RITSON’S ANCIENT ENGLISH ROMANCES. 
_- « He may visit again the scenes of hu- 
_ manity for his pleasure, but cannot incur 
any moral depravity. 
__. * Such is the bardic doctrine of transmi- 
gration, as it appears in the book of bardism. 
ow far it transmits the tenets of the druids 
on this subject, or what modifications chris- 
fianity introduced, cannot now be ascer- 
tained. By recollecting this doctrine of 
‘transmigrations, we may understand many 
passages of Taliesin. His Hanes Taliesin is 
a recital of his pretended transmigrations ; 
and when we read in his other, poems, that 
Piyme has been in various shapes, as a serpent,4] 
‘a wild sow, a buck, or a crane, and such 
ike, we must call to mind, that those scenes 
existence in Abred, which were between 
nnwn and humanity, were the changes of 
cing in the bodies of different animals. 
_ One great privilege of the being, who was 
far advanced in bis progression to the circle 
of felicity, was to remember all the states 
through which he had passed. Taliesin seems 
to have been eager to establish his claims to 
uch a successful probation. He is perpe- 
ually telling us what he has been. Oblivion 
‘was onc of the courses of Abred; the reco- 
very of memory was a proof that Drwg and 
' Cythraul began to be overcome. ‘Taliesin 
therefore as profusely boasts of his recovered 
reminiscence, as any modern sectary can do 
~ of his grace and election. 
_ ** There is so much of Taliesin’s poetry 
“ t place him, in point of intrinsic merit, 
below the other bards, although, in the es- 
‘timation of his countrymen, he seems to 
_ have been ranked in a superior class.” 
nad been accompanied with an appendix, 
ntaining a complete copy of the poems 
‘vindicated. It is natural to expect in 
“Wales the reliques of a high degree of 
‘culture «and information. In imitation 
_ of Britain, and in concert with it, Ar- 
_ morica, the north-west corner of Gaul, 
_ favoured, about the year 410, the revolt 
THE age of Pope has been called the 
_ Augustan age of English literature, with 
‘More propriety indeed than they who 
bestowed upon it the appellation were 
aware; for as the age of Augustus was 
after that of Lucretius and Catullus, and 
_ Sallust and Cicero, so had the great men 
of England passed away before a French 
y 
vhich no one can understand, that I cannot - 
515 
of Constantine against the Roman em- 
peror Honorius; but it did not resume 
on the death of the rebel its ancient al- 
legiance. Undera constitution, in which 
the clergy, the nobility, and the city- 
corporations had all a formal influence, 
it continued in a state of independence 
until Charlemayne. The titular, sove- 
reignty of Clovis, who, by an opportune 
conversion to christianity, obtained the 
voluntary submission of the Armoricans, 
encroached so little on the real fran- 
chises of the burghers, that. neither: 
he nor his royal successors rivalled in 
power the metropolitan mayors, The 
conduct of the independent British was 
similar. First they hired the protection 
of the gothic stragglers; next they con- 
ferred a limited and local sovereignty ; 
and finally they submitted wholly to the 
sway of the barbarian intruders: a re~’ 
volution which may be considered as 
completed throughout this island, with 
the exception of a few. Welsh mountains, 
under Offa, the correspondent of Char- 
lemayne. During this interval of Ar- 
morican independence, and by the users 
of the Welch language, was laid the 
ground-work of all that is most peculiar 
in the civilization of modern Europe. 
A curious dissertation on this topic oc- 
curs in the Monthly Magazine (vol ix. 
p- 4), but the author has omitted to en- 
quire whether heraldry, and the archi- 
tecture called gothic, are not as unques- 
tionably of Armorican or Cimmerian 
origin, as romance, rime, and chivalry. 
Let us hope the Welch antiquaries will 
not neglect the illustration of all these 
sopics; and that the Mabinogi, or ro- 
mances, will especially be communicated 
without abbreviation of any kind, and 
with all their instructive imperfections 
on their head. 
Ancient English Romances, selected and published by Josrrx Ritsox. 8vo. 
: 3 vols. 
school was established in the country, of 
Shakespere, and Spenser, and Milton. 
One remarkable characteristic of this 
school is, their total want of all due sense 
and feeling of their predecessors’ excel- 
lence. When Spenser and Miltongmen- 
tion the great poets of their own country; 
it is delightful to observe with what love 
