold out to such a length as to extend from pole to pole. I find that some can do the same with a short Welsh phrase – can wiredraw our short and solid bullion into a most wonderful length. And in this, nothing more effectually helps them out than auxiliary verbs and a nice set of expletives with which the Deudneudiaeth is richly furnish[ed]. 139

Iolo’s string of examples of the misuse of Welsh in the Greal are attributed to the folly of authors who, ‘though writing in Welsh, thought in English’, so that the neighbourliness advocated in the thoughts on bilingualism quoted above is clearly seen as susceptible to perversion. If such accommodation of one language by another was Iolo’s ideal, however, it must have meant that one language was always written with an eye to an often presumably unwritten parallel in the other language, especially with a view to the truthful representation of the meaning or message of the one in the other. Both Gwyneth Lewis and Mary-Ann Constantine have argued that Iolo’s attempts at translating his Welshness in general and translating particular poems ‘from the Welsh’ into English are less than successful. Constantine notes that his English contains no specifically Welsh idiom; he had no ‘regional literary language’ that could authentically be represented on the page in the way that Robert Burns or James Macpherson could commit their Scots English to paper. 140 Brief examples in the correspondence marginalia reveal attempts by Iolo to translate Welsh poems into English, and one of these in particular may be seen to throw light on Iolo’s approach to the authentic representation of Welsh in English. In a letter dated in the recent edition of Iolo’s Correspondence to the New Year of 1818, William Vaughan, a Glamorgan gentleman, sent Iolo a copy of the hen bennill (a traditional free-metre Welsh stanza) ‘Blin yw caru’:141

139 140

141

Ibid. , p. 755, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), 7 February 1806. Gwyneth Lewis, ‘Eighteenth-Century Literary Forgeries, with Special Reference to the Work of Iolo Morganwg’ (unpublished University of Oxford D. Phil. thesis, 1991), p. 173; Truth against the World, pp. 69–72. T. H. Parry-Williams (ed. ), Hen Benillion (Llandysul, 1940), pp. 84, 178.

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January – Nos Calan Blyn yw y care ymma ac occo † – fal dold Blyn bod heb y blynder honno – fal doly Ond o flyndera fwy o flinder – fal dy Yw caru yn wir a care yn ofer – fal d.

Vaughan acknowledged that his ‘East Glamorgan’ version of the stanza was ‘badly written in all respects’ and begged Iolo to ‘mend it and favour me, with the assistance of your brother bards, with a correction’. 142 Iolo’s amended version is to be found in his hand alongside that of Vaughan. The corrections amount to changes in the orthography (‘Blyn’ > ‘Blin’; ‘blynder’ > ‘blinder’) and the standardization of the words ‘occo’ (> ‘accw’) and ‘care’ (> ‘caru’). The other changes involve replacing the feminine pronoun ‘honno’ by ‘hwnnw’, in accordance with standard practice, and adjusting the grammar (and some of the wording) of the third line. In the fourth line Iolo added the phrase ‘Cur annifyr’ (unpleasant pain), thus bringing to life the tribulations of unrequited love. Finally, scansion of the two Welsh versions shows that Iolo also tidied up the raw edges of Vaughan’s version in order to fit the words into a neat trochaic pattern: Blin yw caru yma ac accw Blin bod heb y blinder hwnnw † O’r blinderau blina blinder Cur annifyr caru’n ofer.

English versions of this stanza in Iolo’s hand are to be found on a scrap of paper used for drafting sections of a letter to John Walters senior in 1794. 143 The interval between the date of the draft on the one hand and that of Vaughan’s letter on the other may suggest that there is no relation between the original Welsh versions of the letter and the English translations. As we have already seen, however, such gaps between the initial use of a piece of paper and a later use were quite typical of Iolo. Mimicking the two versions on the Vaughan letter (the latter’s and Iolo’s own), there are two translations here, separated from each other by a brief note on projects for a Glamorgan infirmary, ‘consisting of 142 143

CIM, III, p. 449–50, William Vaughan to Iolo Morganwg, [?1818]. Note that the Welsh version, very well known in its own right, was in fact a translation of an English stanza included among the ‘Anacreontics’ of Abraham Cowley. See The Poetical Works of Abraham Cowley (4 vols. , Edinburg [sic], [1778]), II, p. 244; Thomas Parry, Baledi’r Ddeunawfed Ganrif (2nd edn. , Caerdydd, 1986), p. 68. Iolo’s translations, discussed below, do not correspond to Cowley’s version, and he may not even have been aware that an English version predated this typically Welsh hen bennill.

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a number of detached Cottages, sufficiently near to the Central house wherein nurses, servants, surgeon and apothecary reside, to be within hearing of a bell’: Love’s a sore pain {sore is the pain}, from fair to fair rove, Alas! more painful not to be in {taste of} love; But of all griefs, most painful is that pain – Sorest of ills! – to love and love in vain. Iolo Morganwg Painful is love’s painful heart, Painful not to feel {know} that {the} smart; Of all pains {ills} the pain [?of ] pain Is to love and love in vain. Query Iolo Morganwg?144

The first appears to be a very literal rendition. In terms of scansion, it is even more irregular than Vaughan’s version and could not, without some difficulty, be fitted to the tune ‘Nos Calan’, designated for the poem by Vaughan. Its stringing together of up to three unaccentuated syllables in the second part of the lines contrasts sharply with the tendency to a neater iambic pattern in the opening parts. It also includes a fairly exact rendition of the opening line’s ‘Care ymma ac occo’ (‘To love here and there’), with its ‘from fair to fair rove’, apparently not heeding that the rhyme produced with the end of the second line (rove / love) is not particularly satisfying. Curiously, its literalness draws on Iolo’s Welsh version as well, since it includes the phrase ‘Sorest of ills!’, which vaguely corresponds to the words ‘Cur annifyr’ added by Iolo to Vaughan’s stanza. The second translation is considerably neater, corresponding in terms of the regularity of its scansion to Iolo’s own Welsh version. It also boasts a more polished rhyme between the first and second line (heart / smart). Whereas neither translation can be tagged directly onto one or the other of the two Welsh versions, the first would appear to be a rendition of the clumsier traditional stanza provided by Vaughan, whereas the second corresponds more closely to Iolo’s own Welsh version. 145

144

145

Appendix V (Literature), no. 7. The ink in the second example is more smudged, and the hand less clear, which suggests that it may have been added hurriedly on a subsequent occasion. It is curious, however, that Iolo claimed the more awkward first translation unambiguously, by undersigning it ‘Iolo Morganwg’, while stating only a half-hearted claim to the authorship of the second translation (‘Query Iolo Morganwg’). On the concept of authorship in relation to translation, see chapter 2, note 35, and for the Welsh and English versions of a stanza about the hero Twm Siôn Cati, see Appendix V (Literature), no. 8. The Welsh version is underscribed ‘Traddodiad a’i cant’ (Tradition sang it), the English ‘Iolo Morganwg a’i cant’ (Iolo Morganwg sang it).

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We have seen that Iolo amended Vaughan’s stanza at the latter’s express request. Yet it is tempting, when confronted with these translations, to view the changes as if they were carried out, partially at least, in order to provide a more satisfactory model for translation into English by bringing the language of the original from the depths of ‘East Glamorgan’ orality into a state of literary acceptability (and thus translatability). There is no specifically ‘Welsh’ register within the English language which can convey the living, spoken language of the traditional oral version provided by Vaughan. Iolo thus had to resort to standardizing his original as a means of leading the way into a ‘drawingroom’ translation into English. In the recesses of his marginal space we witness his efforts at experimentation with this conundrum, sacrificing sometimes one element, sometimes another, in an attempt to find a solution which was both true to the original and acceptable as ‘English literature’. Yet, as we have seen, the idea of an original is tenuous, for Iolo had played with the core text, presumably before attempting to render it in English, and perhaps in sympathy with his ideal of friendliness between neighbouring languages. The majority of the poems found in the correspondence marginalia were composed by Iolo either in English or in Welsh, and the ideas of translation or linguistic overlap were not his primary concern. Yet, thematically, if not linguistically, there are ways in which Iolo’s connection with the Welsh county of Glamorgan can be seen as one influential factor in what emerges from recent criticism of the English poems as one of their essential conflicts: that between conventionality (in terms of both diction and morality) and radicalism. 146 Constantine notes a particularly ‘striking example’ of the published Poems’ radical outlook, namely ‘The Horrors of War, A Pastoral’, a poem conducted in the form of a dialogue between the soldier Amyntor, and the shepherd Corydon. 147 ‘Written in Answer to a Soldier’s Request’ following the victory of General John Elliot at Gibraltar early in the year 1780, it might well have been expected to assume a celebratory tone. 148 Instead, it deplores the effect of war upon the weak and argues for the claims of ‘Humanity’ on the lives of soldiers and statesmen. Interestingly, Iolo composed another dialogue poem (in which one of the speakers again takes the name Amyntor) expanding on the theme of ‘Humanity’ which it also takes as a part of its title (‘Humanity, an Eclogue’). This never found its way into print, but a complete copy survives in a manuscript of Iolo’s English poetry, and an incomplete version (comprising the last ten stanzas) in the correspondence marginalia. 149 Since some of the poem’s

146 147 148 149

Truth against the World, p. 72. Ibid. , p. 73. For Elliot’s campaign, see ODNB s. v. John Elliot (1732–1808). For the complete manuscript version, see NLW 21392F, no. 11. The marginalia version is reproduced in Appendix V (Literature), no. 1.

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thematic material chimes with the concerns of other poetry found in Iolo’s marginalia, it is fair to consider here its positioning within the corpus of Iolo’s unpublished and marginalized poetry. ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’ parades two speakers, both of whom are shepherds and ‘congenial’ friends. The absence of a soldier’s voice, singing in direct praise of his art as in ‘The Horrors of War’, distances the claims of anti-war sentiment on this poem. Instead, it appears to attack the cultural and political mores of the time, complaining in its opening two stanzas of ‘levity’, ‘folly’, ‘dullness’, ‘wantonness’, ‘shamless [sic] undecency’, ‘weak lewdness’, and the bawling of ‘brutal obscenity’ (stanza one); of the ‘flight’ of ‘reason’, the presiding of ‘folly’, the ‘triumph’ of that which is ‘vile’, and of ‘audacity’ (stanza two). Many of these evils, and others besides, are subsequently appropriated to the wealthy (they of ‘malevolent mind’, ‘despair’, ‘covetous mind’, ‘sordid . . . luxury’, ‘dissipation’, ‘av’rice’, ‘folly wild’; who ‘[revel] in floods of excess’; have ‘hearts unrelentingly hard’, ‘hearts harder than obdurate steel’; and are ‘slaves of false pleasure’, ‘rocks that can never relent’, ‘apes of ambition’). They are depicted as unable or unwilling to take on the duties of deputy-governorship upon earth, namely the responsibility ‘to spread [God’s] sweet mercies around’ through charitable actions. Yet, the poem is not a raillery against the rich and prosperous in society, in the way that ‘The Horrors of War’ was a finely aimed barb against warfare. It argues against the instinct of the poor to redress social imbalances through ‘vengeance’ and, in spite of its reference to that revolutionary concept, steers away from any attempt to enact the ‘millenarian rhetoric’ of ‘apocalyptic destruction’ prevalent in the London of the early to mid-1790s. 150 Instead, it places the rich and poor within the classical ‘chain’ of providence, suggesting that the lot of the latter (in spite of a lack of material wealth and privilege) is not necessarily any worse than that of the former, who are unable to empathize with others less fortunate than themselves. 151 Having preached of the need for empathy with fellow human beings the poem ironically ends by appropriating to the poor, more so than to the rich, the need to show ‘benevolence’ and ‘humanity’ in rejecting any hue and cry for restitution. Vengeance is the sole preserve of God, and the shepherd must content himself with living in a state of virtuous retreat. The poem concludes with expressions of the ‘mercy [which] descends from above’ and ensures that the life of the materially 150

151

Jon Mee, ‘“Images of Truth New Born”: Iolo, William Blake and the Literary Radicalism of the 1790s’ in Rattleskull Genius, p. 183. ‘The Laws that determine mankind / in order subordinate clas’d / Were plann’d by th’ omnipotent mind / With wisdom ineffable grace’d / And Duty links all in her chain / as providence varies the Lot / one doom’d in a pallace to reign / the other obeys in a Cot. ’ Cf. the presentation of the ideal social order found in Twm o’r Nant’s 1769 interlude Pedair Colofn Gwladwriaeth. See Ffion Mair Jones, ‘Cerddoriaeth yr Anterliwtiau: Golwg ar Le’r Caneuon mewn Pedair Anterliwt Enghreifftiol’, Llên Cymru, 26 (2003), 72–5.

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poor is blessed, even whilst on this earth, by the ‘sweet joys of content’, the ‘comforts of quiet and health’, and ‘peace’ itself, ‘on Glamorgan’s sweet plains’. Whereas ‘The Horrors of War’ centres its attention on the evil perpetrated by the powerful upon the weak, in consequence barely visiting the ‘plains’ of peace, ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’ is much more concerned with the reality of rural retreat, configured as the maintaining of peaceful benevolence. Although the poem appears to set out a clear space between morally-depraved wealth and virtuous poverty, it in fact conducts an argument for the crucial importance of feeling and enacting ‘humanity’, whatever one’s background or starting-point in the chain of providence. Thus, in addition to berating the powerful for their abuse of the weak, it also presents the arguments against the poor’s crossing the line into belligerence in response to this abuse. The sense that blessing comes from above may strike the modern reader as comfortable moral didacticism, yet the cries for enacting ‘humanity’ betray the poet’s belief that the poor need to exercise moral control and self-regulation; seeking ‘vengeance’, in view of the catalogue of inequalities and injustices said to be conferred upon the weak, must surely present a high degree of temptation, which requires a mental effort to resist. The blemish-free loveliness of the idealized Glamorgan landscape appears to symbolize a state of contentment which is the result of exercising this control. Ultimately, the reading of ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’ depends on the positioning of its author in relation to its audience. A significant factor in determining this relationship is the dating of the poem, which poses a difficulty since the completed draft is undated. The marginalia fragment offers some assistance in that it is to be found in a letter dated 1778 in the recently published Correspondence,152 and the incidental parallels (and, perhaps, deliberate contrasts) with ‘The Horrors of War’, which, as argued above, probably has its beginnings, at least, in c. 1780, may suggest an early genesis. The hand on the marginalia fragment, however, is clearly later than that of the letter itself. In fact, it would tend to indicate a date no earlier than the 1790s, though it is important to note that the business of dating Iolo’s handwriting is an imperfect science. Mary-Ann Constantine’s work on Iolo’s poetry has shown how the early material was reworked over and over again before publication in 1794, but without the evidence of other drafts it is difficult to pin this poem down, even in such vague terms as to call it a late 1770s poem redrafted in the 1790s. 153 The possibility that it was, at some stage, at least considered for Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, remains strong: ‘the blissful idealization of Glamorgan’ which Constantine identifies as ‘one of the volume’s core themes’, is patently present, as is the tension between 152 153

CIM, I, pp. 127–30, Iolo Morganwg to Margaret (Peggy) Williams, [?1778]. Mary-Ann Constantine, ‘ “This Wildernessed Business of Publication”: The Making of Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (1794)’ in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 123–45.

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the radical Iolo’s detestation of the oppression of the wealthy over the poor and his ‘meek adherence to the more conventional aspects of eighteenth-century pastoral’ (contained in the poem’s declarations regarding God’s hand in dealing out the lot of humankind). 154 If considered to be aimed at the subscribers of Iolo’s published Poems, some of its critical spirit may well be directed towards the failure of the higher classes to address the problems of social inequality, while the anger of this criticism might be plausibly viewed as the expression of radical sentiment, appealing to the ‘Jacobins’ among Iolo’s projected audience. Yet again, the poem’s interest in self-regulation would appear to speak to what was, at times from the 1780s onwards and increasingly so as the heyday of radical 1790s London receded, Iolo’s own situation, cosseted in the pastoral setting of a ‘Gwladforgan’ retreat. This very sentiment may signal that ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’ was a more personal statement or one conditioned by Iolo’s daily life in Wales and hardly intended (or deemed suitable) for a London audience, in spite of the choice of English as its language. ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’, in part at least, risks appearing conservative or not radical enough an expression to emanate from the pen of the ‘Bard of Liberty’. Another English poem by Iolo appears in two different versions within the correspondence marginalia and, like the ‘Eclogue’, it did not gain its place in the published Poems of 1794. This time, the reason (at least in the case of one of the poem’s preserved drafts) may be an excess of radicalism, expressed in a style and with an attitude not ‘literary’ enough to tempt the staple audience of the projected publication. The date of the drafts may also be a factor, as revealed in the following discussion. The two versions of the poem in question, both entitled ‘The Mountain Shepherd’, are preserved with letters dated respectively 14 September 1780 and, according to the edited Correspondence, ‘?October 1780’. 155 The close proximity of the dates of the two letters means that it is almost academic to posit an order for these two drafts. Either may have predated the other. Instead, what we have are two versions of the same poem composed, very possibly, in quick succession. Curiously, the October letter contains an endorsement reading ‘Song of Thos. Lewis’. Since no other song or reference to a song appears on the piece of paper, it is tempting to relate it to the poem itself, though in what sense it was Thomas Lewis’s song – and who Thomas Lewis was – is difficult to tell. 156 In the poem’s September appearance in the marginalia, the name Thomas Lewis is not to be seen, nor are the seven concluding stanzas (more than half ) of the 154 155

156

Truth against the World, pp. 57, 62. Appendix V (Literature), nos. 2(a) and 2(b). Note that a further two stanzas are to be found in 2(c). For the letters, see CIM, I, letters 54 and 55, pp. 172–3. For the sake of clarity, drafts 2(a) and 2(b) in the Appendix will be referred to in the following discussion as the ‘September’ and ‘October’ versions. A ‘Thomas Lewis, Esq. ’ was a subscriber to Iolo’s published English poems. See PLP, I, p. xxxi.

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October draft, which are substituted by two entirely different stanzas. These differences significantly alter the poem’s direction. Both versions open with the same stanza which, with its reference to ‘Druids of old’ and their reverence for ‘old Garth in Glamorgan’, suggests a late-1790s date: Iolo is known to have held Gorseddau on this hilltop in Llantwit Fardre in both 1797 and 1798. 157 The September version enhances the association with 1790s Druidism by invoking the bardic language of ‘liberty’, though at the same time it denies the October draft’s fake-reluctant anti-Church-and-King viewpoints, replacing them with a conventional picture of the blissful family life of an innocent shepherd, rendered delightful by ‘a good loving wife’ and ‘two little cherubs, a girl and a boy’, who ‘lisping cry “Daddy!” and cling to his knee’. 158 The October version is in fact an almost completely different poem, which cleverly seeks a way of introducing radical opinions in a conventional, conservative vein – indeed, it appears to wish to square the circle between radicalism and the contentment of pastoral retreat. The ‘treasonable’ views expressed in the poem are initially attributed to the figure of the contented Glamorgan shepherd, who holds the wealthy in very little regard, is critical of the state of religion in the country, and even ‘laugh[s] at poor George’, his king. The extent of his disdain for his betters and his undeniably healthy laughing off of their folly are both consistent with his ‘good conscience’ and yet unexpected in the context of a conventional pastoral idyll. Consider the change at the meeting-point between the opening three stanzas, in pastoral mode, and the remainder of the poem: [3. ] This shepherd of shepherds, so cheerful {jocund} and gay, Is cheerful by Jove as a blackbird in May, He sings, pipes and whistles, and seems, I protest, Like one with a conscience quite calm in his breast. [4. ] He laughs at all monkeys who riches adore And says a good conscience can never be poor; Let him laugh at all blo[c]kheads for ’tis a good thing, But sure he’s a fool, for he laughs at the king.

157

158

Bardic Circles, p. 140. Note, however, that the endorsement on the October letter, which names ‘Thos. Lewis’, also includes (in close proximity) the date ‘March 15th. 1786’. See NLW 21285E, no. 786. Cf. , for example, ‘Thou shalt behold again with joy, / Thy prattling girl, thy lisping boy’ (‘Winter Incidents’, PLP, I, p. 128), and ‘My little prattlers gaily tripp’d along, / And cull’d with care for me the sweetest flow’rs; / Clung round my knees, and hail’d, with infant song, / My safe return to bless their sportive hours; / Three smiling daughters and a lisping boy’ (‘The Dream’, PLP, II, p. 176). For a discussion of the genesis of the former poem, which concludes that its final version, ‘dressed for the drawing room, . . . loses much of its energy’, see Constantine, ‘“This Wildernessed Business of Publication”: The Making of Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (1794)’, pp. 139–43.

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The calmness described at the end of the third stanza is quickly shattered by the satiric mockery at the beginning of the following stanza, with its depiction of the wealthy as aping ‘monkeys’. The authorial voice enacts the struggle with the juxtaposed concepts of mockery and calmness, simultaneously joining in the shepherd’s laughter ‘at all blo[c]kheads’ and distancing himself from it (‘But sure he’s a fool, for he laughs at the king’). As the poem develops, the ambiguity of the narrator’s standpoint is enhanced. Following the lead of his shepherd, he himself begins to berate some of the most powerful factions within society, most notably the pope, bishops, parsons and priests, in language just as vituperative as that of his shepherd. Yet, in conclusion, he once more stands back from criticism of the monarchy and the reigning monarch, attributing such critique instead to the shepherd himself. In view of the warmth of his anti-Church sentiment, however, his withdrawal from a radical viewpoint on the question of the monarchy is less than convincing: The bishops are harrying [?the] parsons [————] And reason impartial proclaims it aloud; Then down with the parsons, the bishops and pope, Or if [?they]’re kept up, be scarr’d with a rope. My shepherd must add, but [’t]is not the thing, If down with all blockheads, then down with the king! What need have we Britons for two of a name? – In the royal exchange there’s one more of [the] same. So now I conclude, for my song’s at an end, This shepherd’s an ass, tho’ I’ve made him my friend. You know that old maxim still taught in our schools? – Tho’ kings are quite brainless, they ne’er can be fools.

The lameness of ‘[’t]is not the thing’ and the ‘old maxim still taught in our schools’, both of which testify against the shepherd’s viewpoint, deflates the narrator’s opposition and shows him to be a cowardly champion of convention against his own better judgement and, indeed, the strength of his own feelings. The poem enacts the stifling of radicalism by a social code of conduct so diluted and hackneyed that it scarcely holds tight. Furthermore, by making the ‘shepherd of shepherds’ (echoes of ‘king of kings’) the true believer of these views, and the society which the narrator represents models of doubting Thomases, it suggests the betrayal of truth which Iolo sees lying at the heart of contemporary conventional morality. Here, the question of the order of the drafts comes to its own. Did Iolo write a conservative poem first of all, on the reverse of the September letter, later daringly changing it to a more radical piece? Or would it be fairer to assume that, in keeping with his practice elsewhere,

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the more satisfying version composed by Iolo the labouring poet came first, only to be subsequently suppressed in favour of a conventional poem?159 What seems certain is that Iolo’s oscillation between the two extremes of convention and radicalism here suggests the complexity of his outlook as a poet and an individual. He may have feared that the views expressed in the October version were too dangerous or too unpalatable to distribute, or indeed have had a quarrel with his own portrayal of a jangling, jarring satirical-pastoral, which upsets the calm of the country scene depicted in ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’. It may also be the case that bringing the voice of radicalism into Glamorgan itself infringed upon its peaceful seclusion in a way ‘The Horrors of War’, with its critique of matters beyond the rural setting, manages to avoid. The way in which the two drafts of ‘The Mountain Shepherd’ demonstrate Iolo’s uncertain positioning on the borderline between radicalism and the contentment of rural retreat echoes the tensions seen in ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’. The latter’s preaching of ‘humanity’ and forbearance, of resistance to any attempt at influencing a divinely cast order, may be viewed as a blueprint for the mental process involved in withdrawing from the world and its allure and reaching for an understanding of more fundamental truths. Its central statement in this respect is based upon a Platonic sentiment: Damon, one of the eclogue’s shepherds, claims that ‘We all from one parent descend / and all the like {same} origin claim / All to the same destiny tend / The monarch the {and} beggar the same’. All men are essentially equal in the eyes of the Creator, whose ‘blessings for all were design’d’, states the poem – a dubious view for a radical, who appears thereby to be saying that the poor need but swallow this ‘opium’ to ensure contentment. The latter is a theme present in Iolo’s Welsh writing; in fact, the didacticism which Constantine notes in Iolo’s English poetry is a prominent presence in his writing in Welsh throughout his career. The Platonism of ‘We all from one parent descend’ in ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’ is most clearly echoed in an 1813 Welsh translation of a seventeenth-century English poem known as ‘Plato’s Advice’, itself translated from Greek. To his (translated) original, Iolo adds a stanza of his own which, in the manner of the English poem on ‘Humanity’, advises the individual to adhere to the ways of justice and the ways of heaven: Y brenin mawr, y caeth di barch, Y balch a’r difalch, marw a wnânt; Nid oes blaenoriaeth yn yr arch, Pawb, yn un-gyflwr, bedd a gânt. Gwel ddiwedd cedyrn hynn o fyd, A füant gynt a’u rhwysg yn fawr; 159

For a progression of this kind in Iolo’s work, see the reading of his poem ‘Winter Incidents’ by Constantine in Rattleskull Genius, pp. 142–3.

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Niwl oedd eu mawredd – maent i g}d Gan anghof yn y llwch yn awr. . . . Cais ffyrdd cyfiawnder, ffyrdd y nef, A ffyrdd blodeuog ydynt oll; Gl}n wrth y gwîr ai gynghor ef, Ag yma nid ai fyth ar goll. I gariad hawddgar, isel fr}d, Rho enaid gwâr a chalon glau; Cai’r bedd yn borth i’r nefol f}d, A mawredd hwn byth i barhâu. (The great king, the unrespected slave, The proud and humble alike die; There is no preference in the coffin, Everyone, in one condition, shall go to the grave. See the end of the mighty ones of this world, Whose dominion was formerly great; Their greatness was a mist – now, through oblivion, They all lie in the dust. . . . Seek the paths of justice, the roads of heaven, And they are all thriving paths; Stand by the truth and its advice, And then you shall never lose your way. To fair love, humble its disposition, Give a gentle soul and a true heart; You shall find the grave a gateway to the heavenly world, And its greatness will last for ever. )160

The willing resignation of the older Iolo to this way of life replaces what is perhaps a more ambiguous acceptance of the inequalities inherent in God’s hierarchy in ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’. The comparison serves, however, to show the strength of what is essentially a conservative religious and moral outlook in Iolo’s work. This is a notable presence throughout his career as a poet, beginning in the 1770s when, having received a series of didactic englynion composed by a fellow Glamorgan poet, Siencyn Morgan, upon the death of one of his mentors, Lewis Hopkin, Iolo responded by composing an elegiac cywydd for Hopkin which,

160

CIM, III, pp. 207, 209–10 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to David Jenkin, 15 November 1813.

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in a manner reminiscent of his translation of ‘Plato’s Advice’, portrays death as the great leveller who takes to his bosom the foolish and the wise alike. 161 Englynion scattered throughout the marginalia to the correspondence, the dates of their composition unspecified but almost certainly not uniform, display Iolo’s own use of this epigrammatic and short stanzaic form for didactic expression. On the reverse of an incomplete draft letter dated 1776, Iolo wrote two englynion which, like ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’, relate morality to the poet’s work; the first englyn considers the implications of teaching ‘anrhaith’ (destruction or devastation), while the second argues for the poet’s need to allow peace to infuse his work: Dysgu anrhaith gwaith [?gwarth]awl – [——] Brenhin[o]edd uffernawl, A dardd o re[ol] anneddfawl, Dyna ddysg i’n dwyn i ddiaw[l] yn ddidwyll d’irbwyll rhaid derbyn heddwch ar addysg i’th englyn Dyna ddysg da iawn i ddyn Ei goledd fyth ai galyn. Iolo162 (To counsel destruction [is the shameful] work [Of ] infernal kings Which emanates from a lawless rule. Such learning will take us to the devil. Sincerely and with lively sense you must learn To accept [a sense of ] peace in your englyn; That is a learning the cultivation of which, for ever, Is very beneficial to man. Iolo)

Iolo appears to have been particularly fond of writing in the englyn form advice to others on how to compose successful englynion: witness the lengthy series which comes to the fore in the correspondence upon the request of his son Taliesin in 1825. This had been composed as:

161

162

Edward Williams, Dagrau yr Awen neu Farwnad Lewis Hopcin Fardd, o Landyfodwg ym Morganwg (Pont-y-Fon, 1772); NLW 13087E, pp. 333–4. For a discussion of the poem, see Jones, ‘“Gydwladwr godi[d]og . . . ”: Gohebiaeth Gymraeg Gynnar Iolo Morganwg’, 144–5. NLW 21285E, no. 784.

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Englynion cynghor i wneuthur englyn yn flasus a diddan ag yn hardd a gloyw – y synniadau, y meddyliau a’r mydryddiaeth neu’r ganiadaeth – ag yn ddefnyddfawr ei addysg ar foesgarwch a rhinweddoldeb buchedd. Ar ddymuniad mebyn ieuanc o Wynedd, yn Arfon yn y flwyddyn 1799. (Englynion of advice on how to make an englyn sweet and amusing and beautiful and lucid – the ideas, the meaning and the prosody or the versification – and weighty in its instruction on morality and virtuousness of conduct. Upon the request of a young man from Gwynedd, in Arfon in the year 1799. )163

The presence of two stanzas of the material as marginalia to correspondence from 1824, together with the rather confused instructions regarding them in Iolo’s letter to his son, suggests that he tampered with this material very late in his life, probably in the knowledge that it was to be published by Taliesin with the introductory material to a volume of poetry composed for the Merthyr Tydfil eisteddfodau. 164 The late interest thus shown in this material argues for the all-prevailing importance of the theme of regulation within poetry to Iolo – the regulation of language, of cynghanedd (in the case of strict-metre Welsh poetry), and the projection of ‘pwyll’ (sense) and ‘iawn’ (truth) as opposed to folly. 165 From around 1810 the exhortation to follow ‘pwyll’ and to display ‘[m]oesgarwch a rhinweddoldeb buchedd’ (morality and virtuousness of conduct) increasingly found a voice in Iolo’s hymns and psalms, with which the correspondence marginalia are particularly well-endowed. An example in the free metre of a hen bennill, with its warning that God sees all – ‘Mae Duw ’mhob man a’i lygad arnad’ (God is everywhere with his eye upon you) – accompanies the didactic englynion quoted above from the 1776 marginalia. 166 Its message and metre alike are reminiscent of the work of the much-loved seventeenthcentury vicar of Llanymddyfri, Rees Prichard, whose Canwyll y Cymru, upon its posthumous publication, was an instant classic among contemporary Welsh

163 164

165

166

CIM, III, pp. 737–40, 740–3 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 28 November 1825. For the marginalia, see NLW 21283E, no. 539. The published version of the englynion appeared in Awenyddion Morganwg, neu, Farddoniaeth Cadair Merthyr Tudful (Merthyr Tudful, [1826], pp. xii–xv, and, not surprisingly, contains some variations on the version found in the correspondence. The word ‘pwyll’ (‘sense’) appears, either on its own or in a compound form, as many as seven times in the englynion; ‘iawn’, meaning ‘true’ or ‘truth’ (adjective or noun, one in a compound) appears nine times. See CIM, III, pp. 737–40, 740–3 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 28 November 1825. Appendix V (Literature), no. 22.

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speakers and remained so for several generations. 167 The material presentation of the hymns in the marginalia provides evidence of an easy effusion in the process of composition. 168 Twenty of the twenty-six hymn examples are to be found in groupings of between two and eight hymns on individual letters. This suggests a process of accumulation, by which one hymn appears to have spurred on the composition of another – an impression confirmed by groups in which a single topic is elaborated upon in more than one hymn. For instance, on the reverse of a letter sent by William Latty, dated 26 October 1796, Iolo produces two hymns on ‘love’, using I Corinthians 13 as his starting-point. 169 Moreover, these two hymns both use the same metre (78. 78, with an internal rhyme in each couplet, and a main rhyme sustained by the endings of the second and fourth lines). Eight hymns are included as marginalia to a letter of 1 October 1824, a group of three using the metre 66. 66. 88 (with an internal rhyme in the 66 couplets). 170 The remainder use a variety of metres, including four eleven-syllable lines, rhyming aabb: ‘Duw’r nef yw’n Pendefig yn unig Ion yw’ (The God of Heaven is our ruler, he is the only Lord). 171 The presence in the marginalia of musical notation clearly intended for his own hymns suggests that, for Iolo, hymn-composition was a process closely linked with its practical outcome – that of singing the words aloud. This was a process in which he instinctively engaged on his own, as his testimony in an 1812 letter to David Davis of Neath demonstrates, and it may in that sense be connected first and foremost with his own personal and private world. 172 167

168

169 170 171

172

Rees Prichard, Canwyll y Cymru: sef, Gwaith Mr. Rees Prichard, gynt Ficcer Llanddyfri (London, 1681). See also ODNB s. v. Rhys Prichard; Nesta Lloyd (ed. ), Cerddi’r Ficer: Detholiad o Gerddi Rhys Prichard (Cyhoeddiadau Barddas, 1994), pp. xxi–xxii. Dr Cathryn A. Charnell-White has calculated that Iolo composed on average 0. 3 hymns per day from 1802 until the end of his life. NLW 21281E, no. 265. NLW 21284E, no. 765. Up to eighteen of the total twenty-six psalms found in the marginalia were also copied into the more finalized manuscript collections of Iolo’s hymns. This suggests strongly that the spare paper within Iolo’s correspondence collection was a space for drafting and for the initial outpouring of material. Some evidence of rearrangement and of working on specific drafts is to be found in the marginalia hymns: see NLW 21281E, no. 265 on love (‘Cariad’), which has both corrective insertions and newly-inserted stanza numbers, regulating the order in which the whole was to be sung. The exceptions among the marginalia hymns, not to be found elsewhere, include the hymn which is to be found in NLW 21285E, no. 784, discussed above (which, possibly, being in the metre of the pennill telyn, was not viewed as a hymn at all by Iolo), and a series of hymns in NLW 21284E, no. 765, a letter dated October [?1824] in CIM, III, pp. 712–13, but used, from the evidence of the hand, very late indeed in Iolo’s life, possibly too late for him to be able to honour his custom of copying his drafts into a standard manuscript collection. I am grateful to Dr Cathryn A. Charnell-White for allowing me to see her comprehensive catalogue of Iolo’s hymns. CIM, III, p. 90, Iolo Morganwg to David Davis, 6 January 1812. Iolo enthuses about his faith and the hope of reaching his final, heavenly repose, stating: ‘Hence is it that, with such a prospect before me, I am able to sing on my way as I travel along. ’

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Regrettably, the musical examples which he composed to accompany his hymns are separated from the words and, owing to the imperfections of the notation in terms of rhythm, are not easily repositioned in parallel with them. 173 We know from the evidence of Iolo’s correspondence that composing music for his hymns was important to him and, indeed, that he put this music to use, not only in private but also in the context of congregational worship. His letter to the Unitarian minister Lant Carpenter in 1818 demonstrates his interest in the matter of music in religious worship and provides a description of his efforts to introduce his own hymn music to Unitarian worship in south Wales, beginning by having them sung at his daughters’ house at Cefncribwr, which he had registered as a place of worship in 1817. 174 Perhaps the security of the church which was also a family home made the progress of his hymn-tunes into the public sphere more palatable to Iolo. Even so, he was not remiss in according the process of musical composition critical and intellectual attention: a prose item preserved in the marginalia argues that the versification of Welsh hymnologists (from Edmwnd Prys onwards) had imitated the English to the detriment of native Welsh metres, including the englyn and the cywydd, yet admits the difficulty of setting the latter to music. 175 Iolo concludes that the non-cynghanedd metres are, after all, superior, since they avoid using ‘expletive words and modes of expression, circumlocution[?s] and diffusely periphrastical language – things inconsistent with the awful majesty of religious worship’. He appears here to be effecting a reversal of his own argument; yet much of his emphasis on native Welsh qualities is carried into the published Salmau – the sense of using the Silurian dialect of the Welsh language, the purity of idiom (as opposed to the ‘depraved’ language of William Williams, Pantycelyn – the subject of a vituperative attack in the same item of marginalia), the emphasis in Iolo’s hymns on abiding by rules regarding the use of the cyrchodl or internal rhyme (note that there are in the twenty-six marginalia hymns as many as ten examples of metres which use cyrchodl), and the use of an occasional englyn, ‘recited . . . at the end of a psalm or hymn’. In spite of the apparent peacefulness of the scene of the composition of the hymns, the Unitarianism which they championed and for which they were

173

174

175

On Iolo’s limitations as a musical notator, see Daniel Huws, ‘Iolo Morganwg and Traditional Music’ in Rattleskull Genius, p. 333. CIM, III, p. 474, Iolo Morganwg to Lant Carpenter, 6 July 1818: ‘My tunes are sung and approved of in some congregations, and are, in their divergings from the little church which I am endeavouring to found in my own house, going on further and further. ’ Appendix V (Literature), no. 26. Iolo’s dilemma in this respect echoes that of Edmwnd Prys. Prys made a conscious decision to compose his hymns in free metre for the benefit of ‘children, ministers, and unlearned people’ (‘plant, gweinidogion, a phobl annyscedic’). See Gruffydd Aled Williams, ‘Mydryddu’r Salmau yn Gymraeg’, Llên Cymru, XVI, no. 1 and 2 (1989), 125, in which he quotes the introduction to Prys’s ‘Salmau Cân’ of 1621.

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brought to life was far from being uncontroversial. The prose introduction to the 1812 Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch places the hymns in a territory of hostility and dispute, their author taking the characteristic role of an injured party fighting his corner against his many enemies. Included in the correspondence marginalia is an early draft of this introduction,176 which is valuable for comparison purposes. Not least among the variations between the two versions is the prevalence in the draft of imagery of bestiality used to describe the deplorable state of the world in which Iolo found himself, thus heightening the sense of disparity between the calm of Iolo’s personal spiritual existence and his anxieties regarding (and his sense of repulsion towards) the world at large. Another striking difference between the two versions, which tends towards revealing the same anxiety, is the addition in the draft of a paragraph on the likely response of the public to Iolo’s hymns, and on his own sense of a clear conscience in their preparation and of confidence in the virtue of their contents. In the latter paragraph Iolo’s expectation of God’s forgiveness for any wrong contained in the psalms is contrasted with the prejudiced man’s preponderance for unfavourable judgement upon them and their author. Here we see the curious contrast between the humility of Iolo’s faith as an individual and the self-defensiveness of his attitude to others. Characteristically, he is vividly aware of wrongs committed against him, and of his ‘enemies’, but at the same time he shows a capacity for suffering for the cause of his own moral and spiritual good. His sense of his own failings is illustrated in a theological debate conducted with David Davis, Neath, in two letters dating from January–February 1812. Iolo provides an ‘alternative’ vision of hell (‘we will instead of hell use the term depuration’), and describes entry into it, whether ‘in this present world or in the future’, as the way by which men’s sins are subjected to a divine process of purification. He asserts his own readiness to enter into hell, stating his belief in a God who, in contrast to the Trinitarian divinity, shows the ‘benevolence’ (a key word in Iolo’s English pastorals, as we have seen) to correct and ‘reform’ man rather than let him suffer eternal damnation: what reason can there be for . . . leaving a poor miserable being of very limited power and knowlege for ever in a state of unhappiness, of dreadful torment as our eternal-damnationists, as infallible as the Pope himself in their dogmas, unfeelingly assert? No! He who possesses the infinity of power which enables him to do otherwise, the infinity of knowledge and wisdom which dictates and perfectly knows the means of doing so, has, beyond the least doubt, that infinity of benevolence and goodness which will induce him to reform, improve and restore all things. 177

176 177

Appendix V (Literature), no. 25. CIM, III, pp. 93–4, Iolo Morganwg to David Davis, 11 January 1812.

