and from a life of Gildas, by Caradoc of Lancarvan, it appears that Melvas, the king of Somersetshire, carried off Arthur's wife, by force, to Glastonbury. Arthur, with his friends, whom he collected from Cornwall and Devonshire, assaulted the ravisher. The ecclesiastics interposed, and persuaded Melvas to return her peaceably. Arthur received her, and both the kings rewarded the monks for their useful interference. This shews Arthur to be a man of only 'moderate greatness.' "That Arthur was not always the patriotic warrior appears from his contests in the north, where, in an engagement, he killed Hoel, a native prince, and triumphed as having slain his most powerful enemy. *Thus, Arthur,' to use the words of Mr. Turner, by his wars with his own countrymen, as much assisted the progress of the Saxons, as he afterwards endeavoured to check it, by his struggles with Kerdic.' "As to Arthur's greatest achievement, the battle of Badon Mount, this victory only stopped the progress of Kerdic, and gave repose to the Silurian territory. But Arthur was not able to retaliate on the foe, and Kerdic retained the conquests he had made. "Arthur is represented by the Bards, his coevals, very differently from what is advanced respecting him by the romancing Geoffry. Neither Llywarch nor Taliesin say extravagant things of this hero; nor do they ever speak of him as king of all Britain. The continual and rapid conquests of Kerdic, of Ella, and of other successful warriors among the Saxons and Angles, totally disprove the accounts of Geoffry. And yet he, upon the whole, was the most gallant of all the British princes; and his name deserves to be enrolled among the ancient heroes of the Isle of Britain."-P. 202. To this extract succeeds a brief inquiry into the settlement of the Angles in the North, and the final establishment of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, in the course of which several historical quotations are introduced from Taliesin and Llywarch Hen. The following translation of an Elegy by the latter on the death of Cynddylan, although wanting the peculiar plaintiveness of the original, will not be uninteresting. It is from the pen of the late Mr. Walters, of Cowbridge, to whom Welsh literature is under no small obligation. The Death of Cynddylan, the son of Cyndrwyn, Prince of Powys: "Come forth and see, ye Cambrian dames, His heart which late, with martial fire, Dire bird this night my frighted ear The hall, bereaved of Cyndrwyn's son: Its hospitable fires are dead... No longer ranged on either hand Its dormitory couches stand: But all above, around, below, Dread sights, dire sounds, and shrieks of woe. Then in eternal silence rest.”-P. 212. It is now time to return, with Mr. Hughes, to an examination of the ecclesiastical history of Britain, and which he resumes with the following judicious observations: 66 During that historical epoch, which we have been surveying, we can distinguish few things favourable in the civil character of the Britons, when contrasted with their Pagan invaders. The ambition, the treachery, and the fierceness of the chief, and the indolence and -apathy of the common people, afford us but very faint outlines of the Christian virtues. The animosity, which subsisted between the different states, obstructed the union which was necessary to enable them to repulse their public enemy. It was seldom they could be induced, by a sense of the common danger, to unite their counsels for the general security. Had they been animated in due season with the spirit of genuine patriotism, and, sought help from heaven, their enemies could never have prevailed over them; for the number of the Anglo-Saxon adventurers was at no time so formidable, but VOL. II. 3 H ١٠ that, by means of a well concerted coalition on the part of the Britons, their whole force might have been discomfited. Arthur, Ambrosius and Urien, Owen and Cunedda, Cynddylan, and the sons of Llywarch, excelled in military bravery; but their ferociousness was such, that we see little distinction between these Christian knights and their Pagan antagonists. In the poem of Golyddan we perceive raging thirst for blood, and delight in the trade of slaughter. In the great battle of Cattraeth, the Bard laments, that the warriors went to battle in a state of intoxication; so that, however endued with native courage, their defeat can excite no astonishment in the reflecting mind. "The Saxons are represented as carrying fire and sword before them, and destruction attending all their steps. As heathens, they were doubtless implacable against the religion of Christ; and we may easily believe, that they destroyed the churches, and persecuted the clergy. Gildas gives us a dismal picture of the devastations of the Saxons, the effects of which were felt by his own family, who were obliged to retire into Wales for a refuge from the storm. But he regards the whole as the just visitation of heaven upon a stupid and profligate people, who neglected to make a proper use of the bounties of heaven; and upon a church that was become so corrupt as to abuse the light and privileges they had enjoyed."