3797-1 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, | 
HE following fhort compefition is a 
continuation of what you inferted in 
the Magazine for laft month, of the 
poetry of Hywel, fon of @wain Gwynez, 
prince of Wales, who flourifhed about 
A.D. 1160. Your humble fervant, 
April ay 0797 « MEIRION. 
) Hywel ab Owain a’i cant. 
Afweifi di hezyw, varc gloywliw glas 5 
A threiziau arnad gein-wlad Gynlas ; 
A haezu dady! vaith eyn ‘laith ‘leas, 
Gan hun arluziaw hoen arjuzias ; 
Ac ym bai arwyz, er yn was edmyg, 
Y ‘liw oez debyg gwenyg gwynlas. 
Hiraethawg vy nghov y’nghyweithas ; 
Hoed erzi, a mi genti yn gas! 
Cyd gwnelwye ar zyn urz o voliant, : 
Nim gwna, poenrwyziant, boziant pa dras. 
Ton y galon hon, hoed a gavas, 
Er twv main riain, ruzeur wanas ! 
Nid ydyw hezyw, nid hu azas vy mhorth, 
Yn y myn yd oez vy mherthynas : 
Or 4, un Mab Duw o deyrnas név, 
Cyn azev gozey, gwae vi na’m ‘las ! 
TRANSLATION. 
I have harneffed thee to-day, my fteed of 
fhining grey; I will traverfe on thee the 
fair region of Cynlas; and I will hold a hard 
difpute beforefdeath fhall cut me off, in obftruct- 
ing fleep, and thus obftruéting health ; and on 
me it has been a fign, no longer being the 
honoured youth, the complexion is like the 
pale blue waves. We 
Opprefled with longing is my memory in 
fociety ; regret for her by whom Lam hated ! 
Whilft I confer on the maid the honoured 
eulogy, fhe, to profper pain, deigns not to re- 
turn the confolation of the flighteft grace! 
Broken is my heart! My portion is regret, 
caufed by the form of a flender lady, with a 
girdle of ruddy gold. My treatment is not 
deferved: fhe is not this day where my ap- 
pointed place was fixed.—Son of the God of 
heaven! if, before a promife of forbearance 
the goes away, woe to me that I am not flain ! 
ee i 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
{I I could roufe my country to a fenfe 
of its dangers, and its duties, I would 
forget, for the prefent, every thing of 
the Alcaic lyre but its generous ardour. 
But having attempted this what 1 can, 
I may be excufed in paying fome atten- 
tion to the myfteries of verfe. 
Your correfpondent, PHILOMETER, 
has ftarted a queflion, the folution of 
which, appears to me, to lic pretty deep. 
Poetry of Hywel. aves ° On metre. 
259 
He objeéts to the commonly received 
{canfion of thofe odes of Horace, 
which are written inthe A/carc meafure ; 
and he propofes another, which, if it 
were confidered as regulating the pro- 
nunciation, would itfelf be found equally 
liable to obje€tion,. 
The faét is, that the metre of a lyric, 
or any other fyftem of verfe, is nothing 
more than the mechanical ftandard, 
which determines, or meafures, the quan- 
tity and fucceflion of the component 
parts of the verfe. And, by thus con- 
fining it to the, fixed proportion and {e- 
ries, regularly recurring at determinate 
intervals, verfe is diftinguifhed from 
profe, and one kind of verfe from an- 
+ Ober. 
Indeed, in the fpecies of verfe, called 
monofiropbic, there is no recurrence : this 
confifting of an affemblage of verfes of 
different /pecies; but here, too, the pro- 
portion and feries, which determine the 
meafure of each verfe, is fixed: and the 
laws of verfification for each, are the 
fame, as where recurrent meafure, re- 
turning at fixed intervals, is employed. 
There is yet a third genus of verle, the 
moft free of any ; which the ancients 
called dithyrambic, and appropriated to 
their Bacchic fettivals, and other purpofes 
of high paffion and enthufiafm. Here 
pure unmixed metre was difregarded : 
the verfe had no fixed limits, nor deter- 
minate feries of quantity. It was ver/e, 
only becaufe its portions were of that 
time and cadence, and compofed of thofe 
portions, by which verfe is character- 
fed. It confifted, indeed, of varioufly 
combined portions of other verfe, toge- 
ther with fuch mixture of xumbers, as 
they were fignificantly called, as broke 
the. mea/ure, but preferved the generic 
character of poetic harmony and cadence. 
ft had much analogy to the free recitative 
without bars, or fixed meafure of the 
Italian opera; and was that in poetry, 
which this powerful language of em- 
paffioned expreffion is in mufic. The 
Ossian of MAcPHERSON 1s compofed. 
ina rhythm of the dithyrambic character. 
Dithyrambic numbers were, therefore, 
capable of entering into the harmony of 
profe compofition; though occafionally 
and fparingly: while proper and jirié 
verfe was, trom its effential difference of 
character, utterly rejected from fpro/e 
by the refined tafte, ear, and juft feeling 
of the ancjents. 
It were well if it were as carefully 
rejected by the moderns: but there will 
be found few, indeed, even of our beft 
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