ars without experiencing
the slightest quickening from the great movement which was remaking
Europe. Hardly a prophet or reactionary raised his voice in defence or
condemnation, and the Welsh went on serenely making and reading poetry.
The two political movements in which Wales was really interested, the
revolt of Glyndwr and the accession of Henry VII., paid their tribute to
its poetry alone, and both enterprises had sufficient of romance in them
to repel the historian and to capture the poet. Naturally, therefore, we
have no prose in this period, because there was no cause strong enough
to produce it. What prose the nation required they found in the tales of
romance, in the legends of Arthur and Charlemagne and the Grail, and, as
for pedigrees and history, were they not written in the _cywyddau_ of
the poets?

The little prose that was produced during this period (1300-1550) was of
an extraordinary kind. It was simply an exercise in long sentences and
in curiously built compounds, and therefore more nearly allied to
poetry. It generally took the form of _dewisbethau_, a list of the
"choice things" of such and such a person, or of the later triads
(_trioedd_), which, starting from an ancient nucleus, gradually grew
till, at the present day, Wales has a gnomic literature out of all
proportion to the rest of its prose. Modern Welsh prose, however, is
only very indirectly connected with these compositions. It is almost
altogether a product of the Biblical literature which began to appear
after the Reformation, and we shall proceed to give here the main facts
and dates in its development. The first Welsh book was printed in 1546.
It consisted of extracts in Welsh from the Bible and the Prayer Book,
and a calendar. The author was Sir John Prys (1502-1555). The most
important name in the early part of this period is William Salesbury
(1520?-1600?). His chief books were, _A Dictionary in Englyshe and
Welshe_ (printed in 1547, and published in facsimile reprint by the
Cymmrodorion Society), _Kynniver Llith a Ban_ (1551), the Prayer Book in
Welsh (1567), and the most important of all his works, the translation
of the New Testament (1567). It is difficult to form any estimate, at
this distance of time, of the impetus which William Salesbury gave to
Welsh prose, but it must be regretfully admitted that his great work was
marred by many defects. He had a theory that Welsh ought to be written
as much like Latin as possible, and the