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QENE c\ Z ^UL.HCTiON

ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY,

3 1833 03735 5143

HIS PEDIGREE, with Memoirs old and new,
Delineated by G. R. G. Pughe,

Of Mellor Vicarage, 1902.

Ei Aeh Gymraeg a Saesneg- hefyd, yw
Yr Hanes yma gan G. R. G. Pug-he.

Versibus his ego debilibus describere tento
Pughe veterem stripem progeniemque meam.

Blackburn :

'Standard & Express " -11 Church-street.

1903.

1537836

' Argent, a Lyon passant sable, 'twixt three fleurs de lis,
Gules," are the Pughe Mathafarn arms since many a century :
Which Ensigns Gwyddno Garan Hir, who, in the days of yore,
Lost Cantref Gvaelod through a flood, originally bore.

Llew pasol, du, rhwng dri chammined, yw

Ar darian arian eirfbais teulu Pughe

A ddygwyd yn yr amser gynt gan Wyddno Garan Hir

Trwy j meddwdod un Seythenyn gollodd ei oil dir.

Ecce ! Leo, niger, atque inter tria lilia rubra
Prceteriens, clypio argentato, Pughe domus istis,
Ut quondam, antiquis hodie dignoscitur armis.
Gwyddno, cui Garan Hir cognomen tempore prisco,
Dicitur historicis scriptis hec arma tulisse ;
Caaitrel Gwaelod erat Princeps, at flebile dictu !
Diluvio' subito sua paiscua laeta fuere
Perdita. Seythenyn, malefidus et ebrius ille,
Causa fuit Gwyddno damni subitique doloris.

Motto.

Nid meddyg, ond Meddyg enaid.

Nid meddyg, ond y Meddyg enaid cu
All roddi llawn iachusrwydd i ni.

Attinet haud cuivis medico dispellere morbos,
Ast Anima3 Medicus potis est expellere mortem.

Only The Good Physician of the soul

Can speak the word and make the sinner whole.

Mae'r fwyaf ran o'm llinach hir,
'Run fath a' r tatw, — dan y tir.

The best of all my breed abound,
Like the potatoes, — under ground.

The lineal descendant of a certain (a) Einion
Ap Seysyllt, (whose progenitor, a Prince of Cardigan,
Called (a) Gwyddno Garan Hir, of Cantref Gwaelod, lost his land
Through inundation owing to the sot, Seythenyn,) and
Great grandson of old (b) David Lloyd, the celebrated Bard,
Who entertained the Earl of Richmond, as you may have heard,
When, lied or White, the Rose was quite a partisanship word,

(b) John Pugh ap Ieuan of Mathafarn married Catharine,
Sir Richard Herbert of Montgomery's daughter. I define
My Father's line from that alliance, in that Margaret,

Their daughter, married David Lloyd ap Owen, (you may get

This history from Lewis Dwnn's Display of Heraldry).

D. Lloyd was brother to John Owen of the Family

Of Peniarth. There is mentioned in the Peniarth Pedigree

In Ethylystan Glodryd, Prince of Fferlex, and the Head

Of one of the five Royal Tribes of Cambria, The said

D. Lloyd had by that Margaret, to whom he had been wed,

(As in Plascanol Pedigree by Pennant may be read,)

A Margaret who married Morgan, of Plascanol, son

Of Robert Morgan, clerk, and chaplain to that wilful one

Henry the Eighth. Another Robert, who, I find again,

Was son of Margaret and Morgan, married Agnes Wen,

A daughter of John Wynn ap Rhys, who was of Caer Dinen

And Llwyn On, and his wife Mary, youngest daughter to

The well known (r>) Baron Lewis Owen, of Dolgelly, who,

Though Custos Rotulonim and a Judge of North Wales, too,

Was murdered by banditti when Queen Mary was alive

Tn Anno Domini fifteen hundred and fiftv-five.

The issue of this Robert Morgan and his Agnes Wen

Was Edward Morgan who espoused a Margaret again

Sister of Griffith Yaugham, the quondam Squire of Corsygedol ;

So Corsygedol House got re-connected with Plascanol,

For Margaret, the grandmother of Robert Morgan who

Was bluff King Harry's chaplain, as I previously told you,

Was (e) Ithel of Trawsfynydd's daughter, and this Ithel's sire

Was Iorworth, son of Einion, the Corsygedol Squire,

Who was Woodwarden (see Burke's Wynne of Peniarth) and alive

From thirteen hundred eighty-two to thirteen eighty-five.

The (e) Corsygedol Vaughans could vaunt a princely pedigree
As long as any other in the Principality,
For each of the Five Founders of the Royal Tribes can be
Proved to have been among the fathers of their family.

The Great Llewelyn and his daughter called Gwladys ddu
(Whose mother Joan was known as one of King John's progeny)
Together with her spouse of Wigmore named Ralph Mortimer,—
Llewelyn, the last Prince of Wales, and his wife Elinor,
Daughter of Simon Montford and the Princess Elinor
A daughter of King John, were each a Vaughan progenitor.
Through Edward the First's daughter, too, another Elinor,
Whose husband was a nobleman named Henry Conte de Bar,
The Family of Vaughans descended from the Conqueror.
Tudor, the brother of Glyndwr of never dying fame,
And Lowrv, who was sister to these brothers and became
The wife of Emral's owner, Robert Pulleston by name,
Are also (Lewis Dwnn and Burke enable me to> trace)
Enrolled among the parents of the Corsygedol race.

Like Margaret, a name occurrent o'er and o'er again.

The nomenclature Robert was quite a Plascanol name,

For a third Robert, Edward's son by Margaret, became

The spouse of Mary who was daughter to (f) Hugh Thomas who

Was Sheriff of Merionethshire in seventeen thirty-two.

Hugh's wife was Mary, daughter of Rice Pierce, I see, and he

Was Clerk in Holy Orders, of Celynin Rectory.

And Hugh was son of one who bore the name of Anthony (f)

Thomas, High Sheriff in sixteen hundred and eighty-three.

Hendre Llwyngwril used to be the Thomas property.

The wife of Anthony was Mary White of Neugwl. She

Was White of Neugwl's daughter by his wife whose name was Anne,

A daughter and co-heiress of a certain gentleman

Known as John Wynn of Gwynfryn who deduced his pedigree

From Coliwyn ap Tango of th' eleventh century.

Jane Evans was the wife of this John Wynn of Gwynfryn — she

Is styled " of Tanybwlch " in Feniarth Book of History.

The present Gwynfryn family descended from the same

Old strain, although they have adopted Nanney for surname.

Annum' " The Hengwt Manuscripts " there is an Elegy

On Mr. Evan Evans of this Tanybwlch, I see,

By Sion Dafydd, dated A.D. sixteen eighty. We

will now proceed to prosecute Plascanol Pedigree.

Robert and Mary's daughter was Elizabeth, and she

Was my Grandfather's better-half and Grandmother to me,

As will be further on unfolded in this history.

Here comes an opportunity to make allusion to
The Aberffrydlan family whose head was Humphrey Pughe,
(Humphrey ap Hugh) fourth brother to John Pughe, Esquire, whose
Wras Hugh ap Jeuan ap the loyal David Lloyd Esquire, [sire

The Bard aforesaid of Mathafarn. Humphrey's daughter Jane

Was wife to Lewis Prichard, who was of Llewelyn's strain

And lived at Talgarth, co. Merioneth. Edward Lewis, who

Was Lewis and Jane Prichard' s son and heir of Talgarth too,

And who was born about fifteen hundred and ninety-eight,

According to what Lewis Dwnn and Mr. Wynne relate,

Was wed to an Elizabeth through whom again I trace

My lineage directly to the Corsygedol race ;

For she was daughter, I observe, to William Vaughan whose sire

Was Robert Vaughan, one of the children of Rhys Vaughan Esquire,

Of Corsygedol. Lewis Edwards was, I may relate,

Their son. His funeral occurred in sixteen eighty-eight :

And his son, Edward Lewis, gent,, of Talgarth, I can state,

Married a Lowry living in seventeen hundred and eight.

Of Edward Lewis and his Lowry's offspring there were two,

Lewis and Anne whose clan I can enumerate to you :- —

First, Lewis Edwards, gentleman, of Talgarth, and the heir,

Who married Mary, daughter of John Davies, gent. These were

The parents of John Edwards who was a solicitor :

His son was Sir John Edwards, Bart., whose only daughter, Mary

Cornelia, is dowager Marchioness Londonderry.

Anne Edwards, second daughter of that Edward Lewis, who
Had Lowry for his better half, I secondly review : —
Her husband was John Tibbotts, of Darowen, an A.B.,
Its Vicar very early in the eighteenth century.
Him I shall specify with more particularity
When by and by I verify his genealogy.

The f ore-named Anne, the Vicar's wife and widow, was alive
And Lewis Edwards, too, in seventeen hundred forty-five.

