18 22°} 
my intention to take you by surprise 
in this, by starting some new theme, 
which should have no connexion with 
what 1 have already handled; but 
your urgent entreaty to know some- 
thing of our most eminent bards 
obliges me to alter my plan; and, ac- 
cordingly, to make an easy transition 
frem poctry to its professors, from the 
att to the artists. : 
The poctical history of the Cymry, 
or Welsh, embraces two remarkable 
epochs, at least as far as concerns the 
yoets of whom we have any remains. 
These are the sixth and twelfth cen- 
turfes, when our native awen appears 
io have shone with a lustre which suc- 
ceeding ages have not been able to 
rival. The chief luminaries of the 
first period are—Ancurin, Llywarch 
the aged, and Taliesin; the two for- 
mer natives of Cambria, or North 
Britain, and the latter of Wales. 
There flourished during the same time 
other poets, a few of whose effusions 
still survive, and among whom Merd- 
din deserves to be particularised; but 
the three -I have before mentioned 
have ever been held in the highest 
estimation, as well for their poetical 
merit, as for the historical value of 
their productions. But I foresee that 
even acursory notice of one only of this 
hardic triumyirate will supply mate- 
rials for a long letter: I shall therefore 
reserve the account of the other two, 
as well as the consideration of the se- 
cond epoch of Welsh poctry, for a 
more seasonable opportunity. 
Were lI to act in compliance with 
our national prejudice upon this 
point, T should begin with Taliesin; 
who, as having been born and nur- 
tured amongst our mountains, is more 
emphatically Welsh than cither of the 
other two. But I prefer adhering to 
the order I have adopted, as Anecurin 
is the author of the longest and most 
important of all the ancient poems that 
have descended to our times. 
Aneurin, then, was a native of that 
part of the kingdom now called Nor- 
thumberland, and anciently inhabited 
by the Ottadini, a name derived, in all 
probability, from the Welsh Gododini, 
implying the inhabitants of a region 
bordering on the coverts, Our bard 
was born during the close of the fifth, 
or Commencement of the sixth, cen- 
tury ; aud was one of a very numerous 
progeny, amongst whom the celebrated 
Gildas is also numbered, unless, as has 
heen plausibly conjectured, Ancuriu 
Tudor’s Letters on Wales. 
403 
and Gildas are to be considered as dif- 
ferent names for the same individual.* 
The father of Aneurin was Caw, a 
distinguished chieftain of that warlike 
age, and was compelled by the trou- 
bles of the times to seek, with his fa- 
mily, an asylum in Wales. 
There is no certain account of the 
early life of our poet; but, when ar- 
rived at the age of manhood, we find 
him opposed to the Saxons amongst 
the other defenders of his native soil. 
‘This we learn from his own testimony, 
in the principal poem which he has 
left us, written on the disastrous battle 
of Cattraeth, in which he was engaged. 
The result of this conflict deprived his 
father of his territory, and drove him 
and his family to the exile I have 
already alluded to. However, the 
bard himself had the good fortune to 
escape unhurt from the bloody field ; 
a circumstance which he ascribes, 
like Horace on a similar occasion, to 
the sacredness of his poetical charac- 
ter. For, after noticing the very few 
chieftains who had the same good for- 
tune, he observes, 
And { too was saved from the spilling of ny blood, 
As the recompense of my fair song, 
The corresponding expression of the 
Roman lyrist you will readily call to 
mind, 
From this time Aneurin became a 
residentin Wales. His father appears 
to have had some territory assigned to 
him in Anglesey; but the bard took 
refuge amongst the associates of Ca- 
dog the Wise, at his college in South 
Wales, where, in all probability, he 
spent the residue of his days. It was 
perhaps in this retreat, tbe resort of 
the learned and pious‘of that age, that 
Aneurin contracted the intimacy with 
Taliesin, to which both bards bear tes- 
timony, and which the congeniality of 
their genius and disposition must have 
favoured in a peculiar degree. Our 
poet died about the year 570; and, 
according to the Historical Triads, 
his death was occasioned by tho blow 
of an axe from the bands of an assas- 
sin, That Aneurin was held in high 
repute by his cotemporaries is evident, 
from the epithets by which he has 
* This is the opinion of Dr. Owen 
Pughe, in his “Cambrian Biography,” 
and which he founds upon two circum- 
stances. The first is, that Gildas appears 
to be a mere translation of Aneurin; and 
the second, that Aneurin and Gildas never 
occur together in the enumeration of the 
children of Caw in our old manuscripts. 
beon 