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Davis, on the other hand, states that he believed hell to be ‘a state of positive misery’, from which a man like Iolo, albeit with ‘{some, perhaps} many, imperfections’, would be spared, entering heaven immediately instead on account of a ‘docility’ of soul, susceptible to being ‘influenced by kind treatment &c. ’178 If Iolo, in writing his hymns, was increasingly aware of his own moral position and spiritual destiny, they may be seen as a territory in which he deliberately withstood controversy. Yet, even in stylistic terms, the calm surface of the hymns is in one sense a response to, and an engagement with, the sometimes turbulent currents of contemporary worship. Iolo set out to confront what he considered to be the wild effusions of hymn-writers such as William Williams, Pantycelyn, reclaiming the use of free-metre poetry from the fervour of Methodist hymn-writing, and exploring in his own right a range of free metres, some of which were not put to use by the latter. 179 Iolo’s meaningful use of metre may be seen in the following stanza, where the dactylic rhythm of the lines chimes perfectly with the imagery of ‘walking along’ (‘cydgerdded’) with God: Cânt bawb a ddilynant eu Ner Gan hoffi cydgerdded ag ef, Myrddiynau’n fwy disglair na’r ser Dywynu’n uchelder y nef. Y Duw a roes iddynt eu bod A’u dod yn eithafoedd ei wawl, O caned pob enaid ei glod, Boed iddo’n dragywydd ein mawl. 180 (All those who follow their Lord Enjoying walking along with Him, Myriads, more brilliant than the stars, Shall shine in the height of heaven. The God who gave them their being And placed them in the excesses of his radiance, Oh, let every soul sing His praise, May he have our devotion everlastingly. )

Prose material found in the correspondence marginalia condemns Pantycelyn’s use of various literary tropes (his mixing of brew and delicacy –‘[b]rwd a bras’), in a manner reminiscent of Iolo’s merciless attacks on an ‘enemy’ of his

178 179

180

Ibid. , p. 100, David Davis to Iolo Morganwg, 5 February 1812. On the metres used by Pantycelyn, see Gomer M. Roberts, Y Pêr Ganiedydd [Pantycelyn]: Cyfrol II (Aberystwyth, 1958), pp. 103–24. NLW 21281E, no. 191.

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son, the poet David Saunders, in the correspondence of 1824. 181 Such condemnation may be seen to drag Iolo into the inevitable field of conflict with other souls – dead or alive – but it is not a conflict without real foundation in Iolo’s religious outlook. To insist upon the purification (and simplification) of hymnology is perfectly consistent with the Unitarian theological insistence on rationality as opposed to the Methodist bent for spiritual passion. The examples cited by Iolo of Pantycelyn’s work are clearly assembled in order to demonstrate what Iolo might have described as the arrogance or presumption of mixing metaphors in wholly unexpected ways: Angylion nef yn rhyfedd syn Sy’n edrych yn ei glwyfe’, Yn sugno’u dysg bob awr uwch nen Oddiwrth y pren diodde’. Aleluia, 192. 182 (The angels of heaven, strangely dazed, Peer into his wounds, Extracting their learning, every hour above the sky, From the cross of suffering. Aleluia, 192. )

Whereas contemporaries and modern critics of Pantycelyn value his work precisely for the richness of the metaphors in a stanza such as this, Iolo was clearly repulsed by them. In his own hymns he uses language in a way which never disturbs the comfort derived by the individual from the knowledge that, ‘Ai dydd ai nos, pob man y bwyf, / Lle byddot ti gwaredig wyf ’ (Whether night or day, wherever I should be, / I shall be saved as long as you are there). 183 It may be significant to note that, in spite of the sense of controversy of which Iolo could not fail to be aware (or even to have deliberately generated), he was anxious not to see the published Salmau penetrate into what was for him the hostile territory of north Wales or of other denominations. Writing to his publisher William Williams of Merthyr Tydfil in February 1812, he mentioned that ‘A north Walian friend to whom I sent a copy encourages me to send 50 copies to Dolgelly’. Upon reflection, however, he added: ‘I believe I had better not go beyond the boundaries of our South Wales Unitarian connexion.

181

182

183

Appendix V (Literature), no. 26. For Iolo’s attack on David Saunders, see CIM, III, pp. 640–3, 643–8 (trans. ), 15 March 1823; ibid. , pp. 648–50, 650–2 (trans. ), [?20 March 1823]; and ibid. , pp. 652–4, 654–5 (trans. ), 24 March 1823. Appendix V (Literature), no. 26. The quotation, as indicated, is taken from William Williams, Aleluia, neu Gascliad o Hymnau (3rd edn. , [Bristol], 1758), p. 192. Appendix V (Literature), no. 24.

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Within them I shall have the interest and friendship of ministers and of such members of congregations as may be able to befriend me. ’184 In the last analysis, perhaps this collection of hymns (and even more so the hymns which emanated from Iolo’s pen towards the end of his life) was a work which grounded him among friends and within the sanctuary of his faith, beyond the reach of conflict. The hymns offer a unique view of the importance to Iolo of a personal faith with its resulting peace and sense of personal fulfilment, and it is with these qualities in mind that we may approach a very late piece of Welsh cywydd in his correspondence marginalia. The following is to be found as marginalia to a letter dated 1826, and clearly belongs to the final year of Iolo’s life: A myg y bernir y man, [?Cy]wirfawl blwyf Llancarfan, Lle bu’n dawel eu helynt Dysgedigion gwychion gynt. Hen Gatwg doeth yn dynoethi Galluoedd maith ein iaith ni; Addysg hardd i fardd hen, Llenfoethau bro Llanfeithin; Taliesin yn rhoi tlysau Awen fad i’n gwlad yn glau. Yno’n ein mysg dysg a dawn A gafwyd, ag yn gyflawn. Yn Llancarfan bu’r [?gâ]n gynt Yn [?ei] chw}l, iawn ei helynt; Er mael yn leufer miloedd I’w th}’n byw – doethineb oedd. Caradog yn enwog {r, I’n oesoedd bu’n handïwr, A dewr fyth hyd awr ei fedd, G[?e]r wyneb â’r gwirionedd. Ar droed hyd lawr direidi, O mor noeth bu’n gw}r mawr ni. 185 (And the place is deemed blessed – The parish of Llancarfan, of true praise.

184

185

CIM, III, p. 104, Iolo Morganwg to William Williams, 19 February 1812. Note that the introduction to the Salmau specifically introduces them as suitable for all denominations, thus contradicting the plan mentioned here to limit their distribution to ‘our South Wales Unitarian connexion’. Edward Williams, Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch. Cyfrol I (Merthyr Tydfil, 1812), p. [iii]. On the home-ground controversy in which Iolo found himself embroiled through the alleged plagiarism of several of his hymns by his friend and fellow Unitarian Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi), see chapter 3. Appendix V (Literature), no. 17.

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Where splendid learned men of old Quietly spent their lives, Old Catwg the Wise uncovering The extensive powers of our language; A beautiful education for an ancient bard, The literary delicacies of the land of Llanfeithin; Taliesin swiftly giving the trophies Of the virtuous Muse to our country. There among us learning and genius Were found, and in their entirety. The beautiful Muse was formerly at Llancarfan Upon [?her] course, her journey fitting; The source of light for the benefit of thousands Who lived in her dwelling – she was wisdom itself. The famed Caradog Throughout the ages was a nimble man, And ever brave, up to the hour of his burial, In the presence of the truth. Walking upon the wicked earth, Oh, how unadorned were our great men. )

This appears to be an incomplete cywydd in praise of the parish of Llancarfan in the Vale of Glamorgan, the parish where Iolo was born, in the hamlet of Pennon, in 1747. The historical Caradog of Llancarfan, in tandem with two other fictional or semi-fictional Ioloic characters Catwg Ddoeth and Taliesin Tir Iarll, are praised for their wisdom, learning and virtue in a world of ‘direidi’ (evil). These men gave a clear and true light for others to follow, ‘[l]leufer’ ‘er mael . . . miloedd’ (light for the benefit of thousands), and thus stood apart from Iolo’s contemporaries, whom he often described as ‘hudlewyrn’ or ‘jacko’-lanterns’, leading others astray. 186 Several of the themes already found in Iolo’s poetry, both English and Welsh, are visible in this fragment, among them the sense of the wickedness of the world juxtaposed with the need for morality and the upholding of truth. However, the transformation between this portrayal of Iolo’s Glamorgan and that found in ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’ is enormous. The vapid Glamorgan pastoral landscape of the latter poem, and many of those published in Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, idealized beyond recognition and almost smugly secure from the dangers of the world, is replaced here by a quiet dignity, the recluses of the Vale being eulogized for their invaluable efforts to bring to the fore precious treasures and delicacies of language and literature. The accompanying 186

See, for example, his description of William Owen Pughe in CIM, III, pp. 634–6, 636–8 (trans. ), Iolo Morganwg to David Davis (Dafis Castellhywel), 3 January 1823, or of unnamed contemporaries in the preface to Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch. Cyfrol I, p. viii.

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deflation of the heap of words describing immorality in ‘Humanity’ and other Ioloic works (including his prose preface to Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch) to the single mention of the word ‘direidi’ strengthens immeasurably the sense of these men’s moral struggle in the world. To describe Caradog as ‘ever brave, up to the hour of his burial’ is to impart a sense of what living in Glamorgan might have meant at any given time: the gushing loveliness of the Vale as a pastoral retreat is supplanted by an evocation of an active and courageous existence (in the same territory) in the cause of virtue. A life spent in Iolo’s home county, it appears, is not a passport to passivity towards moral issues. The weight of this piece is further confirmed by the fact that its opening couplet, set slightly apart from the rest on the paper, but written in the same shaky hand and with ink of the same quality, is in fact extracted from a much earlier poem of Iolo’s, ‘Cywydd Hanes y Bardd mal yn Llafaru o’i Fedd’ (A cywydd on the history of the bard, declaimed by him as if from his grave). 187 This may be classed alongside the poetry which Iolo composed from around 1781, following his marriage to his ‘Euron’, Margaret (Peggy) Roberts, a body of works in which the overwhelming joy of love expressed in yet earlier, premarital, cywyddau is exchanged for complaints about the hardness of his lot. 188 The piece opens thus: Gwêl yma’r màn, culfan certh, Y Gweryd lle trig Iorwerth. I g{yn a gloes e’m {a’i} ganed Ar gain glawr Morganwg {gwladforgan} gled, A Myg y bernir y màn – Cywirfawl Blwyf Llancarfan. Bûm Fardd Cân Gwladforgan fau, Yn eidiog fy nghaniadau, Yn arail awen eirian – Fy myd i gyd oedd y gân. Ganed Awen i’m genau, Bu’n Dduwies y Fynwes fau; Bu honn i’m nawdd hawdd o hyd, Oes gyfan rhag pwys gwaefyd.

187

188

NLW 13134A. This is a collection of Iolo’s strict-metre poetry, and includes a lengthy series of englynion, together with copies of the cywyddau described by G. J. Williams as Iolo’s ‘cywyddau cynnar’ (early cywyddau). See G. J. Williams, ‘Cywyddau Cynnar Iolo Morganwg’, Y Beirniad VIII (1919), 75–91. A selection of the early cywyddau is published in Tegwyn Jones (ed. ), Y Gwir Degwch: Detholiad o Gywyddau Serch Iolo Morganwg (Bow Street, 1980). Williams, ‘Cywyddau Cynnar Iolo Morganwg’, 87–8; Jones, ‘“Gydwladwr Godi[d]og . . . ”: Gohebiaeth Gymraeg Gynnar Iolo Morganwg’, 168.

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(See here the terrible, confined space, The earth where Iorwerth dwells. I was born to grief and anguish On the fair earth of sheltered Glamorgan, And the place is deemed blessed – The parish of Llancarfan, of true praise. I was the lyric poet of my Glamorgan, Spirited in my songs, Cultivating a bright muse – The song was my whole world. A muse was born to my lips, She was a goddess to my breast; For an entire lifetime, she was always ready To protect me against the pressure of a sorrowful world. )

In spite of the poet’s love for the muse and for Glamorgan, the heaviness of circumstances (‘pwys gwaefyd’) press heavily upon him in this extract. He praises the same virtues as in the 1826 cywydd – ‘[L]lên gwiwlwys’ (beautiful and pure learning), ‘llwybrau’r gwir’ (the paths of truth) – but his relationship with them is injured by ‘affliction’, ‘Jealousy, with its fierce cry’ and ‘hostility’ (‘[B]âr’, ‘Cenfigen, aflawen floedd’ and ‘gelyniaeth’). His sufferings under these pressures led to the ‘calamity of a period of captivity’ (‘[t]rallod cyfnod caeth’) – probably a reference to Iolo’s incarceration in Cardiff gaol during 1786–7, and a factor which helps to date this piece to the late 1780s. The material surrounding the couplet which lies in common between the two cywydd pieces in question appears, on a first reading, totally different; yet the changes are perhaps not as fundamental as one might imagine. The character of the younger poet, ‘Iorwerth’ (the bardic name Iolo used in his early Glamorgan days), is replaced in the later fragment by the heroes of Iolo Morganwg, both fictional and historical. The significance of the parish of Llancarfan mutates from being the location of the poet’s birth in 1747 to being the nursery of a host of famous men. The change between a bitter personal plaint, with its focus clearly on Iorwerth, to a seemingly objective depiction of the heroes of Llancarfan parish would appear to correspond to Iolo’s change of view regarding his long-awaited autobiography, ‘The History of my Life’. Elements of this work are to be found in the preface to Poems, Lyric and Pastoral in 1794, in which Iolo’s ego, as the ‘self-taught journeyman mason’ or ‘Welsh Bard’, is the focus, but it is clear that Iolo’s conception of his own personal history evolved with time. The note found within the covers of his copy of William Owen Pughe’s epic poem Hu Gadarn, published in 1822, has already been quoted in chapter 3 (see p. 128). It refers to his intention to publish, in November 1824, his ‘Memoirs’, which, he promises, ‘will contain an account of the present state of Literature in the Welsh Language, some

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account of the Eisteddfodau, &c. , lately established in Wales’. 189 This description of their contents confirms that his plans were to produce memoirs focused on his interests rather than on himself as a person, a plan which dated back to 1810 at least when, in a letter to Evan Williams of the Strand, he declared: I have written a great part of the ‘History of my Life’. I endeavour to make it the vehicle of such remarks as I may be able to make on Welsh literature, ancient and modern, on the Welsh language and its several dialects, on Welsh history, manners, habits of living, various popular antiquities, &c. , &c. I endeavour, as much as possible, to avoid frivolous egotism, a thing rather difficult for one to accomplish handsomely who writes his own history. 190

In spite of a dabbling and distorting of material which outraged twentiethcentury critics such as John Morris-Jones, Iolo’s withdrawal from ‘frivolous egotism’, signalled in the last months of his life in the cywydd discussed above, demonstrates both his command of and affection for a wide range of Welsh traditions, scholarly and popular, and, consonant with his hymnology, his efforts at stifling animosity in favour of a search for inward peace in old age. As in so many other instances – literary and linguistic – the part played by forgery in this process did nothing to ruffle the impression of deep-seated calm.

Conclusion This chapter’s exploration of Iolo’s correspondence marginalia has taken us over the threshold into the private world in which he lived and laboured. Some of the material brought to light merely offers a glimpse of Iolo’s mundane everyday existence, while other items accumulate to form substantial bodies of material in the fields of language and literature, previously buried from view within the Ioloic collection of correspondence. Iolo’s linguistic marginalia reveal a highly creative mind working with words in diverse ways and with exciting results. His bent for mixing methods, and wearing a string of different hats – that of the etymologist, the dialect collector and the grammarian – often leads to new ways of looking at words. Whatever our response to the question of the ‘authenticity’ of his linguistic work, there is no doubt that a complex and wellthought-out logic underlies his comments on the Welsh language and his creation of new Welsh terminology. Because of such precision, Iolo would

189 190

NLW, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of Pughe, Hu Gadarn. CIM, III, p. 2, Iolo Morganwg to Evan Williams, 16 January 1810.

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certainly have been a worthy figure to lead the language through the difficulties of the changing world of the 1820s and beyond. 191 There is little doubt that his influence, although faithfully recorded in GPC in many instances, did not register highly enough, quite possibly because of his manner of working in meticulous detail and on loose scraps of paper – a habit which is clearly highlighted by an exploration of the correspondence marginalia. In the literary sphere, the marginalia likewise offer a view of a generous span of Iolo’s creative activity – from Dafydd ap Gwilym forgeries, didactic englynion, freemetre poetry and hymns in the Welsh language, to English poetry which did not feature in the 1794 Poems, and to translations into English of Welsh material. To explore this range is to see the interconnectedness of Iolo’s expression in poetry across a variety of metres and styles and across the boundaries of two languages. This material, on the outskirts of his recognized productions (the published Poems and the Welsh cywyddau, both Dafydd ap Gwilym and Rhys ap Rhicert forgeries and the love poems to ‘Euron’ publicized by G. J. Williams), gives an impression of Iolo’s struggle with the concept of radical action and with his own cantankerous personality, and reveals the extent to which he sought spiritual calm from the frays of his often turbulent life. In this sense, the poetry conveys a unique impression of Iolo as a man who, despite his own rough edges and apparent disregard for offending others, did in fact seek the approval of his Maker, and increasingly so in his final years. To draw these conclusions regarding the linguistic and literary items of the correspondence marginalia is to subvert or unsettle the archivist’s perception of the letters as a straightforward and simple block of material. In fact, it is potentially a constantly shifting body of work, its import depending entirely on the path which a reader chooses to follow through it. Only one factor appears unchangeable, and that is its materiality. It exists in its state of incoherent chaos largely because of Iolo’s personal circumstances and often crying need for paper. Yet, this disorder not only offers an opportunity for exploring Iolo’s work from new angles but confers the added benefit of corroborative evidence for dating and shedding light in other ways on material more firmly located within the canon of Iolo’s work.

191

Note also in this context the discussion of Iolo’s annotations to printed books of the 1820s in chapter 3.

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Presentation of the appendices The following documents present material linked to the concerns of the foregoing chapters. Appendices I–III relate to Iolo’s activity as an annotator of printed books (see chapter 3), while Appendices IV–VI contain marginalia which are to be found on items of his correspondence (see chapter 4). Appendix I includes Iolo’s marginalia to Thomas Llewelyn’s Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue. It contains quotations from the printed text, together with Iolo’s annotations (the latter set apart here in Helvetica bold). Brief annotations in the margins have been enclosed in curly brackets and placed within the printed text in a way that reflects Iolo’s own intentions regarding their location. Where annotations appear at the bottom of the pages of Iolo’s copy of the book, often keyed into the text with the sign of a dotted cross (
), this has been indicated. Annotations of this kind have also been presented within curly brackets. Page numbers (where present in the original) have been included in italics at the head of each annotated section and, where deemed helpful, a brief commentary explaining the development of the argument within the text has been provided, also in italic script. The printed text has been reproduced faithfully in this appendix; any editorial intervention is indicated by the use of square brackets. Iolo’s annotations have been lightly edited in a manner similar to that outlined below for the editing of the correspondence marginalia. The most important features of the editing are the lengthening of abbreviations, the standardizing of capitalization and punctuation and the silent correction of obvious slips. Appendices II and III provide lists of Iolo’s annotated books kept in the National Library of Wales and in Cardiff Central Library, and of books owned or annotated by Taliesin ab Iolo, also housed in the National Library of Wales. The material relating to the correspondence is presented in three separate appendices, nos. IV–VI (entitled ‘Language’, ‘Literature’, and ‘Miscellaneous’), and further within each appendix under specific subject headings (e. g. ‘English poetry’, ‘Translations into English’, etc. ). Closely related items have

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been grouped together within these categories. The chronology of the letters in which the marginal items are to be found was also taken into consideration in organizing the material. A cross-reference to the corresponding letter in the edited correspondence of Iolo Morganwg (CIM) has been provided (where applicable), together with the date, or estimated date, of the letter in question. Titles have been granted to individual items in appendices V and VI if known from another source or provided by Iolo in the marginalia. In the absence of a title, an editorial title has been supplied in square brackets. The manuscript source has been noted at the head of each item, and short explanatory notes have been included where necessary. In the case of Welsh-language material, these notes may offer a brief synopsis of the contents of the item. The right to decide whether or not to include sections crossed out by Iolo has been reserved. Clarity has been the guiding principle in deciding on this matter. Some material has occasionally been relocated, again for the sake of clarity. In Appendix IV, for instance, some items have been rearranged to provide a clear format for the reader: in some cases, instead of retaining Iolo’s profuse use of curly brackets to join words together, words have been grouped together on a single line. In item 1(a) in Appendix V an additional stanza, numbered 18 by Iolo, though it is to be found at the end of the piece in the manuscript, has been moved to the appropriate point in the edited text, the numbering of the stanzas henceforth placed in square brackets.

Orthography and spelling The edited texts attempt to retain the flavour of Iolo’s language, in both his English and Welsh writings. In Welsh, in particular, this involves reproducing dialectical and oral forms, as well as preserving some of Iolo’s idiosyncrasies as a writer (e. g. his use of the forms ‘cymeryd’ for ‘cymryd’, ‘ag’ for ‘ac’, and his sub-standard soft mutations, e. g. ‘yn rydd’ for ‘yn rhydd’, ‘y lywodraeth’ for ‘y llywodraeth’). His original word divisions and combinations have been retained, with the exception of forms such as ‘barbareidddra’ and ‘ffieidddra’ which have been adjusted for clarity (‘barbareidd-dra’, ‘ffieidd-dra’). Other aspects of his use of Welsh have been standardized. These include the use of double letters, of ‘nh’ instead of the standard ‘nn’, or the addition or omission of the letter ‘h’ in words such as ‘anghof’ (standardized as ‘angof’). Iolo’s practice with regard to circumflex accents has also been standardized. Occasional words which are not cited in GPC have been adjusted in order to create words on the pattern of other cited examples: e. g. ‘tommhe[n]bridd’ is rendered ‘tome[n]bridd’; ‘anghreidiol’ as ‘ang[enrh]eidiol’ and ‘trawslywraethgar’ as ‘trawslyw[od]raethgar’.

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Personal names have been standardized (e. g. ‘Dodridge’ rendered as ‘Doddridge’, ‘Rameaur’ as ‘Rameau’, ‘[P]ercell’ as ‘Purcell’, but place names have been left as Iolo wrote them (e. g. ‘Ystradywain’ and ‘Llansannwr’ for ‘Ystradowen’ and ‘Llansanwyr’). Abbreviations (such as ‘&’, or ‘vol’ for ‘volume’) have been lengthened, obvious slips or errors of spelling have been silently corrected, and unnecessarily repeated material has been omitted.

Punctuation, capitalization and italicization Adjustments have been made to the punctuation and standard practice has been adopted with regard to capitalization and italicization.

Illegible or missing letters, words and passages Editorial substitutions or additions (necessitated by Iolo’s inadvertent omissions, by damage to the manuscript sources or illegibility occasioned by factors such as blotted ink) are signalled by the use of square brackets. When a considerable degree of uncertainty exists as to Iolo’s intention, a question mark has been inserted at the beginning of the bracketed section. When it is impossible to reconstitute missing material, a line has been inserted within square brackets, corresponding in length to the material which is missing ([—————]). Iolo’s own insertions and suggestions for change are generally included in curly brackets {}, but these have occasionally been relocated for the sake of clarity, or included without the brackets if no alternative (or no meaningful alternative) was provided.

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Marginalia to Thomas Llewelyn, Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue and its Connection with Other Languages founded on its State in the Welsh Bible (London, 1769) A Baptist minister and tutor, Thomas Llewelyn (?1720–83) was one of a line of Glamorgan linguists whose ideas strongly influenced Iolo’s work on the Welsh language. Although generally overshadowed by the presence of Thomas Richards and John Walters in Iolo’s correspondence and linguistic notes, Iolo claimed in one autobiographical sketch that he knew Llewelyn in person and had been taught by him. 1 The ideas expressed in Llewelyn’s influential Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue clearly registered with Iolo, whether directly through a personal acquaintance, or through the reading of the book itself and of works by others such as Walters who were influenced by it. Iolo’s annotations to his copy of the book (reproduced here) largely demonstrate his sympathy with many of Llewelyn’s ideas. He endorsed the older man’s criticism of Dr John Davies’s method of explaining mutations in Welsh, reproducing it in more robust terms in an item of marginalia included in this volume. 2 He identified with Llewelyn’s view regarding the unfairness of adopting north Wales forms of certain words as the standard, at the expense (in his view) of more logical south Wales versions. Most significantly, he fully endorsed Llewelyn’s vision of Welsh as a language which ‘has been creating and forming words of its own’, displaying ‘a special tendency . . . thus to increase and multiply . . . its first and original quantity’. 3 His linguistic work, as seen from Appendix IV (Language), was informed by this view of the Welsh language, and inspired his attempts to create a stock of new vocabulary. Whether Iolo knew Llewelyn or not, it is clear that the annotations in his copy of the Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue were made at a late stage in his life and in some respects constituted a nostalgic trip along the roads of his own earlier linguistic endeavours. A variety of naming formulas (the more usual ‘Edward Williams’ substituted for ‘Iolo Morganwg’ in one case) suggests a multilayered annotation, with Iolo 1 2 3

See Williams: IM, p. 147 and the relevant footnote. See Appendix IV (Language), no. 49. Llewelyn, Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue, p. 88.

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adding comments on at least two separate readings. We know that Iolo was searching for his copy of the book during 1821, and that it eventually came to light among a host of books which he had left at Carmarthen in 1819. 4 He probably wrote the greater number of his annotations to the book after retrieving it in 1821. Cross-references among the annotations to ‘the wrapper of Seren Gomer for Feb. 1821’ would seem to corroborate this view. The evidence of Iolo’s handwriting suggests that a small number of annotations were added very late indeed. On pp. 41–2, an addition to a previous annotation was written in a distinctively shaky hand – such as Iolo’s became in the last year of his life. A further note on p. 79 was probably added during the last months of Iolo’s life. We may, then, fairly confidently assert that the annotated reading of Llewelyn’s work occurred c. 1821, with minimal additions at a very late stage (c. 1826).

glued in at the front of the volume: Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1764 A remarka{ble bridge} at Pentytypridd in Glamorganshire A diagram of the bridge, said to have been ‘errected by William Edward a Welsh mason, in the year 1756’.

notes on the measurements, ink: {1st cylinder (12 feet) 2d cylinder (9 feet diameter) 3rd cylinder (6 feet)}

title-page: {Edward Williams}

4

CIM, III, p. 585, Iolo Morganwg to Taliesin Williams, 14 March 1821; ibid. , pp. 598–9, Iolo Morganwg to [?Thomas Burgess], 10 November 1821; NLW 21407C, nos. 7, 7a, in lists headed ‘Books at Caermarthen’.

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blank page at front: {Contents Dedication to the Prince of Wales Introduction

p. 1

Part I. Effect of other languages on the British tongue Chapter I. Ancient state and extent of the British language

9

Chapter II. Effect of the Hebrew language

15

Chapter III. Effect of the Greek tongue

19

Chapter IV. Effect of the Latin tongue Chapter V. Effect of the English language Chapter VI. Effect of the Latin alphabet Various alphabets in this chapter Part II. Peculiar genius and regulations of the British tongue Chapter I. Peculiar genius of the British alphabet Chapter II. Nature and peculiarities of parts of speech in the British tongue Chapter III. Nature and peculiar construction of sentences in the British tongue Conclusion Tables Table of alphabets Table of Welsh mutations Table of Greek mutations}

pp. 3–4: As little occasion does there seem to be of any apology for sounding these remarks in some measure on the British translation of the scriptures. It was thought necessary to fix upon some state of the language for a proper foundation
}; and none seemed more fit for this purpose than the state of it in the Welsh {
bible. The bible is the common book of christians: it appears in the language of every Protestant country: in Wales especially it is a principal book, the most known and the most read of any: and it has the best claim to be reckoned the standard for the language. To this, other publications being mostly of a later date accommodate themselves; and hence their stile derives its manner and coloring {I wish there was any truth in this. E.W.}. Tho’ in general the supplies of this book have not been adequate to the wants or demands of the people, yet at present they are in the way of procuring pretty ample provision.

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bottom of page:
The Welsh Bible does not take in the whole extent of the language neither its true {
principles of construction. The writers in prose of the 12th century, and in verse of the 14th and thence to the 15th centuries, exhibit the language in its purest and most cultivated {state}, and thence in its richest state; in those times it had divested itself of nearly all its Latin words and idioms, with which it had been sullied during the Roman periods, and had not received any taints from the Saxon or Norman languages; and, what is not generally supposed to be the case, it is as clearly understood as it is in the Bible dialect, which has in it very numerous impurities. E. Williams.}

alongside margin of page: {It must however be observed that in Taliesin, Aneurin, Catwg Ddoeth &c., we find a copiousness, richness and purity, and that in the 6th century, which has never been exceeded, and in many instances nearer to the modern idiom than even the Welsh Bible its self. Laws must always have a peculiarity of idiom, terms or technology, and were the modern laws of this kingdom translated into modern Welsh they would not be understood by the people in general more clearly than we understand the laws of Hywel Dda in the 8th century. The Historical and Bardic Triades, the Ethics of Ceraint Fardd Glas in the 8th century, the annals of Caradoc of Lancarvan, of Walter de Mapes and the Romances of the 12th, 13th & 14th centuries exhibit the language in splendours never attained to by any modern language, never succeeded by any ancient language. E. Williams.}

pp. 41–2, printed footnote: The Anglo-Saxon character is supposed by some to have been that used by the Saxons while in Germany, and brought with them to this island: but by others, who think the Saxons had no knowlege of letters before they came over
} to have been the alphabet to Britain this character has been supposed {
of the Britons, and from them adopted by the Saxons; but on a very slight examination we shall find it no distinct alphabet, but the same with the Latin, only varied a little in about six or eight letters.

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bottom of page:
And justly supposed – for every letter of it appears on the ancient monumental {
stones at Lantwit Major, Merthyr Mawr, Margam, Llanelldeyrn &c., before the arrival of the Saxons (Iolo Morganwg).}

added in a later, more shaky hand: {Also on the ancient crosses of Coychurch, Landough Super Ely, Celli Gaer Mountain, Maen Llythyrog on Margam Mountain, Panwen Byrddin Stone and others, all in Glamorgan.}

p. 58, referring to the Welsh language: In the changes and variations of these mutables, lies a great part of the art and mystery of this very peculiar tongue {Note!}, the most curious perhaps, and the most delicate for its structure of any language in the world.

p. 65, considering the use of mutations: They are of very general and extensive application. By dividing the first table into declensions and cases, its learned author did not mean to restrain the use of them to nouns and participles, or to such words as are the sole objects of declensions in Latin or Greek. Nor is it intended by comparing them in the second scheme to the characteristics of verbs, to limit their usage to such words as are the particular subjects of conjugations. {vide p. 59} They are of still more extensive application and utility; being applicable to nouns, to verbs and to words of every other part of speech. {Note!}

[p. 59 includes a table taken from Dr John Davies’s grammar, which shows the radical form and the three mutations (‘Mollis, Liquida, Aspirata’), defining the three ‘declensions’ which are affected: decl. 1. CPT decl. 2. BDG decl. 3. LlMRh Nouns alone are used to demonstrate the changes.]

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p. 66, referring to the mutations in Welsh: The first and most obvious use of them is to distinguish the sound, to ease the pronunciation, and to render it smooth and harmonious. Two or more letters of the same organ and of the same sound joined together in a word are lost in pronunciation: they may harden or strengthen a sound, but if they are ever so many they can do no more, and must remain idle and indistinct. Some letters will not be sociable and succeed others; or if they must follow, they will do it with reluctance and difficulty, and give a harsh and discordant sound; vary these letters and dispose of them otherwise, and you will put an end to this disagreeable jarring, and make them concur in promoting a general sweetness and melody. {William Owen has strained every nerve to establish this discordant sound in the language, in ‘Cynmry’, ‘anmrwd’ &c.} For these purposes these changes are often introduced: no other reason need, no other reason can be assigned for several of them.

p. 67: But their chief and principal use is to distinguish words, to shew their various relations and connections, and to fix and ascertain their proper meaning. That is the use of declensions, of conjugations and of other inflections of words in every language, and that seems to be the most important use of these changes of consonants in the British tongue. After a manner peculiar to themselves, they point out the number, gender &c. , not of the substantive, for example, where the change happens, but of a pronoun, of an adjective or of some other word belonging to it {Note!} . . .

p. 68: Too little attention however was shewn to this subject in the earliest impression of the New Testament. We find there fy garedigion, ym plith and yn ty fy tad, in the first declension, instead of fy ngharedigion, ym mhlith and yn nhy fy nhad.
}, instead And in the second declension we find fy bara, yn duw and yn golwg {
of fy mara, yn nuw and yngolwg.

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Much less cacophonous than the ‘yn ngolwg’ of William Owen Pughe. E.W.} {


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p. 74: Some scripture instances of these changes are not at all necessary and might, as well if not better, have been omitted. Saith muwch, Gen. xli. 20. Pym-nyn, Gen. xlvii. 2. &c. , are of this sort {Venedotian dialect}; variations unnecessary and unusual: and the words are more plain, as well as more common in another form: saith buwch and pymp dyn. {So in Silurian dialect.} . . . In other cases, changes are omitted, where they might and I think ought to have been introduced. Gen. i. 8. we read ail dydd {Venedotian dialect}, and so uniformly wherever it appears . . . it ought to have been ail Ddydd {Silurian dialect}.

p. 75: . . . the initial and radical ch, is seldom or never pronounced in some parts of the country. They never say chwaer or chwerthin, but {Venedotian dialect} hwaer or hwerthin, throwing away the c {Silurian dialect} and retaining only the h.

pp. 77–8: CHAP. II. Nature and peculiarities of parts of speech in the British tongue. Of letters, the preceding materials are formed words, the materials again of language in a second and more advanced state. Words may be considered either with regard to their meaning, or else with regard to their make and form; the last of which – the form of words – is the subject of this part, by far the most copious and most laboured part of grammar. The most natural and the most general division of words is, like that of letters, into mutable and immutable; or as this has been used to be expressed into declinable and indeclinable. This distinction is rather slighted by English grammarians, as not applicable to their language, which properly speaking has no declensions. But the idea of declensions strictly so called is not, at least ought not to be the idea here affixed to declinable and indeclinable. {Note!}

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ink, bottom of page: {Tri defnyddion iaith ysgrif: llythyr, gair ac ymadrodd. (Eraill a wedant: awgrym, gair ag ymadrodd.) Sef o’r awgrymau y llunier y geiriau, o’r geiriau yr ymadroddion, ac o’r ymadroddion yng nghynghyd eu gorddyfnawd cyfiawn y bydd iaith gyfiawn. (Llyfr Ieuan Fawr ap y Diwlith, cylch o 1150 hyd 1200.)}

p. 79, referring to ‘Indeclinable or immutable words, which are also the most simple and the least numerous’, including ‘adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections’: The last mentioned (odly enough called interjection) seems the most natural and inartificial part of speech, if it may be called a part of it, and is not rather a peculiar sort of language by itself. Its words seem the rudest and most imperfect of all words, being nothing more than an ah, or an oh, or some such sudden exclamation.

related note, bottom of page, in a shaky hand: {Ach! ffach! ffi! ohi! dyna hi! och fi! fi ffo! pw pw! Morgannwg. Dyna fe! chiw! hai! how! hys!}

p. 80, referring to conjunctions and prepositions: Both together they constitute but a small part of the words of any language; and usually good grammars are dictionaries here and contain them all. {!!!}

p. 82: Sometimes a substantive and preposition means just the same as an adverb. To judge the world righteously is expressed, Acts xvii. 31, by in righteousness in English, and in Welsh by mewn Cyfiawnder. But more commonly, this is expressed by a preposition and the adjective without any substantive. Soberly, righteously and godly, Tit. ii. 12, we render yn sobr, yn gyfiawn ag yn dduwiol {Note!}; that is literally, in sober, in righteous and in godly; very aukward I acknowledge and nonsensical in English; but not at all so in the British . . .

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pp. 82–3. The following section, discussing how mutable words or parts of speech are classified, has been placed in brackets by Iolo: Mutable words, or parts of speech vary even in their division – some distin guishing them into three parts . . . some dividing them into four . . . others into five, Article, Pronouns, Substantives, Adjectives and Verbs. The last seems the most natural and the most suitable to my fancy and plan; and I shall therefore follow it in what I have further to say on this part of the subject. {Note!}

pp. 84–6: The substantive, the adjective and the verb . . . are by much the most important and the most numerous parts of speech . . . Wherever we find them, they will appear upon examination to be – either simple or compound – either derived or underived – either in their original and primitive, or else in their varied and improved state. Words simple and underived, or words in their first and primitive state, I look upon as the first and original words of a language, as the capital stock with which it set out at the beginning, or as {Note!} the prime materials put into its hands, if I may so express myself, to manufacture and improve. The others, the compound and derived, or words in their varied and improved state, I consider as the acquired stock of a language, as the fruits of its own labour and industry, which it has manufactured and prepared for its own use.

pp. 87–8, comparing the numbers of ‘the primitives or underived words of a language’ with ‘the derivatives and more labored words of the same tongue’: . . . we shall find the derivatives to be the most numerous to a prodigious degree. They would swell to a most amazing number, and no dictionary could contain a tenth part of them; but a great many of them are so regular and plain, that they never need, and seldom do appear in any. {But William Owen’s.} In preparing and using these derivatives consists the principal difference of languages, and the vast advantage of some above others. {Note!} The common solution or analysis of words into so many, no matter how many parts of speech, may be equally applicable to every language under the sun. The underived and primitive words of several tongues may also greatly resemble one another and be nearly the same, as proceeding from the same stock, perhaps from the original language of man. {Note!} But a most wide and

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amazing difference will be found in their derivatives. Some languages, if I may so speak, treat their original stock like a spendthrift, or like the slothful servant, take no pains to improve it: they ever use these materials in their first condition, or in their stinted and dwarfish state: while others have labored and manufactured them, compounded and decompounded them so as surprizingly to vary, to increase and multiply their first and original quantity. {Note! See the wrapper of Seren Gomer for February 1821.}

pp. 89–90, arguing that the Latin and Greek languages have laboured hard to increase their supply of words. The first three sentences in the following paragraph have been bracketed together by Iolo: The English on the other hand seems to have done very little this way. With all its tendency and disposition to manufactures and improvement, it has neglected the manufacture and improvement of its own words. It has gone upon the idle lazy principle of borrowing and importing; and rather than take the pains to work and labour its own materials, it has chose to become debtor to the French, to the Latin, to the Greek or to any other language, which would trust it with terms ready made and at second hand. {Note!} To this day it uses its own native words much in their original state, or rather in a less and more diminutive form. Near two thirds perhaps of the words of this language in its present condition are monosyllables. Exclude from it all foreign derivatives, and then these little stinted dwarfish things will appear in a much more disproportionate number. “Whole lines in a large {Note the exemplification!} book will be found like a string of beads, made up of words all of one and the same size. ” {Note the exemplification. 24 monosyllables.}

p. 91, discussing the superiority of Welsh over the English language: In the first place, it has more varieties and more substantial grammatical derivatives under each of those parts of speech which we are now considering. Substantives singular become plural several ways, and in some cases even two syllables may be thus added to a word; as dyn dynion, man men, tyst tystion {blunder!}, witness witnesses, &c. Adjectives take up these plural additions as well as substantives; as gwyn gwynion, white; trwm trymion {ditto!}, heavy: they have other means of becoming plural besides: they have also a variation in their genders, gwyn, gwen: and they have even what may be called a fourth degree
}; as glan, glanach, glanaf, glaned; clean, of comparison expressive of equality {
cleaner, cleanest, as clean.