That Vicar's eldest daughter, Lowry, married Richard Pughe,
Clerk. (I descend from them.) He was, as I can prove to you,
The younger son of Richard Pughe, the son of Catharine
Pughe, widow, of Cwmllowi : But I fail to find her line :
Although in Peniarth big old Book, appended to the line
Of the Mathafarn Pughes, I found on page three sixty-nine
The name " Cwmllowi " written down against a Catharine,
Which seemed suggestive, yet I failed correctly to combine
That Catharine with this of mine in the Cwmllowi line.

However, through both brothers, John and Humphrey Pughe, I trace

To David Lloyd of old Mathafarn my paternal race:

And, if tradition be correct, as it appears to be,

For it completely coincides with probability

And with a record found in the Caerberllan Pedigree,

Richard ap John ap Hugh, gen. of Cwmbychan, second son
Of John Fnghe of Mathafam, (Rowland was his eldest one.)
Connects through the Cwmllowi consort of old Catharine
Me with Mathafam through another and a, male straight line
Which further on I shall in rhyme endeavour to define.
I am a ninth descendant of old David Lloyd, I see,
And an eleventh from Sir Richard of Montgomery.

The quaint old Title Deeds of Hendre, Aber canol wyn,
My property, in fifteen hundred and sixteen begin ;
And, as they testify to my paternal ancestry,
And are intrinsic arguments of authenticity,
Their evidence enables me to write with verity.

Described as " a free man " in my paternal pedigree,

Ieuan ap Owen had three children : — David, Griff, and Reec.

David, the eldest was, it seems, childless at his decease.

Reec had two sons, Lodwio and Humphrey. Griff was sire to three

Sons, namely, David, John and Howell. But I fail to see

That of this trio more than one left any family.

John had two sons, Ellis, and Rhitherch. Rhitherch was the man

That was in fifteen eighty-three married to Marian

Ap Owen ap David ap Lewis. Mary was the name

Of Rhytherch's second daughter who by marriage bonds became

The better half of Richard Tybbotte. Then one John by name,

Richard and Mary's heir " apparant," was united to

Elizabeth an Evan, eldest daughter of one who

Was Evan John Griffith ap Reec. And here I should relate

That this John Tybbotte was in sixteen hundred fifty-eight

" Ellected " am High Constable of Estimaner when

The miscalled Commonwealth was incommoding honest men.

Her epitaph informs us that Elizabeth ap Evan

In sixteen sixty four departed, as we hope, for heaven.

Her widower, in his old age, became affianced to

A widow, Mary Owen of Mathafam, William Pughe,

Esquire, of Mathafam, set his hand and seal unto

Their marriage settlement. They were in sixteen eighty wed,

As I myself in a Llanwrin Register have read.

John Tybbots had a son and heir " apparant," Richard, who

Married a dame whose name was Jane, verch David John ap Hugh.

The son and heir born to this pair, John Tibbots an A.B.,

Wais Vicar of Dare-wen, in the co. Montgomery,

And husband of Anne Edwards who was second daughter tj

That Edward Lewis late of Talgarth, gentleman. But she

And he have been already mentioned in this history.

The faithful Herald, Lewis DAvnn, enables me to trace.
In the Cwmbychan Pushes a branch of the Mathafarn race.
Rowland was John ap Hugh and his wife Catharine's first son
And heir. But Richard of Cwmbvchan was the second one,
Who made his will in fifteen hundred eighty-seven. I see
Him down by Lewis Dwnn in the Mathafarn Pedigree.
His wife was Jane, the daughter of Wat-kin Thomas, Esquire,
Whose lineage I would acquire, but fail to follow higher.
This Richard de Cwmbychan had a son, John Pugh, and he,
Who died, so far as I can see, sine progenie,
In sixteen hundred forty-seven, wras spouse to Margery,
The daughter of an Edward Herbert, gen. of Kemmaes, by
Richard ap Hugh of Rhosygareg's daughter called Mabli.
That Edward Herbert was, I see, John Herbert's son, and he
Was grandson of Sir Richard Herbert of Montgomery.

Ii, was once thought that this John Pugh was father to the line

Of the Cwmllowi Pughes, and, thus, an ancestor of mine ;

But, since I fail to see that he had any family,

1 turn to Edward Pughe, his brother, who, I recently

Discovered, was a benedict and blessed with progeny :

For Richard Pugh, who owned Cwmbychan, had an " eldest sonne

And heire," besides his other one whose Christian name was John,

Called Edward, and this Edward was the first within the same

Parish to* drop the ap, and to adopt Pughe for surname.

In sixteen hundred and eleven he was Deputy

High Sheriff under Rowland Owen, co. Montgomery ',

Sc the late Edward Rowley Morris certified to me

When at the Record Office he looked up my pedigree.

' There were," said he, " no other persons in DarowTen who

Were at his period distinguished by the surname Pughe.

From fifteen eighty-seven, to sixteen twenty was the time

When he took to the surname Pugh to designate his line.

All the Mathafarn tribe, however, singular to state,

Dispensed with their "ap" appellation at an early date,

A course which in the district of Darowen and in all

The limits of Cyfeiliog was quite exceptional."

This Edward Pughe was de Cwmbychan summoned to the Grand

Jury, I see in history, in sixteen hundred and

Twelve, and his name occurs again attesting earlier still

Richard ap Hugh of Rhosygareg's interesting will.

Since penning most of this, I have been favoured with a look

At hospitable Peniarth at a celebrated Book

Of Pedigrees where I discovered that this Edward Pughe,

" The eldest Sonne and heire " of Richard de Cwmbychan, who

First in Darowen dropped the Ap surname, was wedded to

Jane, daughter of one Rys ap Hugh of Maesypandy, who

Was Sheriff of Merionethshire in fifteen eighty-two,

And that the children of this Edward and Jane Pughe were two : —

(N.B. — My Father, I remember very well, told me

That he descended from the Maesypandy family.)

The first called " Pugh " (sic) and the second called Meredith Pugh.

This " Pugh," first son of Edward Pugh and Jane, it seems to me,

Was the Richardus Pugh of the Cwmllowi family

Wno prosecuted, as I learn from Jail File history,

In sixteen hundred sixty-two a man for thievery.

' Whoever this Richardus Pughe was, it is morally

Certain he must have sprung from the Math a farm family": —

The late E. Rowley Morris, a distinguished antiquary,

Made this remark when he searched out the Pughes that ovucd

His wife must have been Catharine, for in a Register [Cwmllowi

Kept at Darowen I conclude I have discovered her

And him in sixteen forty-six. They both were probably,

And more, indeed, than probably, I think, undoubtedly,

Parents of Edward Pughe whose son, Richard, was., I opine,

The husband of old Catharine to whom I trace my line.

Tradition and a Pedigree convincibly correct

Of Baron Lewis Owen, the Vice-Chamberlain, connect

The quondam owners of Cwmllowi with the family

Of Pughes who owned and occupied Mathafarn formerly.

This Lewis Owen Pedigree, which has, as its prefix,

r Owen Caerberllan," and is dated seventeen forty-six,

While stating that a certain William Lewis Owen, one

Of the Caerberllan House, and Lewis Owens second son,

Married the second daughter of a " Captain Edward Pughe,1'

Who, it explains, was " of Cwmllowi, in Darowen," too,

Records that " those Cwmllowi Pughe' s progenitors could trace

The derivation of their house from the Mathafarn race."

And that descent extended in all probability

By issue masculine from its Mathafarn ancestry

Through the Cwmbychan branch to my Cwmllowi family.

Cwmbychan and Cwmllowi join each other in the same

Township and Parish and appear to have been one domain.

The Trefoil in the Lion's mouth on the Mathafarn crest

Distinguished his, my Father told me ; I forget the rest

Of what he said about it, but I recollect that he

Said frequently that we were shoots of the Mathafarn Tree.

My late friend Joseph Owen Jones of Dolycorsllwyn,

A place belonging once to Pughes of the Mathafarn kin,

Informed me that we Pughes were of Mathafarn origin.

He, and his father, David Jones of Llwydiarth, I may state,

Were many years the agents of Mathafarn to the late

Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. They thus would naturally ba

Fairly well qualified to judge my genealogy.

My old Abergynolwyn tenant, too, whose father knew

Quite well my great-grandfather of Machynlleth, Doctor Pughe,

Nonagenarian himself, told me my family

Has always been considered of Mathafarn ancestry —

And Owen Owen has a claim to credibility.

Tradition seldom thrives in towns, but it survives in Wales

Where memory delights to be the treasury of tales.

It eases me to change at times

The metre of my rugged rhymes.

Living by Birmingham, but still

Loving each old Welsh vale and hill,

jx Doctor named D. C. Llovd Owen,

Himself a native of Darowen,

Who, too, can definitely trace

Descent from the Mathafarn race,

Replied most courteously to me,

In eighteen eighty-seven, in re

The Pughe Cwmllowi Pedigree.

