degree, the lineaments of humanity; they commemorated the struggles of their countrymen in strains worthy of liberty, such as brought down upon their heads the vengeance of the royal invaders.*

The 'GODODIN' of the great Aneuryn,—extolled alike by Milton, by Gray, and Warton,-re-echoes, in wild and plaintive numbers, the feelings of the few distinguished patriots retreating from the hard-fought field; for of those few, like the unhappy Dante, was the poet himself.

From the ninth until nearly the twelfth century, the bards, authorized by their princes, classed the leading families into twenty tribes, of which five were declared royal and fifteen common.

Other founders of the old families, branches of which still exist in the modern gentry,-though not included in the tribes,— were distinguished for surpassing merit, and are no less honour ably recorded both in history and by the muse.

The sense thus entertained of patriotic worth was shewn by the indignation excited against the name of the treacherous JESTYN's having found its way into the Royal Registry, while that of BROCHWEL, a noble prince of Powis, who held Pengwern (Shrewsbury) for his capital, had been passed over unnoticed. Two only of these interesting records have hitherto seen the light; and Mr. Yorke, of Erthig, in his amusing work on the Royal Tribes,-which it is to be regretted he never completed,―laments that so many valuable documents of ancient British history had yet to appear, and still wore only their native garb.t

* Lochlin ploughs the watery way;
There the Norman sails afar,
Catch the winds, and join the war;
Black and huge along they sweep,
Burthens of the angry deep.

Triumph of Owen.—Gray,

+ Alluding to the Triades, Tysilyo; the Latin works of Nennius, Giraldus, Paris, Polydore, Verunius, Pryce, Llwyd, Powel, and Caius; all indeed relating to Wales. They were, and still are for the most part, without Translations, though they have supplied valuable materials, and still more frequent authorities for the works of other writers.

The fifteen common tribes, with the respective representatives of each, formed the nobility, and to this source do the present nobility, and land owners of the principality, chiefly owe their descent. So enthusiastic, indeed, were the family attachments of the bards, and such the national veneration for the rights of lineage, that, in 1079, Griffith, son of Cynan, ranking first in the roll of the Royal Tribes, recovered his crown of North Wales from the Prince elect, Trahaern ap Caradog, at the battle of Carno. As lineal descendant of the great Roderick, he obtained the supremacy of the entire principality in accordance with one of the laws of his ancestor, Howel Dda, or Howel the Good, that the princes of South Wales and Powis should be considered tributary to the north.

Unfortunately for the peace and independence of the country, the respect for Royal Tribes and pure descent was not hedged in by the divinity of indefeasible right-by that idol of personal importance—the accumulative law of primogeniture, which combines and perpetuates power, and by that of legitimacy, which preserves it in a distinctive branch.

The line of succession, on the other hand, was arbitrarily broken, both by the princes and the nobility, while the equal division of property by gavel kind further augmented the evils and distractions consequent upon a series of invasions by formidable foes. In seasons of emergency, indeed, the confederated princes elected a dictator, who bore the title of Pendragon (head of all Britain), and among such are to be found the Arthurs and the Alfreds of their heroic times.* This rare dignity was of old confined to one imperial line; but subsequently extended to two of its branchesthe Cynethian and Cornwall families, till it ceased in the person of the last king of the ancient Britons.+

From the invasion of Cæsar until the reign of Griffith, in the twelfth century, the calamities of intestine feuds and foreign thral

For some admirable pictures of these bold and chivalrous days, the reader is referred to the poems of Warton, Gray, the minor poems of Milton, and their followers.

† Cadwallader.

dom had their source in the mistaken policy of subdividing laws. Thus, after his victory at Carno, this martial prince is said to have been surprised, and thrown into prison, by his rival. He escaped only, after long durance, by the daring act of a young Welshman, Kynrig Hir, or the Tall, who, taking advantage of the inebriety of the gaoler, carried away his prince, laden as he was with irons, on his back. Surviving to the age of eighty-two, this able ruler reigned for a period of fifty-seven years, equally annoyed, it is stated, by his enemies the English, and by his friends the Welsh. He fought hand to hand with that hardy baron, Fitzwarren, entrusted by Henry I. with the care of the marches, and finally wrested from him his castle of Whittington. Accomplished as brave, he improved the national minstrelsy, introducing from Ireland, then the 'land of harps,' some of the fine old melodies, abler performers, and a better order of instruments. He further regulated the great family pedigrees, no trivial task, and fixed the various heraldic distinctions of his illustrious countrymen.

