year, to furnish provender for his horses. Money of increase, that is, the addition to what was paid in kind in order to bring two commodities on a par. Naturalization money, claim money, work money, swine money, and shed money." That the coin struck was the ceiniog, seems implied by the terms ceiniog gyvraith, and ceiniog gesta; the former being the coin of its full dimensions, and therefore considered of lawful weight and value; the latter the clipped coin, which was considered as having lost one third. Now these distinctions are not made with respect to the punt, swllt, or dimai, the second of which, and the morc, seldom occur in documents previous to the Norman conquest of England; and the transfer of money is demonstrated by the following expression from the same source: "Yr un geiniawg a addug gant,”—the same ceiniog is carried by a hundred. The laws of Hywel dda were compiled about the year 926; and if he coined money, it is fair to conclude that his predecessors had done the same, though it is not possible to say for how many generations back. The clipt coin was probably of earlier date, as that operation would hardly be performed immediately after it issued from the mint; and the people must have been supplied with money, before contributions and fines of it would have been decreed. how comes it that none has ever yet been discovered? Yet Dr. Wotton says that some individuals and communities are known to have had the power of coining, but that we have never become possessed of any specimens from their mints. Yet these are not like a nation. There is no accounting for it; it is an enigma. How soon after the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland coins were struck in that country is not very clear. Keating* tells us that mints were erected at Armagh and Cashel immediately consequent to that event. Giraldus Cambrensis† is of opinion that gold and silver coins were introduced by the Danes. Probably the truth lies somewhat between the two. In Harris's edition of Sir James Ware's Antiquities of History of Ireland. + Cambrensis eversus, p. 85. Ireland, we have eleven specimens of coin, but of these the first six are evidently of much earlier date than those that follow. On all, except two of the former, are the heads of princes, but on those two the Agnus Dei, with the cross above, seem to be represented. At Ballylinam, in the Queen's County, in June 1786, a great number of silver Irish coins were found in an urn of earth, twelve of which have been engraved, and attempted to be explained by Mr. Beauford. They appear to have been struck between the times of the two series given in Mr. Harris's Ware. Mr. Beauford refers them to the ninth century. The only other notice that I am aware of that regards the the state of coinage in Wales, occurs in the statement of griefs of the men of Penllyn, in the time of Edward I. of England, and of their last prince Llewelyn ab Grufydd. It shows that the English money was used in this district of Cambria. Cadvan ddu, the servant to the constable of Penllyn, complains of having been condemned by the English for refusing to receive the old money for new. Should the effect of this sketch be to excite emulation among the Welsh scholars to search for what may throw further light on the subject, or others to use greater caution in order to preserve whatever coins may be exhumed in the Principality, my object will be fully answered. I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, Most respectfully yours, SAM. R. MEYRICK, K. H. Goodrich Court, Feb. 25, 1833. *Vol. 11. p. 203, pl. iii. Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. 1. Warrington's History of Cambria, p. 576. p. 139. SELECTION FROM DAVYDD AB GWILYM. Rho Duw hael rhadau helynt A dysg yr hên Gymry da. TRANSLATION. Bounteous heaven, to Cymru give, With old Cymru's mountain lore. * The triennial circuit of minstrels, anciently ordained by law in Wales. THE SECLUDED MINERAL WELLS OF LLANWRTYD. BY A PHYSICIAN. THE service performed by a physician for his fee, the rural one, of a sovereign (that degenerate guinea of our evil days, curtailed of its fair proportions, to the serious annoyance of consulting surgeons, &c.) is usually the listening to the details (a little nauseous now and then) of real or fanciful sufferers. There is one pleasant exception to this rule, wherein the patient and doctor exchange parts, to the unspeakable comfort of every male gossip, including myself, who, I confess, would rather talk two hours than listen one. The instance alluded to, is on the occasion of persons, about this time of the year, enquiring about the characters of different wells or watering-places. It has been my blessed lot, (may it soon be again!) occasionally to experience that very pleasant titillation of the right palm produced by the contact of that little yellow body, spite of its degeneracy,-how far more pleasant, if a case of twins, of the same in a small delicate amnion of glazed paper! the "value received" for such votive offering being, I assure thee, invalid reader