He had been staying at Wynnstay,

When out upon a holiday,

And there he happened to peruse

Two mentions of Cwmllowi Pughes : —

Richard of sixteen sixty-five —

And Edward Pughe who was alive

In sixteen seventy-six. The former

Was, he conjectured, the grandfather

Of Richard Pughe whose will is dated

In seventeen twenty-eight. He stated

That he believed that Edward, too,

Was Father to this Richard Pughe,

Which brings us nearer, said he,

To the Mathafarn Family.

For, though he had no proof about

That origin, he'd little doubt,
And with the late E. Rowley Morris he agreed
That the Cwmllowi Pughes were of Mathafarn breed.

Proofs negative being of use,
One of such sort I next adduce.
The Reverend W. V. Lloyd,
Whose able pencil was employed
For years on archaeology,
Perused my genealogy,

And to my satisfaction sent

Me this ingenious argument : —

It was in eighteen eighty-eight

That he did so I should relate.

" I have gone over carefully

Your manuscript miscellany,

And quite agree with Doctor Owen,

In re Cwmllowi in Darowen,

That the Cwmllowi Pughes would be

Through the Cwmbychan family

Descended from their parent tree,

And of Mathafarn ancestry.

Like Doctor Owen, I, as yet,

Beyond conjecture cannot get ;

But seemingly the Richard Pughe

Of sixteen hundred sixty-two

And Edward Pughe, whose time you fix

At sixteen hundred seventy-six,

Were John Pughe of Cwmbychan's sons,

Since I meet with no other ones; —

Contemporary gentlemen —

Landowners in Darowen then.

Moreover, it seems evident

To me that such is the descent,

Since the Caerberllan Pedigree

Of Lewis Owen's family

Confirms its probability.

Still, from my own experience

In weighing such like evidence,

Though I have very little doubt,

I should much like to find more out."

In August, eighteen ninety-eight, I found out more
About Cwmbychan's people than I knew before,
At Peniarth, quite enough to make me think
That I have hit upon another link

In Richard de Cwmbychan's other

And " eldest sonne and heire," the brother

Of John Pughe, Edward Pughe, by name,

Who married Maesypandy Jane,

And had by her two children who

Were named " Pugh " and Meredith Pughe.

This " Pugh," so called, appears the same

As he, who, Richard Pughe, by name,

In sixteen hundred sixty-two

Was of Cwmllowi, gen., and who

Was pitching into a sheep thief —

Such is in brief mv best belief.

The argument appears to me

To shape itself thus clearly : —

Darowen Parish never knew

Another family of Pughe

As landed gentry at the time

Of old Cwmllowi Catharine

Save those of a Dolcorsllwyn,

Or a Cwmbychan origin,

Which were well known to be akin,

And of Mathafarn origin,

And which abounded in Darowen,

As testified by Doctor Owen,

Himself, a native of the place,

From which I trace my father's race,

During the seventeenth, and the

Eighteenth eventful century

When antiquarian research

Was left to linger in the lurch.

Both Mr. Lloyd and Doctor Owen,

Confessedlv expert and knowing,

As well as willing to impart

To any their egregious art,

Considered that the theory

Of the Cwmbychan ancestry

Of my Cwmllowi family

Amounts to probability,

And almost to a certainty.

That was before I had a look

Into the big old Peniarth Book

And ascertained that Edward Pugh

Ap Richard Pugh ap John ap Hugh

Styled " of Cwmbychan, gen., had two

Sons, and surmised the theory

That " Pugh," his eldest son, would be

The founder of the family

That owned Cwmllowi formerly.

Elizabetha filia Richardi Pugh et ejus
Uxoris Catharinae Edward nata fuit die
Satur. Octobris die so. et Baptizata die
Crastina Solis sixteen forty-six A.D."
Darowen Parish Register gives me this history.
And it appears to me that in all probability
This Richard Pugh down in Darowen Register will be
Identical with Richard Pughe, gen. de Cwmllowi, who
Was living in the year sixteen hundred and sixty-two.

He prosecuted a sheep stealer at that very date,
As the late E. K. Morris has enabled me to state,
Before a Roger Mostyn, ai\, a County Magistrate
Who was of Aberhiriaeth Hall, I also may relate.
Again, one of the selfsame name, I notice, was alive
And of Cwmllowi in sixteen hundred and sixty-live.
An Edward Pugh there also was whose habitat I fix
At the same residence in sixteen hundred sixty-six.

He must have been the Edward Pugh of sixteen seventy-three

Who was churchwarden at Darowen indisputably,

Since then and there there were no other Edward Puglies but he.

Summoned to the Great Sessions, too, in sixteen seventy-hvc

I notice " Edrus Pugh, gen., de Cwmllowi still alive.

In seventeen two, in seventeen six, also in seventeen eight,

A Richard Pugh was of Cwmllowi, who, I should relate,

Was a Grand Juror at those dates. He had been seemingly

In sixteen ninety-seven collector of the subsidy

In Noddfa Township, in Darowen, where adjacently

The two Cwmbychans and the two Cwmllowi's formerly

Were occupied by Pughs in two contiguous estates

As mentioned seriatim and at those forecited dates.

This Richard Pugh was, I opine, the spouse of Catharine

Pughe of Cwmllowi from whom I can verify my line.

The area of both of the Cwnibychan glens contained
Nine hundred acres minus four, as I have ascertained.
Two properties were also called Cwmllowi formerly,
And each of them was owned by my paternal ancestry.
Six hundred and one acre was the area of one,
Namely Cwmllowi Issa, or the loAver vale. The sum
Total of what the upper land contained I do not know,
Nor have I documents at hand its acreage to shew.

I change my rhyme to prove my line

Of pedigree to Catharine

Pughe, the Cwmllowi dowager,

And very old I reckon her.

In seventeen hundred twenty-four

She must have been four score or more,

For at that date, as I have read,

Her grandson was engaged to wed,

And her grand-daughter, it appears

Had been a wife almost five years.

Richard of Noddfa I opine

Must have been spouse to Catharine

Who had Cwmllowi for her life ;

She was undoubtedly his wife,

And had to her behoof three farms in Noddfa in Darowen : —
Tyddyn j Blaen Cwnillowi, Esgair Ganol, alias Onen,
Tyddyn y Groesnant, otherwise Tyddyn y Fedw. They
Were limited to her for life all in a legal way.

This Catharine was mother to

A gentleman called Richard Pughe

Who made his will, I beg to state,

In seventeen hundred twenty-eight.
He owned four farms, besides the three above enumerated
Cwnillowi Issa was the first of them, I find it stated,
Tyddyn y Bwlch the second was, Tyddyn ty yn y pant
The third of these four tenements was known as, but I can't
Well rhyme the fourth. Tyddyn canol Cwnillowi was, I see,
Its name, Ty yn yr Wtra, too, in Cemmaes, used to be
A part and parcel of the old Cwnillowi property.

This Richard's wife was Mary. He devised Cwml'owi to

His eldest son and heir by her whose name was Edward Pughe

Who by his wife Jane Richard, had Richard, his eldest son,

7o whom he left Cwnillowi, A.D. seventeen thirty-one.

This Richard Pughe's last, will was proved in seventeen forty-nine

In which he mentioned Richard Pughe, great great grandsire of mine,

His cousin, only son of his late uncle, Richard Pughe,

Clerk, whom, with his wife Lowry, I shall present!^ review,

And left Cwnillowi to his only brother Edward, who,

By his wife, Ester, had a daughter, Mary, married to

A William Lewis Owen, gen., of the Caerberllan race,

Whose lineage from Baron Lewis Owen I can trace,

And to whose pedigree I see this evidence appended : —

" That the Cwnillowi Pughes were from Mathafarn Pughes descended."

The younger son of Richard Pughe (by his wife Mary) who

Devised Cwnillowi to his eldest issue, Edward Pughe,

In seventeen twenty-eight, as I have certified to you,

Was Clerk in Holy Orders, and called also Richard Pughe,

And he became the spouse of Lowry, eldest daughter to

John Tibbots, Vicar of Darowen, who, as I have said,

Had been to Anne of Talgarth, Lewis Edwards' sister, wed.

This Richard Pughe, the younger, clerk, and his wife, Lowry, were

The parents each of Richard Pughe, their only son and heir,

Who, by profession was a Surgeon and Apothecary,

And married William and Anne Tibbots' only daughter Mary.

(Aberhirddowen was this William Tibbots' dwelling place :

But where Aberhirddowen was I fairly fail to trace.)

The Surgeon had two sons — the senior, Richard Pughe, — the othei
Was William Pughe whom I review before^ his elder brother.
They both were bred at Jesus College, Oxford, and I see
That, unlike me, they both rejoiced in an A.B. Degree.

This William's wife was Mary Owen, of Ddolgoed, the one
Surviving younger child of a John Owen, gentleman,
Known, also, as John Owen Jones, who was apparently
Own nephew to a Doctor Rowland Owen, formerly
An eminent bone-setter of Dolgelly, the renown
Of whose ability remains a topic in that town.
Old William Pughe was Rector once of Mallwyd. His one
Son. Richard Pughe by name, became ordained a clergyman,
And there is dwelling at Pwllheli now his only son.

The Mallwyd Rector also had two daughters, Jane and Anne.

