A NEE QOW 2 TE. EF §: 
precaution of being guarded with 
any kind of defence: for, being 
themselves convinced, by internal 
evidence, of the genuineness of what 
they produced, they gave no other 
opportunity for the curious to be 
Satisfied, and thus left every thing 
open to the attacks of the infidel. 
To multiply the means of intro- 
_ ducing the ancient British remains 
to the world, by other persons, was, 
next to their preservation, the mo- 
tive which occasioned the Archaio- 
logy, under consideration, to be 
undertaken by the editors; and, as 
in the progress of ‘bringing it for- 
ward, a sentiment hostile to the au- 
thenticity of its contents was disco- 
vered to prevail, with considerable 
influence, amoung men of jeiters ; it 
was, therefore, found expedient to 
prefix to the volumes, a summary 
history of the present state of Welsh 
manuscripts. 
Before I proceed, however, I 
cannot help expressing my satisfac- 
tion at the happy circumstance ; that 
such a doubt of the authenticity of 
our old writings hath been thrown 
out, and that such an account hath 
now become necessary, while the 
publication is carried on; and more 
especially, while we have those ma- 
nuscripts in existence to produce, 
so as to convince all those who are 
anxious to establish the truth of this 
point, by taking the trouble of 
making the necessary inquiry: for, 
had it not been done until a century 
or two more had elapsed, endanger- 
ing the still farther decay of those 
mouldering records, at which period 
should the authenticity of the Welsh 
archaiology be arraigned at the bar 
of strangers to the language of it, 
by the stern advocate of truth, still 
uninformed as to all the internal evi- 
dence; then, indeed, might the vo- 
Squire 3 
877 
tary of our venerable bards attempt 
in vain to stem the torrent of po- 
pular opinion, and have only to de- 
plore that rigid fate, which would 
envelop at once, with the veil of 
oblivion, the memorials of a thou- 
sand years of our history. 
In reverting to the proposed ac- 
count of manuscripts, it may be of 
some importance to observe, that 
a very general habit of reading was 
created by the bards, whose system, 
though declining, hath continued, 
in a very considerable degree, a- 
mong the commen people of Wales, 
down to the present period ; inso- 
much that various editions of many 
hundred books have been published 
in their language, as appears by a ca- 
talogue of them, printed by the rev. 
Moses Williams, about a century 
ago; which is a remarkable faét, 
and unknown to the world in ge- 
neral. But of these-books, how- 
ever, none bear any proportion, in 
extent of circulation, to the different 
editions of the bible ; for it may be 
remarked, with pleasure, that the 
demand for the scriptures hath been 
extraordinary among so small a po- 
pulation ; as may be conceived from 
knowing that nineteen editions, con- 
sisting of upwards of one hundred 
and thirty thousand copies, haye 
been called for, since the first trans- 
lation of the bible into Welsh. 
The invention of printing hath 
obviated the necessity of using ma- 
nuscript books for the common pur- 
poses of reading ; but among a peo. 
ple, circumstanced as the Welsh 
are, this has not taken place en- 
tirely, even to this day ; though the 
use of manuscripts is gradually di- 
minishing, and the bad consequence 
of it is, that great numbers of them 
have been destroyed, and many 
more have mouldered away in large 
collec. 