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bottom of page:
They have 8 or 9 degrees of comparison: 4 ascending as (after the positive {
‘mwyn’) the comparative ‘mwyned’, the augmentive ‘mwynach’, the plenary ‘mwynaf’, the superlative or transcendent ‘gorfwyn’ and ‘tramwyn’; descending, as ‘lledfwyn’, (considerable) ‘gofwyn’ (in some degree), ‘mwynaidd’ (tending to) and ‘anfwyn’ (negative or privative). E. Wms}

p. 92, regarding Welsh verbs: Verbs in general, especially in the active voice, vary their persons and numbers, their tenses and moods by distinct and particular terminations, and have no need of a large troop of petty auxiliaries or supporters, such as can, may, could, should, shall, will, &c. , &c. {vide Seren Gomer ut supra} without which an English verb cannot stand, or stands for nothing: and they have yet further amongst them a species of reciprocal verbs or verbs transitive on themselves, like the
} hithpahel of the Hebrew. {


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‘Y mae gwybodaeth yn ymgyffredin yn ein plith’, al ‘ymgyffredino yn ein plith mae {
gwybodaeth’. ‘Knowledge is in its own operations becoming general amongst us’, or ‘selfaugmenting, self multiplying, self-propagating, itself generally amongst us’. ‘Ceudawd cyd worymddaa’ (Llefoed) – ‘Though intellect becomes within its self greatly improved’.}

alongside the paragraph: ymradloni ymuffernoli ymnefoli ymfoddloni ymwynfydu ymradoli ymrwymo ymwellhau

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ymla{nhau?} et multis altis. And with ‘cyd’, ‘cyf’ &c. ymgydfod ymgyfiawnhau ymgyfnewid &c.

p. 93: While the English has gone about borrowing of the French, of the Latin or Greek; the Welsh has been creating and forming words of its own {Note!}: and there seems to have been a special tendency in this language thus to increase and multiply. By this means it has acquired a considerable superiority in this respect, and is in possession of several verbs and other words, to which I know of none corresponding in the English tongue, as dyddhau, hwyrhau, &c. , &c. {To dawn is probably to dayen, to lighten.}

There are derivatives of this sort manufactured in Britain by its original inhabitants, which in my opinion are not only superior to any thing English in the same way, but are at least equal to any productions of the same kind in ancient Rome or Greece. {Note!}

pp. 94–5, discussing the ways in which derivatives are formed in Welsh (‘British’), English, Latin and Greek: Arglwyddiaeth and arglwyddiaethu are British goods of the first sort, home made and derived from arglwydd. Dominium and dominor from dominus; jmqiosgy and jmqixy from jmqioy are the corresponding words of Latin and Greek workmanship in the same way. I would likewise fain add their English correspondents: from the monosyllable lord, I can derive lordship a substantive of two syllables, but I can proceed no further; if there is a verb, it is of the same diminutive form with the primitive. Here the industry and inventive genius of the English fails, but the skill and artifice of the British is at least equal to that of Rome and Greece. {Note!} Again, croeshoelio is a British verb, formed by the union of two substantives croes cross and hoel nail. It is expressive of the manner in which the Son of God was put to death; and it expresses it stronger and more emphatically than any words used in this case by the English, the Greek or the Latin. The English word to crucify, according to the genius and analogy of the language, may signify to make or to be made a cross, as well as to die upon it. {Or to become a cross.} The Greek term ysatqox is no more than staking or fastening to a

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pole. The Latin crucifigo, more expressive here than either of the former (as the punishment was Roman) yet means no more than fastening to a cross, which may be done various ways. But the Welsh determines the manner of it, and conveys the particular and striking idea of fixing to the cross with nails. Further, cydymgynghora{e}nt, Isaiah xlv. 21, {‘Let them take counsel together’, ‘They will take counsel together’} is another British compound derivative, formed of cyd, ym and cynghor, three distinct words, two prepositions and one substantive.

bottom of page: {‘And they took counsel together’ – ‘cydymgynghorasant’. The full sense [of] this Welsh word is ‘And they each of them separately ruminated on the matter within their own minds and each reciprocally as counselling others his own convictions’.}

pp. 97–8: [Derivatives] are undoubtedly the proper subjects of our regulation and criticism: much more so than the original and primitive words of a language. To object to primitives is like objecting to natural and constitutional bodily imperfections. But objecting to derivatives is objecting to things of our own making {Note!}, which if they are wrong, must be so partly through our own fault. {Note!}

pp. 99–100, showing how lengthy derivatives are shortened in pronunciation; e.g. ‘tragywyddol’ becomes ‘tragwyddol’; ‘tragywyddoldeb’ becomes ‘tragwyddoldeb’: The like conduct would not perhaps be improper for long substantives, which take an addition of two syllables to become plural {Mistake Dr, as also in p.__}; as gorchymmin which regularly in the plural is gorchymminion, a word of five syllables, but I believe always pronounced as if only four and as if written gorchmynion. In these cases a distinct character has been recommended for the first y; which character was to be a vowel, to be pronounced and yet like the Hebrew sheva, make no syllable: but probably the easiest and most effectual way would be to exclude it entirely: for we may change the spelling and accommodate it to common pronunciation, when we have no authority to coin a new letter and make it current. {Here we see some ignorance of the Welsh prosody. See Dr J. D. Rhys’s Grammar.}

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pp. 100–1: I have no other regulations at present to wish, with regard to these derivatives; except it be – that such of them as are compounded of two or more words might always retain, as much as possible, the features of each parent; in which
}, rather respect some of them may be a little deficient, as Gen. ii. 21, drym-gwsg {
drwm-gwsg {No! no! Dr}: and likewise – that all of them, whether compounded or not, might be formed, as near as may be, to resemble other words of the language in the same part of speech, in order to be more easily governed by the same laws. Thus I would wish bedyddiwr {Venedotian dialect}, rhagrithiwr, &c. would cast off the i of the penult, and become bedyddwr, rhagrithwr, &c. {Silurian dialect}; that together with breuddwydwr, llafurwr, &c. they might with more ease and regularity change into the plural bedyddwyr, rhagrithwyr, llafurwyr, &c.

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The mutation of vowel should be noticed, as ‘mâl, melin’ and ‘iach, iechyd’ and {
‘mab, mebyd’ and ‘gwag, gwegi’; ‘hal’ and ‘halen’, ‘heli’, and ‘gwâl, gwely’ &c. ‘O’: ‘gordd, gyrdd’ and ‘corn, cyrn’ and ‘ffordd, ffyrdd’ and ‘ffon, ffyn’ and ‘pont, pynt’. And ‘W’: ‘trwm, trymder’ &c., and ‘twll, tyllu’ and ‘pwll’ and ‘pyllu, pyllau’. And ‘E’: ‘cerdd, cyrdd’ and ‘bachgen, bechgyn’ &c. And ‘Y’ into ‘y’: ‘pryˆ d’, ‘prydydd, prydyddiaeth’ &c. E. Williams.}

pp. 105–6: In the British tongue the first law of concord is frequently neglected. As in the Hebrew so here, plural adjectives particularly numerals are connected with
}, two man; wyth enaid, their substantives in the singular number, as dau ddyn {
eight soul &c.

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Dr Llewelyn appears to have been as ignorant as all our other grammarians have {
been of the Welsh numbers. Dr Davies, the saviour of our languages [sic], had no correct idea of them. They are thus. – Singular: llaw, punt, lle, tref &c. Plural indefinite: lloriau, punnau or punnoedd, llëoedd, trefydd or trefi &c. Plural definite: as deulawr, trillawr, degllawr, ugeinllawr, canllawr; and dwybunt,

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degpunt, ugeinpunt, canpunt; deule, trille, deglle, ugeinlle, canlle; dwydref; teirtref, degtref, {u}geintref, cantref &c. E. Williams.}

p. 108: Neuters plural in that tongue [ancient Greek] had their verbs generally of the singular number: and eysi i s..ey, there is persons is current, is sterling Greek and to be found in the best authors. In both languages [Greek and Welsh] this liberty is taken principally with the substantive verb and its cognates or relatives. Perhaps it would have been best to have stopped here, and not have extended this practice to some instances which might be produced; such as y llinynnau a syrthiodd, Psalm xvi. 6 {barbarous}, the lines is fallen, rather undoubtedly are fallen a syrthiasant.

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Appendix II: Iolo Morganwg’s books

Books annotated by Iolo Morganwg1

In the National Library of Wales Unless otherwise stated, the following form part of an unclassified collection of Iolo Morganwg’s printed books kept in the library. Jean Jacques Barthélemy, Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece, translated from the French [by W. Beaumont] (2nd edn. , 7 vols. , London, 1794), vols. I–V, VII. ‘Basanistes’ (?Robert Edward Garnham), Aiqex ext ata sa  , or, a new way of deciding old controversies (3rd edn. , London, 1815). Owned by David Davis, Neath, the annotations in this copy may have been made by more than one hand. Iolo is very likely to have been responsible for at least some of these annotations.

Thomas Churchyard, The Worthines of Wales, a poem. A true note of the auncient castles, famous monuments, goodly rivers, faire bridges, fine townes, and courteous people, that I have seen in the noble countrie of Wales (London, 1776, reprinted from 1st edn. of 1587). Edward Davies, The Claims of Ossian, Examined and Appreciated (Swansea, 1825). John Davies, Antiquæ Linguæ Britannicæ, nunc communiter dictæ Cambro-Britannicae, à suis Cymraecae vel Cambricae, ab alijs Wallicæ, Rudimenta (Londini, 1621). Walter Davies and John Jones, Two Essays, on the Subjects Proposed by the Cambrian Society in Dyfed, which gained the respective prizes, at the Eisteddfod, held at

1

Note that only books with annotations have been included. It was not possible to consult a further seven volumes housed in the National Library of Wales and believed to have been owned (and in some cases annotated) by Iolo Morganwg. The collection of Iolo’s books in the Salisbury Library, Cardiff University, are the subject of ongoing research by Dr E. Wyn James and have not been included here. See further chapter 3.

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Caermarthen, in July, 1819: to which is added, An Account of the Proceedings at the Eisteddfod (Caermarthen, 1822). John Dunton, The Phenix: or, A Revival of Scarce and Valuable Pieces from the Remotest Antiquity down to the Present Times (London, 1707). This volume contains annotations by Iolo Morganwg and Taliesin Williams.

John Prior Estlin, The general prayer-book: containing forms of prayer on principles common to all Christians, for religious societies, for families, and for individuals, chiefly selected . . . by John Prior Estlin, LL.D. (Bristol, [1814]). —– Holiadur, neu Addysgiadau Cyffredin, Hawl ac Atteb, yn Athrawiaethau a Dyledswyddau Crefydd, translated by Iolo Morganwg (Merthyr Tydfil, 1814). Two annotated copies of this work have survived, one bound with Iolo’s copy of Estlin, The general prayer-book, and the other with his copy of Thomas Evans, Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau.

Evan Evans, Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards. Translated into English, with explanatory notes on the historical passages (London, 1764), bound with Rhys Jones, Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru (Amwythig, 1773). Owned and annotated by David Samwell (Dafydd Ddu Feddyg), these two volumes are bound together in NLW 4582C. The blank spaces at the end include material in Iolo’s hand.

Thomas Evans, Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau, wedi cael eu hamcanu at addoliad cyhoeddus; ag yn enwedig at wasanaeth Undodiaid Cristianogol (Caerfyrddin, 1811). This is bound with Iolo’s copy of Estlin’s Holiadur, neu Addysgiadau Cyffredin.

François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon, The Lives and Most Remarkable Maxims of the Antient Philosophers (London, 1726). Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits. From a Persian translation, made from the original, written in the Shanscrit language (London, 1781; first published 1776). Basil Kennett, Romæ Antiquæ Notitia: or, The Antiquities of Rome (London, 1696). Roger L’Estrange, The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, Knight of the Order of St. James (11th edn. , London, 1715). Thomas Llewelyn, Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue and its Connection with Other Languages founded on its State in the Welsh Bible (London, 1769). John Milton, Coll Gwynfa, translated by William Owen Pughe (Llundain, 1819). Robert Parsons, Dyhewyd y Cristion, yn Ddwy Ran . . . a gyfieithwyd gan Dr. Davies o Fallwyd (4th edn. , Llundain, 1802). Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and Other Pieces of Our Earlier Poets (4th edn. , 3 vols. , London, 1794), vol. II. John Pinkerton, A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths. Being an Introduction to the Ancient and Modern History of Europe (London, 1787).

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IOLO MORGANWG’S BOOKS

Edmwnd Prys, Psalmau Edmund Prys. Yr hên Hymnau, a Rhagymadrodd Elis Wynn. This volume has a make-shift cover, with the title inserted on it in ink.

William Owen Pughe, Cadwedigaeth yr Iaith Gymraeg (Bala, 1808). —— A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (London, 1803). —— Hu Gadarn, Cywydd o III Caniad (Llundain, 1822). —— A Welsh and English Dictionary, Part II (London, 1794). John Rhydderch, Grammadeg Cymraeg (Y Mwythig, 1728). See NLW 10351A.

William Sewel, The History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People called Quakers (3rd edn. , 2 vols. , London, 1795), vol. II. This volume was owned by Taliesin ab Iolo, but it contains annotations by Iolo.

Sharon Turner, A Vindication of the Genuineness of the Ancient British Poems of Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, and Merdhin, with specimens of the poems (London, 1803). This volume contains annotations by Iolo and by Taliesin.

Charles Wesley, Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures (2 vols. , Bristol, 1762), vol. I. Edward Williams, Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (2 vols. , London, 1794). Listed in the main library catalogue, this set can be identified by the accession number Wb 904–5.

In Cardiff Central Library The following are all to be found in Cardiff Central Library 2.1020. William Belsham, Traethawd Byr ar yr Athrawiaethau o Ryddid ac Angenrheidrwydd Philosophyddawl, translated by Thomas Evans (Caerfyrddin, 1809). Edward Elwall, Gorfoledd y Gwirionedd: sef, Hanes Treial Mr. E. Elwall ger bron y Barnwr Denton, yn Eisteddfod Stafford, yn y flwyddyn 1726, am gyhoeddi llyfr mewn amddiffyniad o undod Duw, translated by Thomas Evans (2nd edn. , Merthyr Tydfil, 1812). John Prior Estlin, Holiadur, neu Addysgiadau Cyffredin, Hawl ac Atteb, yn Athrawiaethau a Dyledswyddau Crefydd, translated by Iolo Morganwg (Merthyr Tydfil, 1814). Joseph Priestley, Dau Egwyddoriad, (Catechism) i Blant a Phobl Ieuaingc, translated and published by the South Wales Unitarian Society (Caerfyrddin, 1805). [Edward Williams], Rheolau a Threfniadau Cymdeithas Dwyfundodiaid yn Neheubarth Cymru (Llundain, 1803).

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Appendix III: Taliesin ab Iolo’s books

Books owned or annotated by Taliesin ab Iolo1

In the National Library of Wales Several of the following books were presented to Taliesin by their authors or by others closely involved in their production, and include inscriptions by those who donated them. Books which contain marginalia in Taliesin’s hand have been indicated. Some of the annotations in question are very sparse while others are more sustained. Julius Caesar, The Commentaries of Cæsar, translated into English. To which is prefixed A Discourse concerning the Roman Art of War by William Duncan (London, 1832; first published 1753). Walter Davies and John Jones (eds. ), Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi: The Poetical Works of Lewis Glyn Cothi, a celebrated bard who flourished in the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII (Oxford, 1837). Annotated.

Daniel Dowling, Key to the Course of Mathematics, composed for the use of the Royal Military Academy, by Charles Hutton (London, 1818). Samuel Astley Dunham, A History of Europe during the Middle Ages (4 vols. , London, 1833–4), vol. IV. Annotated.

T. W. C. Edwards, Key to Edwards’s Latin Delectus, for the use of teachers and private students (London, 1829). John Jones, A Grammar of the Latin Tongue, for the use of schools (London, 1810). —— Etymologia Graeca, or, A Grammar of the Greek Tongue . . . for the use of schools (4th edn. , London, 1826). This was owned by Rhys Williams, the son of Taliesin, and contains annotations in the latter’s hand. 1

Note that only books with clear marks of ownership have been included.

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Richard Newcome, An Account of the Castle and Town of Denbigh (Denbigh, 1829). Samuel Parkes, The Chemical Catechism (5th edn. , London, 1812). Charles Phillips, Speech of Mr. Phillips, delivered in the Court of Common Pleas, Dublin, in the case of Guthrie versus Sterne (4th edn. , London, 1816). Annotated.

Thomas Price, An Essay on the Physiognomy and Physiology of the Present Inhabitants of Britain; with reference to their origin, as Goths and Celts (London, 1829). Rhys Prichard, Canwyll y Cymru (Mwythig, 1724; 1st publ. 1681). This was owned by Taliesin’s daughters, Margaret and Mary Williams.

Thomas Jeffery Llewelyn Prichard, The Adventures and Vagaries of Twm Shon Catty (2nd edn. , Cowbridge, [1839]). Rice Rees, An Essay on the Welsh Saints or the Primitive Christians usually considered to have been the founders of churches in Wales (London, 1836). Annotated.

Albert Schulz, An Essay on the Influence of Welsh Tradition upon the Literature of Germany, France, and Scandinavia; which obtained the prize of the Abergavenny Cymreigyddion Society, at the Eisteddvod of 1840, translated by Mrs Berrington (Llandovery, 1841). Annotated.

Francis Thackeray, Researches into the Ecclesiastical and Political State of Ancient Britain under the Roman Emperors (London, 1843). Annotated.

Edward Williams, Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch. Proofs of the second volume, eventually published in Merthyr Tydfil, 1834. Annotated.

—— Miscellaneous Ancient Welsh Manuscripts (Llandovery, 1842). Proofs of Iolo Manuscripts: A Selection of Ancient Welsh Manuscripts, edited by Taliesin Williams, which was eventually published at Llandovery in 1848. Annotated.

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Appendix IV: Language

The following is a selection of the linguistic work to be found among the marginalia to Iolo’s correspondence. Often hastily written, these notes do not always make for easy reading. In editing the material, every attempt has been made to simplify the layout in order to facilitate comprehension. An understanding of Welsh is essential in order to appreciate fully Iolo’s ingenuity and the true flavour of some of the words, proverbs and idioms which he either collected, created or played with according to his notions regarding the history of the language.

Dialect Items 1 to 17 below consist of lists that record and define words. Iolo’s main source for this vocabulary was his own ear for the various dialects of Wales, of which that of Glamorgan took pride of place. He shows an awareness of usage within particular areas of the county, naming at times ‘north Glamorgan’ and ‘Bro Morgannwg’ (the Vale of Glamorgan), and also demonstrates the breadth of his experience as a linguistic tourist, by mentioning language usage and pronunciation in Gwent (including Blaenau Gwent), Monmouthshire, Glynnedd, Anglesey, Caernarfonshire and Denbighshire, Merioneth and even Devon. Iolo also provides a small number of other sources or points of reference. For instance, in item no. 1 he claims to have extracted vocabulary for the division of the day into four sections, of six hours’ duration each, and for the seasons and months of the year from an ‘Old book’ (‘Hen lyfr’). Elsewhere he refers to examples from the work of medieval poets such as Taliesin, Llywelyn Fardd, Cynddelw and Rhys Goch Eryri. Nonetheless, the focus of this material is on oral language.

1. NLW 21281E, no. 219; 24 May [?1775] (CIM, I, letter 29, pp. 106–7). A word list with a strong emphasis on Glamorgan usage, and some reference to pronunciation and usage in neighbouring counties such as Gwent, Monmouthshire and Devon.

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tranglwm (taranglwm) – i. e. a hasty composition, as ‘tranglwm o ganu, o gywydd, o ’stori, o beth &c. ’ – a song, poem, story, or any thing else hastily put together, Glamorgan. Adj. crude, hasty &c. ; ‘tranglymu’, verb, ibid. cwlmwith, ibid. – a crude or rude mass of any thing – a ‘cwlm’ -wth – termination in Silurian, as ‘bwlpwth’, ‘cwlmwth’, ‘crepwth’ &c. , &c. gweirlod – a meadow, Silurian; plur. ‘gweirlodydd’ gweirlodi – to turn to meadow, so they say, of lands that have been some time under corn, are left to run to grass, and when that begins to appear in considerable quantities, they say ‘mae’r tir, y maes, y cae &c. yn gweirlodi’. In Monmouthshire, where the pronunciation is in gene[ra]l [m]ore correct than in Glamor[gansh]ire, they say ‘gwrlod, gwrlodydd &c. , gwrlodi’. Query whether the true orthography is not ‘gwyrlod’ &c. from ‘gwyr’, verdant, from whence ‘gwair’ seems also to be derived, or rather corrupted. The vulgar pronunciation in Glamorgan is ‘gwerlod’, ‘gwerlodi’ &c. trôn, Gwent – a circle, i. e. , ‘tro-on’, as ‘gwron’, by contraction. Hence ‘athronddysg’, perhaps – i. e. the circle of science, cyclopœdia. g[urry?], Devonshire – a barrow, a wheel, gurry – ‘gyrrai’ creen, ibid. – a shivering, ‘cr}n’ ffarth – a path, ffordd lledfelydd, [——]lydd (Glyn [?Syrywy]) – alike, similar, resembling [—————] Brwynllys) diwyn [——]y-dy-gwain, [—————], a thicket, ibid. meiwydd – elm, Gwent bore, anterth, nawn, achwedd (Hen Lyfr) Y bore yw’r chwe[c]hawr cyntaf, anterth yr ail chwechawr, nawn y drydydd ac achwedd y pedwerydd, ac a estyn hyd fore. Gwanwyn, haf, mesyryd a gauaf, [?yw] pedwar rhan y flwyddyn, ibid. Y gwanwyn sy’n dechreu ym Mawrth pan ddelo gogyfal dydd a nos. Deuddeg mis sy’n y flwyddyn, nid amgen Mawrth, Ebrill, Mai, Maihefin, Gorffennaf, Awst, Medi, Hydref, Tachwedd, Rhagfyr, Ionawr, Chwefrawr.

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gwraisg, gwreisgyn, Glamorgan – dowry, portion, jointure gwreisgynnu – to endow, ibid. careidio coed, gwellt, gwair &c. , Glamorgan – i. e. ‘llwytho car’ &c. , Glamorgan beneidio, ibid – llanw ben

2. NLW 21285E, no. 784; [?March 1776] (CIM, I, letter 34, pp. 118–21). This remark appears to relate to the distinction in pronunciation between stressing the penultimate syllable (‘Berthdda’) and putting equal emphasis on both syllables (‘Berth-dda’). ‘Berthdda’ in Carnarvon or Denbigh, not ‘berth-dda’

3. NLW 21285E, no. 786; [?October 1780] (CIM, I, letter 55, p. 173). A record of the Glamorgan way of asking the question ‘Who is this girl?’ It has the added ‘un’, contracted to ‘’n’ after the question word ‘Pwy’, so that a literal translation would read ‘Which one is this girl?’ ‘Pwy’n yw’r ferch yna?’, Glamorgan

4. NLW 21283E, no. 555a; [?1781] (CIM, I, letter 56, p. 174). Here Iolo contemplates the Glamorgan name for a bullfinch, ‘Twm cwinc’ or ‘cwinc’, implicitly relating it to the sound of birdsong (‘ninc’). He then notes a similar word for the sound of a ringing bell (‘ning’), and provides an exemplifying couplet. cwinc and Twm cwinc – a bullfinch, Glamorgan ‘g’ better, ‘gwingc’ ninc – ye singing of birds, ‘ninc ninc eu ffrinc [?a’u] ffranca’ gwring a wring a gor-ing ning, s{n cloch: Ning nong, ting tong, im twng teg, Llon oedd ei meldon mawldeg Edward Llwyd i glych (englynion ydynt)

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[In Iolo’s later hand] Note!!!

5. NLW 21283E, no. 482; 4 January 1784 (CIM, I, letter 85, p. 254). This contains a variety of notes, probably all related to the Glamorgan dialect. Iolo is interested in the way in which the consonants ‘gl’ at the beginning of words in other Welsh dialects are mutated into ‘ll’ in Glamorgan, and he provides several examples. Towards the end of the list he includes the Welsh term for ‘a rattle skull’, a term which he sometimes employed to describe himself. 1 llarian, llariain – llariaidd ar ei synt (north Glamorgan) ar ei ochel – on his guard, cautious In Glamorgan, llwth (glwth) llwys (glwys) llafoer (glafoerion) – spume, foam &c. , &c. llud (glud) llan (glan) (of the same nature is ‘llasar’ for ‘glas’, ‘llew’ for ‘glew’) gosgant y cwm – the winding of a vale gosgannu – to wind; ‘gosgannog’ – winding chwâl, Glamorgan – small, in fine powder or in small particles; ‘pridd chwâl’ – fine, loose, light earth chwalu, verb – to make small, fine, to reduce any thing to powder; also to talk in a loose idle manner, to prate, to chat – ibid. chwaldod – pratishness, loose talk, slack jaw, ibid. chwaldodwraig, chwaldodwr – a rattle skull, a chatter box, a talkative man or woman, ibid. chwaldodi – to prate &c. , ibid.

6. NLW 21285E, no. 792; 24 February 1784 (CIM, I, letter 87, pp. 255–6). Iolo’s contemptuous record of the tendency in the dialect of north Wales (‘Deudneudian’) to contract words.

1

See Geraint H. Jenkins, ‘On the Trail of a “Rattleskull Genius”: Introduction’ in Rattleskull Genius, p. 1.

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Deudneudisms: dlae pro dylai gwlae pro gwelyau

7. NLW 21286E, no. 1019; [?1792] (CIM, I, letter 173, pp. 436–7). A list of words that Iolo may have recorded during his visit to Anglesey in 1799. It comprises mainly words relating to natural sources of nourishment, among them the sea and its produce. See further chapter 4. Anglesea words cranc Gwyddelig – a prickle-back’d crab, Môn crwban – the common crab ffired – darn o gig moch a ddaw ymaith gyda’r flonhegen c}r cig moch – lean of hog’s flesh penllyw – y garreg nesa i’r maen congl fal a, a, a

Fig. 8 A diagram in Iolo’s hand of the ‘penllyw’, the stone set next to the corner stone.

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crewyn o }d – heap of corn gwrachan – a bream fish hyrddiaid – mullets hordd – a mullet llygeirian – a red fruit like currants. Grows in Trefoesen meadows, Môn ‘Ni ddaeth y wawr erioed o’r Werddon’ – proverb diswtan – suddenly calchfa brân, g{ydd, iâr – dung of a crow &c. gwasgrwym – a bandage gloesineb calon – fainting, faintness hored cwch – the oar’s place pentyr – a bailey hind, a shepherd banad – a bearer hephynt or hupynt – a whim. ‘Fe dery hephynt yn ei ben. ’ llys – berries in general llys duon, llys llygeirian, llys y coed – strawberries &c. cnôd – a cluster; cnotiau’r eiddew – ivy clusters taws and towsen – arf, basil lloerddarn – a segment mynychu – to frequent a place or the doing of any thing. ‘Mynychu Llannerch y medd, mynychu meddwi, mynycha hynny &c. ’ gorchfannedd – gums, cig dannedd hain, hain ysgar – the after birth gwlybyrau – liquids crygi – hoarseness; bydderi – deafness pwys punt – pound weight genwair – a cooper’s plan trwpa – astyllen i gario morter brawddeg – a sentence trefa’r tylwyth teg – fairy ring lleithig – simnai ’nghanol y t} cadair leithig – a stone bench about the ‘lleithig’ persyth melin – mill brand gwasg caws – cheese press lloeran, lloer – a circle gwerthin and gwerchyr – a fortification [?hôd] g{ydd aradr – math ar fach egwyl – a convenient time brithag – butter and eggs mix’d ymgefnu – to dissent ymgefnyddion – dissenters carrog – a basilisk

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brilyn – a silly fellow

8. NLW 21286E, no. 1021; [?1792] (CIM, I, letter 182, pp. 453–4). The latter part of this item contains a comparative list of Silurian and Venedotian words, in which Iolo notes that changes between the dialects tend to occur in the middle or at the end of words, rather than in their first letter. The initial section of the list is varied in content, but includes a saying, allegedly in use in Glamorgan, which translates as ‘Walking side by side with the world, and the truth and the just’ (‘Ystlys gerdded â’r byd a’r gwir a’r iawn’). gerwyneb – present gerwydd ei wyneb gerwydd – present amser gerwydd – present time creth – disposition, nature, habit, propensity cre-, crëaeth, or as Mawrth rhangc – desire rhengi – to desire llwyn, [?query] llw-yn brawd – brotherhood, social compact achreth, ascreth, cynghreth, ysgreth, Glamorgan ‘Ystlys gerdded â’r byd a’r gwir a’r iawn’ &c. , Glamorgan ci’n lluddedu, ’n llyferthu &c. , Glamorgan Silurian y weithon yr awrhon dynon geirau y dythwn occo rhocco caruaidd

Venedotian weithian yrwan dynion geiriau dwthwn accw rhaccw caruedd

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carwys Bedyddwr c j

carodd Bedyddiwr pro g pro d

Change of initials not so frequent groesaw

croesaw

ni a wyddain hwy a wyddaint ni a wyddon hwy a wyddont

} ni a wyddem } a wyddent } a wyddom } a wyddant

Care to be taken here

9. NLW 21282E, no. 318; 21 February 1793 (CIM, I, letter 245, p. 550). A list of names for bread in various parts of Wales. (It is unclear whether or not the bread is of the same kind.) GPC corroborates Iolo’s evidence on the first name listed, noting as its example the work of Richard Morris of Anglesey (1716–18). Iolo’s own testimony for the oral usage of ‘bara plwmbryd, –prwmlid’ to mean ‘bread baked on bakestone’ in Glamorgan is used in GPC. ‘Bara ffwystain, –anaidd’ goes unmentioned. bara peilliaid – Gwynedd bara ffwyst – Blaeneu Gwent bara ffwystain, bara ffwystannaidd – Bro Morgannwg bara plwmbryd, teisen blymryd – Glyn Nedd

10. NLW 21283E, no. 542; 22 December 1794 (CIM, I, letter 347, p. 716). Merioneth vocabulary – testimony to Iolo’s visits to the county in 1771. See CIM, II, letter 480, p. 103. petheuach, Meirion minnos – dusk of the night

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11. NLW 21282E, no. 427; 11 July 1803 (CIM, II, letter 647, p. 518). Here Iolo notes examples of the usage of the verbs ‘cynnau’, to light, and ‘enynnu’ (shortened to ‘nynnu’), to set ablaze, to kindle, in the Silurian dialect. He is interested in the fact that, in the phrase ‘fe gyn / nyn y tân’, the fire (‘tân’) may either be the object or the subject of the verb. Silurian verbs nyn y tân, cyn y tân, y ganwyll &c. – light the fire, the candle &c. fe gyn, fe nyn y tân, y ganwyll &c. – he will light the fire &c. fe gyn, fe nyn y tân &c. – the fire will light

12. NLW 21285E, no. 873; 26 June 1804 (CIM, II, letter 693, pp. 609–11). This item serves as an example of the overlap in Iolo’s work between recording dialect and creating it. Headed ‘Glamorgan’, this list would appear to be a record of language from that county. In fact, most of the words, possibly even the homely one for ‘bread’ which opens the list, are probably of Iolo’s own making. None feature in GPC. Glamorgan canredred, bara canred – breat [sic] made of flour, white bread nwydred – disposition, temper cerddedred – course, direction, the general run cyfysured – general run cyfunred – [?county] porthred – help porthredu – to help

13. NLW 21282E, no. 436; 1 June 1810 (CIM, III, letter 828, p. 16). ‘Berweddu’ is a form of the verb ‘bryweddu’, to brew, decoct, first noted in Pughe’s A Welsh and English Dictionary (1793). See GPC s.v. bryweddaf, briweddaf: bryweddu, briweddu, briwedda. ‘Maethgen’ is noted in GPC but is defined as ‘blow, trouble, pain, sorrow’ rather than ‘evil, lying, contention’ as offered here by Iolo. ‘Yr wyf i (y mae ef ) yn berweddu’ ‘Y mae’n berweddu glaw, anesmwythder’ ‘Yr wyt ti, y mae ef, yn berweddu’

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maethgen – drwg, celwydd, cynnen &c.

14. NLW 21283E, no. 486; 30 March 1813 (CIM, III, letter 889, pp. 148–9). Iolo here dissects a range of words, including ‘aren’ (seat of the feelings or affections), ‘geni’ (to give birth or to be born), and ‘asgen’ (defined in GPC as ‘misfortune’ or ‘natural tendency’ but by Iolo as ‘fate’). He finds in them all the element ‘gên’, which he defines as ‘soul’. Both the Glamorgan dialect and bogus Dafydd ap Gwilym (D. G.)2 are provided as examples of usage. gên – soul; genaid, Gwent A gên y g{r gan ei gi A’i gorph êl [i] Gaerffili, D. G. ‘Ni faidd e ar ei ên’, ‘ni faidd hi ar ei gên’, Glamorgan aren, ar-gên geni, to become a living soul diên, animated, full of soul angen, an-gên asgen, as-gên – fate

15. NLW 21283E, no. 486; 30 March 1813 (CIM, III, letter 889, pp. 148–9). Contractions of ‘oddi is’ and ‘oddi uwch’ (‘below’ and ‘above’), exemplified by a line allegedly composed by Rhys Goch Eryri and by Glamorgan usage, which further contracts the forms ‘oddis’ and ‘odduch’ to ‘dis’ and ‘duch’. oddis

123

Oddis compod rhod yr haul, R. Goch Eryri oddis wybren oddis daear oddis haul oddis nef odduch haul &c. dis haul, disnef Glamorgan duch haul, duch nef

2

See Owen Jones and William Owen (eds. ), Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym (Llundain 1789), p. 511.

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16. NLW 21281E, no. 188; 28 December [1816] (CIM, III, letter 1036, p. 415). Iolo here takes ‘gwedyd, gweud’, the southern dialect form for ‘dywedyd, dweud’, as the basis for a list of words which involve the concept of ‘speaking’. gwed, imperative – speak! gwed, fe wêd – he will speak gwedfawr – loquacious gwedwst – sullen sywedydd – a teller, an astrologer adwedyd – to recant, renounce hywed – conversible anhywed – sullen dywedyd – to speak

17. NLW 21286E, no. 983; 28 March 1821 (CIM, III, letter 1130, pp. 586–8). Both ‘darllaw’ and ‘dylofi’ are included in GPC, but the definitions (‘to brew, plot, contrive’ and ‘to handle, manipulate’ respectively) differ from that which is provided here by Iolo. darllaw, darllofi a dylofi, Silurian – to manufactur[e]

Idioms and proverbs Items 18 to 38 primarily note idioms and sayings. It is certain that some of these were of Glamorgan extraction and known to Iolo as a speaker of the native dialect. Others are clearly fabrications. Particular suspects include item 35 – material which corresponds to the spirit of some of the Myvyrian Archaiology’s third volume forgeries and which is attributed to Thomas Llywelyn of Regoes. (For idioms in triadic form, see items 22–4.)

18. NLW 21285E, no. 789; [?1778] (CIM, I, letter 39, pp. 127–30). ‘To keep a dog and bark myself.’ ‘The one who has leisure is given a warning.’ ‘Cadw ci a chyfarth ymhunan’, Glamorgan

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‘Arfod a gaffo rybydd’, ibid. Cledron – a latice of a window

19. NLW 21283E, no. 482; 4 January 1784 (CIM, I, letter 85, p. 254). ‘A harsh winter never led to shortage.’ ‘A cold May provides a full barn and an empty cemetery.’ ‘To chase after land and [?enemy territory].’ Proverbs in Glamorgan Ni adewis gauaf caled brinder erioed ar ei ôl Mai oer a wna ysgubor lawn a monwent wag Herlid gwlad a gorwlad

20. NLW 21281E, no. 266; 16 March 1785 (CIM, I, letter 95, p. 275). A series of sayings which express conflicting views regarding the nature of first love. It may be seen as the warmest and best kind of love, but it can also be rash, whereas the next or the final love is sensible and wiser.

123

123

Glamorgan [———] affections Os coll dyn ei gariad cyntaf ni fydd cariad wedi hynny fyth mor wresog. Nid yw ail gariad fyth mor wresog â’r cariad cyntaf. Colli’r cariad cyntaf, colli’r cariad goreu. Cariad cyntaf y cariad brytaf, Cariad diwetha’r cariad calla. Cariad crotyn, tân asglodyn a llif cornant. Cariad cynta’ cariad byrbwyll, Cariad nesa’ cariad hirbwyll.

21. NLW 21282E, no. 307; 28 March 1788 (CIM, I, letter 118, pp. 306–12). Iolo begins this item by defining a rhetorical figure (‘gloes’) which he calls ‘ceinmyged’. The meaning would appear to have no relation to the noun ‘ceinmyged’ listed in GPC and defined as ‘honour, honourable’ or ‘subject of praise’. In Iolo’s lexicon the word refers to being precise in naming time or place. Among the other items noted here is the saying that if it rains on St Crispin’s Day it will continue to do so for forty days.

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Gloes arall a elwir ‘ceinmyged’, sef pan y ceinmyger lle neu amser yn bendant yn lle’r amcan arno, fal gwedyd ‘Mae’r lleuad yn (ar) haul deg ar y gloch neu arall o awr’, sef hynny dangos lle’r lleuad ar yr awyr, ag wrth hynny gan oed y lleuad, gwybod awr y nos. Cyrchu [?am] y deng milltir ‘Os glaw’r g{yl Grisbin glaw deugeunydd’, sef hynny, glaw yn dechr[a]u cylch {am} yr {yl honno, glaw mwy na mis ei barhâd, amlaf. Gwelwn gant o ddynion ynghyd, sef hynny amcan ar gant yng ngoreu deall a barn golwg. Mor wyn â’r calch, neu’r eira, sef hynny gwynnach nag arall o’r un rhyw, a hynny lawer.

22. NLW 21282E, no. 316; 6 March 1792. In triadic form, the following item vilifies three figures for whom Iolo had little respect – the priest, the doctor and the lawyer. O ymddiried yr enaid i’r offeiriad, y corph i’r meddyg, a’r meddiant i’r cyfreithiwr, diwedd y tri bydd myned i ddiawl.