Jane died a spinster. Anne was married to a gentleman

Named Rice Jones Owen, the great Doctor Rowland Owen's son

By Anne, the daughter of Rice Jones, Esquire, of Blaemui, who

Was John Jones' son and heir by Sioned, daughter of Hugh Pugh.

Of Garthmaelan, within Dolgelly Parish. I may add

That Rowland Owen, of Dewisbren, was the Doctor's dad,

And Lowry Owen was his mother. Of their progeny

One was a (Quakeress, I see; her name was Dorothy.

Rice Jones, of Blaenau, who was born in seventeen thirteen,

And died when eighty-eight- years old, is known as having been

The publisher of what in Wales is held in high regard,

" Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru," and he was himself a* bard,

And a connecting link between the bards of previous days

And those succeeding. Therefore he merits a meed of praise.

Squire Rice1 Jones Owen by his wife Anne left a family

Of three co-heiresses whom I will try to specify: —

Anne> Catharine Jones Owen, who is eldest of the three,

Is now a widow, Mrs. Attwood, with a family ;

Her husband was " The Claimant's " London Doctor, very fat.

And like him. " Titchborne Attwooci " he was dubbed because of that.

Mary Elizabeth Jones Owen's home was Alfreton,

In Derbyshire, and she is married to a surgeon,

A Doctor Campbell. Jane, the least and youngest of the three,

Lives with her sister, Mrs. Campbell in virginity.

Thus, having written what I can corncerning William Pughe
And his descendants and connections, I shall next review
The devolution of his elder Brother's family
Which more immediately concerns my genealogy.

The Senior of the Surgeon's offspring, Richard Pughe, his heir,

Was Free School Master at Llanegrin, first, then Vicar there ,

Prior to his promotion to Llanfrothen Rectory

Together with Bethgelert which was but a. poor P.C.

His wife, Elizabeth, whose madden, name was Morgan, I

Have made allusion to already in this history ;

But I may add that she was heiress of Plascanol and

Ga.rdda.niel, which properties are, ais I understand,

Both in Llanaber. She, moreover, had an interest

In Cwmllegoediog, a, place in Mallwyd once possessed

By Robert Morgan, Clerk, her brother, who, I may go on

To tell you, once resided at Cerrigydruidion.

The said Elizabeth, his heiress, had been previously

Married to David Davies. A Llanegrin history

By Mr. Wynne of Peniarth, tells us that he was of Pant.

She had by him an only daughter, Mary, my half-aunt,

Because half-sister to my Father. David Lloyd became

This Mary's husband, and John Lloyd, who was their son, again,

Was Father to the David Lloyd who lives at Pant and who

Possesses in fee simple Pant and Gwyddfryniau too.

The Rector of Llanfrothen and Elizabeth each were

The parents of my Father who was Richard Pughe, their heir.

My father had five brothers. One, the next to him, was John,

B.A., the Llanfihangel-ar-y Traethau Clergyman :

He was, my Father used to state, an antiquarian,

And, as his writings indicate, no* bad historian.

Robert appears to have been the third of them, and he

Was once, at Bangor, Doctor to the old Dispensary.

The other three were William, Hugh, and Edward. They had two

Own sisters, namely, Anne and Jane. Anne' died at five, and Jane

Married the owner of Ynysfor, Evan Jones by name.

These had two sons called John and Richard. Richard has been dead

Since many years. John Jones, my cousin, in his Father's stead,

Kept at Ynysfor, under his ancestral rookery,

The Fox and Otter Hounds which for over a century

Himself, his father, and grandfather, old John Jones, Esquire,

Hunted around the rocky ground of Merionethshire.

To Evan Jones and Jane, his wife, were born, I should have said,

Two daughters, also. But Eliza has long since been dead.

The other daughter's name is Jane, and she became the wife

Of Griffith Jones who has departed this uncertain life.

John Griffith Jones is their one son, his widowed mother's pride,

At Llwynffynnon by Pwllheli she and he reside.

John Jones Esquire, my much regretted cousin, left this life
Id January, nineteen one. By Lydia Jones, his wife,
The second daughter and coheiress of John Jones, Esquire,
Oi Oaklarids, an estate which is somewhere in Denbighshire,
He left a son and heir, Lieutenant Evan Bowen Jones,
Lately returned from Africa, and now the man who owns
Ynysfor, and John Richard Mervyn is the younger son.
But he left eight more olive branches, daughters every one: —
Cordelia Jane I firstly name, because the eldest bom,
And she conducted me to see Llanfrothen Church one morn,
Her husband is Frank Longville Lloyd of Trallwyn, a place
"Which borders on Pwllheli. His descent in Burke I trace,
And rind him well descended of an old and worthy race.
Lydia Elizabeth is their next daughter, and the third
Is called Anne Catharine. The fourth, I falter for a word
To bring her in, is Mary Edith. Their fifth daughter's name
Is Dorothea Blanche ; and in her train are others, twain,
Named Winifred and Sybil, who are twins, I beg to say ;
And eighthly Margaret Noel born upon a Christmas Day.
" Happy the man who has his quiver full of them," I said,
And happiness awaits the Christian after he is dead.

The Powys Laud Historical Collections comprehend
My Pedigree Maternal. But I feel I should append
That genealogy with due particularity.

My mother's maiden name was Withy, and her family

I will accordingly distinguish as The Withy Tree.

The oldest Withy provable as her progenitor

Was Hilborne Withy, Coleman Street, and an Upholsterer.

Robert, his eldest son, was long remembered as " Bob Short,"

Whose calling was stockbroking, whilst whist-playing was his forte.

His eldest son and namesake was a money scrivenir,

Or, what we designate at present, a solicitor ;

He was of Buckingham Street, Strand, also of Bletchingly

In Sussex, and of Brighton. I may mention, by the bye,

That Robert, the solicitor, was no monogamist,

But, as in houses so in spouses, quite a pluralist.

He married thrice. Miss Burton was the first upon his list.

One of his many daughters, Mary, lived at Cheltenham,

Also at Stapleton (it would rhyme better Stapletam).

Sarah, another of his daughters, married Mortemer

Rodney, an Honourable, I, of course, must honour her,

He was the son of George, the second Baron and the son

Of great George Biydges Rodney, who, for victory well won

Over the French when led in vain by Comte de Grasse, became

Promoted to the Peerage with a handle to his name,

And reached in seventeen eighty-three the zenith of his fame.

His Pillar on the Breidden Hill reminds my family

Ot our affinity as well as of his victory.

Tn eighteen fifty-six, and at the age of sixty-four,

Seven years my junior, died at Lanfanque this Mortemer.

I now define my Mother's line. William, the second son

Of Hilborae, the Upholdsterer, became a surgeon

In Castle Street, by Cripple Gate : and here I may relate

That Doctor William Withy died in seventeen eighty-eight.

His wife was Mary Layton. Thomas Withy, their fifth son,

Was educated and intended for a surgeon.

The Menai Bridge was under his superintendence made

By Telford. Thomas Withy was an engineer by trade,

And acted under Hazeldine at Upton which is by

The Severn, something like ten miles away from Shrewsbury.

Jane, youngest sister of George Gould of Golfa, was his wife,

And, aged seventy-nine, he left this sublunary life

In eighteen fifty-two. In eighteen fifty-nine, again,

Aged four score and four departed my grandmother Jane.

My Mother, Jane Gould Withy, was the eldest of eleven,

And, at the age of fifty-nine, her spirit entered Heaven

On the fifteenth of June in eighteen hundred fifty-eight ;

Though four and forty years and more have fled since what I state,

Like yesterday appears to me the parting of that date,

While, hanging on my study wall, above the mantelpiece,

The' picture of my mother preaches piety and peace.

She Avas the eldest of eleven, I said, and I will try

To specify the others' names. Bora with last century,

Elizabeth succeeded her, and was the family

Historian who wrote the Gould-cum-Withy Pedigree

Extracted from the Journal of George Gould, my great grandsire,

And copied for me by my sister Jane at my desire.

My good aunt Mary followed her. Then George Gould Withy ; he

Bought, the estate of Maesbury not far from Oswestry.

Anne Letts came next. Then Thomas Withy. Harriett© Eleanor,

And William Henry Withy, Justice of the Peace, and a Mayor

Once of Welshpool' and long at Golfa. Henry Robert Withy

Died early in Jamaica, where he was a Missionary.

Maria Decima departed to New Zealand. She

Married a Howel, and returning homeward, died at sea

"Upon the: twenty-first of June in eighteen seventy-three,

The youngest of them all was Charlotte Layton Gould, and she,
Who was the sole survivor of the Withy family,
Died, ere I set about to rhyme this genealogy.
Upon the twenty-first of May in eighteen ninety-six,
At the ripe age of seventy-nine, her nephew must affix.

John Gwilim, in his curious " Display of Heraldrie,"

Describes the coat of Nicholas Gould, Merchant and M.P.,

In sixteen fifty-nine, and says, " He beareth Girony

CK foure, or, and azure, a Lyon Rampant counter-changed," —

And thus was my great uncle Gould of Golf as coat arranged.

