Pray acquaint me how you think to dispose of them to the best advantage, and give me all the advice you can concerning y fittest persons to recommend it in your country, and in Montgomeryshire. You have often mention'd Dr. Foulks as one of a generous temper, and very forward to encourage such public designes as he finds reason to approve of. I suppose he would be the fittest person to receive subscriptions in Denbighshire, or at leastwise for a great part of it, but being not acquainted with him, I dare not request so great a favour and trouble. I think to send half a dozen to Mr. Price, of Wrexham, by the interest of Mr. Wm. Wyn, who I think is well acquainted with him; and these, as I suppose at present, will be enough for your country. If any shall object, that all is lost, if it please God I should dye in the interim, you may assure them I shall make choice of a young man for an amanuensis, who has parts enough to make, at least, as good a naturalist and antiquary as I am in a few years, and that I shall spare no pains to instruct him.

I leave Mr. Roberts to tel you what University news occurres, and I shall onely adde, that I am

Y most affectionat Friend,

And humble Servt.

EDW. LHWYD.

I have sent one of these papers my self to S: Robert Owen.

[No direction, but endorsed by

the Revd. Jno. Lloyd.]

No. XX.

HON S

The many favours you were pleased to show me, when engag'd in the publishing of Canden, have encourag'd me to direct the enclosed to your hands, which contains some proposals for a Geographical Dictionary and Natural History of Wales. Dr. Edwards and some other friends advised me to print it; but what encouragement it will meet with I cannot guesse, especially in these unsetl'd times, when the Public Taxes require good husbandry; tho' tis far from my design to be burthensome to any but those who have good estates, and are of their own free choice (& not merely from the example of their neighbours) disposed to favour y undertaking. There is one very obvious objection, which I have not taken notice of in the paper, because indeed I could not well answer it; and this is, that if it should please God I should dye before either of these books be fitted for the presse, all the encouragement given me would be so much thrown away. In order to provide for such an accident as well as I can,

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I shall endeavour to make choice of a young man of some extraordinary parts and industry for an amanuensis, aud shall instruct him (as far as I am capable) in the studies of Natural History and Antiquities, that so he may be qualified not onely to assist me in this undertaking, if it please God I should live to goe throw with it, but perhaps to finish it as well or better than myself. If it should happen otherwise. I have already an eye on one whom I think fit for the purpose, and also very desirous for such an employment. But I could wish the college would be so favourable as to choose him into the Foundation, that so he may have some bging to depend upon in regard to these singular studies will never come in his way to preferment, but rather hazard him the reputation of being ignorant in every thing else, as we find it too often happens to men that signalize themselves in any one study. I intend to mention it to Dr. Edwards, who is pleas'd to be very active in promoting this design, and has already, or will, very speedily, send some of these papers to my Lord of Bangor, to Dr. Wyn the Chancellor, and Dr. Owen Wyn at London. Having but lately printed, I have sent but few abroad, and have not yet heard how they are accepted. Onely one letter I rec just now out of Glamorganshire, wherein my friend tells me that as yet he has shew'd it only two gentlemen, viz. S John Aubrey & S Charles Kemeys, and that one of these subscrib'd five pounds, and the other forty shill. This is a beginning much beyond what I expected, but these are persons of the greatest estates; when we come to Brecknocshire and Radnorshire we shall move more slowly. I once intended to determin the sallary to ten pounds a year for each county, & had express'd it so in the paper, but was advis'd by some friends to leave it as 'tis, in regard some counties might well contribute more, and perhaps others not so much; and that the greater encouragement I met with the better I should be enabl'd to employ the assistance of others. But 'tis high time to beg your pardon for this tediousnesse, and to subscribe myself,

Y most obliged humble servant,

Oxford; Nov 26, 1695.

EDW. LHWYD.

I have sent half a dozen of these papers to Ned Humphreys, who, I suppose, will wait on you 'ere he disposes of any of them. Mr. Wood, the antiquary, has been very ill this fortnight, and is thought to be past all recovery.

Since y sealing of this, I rec a letter from one Welborne, who is Steward to ye Earl of Peterborough, wherein he offers for sale (either to the University or any private person) a collection of silver and brasse coyns, consisting of 13 hundred pieces, but at so dear a rate, (6: one with another,) tho' I know 'tis to no pur

XVIII.

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pose to mention it to y° V. Ch, nor indeed would yo University buy them at any rate. I supose 'tis y collection of his master, tho' he only tells me they belong to an ancient gentleman, who is willing to part with them because his sight begins to grow dimme; and adds there's a cabinet' to be sold with them, so curious that it was design'd to have been presented to K. James, as a repository for his medals. I have heard Beverland commend Peterborough's coyns as ye best collection in England. This I have added because I know not but S Roger may be disposed to purchase such a collection. I suppose for a small gratuity we might have a man of judgment and fidelity to view them, and doubt not but they will abate much of the price he proposes, though he says 30s a piece have been off for some.

