tanding they both invocate and
worship wyth the most hyghe honoure and lowliest reverence. Adding and
allegying in excuse thereof, that the reliques and residue of the books
and monuments, as well as the saynctes lyves, as of their Brutysh
prophecies and other sciences (which perished not in the tower, for
there, they say, certain were burned) at the commotion of OWAIN GLYNDWR,
were in like manner destroyed, and utterly devastat, or at the least wyse
that there escaped not one, that was not uncurablye maymed, and
irrecuperably torn and mangled.

"'Llyfrau Cymru au llofrudd
Ir twr Gwyn aethant ar gudd
Ysceler oedd Yscolan
Fwrw'r twrr lyfrau ir tan.'

Gutto'r Glyn. A.D. 1450.

"The books of Cymru and their remains went to the White Tower, where they
were hid. Cursed was Ysgolan's act in throwing them in heaps into the
fire."

It is not improbable that our Bard might have been one of those who
suffered in the cause of his country, though he had the good luck to
escape Edward's fury. I wish I may be so happy as to convey some faint
idea of his merit to the English reader. The original has such touches,
as none but a person in the Bard's condition could have expressed so
naturally. However not to anticipate the judicious reader's opinion, to
which I submit mine with all deference, I shall now produce some account
of this great man, taken from that skilful and candid antiquary Mr.
Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt's notes on Dr. Powel's history of Wales,
printed at Oxford, 1663.

"Sir John Griffydd Llwyd, knight, the son of Rhys ap Griffydd ap
Ednyfed Fychan, was a valiant gentleman, but unfortunate, 'magnae
quidem, sed calamitosae virtutis,' as Lucius Florus saith of
Sertorius. He was knighted by king Edward, when he brought him the
first news of his queen's safe delivery of a son at Carnarvon Castle;
the king was then at Rhuddlan, at his parliament held there. This
Sir Griffydd afterwards taking notice of the extreme oppression and
tyranny exercised by the English officers, especially Sir Roger
Mortimer, lord of Chirk, and justice of North Wales, towards his
countrymen the Welsh, became so far discontented, that he broke into
open rebellion, verifying that saying of Solomon, 'Oppression maketh
a wise man mad.' He treated with Sir Edward Bruce, brother to
Robert, then king of Scotland, who had conquere