These arms remain engraven on his Book Plate, Plate and Seal ;

And many charms in his old Anns I naturally feel.

The Motto of George Gould was " Deus mihi providebit,"

" God will provide for me " — And I believe it, as I read it.

Over a hundred years ago, the said George Gould was sent

From Deptford to inspect Oak Forests for the Government

In Herefordshire. Radnorshire, and in Montgomeryshire,

When Bonaparte was menacing the British Empire.

George Gould was Captain, Deputy Lieutenant, Magistrate,

Burgess and Bailiff of Welshpool. I have, I may relate,

His epaulet, coat, sash and swords, and him in miniature,

And every reason to respect his relics, I am sure.

The widows, Mooney, his first wife, and Mrs. Eleanor

Morris, his second, left him childless. I am no complainer,

For he was my Godfather, and entailed the property

Of Golf a on My Mother first, and afterwards on me

Who have been recently compelled with Costeker to guard,

Its wayside meadow counterparts to Xaboth's vineyard

From ruin by Light Railway rangers. Happily the Earl

Of Jersey proved at Llanfair far too just to act the churl,

And Bonnor-Maurice of Bodynfol could not condescend

To be unlike his father, my late father's upright friend,

When at his London office we succeeded to insure

The drinking water of Welshpool from being made impure.

The Goulds of Golfa meriting memento, I will try

To muster a memorial in re their history.

Arthur, a son of Arthur Gould, whose dwelling was Gould Mount,

In Devonshire, was the first Gould for whom I can account.

Henry the Second, it is reckoned, reigned in England when
He went to Ireland along Avith other Englishmen.
This Arthur married into the Musgarry family.
(MeCharty) bracketted appears against that name, I see.
For what Aunt Betsy, twin-born with the nineteenth century.
Has noted I have quoted with concise fidelity.

My great great great grandfather, Garrett Gould, I must relate,

As Captain of Dragoons, at Worcester, fought for Church and State,

In sixteen fifty-one, upon the third day of September.

(It gives me pride to be descended from a King's defender.)

He was of Knockraha, near Cork, and he had in Kinsale,

According to niv grandmother and my great uncle's tale,

A tale, which, since I sat me down to write what I have stated,

Is by some records recently sent me corroborated,

Through matrimony property. In sixteen ninety-nine

He died. All of his progeny I need not now define.

Ignatius, his eldest son, however, took possession

Of his intestate sire's estate in regular succession.

He married Amy Barrett, and their family were four: —

Garrett and Barrett, John and George, apparently no more.

Ignatius departed hence in seventeen thirty-two,

And Garrett Gould, his eldest son and heir, succeeded to

The property, but died, I see, sine progenie,

Which soon occasioned litigation in the family ;

My good old aunt's memorials enable me to fix.

The date of his demise. It was in seventeen sixty-six.

His second brother Barrett's bastard, called Ignatius,

Contrived to get the property, and, selling it, sold us.

To catalogue the names of Garrett Gould's estates in rhyme

Demands an abler muse than mine, and takes me all my time.

Ballydermody, Knockrahamore, Ballygloganeigh,

Ballygrobine, Ballylogharne, also Knockrahareigh,

In all two plousrhlands and a half, within the Barony

Of Barrymore, together with his household property

Within Kinsale, all situate in County Cork, appear

To have uroduced a rent of sixteen hundred pounds a year.

John Gould, son of Ignatius and Amy Gould, became

A full-blown Major in the service of the King of Spain,

His better half, Elizabeth's surname was Elphinstone, —

One of the Elphinstones of Scotland. They had but one son,

And but one daughter. That one son, Ignatius, became

Lieutenant on a Man of War under the Flag of Spain.

Elizabeth, the widow of John Gould, married again

De Vegan, and I see that he was a Grandee of Spain

Who died in seventeen eighty-four. His only son became

Page to the King of Spain, but I know not what was his name.

The sister of Ignatius, named Margaret, became,

So says the memoir, maid of honour to the Queen of Spain.

Ignatius Gould and his wife Amy's fourth and youngest son,
Captain George Gould, my great grandfather ought to have been one
Of Garrett Gould, his brother's heirs, by gavel kind, they say,
But what's the use of carping? Knockraha has gone away.

Born on the fourteenth day of May, in seventeen fifteen,
George Gould became a Captain in the Merchantile Marine,
And though in crayons he continues in old-fashioned state
Red waisteoated and smiling, with a wig upon his pate,
He died the twenty-eighth of April, seventeen eighty-eight.

He had by Frances, his first wife, in seventeen forty-four,
A little infant son, who died at one month old, no more.
A leaf of his old pocket book describes his Frances and her
Two children, one of whom was George, the other Alexander.
George died an infant overlaid ; and Alexanders fate
Was to be captured by the French. But he was fortunate
In getting liberated through John Gould's diplomacy, —
Though in a duel hazarding his life, he lost an eye,
And, shortly afterwards, his life in Spain unhappily.

The Captain had eleven children by his second wife,

Whom I possess in yellow dress pourtrayed as large as life.

I will begin by mentioning the daughters of these twain : —

Elizabeth, Rebecca, Sarah, Amy, Mary, Jane;

The sons were Thomas, George of Golfa, after him St. John,

Ignatius, and Henry, whom I knew, for he lived on

To fully four score years and four. He was the youngest son,

And he presented me when young with my Joe Manton gun,

He died the twelfth of April, eighteen hundred sixty-one.

The Captain had by both his wives, the memoir says, fourteen,
Seven sons and seven daughters. I can only count thirteen.

The second wife of Captain Gould, Elizabeth Somerson,
Was daughter of a goldsmith in the Minories, London.
In yellow dress, as said above. I have her likeness. She
In eighteen twenty-three was buried, aged ninety-three.
Her sister was Rebecca. I preserve her picture, too,
Distinguished by a dickey bird and by a dress of blue;
Her husband's name was Captain Swithin. By tradition he
Was a descendant of the Saint, but scanty sanctity
Seems to have settled in him, since they very early parted,
And poor Rebecca died, a bride, completely broken hearted.

Painted in purple dress I have the mother of the twain,
Namely, of Mrs. Gould and Mrs. Swithin. Joseph Rayne,
Their father was baptised in sixteen hundred sixty-nine,
(Particulars like this it gives me pleasure to define,)
And was the son of Thomas Rayne, whose own baptismal date
Was the eighteenth of January sixteen twenty-eight.
He lived for over four score years. His father, Nicholas
Rayne, is their utmost provable pater faniilias.

Elizabeth Mumford was, I ascertain, the maiden name

Of her, who, marrying, became the wife of Joseph Rayne

In sixteen ninety-four. She bore three daughters and one son,

And died in seventeen fourteen. Of her four children one,

Elizabeth alone surviving wed George Somerson,

The Jeweller above described. The daughter of which twain,

Miss Somerson, who, also, bore her mother's Christian name.

Became the second wife of Captain Gould. Their daughter, Jane,

Was Mrs. Thomas Withy. The Estate of Thomas Rayne.,

Called Mentmoor, was inherited by Joseph Rayne. Again,

The three Elizabeths aforesaid, each alternately,

Were heiresses and owners of the Mentmoor property.

At length the lady dressed in yellow left it to her son,

Captain George Gould, of Golfa, who, I certified, was one

Of my godparents. He bequeathed it to his devisees,

In order to dispense donations 'twixt his legatees.

My father and my eldest Uncle, George, were his Trustees.

Thus Mentmoor tenement, which was the Rayne's old property,

Through Captain Warner and the Rothchilds went to Rosebery,

The racing Radical of anti-Church proclivity.

My great grandmother's mother, Mrs. Somerson, nee Rayne,
Was left a widow, and became the better-half again
Of him who, watch in hand, stands painted, Thomas Gardener :
That was his name. He was a Goldsmith and a Jeweller.

Prating of portraits, I possess my Father's portrait (He

Has little Punch beside him who was bought for him by me.)

In water colours. And I have in chalk the picture, too,

Of my Grandfather, the Llanfrothen Rector, Richard Pughe.

My Father was his eldest son, his heir and namesake. He

Claims honourable mention in my genealogy.

He was of Jesus College, Oxford, and a Graduate,

And for a lengthy period a Countv Magistrate.

On the first day of January, eighteen twenty-nine,

He married Jane Gould Withy. I have testified each line

Of her descent when I described the Withy Pedigree,

Which, you remember I distinguished as The Withy Tree.

My Father lived at Llanrihangel, in Montgomeryshire,

And was for nine and twenty years the righteous Rector there

Until, three score and five years old, he left this mortal state

The thirtieth of January, eighteen fifty-eight.

In Llanfihangel old Churchyard there grows a curious larch
Of his own planting. Its bent branches constitute an arch
Which canopies the monument and sacred spaces where
He, and my Mother, and my youngest sister Mary are

Ir quietude reposing, '* Earth to earth, and dust to dust,"

Lintil the resurrection of the generous and just,

When, quitting Gwynfas calm retreat, they shall with joy arise

To meet Immanuel and praise His Name in Paradise.

