And, in the first instance, we shall examine the British traditions as detailed by Mr. Williams, because they not merely ascribe the greatest antiquity to Christianity in England, but because they have, at first sight, more pretensions to antiquity themselves, than the story of King Lucius, in Venerable Bede, in whose pages it appeared, for the first time, in the eighth century.

The introduction of Mr. Williams's work is occupied with details on the " Bardism" of the Cymry; a very curious and important subject, inasmuch as the traditions of ancient British history, whether correct or otherwise, appear to have been handed down orally by the Bards till a comparatively late period. The system of Bardism was in full operation in Britain at the period of its conquest by the Romans; and while the Druidical branch of the order, that is, the class which was immediately devoted to the religious ministrations of their superstition, became extinct under the Roman dominion, the Bards, who were the historians and poets of that rude people, continued, as amongst the Celtic populations of Ireland and of Scotland, to be a recognised and an important class in the community. It seems, however, that, in the age of Cæsar, the Druids in Gaul were acquainted with the use of letters, and did not scruple to employ them in all matters except those which referred to their discipline," which they transmitted by oral tradition only (Williams, p. 31). Mr. Williams infers from this fact, that the British Bards and Druids, from whom those of the Continent are said to have derived their institute, must also have employed writing in aid of their tradition; but this argument does not appear very conclusive, because the Gaulish practice may have been a corruption or innovation; and we are told elsewhere by Mr. Williams that the Druidic system was only preserved pure in Britain. With reference to the Gaulish Druidism in particular, he says (p. 39),

"It is evident from these words [of Cæsar] not only that the parent institution was more perfect in matters of detail, but that the Gallic system was even destitute of fundamental and fixed principles."

The purity of Druidism, indeed, was only preserved in Britain, according to the British records produced by Mr. Williams (ibid.); and thus the use of writing in Gaul does not necessarily prove that there were written historical records in Britain, amongst the Druids, as Mr. Williams argues (p. 31). He quotes certain "Law Triads of Dyvnwal Moelmud" to prove that it was the duty of Bards to keep a written record of "pedigrees of nobility by marriages, inheritances, and heroic actions" (p. 31); but a question will at once arise as to the antiquity and genuineness of the

works from which this quotation is made. These Laws of Dyvnwal Moelmud are said to be about four hundred years older than the Christian era (p. 12). But there seems to be no evidence of their existence (as far as we discover from Mr. Williams's pages) until the time of Caradoc of Llancarvan, in the twelfth century after Christ. Mr. Williams observes (p. 37), that "it is said that Dyvnwal's Laws were translated by Gildas (in the sixth century) into Latin, and that Asserius showed this translation to King Alfred; but no sufficient authority is cited for these statements. Mr. Williams admits that there is a reference to Christian practices in these Laws, but believes it to be an interpolation; and he considers the genuineness of the code to be established by internal evidence, because it refers to the incorporation of the Bardic College, and the influence and privileges of its members, and to Druidism as the established religion. But to us it seems that there is no demonstrative evidence of antiquity in these circumstances; for why should we not suppose that some persons, who lived in the age of Geoffry of Monmouth, and Caradoc of Llancarvan, may not have forged these Laws, and endeavoured to avoid the mention of Christianity (which would have exposed their fictions), and to adapt their inventions to the actual and known facts of history, so as to avoid immediate detection? Another difficulty here occurs to us with reference to documents of such vast antiquity, supposing them to be genuine. We have not observed in Mr. Williams's pages that any difference of dialect is perceptible in the various traditional documents referred to in his book. "It is remarkable," he says, "that all those which relate to the doctrine and institutes of the primitive system are invariably written in the Silurian dialect" (p. 45), i. e. in the Welsh of South Wales. Now if the Laws of Dyvnwal (supposed to have been written four centuries before Christ) had been consigned to writing, or handed down in their original form, it is hardly conceivable that there should not be some material differences in dialect between them and other productions of a much later date. It seems very strange and suspicious that the dialect of all these ancient documents should be that of South Wales;

that South Wales alone should have preserved the exact dialect once used in the whole of Britain before the Roman Conquest, and preserved it unchanged in all ages. We confess this fact appears to us to throw considerable suspicion on the genuineness of all these "ancient" documents, and inclines us to apprehend that they were forged in South Wales, in or after those ages when Geoffry of Monmouth invented such marvellous tales of British history. The British language, four hundred years before Christ, could not have been identical in all respects with the British lan

guage of six, or eight hundred, or a thousand, or fifteen hundred years after Christ.

The support and authentication of the traditions of the British Bards, by any written records, appears to us, therefore, very doubtful. It seems to us that both the arguments employed by Mr. Williams (p. 31), to establish the contrary, are inconclusive; yet in the absence of any evidence for the existence of written records, how very uncertain becomes the whole mass of traditional history and other facts conveyed in the "Triads." These Triads, or records of the Bards of Wales, profess, amongst other things, to give an account of the original peopling of Britain. They tell us what Britain was called before it was inhabited. They appear to carry the British history beyond the Deluge. And Mr. Williams himself, with their aid, professes to give accounts of the British history from about the time of the general dispersion at Babel. When we get down to Dyvnwal, four centuries before Christ, we feel quite at home-in modern times. We are not in a position to demonstrate that these traditions are absolutely false, inasmuch as history tells us nothing of Britain till shortly before the time of our Lord; but certainly all experience proves that traditions conveyed merely orally are liable, in time, to great corruptions and additions; and if we suspect that the Welsh Bards in later ages endeavoured to enhance the dignity of their nation by inventing an early history for Britain, and carrying it back to the remotest antiquity, their course was merely that which we find pursued by the bards and historians in many other nations, such as the Egyptians and Assyrians in ancient times, and the Scotch and Irish in more modern times. Forgeries of this kind, tending to enhance national honour and dignity, seem to have been practised at all times without scruple.