23. NLW 21280E, no. 60; 25 May 1792. The saying ‘A dry summer never left famine behind it’ is followed by two triads, reputedly from Glamorgan, which describe the effects of heat and rain respectively on plant growth and productivity. ‘Nid edewis haf sych newyn erioed ar ei ôl’, Glamorgan ‘Tripheth a gynnydd ar y gwres, gwenyn a gwenith a mes’ ‘Tripheth a gynnydd ar y glaw, gwlydd a[g] ysgall ag ysgaw’, Glamorgan

24. NLW 21284E, no. 734; 18 January 1794. Again using the structure of a triad, Iolo in the first item below speaks in a moralistic tone regarding attitudes to the faults of others. ‘There is a big difference between that which is praised and that which is pardoned; between what is pardoned and what is tolerated;

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and between what is tolerated and what is not punished.’ The second item expresses the proverbial view that ‘It is better to have a tiny lad (lit. ‘an inch of a lad’) than a huge girl (lit. ‘a mountain of a girl’)’. Mae llawer o wahaniaeth rhwng a ganmolir ac a faddeuir a rhwng a faddeuir ac a oddefir a rhwng a oddefir a’r hyn nis cosbir. ‘Gwell modfedd o fab na mynydd o ferch’, Glamorgan

25. NLW 21281E, no. 281; [?1800] (CIM, II, letter 533, p. 255). The following sayings preach the values of moral uprightness, showing the evil of treachery and lying, and noting that it is ‘too late to regret when the torch has been lit’. The final example notes that ‘He who is brought up on a dunghill will for ever have his nose in the mire’. ‘Bradwr a wna frad ei hunan yn benna neb’, Glamorgan ‘Celwydd a gerdd dros ei ben a’i glustiau cyn y gwêl ei wall’, ibid. , ‘cyn gweled ei fod yn boddi’ ‘Rhy hwyr ’tifaru wedi’r ffagl gynnu’, ibid. ‘Brad a ddaw’n frad i bob bradwr (yn niwedd y daplas)’, ibid. ‘Pob brad a ddychwel ar ben y bradwr ei hunan’ ‘A fegir ar y domen a fydd dros fyth â’i drwyn yn y dom’

26. NLW 21281E, no. 281; [?1800] (CIM, II, letter 533, p. 255). ‘“I am the man for your money”, said the miser to the devil.’ ‘“Mi yw’r g{r am eich arian”, ebe’r cybydd wrth y diawl. ’

27. NLW 21284E, no. 639; 27 March 1804 (CIM, II, letter 681, pp. 581–4). ‘Delicacy and brew, I’ll put everything in my sack.’ ‘To bend like a goose while going under the gates of London.’ Bras a brwd, y cyfan i’m cwd Plygu fal g{ydd wrth fyned dan borth Llundain

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28. NLW 21282E, no. 367; 21 October 1805 (CIM, II, letter 737, pp. 717–18). A series of expressions regarding the contrasting weather at the beginning and the end of March. Mawrth i mewn fal oen, i maes fal llew – i mewn fal llew, i maes fal oen – i mewn yn wylo, i maes yn chwerthin {gwenu} {canu} – i mewn yn gwenu, i maes dan wylo – i mewn dan ruo, i maes dan ganu – i mewn dan ganu, i maes dan ruo

29. NLW 21286E, no. 1037; [?post May 1806] (CIM, II, letter 767, pp. 799–800). This item focuses primarily on the various ways in which the expression ‘I don’t believe anything that he says’ may be rendered in the Silurian, Venedotian and Dimetian dialects. The final phrase might be translated ‘He is no more to be believed than the crow who shouts that it is raining’. ‘Nid wy’n coelo dim a wetto ef {fe}’, Silurian ‘Nid wy’n coelio dim a ddeudo ef ’, Venedotian ‘Nid wy’n coelo dim a weudo ef’, or ‘dim ac y mae’n ei weud’, Dimetian ‘Nid oes dim coel ar a wetto’, Silurian ‘Nid oes mo’r gronyn o goel ar a ddeudo’, Venedotian ‘Mae argoel glaw erni {ar yr wybren}’ – ‘We may believe that we shall have rain. ’ ‘Nid oes fwy o goel ar a wetto fe nag y sydd ar y frân yn gweiddi glaw. ’

30. NLW 21280E, no. 131; 4 January 1809 (CIM, II, letter 798, p. 857). As old as the great road. Cy’ hened â’r hewl fawr

31. NLW 21282E, no. 436; 1 June 1810 (CIM, III, letter 828, p. 16). The expressions noted below extol the benefit of low numbers. The English phrase ‘The fewer the better cheer’ contradicts the common idiom ‘the more the merrier’ and the Welsh items state that, when numbers are small, everyone gets a larger share.

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‘Pa leiaf y rhif, mwyaf y rhan’ – The fewer the better cheer ‘Rhif bychan rhan fawr’ ‘Cyfaill yn dda i bob peth ond i fwyta bwyd pan fo’n fach’

32. NLW 21283E, no. 582; 1 October 1812 (CIM, III, letter 877, p. 126). ‘Canmolwch {canmol} a ddymunech {[————]} yn deilwng ei foli’ – ‘Praise whom you would wish to become worthy of being praised’ ‘Mawl a bair ei haeddu’ – ‘Praise will produce what deserves it’

33. NLW 21284E, no. 769; 20 April 1814. ‘The fault which leads to wisdom is no folly.’ ‘Nid ffolineb y camsyniad a ddysgo ddoethineb’

34. NLW 21284E, no. 678; [?31] May 1818 (CIM, III, letter 1070, p. 472). In this comment Iolo claims that the phrase ‘the desert of the Vale of Baeddan’ is used by Glamorgan poets to describe a poem full of extraneous words contributing nothing to the meaning. ‘Anialwch Cwm Baeddan’, ymadrodd arferedig gan brydyddion Morgannwg am gerdd dafod a fo’n llawn geiriau llanw a segur, heb ystyr yn y byd iddynt ond i glytio mesur neu gynghanedd neu er dirdynnu awdl i ryw le y bo’i heisiau.

35. NLW 21283E, no. 539; 4 April 1824 (CIM, III, letter 1175, pp. 683–4). Thomas Llywelyn of Regoes in Glamorgan ( fl. late 16th / early 17th century), the professed author of this maxim, was something of a Ioloic hero. As a historical figure, his main legacy was his love poetry in the cywydd metre. On the basis of a few religious songs (‘cwndidau duwiol’), however, Iolo transformed him into a crucial figure in the history of Nonconformity in south Wales. One of the claims made by Iolo was that Thomas Llywelyn had translated the Bible into Welsh more than forty years before William Morgan completed the task. 3 The maxim attributed here to Llywelyn states: 3

See G. J. Williams, Traddodiad Llenyddol Morgannwg (Caerdydd, 1948), pp. 126–8.

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‘Woe to him who learns a bad habit while young. He will be more than old enough before he rids himself of it.’ ‘Gwae a ddysgo gamp ddrwg yn ieuanc, bydd yn fwy na digon hen cyn ydd ymwareto ef â hi’, T. Llywelyn, Regoes

36. NLW 21283E, no. 539; 4 April 1824 (CIM, III, letter 1175, pp. 683–4). A selection of idioms, many of which illustrate the use of prepositions such as ‘dan’ (under) or ‘ar’ (upon). The former appears to be the basis for the phrase used in the bardic ritual of the Gorsedd, ‘Dan rybudd un dydd a blwyddy’’. Iolo mockingly offers the literal translation which he claims his one-time friend Pughe would have provided for this, thus proving his awareness of the unique, language-specific nature of idioms. A dialectical and oral touch is given to this list by the inclusion of ‘pwr baton’ (noun) and the verb ‘pwrbatan’. Although neither form is recorded in GPC they probably derive from the English ‘poor batton’ (not included in the OED). The noun might describe someone of a lowly and humble background for whom the world seems a somewhat perplexing place; the verb, the inconsequential prating of such a person. darglyw – sôn am ddyn neu beth; cyfarwyddyd, hanas dyn dan glyw, ‘nid oes ddim gair dan glyw am hynny ’nawr’ dim dan wybod – ‘y maint y sy dan wybod i ni yw hyn’ [?———] ‘Nid oes dim dan olwg yn awr gennyf fi’ – I have nothing in view a[t] prese[nt] dan ofn, dan obaith, dan glod, dan ganmoliaeth, dan gywilydd, dan gêl, dan gu[dd] ‘Y mae dan gadw’ – ‘[?o] dan gof ’, or ‘dan gof da’ – y mae erfyn yno – ar gof, ar ofn, ar goll, ar wybod, ar fyned, ar ddychwel mewn gwir, mewn gwir da yn lle gwir, yn lle sicrwydd, yn lle sicr gorfu arnaf, arno, erni, ernynt; yr wyf, y mae, y maent dan orfod y mae, maent, yr wyf, yr wyt, dan orfod, dan rwymau &c. [?&c. ] i fyned i wneuthur, i oddef, i adael iddo, i dewi sôn, i wasgu clust a thewi sôn ‘pwr baton’; ‘Gwelwch fal y mae ef, hi, yn pwrbatan’ ‘Dan rybudd un dydd a blwyddy’’ – ‘Under warning one day and a year’, as William Owen would have translated it

37. NLW 21285E, no. 784; [?March 1776] (CIM, I, letter 34, pp. 118–21). Examples of idioms using the preposition ‘am’ (lit. ‘on’) and the noun ‘pen’ (head). ‘Put sand over the chalk’; ‘this and that over such and such’; ‘to laugh at him’ (lit. to laugh on his head); ‘to rain on top of him’; ‘on top of one another’.

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[A]m ben – ‘doder tywod am ben y calch’, ‘hyn a hyn am ben y peth a’r peth’, ‘chwerthin am ei ben’, ‘bwrw am ei ben’, ‘am ben ei gilydd’

38. NLW 21284E, no. 754; 2 March 1792 (CIM, I, letter 200, p. 474). Examples of idioms using the dialectical form ‘ganno’, meaning ‘with’, and the phrases ‘aro’ and ‘ymaro’. Iolo also lists the conjugated preposition ‘er’, noting both literary and oral forms, the latter featuring an additional ‘dd’ midway through the word (erof – erddof). huno, heni, henynt ganno – gydag; ‘myned ganno fe’ – ‘go with him’ ‘Aeth ganno’r bad, y cerby[d]’ – he went with the boat &c. , the coach &c. aro and ymaro – for God’s sake, adverb of praying aro dos, ymaro paid erof, erddof eri, erddi erynt, erddynt eroch, erddoch aro, for the sake of

Grammar and morphology Iolo’s interest in the mechanics of the Welsh language is explored in the items included under this heading. He touches upon mutation, interchangeability of initial letters and the ‘absurdity’ of some of John Davies’s grammatical work on the language. Included also are Iolo’s comments on the grammar of contemporary writers.

39. NLW 21283E, no. 615; [?1775] (CIM, I, letter 23, pp. 88–9). This item accompanies a letter from Miles and John Williams to Edward William(s), Iolo Morganwg and Thomas Williams, written around 1775, and relates to the series of letters which Iolo drafted for John Walters during the early 1770s, discussed in chapter 4. For a list of the kind mentioned here (‘vide “B” and “M”’), see item 40 below.

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-ain, termination – implies {denotes, signifies} quality, nature, having the quality property &c. o[f ] any thin[g]. These words (vide ‘B’ and ‘M’) primarily begin with B or M. Mutable consonants (b, c, d, g, ll, m, p, r, t) are changed according to the effect which the preceding or affixed words or particles have on them. I have admitted no variation of the letters but what is regular, and which the genius of the language requires. ‘Al’ changes the initials of the words; it is compound with [the words] into their soft form, as ‘alfarch’ &c. , but very often retains the radical, as ‘alban’, ‘alclwyd’, ‘alcwn’, and it may with equal propriety be wrote either ways, as ‘alba’ or ‘alva’.

40. NLW 21285E, no. 776; 19 January 1775 (CIM, I, letter 25, pp. 91–5). Iolo here provides evidence for the interchangeability of the consonants ‘b’ and ‘m’ in the Welsh language. Several of these dual forms would be familiar to Welsh speakers today. The fact that Iolo provides very little by way of explanation or definition of the words listed here suggests that this scrap of paper was nothing more than an early and undeveloped draft of his linguistic work. These words are to this day so doubtful that we cannot ascertain the true orthography but use them indiscriminately: maban, baban magwy, bagwy magod a magu, bagod mach, bach maeddu, baeddu mäon, bäon mainc, banc mal, bal, [?Will Bal] malc, balc malen, balain mall, ball manon, banon maron, baron math, bath menn, benn menwyd, benwyd, a manw, as ‘tristyd’ – blessing beryw, meryw mic, bic

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micas, bicas midlan, bidlan migwrn, bigwrn milain, bilain miw, biw modrwy, bodrwy modrydaf, bodrydaf modd, bodd morddwyd, borddwyd mun, bun, merth, berth mu, bu mwys – a basket; bwys – a coracle mwd, bwd, hinc ‘bydaf ’ myltys, bwltws mywilian, bywilian mywion, bywion bacwn, macwn bagad, magad bala, mala balach, boloch, moloch bath, math bawd, mawd – [—–]ment ben in ‘bendith’ menw in ‘menwyd’ menthyg, benthyg margen, bargen mernais, bernais metws (a ‘med’, ‘medi’), betws menyw, benyw micre, bicre bigwrn, migwrn bilan – gwayw; milan bêr and bir, mêr, m}r bwdran, mwdran bodd, modd boloch, moloch bu, mu bydwraig, mydwraig byddin, myddin

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41. NLW 21284E, no. 753; 6 July 1818. Here Iolo attempts to justify the use of ‘b’ rather than ‘p’ as the initial letter of the word ‘prysur’ (busy). See chapter 4. Brysyr – brys a gyr gyr brys – gyr ar frys – not ‘prysyr’, forsan

42. NLW 21281E, no. 142; 3 August 1782 (CIM, I, letter 71, p. 203). A list of Welsh terms for some of the persons of the verb, followed by experimentation with the notion of combining ‘bod’ (in a clause introduced by the word ‘bod’ (i.e. ‘that’)) with ‘ydys’ (the present tense impersonal form of the verb ‘bod’ (to be)), to give the form ‘bodys’. Gweithredydd cyntaf – 1st person Ail weithredydd – 2d person Trydydd weithredydd – 3d person Gweithredyddiaeth cyffredin – indefinite person or aggre[g]ate person Bodys, ydys Pe bai’n gwybod bodys yn ei oganu yr ydys yn ei oganu y mae yn ei oganu Pe byddys yn ei oganu

43. NLW 21280E, no. 126; 15 February 1796 (CIM, I, letter 410, pp. 803–4). Dymunolion – desiderata Dymunolder, -deb, -iaeth. Plur. -derau, -debion, -aethau – desideratum, -ums, -a

44. NLW 21282E, no. 367; 21 October 1805 (CIM, II, letter 737, pp. 717–18). Iolo’s criticism of phrases used by John Roberts (1767–1834) in Ychydig o Hanes y Diweddar Barchedig Lewis Rees, yr hwn a fu unwaith yn Weinidog yr Efengyl yn Llanbrynmair, ac wedi hyny yn Abertawe (Caerfyrddin, [?1813]),

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for which see LW, II, p. 550. It was characteristic of Iolo to criticize the language used by his contemporaries in their publications. Bywyd Lewys Rees ‘Yn arferol o addoli mewn tai annedd’, recte, ‘yn arfer addoli mewn tai annedd’ ‘Difrifol’ as bad as ‘dilesol’, ‘dieuol’ &c. ‘Rhoddi awgrym’ – ‘to give a hint’, p. 24 ‘Yn holl ystod ei fywyd’ – ‘in all the course of his life’, Bywyd Lewys Rees Cyfysdod bywyd ‘Hyd yn nod ar ganol y strydoedd’, Lewys Rhys

45. NLW 21283E, no. 486; 30 March 1813 (CIM, III, letter 889, pp. 148–9). A list of nouns whose internal vowel ‘o’ in the singular form is exchanged for a ‘y’ in the plural. An understanding of this morphological pattern enables Iolo to interpret some of the words listed, notably ‘Cymmry’ (Welsh) and ‘byd’ (world). ffordd – ffyrdd gordd – gyrdd corn – cyrn ffon – ffyn môr – m}r torch – tyrch fforch – ffyrch corf – cyrf corph – cyrph cors – cyrs coll – cyll cloch – clych troch – trych, Glamorgan bro – bry, in Cymmry bron – bryn bro – bry, above, ‘gorwlad’ (as the Shires in Kent; ‘siroedd ucha’, N. W. , so S. W. for the north) post – pyst cosp – cysp tros – trys, S. W.

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porth – pyrth pont – pynt bod – byd, the univer[?se]; ‘yr holl fodau’ pôr – p}r to – tyr, the coverings côr – c}r

46. NLW 21283E, no. 486; 30 March 1813 (CIM, III, letter 889, pp. 148–9). A comical interpretation of the contemporary obsession with connections between languages. See chapter 4. A rule that is pretty general will not hold universally: hwch – hog bwch – buck ych – ox bu – bos march – mare ci – canis But: march – merch buwch – bwch adder – otter gwadd – g{ydd llo – llew [?huad] – hwyad boeuf – bever horse – ursus boar – bear mole – mule mouse – moos man – [?mysm] kid – cod heron – herring rhiain – rana olor – owl cat – kite cyw – cow ouzel – weazle coney – canis

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swine – swan duck – dog cock – cuckoo cos – ass ‘Bard’ and ‘bird’ will do, you will possibly say, because both are flighty.

47. NLW 21281E, no. 188; 28 December [1816] (CIM, III, letter 1036, p. 415). This note explains Iolo’s understanding of the concept of number in Welsh nouns. singular: dyn, gwaith plural definite: undyn, deuddyn, dengnyn, ugeinnyn, cannyn, dwywaith, dengwaith, ugeinwaith, trugeinwaith, canwaith, milwaith plural indefinite: dynion, gweithiau, tai, gwartheg, afalau, beirdd &c. plural aggregate: dynionau, teiau, gwarthegoedd, afaleuoedd, beirddion

48. NLW 21281E, no. 197; 24 December 1817 (CIM, III, letter 1056, p. 447). Extracts from the journal Seren Gomer, together with Iolo’s criticism of the language used in material submitted by the administrative wing of the Gwyneddigion Society. Points noted include the periphrastical and, to Iolo’s mind, uncalled-for use of auxiliary verbs, and the adding of the suffix ‘-(i)ol’ to the adjective ‘amryw’. Iolo’s writing confirms that he considered both these features as north Wales barbarisms. Seren Gomer, Gorphennaf 14 1819 ‘Cyhoeddiad y Gwyneddigion, Eisteddfod Dinbych – danfon dan enw cudd i J. Wood, Arwydd y Goron, Tref Ddinbych’ ‘Yr ydys yn deisyfu i’r beirdd &c. ’, yn lle ‘deisyfir ar y beirdd’ ‘Bydded i’r gweithiau gael ei hanfon yno’ yn lle ‘danfoner y gweithiau yno &c. ’ ‘Barddonol’, ‘yr amrywiol gyfansoddiadau barddonol’, pro ‘yr amryw &c. ’ Elusengarwch. Thomas Roberts, Llwynrhudol. Arwydd y Sach Gwlân, Cornhill, London.

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49. NLW 21284E, no. 753; 6 July 1818. An attack on Dr John Davies of Mallwyd for his misapplication of the concepts of Latin grammar to the Welsh language. Dr Davies applies to the Welsh language the technology of the Latin grammar. Grammarians of other modern languages have done the same, to a sufficient degree of absurdity, but it is more erroneous in the Welsh grammar than in that of any other language, for if by declination we only mean the alteration of the form of a word as it may be variously affected or acted upon by a preceding word or phrase, we shall be at some difficulty in attempting to prove that all the parts of speech in the Welsh language are not declinable, or that they never change or vary their forms, at least some words in every part of speech. Even nouns substantive do not all of them alter their forms. It is only those of them which have certain mutable letters of the alphabet for their radicals that alter their forms, but this alteration or, if you please, declention takes place in articles, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions &c. To apply the terms declinable or indeclinable to the Welsh language, especially in the senses in which they are usually taken, is very improper and even highly absurd. All words of mutable initials, of whatever part of speech, occasionally change their forms. Dr Davies in imitation of Latin writers divides the Welsh parts of speech into declinable and undeclinable, but if varying the form by declining, we may say that all the parts of speech in the Welsh language is declinable.

50. NLW 21282E, no. 419; 21 November 1821 (CIM, III, letter 1138, pp. 603–4). This list of words ending in ‘-o’ represents Iolo’s attempts at understanding how ‘primitive’ syllables might have provided the basis for the development of a language in all its parts. The sound ‘rho’, for example, is equated here with the verbal forms ‘dyro, dyry’; in spite of its apparent simplicity as a one-syllable sound it is linked with the complexities of the persons and tenses of the verb ‘rhoi’ (to give). bo – dyfo, dyfu, dyfydd bro clo cro do – dyddo efo ffo

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glo gro ho io llo po rho – dyro, dyry [—]o [–––] tro

Vocabulary 51. NLW 21283E, no. 477; [?1770s] (CIM, I, letter 1, p. 37). In a manner typical of his interest during the early 1770s, Iolo here finds the connections between Welsh and Cornish vocabulary, and traces the presence of Welsh words on the geography of southern France. Welsh word[?s] malc – a pathway, Cornish; a ‘malu’ miraz, ibid. – to look mira, ibid. – look you, mirough, see you, see ye mir – the sight, Gan weled mwyned ei mir A’i haf wyneb hoyw feinir. Tarn – a river of Languedo[c], Brooks, Gazetteer Llantarnau – Dintarn or Tintarn cadarn, ysdarn

52. NLW 21285E, no. 777; 18 September 1774 (CIM, I, letter 21, pp. 80–7). For the context of this list, see chapter 4. Iolo did not provide definitions, translations or any other form of elucidation for these words. However, his list does include references to Thomas Richards’s Antiquae Linguae Britannicae Thesaurus, poetry attributed to Hywel ap Dafydd ab Ieuan ap Rhys (Hywel Dafi) and Cornish vocabulary. in ‘-a’ or ‘-ia’ aferchwa, archwa

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allda awena bala berfa blincwra blochda, clwpa bodryda, clafyca bola, cala breila, byda buna, bwla buria, bwa crepa, a ‘crep{b}’ cropa, crwca clopa, cop[?a], clop, Siôn Clop cwla, cwta, cylla Dona, enw santes; a ‘dawn’ drefa egwya eira, epa gwenna gwepia, gwipia gwipra hwta, Rhita llaca, llipa maluria, meiria mopa, nilla mygoria, partha pica, pia, plesca proca – an augre pwmpa, pwnga rhaca rhongca, sioba swga, swta tapina, trefa tripa, trwpa, trwp trwsa, trybola twca, wala, gwala ystola, ysgyfala, cywala in ‘-o’ or ‘-i[-o]’ abo agro

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aigo (Gasgwyn), aig amrosgo cado, pabo cadno, canddo cono Gwenno golo rhongean, Glamorgan, see ‘rhwngc’, Richards gawd, hinc ‘gwasgawd’ and ‘ysgawd’ yso, ysaw ys-saw, a ‘saw’ – i. e. a place of stability Ystidell o {ar} ddail celli – a festoon, H. D. ‘I’r Gwyddfid’ ystidell ar goed celli ystod, adawd ystry, see Richards elgno rhawna, Glamorgan ‘Rhan rhan, bara can’ baca – a cluster brenai – ye pine or fir, Dr William. Nage – ‘sage’ brithai – rhyw lyseuyn ceithiw, coithig alzwrn, Cornish – arddwrn alddwrn cub, cwb, cybydd crawen a crawf, See Richards yscurnel – a spire, ‘t} uchel, yscurnelog’, H. D. Ieuan Rhys, ‘I Gastell Rhaglan’ cwlas, see Richards cwl[?e]n – an abaccus cwn-sallt cwyn – an elevation or perpendicular

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hod – see ‘hottan’, Richards llaig – vide ‘lleigiaw’ mort, mortar ‘-a’ gives locality as America from ‘Americ’ esgwn and ysgwyn, Richards superiority – acwn gwagr, gogr, gwahan, gohan gwaddol, goddol gohilion, gwehilion gwarafun, gorafun gwasarn, gosarn gweresgyn, goresgyn gwerlin, gorlin – chief of ye clan or tribe gwesgryn, gosgryn gostwng, gwestyng myddfai, mydd and Mai, ysmyddad myrn, vide ‘myrnau’, Richards ting, vide ‘tinc’ in Richards tryal, a ‘gâl’ llythyr, a ‘llith’ ynysig – an islet

53. NLW 21283E, no. 615; [?1775] (CIM, I, letter 23, pp. 88–9). The word ‘barch’ exemplified in lines and couplets of strict-metre poetry, composed by Iolo but falsely attributed to the poets Ithel Ddu, Dafydd Ddu of Hiraddug and Madog Dwygraig. barch A gw}r meirch a beirch barchwyrn Ithel Ddu Bu erchyll gwân a barch, Brenin byd, Iôr mwynbryd mau. D. Ddu Hiraddug

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A barch hell yn briwiaw chwaer Y manod winglod wenglaer. Madog Dwygraig [——], ‘I Wenfrewi’

54. NLW 21285E, no. 776; 19 January 1775 (CIM, I, letter 25, pp. 91–5). ann- – great, ye same as ‘ang-’, which see ‘annwy’ – a great or spacious thing gan and gant – ye same as ‘ann-’ and annwy aurora – from auror, a gilder (see terminations in ‘a’) or from ‘aur’ and ‘or’ ith, id – da mawr, cyfiawn, hinc Ithan, Idan, Ital cen – Anglice ‘ken’ clogwrn, lle clogyrnach t}d – gwres ir – ‘tith’ and ‘tit’, hinc ‘titiaid’ rhilliannu, verb, a ‘rhilliant’, a ‘rhill’

55. NLW 21285E, no. 776; 19 January 1775 (CIM, I, letter 25, pp. 91–5). This is an interesting but slightly convoluted passage on the way in which proper nouns (or in one case, a noun to describe an occupation, that of the soldier) developed from common nouns. It includes Iolo’s pacifist assertion that ‘militariness was not known to our forefathers, and when it arose among them they attributed it to wild, senseless animals’, hence the name ‘milwr’ (soldier) from ‘mil’, pl. ‘milod’ (beasts). Y mae ryw symlrwydd rhyfeddol yn yr iaith Gymraeg. Nid yw’r geiriau Bel neu Beli, Ann &c. , yn y Gymraeg dim ond enw g{r mawr &c. Yn y Wyddeleg enwau duwiau ynt. Pan gollwyd y wir gynheidiawl grefydd ydd enwid duwiau oddiwrth enwau a geiriau o’r fath uchod. Milwr a enwid felly yn ddiau am ei greulonedd megis mil. Nid oedd milwriaeth yn gydnabyddus i’r cynheidiau, a phan y cododd yn eu mysg, hwy a’i dyfalasant ef i’r milod creulon, dibwyll. Yr un peth a ellir ddywedyd am Maelgwn, Rhiain, Sadwrn, Ieuan (Iau), Teilo (Tellus), Urien, Mercher, Marchudd, Gwenno, Tydain, Dianaf (spotless). So ye words Arion, cel, Celi, bore, eigion (Oceanus, Eicion) tir, Euron, Llun, Silin, Bacwas.

56. NLW 21285E, no. 783; 25 January 1776. The following is a list of vocabulary with accompanying poetry, attributed to Meurig Dafydd, Ieuan Gethin, Dafydd ap Gwilym, Lewys Morgannwg and other anonymous poets (designated with an ‘N’). The fact that none of these examples features in

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Dr Ann Parry Owen’s comprehensive database of medieval Welsh poetry points to the conclusion that Iolo forged these couplets, all of which are in the cywydd metre. Lleweni seems to be the same as ‘llawenydd’ Llen gwyrain llwyn a garaf Lleweni haul uch {yn} llanw haf. Meuric Dafydd i’r blodeu afalau ‘Gwyrain’ the same as ‘gwyrennig’, or perhaps its radix (substantive). See ‘lleweni’. Query, not more properly ‘gwyrant’, whence ‘gwyrennig’? gosgaen – caenen Gosgaen hardd uwch y gwasgawd Gwisg ewyngant, fliant flawd. Ditto i’r ditto deorn, from ‘de’ or ‘dy’ and ‘orn’ Dued y braw i’m deorn Ieuan Gethin hawr, whence ‘dyhoryd’, ‘dehor’, ‘dehawr’, ‘dehori’ rhesel – a row Y llaw ffel a’i rheselwys (‘rheselu’ – to rank) Meury[g] Dafy[dd] canghenu A phob pren yn canghennu, Yn fentyll cain, pebyll cu. Meury[g] Dafy[dd] [p]abellu – to embower Coed diell yn pabellu [——————] gwanhwyno A phob twyn yn gwanhwyno Meurig Dafydd naturioli, verb, [––––]oli garddu Gwyrdd yw’r twf yn garddu’r tir N ymborio (a ‘pawr’) Yn beraidd yn ymborio N

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aethu – to grieve Am enaid caeth yn aethu N [—————] Awenais i’m doeth winwawd N llanerchu Bro gwiwserch yn llanerchu, Bro bêr a’i brasder i’w bru. {Gwlad a phêr ei brasder a’i bru} Cywydd Morgann[wg] neu Gywydd [?Euron] afoni, verb Lles calon sy’n afoni, Y g{r doeth, yn dy gaer di. D. G. i Ifor Hael tesogi Brwd ynni’n tesogi tir N i’r haul mynyddu A gorhoff law y g{r fflwch Yn mynyddu mwyneiddwch. L. Morgannwg i Rys ap Siôn

57. NLW 21283E, no. 616; 4 January 1777 (CIM, I, letter 36, pp. 122–3). Iolo uses couplets of his own making to exemplify vocabulary. soned, a ‘sôn’ – hinc French sonnet, a kind of song esgîn, query ‘egin’ Glasgoed a’i tegliw {a thegliw} esgîn Yn ael rhiw yn ôl yr hin. [?sang] [?Lew]ys ciw, cyw Ych plu ciwion, Glamorgan, pedol ych stapal pib, Glamorgan

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[plwyn] [?Llu]reg gwyn, lliw ffl{r gwenith, Is gwallt sirig, blwynig bleth. I wyneb merch (vide ‘plwyn’ in Richards) lleithig – a base or pedestal [?t]rostyn – the ogive in a Gothic vault

58. NLW 21281E, no. 231; 14 October–5 November 1783 (CIM, I, letter 81, pp. 240–9). [?ha]letys a heledd – lly[?siau] oeron a fwyteir gyda chig neu gaws mewn gwleddoedd neu i ddyn afiach ber[?et]on – llysiau berwedigion a fwytair gyda chig neu enllyn amgen

Terminology Iolo was a fervent creator of new words in a range of fields. The following examples demonstrate his attempts at coining terms relating to horticulture, religion, the law, architecture, music, grammar and the principles of rhetoric. Although a few of the examples had already been used by some of Iolo’s predecessors, the lists in their entirety constitute examples of his ingenuity as a coiner of words.

59. NLW 21285E, no. 786; [?October 1780] (CIM, I, letter 55, p. 173). Iolo here devises Welsh terminology for various types of trees. espaliers – rheswydd, polwydd, i. e. pawl-wydd rhesgoed, polgoed wall trees – murgoed, gwalgoed, murwydd, gwalwydd standards – sawydd, perllanwydd, gorwydd, sawgoed

60. NLW 21281E, no. 142; 3 August 1782 (CIM, I, letter 71, p. 203). The first entry below discusses the precise meaning of the term ‘geiriadur’, defined by GPC as ‘dictionary’, with supporting examples dating from the early seventeenth century

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onwards. In line with other nouns ending in ‘-(ia)dur’, Iolo suggests that ‘geiriadur’ should be redefined as a person who creates words. ‘Geiriadur’ implies agency, signifies the former rather than the collector of words, as ‘pechadur’, ‘peiriadur’ or ‘peredur’, ‘gwniadur’, ‘cysgadur’, ‘penadur’, ‘cliniadur’, ‘pesgadur’, a gramadeg yn hytrach na geirlyfr yw arwyddocâd y gair. trawddiadur, a ‘trawdd’; adrawdd, ymtrawdd rhôl, a ‘rotula’ &c. , a ‘rhod’, dim ‘rhodell’ – rhodol, volumen

61. NLW 21281E, no. 142; 3 August 1782 (CIM, I, letter 71, p. 203). The following selection of words relates to the parts of a book. None of them are included in GPC. wyneblen – title page gwis[?g]len – a wrapper; rhwymlen mynaglen – an index cynwysiadlen – table of contents

62. NLW 21281E, no. 231; 14 October–5 November 1783 (CIM, I, letter 81, pp. 240–9). gwrthun – unequal, not one simple thing, inconsistency, incongruous, heterodox cyfun, cyfunryw, cyfungorph, cyfungwbl &c. – homogenous

63. NLW 21281E, no. 291; 8 March [?1792] (CIM, I, letter 201, pp. 474–5). caws – approximation achaws – proximate effecti[?ng] pow[?er] agaws – proximity dangaws – to give a kind of proximity to any thing, by pointing it out cynghaws – coproximation cosi –

64. NLW 21283E, no. 602; 22 May 1795 (CIM, I, letter 374, p. 761). mydrigan, a ‘mydr’ – madrigal

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65. NLW 21280E, no. 52; 25 August 1796 (CIM, I, letter 429, p. 830). This reveals Iolo’s endeavours to coin a word for a humane and philanthropic religion (‘dyngar’). It was probably an early attempt at naming what he later called ‘Dwyfundodiaeth’ (Unitarianism). Duwddyngaredd Dyngardduwdodiaeth Dyngarddwyfeiniaid Dyngarddwyfoliaeth, -deb Dyngarddwyfoliaid Dyngardduwiaeth Dyngardduwiol Dyngardduwiaethydd, -yddion

66. NLW 21285E, no. 874; 11 September 1804 (CIM, II, letter 700, pp. 625–7). These words demonstrate Iolo’s interest in architecture and building. trawsdrythor, trythor traws – traverse section hydrythor, trythor hyd – longitudinal section; cyfystlysdor wyneblun – front view llawrlun – plan, ichnography ystlyslun – side view, profile ystum – a figure, a fashion &c.

67. NLW 21286E, no. 1031; [?April 1805] (CIM, II, letter 717, p. 666). A list of Italian music terminology with Welsh translations. Iolo’s early interest in music is revealed in his preface to Poems, Lyric and Pastoral. For his composition of tunes to accompany the words of his numerous Unitarian hymns, see chapter 4. adagio – araf affettuoso – serchoglef andante – croywlef crescendo – chwyddedig dolce – perlais forte – cadarnlais grat[?ioso] – hoywlef, [——]lef

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maestoso – mawryddig, trinllef presto – buanllais piano – tyner siciliano – araflwys spirituoso – ysprydlon vivace – bywiog

68. NLW 21284E, no. 750; 1 December 1809 (CIM, II, letter 818, p. 884). Terminology relating to time. yn awr – in the present hour yn oed – the present time; ‘yn oed ein amser ni’, ‘yn amser Arthur’ &c. yn od – even the (or to the) singular one of &c. , not excepting the single one of, instance of &c. diymoed – immediately diannod diymdrain diymdor darmyg – conception, intention darmal – a wearing out darymball llidiard – ledge-yard

69. NLW 21280E, no. 119; 15 May 1813 (CIM, III, letter 891, pp. 154–7). cyneddfen – a commission, a letter patent &c.

70. NLW 21280E, no. 37; 14 September 1814 (CIM, III, letter 965, pp. 282–3). Iolo here attempts to create terminology relating to time. He probably intended his suggestions to be used for various tenses of the Welsh verb. amser gwyddfod – present amser dyfodiadol – first future amser dyfodadwy – time that may come, second future

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amser anadawedig – braidd gadael amser tragadawedig – llwyr adael, llwyradawedig amser buedig – amser a fu gynt

71. NLW 21281E, no. 212; 11 November 1814 (CIM, III, letter 978, p. 301). A series of verbal nouns made up of a noun + the suffix ‘-loni’. cyfreithloni – to legalize ffrwythloni – to fertilize rhadloni, boddloni, gwydloni, trychloni, rhwysgloni, gwaeloni, heddychloni, heddloni, tangnefloni, nerthloni, irlloni

72. NLW 21281E, no. 212; 11 November 1814 (CIM, III, letter 978, p. 301). A list of Welsh terms for various rhetorical devices. Gloesion ag addurneu argymhlyg – repetition, pleonasm gormodiaith – pleonasm, expletive adarwedd, adgyfarwedd – anadiplosis, anaphora adymgyrch, adymddwyn – to reintroduce, to end as it began, to reiterate adedring – climax gorail, goreiliad – complectio cyfymddal, cyfarddal – to dwell upon it

73. NLW 21286E, no. 983; 28 March 1821 (CIM, III, letter 1130, pp. 586–8). The earliest example of the following words cited in GPC is Pughe’s Dictionary (1803). In the case of ‘hydred’, a manuscript of Iolo’s, dated c.1810–15, is also included as a source. Iolo may either have been following Pughe, or he may have been responsible for coining these terms himself. hydred – longitude lledred – latitude

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74. NLW 21283E, no. 539; 4 April 1824 (CIM, III, letter 1175, pp. 683–4). Iolo’s experimentation with terminology relating to ‘true belief (in God)’ and ‘true faith’. gwir-dduwiaeth, iawndduwiaeth iawngred, iawngrediniaeth, iawngredadyn, [——]eded, iawngredwr gwirffydd, gwirffyddiog

75. NLW 21283E, no. 540; 13 July 1824. llythyrddysg - [l]iterature llythyriaeth, -iaethydd, -iaethyddion llythyr[?r]awd – orthography llythyrydd – a grammarian, -yddion llythyryddiaeth – grammar llythyriant – orthography llythyriannu – to write or spell correctly llythyriannydd – orthographist llythyriaethgar – literary, learned

76. NLW 21283E, no. 540; 13 July 1824. Suggestions for terminology for further rhetorical figures. cyfunddawd, cyfo[—]wd – synthesis; [—–]osodiad gwrthamddawd – antithesis amddawd – epithet rhagamddawd, adamddawd, cysefinddawd and ysdawd, cyfysdawd – thesis g[?en]isdawd – hypothesis sailgymeriad, argymeriad, pwyllgymeriad – theory pwyllgymeriadol – theoretical

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English poetry 1. ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’ A full text of ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’ is to be found in NLW 21392F, no. 11. See the discussion in chapter 4. The following extracts represent two sections of the poem, a sizeable part of the debate between Damon and Amyntor in (a) and the concluding stanza of the poem (the lines set out in a different format) in (b). (a) NLW 21285E, no. 789; [?1778] (CIM, I, letter 39, pp. 127–30). 13. [Damon] Why then will the covetuous mind From ye poor its small pittance extort? Why engross what th’ almighty design’d Of all the sufficient support? For this our omnipotent Lord Bids vengeance the wealthy pursue Who ne’er from abundance afford The portion to indigence due. 14. But look at the future reward When all to their merits consign’d, Shall hearts unrelentingly hard The meed of meek charity {humanity} find? Ah! dwell not on misery’s fate Tho’ sacred religion believes Far sweeter this truth to relate – ‘The merciful mercy receives. ’

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15. Amyntor How few amongst nobles and kings E’er felt the superior delight, The sacred enjoyment that {which} springs From actions religiously right; The bliss tender pity bestows, The sweets her soft feelings impart, The joys the kind comforter knows When charity flames in his {speaks to the} heart! 16. What meaner endowments of soul Those slaves of false pleasure possess Who sordid in luxury roll Neglecting the sighs of distress; Those bosoms that never can feel The sting of keen misery’s pains, Hearts harder than obdurate steel Where flinty brutality reigns. 17. What the fools {those apes} of ambition display In jilting anxiety’s course {in pride and anxiety’s course}, What folly wild squanders away To purchase the sting of remorse Might strew many blessings around To ease sad mortality’s lot, Bid plenty and comfort abound And smile in meek poverty’s cot. 18. Do ye sons of misfortune complain? Do ye daughters of anguish lament? Their sighs are all utter’d in vain To rocks that can never relent. Ye comfortless children of grief, Your bitter complaining give o’er! In vain ye solicit relief, In vain your deep sorrows deplore.

