BAR 



BAR 



recollection flioulcl fail them, their invention fupplies them 

 with iomcthing pertinent and proper for the occalion. 



Bards have been found in many countries ; and continued 

 in Ireland and Scotland, as well as in Wales, to oiu- own days. 

 The genealofjical fonnets of the Irilh bards arc lUll the 

 chief foundations of the ancient hillory of Ireland. 



Spenfer, the poet, in his view of the (late of Ireland in 

 the reign of queen Elizabeth, obferves that he caufed feve- 

 ral compofitions of the bards to be tranflated; " and furely," 

 he adds, " they favoured of fweet wit and good invention, 

 but Ikilled not of the goodly ornament of poetry ; yet were 

 they fprinkled with fome pretty flowers of their natural de- 

 vice, which gave good grace and comelinefs unto them ; the 

 which it is great pity to iee fo abufed, to the graceing of 

 wickcdnefs and vice, which with good ufage would ferve 

 to adorn and beautify virtue." 



The fongo of the Irifh bards, fays AVarton in liis " Hif- 

 tory of Englilh Poetry" (difT. i. vol. i.), are by fonie con- 

 ceived to be llrongly marked with the traces of Scaldic 

 imagination ; and thefe traces are believed llill to furvive 

 among a fpecies of poetical hillorians, whom they call" Tale- 

 Tellers," fuppofed to be thedefccndants of the original Iri(h 

 bards. The Irifh hiilorians inform us that St. Patrick, 

 when he converted Ireland to the Chrillian faith, dellroyed 

 300 volumes of the fongs of the Irilh bards. Such was 

 their dignity in this countr)', that they were permitted to 

 wear a robe of the fame colour with that of the royal fami- 

 ly. They were conftantly fummoned to a triennial feftival; 

 and the mod approved fongs delivered at this aflembly were 

 ordered to be preferved in the cuflody of the king's hiftorian 

 or antiq\iaiy. Many "of thefe compofitions are referred to by 

 Keating, as the foundation of his hillory of Ireland. Ample 

 eftates were appropriated to them that they might live in a 

 condition of independence and eafe. The profeflion was 

 hereditary ; but when a bard died, his eftate devolved not to 

 his eldell fon, but to fuch of his family as difcovered the moil 

 dillinguifhed talents for poetry and mufic. Every principal 

 bard, as we have already obferved, retained thirty of inferior 

 note as his attendants ; and a bard of the fecondary clafs 

 was followed by a retinue of fifteen. They feem to have 

 been at their height in the year 558. None of their poems 

 have been tranflated. 



In the highlands of Scotland there are confiderable re- 

 mains of many of the compofitions of their old bards dill 

 preferved. But the mod genuine, entire, and valuable re- 

 mains of the works of the ancient bards, and perhaps the 

 noblcft fpecimen of uncultivated genius, are the poems of 

 Oflian, the fon of Fingal a king of the Highlands of Scot- 

 land, who flourilhcd in the fecond or third century, lately 

 coUefted by Mr. Macpherfon, and by him tranflated from 

 the Erfe or Gaelic language into Englilh. Dr. John- 

 fon, indeed, has fuggelled his doubts concerning the exill- 

 ence of any fuch ancient MSS. as thofc from which the 

 poems of Ofiian have been tranflated. But this is not a 

 place for difcufling this fubjeft of controverfy. Admitting, 

 however, their genuinenefs upon the whole, whatever addi- 

 tions may have been made to them, they afford an admirable 

 fpecimen of what might be the conceptions of ancient bards. 

 Thefe poems, fays Warton (ubi fupra), notwitftanding the 

 difference between the Gothic and the Celtic rituals, contain 

 many vifible veftiges of Scandinavian fuperftition. The al- 

 lufions in the fongs of OfTian to fpirits who prcfide over the 

 different parts, and direft the various operations of nature, 

 who fend ftorms over the deep, and rejoice in the flirieks of 

 the fliipwrecked mariner, who call down lightning to blaft the 

 forefl or cleave the rock, and diffufe irrcfiftible peflilence 

 among the people, beautifully condufted and heightened 

 ynder the Ikilful hand of a mafter bard, entirely conefpond 



with the Runic fytlem, and breathe the fpirit of its poetry. 