-P. 220. Such, in reality, was the deplorable state of society amongst the Britons, and especially the Northern Britons, during the fifth and sixth centuries. It cannot, therefore, be surprising, that the progress of religion during that period was both slow and uncertain. The raging thirst of conquest and devastation on the part of the Saxons, and the consequent feelings, whether of active revenge, or of inert despondency, engendered amongst the Britons, seem to have brutalized the human mind, and to have deprived it of all susceptibility for those gentler emotions of our nature, which only could have been congenial with the growth and diffusion of Christianity. In Wales alone a better spirit seems to have had any general prevalency. The zealous exertions of Garmon, and Bleiddan, which have been already noticed, strengthened, as they were, by the ministry of succeeding teachers, appear first to have given any stability to the roots of that sacred Tree, which has since flourished, amongst our native hills, with a somewhat excessive luxuriance. Among the immediate successors of the two holy men, above mentioned, are particularly to be enumerated Dewi (St. David) Dyvrig, Teilo, Padarn, Catwg, Cadvan, and Asav, all of whom are still commemorated in the names of various religious places, which they either founded or restored. Mr. Hughes enters summarily into the history of a few of these Cambro-British saints; and notice sof some may also be found in the former pages of this work. Notwithstanding the pious labours, however, of the two founders of the Welsh Church, as Garmon and Bleiddan may justly be styled, the darkness of heresy, as we are informed by historians, threatened, at the beginning of the sixth century, again to obscure, if not to extinguish, the light of the Faith; and, accordingly, in order to avert this evil, a synod was held in the year 519, at a place since called Llan-Ddewi-Brevi, of which Giraldus Cambrensis, as quoted by the writer before us, gives the following succinct account. The detestable heresy of the, Palagians, although formerly extinguished through the labours of Germanus of Auxerre, and Lupus of Troyes, when they came over to this island, this pestilence, although once put a stop to, sprang up anew, and gave occasion to the convening of a general synod of all the churches of Wales. All the bishops and abbots, and religious of different orders, together with the princes and laymen, were assembled together at Brevi, in the county of Cardigan. When many discourses had been delivered› in public, and were ineffectual to reclaim the Palagians from their error, at length Paulinus, a bishop, with whom David had studied in his youth, very earnestly entreated, that that holy, excellent, and eloquent man might be sent for. Messengers were, therefore, dispatched to desire his attendance; but their importunity was unavailing with the holy man, he being so fully and intensely given up to contemplation that it was urgent necessity alone that could induce him to pay any regard to secular concerns. At length two holy men, namely, Daniel and Dubricius, went over to him. By them he was persuaded to come to the synod; and upon his arrival he silenced the opponents, and they were utterly vanquished. But Father David, by the common consent of all, whether clergy or laity (Dubricius having resigned in his favour), was elected primate of the Cambrain churches."-P. 231. Other synods succeeded this, and the zeal, subsequently mani-) fested by the religious orders, especia y in the foundation of churches, monasteries, and other ecclesiastical establishments, tended to settle the exterior forms at least, if not the more essen tial attributes, of Christianity among the mountains of Wales, That vice and disorder may, notwithstanding, as recorded by some ancient writers, and, especially Gildas, have gained too great an ascendancy during these comparatively uncivilized times * See the first volume, pages 11, 59, 170, and 171.-ED. is not to be deemed surprising. But, it is to the period now under consideration and to the pious devotees, by whom it was distinguished, that we must ascribe the foundation in Wales, on any fixed principles, of the grand fabric of our holy religion. The bishoprics of Llandaff, Margam, St. David's, Llanbadarn, St. Asaph, and Bangor were established during this æra, which includes the fifth and sixth centuries; and, whatever may have been the laxity of public morals, the Church was at least exempt, as Mr. Hughes properly observes, from those gross superstitions, by which the cause of Christianity was in other countries, at the satne period, so greatly debased. The two chapters, which immediately follow Mr. Hughes's examination of the subject just noticed, are devoted to the mission of St. Augustine and his successors, and relate more particularly to the propagation of the Gospel amongst the Saxons,-a portion of history, with which the theological reader must already be intimately acquainted. Mr. Hughes gives a full account of the synod, in which the Romish Saint endeavoured to gain over the Welsh prelates to the Papal power, and which the lat ter are known to have so resolutely withstood. event Mr. Hughes has the following passage. Upon this "Thus nobly did the Cambro-Britons stand up for the independency of their churches; and refused to submit to the encroachments of the bishop of Rome, and his legate Augustine the monk. But if we can suppose the proposal made to them to join in preaching the gospel to the Saxons, to have been any thing more than a snare to entrap them; it was to be lamented that any ceremonial differences should prevent their engaging in a work of that kind. What encouragement, if any, they had for such an undertaking, before the coming over of Augustine, history does not inform us: but we have already observed that, from the complexion of the times, there is too great reason to infer they were rather backward than ready to enter upon any mission, for the purpose of converting their enemies to the Christian faith."-P. 268. One fatal result of this resistance on the part of Bishops was, as the reader well knows, the massacre of the monks of Bangor Iscoed by Æthelfrith, king of Northumberland, who, at the instigation of Ethelbert, the "patron and defender" of Augustine, marched an army into Powys, in which province the synod, just alluded to, had been held. The number of Monks, slain on this occasion, is variously stated. According to some accounts, they amounted to nearly twelve hundred, but the Saxon annals men |