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[19. ] But wealth with oppression combin’d Inflict all the sorrows they can, Nor ever with goodness inclin’d To act on humanity’s plan; Yet mercy descends from above To cheer the sad mourners oppress’d Who feel their omnipotent’s love With perfect tranquillity blest. [20. ] Hence spring their sweet joys of content, Unknown to the bosoms of pride, To those on vain {mad} luxury bent Whose days in anxiety glide. With shepherds and peasants abound The comforts of quiet and health, That peace with the cottager found Unknown to th’ abundance of wealth. [21. ] Damon Hence springs our sweet friendship refined – Our nobler enjoyments of love {delicate raptures of love}, The tender benevolent mind – All blessings derived from above. Let thanks and sweet praises abound To him who all glory transcends, Who bids all our comforts abound, Who all in affliction befriends. [22. ] And whilst we those blessings enjoy Our bounteous creator has sent, Let no vain {puff’d} ambition destroy Our peace and delicious content. Be fast the vain {false} glitter of pri[de] From the hearts of our nymphs and our swains, Nor wish but thro’ life to abide {reside} With peace on Glamorgan’s sweet plains. Terfyn

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(b) NLW 21285E, no. 789; [?1778] (CIM, I, letter 39, pp. 127–30). Thus charming the shepherds attune their songs in soft harmony’s strain, And now the high fervor of noon, fierce scorching, extends o’er the plain; Some to the neat cottage retire and some to the hawthorn alcove, Or fly with a virtuous desire to the nymphs of their tenderest love.

2. ‘The Mountain Shepherd’ On ‘The Mountain Shepherd’, see chapter 4. Two possible additional stanzas to this poem are included under (c) below. (a) NLW 21285E, no. 790; 14 September [1780] (CIM, I, letter 54, pp. 172–3). The mountain shepherd Old Garth in Glamorgan, majestic and bold, That mountain deem’d sacred by Druids of old, Displays its assent to the traveller’s eye Like a high turnpike road that leads up to the sky. Here barrows and cromlecks {cromlecks and barrows} are scatter’d around – By old painted Britons ’twas called holy ground, And the bards here related the hero’s high deeds And call’d {dubb’d} him a God who for liberty bleeds. The sides of this mountain are cover’d with wood Hanging over old Tave with his turbulent flood; A green velvet plain o’er the summit extends And here a blithe shepherd his flock daily tends. This shepherd of shepherds, so cheerful {jocund} and gay Is jocund {cheerful} by Jove as a blackbird in May; He sings, pipes and whistles, and seems, I protest, As if peace and content were at home in his breast. He laughs at those monkeys who riches adore And says a good conscience can never be poor; Of that he’s posses’d and is richer, I swear, Than the proud hearted peer {lord} with ten thousand a year.

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His flock and his cottage are all his estate But a good loving wife makes him wealthy and great {As adored love palls and now calls her his mate} With {Has} two little cherubs, a girl and a boy, The height of his wishes, the height of his joy. At {When at} night he comes home with his heart full of glee, They lisping cry ‘Daddy!’ and cling to his knee; He kisses them eager, enraptur’d to trace In them the dear mother in feature and face. {The mother’s dear features in each lovely face. }

(b) NLW 21285E, no. 786; [?October 1780] (CIM, I, letter 55, p. 173). The mountain shepherd Old Garth in Glamorgan, majestic and bold, That mountain deemed sacred by Druids of old, Displays its assent to the traveller’s eye Like a high turnpike road that leads up to the sky. Its sides, that are cover’d with wide branching wood, Look wild on old Tave and its turbulent flood; A green velvet plain o’er the summit extends And here a blithe shepherd his flock daily tends. This shepherd of shepherds, so cheerful {jocund} and gay, Is cheerful by Jove as a blackbird in May, He sings, pipes and whistles, and seems, I protest, Like one with a conscience quite calm in his breast. He laughs at all monkeys who riches adore And says a good conscience can never be poor; Let him laugh at all blo[c]kheads for ’tis a good thing, But sure he’s a fool, for he laughs at the king. He calls him a niny {zany} – sure that cannot be – Yet this shepherd by Jove is far wiser than me, ’Tis treason I fear, I was taught so at school, To laugh at poor George or to call him a fool.

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’Tis talking by Jove against reason and rule, Tho’ he’s led by the nose to conclude him {he’s} a fool. Tho’ his kingdom is rent and his dignity lost, But may not like a beggar be crost. I’ve heard this same shepherd lament and {most sadly} deplore That truth and religion are kick’d out of door; Poor George has the fault, boys, now that’s very high, For the priest has a finger by Jove in the pie. I have heard many say, and I fear it was true, That the great pope of Lambeth is one of the crew That keeps poor religion tied down with a chain To a block, where I fear she must ever remain. The bishops are harrying [?the] parsons [————] And reason impartial proclaims it aloud; Then down with the parsons, the bishops and pope, Or if [?they]’re kept up, be scarr’d with a rope. My shepherd must add, but [’t]is not the thing, If down with all blockheads, then down with the king! What need have we Britons for two of a name? – In the royal exchange there’s one more of [the] same. So now I conclude, for my song’s at an end, This shepherd’s an ass, tho’ I’ve made him my friend. You know that old maxim still taught in our schools? – Tho’ kings are quite brainless, they ne’er can be fools.

(c) NLW 21285E, no. 790a; 14 September [1780] (CIM, I, letter 54, pp. 172–3). In the valley below stands a cottage his own From folly well shelter’d, to grandeur unknown; Its limewhited walls are delightfully neat And he wishes King George had so tranquil a seat. His orchard well cultured abundantly bears, Producing{es} fine apples and burgamy pears; And in the sweet garden that’s fronting his door Grow roses, sweet pinks and a jessamine bow’r.

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3. ‘The Royal Shepherd’ NLW 21283E, no. 622; 25 October 1785 (CIM, I, letter 98, pp. 279–80). This item consists of a selection of stanzas from a lengthy ballad entitled ‘The Royal Shepherd’. It tells of the adultery committed by Isabel, wife of Edward II, and Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, and offers a romanticized account of Edward’s last days of freedom (which were spent in Glamorgan during the autumn of 1326) before his deposition, imprisonment and subsequent death. The ballad recounts how Edward found refuge from the royal court (situated at Caerphilly) at the home of a humble shepherd. A full text of the poem in Iolo’s hand is to be found in NLW 21392F, no. 49. The following stanzas have been rearranged and where possible numbered by comparison with the full text, in order to demonstrate the structure of the poem. The order in which they appear in the marginalia is indicated by the numbers within square brackets. Only one stanza, marked ‘[unnumbered]’ here, does not have a parallel in NLW 21392F, no. 49. The Royal Shepherd, a Pastoral Ballad 4. [6] His hateful queen, vile Isabel, By lustful passion sway’d, With Mortimer the foul commands Of lawless love obey’d. 5. [7] Curs’d Mortimer, that trayt’rous earl, Charged the {that} devoted {hapless} king With blackest crimes, till thro’ the land Loud peals of treason ring. 6. [8] And Isabel with dagger keen Pursues her hapless . . . [unnumbered] [5] ‘Shepherd, this morning thrown by fate, I caught thy friendly coast; My wife {friends}, my wealth and all my joys Are in the billows lost. ’ 65. [1] Oft on the pathless mountain far Would he forlorn lament,

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And thus in solitude remote {unseen} Would give his anguish vent. 71. [2] ‘Struck by the dagger, I rage of grief, I sink in misery!’ Painful excess of piercing {peerless} woes . . . 79. [3] Secure in rural friendship’s warmth {glow}, Escaped from former ills, Why did he quit the tranquil {happy} cot {quiet plaine}, Langynoid’s verdant {quiet} hills? 80. [4] Why did he try the force of love On dagger’d Isabel? He madly tried, death crown’d th’ event – Thus hapless Edward fell.

4. ‘To health’ NLW 21283E, no. 622; 25 October 1785 (CIM, I, letter 98, pp. 279–80). Another manuscript version of this poem is to be found in NLW 21392F, no. 16. To health, [Iorwerth] Gwilym I’ll climb the steep mountain, skip over the rocks And walk the long {green} down every morn {day} with my flocks; Or, breaking thro’ copses, employ the fresh morn, Roused up by the call of the foxhunter’s horn. I’ll quaff the clear fountain that springs in the vale And balm {the sanalive} from the breeze of the mountains {meadows} inhale; Shun all the chill damps that inhabit {arise in} the dark, With the lambkin lie down and awake with the lark. {Will avoid the chill night blooming health for thy sake, With the lambkin lie down with the blackbird awake. }

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5. ‘Preface’, Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (a) NLW 21282E, no. 448; 26 October 1792 (CIM, I, letter 227, p. 526). The following extracts constitute draft material for Iolo’s preface to Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (1794). The first paragraph may be compared with PLP, I, p. xiv, whereas the second expresses the theme of disappointed expectation and friendship which recurs throughout the preface. Many ladies and gentlemen have been so eminently my friends that it would be highly ingrateful in me not to make proper acknowledgements; but to avoid troubling my readers with a tedious detail I have put those names in capitals, which I hope will not offend any one. Many have complained that they wanted friends. For my part, I cannot help thinking it a very great blessing to be destitute of such friends as this world in general affords, and for the future I am fully determined never to accept of any man’s friendship, for I know not what the world means by friendship. It is evidently something very different from what I ever understood it to be. Involved me in utter ruin. (b) NLW 21283E, no. 600; 29 December 1793 (CIM, I, letter 282, p. 624). This item may be compared with the published PLP, I, pp. xiv–xvii. In some respects, the version provided here elaborates quite substantially on the printed version. For instance, the explanation given below as to why Iolo received no formal schooling is much fuller (and perhaps more credible) than that found in Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, which states: ‘I was so very unhealthy whilst a child (and I have continued so), that it was thought useless to put me to school.’ More is revealed here, too, of Iolo’s induction in his father’s trade and as a Welsh poet, whereas the romanticized account of his reaction to his mother’s death is replaced here by a straightforward and less frivolous indication of his sense of grief at her loss. I first learned the alphabet about 4 years of age by observing my father inscribe tomb and other gravestones, and soon after began to attempt cutting letters in stone. About this time a horn-book was bought. I threw [it] away with contempt and was corrected for doing by my father. My mother could sing well and had two volumes of songs entitled The Vocal Miscellany. From these I understood she learned all or most of her songs. I had a strong desire to read this book, but my mother was averse to this. She was of a pious disposition and thought {conceived} that these volumes of songs contained somethings improper for a young mind. The Primer,

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Child’s Guide &c. were bought for me but I would have no book [but] my mother’s. She yielded at last and began to teach me to spell in The Vocal Miscellany. I very soon became able to read it. Amongst the books that my mother [owned] were Brown’s Religio Medici, some volumes of the Spectator, Guardian, Tattler, Malebranche’s Search after Truth, Randolph’s Poems, Milton’s works, Arthur Golding’s Ovid’s Metamorphosis in the black letter. I became soon able to read these. It was intended to put me to school, but I would not go. I was sent there for a few days but was sullen and stubbornly silent on most occasions. I remember that I told the master that I would be taught by none but my mother who knew better than him. I was soon taken home, applyed my self to my song books, Golding &c. I was at first averse to the Bible but my mother’s authority, which I reverenced, prevailed and I was soon able to read it. She now began to teach me to write and soon after the first five rules of arithmetic which I believe was the utmost extent of her mathematical knowledge. My mother knew some French and had a smattering of Italian, for she had been well educated, but having no books that were proper could not conveniently instruct me in these languages and indeed I had no great desire. I was fond of religious books and from these my natural pensiveness derived additional seriousness. I would never play on Sundays. About nine years of age my [father], having a large family, took me to work at his trade. When I came home at night I would immediately go to my books. My father thought it necessary to discourage me, from an idea that too much studiousness would injure both my body and mind and prevent a proper attention to my trade. In this last he was however mistaken for I could before I was twelve years of age do every thing that in that country is known to the trade sufficiently well. I now began to see that I wanted the knowledge of many things, chiefly mathematical, and would have gone willingly to school and wished . . . My father however, contrary to my mother’s opinion, thought that I already knew too much, and the profits of my work was considerable. My brothers all the while at school, this grieved me a little, but in a few years afterwards I began to have a clearer insight into my father’s circumstances and to perceive that he had good reasons for keeping me at work, and my brothers, who would not be taught by him and my mother, at school. Necessity has no law: my father was not blameable. I about this time began to borrow books, chiefly mathematical and architectural, from my friends and made a little addition to my very scanty stock of knowledge. [I] began about 15 to write Welsh verse, for English is not vernacular in that part of Wales. I soon after became acquainted with Mr John Bradford, Mr Lewis Hopkin, Edward Williams and Revd Mr Edward Evans, almost if not absolutely the only Welsh bards that were existing, in the ancient sense of the word. I acquired from them

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the knowledge of ancient Welsh versification, far more various, musical and curious than the modern or what is known to any of the present languages of Europe. I was so delighted with this that I dropt all attention to English poetry, and for many years wrote nothing but in Welsh. In 1770 my mother died. My lamentation for her loss was very great and has not greatly diminished yet. Discontented now at home I went to Bristol, Bath &c. , and at last to London. In all these places my chief study was architecture. I had before acquired a slight smattering in the principles of music. At London, meeting with books by [P]urcell, Simpson, Rameau &c. on the art of composing music, I for some time studied it and acquired a slight knowledge of it. But fin[di]ng it necessary to be possessed of an organ or harpsichord, and of skill to play on it before I could succeed as a composer of music in parts, I was obliged to drop this study. I was not rich enough to buy the instrument I wanted. In 1773 I went down to ____, where I worked for some years at my trade. I here again resumed my reading and study of English poetry, wrote many little pieces that met with some approbation which encouraged me to write again and, attaching myself a little to this study or rather amusement, I at last found my number of pieces considerable. Many having been handed about in manuscript, some gentle[?men] of my native county advised me to print them.

6. [Proposals, ‘Castles in the Air’] NLW 21285E, no. 794; [?1790]. This item is an early draft of proposals for printing Iolo’s English poems. The title ‘Castles in the Air’ was eventually replaced by ‘Poems, Lyric and Pastoral’. Proposals for printing by subscription Castles in the air or poems mostly originals, with some translations from the works of the antient Welsh bar[ds] by Edward Williams a journey-man mason _______ Conditions 1. The volume to consist of 200 pages oc[tavo], the best demy paper and a new t[?ype]. 2. Each subscriber to pay fiv[e] [?shillings] at the delivery of th[e] [?volumes]. 3. The names of the sub[scribers] [—————] and the work put to the [?press if ] a sufficient subscription is ra[?ised].

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Subscriptions taken by Mr Henry Wal[ters], printer and bookseller at Cowbridge; Mr Meyler, Bath; Mr Harward, Glouc[ester]; Mr Nichols, printer at London; and M[r] Lloyd, Winestreet, Bristol.

Translations into English 7. [‘Blin yw Caru’] NLW 21285E, no. 827; [21 January 1794] (CIM, I, letter 298, pp. 643–5). This item comprises a translation of two stanzas in the traditional free metre known as a hen bennill. See further chapter 4. Love’s a sore pain {sore is the pain}, from fair to fair rove, Alas! more painful not to be in {taste of} love; But of all griefs, most painful is that pain – Sorest of ills! – to love and love in vain. Iolo Morganwg Painful is love’s painful heart, Painful not to feel {know} that {the} smart; Of all pains {ills} the pain [?of ] pain Is to love and love in vain. Query Iolo Morganwg?

8. [‘Twm Siôn Cati’] NLW 21285E, no. 905; [?2 October 1813] (CIM, III, letter 909, pp. 183–5). This is a stanza about the legendary hero Twm Siôn Cati. Iolo notes ‘Tradition sang it’ beneath the Welsh original, but claims the authorship of the English translation for himself. Yn Ystrad Ffin y leni Mae’r llefain mawr a’r gweiddi; Mae’r cerrig mân yn toddi’n blwm Rhag of[o]n Twm Siôn Cati. Traddodiad a’i cant

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In Ystrad Ffin a doleful sound Pervades the trembling hills around; The very rocks with terror melt, Such fear of Tom John Cati’s felt. Iolo Morganwg a’i cant

9. [From ‘Awdl i Dduw’ by Meilyr ap Gwalchmai] NLW 21284E, no. 671; 11 March 1816. These lines are now attributed to Meilyr, son of Gwalchmai ( fl. second half of the twelfth century), and are edited under the title ‘Awdl i Dduw’ (An Ode to God) in J. E. Caerwyn Williams and Peredur I. Lynch (eds.), Gwaith Meilyr Brydydd a’i Ddisgynyddion: ynghyd â dwy awdl fawl ddienw (Caerdydd, 1994), pp. 527–33. As a Unitarian, Iolo clearly appreciated the unambiguous reference to ‘one God’ (‘un Duw’) and ‘unity’ (‘Undeb’) in the lines quoted. However, other sections of the awdl refer to the topos of the Trinity (‘Ef yw’r Un yn Dri’). See ibid., p. 527. Ef yn un Duw gwiw, yngywiraf Undeb, dwfn digrawn digreulonaf,
Ef yw’r Tad, ef yw’r mad mwyaf. Gwalchmai ap Meilir, 1200 He is one God adorable of truest unity, Infinite uncompounded, the least wrathful of any being, He is the Father, he is the superlatively {supreme} good. [in a later hand:]
Y mad mwyaf – the greatest good or summum bonum. This indicates that Gwalchmai was a man of thought and correctly so.

Welsh strict-metre poetry 10. [From ‘Mawl i Forfudd, a Thraserch y Bardd amdani’] NLW 21285E, no. 786; [?October 1780] (CIM, I, letter 55, p. 173). This consists of the opening lines of ‘Mawl i Forfudd, a Thraserch y Bardd am dani’, published in the spurious ‘Chwanegiad’ (Appendix) to Owen Jones and William Owen (eds.), Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym (Llundain, 1789), pp. 498–9. Iolo has

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Prydydd i Forfydd, f’eurferch, I’m oes wyf a mawr yw’m serch; Mi a’i cerais im cerydd, Fry, lloer deg, ers llawer dydd. Er yn fab, bryd arien ferch, Y trosais iddi’m traserch, Gorne berw, ag o’i herwydd, Yn ffôl, yr aethum i’m ffydd. Llawer gwaith er lliw ewyn Y cerddais yn ddewrgais ddyn, Hyd nos i’m hoed yn ysig, Hyddred i’w gweled mewn gwig. Addoli ’mun dan ddail Mai A dirfaint cariad erfai, A’i gwasgu, Indeg ysgawn, Yn wych dan irgoed a wnawn. Adwaen gwn i’m dyn gynnil Ei throedlam brysg ymysg mil . . .

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here added one couplet of his own to the poem which he created and published in the ‘Chwanegiad’, marking it ‘IG’ (Iorwerth Gwilym).

11. ‘From D[afydd ap] G[wilym]’

From DG Ag uwch ben {ar bren} linosen lus Yn heiliaw cerdd yn hwylus, A than fy mhen obennydd O fanblu, pebyllt gwyllt y gw}dd, Ag uwch fy mhen, fedwen fau, Gaer loywdeg o gwrlidau.

123 123

Achles yr ednod achlân, Yn gwyddori’r gwyˆdd eirian!

123

NLW 21285E, no. 791; 17 June 1782 (CIM, I, letter 69, pp. 200–1). This is another attempt by Iolo to produce poetry in imitation of Dafydd ap Gwilym. The final six lines here correspond to lines 17–22 in ‘Cyngor y Bioden’. See Dafydd ap Gwilym.net. See further chapter 4.

123

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Minnau, fardd rhiain fainir, Yn llawen iawn mewn llwyn ir, A’m calon fradw yn cadw cof, A’r enaid yn ir ynof. Addwyned gweled y gw}dd, Gwaisg nwyf, yn dwyn gwisg newydd.

12. ‘Cywydd yr Adar’ NLW 21285E, no. 791; 17 June 1782 (CIM, I, letter 69, pp. 200–1). The opening of an incomplete poem, which Iolo apparently intended to attribute to Dafydd ap Gwilym. See chapter 4. The narrating voice of the ‘true’ lover laments the fact that he is compelled to love in secret. The letters ‘Gwr’, probably denoting ‘g{r’ (husband) at the beginning of the final unfinished line, may signal the direction in which the poem was to develop, offering as an explanation for the poet’s plight the fact that his beloved is a married woman. Cywydd yr Adar Carwr wyf cywir ei ryw, Cwrs f’einioes cerais fenyw, A gorfod caru gwarferch Ynghêl dan loes argel serch. Ni chaf, ni feiddiaf, wiwddyn, Ei gweled, addwyngred ddyn, [G{r] . . .

13. [‘Iorwerth Gwilym fragments’] NLW 21285E, no. 786; [?October 1780] (CIM, I, letter 55, p. 173). The following three items show the young Iolo (Iorwerth Gwilym or IG) at work, perfecting small sections of verse. The first two are in the cywydd metre; Iolo may have intended to insert item (a) into a love poem of his own or as a fake addition to the genuine œuvre of Dafydd ap Gwilym. Item (b) describes, perhaps in a metaphorical sense, a battle (‘agerw’) and appears to have spurred the composition of item (c), which constitutes the first two lines of an englyn and again describes a tempestuous scene.

123 123

(a) Gyrru golwg o’r galon – Golwg serch ar lwysferch lon; A golwg arni’n gwiliaw, A’m holl fyd yn ei phryd ffraw.

IG IG

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(b) A’r agerw gwyllt yn berwi, Yn llawn broch, yn groch ei gri.

IG

(c) Lliw agerw yn ferw ar foroedd – aerwyllt, Lliw eira’r mynyddoedd, &c. IG

14. [‘Englyn’] NLW 21282E, no. 307; 28 March 1788 (CIM, I, letter 118, pp. 306–12). An englyn celebrating the blessings of man’s final resting place, with God. Yno bydd oll yn uniawn – a golau, Lle gwiwlwys gwynfydlawn, A’n rhodle’n nh}’n Duw’n rhadlawn, Yno’n iach – oll inni’n iawn. Iolo Morganwg

15. ‘I’r Awen’ NLW 21283E, no. 469; 17 September 1797 (CIM, II, letter 456, p. 39). The following englynion may be read as a single composition. The first stanza implores the Muse to return; the second describes the dire plight of the world without her and again begs her to return from the heavenly abode in which she resides. Clearly Iolo is not speaking as an individual devoid of creative energy but as a social prophet, greatly concerned about the direction in which poetry and the world in general is moving. I’r Awen Dere’n ferch burserch heb arswyd – ar gyrch O’r gorchudd lle’th yrrwyd, A rhodia o’r lle’r ydwyd, Dere’n ôl, un dirion wyd. Gwêl y gwyll yn hyll yn hollol – arnom, Yn ernych anwyfol; Er nawdd i bob rhinweddol O dir nef, o dere’n ôl!

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16. [‘Y Ddwy Awen’] NLW 21282E, no. 379; 21 August 1819 (CIM, III, letter 1103, pp. 533–4). This is an example of marginalia composed very late in Iolo’s life, when his eyesight had deteriorated considerably. The fact that these englynion were written on a letter covered with notes in Iolo’s hand makes it difficult to obtain a satisfactory transcript. In some cases, Iolo’s numerous alternative readings are difficult to follow, and have been excluded unless they are helpful in reconstructing a meaningful text. The ‘Awen’ (‘Muse’) was the subject of several other series of englynion by Iolo; see ‘Yr Awen’ in NLW 13134A, pp. 11–12, and ‘Englynion y ddwy Awen’ in ibid., p. 171, and item 15 above. 1.

Dwy awen sydd, da yw’n sôn {dianc sôn}, A ddoniant amryw ddynion; Un o Dduw’n gyfiawn ddeall A llên {llwyr} o gythraul {pwll annwn} y llall.

2.

Un a fawl ddwyfawl Ddofydd – a glaned Ei ragluniaeth gelfydd, A didawl i’r doeth dedwydd Yn haul Duw yn heiliaw dydd.

3.

O annwn er galar inni – yw’r ail A gynnail ddrygioni; Uniawnddysg ni chawn ynddi Na dim glân o’i hanian hi.

4.

Rhag hon a’i beirddion o burddysg – gwilied Y galon oleuddysg; [?Clyw lef ] drwg yn hyddysg, Er ein gwae y mae’n ein mysg.

5.

Drygioni’n berwi’n ei bariaeth – a gawn Yn gannerth gelyniaeth, A’i synnwyr yng ngwasanaeth Yr amwyll mawr dirgel a’i maeth.

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6.

Uchel am ryfel ymrwyfo – y mae, A’i gw}n mawr am dano; Llefain a gwaed yn llifo {gan waed yn llifo} Drwy’r byd y myn [?bryn alldro].

7.

[?Fy nuwies yw’r] fwyn awen – i’w nwyfiaith O’r nefoedd disgywen, I dywallt o bwyll dien Ei fawl ef, Duw’r wiw nef wen.

17. [‘Arwyr Plwyf Llancarfan’] NLW 21284E, no. 699; 12 February 1826 (CIM, III, letter 1204, pp. 767–9). For this poem and its relation to the earlier ‘Cywydd Hanes y Bardd mal yn Llafaru o’i Fedd’ in NLW 13134A, pp. 76–8, see pp. 208–12. A myg y bernir y man, [?Cy]wirfawl blwyf Llancarfan, Lle bu’n dawel eu helynt Dysgedigion gwychion gynt. Hen Gatwg doeth yn dynoethi Galluoedd maith ein iaith ni; Addysg hardd i fardd hen, Llenfoethau bro Llanfeithin; Taliesin yn rhoi tlysau Awen fad i’n gwlad yn glau. Yno’n ein mysg dysg a dawn A gafwyd, ag yn gyflawn. Yn Llancarfan bu’r [?gâ]n gynt Yn [?ei] chw}l, iawn ei helynt; Er mael yn leufer miloedd I’w th}’n byw – doethineb oedd. Caradog yn enwog {r, I’n oesoedd bu’n handïwr, A dewr fyth hyd awr ei fedd, G[?e]r wyneb â’r gwirionedd. Ar droed hyd lawr direidi, O mor noeth bu’n gw}r mawr ni.

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Welsh free-metre poetry 18. [‘Ymweliad â Threfflemin’] NLW 21283E, no. 520; 20 November 1787 (CIM, I, letter 115, p. 298). This is a lively free-metre poem, written from the perspective of ‘[m]ab y Rhendre wen’ (the son of a farm called Yr Hendre Wen) in the Uplands of Glamorgan, but most probably Iolo’s own work. It was committed to paper by him in an early hand. The young man in question claims that he was insulted by the locals when on a visit to Iolo’s native village of Flemingston to see his girlfriend. The poem wittily satirizes its narrating voice, however, the insult in question being the absence of the kind of especial favour only a very dignified person could expect (the young man complains that his horse was not lodged in a stable and that no bells were rung to celebrate his arrival). The poem ends with a sustained invective against the inhabitants of Flemingston, clearly excessive in view of the nature of the insult committed. 1.

Y barcyd mawr coesfelyn, dwg hyn o stori gall I blwyf Trefflemin felen at epil brith y fall, A gwed wrth blant y felldith eu bod nhwy’n ffôl dros ben Am ddangos mawr fychander i fab y Rhendre Wen.

2.

Mi aethum i Drefflemin, lle teg yngwaelod Bro, Ar feder gwel’d fy nghariad, ond tost oedd {fu} hyn o dro, Ag er na chefais genthi na gwg na geiriau traws Mi gesym yno {geso’n dost fy} ’ngwatwar {nhrin yn dywyll} gan dylwyth drwg ei naws.

3.

Oedd gen i geffyl costus a ffrwyn a chyfrwy gwych Ag er i mi fynd yno, ni chanws neb y clych, Nhwy gaeson’ a[r]no’ ’r stabal, ychydig oedd fy mharch {’doedd hynny fawr o barch}, Ni cheso’i wasgod fyned i ddodi ’m annwyl farch.

4.

Dwy Nani, dwy ddrygonllyd, ’wy’n si{r oedd dechr[au]’r gwaith, A Siôn a Thwm a Dafydd, pob un yn waeth na saith; Am hyn o anghymwynas, gweddïa’ ’n brudd ar Dduw Na chaffon’ awr yn llawen tra ’rhwy’n y byd yn byw.

5.

Na ddelo i ran y merched un llencyn moddus mwyn Na melys awr o garu, na neb a drotho’u trwyn; Ag am y bechgyn ynfyd, fy ngweddi fydd yn groch I benna’ pob un ddyfod dan ddwrn y bachgen coch.

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6.

Os gofyn neb yn unlle pwy ganws hyn o sen, Mab ifanc coch o’r Blaenau, mae’n byw’n yr Hendre Wen, Gwybydded gw}r Trefflemin na fyddant ronyn gwell – Cair clywed cân eu hanghlod yn agos ag ymhell.

19. [‘Hen Benillion’] NLW 21285E, no. 833; [?14] February 1794 (CIM, I, letter 308, pp. 658–60). These stanzas are composed in the traditional hen bennill metre. In the opening stanza, set slightly apart from the rest in the manuscript, and possibly unrelated to them, Iolo uses the striking image of mining for gold by hand as a metaphor for the effort required to acquire the wisdom of nature. This link between ‘pwyll’ (sense) and nature is one of his favourite themes. In the remaining stanzas, which deal with the trials and disappointments of love, simple imagery from the natural world is used to express the pains of unrequited affection. Several of these stanzas (nos. 1, 2, 4, 5 and 8) appear in a collection of hen benillion, entitled ‘Pennillion Iolo Morganwg’, in NLW 13146A, pp. 267–82. The fact that the penultimate stanza also features in another series of Iolo’s hen benillion demonstrates how the process of recycling material was central to his manner of working. See chapter 4 for a discussion of this tendency, and for the replicated stanza, see P. J. Donovan (ed.), Cerddi Rhydd Iolo Morganwg (Caerdydd, 1980), pp. 12–13. Note that the order in which the stanzas appear here is disputable: an alternative is suggested by the numbers provided in square brackets. 1. [1] A fynno’r aur o berfedd daear Rhaid cloddio’n ddwfn â llaw llafurgar, A fynno bwyll a deall eglur Rhaid chwilio’n llwyr hyd berfedd natur. 2. [2] Rhyw ynfydrwydd ydyw cariad A bair i ddyn amhwyllo’n irad, Anrhaith cadarn yn ddiamau [?Yn] speilio dyn o’i holl synhwyrau. 3. [5] Fal rhew cadarn ar f ân egin, Fal y tân yn llosgi’r eithin Ydyw serch heb obai[th] cyson, Yn rhewi’r pwyll, yn difa’r galon.

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4. [6] Serch ni lwydd, nac ymgais fydol Fyth i’r gwâr a’r pwyllgar deddfol; Ond y diriaid ewn a dyrys – Fe gaiff bob peth wrth ei ’wyllys. 5. [3] Rhyfedd iawn yw gweled bachgen Dan gur o’i fodd o garu meinwen; Yn felys gantho ’i boen anhywaith, Dyn o’i fodd yn goddef anrhaith. 6. [4] Meddwl carwr yn ddiddarfod Sy’n ymdrybaeddu mewn dyrysdod; Bob dydd, bob awr, er anffawd iddo A’i galon fyth ymhell oddiwrtho. 7. [7] Claf dros ben dan ddolur irad Ydyw’r mab fo’n glaf o gariad; Ni chaiff mewn dim iachâd o’i glefyd Ond cael ei garu gan ei ’nwylyd. 8. [8] Od oes gelyn genni’n unman Dymunwn iddo gosp nid bychan – Caru merch gan hir ymboeni Heb gael ond pall a thraw[sder] genthi. 9. [9] Y mab a fytho’n caru gwenddyn Rhaid iddo fyth yn daer ei chanlyn, Ymdrin â’i ymgais yn dra medrus – Ni lwydda serch ond i’r hyderus.

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Anecdotes 20. [‘Y Deudneudiwr a’r Llo’] NLW 21280E, no. 7; 8 November 1805 (CIM, II, letter 744, p. 727). This anecdote, recorded by Iolo, recounts the difficulty encountered by a ‘Deudneudwr’ (a man from north Wales) when his calf refused to be rounded up. In his fury the Deudneudwr produced two englynion, cursing the calf, in his native dialect. Deudneudiwr yn amcanu rhagod llo a hwnnw yn neidio dros berth a chlawdd uchel i gae o dis, prysglyd – a’r rhagodwr wrth ei ddilyn yn colli ei gap drwy wynt yn ei chwythu ymaith. Ag yn iaith ei wlad, y rhagodwr a ddywedai fal hyn yn agos iawn: Myn diawl! ellyllawl yw’r llo – y gelyn, O’m golwg mae’n cilio; A’m capan, diawl a’m cipio, Âi {I} ffwrdd {âi} gan wynt {gan y gwynt} ar ffo {I ffwrdd âi gan ddiawl ar ffo}. Hurthgen anwar, ni’m carai, O’m ffridd yn swrth [?ymwthiai] I Goed Glyn, y drengyn drwg A giliai ’na ’mhell o’m golwg!

21. [‘Captain Jenkins ac Evan William, Llansanwyr’] NLW 21280E, no. 64; 16 January 1810 (CIM, III, letter 821, pp. 5–6). This is an anecdote about an exchange between a wise old poet from Llansanwyr (Llansannor) in Glamorgan and a certain Captain Jenkins who conceitedly challenged the old man to complete a stanza in the triban metre. The elderly Evan William responded with a suitably sharp riposte. Yng [———] 1720 bu cwrdd prydyddion yn Ys[tr]adywain. Un o’r prydyddion [?oedd] Evan William o Lansannwr, yn hen {r ymron yn ddall. Cytunasant yr holl brydyddion fyned [?i’w] [?he]brwng ef adref i Lans[annwr] [——————] rhai [?fynnai] gael ei gyfrif yn brydydd ond heb wybod y [?rheolau], a ddechreu lawer pennill triban, sef y ddwy fraich gyntaf, gan ddywed wrth eraill ‘Cwblhewch chwi ef ’. A’r Captain Jenkins yn ymgellwair ag ef [?am] [?e]i ffolineb a’i anwybod[?aeth], a hunan d}b y coegfardd a ddywed fal hyn:

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‘Syr, mi wnaf i chwi wybod Bod genni awen barod – Cwblewch chwi ef, yr hen {r’, [?eb efe] wrth Evan William, yr hwn a’i atebodd yn ddianoed fal hyn: ‘Ymhle mae honno? Yn dy din? ’Does dim o’th fin yn dyfod. ’

Welsh hymns 22. [‘Cydwybod dyn’] NLW 21285E, no. 784; [?March 1776] (CIM, I, letter 34, pp. 118–21). Reminiscent of the work of Rees Prichard, the celebrated vicar of Llanymddyfri, the following stanzas are in the hen bennill metre. Nid byw i’r byd mae’r dyn buche[ddol], Na ’chwaith i’w flys a’i wyniau cnawdol, Ond byw i Dduw ’mhob peth ei anian Ag i’w gydwybod lân ei hunan. Er cael o glyw a golwg dynion Ryw ymgudd yn dy ddrygau mawrion, Nid oes twll ymgudd iti’n unman Rhag Duw a’th farn a rhag dy hunan. Ni waeth i ti pwy fo’n ddiwybod Am a weithredi’n dwyll a phechod, Mae Duw ’mhob man a’i lygad arnad – Fe {yr y cyfan o’r modd [—————].

23. ‘Golwg ar deyrnas Nef ’ NLW 21282E, no. 428; [?1796] (CIM, I, letter 404, pp. 798–9). Iolo heads the following hymn with a reference to Isaiah 2: 17–18, which opens with the words ‘And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day’.

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1.

Isaiah II. 17, 18 &c. : Golwg ar deyrnas Nef Y mae’r byd hwn yn dywyll iawn, Pob man yn llawn o bechod, Ond amlwg iawn, ag nid ymhell, Mae dyddiau gwell ar ddyfod. Bucheddu’n addas boed ein swydd Fal caffom rwydd gyfarfod  dydd y cyfnewidiad mawr, Gan fod bob awr yn barod. Llef a roeson!

2.

Dan sodlau’r cedyrn y mae ’n awr Y ddaear fawr o gylchon; Pob gwir yn gorwedd yn ei waed {Myrddiynau’n gorwedd yn eu gwaed} Yn sarn dan draed y trawsion. Ond y mae dial ar ei daith I ddryllio gwaith y beilchion, Gan roi’n y llwch, byth i barhau, Holl uchelderau dynion.

3.

Y dyn ucheldrem cyll ei draed, Ni saif, a gwnaed ei orau, Dan farn ein Duw a’i teifl i lawr I bwll y mawr ddialau; Yn sothach i’r tragywydd goll Y teflir oll o’i ddelwau, Rhaid gadael {gado [——]}, rhaid! a gwae’n ei {yn oer ei} {ag irad} lef A garodd ef yn orau.

4.

Tyr ffrydfawr foliant o bob min I’n brenin bendigedig, Y mawr tragywydd, mawr y nef, Derchefir Ef yn unig; Cawn yn ei lys, cawn yn ei wledd, Gyflawnder hedd gwynfydig, A llwyr ufudd-dod ymhob tir I’n dwyfol wir bendefig. Terfyn

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24. ‘Cân y Wawr’ NLW 21284E, no. 767a; [May 1806] (CIM, II, letter 765, p. 798). The following hymn, the ‘Song of Dawn’, like many of the hymns published in Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch, was composed to be sung at a specific time of day.

1.

Bore, Cân y Wawr Mae’r dwyrain o’i thrysorau’n awr Yn tywallt allan hyfryd wawr. Fy Nuw! boed mewn gorfoledd llon I’m enaid ganu ger dy fron, Gan deimlo’n fyw’n fy nghalon i Meithderau dy drugaredd di.

2.

Ti’m rhoddaist unwaith eto’n rydd I weled hardd oleuni’r dydd; Rhoist yn fy nghylch, a’u rhoddi’n rad, Dy ragluniaethau’n dirion, Dad; Do! fal angylion ar bob tu Drwy eigion y tywyllwch du.

3.

