in general, be divided into three principal Classes; including Ancient and Contemporary Histories, Chronicles, and Memoirs of particular Individuals, National Records and Public Documents, and Miscellaneous Illustrations, embracing a great variety of subjects, interesting to almost every description of readers.

SECTION I. Ancient and Contemporary Histories, Chronicles, and Memoirs.

1. British. Previously to the invasion of Julius Cæsar, the annals of Britain are involved in doubt, or covered with obscurity; and Sir William Temple remarked, that he was acquainted with but few ancient authors on this division of history, who are worth the pains of perusing, or of separating the little gold from the quantity of refuse which they contain. But, not to notice the very limited extent of literature in so early an age and so rude an Island, the continual wars of the Romans, Saxons, and Danes, must have destroyed many original memorials, and long have prevented the writing of any others. To place, however, an account of the ancient reliques of British History more distinctly before the reader, it will be proper to give a short statement of the public events connected with them, illustrative of their particular language and ultimate depositories.

The Saxons, whom Vortigern had invited into Britain in A. D. 449, to aid him against the Scots and Picts, after having fought successfully for the Britons, were established in the Isle of Thanet, and soon began to extend their conquests over that land which they were engaged to defend.

Within the space of 150 years, they had become possessed of about one half of the southern division of Britain; whilst the natives had gradually retreated before them, and with all the property they could preserve, sought an asylum in the hills and forests, and especially in the mountains, covering the Western parts of this Island. It is supposed that the Saxons called this district Gwalles, considering the Britons as Gauls; their language being named Gwallish, whence are said to have been derived the modern words Wales and Welsh. The Britons themselves, however, are asserted to have called their country Cambria, to commemorate their own ancient name of Cymry, which the Welsh still retain. But beside these domestic colonists, others of the persecuted Britons entirely abandoned their native country; and, under the conduct of their Chiefs and Prelates, crossed the sea, and took possession of the desolate lands on the western coast of Armorica; and having subdued the neighbouring settlements, they called the district Bretagne, or Brittany, in memory of that country whence they had departed.

To these two asylums of their exiled nation, the ancient Britons removed all their national chronicles and records, which were written in a language held in great contempt and neglect by all the succeeding possessors of England. An acquaintance with the old British literature was thus confined to the Welsh counties; but it was probably supposed that they contained many ancient documents concerning the history of this Island, of which a few brief notices are now to be given

The Bards of Gaul and Britain were, for a considerable time, the principal historians of their

domestie annals; and hence the writings of the latter contain particular accounts of their conflicts with the Saxons, and the genealogical succession of their Sovereigns up to the reign of Brute, 1136 years before the Christian era, and thence backward to the days of Adam. Some of the most eminent of these are those books of ancient Welsh histories, called the Triades, from their being written in stanzas of three lines each, containing a summary of three excellent or remarkable things; a style of which the origin may probably be traced to about 700 years before the birth of Christ, as a corresponding passage occurs in the book of Proverbs, chap. xxx. verses 15-23. The collections of Triades are of different kinds, Theological, Philosophical, Poetical, &c.; and the Historical contain many memorials of remarkable events in ancient Britain, though they are deficient in dates, and, considered separately, are not well adapted for preserving the connexion of History. They are not, however, to be viewed as the production of one individual or period, but as having been accumulated by national exertion as events took place; so that while some are extremely ancient, others fall into the track of ordinary history, and others reach even so late as the 12th century.

Next to these poems, the books entitled the Genealogies of the British Saints, best illustrate the ancient Ecclesiastical History of this Island: and show that most of the Welsh Churches were founded by those Christians who lost their property under the growing power of the Saxons, about A. D. 584, or by their immediate descendants, who embraced a religious life in the solitary recesses of the mountains.

The most celebrated of the British Bardic Historians was called Merlinus Ambrosius, who lived about A. D. 480, and is said to have foretold the arrival and conquests of the Saxons. His prophetical odes have been frequently printed, and were translated into Latin prose by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and into English by Thomas Heywood. He is reported to have been the son of a nun called Matilda, daughter of Publicus, Lord of Mathtravel, by a supernatural being, and it is added, that he at length fell into a magic slumber in the Isle of Avallon, which probably gave rise to the story of another Merlin, surnamed Avallonius. A third of the name is called Wyllt, or the savage, and Caledonius, from the country he resided in; he is said to have been taught by Taliesin, to have flourished in the 6th and 7th centuries, and also to have written prophetical verses. Llywarch-Hen, or Llywarch the aged, a Prince of Argoed in Cumberland, was another famous bard, who flourished from about A. D. 520 to 630. Many of his poems are yet extant, in which he celebrates his twentyfour sons all killed in battle against the Saxons, whose increasing power he steadily opposed; but at length he sought the protection of Cynddylan, a Prince of Powys, and is said to have died at the age of 150, in a solitary cell in the parish of Llanvor, near Bala in Merionethshire. Eight of the heroic elegies of this poet have been translated by Mr Rich. Thomas, A. B., and a literal version of several of his works was published by W. Owen, F. R. S. in 1792; to which may be added the interesting treatise of Mr Sharon Turner, on the Genuineness of the Poems of Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch-Hen and Merlin, (Caledonius) with specimens. The

principal work of Aneurin is a poem called the Gododin, on the Battle of Cattraeth, in which he fought against the Saxons. He was a Northern British Chieftain in the 6th century; and such was the slaughter of that battle, in which the Saxons conquered, that he was one of only three surviving leaders; he was afterwards treacherously killed by one Eiddyn. Taliesin is commonly called the Chief of the Bards; and his most important poems are those which celebrate the battles of the Saxons and Britains. He flourished from A. D. 520 to 570, and tradition calls him an orphan found by Elfin, son of Prince Gwyddno, at his wear, by whom he was brought up. He was educated in Glamorgan under Cadogan the Wise, and became Bard to Urien, King of a little state called Reged, to whom he dedicated ten poems on his patriotic battles; but he also composed elegies on other British warriors.

But the most eminent existing British Historian, properly so called, is Gildas, surnamed the Wise, who is said to have been born in Wales in 511. He was probably a Monk of Bangor, but he was certainly a celebrated and assiduous preacher of Christianity, after he returned to England from a residence abroad, though he at last retired to one of the islands called the Holmes in the British Channel. Being disturbed by pirates, he removed his monastery to Glastonbury, where he died about 571. There are said to have been three persons call Gildas, surnamed Albanius, Cambricus, and Badonicus; and several books are attributed to him for which there is no authority. The only work which can with certainty be assigned to him, is an Epistle on the Destruction of