WORKS BY MORGAN LLOYD OF NORTH WALES. BY HOWEL W. LLOYD, M.A. THAT Morgan Lloyd of North Wales, popularly known among his countrymen as "Morgan Llwyd ó Wynedd", was a man greatly distinguished in his day, not only by his literary and rhetorical ability, but by a rare genius and capacity, abundance of proof may be found not only in the reverence and esteem in which his writings continue to be held among them after the lapse of some two centuries and a half, but in the evidence supplied also by the originality of his ideas, and the purity, lucidity, and incisiveness, whether in prose or verse, of the diction in which they are clothed. It cannot, then, be deemed otherwise than unfortunate that material should have come down to us in so scant a measure for his biography, which, in the case of one so deserving of remembrance, must naturally, if brought home to us in greater fulness of detail, have presented, in all probability, special features of interest. The only two sources of information on this head which have come to the knowledge of the writer, respecting his worldly career (for the story of his spiritual life by himself, however attractive to a religious reader, can scarcely be accepted as a biography), have been sought for in the Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Welshmen, by the late Rev. R. Williams, and in the valuable edition, by the Rev. Silvan Evans, of Rowlands' Welsh Bibliography, called Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry. From these we learn that Morgan "is said" (for the fact is not placed beyond a doubt)" to have been a son or nephew of the Merionethsire poet, Hugh Llwyd of Cynfael, in the parish of Maentwrog." Huw was a man of independent property, who served many years abroad in the army, in which he held a commission, and died about 1620; facts from which we may gather that his son-whether born early in his father's lifetime (he lived to be more than 80), and left to be brought up in Wales, or late, that is, after his return from the Continent (as to which there is an anecdote extant to show that his family had quite forgotten him)—could have experienced but little of a father's care. We first hear of him accordingly as being educated at Wrexham, sent, it may be, by his mother, in the absence of her husband, to the Grammar School; and that, while there, he was stirred to a religious life, at that time exhibited in Wales most of all by the sect of the Puritans, both in and out of the establishment. Afterwards he became a follower of the well-known Walter Cradock, whose curate he became, and succeeded him in his ministrations in the parish of Wrexham. Then, in 1649, when the authority of the Long Parliament had gained the ascendant in all matters, civil and religious, and six itinerant preachers were appointed by it in every county, with power to add to their number, he underwent great labour and persecution in travelling for that object; nor were his exertions without much fruit in reclaiming many from the drunken, immoral, and irreligious lives which the disordered condition of the times, after the ruthless destruction of the great religious institutions of our forefathers, had by this time engendered in a large proportion of the population. He must since have attached himself wholly to the Nonconformists, for, dying in 1659, at the age of 40, according to Peter, in Hanes Crefydd yng Ghymru, he was buried in the ground adjoining their meeting-house, where the letters M. Ll. are all, strange to say, that appear to commemorate him on the stone over his grave, leaving the length of his pious, active, and useful life apparently unrecorded; a circumstance significant of the absence of opportunity rather than of will to record it. Although, in the following pages, it is proposed to notice more particularly only a single volume, containing four of Morgan Lloyd's compositions, our readers will not, perhaps, feel it unacceptable if we prelude our remarks by a brief list, taken chiefly from the Bibliography, of the remaining writings of our author that have been printed, with their several editions, to the beginning of the present century. The first of these, in order of time, printed originally in 1653, was, if we may judge from its popularity, the first also in merit. The title is "Dirgelwch i rai i'w ddeall, ac ereill i'w watwor,neu Lyfr Tri Aderyn (‘A Mystery for some to understand, and for others to mock at, or Book of Three Birds'). Gan Morgan Llwyd ó Wynedd." There was a second edition. in 1714, printed probably at Caermarthen, for Nicholas Thomas of Kennarth, and Lewis Thomas of Llangrannog, a minister at Henllan, 32mo.; and a third edition in 