Ai dydd ai nos, pob man y bwyf, Lle byddot ti gwaredig wyf. Ar esgyll y goleuni glân Aed clod i’th enw yn beraidd gân; Aed ar adenydd hardd y wawr Fy moliant iddi’r nefol mawr. Iolo Morganwg a’i cant

Hymns – introductory material 25. NLW 21281E, no. 142; 3 August 1782 (CIM, I, letter 71, p. 203). The following item constitutes draft material for the introduction to Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch. There is a strong emphasis throughout on refuting the ‘barbarism’ of the Welsh of north Wales in favour of a more pure south Wales dialect. For a further discussion of this draft, see chapter 4, p. 205. cadernid mo’r trigoliawn peredd

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diddisglair rhyddyd Y mae ysgrifenwyr Gwynedd yn cymeryd rhydd-didau mawrion, pa rai ni ellir eu caniatáu iddynt (fal uchod). Y mae’r Gymraeg wedi syrthio rhyw faint allan o’i chyfiawnder, megis ‘rhyddyd’ &c. , a da byddai ei hadferu yn ôl i’w hen drefn, ond yn lle adgyweirio, nid yw ysgrifenwyr Gwynedd yr oes hon ond chwanegu anferth at anferth, pentyru mawr ar y bychan o bob llygredigaeth. Er hynny, mae’r gair wedi myned allan mai nhwy sydd ar yr iawn. Wfft i’r cyfryw iawnder! Na feddylied neb fy mod i yn honni fy mod wedi bod mor llwyddiannus â gochel pob amhurdeb. Yn raddol, ag nid ar unwaith, y mae diwygio; yn raddol y mae cael golwg ar bob dirywiad. Yr wyf yn gobeithio fy mod yn gweled rhai ag yr wyf wedi amcanu eu gochel. Yr wyf hefyd yn ofni nad wyf wedi gweled y cwbl; gallaf yn wir fod yn sicr mai felly y mae. (Troellau) Y mae gloesau ag addurnau ymadrodd ym mhob ______ wedi cael ag yn cael eu harfer er harddu’r meddyliau a’r darluniadau. Y mae’r Ysgrythurau yn llawn o henynt. Eto, am nad yw’r bobl gyffredin, nag ychwaith gweinidogion rhai o’r pleidiau crefydd mwyaf lluosog, yn eu deall, er amled y clywir y gair troell ymadrodd yn eu geneuau, yr wyf wedi ymarfer ag wynt â llaw ymatalgar iawn. Dymunwn fod fy salmau yn cynnwys y cyfryw dybieu a syniadau am Dduw a’i wirioneddau ag y gallont bawb a fônt drwy garu ei gilydd yn chwennych ymuno yn ddiragfarn yn y gân a gymeront yn eu geneuau i gynteddau yr Hollalluog, yr unig wir Dduw. Amcenais hyn hyd eithaf fy ngallu, yn ôl yr hyn a roddes Duw imi o’r cymhwysiadau at y cyfryw ymgais. Ymegnïais ymgadw o’r neilldu oddiwrth y pynciau ar ba rai ac am ba rai y mae’r byd Cristnogol (mwy cymwys dywedyd anghristnogol) wedi ymrannu mor elyniaethol y naill blaid tuag at y lleill yn ymewino ei gilydd mor ffyrnig, yn ymryfela mor uffernol, y naill am dywallt gwaed y llall pei gadawai’r lywodraeth wledig iddynt wneuthur hynny. Amcenais hyn, meddaf, o’r [?dechrau]. Er cystal, er mor gariadgar a thangnefeddgar yw’m amcan a’m ymgais, yr wyf yn deall eisoes cyn bod y byd braidd yn gwybod dim am danaf nag am fy salmau, bod plaid luosog o blant rhagfarn yn ymbarotoi yn fy erbyn. Nid oes dim meddant (fal y clywaf ) ond annuwiogaeth (atheistiaeth) i’w ddisgwyl am dano yn fy salmau i. Boed iddynt freintiau hen ddihareb ragorol o’n gwlad a’n hiaith, a boed ystyried ag iawn ei hymbwyll: Rhydd i bob un ei farn, a rhydd i bob barn ei lafar.

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A’r sawl a fônt yn ddiachos yn eu hanwybodaeth am farnu’n galed, gwnaent felly. Y sawl a welwn dan amryfusedd cadarn yn credu celwydd, ni chânt fawr wrth eu bodd yn fy nghaniadau i. Ni chânt ynddynt nemor iawn o’r ymadroddion a’r tybiadau di sail sydd wedi bod yn lwch yn llygaid y byd drwy gyffred cynifer oes yn eu llwyr ddallu. O’r tu arall, yr wyf yn gobeithio nas ceir ynddyn ddim a rotho wir dramcwydd i’r gydwybod gyfiawnbwyll a fo’n hoffi cariad a thangnefedd yn bennaf o bob peth yn y byd, ag yn eu barnu yn brif anhepcorion crefydd Iesu Grist. Beth bynnag a geir yn gamsyniadol ynof, fe {yr Duw imi fod yn gywir i’m cydwybod ag am hynny nid wyf yn ameu na chaf gantho faddeuant; ond am ddyn rhagfarnllyd, ni faddeu hwnnw imi byth, pei bei gwaeth imi o hynny. Eto, y mae’n waeth gennyf nid am ddim ofnau mewn perthynas i’m hunan ond er ei fwyn ef yn unig, ac er mwyn y rhai a gânt eu camarwain gantho. Goleued Duw ef a minnau hefyd. Gwêl ambell darllenydd fod mewn hymnau a gyhoeddwyd yn ddiweddar linellau, a mwy nag un llinell ynghyd, yr un peth â rhai geffir yn fy salmau i. Bu’m ysgriflyfrau i, flynyddau yn ôl, yn nwylaw llawer un, a chan un gweinidog ar daith drwy y ran fwyaf o ddeheubarth Cymru. Nid myfi yw’r benthyciwr. Y mae’n chwith gennyf orf[od] dywedyd hyn yn gyhoeddus, ond heb ei ddywedyd buasai hyn yn cael ei ddywedyd am danaf fi. Ag y mae’r byd llythyrennog yn barnu bod rhywfaint o annhegwch yn y cyfryw bethau, heb eu cydnabod. Yr wyf wedi cadw’r mydryddiaeth yn llwyr agos at reolau’r hen gelfydd, gan ochelyd twyllodlau oddieithr y {yr un} rhyddyd a gymerodd E. Prys, lle digwyddai’r gair ‘Duw’, am nad oes un gair arall mewn synnwyr yn ein hiaith yn gyfodl ag ef. Braidd un neu ddau o’r eithaf am bob sir yn neheubarth Cymru a ddeaill yr hyn ag yr wyf yn ei ddywedyd fwy nag y deall un gweinidog da yr hyn a ddywed E. Prys. Yr wyf wedi cadw’r cyrchodlau i gyd yn ôl yr hen reolau, pob un y naill ai ar air unsill neu ar sill diweddaf gair lliosill. Y mae B. Francis ag eraill wedi ymfoddloni eu cael yn y sill gyntaf neu’r ail o’r gair neu ymhellach fyth mewn geiria[u] trisill, pedrysill &c. O wneuthur hyn, rhaid acenu neu seinio’r gair yn anghyfiawn, yn farbaraidd, ag oni bai am rywfaint o ddiogi lle na bo anwybodaeth, nid rhaid ei fod fal hynny. Ni chaetha’n fawr eu cadw yn gywir, ag yn gyweirgam, yn yr hen reolau y rhai fal cyfreithiau y Mediaid a’r Persiaid ni ddylit eu newid, lle mynner y Gymraeg yn drylwyr gyfiawn. Ag er hyn y mae llyfrau, ie, geirlyfrau, Gwynedd yn llawn geiriau o’r cyfryw. Yr wyf wedi amcanu cadw fy ngolwg ar gyflwr y byd a’r ansawdd ar ei grefydd, neu yn hytrach ei ragrith a’i anghrefydd. Ni welaf ddim ond bydoldeb, balchder, rhyfyg a gormes ble bynnag y bwy yn troi’m llygaid. Gwelais yn ang[enrh]eidiol dwyn tystiolaeth yn aml iawn yn erbyn y pethau hyn ag fal hyn cyfaddasu fy nghaniadau at yspryd yr amser. Eto’n fach fy

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ngobaith – nid hawdd darostwng balchder, nid hawdd rhadloni trachwant, nag ychwaith ennill clust y trawslyw[od]raethgar a dybiant fod yn hawl ag yn iawn iddynt sarnu ar a fônt lai goludog na’u hunain. Y mae’n hoes du hwnt i bob oes arall ar wybod in wedi rhoi bodoldeb i yspryd ffyrnigwyllt rhyfe[loedd] mawrion gwaedfeddwon y byd, yn gyrru tân a chledd hyd wyneb y ddaer; amgylchiadau’r amser wedi codi fal cnwd o fwyd nadredd a llyffaint, o’r budreddi ffieiddaf luoedd aneiri o fonheddigion pen tomen, trachwant, balchder a rhyfyg, pa rai â’u gormes a’u gorthrymder ar weinion y byd sy’n gweiddi’n groch am ddiale[dd]. Y mae[’r] pethau arswydus hyn i’w gweled o leiaf lawn gymaint ym mhlith y rhai a ryfygasant gymeryd arnynt y swydd o fod yn athrawon ac yn weinidogion gair Duw ag ym mhlith eraill. Nid at unrhyw blaid neillduol o bob grefydd rith yr wyf yn anelu’r tystiolaeth ond at bob plaid ba bynnag. Nid gwell un nag arall ohonyn – ffug santeiddrwydd yn mantellu y balchder mwy ffiaidd a’r bydoldeb mwy rheipus. Rhai’n cael eu cynhyrfu a’u llywodraethu gan y chwantau a’r gwyniau mwy bleiddig, ie, mwya’ cythreulig a ellir eu hamgyffred; yn cymeryd arnynt yn dra chableddus enw dysgyblion Iesu Grist, ar yr un pryd yn ymdroseddu mewn balchder, mewn trachwant, mewn gw}n rhyfyglawn. Dynion y ddaear o’r [————] ddaearol. Dynion dan rith Duwioldeb i’r eithaf yn wrthgilwyr oddiwrth yr un y maent yn cymeryd arnynt ei addoli a’i wasanaeth. Budreddi tome[n]bridd y cyfryw ragrith yw’r tir drewllyd ymha un y mae anghrediniaeth yn tarddu mor fras ei [———]. Yr wyf wedi ymwrthod â barbareidd-dra, gwir ffieidd-dra, y Deudneudwyr o ymarfer â ‘ne’, ‘cre’, ‘lli’, ‘ha’, ‘rhi’, ‘plwy’, ‘clwy’, ‘nwy’, ‘co’, ‘cla’, a llawer mwy, yn lle ‘nef ’, ‘cref ’, ‘cryf ’, ‘llif ’, ‘haf ’, ‘rhif ’, ‘plwyf ’, ‘clwyf ’, ‘nwyf ’, ‘cof ’, ‘claf ’ &c. Anferth iawn yw brigdorri geiriau [eu] hiaith fal hyn, ond arferir hwynt gan hymnyddion Deheubarth, a hynny’n bennaf am fod gw}r Gwynedd yn haeru bod eu hiaith nhwy’n burach nag un Deheubarth. Nid oes yn y byd anwiredd fwy na hwn. Y mae’r Wenhwyseg yng Ngwent a Morgannwg ynghyd â rhan o Frycheiniog, y Ddeheubartheg yng Ngheredigion a gorllewin Penfro, yn rhagori ym mhell mewn purdeb ar ddim a geir yn [y] mannau lle mae puraf y Gymraeg yng Ngwynedd. Y mae’r Ddeudneudiaith yn lygredig ag hyd yr eithaf yn bodr hyd ei chalon, a chan y ran fwyaf o’i hysgrifenwyr nid nemor amgen na Saesneg, herwydd ei chyfysdawd, wedi ei ysgrifennu a rhyw fath o eiriau Cymraeg. ‘Y Bod o Dduw’ (‘the Being of God’) meddant yn lle ‘Bodoldeb Duw’, bob gair yn nhrefn yr wyddoreg Seisnig. Y mae’r Hudlewyrn mawr ar ei daith drwy Gymru yn camarwain llawer o hen lwybrau’r iaith: ‘Cynmry’, ‘yn mlaen’, ‘yn mraint’, ‘yn mhlwyf ’ &c. , a llawer o’r cyfryw anferthwch a drygsain danhedd-dor a thaglyd, yn lle

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‘Cymmry’ &c. Gwareded pwyll a chlust a garo lithriglais bob un rhag y cyfryw lafarlef. Wfft! wfft! Gorfu arnaf yngan fal hyn am yr Hudlewyrn am fod rhai, fal y clywaf, yn dywedyd fy mod i wedi bod â llaw yn y gwaith o’i ollwng allan ar hyd ag ar led ein gwlad i draws arwain awduron a beirdd ar gyfeiliorn, ond nid gair yn wir yn hyn. Y mae’n llawnoed i mi ac i bawb e[ra]ill a garont y Gymraeg ddwyn eu tystiolaeth yn erbyn y brath a roddir fel hyn ynghalon ein hiaith. Y mae ein hen ysgrifenadau wedi cael eu llygru yn gywilyddus er mwyn twyllritho awdurdod a sail [?o’r cyfryw]. Rhoddais fy marn yn ei erbyn o’r [————] ond [——] cloch i fyddar y bu’r cwbl a ddywedais. Gweler y 3dd ran o’r &c. , Owain Myfyr, lle mae tudalen – [?ac——r] tu dal &c. , &c. O’m ysgriflyfrau i y cymerwys y pethau hynny, lle nid ydoedd sillyddiaeth y geiriau uchod fal hynny, eithr ‘ym mlaen’ &c. Ond pa beth a ellir ei ddychymygu yn hyn o fyd nas gwelir er ateb diben anghyfiawn. Y mae ein cenedl wedi dwyn yr enw ‘Cymmry’ (Kimmeri) er ys mwy na thair mil o flynyddau o leiaf – er amser Homer, yr hwn y sy’n eu henwi dan yr enw ‘Kimmeros’ &c. – prawf amlwg bod ein hiaith wedi cael ei darostwng i’r drefn ym mha un y mae hyd y dydd heddyw yn gadwedig er hynny o amser, ag yn drathebygol ymhell cyn hynny; newid ‘n’ i ‘m’ &c. fal y Groeg, y Lladin ag ieithoedd eraill, a chwedi bod dros o leiaf hanner oes y teir ran o’i oes er amser T{r Babel dan yr un drefn lithriglef. Y mae cynghrair plant anwybod yn awr yn adeiliadu Babel arall ynghymmry er dwyn y Gymraeg [i] lygredigaethau a chymysgeddau a fyddant yn angau iddi oni ellir ar fyr iawn rhagflaenu’r difrod a’r anrhaith: ‘parodol’, ‘dedwyddol’, ‘uniongyrchol’ &c. , yn lle ‘parod’, ‘dedwydd’, ‘uniongyrch’, &c. , ‘hyfrydol’ &c. , ‘peredd’ &c. , ‘mo’, ‘mo’r’, ‘mono’ &c. Y mae awduron goreu Gwynedd yn llawn o’r cyfryw lygredigaethau. Nid wyf yn enwi neb, nag yn meddwl enwi un dyn oni orfydd imi er hunanymddiffyniad yn erbyn a wadant a ddywedais. Yr wyf wedi ymarfer ag amryw a gedwir fyth gan y Wenhwyseg er eu bod wedi myned ar [lwy]r angof agos ym mhob rhan arall o Gymru. Y maent yn Gymraeg pur ag i’w cael yn lled aml yn yr hen ysgrifeniadau mwyaf awdurdodawl. Camsyniadau yn arfer y rhagsillau gwrthbwyll ‘an’ a ‘di’: ‘diddisglair’ yn lle ‘annisglair’. Anferth y byddai ‘didduwiol’, ‘difynych’, ‘dihynaws’, ‘dihyfryd’, ‘diferth’, ‘diwadal’.

26. NLW 21282E, no. 463; 5 December 1795 (CIM, I, letter 399, pp. 793–4). Beginning with a section in English on the suitability or otherwise of Welsh strictmetre poetry for rendition in music, the remainder of this item is written in Welsh and concentrates on attacking the work of the highly successful Welsh hymn-writer William

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Williams, Pantycelyn, whose hymns spread ‘like fireworks through Wales’ (‘fal tân gwyllt drwy Gymru’). Iolo criticizes in particular Pantycelyn’s predilection for ‘poetical flights’ (‘ehediadau prydyddiaeth’) and use of figures of speech (‘[t]roellon ymadrodd’), and offers several examples for dissection. This material was not included in the preface to Iolo’s Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch. We have not hitherto, in our religious worship, dedicated our native poetry to our God. All that in verse we offer to him is of such kinds as we have borrowed from the English or other foreign languages. Edmund Prys kept as near as possibly he could in his versification to that of Sternhold and Hopkins. This was doubtless occasioned by our want of a proper set of psalm or hymn tunes – we had none but such as we borrowed from the English and it is so to this very day. It is true we have had some composers of sacred music but every one of them has adapted his compositions to the Anglicised metres that are in common use amongst us. But why may not a proper englyn or a short cywydd or a stanza in any other ancient Welsh metres be occasionally recited, tho’ we cannot well sing it, at the end of a psalm or hymn? Indeed, such metres may be set to music, but it must be in the manner of anthem composition and not as music adapted to regular or uniform stanzas, unless we write englynion wherein we studiously kept {confine} every one of them to the same rhythm and accentuation, which I think practicable. And I have my self made some attempts of the kind and have also set them to music, for I am a dabbler in that charming, I will say heavenly, science or art. Such a practice would give a pleasing variety to our sacred songs but I would wish that it should superced[e] our more common manner which is certainly more easy and better adapted to that energy and [?tei]rciness or compression of language which sacred poetry indispensibly requires. The use of the Welsh cynghanedd will often force us to use expletive words and modes of expression, circumlocution[?s] and diffusely periphrastical language – things inconsistent with the awful majesty of religious worship. Y mae hymnau William Williams wedi rhedeg fal tân gwyllt drwy Gymru. Y mae llawer iawn yn eu hoffi, llawer iawn yn ymarfer â hwy, ond nid wyf fi ymhlith y rhai hynny. Yr oedd y dyn yn ddiamau yn berchen awen prydydd tu hwnt i bob un o’i amser, ond yr oedd efe fal llawer un arall, yn barnu fod awen yn ddigon heb achos ymorol y gronyn lleiaf yn y byd am y wybodaeth a’r gelfyddyd farddonïaidd honno heb gynhorth[wy] pa un nid yw awen noethlymun ond peth barbaraidd a gwyllt iawn. Ei iaith hefyd y sydd dros ben mesu[r] yn lygredig, a rhyfedd mor ddibris yn hyn yw pob prydydd hymnau ynghymry. Nid

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felly y mae’r Saeson, nid felly un cenedl arall. Y mae’r Dr Watts, Dr Doddridge, a phob un arall yn Saesoneg, yn ofalus am eitha’ purdeb iaith. Y maent hefyd yn arbedgar iawn ar y gwylltineb disylwedd ac y mae William Williams yn ei alw ‘ehediadau prydyddiaeth’. Yn wir, y mae meddyliau {myfyrdodau} derchafedig a darfeliadau bywiog yn harddu prydyddiaeth yn fawr iawn, yn rhoi blaenllymder mawr i’r ystyr a’r ymadrawdd, ond nid gwiw inni gymhwyso’r gair derchafedig at bob peth a fo fal niwlach drewllyd yn codi o’r ddaear ag yn ymgasglu yn gwmwl dudew yn yr wybren rhyngom a goleuni’r haul. Ni wni beth amgen na hyn y gellir ddywedyd am y cyfryw feddyliau ac a gair yn y penillion canlynol: Angylion nef yn rhyfedd syn Sy’n edrych yn ei glwyfe’, Yn sugno’u dysg bob awr uwch nen Oddiwrth y pren diodde’. Aleluia, 192 Crynhowch y doethion oll ynghyd Sy fewn y byd yn trigo; Beth mwy rhyfeddog glywsoch chwi Na’m Duw gael ei groes hoelio. ’D oes golwg harddach ddydd na nos Na’m Iesu’n hongian ar y groes ibid. Gwêl ymhellach yno. Gwêl yr hymn diwethaf yn y llyfr. Yr oedd William Williams yn caru sôn yn ei ymddiddanion cystal ag yn ei scrifeniadau am droellion ymadrodd, ac eto heb ddeall y gronyn lleiaf ar ansawdd troell: Soddais mewn dom, eithum ynghyn Mewn lle heb un sefyllfa; A’r dyfroedd dyfnon, pwysau’r groes Yn llifo dros fy nghopa. Môr o Wydr, 40 Mae’n debyg gennyf fi ei fod ef yn y cymysg hyn o frwd a bras yn amcanu’r droell a elwir trawsymddwyn, druan o hono!

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Llun ceffyl yw hwn, ebe’r hen luniedydd gynt am ryw anferthwch o beth ac yr o[edd] wedi ei luniaw – yn debycach i ellyll nag i ddim arall. Pwy a feddyliai fyth gymeryd y groes i fynydd os nid oes tani le o sefyllfa. Dyfroedd dyfnion a allant lifo dros y copa ond y mae pwysau’r groes yn hytrach yn gwasgu’n galed, yn llethu i’r llawr &c. , nag yn llifo fal d{r. Dyma gymysg anneallus iawn ar iaith ac ymadrodd – y rhywiog a’r droellog ar yr un anadl. Yn wir, y mae efe fal llawer un arall yng Nghymru yn sôn am droellau heb wybod yn y byd pa ryw bethau ydynt; beth yw eu hansawdd nac ychwaith eu henwau na’u rhif.

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Agriculture 1. [‘The soil of the Vale’] NLW 21280E, no. 130; [?1814] (CIM, III, letter 931, p. 228). [?H]arwich Williams of Lantwit said that the Vale of Glamorgan was the [most] excellent soil he ever knew for the cultivation of flax for seeds but not for the manufacture – the fibre not fine enough.

Archaeology 2. [‘Metal weapons’] NLW 21282E, no. 427; 11 July 1803 (CIM, II, letter 647, p. 518). See Fig. 9. A brass or rather bell metal weapon found near Llanguian in Glamorgan in a barrow with a piece of the wood in the socket. The weapon was double edged. Another Another, two edged, about 2 feet long, its point broken off and when entire might have been about 2½ or 3 feet long.

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Fig. 9 A diagram of ancient weapons in Iolo’s hand.

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Architecture 3. [‘Gothic architecture’] NLW 21283E, no. 554; 14 November 1773 (CIM, I, letter 18, p. 77). It was a maxim amongst the old Welsh architects to vary the Gothic capitals always, which had generally a good affect, as in Neath Abbey, Margam, Lantwit, Landaff &c. , &c. In St Athan Church there was lately an old Gothic gallery which greatly resembled the Persian architecture, ye pilaster[?s], effigies of ye saints supporting one of ye best Gothic cornices that I ever saw. This gallery according to tradition was erected by ye family of the [—— —] 14[?3]0.

Fig. 10 A diagram in Iolo’s hand showing architectural features in the Gothic style.

4. [‘Diagram: A house’] NLW 21286E, no. 1037; [?post May 1806] (CIM, II, letter 767, pp. 799–800).

Fig. 11 A drawing of an unidentified house in Iolo’s hand.

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5. [‘Diagrams: House, barn and church’] NLW 21284E, no. 661; 7 November 1814 (CIM, III, letter 975, pp. 296–7).

Fig. 12 A pencil sketch of a farmhouse, barn and chapel in Iolo’s hand.

Farm house and Barn in Sir Gaer; Catholic Chapel in Monmouthshire

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Geology 6. [‘A geological structure’] NLW 21283E, no. 489; 15 November 1815 (CIM, III, letter 1011, pp 371–2).

123 ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

123 123 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////// /////////////////////////////////////////////////////

white limestone with petrifactions not of this wor[?ld] at present

123

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lias, with petrifactions of the torrid zone

conglomerated pebbles connected by a stalactitic substance

123 123

Fig. 13 A pencil diagram in Iolo’s hand showing a geological structure.

primitive limestone red, or rather brown

limestone without any animal petrifactions, but with nodules of black porphyry between the strata

sea

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History 7. ‘Letters from Glamorgan’ NLW 21285E, no. 787; [?1794] (CIM, I, letter 287, pp. 628–30). Letters from Glamorgan 1st. Neath Abbey. Account of it, remarks on ye original institution, o[n] their usefulness as schools &c. ; manufactories, public libraries &c. Rema[rks] on the similar institution of Howel Harris. 2d. On Gothic architecture, the opulence of the Normans. Good specimens of Go[thic] architecture at Landaf and Cardiff churches, Margam, Neath, the f[ine] altarpieces of Lantwit, Penmark, Lancarvan, castles of Cardiff, Caerf[?illy], St Donats, Swansey, Morlais &c. Tombs of Landaf, Lantwit, [———], Flimston, churches of Peterston, Lanblethian, Coychurch, Coyty, St N[?icholas], St Donats &c. 3d. Stones, freestones, marbles &c. , medicinal waters &c. 4th. On the animosities of different sects. 5th. Absurdity of the story of Brute’s coming from Troy. 6. Foods of the inhabitants.

8. [‘On Historians of Wales’] NLW 21282E, no. 325; 1 April 1798 (CIM, II, letter 466, pp. 70–3). The literati of Tysilio’s time were either Romans or Romanized Britons and, probably, like many of our Anglicized Britons of the present day, better acquainted with the annals of the Romans than with the ancient traditions of the natives. To exemplify this by what modern writers have achieved, what knowledge of ancient traditionary and even written Welsh history find we in Warrington, even in Dr Powel’s History of Wales, wherein we find little besides a translation of Caradoc Llangarfan? What find we in Charles Edwards’ Hanes y Ffydd, Hanes y Byd a’r Amseroedd, Oes Lyfr and even in Drych y Prif Oesoedd? Their authors, tho’ writing in the Welsh language, were absolutely ignorant of our written records, which they ought to have consulted by all means – Gildas, Nennius &c. – were the Warringtons of their day, not impostors but ignorants. Tysilio, Galfrid &c. were what Theophilus Evans was – they used unfair means of advancing the respectability of their depressed country and countrymen. Iolo Morganwg.

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9. [‘A plan for a complete and superb History of the county of Glamorgan’] NLW 21281E, no. 256; 3 March 1803 (CIM, II, letter 636, pp. 478–9). Outline of a plan for a complete and superb History of the county of Glamorgan 1. Gentlemen to contribute views &c. 2. Copies with pla[?t]es at ½ price 3. Fine copies quarto with plates 4. Copies from the same letter press on inferior but still good paper with but few plates at half price. As Warrington, Owen’s Dictionary &c. , to accommodate small fortunes. Biography of celebrated men Most, if not all, our county histories have been undertaken and written by one man, but it has but very rarely, perhaps never, happened that in any one man, however learned, all the various qualifications for a county or provincial historian were united. It would be difficult if not impossible to find a writer so completely qualified as to be thoroughly skill’d, not only in the Greek and Latin languages, but also in the Welsh, ancient Saxon, Norman or old French &c.

10. ‘Prospectus of Collections for a new History of Wales’ NLW 21281E, no. 166; 14 January 1808 (CIM, II, letter 790, pp. 841–2). This item comprises a prospectus for a new history of Wales by Iolo. Much of this proposed history in fact relates to literature, however, and to the literary controversy surrounding Ossian. Cf. Edward Williams, Prospectus of Collections for a New History of Wales in Six Volumes (Carmarthen, 1819). Prospectus of – – Collections for a new History of Wales, from ancient Welsh manuscripts, with English translations, illustrated by notes and supplementary dissertations in IV volumes, 8vo / in V volumes, 400pp each Volume I: Preliminary dissertation on the Welsh language manuscripts 1. Dissertation on the arts of memory amongst the ancient Welsh (Cymry), of the Bardic traditions, commemorative poems, triades, voice conventional &c.

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2. On the origin of letters amongst the ancient Welsh – Etruscan, Bardic, Monks’ &c. – with facsimile plates 3. Historical triades with notes and supplementary dissertation 4. Introduction of Christianity, ‘Bonedd y Saint’, ‘Twrog’ &c. , with a translation, notes and supplementary dissertation. Various copies of ‘Bonedd y Saint’ &c. Volume II 1. Moelmutian triades with translation, notes and supplementary dissertation 2. Bardic institutes, triades, theology or Druidical system 3. Ancient chronologies, genealogies Volume III 1. Caradoc Lancarvensis. Tre Bryn &c. , Aberpergwm copies, translated with dissertation and notes 2. ‘Brut y Saeson’, British Museum and Hengwrt and Treôs manuscripts. Translated with notes, dissertation &c. Mansel and Stradling manuscripts. Volume IV 1. Ancient Welsh literature, poetry, criticism, grammar and antiquity of the formation of the language, ethics, romances, Geoffrey, agriculture, oratory (‘Naw gloes ymadrodd’). Prose – verse. Dialects. 2. Errors of Geoffrey, Vaughan of Hengwrt, H. Rowlands, Lewis Morys, Humstrum Jones, E. Davies, Theophilus Jones, Yorke, William Owen, tourists &c. 3. English (nine tenths of the nation) descendants of ancient Britons. 4. Alphabetical account of writers in verse and prose. Appendices Variorum 1. References to additional sources of historical information: British Museum, Bodleian, Hengwrt, Wynnstay, Plas Gwyn, Jesus College &c. 2. Characteristics of the versification of different periods in the preliminary dissertation on the Welsh manuscripts. 3. Ditto of the language. Structure and phraseology of different periods, ancient formation, Cimmeri. That the English reader may have a clear view of the matter contained in the original manuscript documents and see them in their true colours, they are kept separate from the illustrative matter of the notes and supplementary dissertations of which so many ideas may possibly be considered as those of the author and to which some may not be able to give [——].

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Thus will the documental text of the original manuscripts appear in their native simplicity unembellished by any additions of the translator, and thence the reader will be enable[d] to form a more correct judgement of them than other wise he would be able to do and will see more clearly how far he is at liberty to adopt or reject the ideas of the dissertator &c. As far as the editor has been able to calculate, the work will be comprised in IV volumes, as above stated, in 8vo, each volume to contain about __ pages, a full and moderately closely printed page, good paper and type with ¼ part printed off in quarto, with proper margins for making manuscript notes &c. , as well as for a superior elegance of page, for which last reason the paper will be of superior quality. The long-controversy on the poems of Ossian, asserted to have been written by a bard in the primitive state of barbarism before the use of letters was known either to the bard or to any of [his] nation has induced many learned but inconsiderate men to represent the Welsh manuscripts and literature as of the same description, and of equally un-established authenticity. But those gentlemen should have recollected that at the date [when] the oldest manuscripts [were] produced in the Welsh language, the country (south Britain) had been for more than 500 years a province of the highly civilized Roman empire, and that in its most luminous period, during which the ancient Welsh literature sprung into existence and beyond a doubt was (as we may metaphorically express it) educated as it were under the tuition of the Roman literature. And whatever may be found recorded of what occur’d previous to the Roman conquest may be fairly believed to have been on the authority of traditions then well known and considerably authenticated. The Druidic system still living, the laws of Moelmud still in force (at least by the inhabitants of sequestered parts of the island), and were reduced to writing during that period on authorities well known at that time; and that they continued in use till Howell D[da].

11. [‘The Welsh Bards’] NLW 21282E, no. 427, 11 July 1803 (CIM, II, letter 647, p. 518). This Ioloic account is calculated to afford Bardism its rightful place in Welsh history. It claims that, as a response to the uprisings of Owain Glynd{r, the English Crown imposed its own language on the people of Wales, at the expense of both Latin and Welsh. The bards responded by instituting an undercover system of teaching their own lore to parents and children, using the bardic ‘peithynen’, a wooden frame on which letters could be inscribed. Finally, the English Crown, under Henry VI, relented its iron grasp on Welsh

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life and culture, and granted the bards the right to hold eisteddfodau, the first of which was held at Carmarthen in 1451. Yn amser Harri Frenin y pedwerydd, wedi rhyfel bargod Owain o’r Glyn, gwaharddwyd ysgolion ynghymru yn amgen rhai Seisnig ag athrawon o Saeson, ag nis goddefid na Chymraeg na Lladin, a gwaharddwyd defnyddion a moddion llyfrau ag ysgrifennu. Achos hynny gorfu ar y Cymry gymeryd y beirdd atynt a dwyn ar wybod a chof ag adwedd hen lythyryddiach gwlad a chenedl y Cymry er yn oes oesoedd, tra chof a chadw, nid amgen na Choelbren y Beirdd ag un y Meneich, ag yna trefnu celfyddyd gan ei gwellhau yn amgen nag y bu cyn hynny. Ag ar w}dd y cadwent gof a chyfry, a phob gwybodau ag addysg, yn doredig â chyllyll, fal y bu gynt, ag yn doredig â du, a’r beirdd yn athrawon yn y tai a’r teuluau, yn dysgu plant a rhieni, ag fal hynny cadw cof ag addysg ar bob gwybodau daionus. Ag o hyn daeth gwellhad ar wybo[da]u ynghymru ac ar gadwedigaeth y Gymraeg a’i pherthynasau. Ag achos y gwahardd ar ysgolion, gorfu ar y beirdd wilied rhag gwall ymgadw, a chymryd eu discyblion dan gêl a lledrith gweision tir llafur ac amaeth neu yntau eu hunain dan y lledrith hwnnw. Gwedi hynny cafad braint llythyr cyfnawdd gan y Brenin Harri y chweched, pan oedd oed Crist 1450 i Ruffudd ap Nicolas hyd ymhen y deugain mlynedd ac o hyn cynnal eisteddfodau [ar] osteg undydd a blwyddyn, a chynn[?al y gyntaf] ynghaerfyrddin pan oedd [?oed Crist] 1451 a honno’r gyntaf [—————] 1461 a chyn pen y deugain [——————] Harri ab [———] yn [?frenin] [————–] gwahardd ag [———] ar y Cymr[y].

12. [‘The Cambrian Biography: addenda’] NLW 21283E, no. 579; 21 September 1811 (CIM, III, letter 856, p. 81). This item includes material on antiquities in Glamorgan and on modern eisteddfodau. The title indicates that the items noted were intended as addenda and corrections to William Owen Pughe, The Cambrian Biography: or Historical Notices of Celebrated Men among the Ancient Britons (London, 1803). Corrections of and additions to the Cambrian Biography Account of Llanilid and its very curious ancient British antiquities Modern eisteddfodau Lantwit and Merthyr Mawr inscriptions with those of Llanelldeyrn, Cynffig, Margam Mountain &c. Celligaer parish and antiquities Llancarvan ditto.

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Lantwit ditto. Llangyfelach ditto. Dyffryn Olw[?g] ditto, and St Nicholas Coedryglan, [?celt] of flint &c. Tumuli, carns, circles, ‘cromlechau’ &c. , as thickly scattered over the county of Glamorgan as the Wiltshire Plains only not so generally visible, Glamorgan being an inclosed county. Twmpath Eglwys Newydd, Llanilid, y Wig, Ystradywain, Llanilltyd, Bryn Owain, Llandidwg, Llangewydd, Garth-Maelwg, Garth Pentyrch, Bryn y Bedd, Glyn Rhondde, Carn Moe[sen], Dyffryn Goluch, Mynydd Eglwysilan, Llangeinwr, Mynydd y Gaer, St Athan, Windmill Fields, Twmpath Daear &c. , Mynydd y Drenewydd, Cefn Bryn, Cefn Morfydd, Llangiwg, y Drymau, Mynydd y Caerau, with many that within my memory have been levelled for the plough and many more has doubtlessly been long before been so levelled, and this is a labour that none will take on open downs, that will do but in inclosed and appropriated fields.

Horticulture 13. [‘Trees’] NLW 21282E, no. 430; [?1782] (CIM, I, letter 67, p. 198). Clematis vi[t]alba – Traveller’s [j]oy fir, pine, larch, walnut chestnut, beech, hornbeam Cedar of Lebanon hawthorn – a timber tree in Glamorgan bullace, wild fig, black currants, gooseberry, raspberry buckthorn, wild apricots, [?creke], maple leaved service viburnum, guelder rose, evergreen privet, myrtles in open air at St Donat’s Castle, Britonferry, Baglan Hall, Thomas Franklen, Esqr. New Castle, Bridgend, Swansea, Gower Gileston Castelton, 300 feet above the sea

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Names and family history 14. ‘Surnames’ NLW 21285E, no. 902; 25 November 1813. Surnames Tanads of Abertanad Brynkers of Brynker Mostyns of Mostyn or Moston Conways of Conway Glynn of Glynn Pennants of Pennant Carregs of Carreg Sountleys of Sountley Trefors of Trefor Maesmors of Maesmor Blaeneys of Blaeney

15. [‘The Roden family’] NLW 21280E, no. 90; 17 March 1818 (CIM, III, letter 1065, p. 468). Roden – a family in Denbigh, one of which fell into a deep pit (lead ore mine) in March 1818.

Politics 16. [‘Human abilities’] NLW 21282E, no. 393; 10 January 1797 (CIM, II, letter 441, p. 5). No French revolution, nor any other system or principle that ever appeared in this world, pretended to equalize the human abilities, the powers either of body or mind. None ever even hinted that the results and acquisitions of either corporeal or mental abilities honestly exercised were not the exclusive property and rights of him who possessed such abilities. ‘Y ci a fynner ei ladd dyweder ei vod yn gyndeiriog’, says our Welsh proverb, and the silly expressions of French revolution – ‘equality’, ‘democracy’ &c. ,

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&c. , are only the mad dog cry that has been raised by those who like the thief hears the pursuing constable in every rustling leaf.

Religion 17. ‘Theological fragments’ NLW 21285E, no. 795; [?July 1793] (CIM, I, letter 257, pp. 577–8). Justin Martyr, who was the disciple of St John, says that the mode of worship practised by the Christians was to begin the worship by reading the proper lessons which consisted of such portions of Scriptures as secured their being read over entirely in the course of one year. After these proper lessons were read special or particular lessons [which] were selected and read suitable to times and circumstances [of ] the particular state of the church over which he presided, their state of improvement or deficiency in religious knowledge and practice of religious duties. Between the lessons, select portions of the psalms of David and other scriptural psalms and hymns were read and after they were read for the consideration of the congregation they were sung. This was between the lesson in rather short portions and used not so much for instruction as praise, thanksgiving and consolation. Between the lessons, also, short prayers in conformity to the commandment and example of Jesus Christ were introduced. Some of those were from the Scriptures, others, such as with the approbation of the elders, were prepared for present occas[ions] and circumst[ances] [— —] then the lat[—]. The officiators were such as had been chosen as elders by the congregation or church, and they met at fixed times and places – were extremely cautious how they admitted any thing into their worship that was not extracted from Scripture. St Ambrose saith that the public service consisted of no more than the lessons, proper and peculiar for the day, then the sermon, then an exposition of the Apostles’ creed. But he says that he reckoned the psalms of the day and, before the Eucharist, the Gospels and Epistles of Paul, were read; that this was the primitive practice of the churches of Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and blames the Western churches for using human compositions in the room of the inspired writers.

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St Augustine says that the service consisted of the sacred lessons, preaching and prayer[?s], either by the bishop aloud or by the people in common, according to the notice that the deacon might give. St Jerome says the service consisted of the sacred lessons, the prophetical hymns and the psalms of David, and afterwards private prayers of each particular person by himself; 2. , a concluding collect which was the common prayer wherein they all joined. Most of the prayers were private and in silence. The number of collects were very small and very short, and still less of extemporary prayer, and what was tho’ but rarely used was very short – a short address directing the people what to pray for in their private devotions and most commonly the Lord’s Prayer was the concluding collect. Ignatius, the disciple of St John, says that three books were laid on the table. One consisted of the prophets, another the Gospels and the third the Epistles of Paul &c. , out of which lessons were read before the preaching. Ancient writers blame the Church of Rome for rejecting the lessons out of the prophets which the first Christians always used, urging that the Christian Scriptures were an addition to not a supersession of the Jewish Scriptures. Theological fragments, notes, hints &c.

