lowing bridges in the order of succession which is here assigned them. A bridge of three arches over the river Towy; Pontar Towy, over the same river, about ten miles above the town of Swansea. This was of one arch, its chord eighty feet, with one cylinder over the haunches. Bettws-bridge in Caermarthenshire, consisting of one arch, forty-five feet in the span. Llandoverybridge, in the same county, consisting of one arch, eighty-four feet in the span, with one cylinder over the arches. Wychbree-bridge, over the river Towy, about two miles above Morriston: this has one arch, ninety-five feet in span, twenty feet in altitude, with two cylinders over each of the haunches to relieve them. He built Aberavon-bridge in Glamorganshire, consisting of one arch seventy-feet in span, fifteen feet in altitude, but without cylinders. He likewise built Glasburybridge, near Hay, in Brecknockshire, over the river Wye: it consists of five arches, and is a light, elegant bridge. The arches are small segments of large circles or high piers, as best adapted to facilitate the passage of floods under the bridge, and travellers over it.

William Edwards devised very important improvements in the art of bridge-building. His first bridges of one arch he found to be too high, so as to be difficult for carriages, and even horses, to pass over. The steeps at each end of New-bridge in particular are very inconvenient, from the largeness and altitude of the arch. This culiarity, it is true, adds much to its perspective effect as a part of the landscape; but the sober markettraveller is not recompensed for the toil of ascending and descending an

pe

artificial mountain, by the comparison of a rainbow and the raptures of a draughtsman. He avoided this defect in his subsequent works; but it was by a cautious gradation that he attempted to correct his early and erroneous principles, and to consult the ease of the public, at the same time that he surmounted the greatest difficulties of his occupation. At length he discovered, not by reading, conversation, or any other mode of extrinsic instruction, but by dint of his own genius, matured in the school of experience, that where the abutments are secure from the danger of giving way, arches of much less segments, and of far less altitude, than general opinion had hitherto required, are perfectly secure, and render the bridges much easier for carriages to pass over, and in every respect adapt them better to the purposes of a ready and free communication. Impressed with the importance of those rules, by which he had assiduously perfected his own practice, he was in the habit of considering his own branch of architecture as reducible to three great requisites: durability, the freedom of the water flowing under, and the ease of the traffic passing over. These are certainly maxims of peculiar importance in bridges of one arch, which are not only the best adapted to situations where tremendous floods occur, but in many cases are the only bridges securely practicable in mountain vallies.

The literary knowledge of William Edwards was at first confined to the Welsh language, which he could read and write from early youth. He was supposed to be rather obstinate when a boy; an imputation which generally rests on genius, that sees beyond the scope of

those

those by whom it is controlled. His own account of this alleged temper was, that he always considered whether any thing that was proposed to him, or any principle he was required to act upon, coincided with his own ideas of rectitude. If he found that it did, he firmly persisted in it. His general character was that of uncommon resolution and inflexibility. He was very wild, as it is commonly reported of him, till about eighteen years of age. After that period, he became very steady and sedate. A neighbour instructed him a little in arithmetic. About the age of twenty or twenty-one, he undertook the building of a large iron forge at Cardiff, and lodged with a person named Walter Rosser, a baker, and blind. This man taught English reading. William Edwards was alive to every opportunity of improvement, and rapidly acquired what he eagerly pursued. He seems, indeed, to have possessed a mind, that could not easily be stopped in its progress. To the two languages, however, his attainments in literature were confined; but their application to the various branches of study in which he was engaged, afforded constant exercise even to his industry and spirit of enquiry. After he had performed his engagements at Cardiff, he built many good houses, with several forges and smelting-houses, and was for many years employed at works of this nature by John Morris, of Clasemont, esq.

Caerphilly castle is in his native parish. He has often been heard to say, that he would frequently visit that celebrated ruin, and study the principles of its excellent masonry, with all its various peculiarities, appearing in those venerable remains.

He considered himself to have derived moge important knowledge from this, than from any other circumstance. Indeed, his principles were formed on those of the Caerphilly castle masonry. He was, what may with sufficient propriety be termed, a mason of the ancient castle, or Gothic school. His manner of hewing and dressing his stones was exactly that of the old castlemasons. He put them together in a style of closeness, neatness, and firmness, that is never seen but in those ancient, and, as far as we know, everlasting edifices. His son is perhaps the only workman remaining, who on any occasion prac tises the ancient masonry; and in the modern he is equally a proficient.

