402 
to describe his adopted mode of effec- 
tually curing a long-complained-of 
evil, and permitits inspection by those 
interested. 
Mr. Gilbertson truly observes, that 
kitchens and wash-houses, which ne- 
cessarily are situated under many 
good town-houses, may, in the mode 
he has adopted, be prevented from 
sending up into such houses the disa- 
greeable’ and injurious smells and 
damps from steam, which now are too 
common. Brewing, likewise, by simi- 
lar adaptations, may be carried on upon 
many private premises, from whence, 
now, its smell and steam exclude the 
practice. In large towns there are 
also tripe-boilers, cat and dog’s-meat 
boilers, glue, size, and varnish, makers, 
and a large class of other tradesmen, 
who use coppers or boilers, the fumes 
and steams from which are now woe- 
fully offensive in their several neigh- 
bourhoods; most or all of which in- 
convenience might be prevented, and, 
I presume to hope, ere long will be 
so, through the efforts of other boards 
or vestries, and the corporation of 
London patriotically imitating the ex- 
ample which now has been set them. 
‘W ESTMINSTERENSIS. 
# © The edilor begs to add his opinion, 
that there are many trades aud manufacto- 
ries carried onin London, and other places, 
wherein great and essential improvements 
have taken place, more or less recently, 
and been less or more generally adopted ; 
and which, in no slight ov indirect way, 
concern the public comfort and welfare; 
which improvements, nevertheless, are but 
partially known and used; and, particu- 
larly, have not yet had the opportunity of 
being adopted in other practicable ways 
and situations ; like the new adoptions of 
the improved tallow-melter’s coppers, last 
alluded to by his valued correspondent 
above: to all notifications of this kind, Lis 
pages will ever be open, and the names of 
parties, &c, communicated to the editor, 
(for authenticity and private use,) withheld 
therein, whenever the same may be 
wished, 
a 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
LETTERS ON WALES, 
From Griffith Tudor, at Icstiniog, to his 
friend Frank Wilmot at Oxford. 
LETTER Il. 
Welsh Poetry—Aneurin—The Gododin 
and Odes of the Months. 
Y pear WiLmMot,—Y ou have my 
. hearty thanks for your long 
epistle, which has just reached me ; 
and, more particularly, for the free 
anc honest remarks it contains on 
Tudor’s Letters on Wales. 
[ Dec. 1 
both mine. Partial as you may sup- 
pose me to be to our national min- 
strelsy, I can still fecl the justice of 
your strictures upon it. It is, indeed, 
as you truly observe, according to our 
present notions of poetry, more artifi~ 
cial than natural, better qualificd to 
win the ear than to captivate thei ma- 
gination or instruct the judgment. 
And for all this I endeavoured to ac- 
count, in my last letter, by referring it 
to that association with the strains of 
the musician, which it has -stablished 
from tine immemorial. But will you 
be bold enough to assert, that this was 
not the most prominent characteristic 
of all ancient minstrelsy? Take, for 
example, that of Amphion and Or- 
pheus, who charmed not only the brute 
creation, but made eyen sticks and 
stones alive to the “‘ mazy riming soul 
of melody,” as they sang their poctical 
incantations to the sound of their 
lyres. And I verily believe, that 
when the Roman orator spoke of 
“stirring up the very stones of Rome 
to mutiny,” his oration would not haye 
evaporated ina mere rhetorical flou- 
rish, had he fortunately possessed the 
skill of cither of the aforesaid musi- 
cians. But, jesting apart, does it not 
strike you, my dear Frank, as it docs 
me most forcibly, that to gratify the 
ear, and the ear only, was the grand 
aim of the primitive poetry of alk 
countries; and that the character in 
which the Muse now appears, as the 
charmer of our fancy and. the en- 
lightener of our understanding, is in 
reality the more artificial one? Ori- 
ginally a mere minstrel, in the sim- 
plest sense of the word, she has 
become by turns a painter, alogician, 
a philosopher, and a divine; from the 
unsophisticated child of nature she 
has grown into the accomplished pupil 
of academies and of schools. If lam 
right in this, the distinguishing feature 
of Welsh poetry, which you deem so 
much against it, if no proof of its pro- 
gressive advances in the scate of re- 
finement, is at least an unquestionable 
mark of its ancient origin. Concede 
to me but this, and I will ask no 
more, until you have attained your 
meditated proficiency in my native 
tongue; when I shail expect you will 
also admit, that the metrical beauties 
of the Cambrian Muse make some 
amends for her deficiency in those 
other acquirements, which you deem 
so essential. 
When I closed my last letter, it was 
my 
