CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE BOOKS PRINTED IN THE WELSH LANGUAGE, OR RELATING TO WALES, FROM THE YEAR 1546 TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. BY THE LATE Beb. William Bowlands (GWILYM LLEYN). EDITED AN ENLARGED BY THE REV. D. SILVAN EVANS, B.D. LLANIDLOES: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY JOHN PRYSE. THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER. UPWARDS of forty years ago the Rev. William Rowlands, & Wesleyan Minister stationed in Wales, began the compilation of a Register of Books published in the Principality, or having reference thereto. After many years labour and diligent research, a Prospectus was issued, proposing to publish the work in one volume at fifteen shillings. Although an energetic canvass was made throughout the Principality, the number of orders obtained werenot sufficient to encourage Mr. Rowlands to place his MSS. in the hands of a printer. Some portions of the work were however published in the Traethodydd, and of their value a reviewer in the Athenæum wrote thus:-'It yields the fruit of welldirected research, comprises a large amount of interesting matter, and furnishes the best possible aid to collectors of books, and to historians who may desire to treat either of the general or particular history of the period: with respect to Welsh affairs, as well as to Welsh literature, it is absolutely invaluable. We hope that the Author will continue his labours, and render his catalogue and commentaries complete to this third century.' All that the Author lived to complete; but it was not antil some time after his death that steps were taken to ensure its publication. The Publisher has to thank Mrs. Rowlands and her joint trustee, T. G. Jones, Esq., of Llansaintffraid, for more than one act of kindness on their part; he has also to thank the learned Editor for his valuable and willingly given assistance. It was once intended to prefix to this work a short biography of its Author; but his son-in-law, the Rev. R. Morgan, having done that in a very interesting series of papers published in Yr Eurgrawn Wesleyaidd, for 1868, there did not appear any necessity for carrying out that intention. The Subscribers who have helped to publish this work are most gratefully thanked for their assistance. Many who gave their names as Subscribers have been removed to another world, and some have been lost sight of by the whirl of circumstances; that, however, has not been considered a sufficient reason for omitting their names from the List of Subscribers, which has been printed from the Author's own Subscription Book, with such additions as the Publisher has been able to make thereto. Much has been said respecting Welsh literature. Now and then an English. penny-a-liner has declared that 'there is nothing in Welsh worth reading.' To assertions of that kind the pages which follow will form the most effective reply. It is worthy of note that the List of Subscribers to this work comprises the names of men who fill some of the highest stations in life; and equally worthy of note is the fact that a fair proportion of the Subscribers are men who 'earn their bread by the sweat of their brow.' A Monmouthshire Collier was the first person who gave his name as a subscriber to Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry. In no country will there be found a peasantry who are more addicted to reading than those that inhabit the mountains and valleys of Cambria. The Rev. John Blackwell, B.A., when addressing a bardic assembly, held at Denbigh in the year 1828, which numbered a distinguished member of the present Royal Family of Great Britain, gave utterance to these words:-'It is a fact not generally known beyond the confines of the Principality, that our monthly press issues out no fewer than fourteen periodicals, and what is an anomaly in the history of literature, to the pages of these the peasantry are almost the only contributors. And what has been the result? Look to our cottages; there is scarcely a shelf without its magazine and its Bible. Indeed were I requested to point out the most striking feature of the Principality, I would not speak of the wooded glen that echoes the sounding cataract, or the blue lake that chequers the mountain scenery. I would mention none of Nature's beauties-nor would I allude to the stupendous works of art that link our shores-I would fix my finger upon a bold, virtuous, and intelligent peasantry, who love their God and honour their king,—a peasantry with whom justice has sometimes to adjust her balance, but seldom to exert her sword.' •LLANIDLOES, July 12th, 1969. J. P. |