100

TRIADS OF WISDOM.

I will now give you a few examples of the logical acumen of the pre-historic Cimmerians, as traditionally handed down the stream of time. The reflex of a nations soul is here.

"The three indispensibles of wisdom; genius, science, and discrimination.

"The three stabilities of wisdom: what is right, beautiful, and possible.

"Three things will be obtained by wisdom: the good (things) of the world, mental comforts, and the love of God.

"In three things wisdom is apparent: genius, science, and demeanour.

The three exertions of wisdom: to understand nature by genius, to perceive truth by studying it, and to cultivate love and peace.

"Three things in a man that make him wise and good: qualities, science and power.

"Three things with which wisdom cannot exist: inordinate desire, debauchery, and pride.

"Three things without which there can be no wisdom; generosity, abstinence, and virtue."

Al

These examples, which I have culled at random out of the triad-books of history, bardism, theology, ethics, and jurisprudence, and so forth, will, I trust, be deemed sufficient to prove the nature and contents of these philosophic documents. though," says the Cambro-Briton, "all that now remains must have borne but a small proportion with those once in existence, 'their number is sufficient (to adopt the words of the estimable author of the Early History of the Cymry') to determine some essential circumstances as to the origin and history of the nation, and the real doctrines of the bards; and it is, so far, a pleasing reflection that a discovery is made of authorities that point out an origin in conformity with a general opinion, built upon the systems and ideas of the historians of other nations, without a knowledge of such records being possessed by the nation itself.'' "Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam, "True to the kindred points of heaven and home."

on which it was necessary to bring the people together, as, we believe, it was until lately in the gathering of the clans' among the Highlands of Scotland. And, with respect to the particular instance, in which the use of the horn is above noticed in the text, the Triodd y Cludau further describe it as one of the conventions of mutual compact,' in which the cooperation of every free native was required,' which will explain the reason why the attendance of a person on the cry of the country,' when within hearing of the horns,' was to be admitted as a plea for not obeying the summons of a court."

LECTURE III.

THE BEIRDD, OFYDDION, AND DERWYDDON.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
"Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

DRUIDISM, as an institute of primæval ages, was the mighty lever of post-diluvian literature. It was the parent, framer, or nomenclator, as well as custodian, of Adamitic letters, as of lettersounds of symbols and of art. It was the precursor of Oriental and Western astronomy, metaphysics, and theogony, during the undocumental colossal epoch of a consecrated or covenanted cromlech-, cherem-lech, that history quails to ponder over (chronologically) and define.

The archives or record-offices of this patriarchal teaching were lodged in the druidical tablets of the heart. From this indestructible, if not inexhaustible, fountain of knowledge emanated the elementary fibres of ideal life and heat to the mental sustenance of the body-corporate of humanity, surviving successive wrecks of tottering empires and of races.

These propositions, however startling they may appear to the warped prejudices of certain intelligences, will be found, I trust, during an earnest analysis of this profound question, to be as tenable of demonstration as are the primitive rocks of creation to the now uniformly agreed decision of the geologist, though the elements of realized deductions, de naturâ rerum, be but few, and out of sight as it were, in proportion to the other Noachidic revelations. Certain inborn facts will gradually reveal themselves to our perceptive faculties, through the page of strife and density of unbelief, amid the rugged paths of life beyond the mystic grave of Ionic, Doric, or Pelasgic tribes, as will enable the eye of antique faith to scan and probe, as a prelude to our mighty theme τα ποιηματα των αρκαιων των τε μυθολογων και των ποιητωνnot merely of our Cimmerian principles of philosophy, and other cognate doctrines standing out in bold relief, but of other extraneous imitations or happy admixtures of the same in distant east and west.

It is, of course, a matter of impossibilty to summarily condense all the proofs and arguments in favor of one or other poposition in one or two ephemeral lectures, so as to satisfy the cravings of conviction, and erase the incredulities of foregone conclusions from the superfice of the soul.

In the first place, therefore, let patriarchal druidism be responsible only for the development of its own modicum of a hitherto unrevealed truth, as far as the outer world is concerned. Let other subject-matters in their turn incur not the brunt and tug of self-defence hitherto ignored, but put on the armour of justifiable aggression in defence of our maligned druidic lore and nation in omni parte mundi. Let each subject, then, proclaim a potent fact, long lost to mortal ken. Let each impress the stamp of truth-of truths beyond the scope or cavil of notions old or new, when preconceived by imaged errors of the past. Perverted repetitions of mythic or of classic ignorances and prejudices are not, per se, and cannot be, as such, in the all-detecting manifestations of nature, from within and from without, imputed objects or sources of infallibility to the antagonistic faith of philological, traditional, and antiquarian researches. The light of truth-of bardic Triad truth-though ever hovering off and on, as a plucked olive-dove, with its Taliesinian "tablet of device," outside the barrier-clouds of ages, or darting to and fro, like meteoric fire, above, around the vapoured fumes of error based on loss of unrecorded proofs, cannot, dare not fail, e'en then, for ever, by reason of its own aerial impulse and force of natural law divine; nor can this heaven-born ray e'er nullify itself so far as not to pierce, some day or other, its fiery shafts of genial Adamitic warmth from outlets here and there, across the myths of cyclic fame, through rythmical quantities unknown or lost, or never solved if known, to Hebrew, Zend, Arabic, or Sanscrit elements of Cimmerian date, or thence to modern elements of Greece and Rome revealed, so as to prove, beyond the veil of mass condensed, its Eden mission from its source on high-its destined neverflagging hold of man and earth below, till solar rays of Gwîr yn erbyn byd' shall be no more, and verify "Oes y byd i'r iaith Gymraeg."