of the Cambrian Quarterly, little more than such a tête-a-tête sketch of the springs in my neighbourhood as I propose to transfer to its pages, for that very small demand on thy purse which the fractional portion of the price of that work may amount to, according to the small proportion of its space I shall have occasion to occupy. For I have always found, on these occasions, that the consultant, having learnt something from his Tour, or Welsh Guide, about the virtues of the waters generally, was quickly satisfied with the first few oracular responses on his "case," delivered with due solemnity befitting the topics of wind in the stomach, heartburn, not very good appetite, &c. &c.; and listened with most pleasure to the chit-chat about the kind of places, if a stranger, which my local knowledge enabled me to amuse him with, rather than those technical details which every such book supplies, under the head of watering-places. They are mistaken who would reflect on such patients as unreflecting. The influence of localities is great on all natures, but especially on those who form the majority of visitors to such places,-the nervous. We must trace the cause of the amendment of health experienced there to something besides the few grains of certain salts, or measure of certain gases, swallowed in each draught of the wonderworking water, quaffed in the intervals of regular meals and exercise, and temperance, and happy leisure, and early hours of rest and rising, all which go for nothing in the cure, in the partial fancy of the water drinker, who gives the whole credit to the fountain. Chemistry now does toward the medicinal curative miracles of wells what the dawn of revived learning did long ago to confound those ascribed to the respective saint or patron of each holy well. A few ages ago, groups of groaning, limping, scabby mortals, scratching each otherin Christian charity, came dusty and travel-stained to the blessed fount, and there (at least some of them) received new life or comfort from the tutelar Genius of the place, whether martyr, as St. Winifred, or heaven-gifted churchman, as St. Beuno; leaving crutch or plaster hung up, like a votive offering of the Pagans, in their temples, as memento of the cure, to act like a decoy duck, in bringing many more votaries. But at the time of the exposure of monkish frauds, along with relics, bits of the true cross, blessed nails, and blessed nail-parings of martyrs, or saints, away flew the fames of those holy waters, with that of other holy water, and "all their mummery." Alas for the Fynnon Bendigaed (the Holy Well!) and alas for all and sundry the suttlers, the hucksters, the lodging-letters, the well-watchers, all who lived by the waters, their occupation was gone! Happily each of these springs had its proper nastiness to distinguish it from the more pure element. The natural virtue was now discovered on failure of the supernatural. The imposture of the water was not to be unveiled, whatever the saint's might be. Its fame survived that of its patron. Votaries resorted thither still, with this difference, that the cure which the sufferer before received with all reverence, as from the tutelar guardian of the spring, he was now content to take under the more humble and less poetical form of--a purge. When Christianity rose on the downfall of Paganism, the founders of our holy religion, as is well known, availed themselves of the fame they found attached to certain temples in drawing the same resort of votaries to the same spot, but for better purpose, by converting them into places of worship, as well as continuing many of the ceremonies and appointed days of the former idolatry, in the service of the new and true faith. Let none then find fault with that policy by which the modern Protestant reformers availed themselves of the saint's attractions, while they abjured his or her worship for ever. Science, and the "Schoolmaster," must now subject the natural virtues of this or that water to the same ordeal of scrutiny to which the miraculous ones were then subjected. "Seeing," says the incredulous invalid, "that I can purchase for a penny, at the next chemist's shop, the precise ingredients which analysis proves to alone distinguish the water of Cheltenham or Llandrindod from pure water, why must I take a long journey to drink them ready mixed by the hand of nature, instead of by my own hand?" I know not what can be answered to this, except "make the experiment of each." He will doubtless find his fireside water-drinking not so effective as his old annual visit to the wells. It will be apparent, then, that something besides the elementary principles of the water, goes to the salutary effect. Of those uncertain somethings, I think local scenery forms no unimportant share to all, but most to that numerous class of invalids just mentioned, the nervous. To any one who considers the vast influence exerted on the state of the body's health by mental causes, palpable as it is to his daily observation, it can never seem matter of indifference |