18. [‘The Book of Knowledge’] NLW 21286E, no. 1026; [?1794] (CIM, I, letter 283, pp. 624–5). We cannot conceive any thing more conducive to the urging of civilization on mankind than the impressing on their minds the great necessity of being able to read a book the knowledge of the doctrines of which gives life eternal.

19. [‘The St Athan Schoolroom’] NLW 21285E, no. 827; [21 January 1794] (CIM, I, letter 298, pp. 643–5). Notice is hereby given [th]at whereas hitherto there has been sometimes preaching and sometimes shews exhibited in the school-room at St Athan, sometimes God and his sa[i]nts, at other times Punch and the Devil, now

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in future it is intended that both shall be [in]troduced on the very same evening, one immediately to succeed the other. From motives [o]f due reverence, the minister of religion shall be permitted to give his good advice, and be [it] know[n] unto all those who may wish rather to see the Devil than hear the sermon, that none will be admitted to an interview with their beloved and highly honoured friend his infernal majesty but such as are willin[g] to hear the sermon first, after which they may go to the [———] as soon as they please and remain with him as long as they please and become his own forever. Thus are we disposed to give the Devil his due. And it is also requested that those who are willing to pay 3d each towards honouring the Devil and supporting his servants will also at the sermon give each of them one halfpenny towards the support and comfort of those in the apper[———] beneath them who are more allied than themselves to [?an] infernal majesty, to him held out by the preacher as . . .

20. ‘Authenticity of Scriptures’ NLW 21280E, no. 22; 22 August 1794 (CIM, I, letter 326, p. 684). Authenticity of Scriptures Church of Rome continued as long as was necessary to give authenticity to the Scriptures, as it would have been their interest to corrupt them. Had it continued much less it would not have been so obviou[s] to future ages that it had so long and so eminently and uncontrolledly the power of destroying them or of greatly corrupting them, which it [was] its greatest interests to do. Other institutions must remain long enough with power enough to convince mankind of its enormities and inefficacy to govern as well as the patriarchal scheme. The Church of England will remain till something has taken place that will better answer its intended purposes of instructing. Nobility and a wealthy priesthood introduce elegance and improvements which less wealth could never accomplish. Monopolies have a similar effect: introduce exotic plants, animals, arts, literature &c.

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21. ‘Pregeth Siôn Hwper’ NLW 21283E, no. 611; [?October 1799] (CIM, II, letter 520, p. 225). This is a satirical and ribald mock-advertisement for the publication of two sermons by ‘Siôn Hwper’, presumably John Hooper of Flemingston, whom Iolo described as ‘a good and friendly neighbour’ (CIM, II, p. 476, Iolo Morganwg to Owen Jones (Owain Myfyr), March 1803). His favourable view of Hooper, overseer of the poor of the parish, was later compromised by the latter’s callous treatment of two destitute young female paupers, Alice John and Catharine Thomas. (Ibid., III, pp. 465–8, Iolo Morganwg to the Magistrates of Cowbridge, 13 March 1818; ibid., pp. 505–9, Iolo Morganwg to William Wingfield, 8–9 April 1819.) Cyhoeddir ar frys Dwy Bregeth gan Siôn Hwper o Drefflemin. Y cyntaf ar y text hwn o’r ddeunawfed bennod o Lyfr y Scowldïod, lle mae’r geiriau’n scrifeniedig fel hyn: Baw i chwi! Baw yn eich danned[d]. Yr ail bregeth ar y geiriau hyn y sy’n yscrifeniedig yn yr ugeinfed bennod o’r un llyfr: Dodwch eich trwyn yn ’y nhin i.

Topography 22. [‘Ystrad Meurig, Cardiganshire’] NLW 21282E, no. 333; 19 February 1799 (CIM, II, letter 494, pp. 166–7). Ystrad M. Castle 26 yards } wall 8 foot thick, holes 14 inch square 17 }. wretched ploughing fine view of Strat Fl[ur] Ystrad Meuryg a fin[e], healthy spot Vale of Tivy – morass ends here; apple blooms not expanded 7 of Jun[?e] Grand, cloudy mountains north Cows in Cardiganshire feed on nettles if fold-fed or house feed with them. They will eat them out more and better [?milk] than clover, so potatoes.

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Reference Works The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940 (London, 1959). Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (4 vols. , Caerdydd, 1950–2002). Oxford Classical Dictionary, edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (rev. 3rd edn. , Oxford, 2003). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Printed books, articles, and unpublished dissertations Ashton, G. M. , ‘Some Annotations by Iolo Morganwg’, JWBS, VII, no. 1 (1950), 24–5. Austen, Jane, Juvenilia, edited by Peter Sabor (Cambridge, 2006). Awenyddion Morganwg, neu, Farddoniaeth Cadair Merthyr Tudful (Merthyr Tudful, [1826]). Barthélemy, Jean Jacques, Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece, translated from the French [by W. Beaumont] (2nd edn. , 7 vols. , London, 1794). Belsham, William, Traethawd Byr ar yr Athrawiaethau o Ryddid ac Angenrheidrwydd Philosophyddawl, translated by Thomas Evans (Caerfyrddin, 1809). —— ‘On Liberty and Necessity’ in idem, Essays, Philosophical, Historical, and Literary (London, 1789), pp. 1–15. Bowen, Geraint, and Zonia Bowen, Hanes Gorsedd y Beirdd (Abertawe, 1991). Bowen, Lloyd, The Politics of the Principality: Wales c.1603–1642 (Cardiff, 2007). Bromwich, Rachel, ‘Trioedd Ynys Prydain’ in Welsh Literature and Scholarship. G. J. Williams Memorial Lecture (Cardiff, 1969). —— ‘Trioedd Ynys Prydain: The Myvyrian “Third Series”’, THSC (1968), 299–338; ibid. (1969), 127–55. —— (ed. ), Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain (3rd edn. , Cardiff, 2006). Cannon, Jon, and Mary-Ann Constantine, ‘A Welsh Bard in Wiltshire: Iolo Morganwg, Silbury and the Sarsens’, Wiltshire Studies, 97 (2004), 78–88. Carr, Glenda, William Owen Pughe (Caerdydd, 1983). —— ‘Bwrlwm Bywyd y Cymry yn Llundain yn y Ddeunawfed Ganrif’ in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed. ), Cof Cenedl XI: Ysgrifau ar Hanes Cymru (Llandysul, 1996), pp. 59–87.

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—— ‘An Uneasy Partnership: Iolo Morganwg and William Owen Pughe’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 443–60. Charnell-White, Cathryn A. , Barbarism and Bardism: North Wales versus South Wales in the Bardic Vision of Iolo Morganwg (Aberystwyth, 2004). —— Bardic Circles: National, Regional and Personal Identity in the Bardic Vision of Iolo Morganwg (Cardiff, 2007). —— O’r Cysgodion: Llythyrau’r Meirw at y Byw (Aberystwyth, 2007). —— ‘Women and Gender in the Private and Social Relationships of Iolo Morganwg’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 359–81. Christmas, William J. , The Lab’ring Muses: Work, Writing, and the Social Order in English Plebeian Poetry, 1730–1830 (London, 2001). Constantine, Mary-Ann, ‘Combustible Matter’: Iolo Morganwg and the Bristol Volcano (Aberystwyth, 2003). —— The Truth against the World: Iolo Morganwg and Romantic Forgery (Cardiff, 2007). —— ‘Ossian in Wales and Brittany’ in Howard Gaskill (ed. ), The Reception of Ossian in Europe, pp. 67–90. —— ‘“This Wildernessed Business of Publication”: The Making of Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (1794)’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 123–45. Crowe, Richard M. , ‘Diddordebau Ieithyddol Iolo Morganwg’ (unpublished University of Wales Ph. D. thesis, 1988). —— ‘Iolo Morganwg: An Eighteenth-Century Welsh Linguist’ in Cyril J. Byrne, Margaret Harry, and Pádraig Ó Siadhail (eds. ), Celtic Languages and Celtic Peoples: Proceedings of the Second North American Congress of Celtic Studies (Halifax, NS, 1992), pp. 305–14. —— ‘Iolo Morganwg and the Dialects of Welsh’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 315–31. —— ‘Iolo Morganwg a’r Tafodieithoedd: Diffinio’r Ffiniau’, NLWJ, XXVII, no. 2 (1991), 205–16. —— ‘Thomas Richards a John Walters: Athrawon Geiriadurol Iolo Morganwg’ in Hywel Teifi Edwards (ed. ), Llynfi ac Afan, Garw ac Ogwr (Llandysul, 1998), pp. 227–51. Curry, Kenneth (ed. ), New Letters of Robert Southey (2 vols. , London, 1965). Dafydd ap Gwilym. net Daniel, R. Iestyn (ed. ), Gwaith Casnodyn (Aberystwyth, 1999). Davies, Caryl, Adfeilion Babel: Agweddau ar Syniadaeth Ieithyddol y Ddeunawfed Ganrif (Caerdydd, 2000). —— ‘The Dictionarium Duplex (1632)’ in Davies (ed. ), Dr John Davies of Mallwyd: Welsh Renaissance Scholar, pp. 146–70. Davies, Ceri (ed. ), Dr John Davies of Mallwyd: Welsh Renaissance Scholar (Cardiff, 2004). Davies, D. Elwyn J. , ‘They Thought for Themselves’: A Brief Look at the Story of Unitarianism and the Liberal Tradition in Wales and Beyond its Borders (Llandysul, 1982). —— ‘Astudiaeth o Feddwl a Chyfraniad Iolo Morganwg fel Rhesymolwr ac Undodwr’ (unpublished University of Wales Ph. D. thesis, 1975). Davies, Damian Walford, Presences that Disturb: Models of Romantic Identity in the Literature and Culture of the 1790s (Cardiff, 2002). —— ‘“At Defiance”: Iolo, Godwin, Coleridge, Wordsworth’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 147–72.

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Davies, John H. (ed. ), The Letters of Lewis, Richard, William and John Morris, of Anglesey, (Morrisiaid Mon) 1728–1765 (2 vols. , Aberystwyth, 1907). Davies, R. R. , and Geraint H. Jenkins (eds. ), From Medieval to Modern Wales: Historical Essays in Honour of Kenneth O. Morgan and Ralph A. Griffiths (Cardiff, 2004). Davies, Walter, and John Jones, Two Essays, on the Subjects proposed by the Cambrian Society in Dyfed, which gained the respective prizes, at the Eisteddfod, held at Caermarthen, in July, 1819 (Caermarthen, 1822). —— (eds. ), Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi: The Poetical Works of Lewis Glyn Cothi, a celebrated bard who flourished in the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII (Oxford, 1837). Davies, William Ll. , ‘David Samwell (1751–1798), Surgeon of the “Discovery”, LondonWelshman, and Poet’, THSC (1926–7), 70–133. Dearnley, Moira, ‘“Mad Ned” and the “Smatter-Dasher”: Iolo Morganwg and Edward “Celtic” Davies’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 425–42. Denning, Roy, ‘The Rev. John Montgomery Traherne: A Nineteenth Century Antiquary’ in Stewart Williams (ed. ), The Glamorgan Historian, 4 (Cowbridge, 1967), pp. 46–55. Dillynion Doethineb Cenedyl y Cymry: sef, Detholion o Driodd Moes a Defawd, a Thriodd Doethineb Beirdd Ynys Prydain. Hefyd, Athrawiaeth y Bardd Glas o’r Gadair (Dolgellau, 1819). Donovan, P. J. (ed. ), Cerddi Rhydd Iolo Morganwg (Caerdydd, 1980). Edgar, Iwan Rhys (ed. ), Llysieulyfr Salesbury (Caerdydd, 1997). Edwards, Huw Meirion, ‘A Multitude of Voices: The Free-Metre Poetry of Iolo Morganwg’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 95–121. Edwards, Hywel Teifi, The Eisteddfod (Cardiff, 1990). —— ‘The Welsh Language in the Eisteddfod’ in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed. ), The Welsh Language and its Social Domains 1801–1911 (Cardiff, 2000), pp. 293–316. —— (ed. ), Merthyr a Thaf (Llandysul, 2001). Edwards, O. M. (ed. ), Beirdd y Berwyn. 1700–1750 (Llanuwchllyn, 1902). Ellis, Tecwyn, Edward Jones, Bardd y Brenin (1752–1824) (Caerdydd, 1957). —— ‘Ymweliadau Iolo Morganwg â Meirionnydd’, JMHRS, V, part 3 (1967), 239–50. Eos Dyfed: sef, Rhai o’r Cyfansoddiadau, a anfonwyd i Eisteddfod Caerfyrddin, Medi . . . 1823. At y rhai y ’chwanegwyd, Hanes yr Eisteddfod (Caerfyrddin, 1824). Evans, Evan, Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards (London, 1764). Evans, J. Gwenogvryn, and John Rhys (eds. ), The Text of the Book of Llan Dâv Reproduced from the Gwysaney Manuscript (Oxford, 1893). Evans, Neil, ‘Finding a New Story: The Search for a Usable Past in Wales, 1669–1930’, THSC, new series, 10 (2004), 144–62. Evans, R. J. W. , ‘“The Manuscripts”: The Culture and Politics of Forgery in Central Europe’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 51–68. Evans, Thomas, Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau, wedi cael eu hamcanu at Addoliad Cyhoeddus; ag yn enwedig at Wasanaeth Undodiaid Cristianogol (Caerfyrddin, 1811). Evans-Jones, Albert, ‘Tad Beirdd Eryri: Dafydd Tomos (“Dafydd Ddu Eryri”) 1759–1822’, THSC (1969), 7–23. Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe-, The Lives and Most Remarkable Maxims of the Antient Philosophers (London, 1726).

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Fitzpatrick, Martin, ‘The “Cultivated Understanding” and Chaotic Genius of David Samwell’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 383–402. Franklin, Michael J. (ed. ), Sir William Jones: Selected Poetical and Prose Works (Cardiff, 1995). Fraser, Antonia, ‘Review Journals and the Reading Public’ in Rivers (ed. ), Books and Their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays, pp. 171–90. Fraser, Maxwell, ‘Lady Llanover and her Circle’, THSC (1969), 170–96. Gaskill, Howard (ed. ), The Reception of Ossian in Europe (London, 2004). Gosodaethau a Rheolau Cymdeithas y Gwyneddigion, a sefydlwyd yn Llundain, B.A. 1771 ([Llundain], [1799]). Grafton, Anthony, The Footnote: A Curious History (London, 1997). Griffiths, Beryl H. , ‘Rhys Jones (1713–1801) o’r Blaenau’, JMHRS, XI, part 4 (1993), 433–45. Gruffydd, R. Geraint, Dafydd ap Gwilym (Caernarfon, 1987). Habermas, Jürgen, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, translated by Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, 1989). Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey, A Code of Gentoo Laws: or, Ordinations of the Pundits (London, 1781; first published 1776). Harris, James, ‘The Fringe of a Welshman’s Book’, Red Dragon, VIII (1885), 582–98. Hauser, Arnold, The Social History of Art (2 vols. , New York, 1951). Hopkin-James, Lemuel J. (ed. ), Hen Gwndidau, Carolau a Chywyddau (Bangor, 1910). Hughes, Garfield H. , Iaco ab Dewi (Caerdydd, 1953). Huws, Daniel, Caneuon Llafar Gwlad ac Iolo a’i Fath (Cymdeithas Alawon Gwerin Cymru, 1993). —— Medieval Welsh Manuscripts (Aberystwyth, 2000). —— ‘Iolo Morganwg and Traditional Music’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 333–56. —— ‘John Davies and his Manuscripts’ in Davies (ed. ), Dr John Davies of Mallwyd: Welsh Renaissance Scholar, pp. 88–120. —— ‘The Medieval Manuscript’ in Jones and Rees (eds. ), A Nation and its Books, pp. 25–39. Jackson, Heather J. , Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books (London, 2001). —— Romantic Readers: The Evidence of Marginalia (London, 2005). —— (ed. ), A Book I Value: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Selected Marginalia (Princeton, NJ, 2003). James, Allan, Diwylliant Gwerin Morgannwg (Llandysul, 2002). James, Brian Ll. , Thomas Richards of Coychurch (Coychurch, 1990). —— ‘The Welsh Language in the Vale of Glamorgan’, Morgannwg, XVI (1972), 16–36. James, Christine, ‘“Llwyr wybodau, llên a llyfrau”: Hopcyn ap Tomas a’r Traddodiad Llenyddol Cymraeg’ in Hywel Teifi Edwards (ed. ), Cwm Tawe (Llandysul, 1993), pp. 4–44. James, E. Wyn, ‘Caethwasanaeth a’r Beirdd, 1790–1840’, Taliesin, 119 (2003), 37–60. —— ‘“Seren Wib Olau”: Gweledigaeth a Chenhadaeth Morgan John Rhys (1760– 1804)’, Trafodion Cymdeithas Hanes y Bedyddwyr (2007), 5–37. —— ‘Thomas William: Bardd ac Emynydd Bethesda’r Fro’, Llên Cymru, 27 (2004), 113–39.

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Jarman, A. O. H. , Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin (Caerdydd, 1982). Jenkins, Geraint H. , ‘Perish Kings and Emperors, but Let the Bard of Liberty Live’ (Aberystwyth, 2006). —— ‘Apostol Sir Gaerfyrddin: Stephen Hughes, c. 1622–1688’ in idem, Cadw T} Mewn Cwmwl Tystion: Ysgrifau Hanesyddol ar Grefydd a Diwylliant (Llandysul, 1990), pp. 1–28. —— ‘“Dyro Dduw dy Nawdd”: Iolo Morganwg a’r Mudiad Undodaidd’ in idem (ed. ), Cof Cenedl XX: Ysgrifau ar Hanes Cymru (Llandysul, 2005), pp. 65–100. —— ‘On the Trail of a “Rattleskull Genius”: Introduction’ in idem (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 1–26. —— ‘Thomas Burgess, Iolo Morganwg and the Black Spot’, Ceredigion, XV, no. 3 (2007), 13–36. —— ‘The Unitarian Firebrand, the Cambrian Society and the Eisteddfod’ in idem (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 269–92. —— ‘The Urban Experiences of Iolo Morganwg’, WHR, 22, no. 3 (2005), 463–98. —— ‘“A Very Horrid Affair”: Sedition and Unitarianism in the Age of Revolutions’ in Davies and Jenkins (eds. ), From Medieval to Modern Wales, pp. 175–96. —— (ed. ), A Rattleskull Genius: The Many Faces of Iolo Morganwg (Cardiff, 2005). ——, Ffion Mair Jones and David Ceri Jones (eds. ), The Correspondence of Iolo Morganwg (3 vols. , Cardiff, 2007). Jenkins, R. T. , ‘Ymyl y Ddalen’ in idem, Ymyl y Ddalen (Wrecsam, [1957]), pp. 9–24. —— and Helen M. Ramage, The History of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion and of the Gwyneddigion and Cymreigyddion Societies (1751–1951) (London, 1951). Johnston, Dafydd, Iolo Goch (Caernarfon, 1989). Jones, Alun R. , Lewis Morris (Caerdydd, 2004). —— ‘“Put it in a Welsh Dress”: Poetical Translations by Lewis Morris’, NLWJ, XXXI, no. 4 (2000), 345–56. Jones, Bedwyr Lewis, Yr Hen Bersoniaid Llengar ([Penarth], [1963]). Jones, Dafydd, Cydymaith Diddan (Caer Lleon, [1766]). Jones, David Ceri, ‘The Board of Agriculture, Walter Davies (‘Gwallter Mechain’) and Cardiganshire, c. 1794–1815’, Ceredigion, XIV, no. 1 (2001), 79–100. Jones, Edward, Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (London, 1784). —— Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (2nd edn. , London, 1794). Jones, Emrys, ‘The Age of Societies’ in idem (ed. ), The Welsh in London 1500–2000 (Cardiff, 2001), pp. 54–87. Jones, Ffion Mair, ‘Cerddoriaeth yr Anterliwtiau: Golwg ar Le’r Caneuon mewn Pedair Anterliwt Enghreifftiol’, Llên Cymru, 26 (2003), 63–86. —— ‘“Gydwladwr Godi[d]og . . . ”: Gohebiaeth Gymraeg Gynnar Iolo Morganwg’, Llên Cymru, 27 (2004), 140–71. Jones, Nerys Ann and Morfydd E. Owen, ‘John Davies and the Poets of the Princes: Cognoscere, Intellegere, Scire’ in Davies (ed. ), Dr John Davies of Mallwyd: Welsh Renaissance Scholar, pp. 171–207. —— and Erwain Haf Rheinallt (eds. ), Gwaith Sefnyn, Rhisierdyn ac Eraill (Aberystwyth, 1995). Jones, Owen and William Owen (eds. ), Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym (Llundain, 1789). ——, Iolo Morganwg and William Owen Pughe, The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales (3 vols. , London, 1801–7).

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Jones, Philip Henry, and Eiluned Rees (eds. ), A Nation and its Books: A History of the Book in Wales (Aberystwyth, 1998). Jones, Tegwyn (ed. ), Y Gwir Degwch: Detholiad o Gywyddau Serch Iolo Morganwg (Bow Street, 1980). —— (ed. ), Tribannau Morgannwg (Llandysul, 1976). Jones, Whitney R. D. , David Williams: The Anvil and the Hammer (Cardiff, 1986). Jones, William, ‘On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India’, reproduced in Franklin (ed. ), Sir William Jones: Selected Poetical and Prose Works, pp. 348–54. Kennett, Basil, Romæ Antiquæ Notitia: or, The Antiquities of Rome (London, 1696). Lake, A. Cynfael, ‘Rhys Jones: Y Golygydd a’r Bardd’ in J. E. Caerwyn Williams (ed. ), Ysgrifau Beirniadol XXII (Dinbych, 1997), pp. 204–26. —— (ed. ), Blodeugerdd Barddas o Ganu Caeth y Ddeunawfed Ganrif (Llandybïe, 1993). Leathart, William Davies, The Origin and Progress of the Gwyneddigion Society of London instituted M.DCC.LXX (London, 1831). Lendon, J. E. , Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (Oxford, 1997). Lewis, Aneirin, ‘Evan Evans (“Ieuan Fardd”) 1731–1788: Hanes ei Fywyd a’i Gysylltiadau Llenyddol’ (unpublished University of Wales MA thesis, 1950). Lewis, Ceri W. , Iolo Morganwg (Caernarfon, 1995). —— ‘Iolo Morganwg and Strict-Metre Welsh Poetry’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 71–93. —— ‘The Literary Tradition of Morgannwg down to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century’ in T. B. Pugh (ed. ), Glamorgan County History, Volume III: The Middle Ages (Cardiff, 1971), pp. 449–554. Lewis, Gwyneth, ‘Eighteenth-Century Literary Forgeries, with Special Reference to the Work of Iolo Morganwg’ (unpublished University of Oxford D. Phil. thesis, 1991). Llewelyn, Thomas, Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue and its Connection with Other Languages founded on its State in the Welsh Bible (London, 1769). Lloyd, Nesta, ‘Sylwadau ar Iaith Rhai o Gerddi Rhys Prichard’, NLWJ, XXIX, no. 3 (1996), 257–80. —— (ed. ), Cerddi’r Ficer: Detholiad o Gerddi Rhys Prichard (Cyhoeddiadau Barddas, 1994). Llwyd, Alan, Gronwy Ddiafael, Gronwy Ddu: Cofiant Goronwy Owen (Llandybïe, 1997). Löffler, Marion, The Literary and Historical Legacy of Iolo Morganwg 1826–1926 (Cardiff, 2007). McCalman, Iain (ed. ), An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture 1776– 1832 (Oxford, 1999). McKenna, Catherine, ‘Aspects of Tradition Formation in Eighteenth-Century Wales’ in Joseph Falaky Nagy (ed. ), Memory and the Modern in the Celtic Literatures, CSANA Yearbook 5 (Dublin, 2006), pp. 37–60. Malkin, Benjamin Heath, The Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography, of South Wales (2nd edn. , 2 vols. , London, 1807). Mee, Jon, ‘“Images of Truth New Born”: Iolo, William Blake and the Literary Radicalism of the 1790s’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 173–93. Millward, E. G. , ‘Merthyr Tudful: Tref y Brodyr Rhagorol’ in Edwards (ed. ), Merthyr a Thaf, pp. 9–56. —— (ed. ), Blodeugerdd Barddas o Gerddi Rhydd y Ddeunawfed Ganrif (Llandybïe, 1991).

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Milton, John, Paradise Lost, edited by Alastair Fowler (London, 1971). Morgan, Gerald, Ieuan Fardd (Caernarfon, 1988). Morgan, Prys, The Eighteenth Century Renaissance (Llandybïe, 1981). —— Iolo Morganwg (Cardiff, 1975). —— ‘Glamorgan and the Red Book’, Morgannwg, XXII (1978), 42–60. Morris, Lewis, Celtic Remains, edited by D. Silvan Evans (London, 1878). Morris-Jones, John, Cerdd Dafod (Rhydychen, 1925). —— ‘Derwyddiaeth Gorsedd y Beirdd’, Y Beirniad, I (1911), 66–72. —— ‘Gorsedd Beirdd Ynys Prydain V’, Cymru, X, no. 59 (1896), 293–9. Reprinted in Löffler, The Literary and Historical Legacy of Iolo Morganwg, pp. 200–6. Newlyn, Lucy, Reading, Writing, and Romanticism: The Anxiety of Reception (Oxford, 2000). Nicholas, W. Rhys, ‘Iolo Morganwg a’i Emynau’, Bwletin Cymdeithas Emynau Cymru, I, no. 2 (1969), 14–25. O’Leary, Paul, ‘A Tolerant Nation? Anti-Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Wales’ in Davies and Jenkins (eds. ), From Medieval to Modern Wales, pp. 197–213. Owen, Geraint Dyfnallt, Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi): Trem ar ei Fywyd (Darlith Goffa Dyfnallt, n. p. , 1963). Owen, Hugh (ed. ), Additional Letters of the Morrises of Anglesey (1735–1786) (2 vols. , London, 1947–9). Owen, Morfydd E. , Y Meddwl Obsesiynol: Traddodiad y Triawd Cyffredinol yn y Gymraeg a’r Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales (Aberystwyth, 2007). Owen, William, The Heroic Elegies and Other Pieces of Llywarç Hen, Prince of the Cumbrian Britons: with a Literal Translation (London, 1792). —— A Welsh and English Dictionary (2 vols. , London, 1793–1803). Reissued under the title A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (2 vols. , London, 1803). See also Pughe, William Owen Parry, R. Williams, ‘Dafydd Ionawr’ in Bedwyr Lewis Jones (ed. ), Rhyddiaith R. Williams Parry (Dinbych, 1974), pp. 102–7. Parry, Thomas, Baledi’r Ddeunawfed Ganrif (2nd edn. , Caerdydd, 1986). —— ‘Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym, 1789’, JWBS, VIII, no. 4 (1957), 189–99. —— (ed. ), Barddoniaeth Dafydd ap Gwilym (2nd edn. , Caerdydd, 1979). Parry Owen, Ann (ed. ), Gwaith Gruffudd ap Maredudd iii. Canu Amrywiol (Aberystwyth, 2007). Parry-Williams, T. H. (ed. ), Hen Benillion (Llandysul, 1940). Phillips, Geraint, ‘Forgery and Patronage: Iolo Morganwg and Owain Myfyr’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 403–23. Pinkerton, John, A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths. Being an Introduction to the Ancient and Modern History of Europe (London, 1787). Porter, Roy, ‘Print Culture’ in idem, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London, 2000), pp. 72–95. Pughe, William Owen, Cadwedigaeth yr Iaith Gymraeg (Bala, 1808). —— Hu Gadarn, Cywydd o III Caniad (Llundain, 1822). See also Owen, William Rhydderch, John, Grammadeg Cymraeg (Y Mwythig, 1728). Richards, David, Cywydd y Drindod ([Gwrexam], 1793).

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Richards, Thomas, Antiquae Linguae Britannicae Thesaurus: Being a British, or Welsh– English Dictionary (Bristol, 1753). Rivers, Isabel (ed. ), Books and Their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays (London, 2001). Roberts, Brynley F. , ‘“The Age of Restitution”: Taliesin ab Iolo and the Reception of Iolo Morganwg’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 461–79. —— ‘Mab ei Dad: Taliesin ab Iolo Morganwg’ in Edwards (ed. ), Merthyr a Thaf, pp. 57–93. Roberts, Gomer Morgan, Y Pêr Ganiedydd [Pantycelyn] (2 vols. , Aberystwyth, 1949, 1958). Roberts, Stephen K. , ‘Llygredd Gwleidyddol yn Ne Cymru, 1600–1660’ in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed. ), Cof Cenedl XXI: Ysgrifau ar Hanes Cymru (Llandysul, 2006), pp. 63–94. Rocher, Rosane, ‘Discovery of Sanskrit by Europeans’ in E. F. K. Koerner and R. E. Asher (eds. ), Concise History of the Language Sciences: From the Sumerians to the Cognitivists (Oxford, 1995), pp. 188–91. Rosser, Siwan M. , Y Ferch ym Myd y Faled: Delweddau o’r Ferch ym Maledi’r Ddeunawfed Ganrif (Caerdydd, 2005). Rowlands, Wiliam Dyfed, ‘Cywyddau Tomos Prys o Blas Iolyn’ (unpublished University of Wales Ph. D. thesis, 1998). St Clair, William, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge, 2004). Siôn Gwilym Tan-y-Foel, Dywediada Gwlad y Medra: Geiriau ac Ymadroddion Llafar Môn (Llanrwst, 1999). Snart, Jason Allen, The Torn Book: UnReading William Blake’s Marginalia (Selinsgrove, Pa. , 2006). Stern, Virginia F. , Gabriel Harvey: A Study of his Life, Marginalia, and Library (Oxford, 1979). Suggett, Richard, ‘Iolo Morganwg: Stonecutter, Builder, and Antiquary’ in Jenkins (ed. ), Rattleskull Genius, pp. 197–226. Thomas, Gwyn, Y Bardd Cwsg a’i Gefndir (Caerdydd, 1971). Tribble, Evelyn B. , Margins and Marginality: The Printed Page in Early Modern England (Charlottesville, Va. , 1993). Turner, Sharon, A Vindication of the Genuineness of the Ancient British Poems of Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, and Merdhin, with specimens of the poems (London, 1803). Walsh, Marcus, ‘Literary Scholarship’ in Rivers (ed. ), Books and Their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays, pp. 191–205. Waring, Elijah, Recollections and Anecdotes of Edward Williams, the Bard of Glamorgan, or, Iolo Morganwg (London, 1850). Whalley, George (ed. ), Marginalia [Samuel Taylor Coleridge]: Vol. 1, Abbt to Byfield (London, c. 1980). White, Eryn M. , ‘The Established Church, Dissent and the Welsh Language c. 1660– 1811’ in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed. ), The Welsh Language before the Industrial Revolution (Cardiff, 1997), pp. 235–87. Wiliam, Dafydd Wyn, Cofiant Wiliam Morris (1705–63) (Llangefni, 1995). Wilkins, Charles, The History of Merthyr Tydfil (Merthyr Tydfil, 1867). Williams, David, The History of Monmouthshire (London, 1796).

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Williams, Edward, Dagrau yr Awen neu Farwnad Lewis Hopcin Fardd, o Landyfodwg ym Morganwg (Pont-y-Fon, 1772). —— Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (2 vols. , London, 1794). —— Rheolau a Threfniadau Cymdeithas Dwyfundodiaid yn Neheubarth Cymru (Llundain, 1803). —— Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch (2 vols. , Merthyr Tydfil, 1812 and 1834). —— Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch (3rd edn. , Aberystwyth, 1857). Williams, G. J. , Edward Lhuyd ac Iolo Morganwg: Agweddau ar Hanes Astudiaethau Gwerin yng Nghymru (Caerdydd, 1964). —— Iolo Morganwg – Y Gyfrol Gyntaf (Caerdydd, 1956). —— Iolo Morganwg a Chywyddau’r Ychwanegiad (Llundain, 1926). —— Traddodiad Llenyddol Morgannwg (Caerdydd, 1948). —— ‘Brut Aberpergwm: A Version of the Chronicle of the Princes’ in Stewart Williams (ed. ), The Glamorgan Historian, 4 (Cowbridge, 1967), pp. 205–20. —— ‘Bywyd Cymreig Llundain yng Nghyfnod Owain Myfyr’, Y Llenor, XVIII, no. 2 (1939), 73–82; ibid. , no. 4 (1939), 218–32. —— ‘Cywyddau Cynnar Iolo Morganwg’, Y Beirniad, VIII (1919), 75–91. —— ‘Cywyddau’r Chwanegiad’, Llên Cymru, IV, no. 3 (1957), 229–30. —— ‘Eisteddfod Caerfyrddin’, Y Llenor, V, no. 1 (1926), 94–102. —— ‘Hanes Cyhoeddi’r “Myvyrian Archaiology”’, JWBS, X, no. 1 (1966), 2–12. —— ‘Rhys Goch ap Rhiccert’, Y Beirniad, VIII (1919), 211–26, 260. —— (ed. ), Egluryn Ffraethineb: sef Dosbarth ar Retoreg, Un o’r Saith Gelfyddyd (Caerdydd, 1930). —— and E. J. Jones (eds. ), Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid (Caerdydd, 1934). Williams, Gruffydd Aled, ‘Mydryddu’r Salmau yn Gymraeg’, Llên Cymru, XVI, nos. 1 and 2 (1989), 114–32. Williams, Gwyn A. , The Merthyr Rising (2nd edn. , Cardiff, 1988). Williams, Ifor, ‘Y Cyfoesi a’r Afallennau yn Peniarth 3’, BBCS, IV, part 2 (1928), 112–25. —— ‘Rhys Goch ap Rhiccert’, Y Beirniad, III (1913), 230–44. —— and T. H. Parry-Williams, ‘Englynion y Clyweit’, BBCS, III, part I (1926–7), 4–21. Williams, Stephen J. , ‘Carnhuanawc, 1787–1848, Eisteddfodwr ac Ysgolhaig’, THSC (1955), 18–30. Williams, T. Oswald, Undodiaeth a Rhyddid Meddwl (Llandysul, 1962). Williams, Taliesin, Traethawd ar Hynafiaeth ac Awdurdodaeth Coelbren y Beirdd, yr hwnn a ennillodd ariandlws a gwobr Eisteddfod y Fenni, 1838 (Llanymddyfri, 1840). —— (ed. ), Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain (Abertawy, 1829). —— (ed.), Iolo Manuscripts: A Selection of Ancient Welsh Manuscripts, in Prose and Verse, from the collection made by the late Edward Williams, Iolo Morganwg; for the purpose of forming a continuation of the Myfyrian Archaiology; and subsequently proposed as materials for a new History of Wales (Llandovery, 1848). Williams, William, Aleluia, neu Gascliad o Hymnau (3rd edn. , [Bristol], 1758). —— Caniadau, y rhai sydd ar y Môr o Wydr (Caerfyrddin, 1762).