Mr. Williams in his notes, to which he refers in the Preface for the evidence as to the genuineness and antiquity of the Triads and other remains cited in his work, gives us the following information as to the "Historical Triads' -a series of records cast in the form which gives to them the name they bear, and which classes the events in groups of threes, which present some similarity or analogy. He quotes, in the first place, an extract from a work of Mr. Sharon Turner, which states that "the Historical Triads have been obviously put together at very different times. Some allude to circumstances about the first population and early history of the island, of which every other memorial has perished. The Triads are noticed by Camden with respect. Mr. Vaughan, the antiquary of Hengwrt, refers them to the seventh century. Some may be the records of more recent date. I think them the most curious, on the whole, of all the Welsh remains"—(p. 5).

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Now, supposing Mr. Vaughan to be correct in his view, it is surely rather unlikely that records of the seventh century after Christ could be depended on for the events of nearly three thousand previous years, which they profess to give. But it appears that some of them may be records of more recent date" than the seventh century; and it does not appear how much more recent. Mr. Owen, another writer referred to (p. 5), states that the Triads relate to persons and events from the earliest times to the beginning of the seventh century-a proof that the whole cannot be assigned to an earlier period, though it seems difficult to say why it should not be referred to a considerably later period. In fine, we come to the actual direct evidence for the antiquity of the historical Triads, which is merely this.

"The Triads which we insert above, are from a series in the second volume of the Welsh, or Myvyrian Archaiology. To the copy from which a transcript was made for that work, the following note is annexed 'These Triads were taken from the Book of Caradoc of Nantgarvan, and from the Book of Jevan Brechva, by me, Thomas Jones, of Tregaron-and these are all I could get of the three hundred-1601.' Caradoc of Nantgarvan lived about the middle of the twelfth century. Jevan Brechva wrote a Compendium of the Welsh Annals, down to 1150."-pp. 5, 6.

Now this is, it must be confessed, a very unsatisfactory proof of the antiquity of the Triads in question. All that appears to be certain is, that Thomas Jones, of Tregaron, in 1601, affirmed that the Triads he transcribed were taken from the books of Caradoc and Brechva; but there is no evidence that he was correct in this statement. It depends wholly on his assertion. And even admitting that he did state the truth, still all it amounts to is, that these Triads were extant in the twelfth century; but there is no proof whatever that they existed previously to the twelfth century. As far as we can see, there is nothing to prevent us from supposing that Thomas Jones, of Tregaron, A.D. 1601, may have been the fabricator of the Historical Triads; or that they may have been fabricated in the twelfth century. Of course, there could not have been any difficulty in composing in the twelfth or the sixteenth century, records which contained an alleged history of Britain from the general dispersion to A.D. 700. This deficiency in external evidence of authenticity, appears to us to render the value of the Welsh historical records most questionable.

Besides the "Historical Triads" of which we have been just speaking, there is frequent reference to what are called the "Institutional Triads." Of these Mr. Williams gives the following account. He quotes them from "Poems, Lyric and Pastoral," by Edward Williams, Bard.

"These Triads (our author says) are from a manuscript collection by Llywelyn Sion, a bard of Glamorgan, about the year 1560. He was one of those appointed to collect the system of Bardism as traditionally preserved in the Gorsedd Morganwg, or Congress of Glamorgan, when the maxims of the institution were in danger of being lost, in consequence of persecution."-p. 13.

The external evidence for the antiquity of these Triads here given, is very slender. It goes back no further than the year 1560. There is no evidence that Llywelyn Sion (supposing such a person to have existed) did not adulterate, or fabricate the whole body of the Triads in question. He may have been the author of them, for any thing that we can see to the contrary; for Mr. Williams's argument for their antiquity, from their agreement with the Laws of Dyvnwal, appears to us rather to throw suspicion on them; and if they suppose Bardism to be incorporated with the State, and Druidism to be flourishing, as Mr. Williams observes, in further evidence of their antiquity, it is surely quite possible that Sion, in 1560, may have possessed sufficient skill to introduce particulars of this kind into pieces which he wished to pass off as records of great antiquity. We find, however, at page 19, that Mr. Edward Williams, the author of the volumes whence these Institutional Triads are quoted, speaks of a manuscript Synopsis of Druidism, or Bardism, written by Llywelyn Sion, about 1560, and he adds, that the "truth and accuracy" of this Synopsis "are corroborated by innumerable notices, and allusions in our Bardic manuscripts of every age up to Taliesin, in the sixth century." It is very singular, that under these circumstances, the Triads should only be producible from the manuscript of Sion in the sixteenth century. Where are the more ancient manuscripts and notices of which this writer speaks? We lack evidence most sadly here.

But, in fact, a great mass of the Triads appear to rest on the same authority of a "Synopsis," or manuscript collection, of Llywelyn Sion. The author above-mentioned states, in reference to the "Theological Triads," that they are taken from the same manuscript. He adds, that this collection "was made from various manuscripts of considerable, and some say of very great antiquity-these and their authors are mentioned, and most or all of them are still extant" (p. 23). Here the writer deals in generals to such an extent, that his statements are of little value. He does not state the age of the MSS. He does not state whether he knows of their existence from personal observation or by information of others. In short, nothing can be more vague and unsatisfactory.

Reference is made in many parts of Mr. Williams's book to the "Genealogy of the Saints of Britain." From the information