The full complement of business, which usually attends a high repu tation in any line, might be sup posed to have engrossed all the time and thoughts of a self-taught man. But William Edwards united with his trade the occupation of a farmer during the whole of his life. Nor was Sunday, though a sabbath, a day of rest to him; for then he had clerical functions to exercise. In his religious sentiments he was a dissenter, of the denomination styled Independents. About 1750 he was regularly ordained according to the usage of the sect of which he was a member; and about the same time was chosen minister of the congregation meeting at a chapel in his na. tive parish, where he officiated for forty years, and till he died. He was a Calvinist, but of a very libe ral description: indeed he carried his charity so far, that many persons suspected he had changed his opinions, and for that reason spoke very unhandsomely of him. For a length of time during the last years

of his ministry, he always avoided in his discourses those points of doctrine that were more peculiarly in dispute between the Calvinists and, other parties. He frequently repeated and enforced a maxim, well worthy the adoption of the most enlightened and eminent divines: that the love of God and of our neighbour is the ultimate end of all religions, which having attained, their possessors had arrived at their object; and that it is against the spirit of Christianity to suppose, that among all parties, be they what they may, there are not many who have indisputably obtained this distinguishing characteristic. Few among his party were considered to be so edifying in their discourses as he was, and this specimen has a strong tendency to accredit the opinion but sentiments of such liberality and moderation must have been suspected of trenching a little on the soundness of his Calvinism. Another principle of his evinced that his judgment was equal to his candour. He always declared it to be the duty of a religious society, to support their minister decently; and for this reason he took from his congregation the stipulated salary, though he never converted a single farthing of it to his own use, but distributed the whole among the poor members of the church, and even added very considerably to this largess from his own personal property. He very wisely alleged, that though a lucrative business would have allowed him to officiate gratuitously, his successor might be differently circumstanced; and the people, relieved from a burden for a time, would look with an evil eye on an instructor, who had it not in his power to exhibit similar disin

terestedness. So judicious a mixture of prudence and generosity might furnish a lesson to certain undiscriminating enthusiasts, who brand with the opprobrious name of hire those fair emoluments, from which respectable abilities, however or wherever employed, are entitled to derive ease and competence. From these authentic notices it will sufficiently appear, that those who have termed him sarcastically, or, by way of ridicule, a methodist preacher, have egregiously misrepresented him. He never officiated at any of the methodist meetings. He trequently preached at the dissenting meeting-house of the rev. Lewis Rees, father of Dr. Abraham Rees, the editor of the new Encyclopedia. This meeting-house was situated near Morriston, the building of which he superintended. Many of his discourses were taken down in short-hand by William Jones, clerk to Mr. Padley, of Swansea. They were always delivered in Welsh. It may well be supposed that he detested an intolerant or persecuting spirit, and always reprobated the rancour of too many dissenters towards the established church. He was well respected by the most intelligent an:l liberal of all sects and parties, and died, very much lamented by all who knew him, in the seventieth year of his age, in the year 1789, and in his native parish of Eglwysilan, where he lies buried in the church-yard. He had six children: four sons, and two daughters. Thomas, David, and Edward, were brought up to their father's trade; William was shot at Gibraltar in the American war.

His son David is likewise very skilful in bridge-building, the prin- · ciples of which he learnt by work

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he removed to Donnington, near Shrewsbury, where he served church, and taught a school, for about twenty-six pounds a year. He changed his residence in 1753 (with his wife and two children), to serve the curacy of Walton, uear Liverpool, for which, and the care of a school, he was allowed forty pounds and a house. Here he found all the articles of life so expensive, that, in a letter to his intimate friend, Mr. Richard Morris, of the Navy-office, the brother to Lewis Morris, he expresses a wish that he could obtain in Wales, in exchange for it, a curacy of only thirty pounds. On this slender, and hard-earned pittance, his family was almost starving, when, two years afterwards, he was induced to remove to London, in search of something more valuable. His friend, Lewis Morris, applied for preferment to lord Powis, but his application was unsuccessful, and poor Goronwy was compelled to accept, for a short time, the curacy of North-holt, in Middlesex. Here he was once more on the point of starving, when the rectory of St. Andrews, in the county of Brunswick, in Virginia, worth about two hundred pounds per annum, was obtained for him; and, in the month of November, 1757, he sailed from this country to take possession of it. Here his situation seems to have been still distressing. He had to live among men whose whole conduct he detested, and whose interest he found was pursued at the expence of every thing worthy and honourable. In only two letters that have been received by his friends in this country, of the great number that he wrote, he complains, that all his letters from

hence were opened before they came to his hands. With one of these letters he himself travelled seventy miles, and with the other nearly as far, to secure them a passage, by delivering them himself to captains of vessels. In one of them, dated July 1767, he states the loss of all his family, except one boy.

Thus had this poor fellow, though a man of the highest talents, to struggle with misfortune through every part of his life; and the close attention that, in England, he paid to the duties of his station as a schoolmaster, and his application to the study of languages and general literature, during what ought to have been hours dedicated to rest, with the necessary anxieties for his family, tended greatly to undermine his health. His character throughout appears to have been free from stain. He was not ambitious, a comfortable subsistence seems to have been the utmost limits of his wishes, yet his country did not give it; and with every qualifi cation that could render him of use to society, he was banished from his native home, to seek an asylum, for a mere existence, in a voluntary transportation from every thing he held dear and valuable.

The acquirements of Goronwy Owen were very extensive. To a perfect acquaintance with the Latin and Greek languages, he added a knowledge of Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, and Syriac. His Latin odes have been universally admired for the purity of their language, and for the elegance of their expression. As a Welsh poet, he ranks superior to all since the days of Dafydd ap Gwilym. Those parts of his works that have been printed, are consi

dered