Cneifion dy dda3 gwynion gant, Yn lle malais, trais, traha,1 1 Byddi 'n llawn o bob dawn da, said to be the largest in North Wales. Their superiority is accounted for by the richer pasturage and milder climate of the island. But sheep are not the farmer's only care. The rearing of oxen is one of his principal objects, even to the neglect of the dairy. Anglesey oxen are of a peculiar kind. Of a bull-like appearance about the head and dewlap, and of a coal black colour, they are small in size as compared with those of other counties, and are, on that account, called runts. Deep-chested and short-legged, they are much esteemed by English graziers for the ease with which they are fattened. Dy dda. The term da applies to 3 Instead of this line William delivered it in his character of seer Morris gives : Dy enw fydd, da iawn ei fod. Fod is here from the verb bod, to be. 3 Nef fechan y Naf uchod. The poet having expended idea, thought, imagination,—the lofty powers of his noble intellect, upon his subject; and having pressed epithet, simile, trope, and almost every figure of rhetoric, into his service; now puts the headstone upon the building, crowning the work by making Mona 'the miniature heaven of the Most High God'. Nor is he yet satisfied. In the closing passage of the eulogy, he brings the nations to render their offerings of praise, and to regard his native isle as a wonder in the earth. • We must not forget that the rather than of bard. At the close of the eulogistic portion, the spirit of the seer departs, and that of the poet takes its place; and he concludes, after commending his beloved island to the protection of Heaven, with beseeching her to abstain from every form of superstition and hypocrisy as she valued his blessing. He then pours forth a prayer for her welfare in the days when he should have found a grave in the stranger land where he was sojourning. A deep pathos pervades every word he utters. Touching indeed is the allusion to his being compelled to make his last resting-place in a foreign land; though he little thought, as he wove his verse, that the waves of the broad Atlantic would one day DD Gwilia rhag ofergoelion O wres fflam yn eirias fflwch, A'i phlwm a'i dur, yn fflam dân,5 roar between him and his native shores, and that for ever. But, as if impatient of the querulousness he betrayed, he turns to remonstrate with himself on the folly of desiring a resting-place for the body while the soul was uncared for; and the thought sends him to his knees in prayer. And how earnest is his language! It is, that when Mona, and her beauty and wealth, should be expiring in judgment flames, he might find a home amongst the stars of heaven. The poet's idea, as well as its expression, in this place reminds us forcibly of a passage in Horace Smith's Address to an Egyptian Mummy'. The parallelism is close: 66 Why should this worthless tegument endure, If its undying guest be lost for ever? O let us keep the soul embalmed and pure In living virtue, that, when both must sever, Although corruption may our frame con sume, The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom." 5 Fault has been found with this passage, because silver, lead, and iron are not said to burn, but to melt and flow. Modern smelting, however, is against the critics. It proves that under intense heat the hardest metals burn and are con sumed. But if this had not been the case, we could well pardon our bard for the poetical licence so aptly introduced and wrought out. The thoughts, as well as the cynghanedd in which they are expressed, are some of the finest productions of his Muse. Gannaid, white, bright, shin CYWYDD Y CRYFION BY D.' Pwy fal doethion farddoni,2 Mi a wn gamp mwy nac ef; 1 Cryfion Byd, the strong ones of the world. In Proverbs, chap. xxx, 29, they are termed 'things which go well', or 'comely in going'. 2 Barddoni, one of the plural forms of bardd. If in the writing of Welsh poetry, the bards are hampered by its cynghanedd, the variety of forms its words assume considerably lightens the task. Substantives, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and pronouns, to say nothing of the particles of the language, undergo a change, when it is needed, that enables the poet to weave them deftly into his verse. We quite endorse the words of Edmund Prys:— "Ni phrofais dan ffurfafen Gwe mor gaeth a'r Gymraeg wen"; but we must also add that the votary of the Awen is not without his compensations. Bardd has for its plural beirdd, beirddion, and barddoni. 3 Neu pa faint na wypwyf fi? 'Otherwise how much there is that I do not know'. Or, to change the form of the words, 'If there be any wiser than the bards, it is beyond my knowledge'. Pa faint sydd nas gwypwyf fi? Hylon, 'happy', in its modern acceptation. The poet's meaning is 'Granted that Solomon was |