y whose poems are
still extant. Davydd Benvras was the author of a poem in praise of
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth; his works, though not so verbose or trite as
bardic poems of this class usually are, do not rise much above the
bardic level, and are full of alliteration. Elidir Sais was, as his name
implies, able to speak the English language, and wrote chiefly religious
poetry. Einiawn ab Gwgawn is the author of an extant address to Llywelyn
ab Iorwerth of considerable merit. Phylip Brydydd, or Philip the poet,
was household bard to Rhys Gryg (Rhys the hoarse), lord of South Wales.
One of his pieces, an apology to Rhys Gryg, is a striking example of the
fulsome epithets a household bard was expected to bestow upon his
patron, and of the privileged domesticity in which the bards lived,
which, as in Ireland, must have been fatal to genius. Prydydd Bychan,
the Little Poet, was a South Wales bard whose extant work consists of
short poems all addressed to his own princes. The chief feature of his
_Englynion_ is the use of a kind of assonance in which in some cases
the final vowels agreed alternately in each quatrain, and in others each
line ended in a different vowel, in both cases with alliteration and
consonance of final consonants or full rhyme. Llygad Gwr is known by an
ode in five parts to Llywelyn ab Gruffydd, written about the year 1270,
which is a good type of the conventional flattery of a family bard.
Howel Voel, who was of Irish extraction, possessed some poetical merit;
his remonstrance to Llywelyn against the imprisonment of his brother
Owain is a pleasing variety upon the conventional eulogy. It has many
lines beginning with the same word, e.g. _gwr_, man. The poems of
Bleddyn Vardd, or Bleddyn the Bard, which have come down to us are all
short eulogies and elegies. One of the latter on Llywelyn ab Gruffydd is
a good example of the elaborate and artificial nature of Welsh
versification.

The most illustrious name among the poets of this century is Gruffydd ab
yr Ynad Coch, "Gruffydd, son of the Red Justice," who wrote many
religious poems of great merit. His greatest work, however, is the elegy
to Llywelyn ab Gruffydd, the last prince of Wales. It is easily first
among all the elegies written in the Welsh language. We do not find in
it that artficial grief which is too evident in the _Marwnadau_ of the
Welsh poets; it re-echoes an intense personal grief, and throughout the
whole piece the poet feels that he stands at t