No nobler crew filled that heroic bark,

Which bore the first adventurers of the deep
To seek the Golden Fleece on barbarous shores:
Nor richlier fraught did that illustrious fleet
Home to the Happy Island hold its way,
When Amadis with his prime chivalry,
He of all chivalry himself the flower,
Came from the rescue, proud of Roman spoils,
And Oriana, freed from Roman thrall.

Long after these lines had been written, I was pleased at finding the same feeling expressed in a very singular specimen of metrical auto-biography :

A Nao, despregando as velas

Ja se aproveita do vento;

E de evidente alegria

Os Portuguezes ja cheios
Sobre o conves estam todos ;
Na terra se vam revendo
Igrejas, Palacios, Quintas,
De que tem conhecimento,
Daqui, dalli apontando
Vam ledamente co dedo.
Todos fallando demostram
Seus jubilos manifestos;
Mas o Vieira occupado

Vai de hum notavel silencio.

Seu excessivo alvoroço
Tumultuante, que dentro
No peito sente, lhe causa
De sobresalto os effeitos.
Quanto mais elle chegando

Vai ao suspirado termo,

Mais se lhe augmenta o gostoso

Susto no doce projecto.

Vieira Lusitano.

Mona, the dark island. — I. p. 4.

Ynys Dowyll, the dark island. '

Aberfraw. I. p. 4.

The palace of Gwynedd, or North Wales.

Rhodri Mawr,

about the year 873, fixed the seat of government here, which had formerly been at Dyganwy, but latterly at Caer Seiont in Arvon, near the present town of Caernarvon. "It is strange," says Warrington, "that he should desert a country where every mountain was a natural fortress, and in times of such difficulty and danger, should make choice of a residence so exposed and defenceless." But this very danger may have been his motive. The Danes, who could make no impression upon England against the great Alfred, had turned their arms Wales; Mona was the part most open to their ravages, and it may have been an act as well of policy as of courage in the king to fix his abode there. He fell there, at length, in battle against the Saxons. A barn now stands upon the site of the palace, in which there are stones that, by their better workmanship, appear to have belonged to the original building.

upon

Richly would the king

Gift the red hand that rid him of that fear!— I. p. 6.

"It was the manner of those days, that the murtherer only, and he that gave the death's wound, should fly, which was called in Welsh Llawrudd, which is a red hand, because he had blouded his hands. The accessories and abettors to the murtherers were never hearkened after."― GwYDIR History.

David! King Owen's son... my father's son...
He wed the Saxon... the Plantagenet! — I. p. 6.

This marriage was in fact one of the means whereby Henry succeeded for a time in breaking the independent spirit of the Welsh. David immediately sent a thousand men to serve under his brother-in-law and liege lord in Normandy, and shortly after attended the parliament at Oxford upon his

summons.

Caradoc represents Davydd as a prince greatly disliked on account of his cruelty and untractable spirit, killing and putting out the eyes of those who were not subservient to his will, after the manner of the English! Cambrian Biography.

The order of the royal hall was established by law. "The men to whom the right of a seat in the hall belongs are fourteen, of whom four shall sit in the lower, and ten in the upper part of the hall. The king is the first, he shall sit at the pillar, and next him the chancellor; and after him the guest, and then the heir apparent, and then the master of the hawks. The foot-bearer shall sit by the dish opposite the king, and the mead-maker at the pillar behind him. The priest of the household shall be at another pillar, who shall bless the meat, and chaunt the pater noster. The crier shall strike the pillar above the king's head. Next him shall be the judge of the palace, and next to him the musician, to whom the right of the seat belongs. The smith of the palace shall be at the bottom before the knees of the priest. The master of the palace shall sit in the lower hall with his left hand towards the door, with the serving-men whom he shall chuse, and the rest shall be at the other side of the door, and at his other hand the musician of the household. The master of the horse shall sit at the pillar opposite the king, and the master of the hounds at the pillar opposite the priest of the household."- Laws of Hoel Dha'.

Keiriog. · and Berwyn's after-strife. — II. p. 11.

"1165. The king gathered another armie of chosen men, through all his dominions, as England, Normandy, Anjow, Gascoine, and Gwyen, sending for succours from Flanders and Brytain, and then returned towards North Wales, minding utterlie to destroy all that had life in the land; and coming to Croes Oswalt, called Oswald's Tree, incamped there. On the