1752. To the chief title in the last two was added: sef Tri Aderyn yn Ymddiddan, yr Eryr, a'r Golomen, a'r Gigfran. Neu Arwydd i Annerch y Cymru. Yn y flwyddyn 1653, cyn dyfod 666” (in 1752, Neu Arwydd i annerch y Cymry yn y flwyddyn 666), alluding to the number of the Beast in the Apocalypse. "Here," says Canon Williams," he published his peculiar tenets in highly figurative language, of which he was a master." The Bibliography adds that the Eagle is supposed by some to be Cromwell, the Dove the Nonconformists, and the Raven the Establishment; but by others the Dove is thought to mean true Christians, the Raven the enemies and persecutors of true spiritual religion, and the Eagle a conscientious, unprejudiced man, having courage to stand between the parties signified by the Raven and the Dove. The latter would seem the more probable interpretation, as M. Lloyd appears rather to have kept aloof from politics, and to have limited himself to the practice and advocacy of the spiritual side of religion. His second work appeared first also in 1653, by the title of Gwaedd Ynghymru yn Wyneb pob Cydwybod Euog (“A Cry in Wales in face of every guilty Conscience"); and a second edition in 1727, containing also his "Llythyr i̇r Cymry cariadus", and the "History (by rimself) of his Spiritual Life"; with a Preface by Thomas Williams of Mynydd Bach, co. Caermarthen, author of Yr Oes-Lyfr. A third edition, printed by Thomas Durston at Shrewsbury in 1750, but sold only by David Jones of Trefriw, was preluded by his "Letter to his Beloved Wales". At the end are Englynion by Huw Morris, Iago ab Dewi, William Philip, and others. A fourth edition, which seems to have been a reprint of the second, was brought out at Caermarthen in 1766. The third work, Gair o'r Gair, neu Sôn am Sŵn, y Lleferydd Anfarwol ("Word of the Word, or Sound for Noise, the Immortal Speaker"), London, 1656, 24mo., was translated into English by Gruffydd Rudd, a son, it is said, of Bishop Rudd of St. David's, in 1739, under the title, A Discourse of the Word of God. A second edition, in Welsh, with a "Letter to the Reader by J. M.", was printed at Caermarthen by Samuel Lewis in 1745. We now proceed to give a more distinctive account of a volume containing four of his compositions, which are all that have fallen under the individual notice of the writer, and may be considered as his fourth work. The Cambrian Bibliography, by the Rev. Wm. Rowlands (Ed. of Rev. D. S. Evans, 1869), has the following under date of. 1657: 1. "Yr Ymroddiad, neu Bapuryn a gyfieithwyd ddwywaith i helpu y Cymry unwaith allan o'r hunan a'r Drygioni," 12 plyg. Yr awdwr ydoedd Morgan Llwyd, o Wynedd. 2. "Y Dysgybl a'r Athraw o newydd.” Then follows a suggestion, in Welsh, that this work was a second edition of Dr. Roger Smith's Crynhodeb o Addysg Cristionogawl, 1609, but it is of a totally different character. 3. "Cyfarwyddyd i'r Cymro" (should be "Cymru") 12 plyg. Gwaith Morgan Llwyd o Wynedd, 6. "Gwyddor uchod, O. G. M., Llundain," 12 plyg. The last two of these four tracts, are treated above as separate works, although they do not appear to have ever been printed separately, but in a single volume, yet still wholly disconnected from each other in point of matter and form. A second edition, 12mo., of this work was printed at Shrewsbury, in 1765. The title-page runs thus: "Yr Ymroddiad; Neu, Bapuryn A gyfieuthwyd i helpu'r Cymru allan o'r hunan a'r drygioni. At ba un y chwanegwyd, yn gyntaf, Y Disgybl a'i Athraw, O Newydd. Yn ail, Cyfarwyddyd i'r Cymru. Ac yn drydydd, Gwyddor Uchod, etc. Yr Ail Argraphiad. Wedi ei ddiwygio yn ofalus gan Ifan Tomas, Argraphydd. [Interlineation of three small Cherub's Heads.] Mwythig: Argraphwyd gan W. WILLIAMS, tros Richard Jones o Ddyffryn Clwyd, MDCCLXV. The second edition has, besides the title-page, 4 pp. of preface, signed Morgan Llwyd at the end. The four tracts have here one continuous paging of 160 pages; the last 2 pp., making up 162, being not marked with figures, the first of these consisting of twenty-four lines in verse, an apology for printing the book; and the last page of a letter in prose, signed, "Ivan Tomas, Argraphydd," excusing misprints, which are certainly far more numerous in this than in the first edition. The Ymroddiad, pp. 1-58, is divided into eight chapters, each of which is sub-divided into sections. The pp. are irregularly numbered and lettered at the foot. A. 3 leaves, including title p. A. 2, 1 leaf. 81. C. 11. C. 2, 1 1. C. 3, 4 1. E. 11. 41. *E. 11. E. 2, 5 1. F. 1 1. mencing next Tract), 4 1. etc., ending with O. 3, 4 leaves. VOL. VIII. A. 3, 41. B. 11. B. 2, 11. B. 3, E. 2, 11. E. 3, F. 2, 11. F. 3 (com H |