The Druidical Institute was composed of three orders, as Beirdd, Ofyddion, and Derwyddon-græcised by the Pythagorean school, by Strabo, by Diodorus Siculus, and by others of lesser note, into Βαρδοι, Ουατες, και Δρυιδαι-latinised by Ennius, Caesar, and Pliny, into Bardi, Vates et Druida-anglicised into Bards, Ovates, and Druids.

THE BARDS.

"There is a pleasure in poetic pains
"Which only poets know."

THE Greeks and Romans, though they partly agree in the nomenclature of the Triadic corps, as above given, yet do not all exactly coincide with the Cimbric prehistoric memorials as regards the number or the functions they appropriate to the classes or subdivisionary forms of the institute, but they all concur in the high order of instruction, attributed, more or less, to each according to their own conjectures or other unreliable sources of information. This partial conformity of designation is a sufficient guarantee, I apprehend, to establish in a candid mind the undoubted antiquity of their tenets, as well as the authenticity of their contents, be they what they may, in that respect, if it does

no more.

Such being the case, I will allow the legal Triad of Dyfnwal Moelmud, a Cimmerian legislator who flourished some centuries before the Roman invasion, to vindicate the original functions and privileges of the order in its own emphatic declaration, before I adduce other corroborative evidence.

The seventy-first Triad, here translated, is taken from the archaiology of Cambria, and constitutes one only of the two hundred and twenty-four of the 'Legal Classification' which, since then, consecutive congresses of bards have here and there amplified so as to meet the contingencies of the occasion.

There are, says Dyfnwal Moelmud, one of the learned and accomplished kings of Ynys Prydain, three orders of the profession of Bardism :

1.-The Prif-fardd, the Chief Bard, that is to say, a bard of full privilege (a cowydd or an associated fellow), who has acquired his degree and privilege of a bard of session, by regular instruction by an approved teacher. His office is to keep up a memory of arts and sciences, this being his duty as a bard regularly and fully instituted; and also to preserve the memory of that which concerns the country, as families, marriages, pedigrees (arwyddion), armorial bearings (emblems or banners), divisions of land, and the rights of the Cimbric territory or nation.

2.-The Ovate (Ovydd), whose degree is acquired in right of his possessing natural poetic genius or praiseworthy knowledge,

which he shall prove by the correctness of his answering, he being examined before regular and worthy congress of bards; or, where there is no such congress, by a lawful session, granted by the subjects of the clan-chief of the territory; or by twelve of the judges of the court; or, if this be not the custom, by twelve freeholders (brawdwyr) of his court, who act as judges. Moreover, the knowledge gained by regular instruction is not to be required of the ovate to entitle him to his privilege, nor anything more than that his knowledge is well-founded. This is so well regulated for the maintenance of science, lest there should be a deficiency of regular teachers, and the arts and sciences depending upon memory and regular instruction should be lost; and, also, for further improvement of arts and sciences, by the addition of every new discovery approved by the learned and the wise, and confirmed as such by them; and, also, lest the advantage arising from the powers of natural genius and invention should be repressed.

3.-The Druid Bard, who must be a bard regularly instituted and graduated (Bardd gorseddog a graddedig), and of approved wisdom, and knowledge, and of elocution sufficient to express what his judgment and intelligence dictate. This office has its privilege by a free grant adjudged to him by the sense of a regular court of the clan, taken by ballot (coelbren). His duty is to give moral and religious instruction in the congress of bards, in the palace, in the place of worship, and in the family in which he has full privilege. Each of these has a just and lawful claim to five free acres in right of his profession, exclusive of what he is entitled to as a Cymro by birth. For the right by profession does not abrogate that by nature, nor the natural right the professional."

The particular duties of the three orders of bardism, enumerated in this triad are thus similarly described in the "Institutional Triad of Bardism":

"The three orders of Primitive Bards: The Presiding Bard, or Primitive Bard Positive, according to the rights, voice, and usage of the bardic conventions, whose office it is to superintend and regulate; the Ovate, according to poetical genius, exertion, and contingency, whose province it is to act from the impulse of poetical inspiration; and the Druid, according to the reason, nature, and necessity of things, whose duty it is to instruct."

It will now be my duty to analyse each term according to the definitions of subsequent bardic congresses, as well as the universally accepted interpretation of the same by the nation of the Cimbri learned in the laws of bardism and general literature.

The term bardd, then, signifies, priest, philosopher, or teacher,