My eldest sister, Jane Gould Pughe, lives at Carnarvon. She

As 'Cambria,'' delights in writing touching poetry.

Elizabeth, my second sister, lived at Llanrihangel

Where for so* long a time her parent preached yr hen Efengyl.

Her husband, Edward Evans, was the Rector there, and he

At the ripe age of eighty-six passed away peaceably

Upon the third day of November, eighteen ninety-nine

Into the regions of the righteous evermore to shine.

As long in Holy Orders had that Edward Evans been

As did illustriously reign our late most gracious Queen.

The Powys Land Club Papers prove his genealogy.

Enough for a triumvirate', or ancient quiver, he

Left, like the Lomax, and the Griffiths family, but three

Sons. John Pughe Evans is the eldest of his progeny.

Edward Pughe Evans is his second. Lastly Thomas Pughe

Evans completes the quiver which contains his other two.

Thomas 0. Lomax, son of John Lomax, Esquire, J. P.,
Ot" Bodfach (Both were Sheriffs for the co. Montgomery.)
Married my sister Anne in April eighteen sixty-three,
And died in eighteen eighty-two, leaving a family
Of three, — John Lomax, eldest son, of Bodfach, a J. P.,
And he last year of Jubilee filled the Sheriffalty.
Charles Edward Lomax secondly, and, to complete the three,
Annie Elizabeth who hunts with intrepidity.

Released from weariness and pain, ripe for the reaper, too,
Died on the eighth of March last past my sister, Charlotte Pughe.
Of Cefn Hendre. She was wed, in eighteen sixty-two,
To Richard Griffiths, surgeon, of Aberhiriaeth, who.
Dying in eighteen seventy-five, left also three by her: —
Richard Pughe Griffiths, of Carnarvon, a solicitor,
Is their young heir, and, of their pair of daughters, Catharine
Mary, the elder one, thought fair, is difficult to rhyme.
It was on my birthday last year that she became the bride
Of Evan Mayhew Jones, B.A., the Yicar of Moorside,
Oldham. Upon the seventh of June, this year, Elizabeth
Ellen, her only sister, sickened and succumbed to death
At St. Anne's Rectory, Bethesda, Bangor, leaving her
Husband, the Rector William Morgan, a lone widower.
It was in eighteen sixty-four that Mary Layton Pughe,
My fifth and youngest sister, bade this present world adieu.

My brother, William Anthony Pughe, a solicitor,
The Town Clerk of Llanfyllin, and a County Coroner,
Was Master of the Harriers of North Montgomeryshire,
And for some nine and twenty years was their proprietor,
Until he gave them up to my son, William Arthur Pughe,
J. P., C.C., their present Master and their owner too.

John Thomas Pughe, the youngest of my parents' progeny,
Is an M.A. of Jesus College, Oxford. He will be
Pleased to peruse my prattle at St. Leonard' s-on-the-Sea,

George Richard Gould, the eldest son and heir of Richard Pughe,

The Llanfilhangel Rector, and Jane Gould, I now review

With egotistic emphasis, in that the letter I

Can hardly be evaded in autobiography.

Upon the seventeenth of April, in the early spring,

When buds were bursting and the birds were busy carolling,

In eighteen thirty-one Avas born at Golfa, near Welshpool,

G R. G. Pughe, the writer, who was early sent to school

To Deytheur, where Jim Purvis used per vim to castigate

His only boarder in a manner monstrous to relate

When he was rising nine. The stripling Avas sent secondly

To Oswestry, where Stephen Donne was Domine. Thence he

Was sent to Shrewsbury to be with Doctor Kennedy.

Therefrom he entered Trinity Coll., Oxford. After these

Neglected opportunities, his harbour was St. Bees.

In eighteen fifty-seven he was ordained. Bettws yn Rhos

Was his first curacy. (" Stones rolling seldom gather moss.")

To Aberhafesp next he went as curate. Then, in turn,

He was the Curate of St. Peter" s and St. John's, Blackburn.

Fifthly, to Holy Trinity, in Darwen, he went to

Bt Curate to his late ill-treated friend, E. C. Montriou.

At last, he was, upon the twenty-seventh of December,

In eighteen hundred sixty-four, a date he should remember,

Licensed to Mellor which was then a very poor P.C.,

And less remunerative than his Darwen curacy.

And now for eight and thirty years at Mellor he has been

And many smiles and many tears at Mellor he has seen.

George Johnson married Mary Owen, of Maesgarmon. She
Was one of Henry and Elizabeth Owen's progeny,
And ma,rried a John Davies, of Maesgarmon, secondly.
I'm told that of the town of Mold those Owens used to be.
Thomas, the only son of George and Mary Johnson, wed
Eliz'beth Roberts. All of them have long ago been dead,

* ■ r- ■ / ^ i n /<//- V , ' ' '^ ■// os

Nor have I had, as vet, the chance to trace their lineage higher.

This Thomas Johnson by his wife Elizabeth was sire

To my own wedded wife, who bears her name Elizabeth

Roberts. Her brothers, John, and Tom, had each an early death.

Upon July the fifth, in eighteen hundred fifty-nine,

In the old Church of Mold I made Maesgarmons maiden mine.

G. R. G. Pughe, solicitor, who is our eldest son,

Was born the thirteenth of November, eighteen sixty-one.

And Philip Withy Johnson Pughe in eighteen sixty-rive

Was born at Mellor, but did not beyond that year survive.

Our third son, William Arthur Pughe, last year of Jubilee

Wed Margaret Williams, who is of an old Welsh family,

Upon the tenth of August when the knot was tied by me.

She is of Gwyndy, in Llanfyllin, and I ought to state

That she is niece and the adopted daughter of the late

Canon and Mrs. Robert Williams. He, as may be seen

Inscribed beside his niece's Mellor Font, was Rural Dean

Long of Llanfyllin, and he was for one and forty years

The worthy Rector there until he left this vale of tears

In eighteen ninety-one, and aged seventy-seven years.

His very well-known uncle, Doctor Williams, used to be

A Chaplain and Examiner to Bishop Maijendie —

My father was examined by him in Divinity,

At Bangor, when a candidate for Holy Orders. He

Used frequently to tell me of the Doctor's courtesy.

And Doctor Williams had a kinsman, of the same surname,

Called Peter, whose Welsh Bible still perpetuates his fame.

The Canon's wife was Carolina Catharina. She

In eighteen eighty-eight departed, aged seventy-three.

Both were our family's old friends, and now with Maggie we

Are by the Bonds of Holy Wedlock of one family.

Long may this married pair be spared to flourish happily !

Our youngest hopeful, Richard Dodgson Hilborne Pughe's birthday
Occurred, in eighteen eighty, on the thirteenth day of May.

Of our three daughters, Laura Jane Elizabeth I name
First, as the eldest, and as one of some equestrian fame
And other merits which her parent must not here proclaim.

Our next is Clara Mary Layton who is wedded to
Ashley Tregonning Corfield, Clerk, in Holv Orders, who
Is the fifth son of the late Frederick Corfield, a J.P.,
Once Chaplain to Lord Clermount, and of Haenor Rectory.
This A. T. Corfield is the Tockholes Vicar. May they be
Both spared to live together in serene felicity.

Ada Gwenellen is the least and youngest of our three
Daughters, and cosily completes her parents' progeny.

Thus out of Lewis Dwnn's authentic work on Heraldry,
Out of The Powys Land Club Papers and .Burke's History,
And from my musty muniments, as my authority,
As well as out of incidents oceurrent up to date,
Which any one, who takes the trouble, can corroborate,
I have defined, combined, and rhymed a genealogy
For which, perhaps, my orogeny may feel obliged to me
When I, G. R. G. P. shall be with the majority.

Hos ego versiculos feci strixique labore,
Attamen iste labor plenus ainoris ©rat.

Anhawdd yn wir, ond hyfryd iawn i mi
Oedd yr achyddiaeth hon, G. R. G. P.

Correspondence between my grandfather, the Rev. Richard Pughe, B.A..
Vicar of Llanegrin, afterwards Rector of Llanfrothen, and P.C. of
Bethgelert, and Edward Corbet, Esquire, of Ynysymaengwyn, copied
By me, G. R. G. Pughe, at Ynysfor, 29 May, 1888.

Epitaph upon John Hugh, an honest labourer, who was buried at
Towyn, in November, 1809.

If honest labour, industry and truth

Can claim from heaven a just reward,

Learn, learn, ye Welshmen all both age and youth,

How poor and patient merit claim regard.

Here lies a man who never swerv'd at all,

Whose honest heart was only known to few,

His daily labour furnished means but small,

His worth too little known, His name John Hugh.
He died the of November, 1809, having been employed above
Fifty successive years at Ynysymaengwyn, in the 86th year of
His age. " Go and do thou likewise."

(I would not care to have to do

Like poor John Hugh, G. R. G. Pughe.)

