of these is a poem in the 'Black Book' called 'Gereint, the son of Erbin,'-a name which also appears as the title of one of the prose Mabinogion.' Here Arthur figures as the leader of a group of warriors, of whom Gereint is the chief, fighting at a place called Llongborth. 'At Llongborth saw I of Arthur's Brave men hewing with steel

(Men of the) emperor, director of toil.

At Llongborth there fell of Gereint's
Brave men from the borders of Devon,
And, ere they were slain, they slew.'

This poem would seem to speak of a historical Arthur-the gwledig, or war leader, the dux bellorum whose twelve great battles are celebrated by Nennius. We have nothing else, however, to indicate that the earlier bards, any more than the story-teller in Kulhwch and Olwen,' drew any distinction between Arthur and the other mythical heroes of the Celtic fairy-land. Nor do we fare much better when we come to the bards who lived from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, during and after the great efflorescence of Arthurian romance which began with Geoffrey of Monmouth. While the 'Mabinogion' form a singularly fascinating Welsh contribution to Arthurian prose romance, the medieval Welsh bards added nothing of value to the poetical development of Arthurian story. Inheritors though they were of the fairest and richest demesne of European romance, they seem to have deliberately turned their backs upon its alluring prospects, to cultivate, for the most part, the barren soil of topical and complimentary poetry. Hence the productions of the second great period of bardic activity in Wales, consisting as they do mostly of panegyrics and elegies of nobles and high-born dames of the day, possess singularly little interest for the modern reader. It was not until the latter half of the fourteenth century that a poet-Dafydd ap Gwilym-appeared who, by turning to Love and Nature for his themes, proved that adherence to technical bardic conventions was not incompatible with genuine lyric fervour.

And yet, despite the limitations and the unadventurous character of the bardic experiments of the period, the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries in Wales, as in the Vol. 212.-No. 423.

2 D

rest of western Europe, witnessed a remarkable intellectual awakening which sought expression in many new forms of literary and artistic enterprise. The Welsh princes of this period were enlightened and liberal patrons of the arts, and the coming of the Normans gave an immense stimulus to literary activity in particular. We have records which indicate that, by the end of the twelfth century, it had become the fashion to encourage bards and musicians in their respective crafts by instituting competitions between them on lines which clearly foreshadow the subsequent development of the Eisteddfod. Even the Eisteddfodic ceremony of' chairing' the successful bard seems to have existed in some rudimentary form, for in the Laws of Howel the Good-the codification of which is itself a signal monument of the intellectual activity of the period-we read:

'From the person who shall conquer where there is contention for a chair, he [the judge of the court] is to have a bugle-horn and a gold ring, and the pillow placed under him in his chair.' As to the Eisteddfod itself, the first authentic record of the holding of a festival similar to the modern Welsh national gathering is found in one of the Welsh Bruts,* and tells us how the Lord Rhys ap Gruffydd gave, in 1176, a great banquet in his castle at Cardigan.

'Notices of it a year in advance had been published, we are told, not only in Wales, but also in England, Scotland, and Ireland. We observe a difference between it and the Eisteddfod of the present day in that not only the best poet was then awarded a chair, but also the best musician, whereas now the former alone gets a chair. In other respects the Cardigan banquet was like the modern Eisteddfod, namely, in that the men of South Wales, for example, excelled in music, and those of Gwynedd (the North) in poetry.'†

Under such patronage it is not surprising to find that 'warranted' bards flourished by the score. And not only were the Welsh princes prodigal of their bounty to bards and minstrels, several of them

'knew

Themselves to sing and build the lofty rhyme.'

See 'Bruts from the Red Book of Hergest,' p. 334 (Rhys and Evans. Oxford, 1887).

The Welsh People,' first ed., p. 516 (Rhys and Brynmor-Jones),

'High-born Hoel,'* the son of Owain Gwynedd, and Owain Kyveiliog, prince of Powys, who sang the celebrated elegy known as the song of the 'Hirlas Horn,' were among the best bards of the period, and remind us of those courts of Provence where the troubadour's art became the study and the pastime even of kings. Indeed, the position and the prerogatives of the Welsh bards during the period of the Princes appear to have been curiously similar to those of the Provençal troubadours. It was not until Dafydd ap Gwilym's time that the influence of Provençal poetry made itself appreciably felt in Wales, as it had already done in the rest of Europe; but from the moment Gruffydd ab Cynan, Rhys ap Tewdwr, and others, began to extend their patronage to them, the bards acquired in the courts of the Welsh chieftains a status and social privileges equal to those enjoyed by the troubadours in the south of France.

