manuscript of the learned Dr. Davies,
author of the Dictionary, which he had transcribed from an ancient vellom
MS. which was wrote, partly in Edward the Second and Third's time, and
partly in Henry the Fifth's, containing the works of all the Bards from
the Conquest to the death of Llewelyn, the last prince of the British
line. This is a noble treasure, and very rare to be met with; for Edward
the First ordered all our Bards, and their works, to be destroyed, as is
attested by Sir John Wynne of Gwydir, in the history he compiled of his
ancestors at Carnarvon. What remained of their works were conveyed in
his time to the Exchequer, where he complains they lay in great
confusion, when he had occasion to consult them.

As to the translation, I have endeavoured to render the sense of the
Bards faithfully, without confining myself to too servile a version; nor
have I, on the other hand, taken liberty to wander much from the
originals; unless where I saw it absolutely necessary, on account of the
different phraseology and idiom of language.

If this small collection has the good fortune to merit the attention of
the public, I may, in some future time, if God permit me life and health,
proceed to translate other select pieces from the same manuscript. The
poems, in the original, have great merit; and if there is none in the
translation of this specimen, it must be owing entirely to my inability
to do the Bards justice. I am not the only person who admires them: men
of the greatest sense and learning in Wales do the same.

It must be owned, that it is an arduous task to bring them to make any
tolerable figure in a prose translation; but those who have any candour,
will make allowances. What was said of poetry in general by one of the
wits, that _it is but Prose run mad_, may very justly be applied to our
Bards in particular: for there are not such extravagant flights in any
poetic compositions, except it be in the Eastern, to which, as far as I
can judge by the few translated specimens I have seen, they bear a great
resemblance.

I have added a few Notes, to illustrate some historical facts alluded to
in the poems, and a short account of each poem, and the occasion it was
written upon, as far as it could be traced from our ancient manuscripts.

I have been obliged to leave blanks in some places, where I did not
understand the meaning in the original, as I had but one copy by me,
which might be faulty. When I have an