The joyful summons of release
I'd the honour to receive.
'Twas ushered in by notes of geese,
Sweet Harbingers of Leave.

Connubial Shackles nor control

Could these glad tidings sway,

And passions dire, the plague of all,

To peace and mirth give way.

Thus unmolested, free to say,

To Ynys I'll repair,

No Lectures dark, nor those by day

Retard my pleasure there.

I think, my dear Madam, it would be an omission

(As you were so kind as to grant my petition)

Were I not in soft numbers yourself to address

And for leave of absence most ardently press.

Mrs. Davies is here her good man to direct,

His manners to mend, and his thirst to correct,

And, if you come with him, it would beyond measure

(live the social band here abundance of pleasure.

Ynysymaengwyn, May 31st, 1813. Ansr. Mrs. Pughe,

My dear friend, 'Tis odd. Tho' a Justice of Peace.

I can't by entreaties obtain vour Release,

But Business demands you should quickly appear

To sign a certificate and that perform'd here ;

An oath to administer signed by your hand

.A poor seaman's wages to ask and demand.

The Revd. Richard Pudie, Gwyddfrynniau. June 3rd, 1813. Ans.

While pensive and sacl in a corner reclin'd,

A message from Ynys enliven'd my mind.

It prov'd like a cordial to one who was sick,

And help'd the blood circulate, tho' it was thick.

On a sudden restor'd, t^ie first thin"" I did.

To insure success and of cares to get rid,

Was the news to impart and ask leave of my Rib.

She kindly observ'd it was a fair question

And cheerfully yielded to grant my petition.

How blest then am I to be at my ease

To re-visit old Ynys and do as I please

Where true Hospitality is to be found

And mirth and good humour always abound.

You may think as you please my good Mr. Pughe,
But 'tis clear in this country there's nothing like you,
Religious, yet cheerful, consistent yet gay,
With deportment not volatile, yet quite full of play:
Your employments not settled, tho' your likeness you try at,
Tis Sharpies alone gives resemblance $ fiat,

TV Barmouth to-morrow we're determined to go
And load with live lumber the gaudy Gee> Ho :
But on Tuesday return, and on Wednesday we hope
Your presence a<t Ynys to relieve from the mope.

When first at Gwyddfryniau my picture was shewn,
The resemblance pourtray'd no soul could disown ;
The features so striking that every one grapples
At my representative by Mr. Sharpies.
Both Image and Artist were equally prais'd,
And shouts of applause1 repeated rais'd.
My fond group at home I found in high plight,
I've no- more to add but join'd wish of good night.

[Inside the frame of the Rev. Richard Pughe's (my grandfather's)
picture, I found part of " The Morning Post," dated " London, July
19, 1813. It was used as packing behind the picture, and it served
to prove that the picture was painted about the date indicated by it,
viz. : 1813.— G.R.G.P.]

An Apology for Mr. Edwd. Corbet.

With submission I crave to put in a plea

On behalf of my young wiped friend :

Were his worth duly weighed as it well ought to be,

The Palm he'll bear off in the end.

His genius is rare, I presume to declare,

His parts all his equals outshine,

For Physic he's fit, nay, too, for the Bar,

Or even act as a Country Divine.

While his merits I scan, I hope, good Miss Anne,

You'll freely forgive this attempt :

Oh pray do not shun, but clasp the young man,

And consign not this scrawl to contempt.

The Rev. Mr. Pughe, Gwyddfrynie.

To answer your letter,

You must send to a better

Than I, or e'n Edward so rare,

But if he's so sure, so good and so pure,

We'll in future of him take good care.

What think you of schooling,

Which he turned into fooling,

Of advantage and good education?

Then who ought to be

So perfect as he,

Had it e'er been his consideration?

But if you undertake

For his own and our sake

His merits so glaring to view,

Him no more will I wipe,

Take this as a type

Of submission to you, Mr. Puglie.

Anne Corbet.
Ynysymaengwyn, 27th June, 1813.

The Rev. Mr. Puglie.

Gwyddfryniau.

When Annie's lines you shall see

You will scarce believe me

That she wrote them with pleasure and ease,

But I swear by my soul

That the first and the whole

"Were indited intending to please.

If the Muses shall ehuse

"We'll no longer abuse

This country as barren and stale,

And I shall ne'er listen.

But henceforth shall christen

Talybont of Parnassus the Mount.

Your verses so charmed, I was quickly disarmed

Of powers to frame a reply.

This da^' shall set right the defects of last night

"When to the fond task I apply.

The Lays you compose are enough to disclose

That vou in soft numbers excel :

Let the Muse then combine with the metrical line

"Which you can invite and indwell.

With regard to the youth, I'm impress'd with this truth

That his talents will soon become ripe,

His schooling will not be converted to fooling

Nor stand in much need of a wipe.

I've done what I can to defend the young man

'Gainst th' attacks of his amiable sister,

But with view to succeed, he stands in great need

Of bleedincr cathartic and Blister.

My Dear Sir, —

Had my views been selfish, your promotion would have been
lamented, but your very anxious wishes for your family's welfare
being gratified, I am content.

My valediction will be short but sincere. Your attributes natural
as well as acquired always rendered your company pleasant and
agreeable. Your conduct as a neighbour and a clergyman hud en-
deared you to the Parish you served, and I only wish your new ac-
quaintance may be able to distinguish }^our abilities and know their
value. Every part of my family will ever regard and respect you as
does

Your most sincere friend and humble servant,

Edward Corbet.
Ynysyniaengwyn, April 11th, 1814.
The Rev. Richard Pughe.

1. Llanfrothen.

2. It is a Rectory.

10. Yes, the name of the curacy united with Llanfrothen is Bethge-
lert, and the distance from one church to the other is rive miles and
a half. The public service is evening at Llanfrothen. A sermon is
also preached, etc. Yesterday, the 24th of April, I oegan the Church
duties.

(Mrs. Jones, of Ynysfor, told me that my grandfather used to ride
from Llanfrothen to Bethgelert for the Sunday duty, while his family
walked, and that he was accustomed to overtake them, and give his
daughter Jane a lift on his horse. One Sunday he rode fast past his
family without speaking to or noticing them. " What have I done,"
said his wife, " that he should pass me in this way, without speaking?
He has never done so before." It was then that he had his first
stroke.)

The grov'ling grumblers of Llanegrin's shore
Prostrate, to Mount Parnassus ne'er can soar :
Base, vulgar, low mechanics, hateful state,
No man's envy, request, nor scorn, nor hate ;
Haste three, Apollo's son. Dear welcome Pughe,
Thy brilliant thoughts may pleasant hours renew.
Ynysyniaengwyn, 14th October, 1814.

The Rev. Richard Pughe, Llanfrothen, Tan y Bwloh.

Dear Pughe, —

To do your son service — I really don't know —

No doctor is near us but Griffith the go (Got, blacksmith).

For colts, cattle, and horses he's certainly able,

But stretches his science ne'er out of the stable.

The human brutes have taught your son his science

And, in Dolgelly formed his first alliance.

Gripe®, coughs, and the cholic he can certainly cure,

Cuts, bruises, crushes he may heal pretty sure;

But further than these, tho' it gives me much pain

To relate of those Doctors — I shall not explain.

At Salop there lived one who physie'd by rule,

But out of rule drank, and now's quite a fool :

His man is the master. He ne'er sees the shop,

Nor in Books, nor prescriptions does he ever now pop.

However, enauiry shall be industriously made,

And to all your desires strict attention be paid :

If any place offers — for your son or for you,

Remember, I beg — I'll pay all that is due.

Facetious and lively, Ned has finished at school,

And on each has he practised to make April fool.

Yin, Anne and Louisa in best wishes unite,

And wish you all united a very good night.

Very sincerely yours always,

Ewd. Corbet.

April 1st, 1815.

The Revd. Richard Pughe, Llanfrothen, Tanybwlch, Dolgelly.

Dear Sir, — -

'Twas not lor conduct, for vice, nor for sin.

The cold has now punished your jaws and your chin,

But ambitious impatience Llanfrothen to hold

Has tempted you out, and you caught a curst cold.

Come here to be cured — in indolence doze,

Obtain tranquility and seek repose

Yours ever and always,

Ewd. Corbet.

Ynysymaengwyn, Tuesday noon.

The Rev. Richard Pughe.

Copied from a Newspaper.