Nor is it alone on the strength of their common enjoyment of courtly patronage that the Welsh bards of the age of the Princes claim kinship with the troubadours. In Provence and in Wales alike the incontinent pursuit of ingenious metrical artifices ultimately all but extinguished the flame of poesy. The troubadours had early evolved among themselves a metrical 'code' much more elaborate and intricate than anything ever devised in Wales. Not until the fourteenth century did the lawgivers of the Welsh bardic order prescribe the 'twentyfour measures' which were long held to be the necessary constituents of an ode worthy of the Eisteddfod chair, whereas a thirteenth-century treatise on the art of poetry, compiled at Toulouse, shows that the troubadours had even then thirty-four different ways of rhyming, and seventy-two different kinds of stanzas, bearing each its distinctive name. Yet it was a bard who derived much of his inspiration from the troubadours, and many of whose odes are imitations of conventional types of Provençal song, who strikes the first great note in Welsh lyric poetry and subdues a rigorous metrical system to the needs of an imperative poetic impulse. Historically, Dafydd ap Gwilym traces his line of poetical descent from Bernart of Ventadorn and Arnaut of

* Cf. Gray's 'Bard': 'high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llywellyn's lay.'

Maruehl, and from the German minnesinger, Walther von der Vogelweide. There is nothing, however, to show that the Welsh bard had any direct knowledge of the works of either the troubadours or the minnesingers; and, alike in his independence of native bardic convention, and in the freshness and the freedom of his outlook upon life, he is one of the most original singers of the Middle Ages. Dafydd ap Gwilym, though he had his share of learning, and was brought up to the bardic craft under courtly auspices, instinctively rebelled against the traditional culture of the cloister and the schools. He dared, open-eyed, to 'gaze on nature's naked loveliness,' and he found it good. He is, above everything, the poet of the joy of life; to him 'sunshine and health,' and-as he frankly adds-'woman' are the cardinal essentials of earthly happiness. To this creed of sensuous enjoyment he held manfully through a life-time's warfare against sour priests and envious friars.

'Black sinner though I be' (he protests in one of his odes), 'yet have I art enough to get me a grave under the green leaves; there shall the letters of my name be duly cut, and memorials of Summer be laid over my head, and on the tombstone an image of my mistress, to stir my love e'en though I lie so low!'

In his revolt against the corrupt religion of his time, and in his passionate delight in all the wonder and the wealth of the visible world, Dafydd ap Gwilym anticipates the intrepid spirits of the later Renaissance. But we have to come down much nearer to our own time to find a poet who lived in such close intimacy with Nature as he, and whose songs so quiver and throb with the joyous impulse of Nature's own music. His songs are the spontaneous outpourings of a heart that was as blithe as a bird's, responding instinctively to the seasons' influences, and knowing, away from the haunts of man, no enemy but winter and rough weather. It was with him at the close of the fourteenth century, and not with the crowd of bards who, some three or four generations earlier, thronged the courts of the Princes, that the Welsh Muse came to her own, and fulfilled the promise of her obscure and stormy prime.

Art. 4.-THE ART OF HENRY JAMES.

The Novels and Tales of Henry James. New York edition. In twenty-four volumes. London: Macmillan, 19071909.

THE recent appearance of a definitive edition of Mr James's novels offers to his readers what he himself would call a beautiful incentive' to take a general view of his work.

Mr James's literary activity has extended over more than twenty years, and during that time not only his language and manner, but the fundamental theory of his art, has been modified in a way so curious and interesting as to provoke continual discussion, and divide his readers somewhat sharply into the champions of his earlier and his later styles. The publication of his 'complete works' seems the opportune moment for summing up the arguments on both sides, and trying to reach a general conclusion which shall more clearly interpret the importance of his work; yet the reperusal of these volumes checks the very zeal it excites by making the reader pause and ask himself, 'What need has Henry James of champions or interpreters?' Why, indeed, in such a case, 'jostle the elbow of slow-fingering Time'? Mr James has no need of such aid. He is bound to enter into his own; his final form is indestructible. But if words in recognition of his eminence can serve no end for him, they constitute an act which may have its uses for his public. They have the purifying grace of a confession. We know where he stands. We do ourselves a service in noting where we stand as well.

The opportunity of applying this test is abundantly aided by the prefaces to the new edition. In these prefaces Mr James has shed a vivid light on the theory of his own work, and incidentally on the art of fiction in general. They represent, in fact, the first serious attempt ever made in English to call upon that bewildered art to pause and give a conscious account of itself; to present its credentials and justify its existence. In these remarkable pages Mr James has again and again illustrated his general theory by taking to pieces before the reader the