The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

WALES. 55
famous bard—a circular mound, anciently surrounded by two circles of stones.
If any one sleep upon tbis grave be will arise eitber a poet or a madman. It was
to this mound that the bards wended tbeir steps in searcb of inspiration wben
desirous of composing trihannau, or "triads." Owing to tbeir symbolism, tbe
meaning of these triads often escaped tbe profane, but some of them deserve to be
remembered for all time.
" Three things there are," one of them tells us, " which
were contemporaneous from the beginning—Man, Liberty, Light."*
The Welsh, notwithstanding the extension of roads and railways, of manufac-
turing industry and commerce, have kept alive their national traditions and their
language. The principality of Wales has ceased to exist as an independent country
since tbe middle of the thirteenth century ; nevertheless the "Welsh, who call
themselves " Cymry "—that is, "they that have a common fatherland "f—look
upon themselves as a separate people, and have often attempted to throw off the
yoke of the English kings. Like the Bretons of France, their kinsmen by race and
language, they seized the opportunities afforded by the civil wars in which the
nation, to which they had been attached by force, found itself involved. Thus
in the seventeenth century they were ardent Royalists, hoping thereby to establish
indirectly their claim to national independence. During tbe seven years the war
lasted the Welsh remained faithful to King Charles, whose cause they had
embraced as if it were their own, and Cromwell found himself obliged to storm
several of their strongholds. But this was the last struggle, and the public peace
has not since been disturbed, unless, perhaps, during the so-called Rebecca riots
in 1843, when bodies of men, disguised as women ("Rebecca and her Daughters"),
overran the country, and made war upon turnpike toll collectors. Since 1746
the "principality" of Wales has formed politically a portion of England. In
matters of religion, however, there exist certain contrasts between the Welsh and
English ; but these are tbe very reverse of what maj- be observed in France, where
the Bretons are far more zealous adherents of the old faith than the French. The
Welsh, being addicted to mysticism, as enthusiastic as they are choleric, passionately
fond of controversy, and impatient of rules laid down by strangers, naturally rejected
the episcopal rites adhered to by a majority in England. Most of them are
Dissenters ; Calvinistic Methodists, Baptists, and Congregationalists being most
numerously represented. J About the middle of the eighteenth century, when
Wbitefield, the famous preacher, passed through the valleys of Wales, religious
fervour revived throughout the principality, and in the smallest hamlet might be
heard hymns, prayers, and vehement religious discourses. The Welsh Dissent-
ing bodies have even anticipated their English brethren in several religious
movements. It was they who established the oldest Bible Society and the
first Sunday schools. They maintaiu a mission in Brittany for tbe pui-pose of
con-^erting their kinsmen separated from them by the ocean. Still, in spite of
all this religious zeal, the Welsh are inferior to tbe English as regards general
• Pictet, " Mystfereg des Bardes, Cj-frinach Beirdd Tnys Pndain."
t H. Gaidoz/ifcr... A* Sexx-Mondcs, May 1st, 1876.
X There are in the principality 1,145 churches of the Estahlishment, and about 3,000 chapels of
Dissenters, and in the vast majority of these latter the services arc conducted in Welsh.