 Had Offian found it convenient to have introduced religion 

 into his compofitions, not only a new fource had been open- 

 ed to the fublime, in defcribing the rites of facrifice, the 

 horrors of incantation, the folenin invocations of infernal 

 beings, and the like dreadful fupcrdilions, but probably 

 many flronger and more charafterillical evidences would 

 have appeared of his knowledge of the imagery of th^ 

 Scandinavian poets. 



The remains of Talicfin, and other Welfh poets, afiift us 

 in forming a competent judgment upon this fubj.'Cl. See 

 Evans's Differtation de Bardis. Jones's Mufical and Poeti- 

 cal Relics of the Wclfli Bards. 



It is not improbable, fays Wnrton (ubi fupra), that the 

 Welfh bards might have been acquainted witli ib.e Scandi- 

 navian Scalds, at leafl before their communication with Ar- 

 MORicA. The bards floiiriihed moil in thofc parts of Bri- 

 tain which m.ofl ftrongly retained their native Celtic cha- 

 rafter. The profody of the Welfh bards depended m.uch 

 on alliteration ; hence they feem to have paid an attention 

 to the Scaldic verfification. The Iflandic poets are faid to 

 have carried alliteration to the highell pitch of exaflnefs in 

 their earlieft periods ; whereas the Wcllli bards of the fixth 

 century ufed it but fparingly, and in an imptrfe<ft degree : 

 from this circumftance we m.ay deduce a proof of imitation, 

 or at leafl of emulation. T'lere are, moreover, ilrong 

 traces of conformity between the manners of the two na- 

 tions. Etudes, the Scandinavian Scalds were well known 

 in Ireland ; and there is fufficient evidence to prove that the 

 Wellh bards were early conneftcd with the Irilh. Even fo 

 late as the eleventh century, the pi-aclice continued among the 

 Wellh bards of receiving inftruCtions in tiie bardic profelfion 

 from Ireland. The Welfh bards were reformed and regulated 

 by Gryffyth ap Conan, king of Wales, in the year 107S. 

 At the fame time he brought over with him from Ireland 

 many Irifli bards for the information and improvement of 

 the Welfh. In Ireland, to kill a bard was highly criminal ; 

 and to feize his ellate, even for the public fervice and in 

 time of national dillrefs, was deemed an acl of facrilegc. 

 Thus, in the old Wclfli laws, whoever even fiightly injured 

 a bard, was to be fined 6 cows and 120 pence. The mur- 

 derer of a bard was to be lined 126 cows. Moreover, an 

 intercourfe was neceffarily produced between the Welfh and 

 Scandinavians from the piratical irruptions of the latter. It 

 may be added, that the Wellh, although living in a feparate 

 and detached fituation, and fo (Irongly prejudiced in favour 

 of their own ufages, yet from neighbourhood and unavoid- 

 able communications of various kinds, might have imbibed 

 the ideas of the Scandinavian bards from the Saxons and 

 Danes, after thofe nations had occupied and overfpread all 

 the other parts of our ifland. (See Scalds.) The effedl of 

 an intercourfe with Armorica is perceived in the compofi- 

 tion of thofe Wellh bards who flourifhed after the native 

 vein of Britifh fabling had been tinftured by the " fairy 

 tales" whicii had been propagated by the Arabians in Ar- 

 morica, and which the Welfh had received from their con- 

 nedlion with that province of Gaul. It is eafy to colleft 

 from the Welfh odes, written after the tenth century, many 

 fignatures of this exotic imagji-y. See Scandinavia, and 

 Armorica. 



BARDSEY-IsLF, in Geography, an ifland of Wales, called 

 in Welfh Tr Tnis ErJli, or the ifland in the current, from the 

 fierce current which runs between it and the main land ; and 

 Bardfey, probably from the bards who retired here. It 

 forms the north point of Cardigan bay, and is fituated op- 

 pofite to it, within the county of Caernarvon. At Aberdaron 

 bay there is good anchorage ; but the entrance for large 

 fhips is very difBcult. It was to this place that Dubritius, 



arch- 