'Sus horridus, atraque Tigris

Squamosusque Draco, et fulvâ cervice Leœna.'

But what redounds less to his credit, he is said to have been the first to promulgate the system of the British game laws. The founder also of the House of Gwyder, among his descendants, he ranks Sir John Wynn, the historian, whose account of his journey to court contains many curious particulars of the times. In his dealings with the church, and even with his own countrymen, Sir John was considered too close and shrewd a bargainer, and a tradition is yet current, that the sprite of the old gentleman does penance under the great water-fall of Rhaiader y Wennol-there to be purged and spouted upon till purified from all his overreaching acts—foul deeds done in his days of nature.'

'Aliis sub gurgite vasto

Infectum eluitur scelus.'

CHAPTER II.

THE DEATH OF LLEWELLYN.

Ye that o'er Menai's darkened wave impend;

Majestic battlements! Thou tower sublime,
From whose broad brows the slender turret springs,
Light as the plumage from the warrior's helm,
The pensive bard, of Edward's martial fame
Regardless, from your splendid ruin turns
Aside to mourn o'er sad Llewellyn's fate.

Sotheby's Tour.

HISTORY has recorded few events more replete with pathetic interest than the fate of the last of the Llewellyns, justly entitled 'the Great' for at the moment he fell, a victim to treachery, he left his country in battle array upon the sides of her majestic Snowdon, and her fall as rapidly followed upon his own. When we track his bold and able movements, in the various campaigns against a powerful and overwhelming enemy, as they are described by the old historians, and while we gaze on the spot where he closed his sad and chequered career, we feel as much admiration of his genius and patriotism, as sorrow for his untimely doom. With eager curiosity we examine the route he is described to have taken in his last daring expedition into South Wales, while Edward lay encamped on the plains of Snowdon, eluding the vigilance of his wary foe, and still holding the strong passes, the fortified positions, and once magnificent castle of the King of Mountains. Step by step we trace the line of march, pointed out by the Welsh chroniclers of this last and most arduous of all his exploits, by which he made himself master—with a view of reinforcing his army-of great part of South Wales. As in most of his actions with the English, ability, decision,

and rapidity of movement are the prominent features of that fatal, yet memorable effort to break the bonds of his unhappy country. And strenuously as his royal predecessors had asserted her independence, and the faith and right of treaties, when that independence was lost, no one seems to have combined so many noble and amiable qualities with so much martial skill and energy, or to have been equally admired and beloved. His influence enabled him to unite the most factious princes and nobles in one common cause; his wisdom directed their counsels, and opened the way with his sword to renewed and simultaneous exertions, which ceased only with his life.

A series of brilliant actions during the minority of Edward I, whom he had thus early foiled in the field, gave rise, it is said, to a personal animosity in that prince, to be appeased only by the downfal of Llewellyn and his people.

The humiliations suffered by Edward when a prisoner with his royal father in the hands of the haughty Leicester, who entered into close alliance with the Welsh prince, and bore his captives as state pageants along with him, must, doubtless, have embittered his feelings when King of England. It could not be more strongly shewn than by the manner of his taking advantage of the long romantic passion entertained by Llewellyn for Eleanora de Montford, to whom he had been affianced in her childhood, as an additional bond of union between the Earl and himself. She even then gave promise of the rare beauty and superior accomplishments, both of mind and person, for which she was subsequently so distinguished, and which changed the policy of the prince into the impassioned tenderness of an ardent lover. Nor, though so early formed, does the attachment seem to have been only on Llewellyn's side; young as she was, the impression made on her tender years, by the amiable qualities of the prince, was not such as either time or distance could efface. The league was broken up; her father had in turn been vanquished-had died; and her lover was no longer the successful champion of his country, nor master of his own dominions. The

C