A Letter may be directed to Mr. Rob Welborne, near the E. of Petersb' House, by the Horse Ferry in Westminster.

[Directed] For y Hon Richard Mostyn, Esq

at Penbedw,

in Flintshire.

Chester Post.

No. XXI.

[THE FOLLOWING HEADING OCCURS HERE IN THE MSS.]

Extracts out of Letters writ by Mr. Lloyd, of the Museum, to the Rev. Mr. H. Foulks, when Rector of St. George, relating to the Antiquities of Wales.

Oxfa; Apr. 6, 96.

Some time this year I shall print a catalogue of my collection of formed stones, with a few observations on such bodies in general. I design to add an asterisk to such as I have plenty of, and to signify in the preface that I would exchange them with any gentleman that has collections of this nature, by which means I expect several gentlemen, being desirous of a collection of this kind, and having nothing to exchange, will be willing to lay out money for them.

I suppose Dr. Blackmore might borrow the heroes you mention out of an old French romance of K. Arthur. S Rhys ap Thomas his monument was showed me at Caermarthen church. His puissance was well expressed by a poet of that time, which (as the vulgar report) had like to have cost him his life the words are only y Brenin a bràr ynys, end Sydh o ran i S! Rys Divism Imperium Cum Jove, &c.

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Oxf

Bead-house (which, as Jack Lloyd of Ruthyn tells me, is S Rob. Owen's etymon of Bettws,) seems as good as either Bedhouse or Beatus; but as yet I acquiesce in neither of them, and my objection to Bead-house is, that it is an English name; neither can I apprehend why a chappel should be called a Bead-house any more in Wales than elsewhere. Gelen is probably (tho' I know nothing of the place) the name of brook, but should be called celen, because it has gelenod in it, seems to me not very probable.

[It will be seen from the following date that the writer had commenced his tour through Wales, for the purpose of collecting materials for his promised History of Wales, all the previous letters being dated at Oxford.]

[ANOTHER EXTRACT.]

Dogelhey; March 17, 1698.

I have not yet seen Owen Gwynedds Maengwerth fawr, but shall desire the favour when I go to Bala. Mrs. Pugh of Mathavern was pleased to bestow upon me Tlws Owen Kyveiliog, which is the same with the transparent ombrie in the Museum, and set in copper; this was formerly called, in South Wales, Glain Kawad, whence Syppyn Kyveiliog.

Lhygae vel glain Kawad weth Telrig i Vaen y Tiboeth.

Dr. Davies's collection of proverbs, with a comment on each, and Latin interpretation, I have seen at Glascoed, where there's an excellent collection of Welsh papers, but not near so many parchment Mss. as at Hengwrt, tho' copies of most. I have lately met with an inscription at Towyn of five lines, which by y' form of the letters might have been of the 7th or 8th century; but, though the letters be very plain, I can make neither Welsh nor Latin of it. We have discovered at Edernion a very curious marble for salt sellers, hafts of knives, &c. &c.

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

The Argyleshire Pronouncing Gaëlic Dictionary; to which is prefixed a concise but most comprehensive Gaelic Grammar. By Niel M'Alpine, student in Divinity, &c. Edinburgh, 1832. Pp. 281.

THE Celtic dialects of France, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, do not differ so materially from each other as we might be led to imagine from a cursory glance at their respective orthographies.

The Welsh orthography is plainer, simpler, and more systematical than that of the Irish, Gaelic, or Breton. Next to the Welsh is the modern orthographical system of the Armorican, as submitted to the Celtic academy of France, by Legonidec, author of a Celto-Breton Grammar and Dictionary.

The orthography of the Irish and Erse, instead of assimilating spelling to sound, seems to be entirely dependent on an irregular system of etymological deductions.

The radical initial letters represent their substitutes by adding the letter h, according to the following scale of mutations:

It would be a useless task for the student to try to acquire a correct pronunciation of the Gaelic, without oral instruction, or the aid of a pronouncing Dictionary; such a book (owing to the patriotic exertions of Mr. Niel M'Alpine) we have now before us, otherwise we should not have imagined that the words cnaimh, a bone, and mna, woman, were pronounced kreiv and mrra, or that the double letters th and dh, at the, forming a considerable portion of the Gaelic orthography, were not sounded as written, the one representing t, or h, the other y, e, or gh. The vowels, diphthongs, and triphthongs, depart still wider from the ordinary rules of pronunciation observable in the other Celtic dialects.

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