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Account of the Castle and Town of Denbigh, An, Richard Newcome Taliesin Williams’s inscribed copy 141 adages 118 see also maxims; proverbs ‘Afallennnau’, Myrddin 20–4 agriculture 76, 77, 313 Aleluia, William Williams 207 Anacharsis 82 Angharad, wife of Dafydd Fychan 29, 30 Anglesey 11, 28–30, 56–8, 163, 171 Iolo Morganwg’s visit to 99–100, 183 language 183–5, 247–9 Anglicanism 100–1, 111, 117 Anglo-Saxon language 179 Ann, Queen 100 annotation and Iolo Morganwg and ridicule 122, 125 as ‘annotator’ of his own (published) work 4, 11 as mnemonic 122 as record of personal reading 95–8 brackets 111 circulation of 5–6, 98, 147–8 crosses 82, 85, 92, 142 cross-referencing 82 dating of 93, 97, 127, 135 diagrams 83 exclamation marks 111, 142 handwritten footnotes 113 his annotations to manuscripts 99–103, 138–9, 140 his annotations to printed books 237–9 signing of name as Edward Williams 115, 128, 139 as Iolo Morganwg 112, 132, 139 signs 113–14

ticks 113 see also footnotes Antiquae Linguae Britannicae Thesaurus, Thomas Richards 172, 175, 184 antiquarianism 34 English and Scottish antiquarians 85, 90, 142–3 Antiquité de la nation et de la langue des Celtes, Paul-Yves Pezron 175–6 ‘anxiety of reception’ 3, 4, 51, 154–5 see also Blake, William; Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg) ‘Ar y Dydd Byrraf’ (ode), competition 54 Arabic 87 ‘Araith Gwgan’ 121–2 Archaeologia Britannica, Edward Lhuyd 172 archaeology 313 architecture 315–16 Arwystli, commote of (Montgomeryshire) 184 Ash, Mr, London sweet-maker 167 Asiatic Researches 89 Asiatick Society 178–9 attribution 42, 43, 70 authenticity and the ‘authenticity debate’ 17, 18, 24, 33, 34, 35–6, 47, 69, 74 authenticity of Iolo Morganwg’s work as recorder of vocabulary 184, 212 authors and authorship 3–4, 12, 13, 43, 78, 79, 195 Coleridge as author 153 defensiveness of Iolo Morganwg as author 205 multiple authorship in Iolo Morganwg’s forged works 69–72, 74 ‘Awdl i Dduw’, Meilyr ap Gwalchmai Iolo Morganwg’s translation of a section of 293

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‘Awdl y Wyryf Fair Wenn o Benn Rhys’, Gwilym Tew 102–3 ballads 48 Banks, Mrs, of London 167 Bardd Nantglyn see Davies, Robert Bardd y Brenin see Jones, Edward Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym, eds. Owen Jones and William Owen 52, 118, 147, 162 Bardic chairs 111, 116 bardic grammar attributed to Edeyrn [Dafod Aur] 15–16 bardic grammar of Simwnt Fychan 61 bardic grammar of Tudur Aled 61–2 Bardism 11, 49–51, 55, 61, 81–4, 140, 159, 197 and Braminical theology 88–9 bardic orders 67–9 metempsychosis 81–2, 83, 86 transmission to posterity 110–11, 112, 113, 116 Bards, the 41, 141 addressed by Pughe 125 of Glamorgan 56, 63, 258 of Gwynedd 64–5 of Powys 64, 66, 115 see also Powys Cymmrodorion Society Bartholomew, M. 52 Bias 82 Black Book of Carmarthen 23–4 Blake, William and ‘anxiety of reception’ 5 as annotator 4, 5, 159, 170 as critic 5 Bleddyn Fardd 115 ‘Blin yw caru’, hen bennill 190–3, 292 ‘Bonedd y Saint’ 15, 108, 146 Ioloic (Silurian) copy 146 Book of Llandaf, Llannerch copy 148 books multiple ownership 82 see also Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg) booksellers 77 see also Darton and Harvey bookshops 77–8 see also Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg) Bradford, John 62, 66, 70–2 Brân ap Llyˆr 145 Breconshire 31, 37 language usage in 37–8

Brittany 175–6 ‘Brut Aberpergwm’ 25, 26–8, 31 ‘Brut ar olut byt’, Sefnyn 28–9 ‘Brut Gruffudd ab Arthur’ see ‘Brut y Brenhinoedd’ ‘Brut Ieuan Brechfa’ 25, 26 ‘Brut Tysilio’ 26, 27 ‘Brut y Brenhinoedd’ 26, 27, 33, 44–5 ‘Brut y Saeson’ 25, 26, 27 ‘Brut y Tywysogyon’ 27 Burns, Robert 190 Cadwedigaeth yr Iaith Gymraeg, William Owen Pughe Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 123 Caerleon 29, 107–8 Caesar, Julius and the Gauls 171 Cambrian Biography 127 Cambrian Register 33, 159 ‘Cambro Briton’ 147 Canwyll y Cymru, Rees Prichard 202–3 Caradog of Llancarfan 44–5, 115, 208–10 see also ‘Brut Aberpergwm’ ‘Cardiff Gazette’ 160 Cardiganshire 31 oral language 173 Carmarthenshire 31, 143 Carnhuanawc see Price, Thomas Carpenter, Lant Iolo Morganwg’s correspondence with 204 ‘Casbethau Owain Cyveiliawg’ 38–9 ‘Casgliad Didrevn, Y’ 40 Casnodyn 28–9, 36, 115 poem to Ieuan Llwyd of Glyn Aeron 30 Catholicism 40, 41–3, 70 Cato 41 Catwg Ddoeth 38, 41–3, 108, 208–9 Cefncribwr as place of Unitarian worship 204 Celtic civilization 94 Gaulish Celtic 181 language(s) 147, 174–6, 182 monuments 92 Celtic Remains, Lewis Morris 14 censorship 42 Ceraint Fardd Glas 112, 114, 143 chain of providence 195–6 Chatterton, Thomas 3, 17, 47 Church-and-King riots 164

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Cimbri 90 Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits, A, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 85–7 coffee-houses as places for literary discussion 3–4 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 95, 153, 155, 159 Colhugh Quay, near Llantwit Major 164 Coll Gwynfa, trans. William Owen Pughe 124 concert-going as instigated at provincial eisteddfodau 109–10 Conway, William Augustus 150 Conwy Iolo Morganwg’s visit to 168 Cook, Captain James 55 Cornwall 171 Cornish language 181 correspondence and Pughe’s Dictionary 118–20 Iolo Morganwg’s correspondence passim endorsement of 157, 158, 160, 163–4, 167, 196 of Robert Southey and Anna Seward 159 see also Carpenter, Lant; Davis, David; Morris brothers of Anglesey; Pinkerton, John; Pughe, William Owen; Williams, Taliesin (Taliesin ab Iolo) ‘Crindy’, the 54–5 Cuhelyn Fardd 114 ‘Cwta Cyfarwydd, Y’ (Peniarth 50) 23 Cyfansoddiad o Hymnau, wedi cael eu hamcanu at addoliad cyhoeddus; ag yn enwedig at wasanaeth Undodiaid Cristianogol, Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi) 5, 129–30 Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 132–4, 135 Iolo Morganwg’s draft review of 135–7 Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain, Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg) see Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg), his writings ‘Cylch y Ceugant’ (The Circle of Vacuity) 82–3 ‘Cylch y Gwynfyd’ (The Circle of Bliss) 82–3 ‘Cylch yr Abred’ (The Circle of Transmigration) 82–3 Cymmrodorion Society (London) 51, 52

Cymreigyddion Society 190 ‘Cymreigyddyn’ 146 ‘Cyn bwyf gwas gruddlas greddf’, Casnodyn 28 ‘Cywydd Dydd y Farn’, Robert Morys Iolo Morganwg and David Ellis’s annotations to 100 Cywydd y Drindod, David Richards (Dafydd Ionawr) Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 103–7 Dafydd ab Edmwnd 56–8, 59, 61, 110, 113, 114, 116, 157 Dafydd ap Gwilym 39, 115 as author of spurious ‘Dewis Bethau Deio Maelienydd’ 38 ‘Cywydd y Biogen’ (later known as ‘Cyngor y Bioden’) 161–2, 165, 294–5 ‘Cywydd yr Adar’ 162–3, 295 ‘Lladrata Haf’ 162 ‘Mawl i Forfudd, a Thraserch y Bardd amdani’ 293–4 misattribution 139 poetry forged by Iolo Morganwg in cywydd metre 16, 29, 50, 160–1, 163, 213 Dafydd Bach ap Madog Gwladaidd see Dafydd Maelienydd Dafydd Benfras 115 Dafydd Ddu Eryri see Thomas, David Dafydd Ddu Feddyg see Samwell, David Dafydd Edward 66–7 Dafydd Fychan 29 Dafydd Glan Teifi see Saunders, David Dafydd Ionawr see Richards, David Dafydd Llwyd Matthew 66 Dafydd Maelienydd (Deio Maelienydd or Dafydd Bach ap Madog Gwladaidd) 37, 38–9 Dafydd o’r Nant see Williams, Dafydd Dagrau yr Awen neu Farwnad Lewis Hopcin Fardd, Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg) see Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg), his writings Danish language 92 Darton and Harvey, London booksellers 78 Davies, Revd J. , vicar of Llandingad 108–9 Davies, Dr John, Mallwyd 24, 172–3, 175, 184 collection of Welsh proverbs 39

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Iolo Morganwg’s view of 170, 177–8, 267 Davies, Robert (Bardd Nantglyn) 59 Davies, Thomas, Carmarthen shoemaker 166 Davies, Walter (Gwallter Mechain) 56, 59, 116–17 and Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain 65 Davis, David, Neath 60, 129 his Neath academy 141 Iolo Morganwg’s correspondence with 130, 203, 205–6 Davis, William, Conwy mariner 168 Deio Maelienydd see Dafydd Maelienydd ‘Delyn Ledr, Y’ 22, 23, 24 Devon, vocabulary 181 Dewi Silin see Richards, David ‘[D]ewis Bethau Bardd Ivor Hael’ 37 ‘Dewis Bethau Deio Maelienydd’ 38 ‘Dewisbethau Mabwaith Hengrys o Iâl’ 37 ‘Dewisbethau Taliesin’ 37 Dic Penderyn see Lewis, Richard Dictionarium Duplex, John Davies 172 didacticism 6, 40, 43, 44, 46–7, 112, 132, 195, 200–1, 213 Dinwr ap y Caw 145 Dion Cassius 145 Dissent and Dissenters 41, 100, 111, 112, 142 Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths, A, John Pinkerton Iolo Morganwg and Taliesin Williams’s annotated copy 86, 90–5, 151, 147 Druidism 111, 140, 141, 143, 147, 148, 151, 181–3, 197 Dunraven Castle 155 Ecumenical Councils, the Seven 164 editing, literary 12, 13–14, 14–48 and inclusivity 24 and textual collation 26, 27–8, 32 editorial apparatus 4 to Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain 61, 63 editors 12–13 Bentley as editor 12 Iolo Morganwg as editor 13, 14, 32 of Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain 65–72 of The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales 73 Iolo Morganwg’s readers as editors 43 Samuel Johnson as editor 12 Theobold as editor 12, 13 Edward Dafydd 58, 70–1, 73, 143

Edwards, John (Siôn Ceiriog) 59 Edwards, John, of Rheola, Neath 157–8 Edwards, Thomas (Twm o’r Nant) 168 Eglvryn Phraethineb, Henry Perri 184–5 Einion Wan 115 eisteddfodau 52–5 Abergavenny (1838) 141 Carmarthen (c. 1453) 56–8, 103, 110, 113, 114, 115–16, 157 Cymmrodorion 53–4 Gwyneddigion 52–3, 54, 167 Merthyr Tydfil 202 provincial 107–12 Caerwys (1798) 167 Carmarthen (1819) 60, 113, 137 Carmarthen (1823) 107 election (1818) 158 Elidir Sais 115 Eliffer 30, 36 Elliot, General John 193 Ellis, Revd David 99–103 English language 92, 94, 178, 179, 182, 189 relationship to Welsh language 147, 181, 183 Enlightenment 40 Eos Dyfed: sef, Rhai o’r Cyfansoddiadau, a anfonwyd i Eisteddfod Caerfyrddin, Medi . . . 1823 Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 107–13 epic literature 122 Ercwlff (Hercules) 30, 36 Essay on the Welsh Saints or the Primitive Christians, An, Rice Rees Taliesin Williams’s annotated copy 142, 144–6 Evans, Evan (Ieuan Fardd) 20–1, 23, 24, 32, 179 see also Panton manuscript 33 Evans, John, Carmarthen printer 60 Evans, Thomas (Tomos Glyn Cothi) 5, 60, 117–18, 128–37, 150, 151 Ewias, oral language in 188 fairies, Iolo Morganwg’s interest in 183 Fitzhamon, Robert 149 Flemingston 6, 7, 9, 18, 299–300 Iolo Morganwg’s neighbours at 166 footnotes textual variations to ‘Brutiau’ 26 to Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain 61, 63, 64–5, 71–2

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to Some Specimens . . . Evan Evans 20 to The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales 33, 34, 36–7, 40–1, 43 free-metre poetry 69, 204, 206, 213 see also Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg) Gaelic language 92 Gallic dialect 179 Garth, Llantwit Fardre 197 Gauls, the 171, 175 Gallic civilization 94 Geoffrey of Monmouth 33 geology 317 George III, King 197 George, Lord Dynevor 111–12 Gildas ap Caw 41 Glamorgan 26–7, 28, 31, 44, 45, 143 as pastoral retreat in the poetry of Iolo Morganwg 194–6, 197–9, 209–10 bards 110 classification of Welsh poetic metres 59, 64, 69–70, 113, 115 see also Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg), his writings gentry 158 in Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain 61 Ioloic gorseddau 110–11, 167, 197, 259 language 37–8, 173, 180–3, 187, 251 linguists 87, 169–71, 185 plan for establishing infirmary 191–2 proverbs 89, 253–4, 255, 256 revival in use of Welsh language 170, 189 whitewashed cottages 29–30 see also Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg) Gloddaith, library at 16 Glyn Ogwr 31 Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru, Rhys Jones David Samwell’s annotated copy 55–6, 98 gorseddau 116–17, 167 see also Glamorgan ‘Grammar’, John Dafydd Rhys 60 ‘Grammar’, Siôn Rhydderch Iolo Morganwg’s copy 170 Gray, Thomas 39, 40, 167 Greal 62, 190 Greek 87, 176 Greenhouse, Mrs 134 Greenly, Lady Elizabeth Coffin 8–9 Grotius 92

Grub Street 12 Gruffudd ap Maredudd ap Dafydd 28–30 Guest, Lady Charlotte 147 Guto’r Glyn 116 Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi: The Poetical Works of Lewis Glyn Cothi, eds. Walter Davies and John Jones Taliesin Williams’s annotated copy 146–7 Gwallter Mechain see Davies, Walter Gwenddydd 140 Gwenhidwy 127 Gwentian language 180–3, 188 Gwenynen Gwent see Hall, Lady Augusta Gwgan Fardd (Gwgan Farfog) 114–15 Gwgawn ap Rhys 48–9 Gwilym Ganoldref see Midleton, William Gwilym Ifan 56 Gwilym Ryfel 115 Gwilym Saer 42 Gwynedd 37, 61, 64, 202 Gwyneddigion Society 49, 52–4, 59, 63, 190 Gwynfardd Dyfed 114 Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey 84 Hall, Lady Augusta (Gwenynen Gwent) 148 harp 159 ‘ysgwer’ or ‘isgywair’, definition 120–1 Hastings, Warren 85 Helvetic dialect 179 hen benillion (Welsh free poetic metre) 190–3, 202–3 see also Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg), his writings Henry VII 70 Hercules see Ercwlff Heroic Elegies and Other Pieces of Llywarç Hen, The, William Owen Pughe 5, 81, 82–3, 118 essay on Bardism 67, 144 Hindu mythology 85 Hindu theology 121 Historical and Critical Remarks on the British Tongue, Thomas Llewelyn 170, 179 Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 185, 221–35 History of Europe during the Middle Ages, A, Samuel Astley Dunham Taliesin Williams’s annotated copy 142 History of Monmouthshire, The, David Williams 108

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History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People called Quakers, The, William Sewel annotated copy owned by Iolo Morganwg and Taliesin Williams 141–2 Homer 122 Hopcyn ap Tomas, Ynysforgan 29 Hopkin, Lewis 200–1 Hopkins, John, versification of the Psalms 63 horticulture 76, 77, 275, 323 Hu Gadarn, William Owen Pughe 211–12 Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 124–7, 128, 136–7, 211–12 Hughes, Robert (Robin Ddu yr Ail o Fôn) 53 Hughes, Stephen 46 Huw Arwystl 184 Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd 115 Hywel ap Dafydd ab Ieuan ap Rhys (Hywel Dafi) 100–2 Hywel Dafi see Hywel ap Dafydd ab Ieuan ap Rhys Hywel Dda 33 Hywel Fychan 29 Iago ab Dewi 40–1 Iago Twrbil see Turberville, James Iestyn ap Gwrgant 149 Ieuan Fardd see Evans, Evan Ieuan Tew the elder, of Cydweli 139 Ieuan Tew the younger 139 Ifor Hael 16 India 84, 86, 88, 90 civil justice system in 85, 87 Iolo Goch 39, 40 Iolo Manuscripts, ed. Taliesin Williams see Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg), his writings Iolo Morganwg see Williams, Edward; Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg), his writings Iorwerth Fynglwyd 39 Ivan Wiliam 42 Jacobins 196 Jerusalem, William Blake 4 Jewish mythology 92–3 Johnson, Samuel 13, 122 see also editors Jones family of Fonmon, Glamorgan 168 Jones, Edward (Bardd y Brenin) 22, 164

Jones, John, Gellilyfdy 19 Jones, Owen (Owain Myfyr) 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 22, 23, 31, 49–50, 51–5, 59, 88, 89, 90, 121–2, 157, 158, 163 Jones, Philip, of Fonmon 168 Jones, Rhys 58, 124, 136–7 Jones, Robert, of Fonmon 168 Jones, Sir William 84, 88, 178–9 Kyrle, John (‘The Man of Ross’) 160 Leanders, Thomas 168 Leibniz, G. W. 175 Lewis, Richard (Dic Penderyn) 149 Lewis, Thomas 196–7 Lewsyn yr Heliwr 149 Lewys Morgannwg 69–70, 71 Lhuyd, Edward 171, 172–3, 176–7, 179–80 libraries burnt to the ground 141 communal 77, 78 inaccessibility of gentry’s libraries 109 literacy 77, 78 literature as historical record 102–3 Lives and Most Remarkable Maxims of the Antient Philosophers, The, François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 81–4 Lives of the Poets, Samuel Johnson 12 Llancarfan monastic school 108 parish of 208–9, 210–11 Llanilltud Fawr see Llantwit Major Llannerch-y-medd 184 Llantwit Major (Llanilltud Fawr) 145 monastic school 108, 146 see also Samson stone Llawdden 110, 115–16 Llefoed Wyneb y Cawr 115 Llewelyn, Thomas 170, 177 ‘Llyfr Hir Pantlliwydd’ 146 Llygad Gwˆ r 115 Llyn Llion 92–4 Llywarch Brydydd y Moch 115 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (‘Ein Llyw Olaf’) 159 Llywelyn Siôn 56, 58, 61–2, 66, 69–70, 143 Llywelyn, Thomas, of Regoes 258–9 Locke, John 154 London 94, 127–8, 194, 196 Billingsgate fish market 105

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London-Welsh, the 13, 15, 46, 53, 54–6, 59–60, 116, 167, 190 Cockneyism of their language 106–7, 128, 266 ‘Mabinogi’ 122 Macclesfield, Earl of 40 Macfarlan, Robert 17 Macpherson, James 3, 18, 47, 89, 171, 190 madness 87, 118 Madog 155 Malkin, Benjamin Heath 50 ‘Man of Ross, The’, Alexander Pope 160 manuscript culture 2, 3, 6, 24 Ioloic manuscript tradition 74, 150 Welsh manuscript copyists 162 Welsh manuscript tradition 15, 17–18, 19, 24, 34, 36, 43–4, 45 marginalia 6, 11 as genre 150 ‘mundane marginalia’ 150, 164–8, 168–9 personal and public marginalia 80 marketing of literary editions 12 Marlborough Downs 182 Maurice, Hugh 59 maxims 43, 48, 198 Merioneth 127–8 oral language 173, 250 proverbs 124, 136–7 Merthyr Tydfil 53, 134 bards of 110–11, 113, 115 riots (1831) 149 meteorology 94 Methodism 123, 135–6, 206, 207 Meurig Dafydd 68, 69–70 Midleton, William (Gwilym Ganoldref ), his grammar 62 Milton, John 105–6, 122, 124 Moggridge, John Hodder 166 Monmouthshire language 180–3, 187 Morgan, Siencyn 200–1 Morgan, William, convict 96, 149 Morris brothers of Anglesey 14, 20, 184 see also Morris, Lewis; Morris, Richard; Morris, William Morris, Lewis and ‘Brut y Brenhinoedd’ 33 as linguist 171, 176 see also Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg) Morris, Richard 184

elegy competition 53, 54 Morris, William 23, 163, 184 Morris-Jones, John 7–8, 72, 212 Mostyn, library at 16 Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards, Edward Jones 20, 21–3, 121 Myrddin 22, 143 Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, The 2, 3, 4, 6, 11–48 passim, 52, 140 editorial principles, standards and apparatus 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 66 Iolo Morganwg’s plans for future volumes 89 Iolo Morganwg’s view of 117 volume I (1801) 16–24, 28–30, 36, 114 ‘A Short Review of the Present State of Welsh Manuscripts’ 2, 16–20, 23, 27, 33, 34, 36, 43–4, 76, 85 dialogue of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar 144 dialogue of Arthur, Cai and Glewlwyd 144 ‘Englynion y clyweit’ 144 volume II (1801) 24–7, 31–4 ‘Henwau Plwyvau Cymru’ 31–2 preface 33, 34, 36, 44–5 volume III (1807) 34–48, 48–9, 66, 68–9, 74, 76, 112, 126 englynion on ‘Wisdom’ 40 preface 34, 43–4 ‘Welsh Archaiology’ as initial title 13 names and family history 324 Napoleon Bonaparte 78 Neath Abbey 70 necessarianism 134–5 Norman language 179 ‘Nos Calan’ (traditional Welsh tune) 191–2 notes 4, 34, 40, 49 in Iolo Morganwg’s manuscript marginalia 163 to Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain 66 Observations on the Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall . . ., William Borlase 171 Odin 86 ‘On Liberty and Necessity’, William Belsham 134–5, 136 oral culture 37, 93, 164–5, 166 oral language 193 oral testimony 52, 169

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origin myths for Welsh nation Asian 89–90, 93 Trojan 33 orthography 33, 35, 41, 191 see also Pughe, William Owen Ossian, James Macpherson 17, 34 Owain Cyfeiliog 115 Owain Myfyr see Jones, Owen Owen, Goronwy 56–8, 176 Owen, Lowry 168 pagan population 26 Paine, Tom 78 Panton, Paul and his manuscript collection 11, 12 see also Panton manuscript 33; Panton manuscripts, other Panton manuscript 33 23–4 Panton manuscripts, other 28, 31 paper (for book production) 159–60 Iolo Morganwg’s use of and need for 191, 213 Parker, George (Earl of Macclesfield) 40 penillion singing 52 Perri, Henri 185 Pinkerton, John 17, 18, 27, 90, 150 attitude to Welsh history and language 92 letters to the Gentleman’s Magazine 90 Piozzi, Hester Lynch 150 ‘Piser Hir, Y’ David Ellis and Iolo Morganwg’s annotations to 99–103 Pitt, William ‘Reign of Terror’ 97 plagiarism 130, 132, 133 Plato 83 Platonism 199–200 Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg) see Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg), his writings poetics affinity between Sanskrit and Welsh metres 88–9 Carmarthen classification 71, 72 cynghanedd 71, 105, 110, 114, 125, 202 cyrchgymeriad 30, 36 cyrchodl 204 internal rhyme 71 Welsh poetic metres 30, 47, 66, 71–2, 86, 88, 114, 121, 124–5, 137–8, 140, 204 Pope, the 101–2, 205 Powys Cymmrodorion Society 60, 73

prayer book, Iolo Morganwg’s copy of 77–8 Price, Thomas (Carnhuanawc) 140, 147 Prichard, Rees 46 primitivism 17 print culture 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 44–6, 48, 49, 52, 54–5, 72–3, 80, 117 see also Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg) Prohl, Y 114 Protestantism 41 proverbs (Welsh) 39, 40 see also Merioneth; triads Prydydd Bychan, Y 115 Prys, Edmwnd 204 public sphere 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 74, 204, 205 and Bardism 55 and Unitarianism 207 and Wales 6, 72–3, 98, 118, 141 Anglicization and Anglicanization 98 literary world 33, 48, 89 publishing houses 13 Pughe, William Owen 5, 12, 16, 18–19, 20, 33, 49–50, 56, 117–18, 150, 151 and Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain 59, 61, 63, 143–4 and friendship with Iolo Morganwg 97, 123, 186 and orthography 14, 41 and the editing of The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales 14–15, 23, 24 correspondence with Iolo Morganwg 82–3, 88–9, 93–5, 158–9, 167, 168 published books annotated by Iolo Morganwg 118–28 Pythagoras 83 Quakerism 141–2 Rasselas, Samuel Johnson 150 readers and critical involvement with text 65 blinded by Iolo Morganwg’s forgeries 62 of Poems, Lyric and Pastoral 196 radical and druidical readers of Iolo Morganwg 4–5 see also editors; Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg); Williams, Taliesin (Taliesin ab Iolo) reading and critical reception 5, 24, 26, 28, 33, 47, 123

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and morality 1, 2, 6, 7, 46–7, 48, 68, 74, 75–7 as communal activity 75–9, 98–107 coterie audiences 49, 55–9, 60–1, 74, 115 forgeries in the third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology 43 of the Bible 75, 104 Welsh books and their readers 1, 2, 18, 123 see also Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg) reading public 4, 5, 55, 74, 78–9 reading societies 77 Rees, Revd W. J. 148 Rees, William, solicitor 164 Renaissance 169 Researches into the Ecclesiastical and Political State of Ancient Britain under the Roman Emperors, Frances Thackeray Taliesin Williams’s inscribed and annotated copy 142, 148–9 Rhita Gawr 172 Rhydderch, Siôn 170 Rhys ap Rhicert 115, 127, 213 Rhys ap Tewdwr 112 Rhyˆs, Sir John 93 Richards, David (Dafydd Ionawr) 103 Richards, David (Dewi Silin) 60 Richards, Thomas, Llangrallo 31, 167, 170, 171, 172–3 Robert, Duke of Normandy 56, 115 Robert, William (William o’r Ydwal) 170 Robert(s), Elinor, Iolo Morganwg’s mother-in-law 165–6 Robin Ddu yr Ail o Fôn see Hughes, Robert Romæ Antiquæ Notitia: or, The Antiquities of Rome, Basil Kennett Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 95–8 Roman alphabet 144 Roman Britain 108 Roman civilization 95–7, 151, 175 Royal Harmonic Society, Bath 109–10 Royal Literary Fund 19 St Athan 141 St Cennydd 145 St Curig 146 St David’s College, Lampeter 107–9 St Dona 172 St Dyfrig 107 St Garrai 145

St Henwg 145 St Illtud 108, 145 St John the Baptist 145 St Martin 145 St Treuddyd 145 saints, Welsh 144–6 Salesbury, William 184–5 Salisbury Plain 182 Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch, Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg) see Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg), his writings salons 3–4 Samson Stone 144 Samwell, David (Dafydd Ddu Feddyg) 55–6, 58, 98 Sanskrit 84 Sarmatae, the 94 Saunders, David (Dafydd Glan Teifi) 54, 206–7 Scots English 190 Scott, Sir Walter 137 Scottish people (Gaël) 171 Sefnyn 28–9 Senghenydd 145 Seren Gomer 266 Seward, Anna 159 Shakespeare, William 12, 95 Silbury Hill, Wiltshire 182 Siôn Ceiriog see Edwards, John Siôn Prys 138–9 slave trade 148 Slavonic 175 Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards, Evan Evans 20–1, 22–3, 41 David Samwell’s annotated copy 55–6, 58, 98 song writing 159 Southcott, Joanna 123 Southey, Robert 50, 159 Spencer, John, Flemingston churchwarden 77–8 Sprachgesellschaften (literary societies) 3–4 Stephens, Thomas 27 Sterne, Laurence 55 Sternhold, Thomas, versification of the Psalms 63 Stonehenge 182 ‘Synhwyrus Dëus, Duw goruchaf’, Casnodyn 28 Tacitus 145 Taff, river 29

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Talbot, Thomas Mansel 160 ‘Talbot letter’ marginalia 160–3 Taliesin (historical) 22 Taliesin ab Iolo see Williams, Taliesin Taliesin Tir Iarll (Ioloic Taliesin) 143, 208–9 Tawy, river 29 Tegau Eurfron 54 teuluwr (domestic bard) 49, 67–9 Thomas, David (Dafydd Ddu Eryri) 11–12, 13, 18, 31, 34, 58–9, 61, 72–3, 74, 99–100 and Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain 157–8 lampoon of Iolo attributed to ‘Usteg Astud or the Mute Bard’ 12 Thomas, Joan 166 Tir Iarll 146 Tischgesellschaften (table societies) 3–4 Tomas ab Ieuan, Tre’r-bryn 1, 2, 3, 6, 34, 38, 41–2, 43–4, 45–6, 47, 48, 74 Tomos Glyn Cothi see Evans, Thomas Tomos Prys of Plas Iolyn 138–9 Traethawd ar Hynafiaeth ac Awdurdodaeth Coelbren y Beirdd, Taliesin Williams 141 Traethawd Byr ar yr Athrawiaethau o Ryddid ac Angenrheidrwydd Philosophyddawl, trans. Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi) Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 134–5 Traherne, John Montgomery 149 translation 18, 134–5 and misrepresentation 189 and The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales 32–3 from Erse into English (in Ossian) 18, 34 from Welsh into English 18, 20–1, 22–3 in marginalia 292–3 Iolo Morganwg’s attempts at 123, 190–3, 199–200, 213 Iolo Morganwg’s view of and interest in 32–3 (literal and cultural) from Sanskrit into English and Welsh 85–90 of Bible into Welsh 63, 189 of eisteddfod-related terminology into Welsh 109–11, 112–13 of Ioloic Welsh terminology into English 187 of Latin and English words into Welsh 94 of Thomas Gray’s poetry 167 Trefoesen, Llanbabo 184 triads 1, 2, 4, 6, 40, 47, 48, 86, 108, 126, 127, 141, 155, 162

‘Llyvyr Triodd Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ 1, 2 Myvyrian Archaiology ‘Third Series’ of triads 93, 145 proverbs in triadic form 255–6 triads attributed to Gwilym Saer 42 triads of Llelo Llawdrwm of Coety 1 ‘Triodd Moes’ 40 ‘Trioedd Beirdd Ynys Prydain’ 82–3 ‘Trioedd Cerdd’ in Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain 67–9 ‘Trioedd Pawl’ 155 ‘Trioedd y Cludau’ 94–5 Trinitarianism 40–1, 103–5, 205 Trinity, the 118 ‘Trywiau’, attributed to Catwg Ddoeth 37 Tudur Aled 116 Turberville, James (Iago Twrbil) 56 Turner, Sharon 18, 50 Twm o’r Nant see Edwards, Thomas Twm Siôn Cati 192, 292–3 Two Essays, on the Subjects Proposed by the Cambrian Society in Dyfed Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 113–16, 117, 126, 137 Unitarianism and Unitarians 41, 104, 112, 118, 123, 128–37, 140, 152, 166, 277, 293 regulations of South Wales Unitarian Society 155 Unitarian hymns 46–7, 202–8 Unitarian worship in south Wales 204 Unitarianism and reading 75–7 Universal Etymological English Dictionary, An, Nathan Bailey 171 Urien 143 Vaughan, Robert, of Hengwrt 126 Vaughan, William 190–3 Vindication of the Genuineness of the Ancient British Poems of Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, and Merdhin, A, Sharon Turner Iolo Morganwg and Taliesin Williams’s annotated copy 142–4 Virgil 122 Voltaire 84 Vox Populi Vox Dei!: or, Edwards for Ever!, Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg) see Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg), his writings

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Wales antiquarian prestige 34 cultural and literary sphere 6, 51–3 Ioloic literary tradition 38–9, 40, 42, 43–4, 71 literary tradition 48, 63–4, 115 ‘national’ culture 6, 107 regionalism 45 counties of 160 north–south animosity 106–7, 157–8 Walters, John, jun. 22, 153, 155 Walters, Revd John 22, 87, 170–2, 177 war poetry 75, 193–4 Welsh and English Dictionary, A, William Owen Pughe Iolo Morganwg’s annotated copy 119–22, 123, 127–8, 173, 186 Welsh Indians 155 Welsh language and Latin 175–6, 178 and Sanskrit 86–7, 88, 151 civilized nature of 18 concept of ‘genius’ of the language 177–8 etymology 35 in 1820s Welsh public sphere 212–13 Iolo Morganwg and the Welsh language and coining of terminology and vocabulary 169, 185–8, 212, 263, 266, 275–80 and declining standards 63, 105, 125, 133, 190 and Deudneudism 107, 190, 246–7 and dialect 121–2, 158–9, 169, 179–85, 212, 243–53, 257, 261–2, 264–6, 267–71, 272 and etymology 171, 176–7, 178, 179, 180–3, 212 and exemplification of vocabulary in poetic examples 169, 176, 271–5 and fears regarding corruption of his own language 107 and focus on individual words 29–30, 36, 37–8, 183 and grammar and morphology 110, 169, 191, 212, 260–75 and idioms and proverbs 89, 169, 253–60 and Latin language 94, 171, 174–8, 179, 182 and orthography 177 and preference for Welsh over the English language 189

and ‘primitive monosyllables’ 179 and Silurian dialect 120–1, 204 and word lists 120, 155, 172–4, 176, 177, 180–5, 243–5, 247–9, 249–50 as recorder of oral language 169, 173 as spoken language 179, 187–8 metathesis 174 mutation 178 periphrasis 189–90, 204 Welsh Manuscripts Society 147 Welsh School, London 14 Wiliam Tegid 116 Wiliems, Thomas, of Trefriw 184 Wilkins, Charles 84 William o’r Ydwal see Robert, William Williams, Ann (Nancy), Iolo Morganwg’s daughter 7, 165–6 Williams, Dafydd (Dafydd o’r Nant) 70, 71 Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg) and agriculture 154 and anti-Catholicism 42–3, 101–3 and ‘anxiety of reception’ 4, 5, 16, 46, 48–9, 54–5, 58, 72–3, 74 and autobiographical writing 128 and bilingualism 188–90 and ‘Church-and-Kingism’ 70, 111, 149, 197, 198 and commonplace books 153–4 and composition of history 8 and Cowbridge bookshop 45, 78 and egotism 11, 12, 16, 31, 32, 34, 73–4, 212 and envy 6, 128, 130, 137, 151, 158, 172, 211 and ephemera 8 and fabricated mythology of the Welsh people 94 and Glamorgan 29–30, 169, 189, 193, 210–11 and ill-health 187 and Lewis Morris 14 and longevity 168 and marginalization 6, 9, 69, 80, 98, 109, 112, 118, 150 and material conditions 153–4, 165–6, 212 and misogyny 40, 44 and morality 112, 193, 195, 201, 202, 205, 206, 209–10 and music 188, 203–4, 276, 277–8 and north Wales 61, 72, 185, 207

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and old age 110–11, 187, 188, 200, 208–12, 213, 297–8 and political radicalism 8, 111, 112, 113, 150, 151, 195–6, 198–9, 213 and posthumous legacy 8–9, 81, 112–13, 147, 148–9, 150, 151 and poverty 7, 9, 46 and print culture 44, 49, 50–1, 53, 54, 74, 89, 150, 155 and scraps 8, 9, 51, 155, 162, 163, 212 and the eisteddfodau 49, 53–4, 63, 116, 128 archive at the National Library of Wales 8 Iolo Aneurin Williams manuscripts 159 Llanover manuscripts 153–6 see also his collections of printed books as ‘Bard of Liberty’ 196 as book-lender 77, 104–5 as craftsman 8 as critic 5, 6, 32 as editor 4, 13, 14–48 passim as Edward Williams 18, 144 as eisteddfod adjudicator 113 as forger 2, 3, 4, 7–8, 15, 17, 18, 26, 29, 34, 35, 38, 44–8, 50, 72, 89, 127, 150, 162, 176, 212 see also Dafydd ap Gwilym as ‘intellectual magpie’ 80, 81, 95 as Iolo Morganwg 18, 34, 112, 211, 295 as Iorwerth (ab Iorwerth) Gwilym 31, 210–11, 293–4, 295 as labouring poet 198–9 as linguist 168–88 as manuscript annotator 5, 6 as poet 8, 188–212 in English 154, 188, 193–9, 205 dating of poetry 195, 196–9 drafting of poetry 195–6 in Welsh 154, 188, 200–12 dating of poetry 201, 211 hymns and psalms 202–8, 212, 213, 303–12 in free metres 202–8, 299–312 in strict metres 200–2, 208–12, 213, 293–8 as reader 151–2, 154, 164, 263–4 as self-educated journeyman mason 4, 5, 211 as stonemason 168 as translator of his own work 4

as ventriloquist 3, 50, 54, 58 as word-minter 36 his birth 209, 211 his collection of Welsh vocabulary 51 his collections of printed books 79, 163 at Cardiff Central Library 134–5, 239 at the National Library of Wales 81–98, 113–17, 117–34, 135–7,156, 237–9 at the Salisbury Library, Cardiff University 103–13 his ego 45, 48, 50, 127–8, 151 his enemies 90–2, 116, 117–37, 129, 150, 205, 206–7 his family 7, 165–6, 197, 189, 204 his Flemingston cottage 6, 7, 8, 9, 122, 186 his hand 137–8, 195, 210 his lists of books 77, 78 in London 61, 97–8, 105, 168 incarcerated in Cardiff gaol 56, 61, 164, 211 relation to manuscript and print cultures 2, 3, 80, 118, 130, 151 view of capital punishment 96 see also annotation; authors and authorship; correspondence; editors; translation; Wales; Welsh language Williams, Edward (Iolo Morganwg), his writings ‘Achau y Saint’ 145 ‘Coelbren y Beirdd’ 168, 141 correspondence poetry ‘Englynion cynghor’ 201–2 ‘Plato’s Advice’, trans. Iolo Morganwg 199–201 Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain 48–74, 102–3, 113, 116, 129, 137, 143–4, 157–8 dissertation on the Welsh language, attributed to Llywelyn Siôn 66 draft ‘English Preface’ 63–4 patronized by literary clerics 115 Triads (‘Trioedd Cerdd’) 67–9 Welsh introduction 107 ‘Cywydd y Daran’ 53 Dagrau yr Awen neu Farwnad Lewis Hopcin Fardd 200–1 ‘Diddanwch y Cymru’ 51, 54, 154–5 ‘Doethineb Catwg Ddoeth’ 35 ‘Dywenydd Morganwg’ 44, 46 ‘Euron’ poetry 213 ‘History of the Bards’ 61, 89, 154, 189

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Iolo Manuscripts 67, 143, 146, 151 manuscript poetry ‘Hanes y Bardd mal yn Llafaru o’i Fedd’, cywydd 210–11 ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’ 193–6, 199, 209–10 ‘Newyddion da’, hymn 132–3 marginalia poetry ‘A fynno’r aur o berfedd daear’, hen benillion 300–1 ‘A myg y bernir y man’ (‘Arwyr Plwyf Llancarfan’), cywydd 208–12, 298 ‘Cân y Wawr’, hymn 305 ‘Cânt bawb a ddilynant eu Ner’, hymn 206 ‘Cydwybod dyn’, hymn 303 ‘Duw’r nef yw’n Pendefig yn unig Ion yw’, hymn 203 ‘Dysgu anrhaith’, englynion 201 fragment in englyn metre 296 fragments in cywydd metre 295–6 ‘Golwg ar deyrnas Nef’, hymn 303–4 ‘Humanity, an Eclogue’, draft 193–6, 199, 281–4 ‘I’r Awen’, englynion 296–7 ‘Mae Duw ’mhob man a’i lygad arnad’, hen bennill 202–3 ‘The Mountain Shepherd’, two drafts 188, 196–9, 284–6 ‘The Royal Shepherd’ 287–8 ‘To health’ 288 ‘Y Ddwy Awen’, englynion 297–8 ‘Ymweliad â Threfflemin’, free-metre stanzas 299–300 ‘Yno bydd oll yn uniawn’, englyn 296 see also Dafydd ap Gwilym marginalia prose ‘A Plan for a complete and superb History of the county of Glamorgan’ 319 ‘Anecdotes of Lantwit’ 164–5 ‘Authenticity of Scriptures’ 327 ‘Captain Jenkins ac Evan William, Llansanwyr’, anecdote 302–3 ‘Human abilities’ 324 hymns, introductory material 309–12 ‘Letters from Glamorgan’ 318 ‘On Historians of Wales’ 318 ‘Pregeth Siôn Hwper’ 328 ‘Prospectus of Collections for a new History of Wales’ 319–21

Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch, draft introduction 205, 305–9 ‘The Book of Knowledge’ 326 ‘The Cambrian Biography: addenda’ 322–3 ‘The History of my Life’, autobiography 211–12 ‘The St Athan Schoolroom’ 326–7 ‘The Welsh Bards’ 321–2 ‘Theological fragments’ 325–6 ‘Y Deudneudiwr a’r Llo’, anecdote 302 see also agriculture; archaeology; architecture; geology; horticulture; names and family history Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (1794) 4, 5, 7, 45, 50, 51, 128, 195–6, 209, 213, 76, 277 marginalia preface 289–91 marginalia proposals to 291–2 preface 189, 211 ‘Stanzas written in London in 1773’ 29 subscribers 196 ‘The Horrors of War, A Pastoral’ 193, 194, 195 Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch 7, 129–30, 142, 204, 207–8 preface 130, 204, 210 ‘Select Pieces of Ancient Welsh-Poetry’ 154–5 Vox Populi Vox Dei!: or, Edwards for Ever! 7 Williams, Eliezer 60, 73 Williams, Evan, of Pentyrch 167 Williams, Evan, Strand bookseller 19, 122, 158–9, 212 Williams, John, of Llanrwst 59 Williams, Margaret (Peggy), Iolo Morganwg’s daughter 7, 165–6 Williams, Margaret (Peggy, née Roberts), Iolo Morganwg’s wife 7, 97 Williams, Peter Bailey 60 Williams, Robert, of Geulan Goch 100 Williams, Taliesin (Taliesin ab Iolo) 137–49 and attitude towards eisteddfodau 53–4, 137 and circulation of his father’s books 147–8 and Commercial School, Merthyr Tydfil 160 and correspondence with Iolo Morganwg 96, 134, 159–60, 201–2 and Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain 61, 63, 73

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and Merthyr Tydfil fraternity of bards 115 and reading 60, 81, 138–42 and standing in Welsh public sphere 141 as ‘Ab Iolo’ 139–40, 143, 144, 147 as annotator 139–40, 143–7, 151–2 as schoolteacher 141 his collection of printed books at the National Library of Wales 141–9, 241–2 inscribed books 141 marketing for his father 7 Williams, Thomas, Iolo Morganwg’s brother 76

Williams, William, Merthyr Tydfil publisher 207–8 Williams, William, Pantycelyn 135–6, 206–7 Wordsworth, William 55, 159 Wright, Joseph 181 Ychydig o Hanes y Diweddar Barchedig Lewis Rees, yr hwn a fu unwaith yn Weinidog yr Efengyl yn Llanbrynmair, ac wedi hyny yn Abertawe, John Roberts Iolo Morganwg’s criticisms of 263–4 Ystrad Meurig, Iolo Morganwg’s notes on 328