" In testimony of the respect of the Inhabitants of Llansaintffraid,
Montgomeryshire, for the Revd. Rd. Pughe, their minister, a subscrip-
tion was made to celebrate his marriage. An ox and two sheep were
distributed to the poor in an open field belonging to Mrs. Ann Price,
Cefn Llyfnog, before two bonfires surrounded by an immense con-
course of people, with a band of music which added much to the
vivacity of the scene. A valuable piece of Plate was also purchased
for him, with the following inscription: — 'Presented by the Parish of
Llansaintffraid, Montgomeryshire, to the Revd. R. Pughe, A. 13., upon
his marriage, Janry. 1st, 1829, as a token of esteem and regard. A
most joyous sensation likewise prevailed in the Parishes of Llany-
blodwel and Llanymynech where several sheep were distributed out
of respect to his Bride and Family, with other amusements most pro-
perly adapted f^r the occasion. And on the 22nd inst,, on the
return of the new married pair to Golfa, the residence of George
Gould, Esqr., the Bride's uncle, a conference of respectable persons
from Pool and its vicinity subscribed to testify their congratulations
and esteem. A procession was formed with a band of music accom-
panying it, to the summit of Golfa mountain, where two sheep were
conveyed and bonfires made to commemorate the happy event. After
the distribution of a great quant it v of Mutton, Beef, Bread, and Ale
to the neighbouring poor, a numerous party retired to a most com-
fortable dinner after which the Cwrw da flowed in great iirofusion,
whilst the health of the parties was drank in high glee three times
three. Similar rejoicings took place at Forden."

So far permitted to behold the youth of my old days,

I have endeavoured to unfold in order, page by page,

A summary of family remembrances of Wales,

Along with a miscellany of anecdotal tales —

Gleanings of auld lang syne they afire — fragments of history,

Which, in the lapse of time, might be. forgotten but for me.

To teach his young ideas how to shoot, his father's hind
Was wont to take my father to the mains, and was so kind
As to support him on his shoulders so that he could see
Which cock refused, or lost, or which achieved a victory.
He tried to jump a grindstone, Avhen ai lad, and broke his knee,
Yet, as his grandsire sewed it. up, he laughed out hearitly.
He, also, had been kicked upon the forehead by a mare
Belonging to his Father, and for life the mark was there.
When close upon sixteen years old, he was to Chester sent
To learn the language of the Saxons. Afterwards he went
To Friars' School, at Bangor, Mr. Rice was at that day
Head Master. Rowland Williams was the Second Domine.

The way my Father and a brother journeyed to and fro

The School was with a nag and knapsack — ride and tie, you know.

And little Tommy Mousdale was the lad who ruled the rest,

Since none could stay before his sway which every one confessed.

The Governor succeeded him, and woeful was the plight

Of any who with Dickey Pug-he presumed to try to fight.

The doughty Smith O'Brien, then a, boarder at that school,

No doubt obtained a taste at laist of Cambrian Home Rule.

When Rowland Williams, wand in hand, irate, gave the command

To those that failed to understand a verb, '* Hold out your hand,"

And came and said the same to Pughe, Pughe never budged a foot,

But smiled defiance, and each hand into his pockets put ;

And well did Rowland Williams mind what kind of boy to thrash,

And whom to tackle he might find it hazardous and rash.

For Oxford bound, in his top boots attired, and outside

•" The Heavy Coach.*' at Shrewsbury, the Talbot Inn beside,

My Father had an accident. The coach upset, and all

The passengers, etcaetera, sustained a heavy fall.

A box weighed on my sire, as he lay prostrate on the stones,

And on them both a woman, but there were no broken bones.

When, afterwards, refreshing at The Raven and The Bell,

The coachman, in the coffee room, — a room I know right well, —

Found that his passenger would soon at Alma Mater dwells

The knight of the long whip advised, intending to* be civil [d 1.

" Well then you must/' — he doubtless did himself, — " drink like the

Another tale of coaching days it may not be amiss

To mention here, because it is upon a par with this: —

My Uncle Edward, when en route for Oxford, and along

With others who beguiled the journey with alternate song,

Obliged to sing in turn informed the passengers that he

Could sing the Hundredth Psalm, but knew no other harmony.

Then from inside the coach he sang — The coachman, startled by

What seemed to him to be an extraordinary cry,

Pulled up aghast, got down below as hard as he could lick,

Opened the door, and begged to know, " Was any body sick1?"

In college life my Father won great Kudos and renown
For his indomitable pluck in re The Town and Gown."
He jumped, as I have been informed, a table and a, chair,
The one set on the other, as a swallow skims the air.
He chivied once an Oxford cad who coolly dared to tease
Him, close to Jesus College Gate by bawling "Toasted cheese!"
And gave him such a sample of " Welsh Rabbit," piping hot,
As never afterwards could be by that sad cad forgot.

Tc see one of the champion tights, he took an Oxford hack

A pilgrimage of eighty miles, including there and back.

He used to tell me of the Black, of Molineaux and Spring, —

Those eminent old heroes of the pugilistic ring.

He heard the famous Wilberforce, and Williams who became

The He id of Edinburgh School and won himself a name,

Examined in " The Schools." The first of these two brilliant men

Was complimented highly by those that examined them :

But no such words to Williams, though he got his class, were said,

For, when requested to translate a passage which he read,

And, asked if he could understand the meaning of the text,

In an indignant angry tone, at which the dons were vexed,

And chaffed, he thus responded, " I do not, and I defy

Any one else to comprehend it, much as they may try."

When seeking ordination,, as the Bishop's boys had been

His fags at " Friars " and had had a touch of his regime,

My Father feared they might have split, and that the Bishop might

Requite his son's indignities with tit for tat and spite*.

But Majendie said merrily, " Are you that righting boy

Of whom ni}T children talk so much V" and then, to his great joy,

His Lordship hospitably bade him come along and dine,

And he appointed him to preach before him at that time.

Llanaber was his curacy, by Barmouth, at which place

He conquered Vincent Corbet in a quite impromptu race

Upon the sands. His Irish mare, Liffy, my sire bestrode,

While Corbet, full of confidence, upon a racer rode,

The very one that on the day before, on Towyn's course,

Had beaten his competitors and proved a winning horse.

But he came in behind the mare — So they began to trade —

A swop with fifty pounds to boot was very quickly made —

And, as with pride young Corbet hied on Liffy's back to dinner,

The curate went away content, although without the winner.

My Father at Llanfechan held his second curacy,
The venerable Rector, Price, being an absentee.
Thence he removed to Llansaintffraid, and there it was that he
Renounced for Holy Wedlock's honours his celebacy.
There was no Parish School at all when he was licensed there,
in^lh^' But one was very soon erected owing to his care.

The Perrotts, Pryse's, Evanses and Davieses he knew

As honourable faithful friends, as I have found them too.

He knew John Mytton, and he knew the noted Apperley

Who wrote as " Nimrod " on the turf and hunting formerly.

" And is your Parson orthodox ?" John Mytton asked. My Sire

Was that same Parson about whom enquired the Halston Squire.

1537836

My Faither lent a kicking hack to Mr. Apperley,

But it knew who was on its back, and went obediently.
A Squire of Penrhos, as my sire told me, possessed a pair
01 horses. One was called " The Colt," the other one " The mare."
The colt was thirty years of age, but nothing to compare
With his old dam for age. Her years no less than forty were.
The sort of animal which Apperley,
Who wrote as " Nimrod " thought a horse should be.
'" A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse !"
With substance and safe action, all alert.
And fit to carry fourteen stone through dirt —
Height fifteen two — not aged — a dark bay,
Or else dark brown, dark chestnut, or dark grey — ■
No coaiching neck — large nostrils- — knowing head —
Light at the throat-lash, and a thoroughbred —
Good shoulders, deep at girth, and with strong back
And loins — good gaskins — ■ without any lack
Of sound round feet — Hat legged — neither too long,
Nor yet too short in pasterns, clean and strong—
This kind of steed, if he kind tempered be.
Is just the nag I need to carry me.
Old Captain Simcocks, of Bronhyddon, had as brave a heart
As ever beat on battle-field, where he had left a part
Of his own self, one of his arms. He was churchwarden at
The Church of Llansaintffraid, and very regularly sat.
Erect in conscious dignity, within the Wardens' pew.
There was ai nuisance by the Church, a, public footpath through
The consecrated acre, and whenever idle boys,
Regardless of the hour of Prayer, were there making a noise,
The gallant Captain would arise, and, walking out, declare,
" He would be d d, if he, while Warden, Avould such insults bear."

Below the bridge of Llansaintffraid. while Vyrnwy's Hoods were great,

There boiled a whirlpool, as it will, when in an angry state.

It chanced that an Exciseman's hack had fallen shoulder lame.

And that it was advised as wise to swim him for the same.

A jockey, mounted on his back, advanced too near that place,

Till both of them became encircled in its wierd embrace.

The smug Exciseman, in the crowd upon the bridge, espied

The terrible predicament. *' I've lost my horse!" he cried.

"Oh! hang the horse!" a loud voice cried, "The man!" all tongues

The Curate east his coat aside, and to the resuce rushed. [were hushed.

In vain the brave attempt to save — The man and horse, like lead.

Were swallowed underneath the wave, and man and horse were dead.

We ponder o'er *' The Bridge of Sighs." And I can never see

The Bridge of Llansaintffraid without in pensive reverie

Reverting to that incident, and feeling fain to be

A son of one who was endowed with such humanity.

One Saturday, my Father, on returning homeward, found

A lot of horses comfortably grazing his glebe ground ;

And, entering the Vicarage, he greeted with delight

His old acquaintance, Vincent Corbet, come to stay the night

And Sunday, for the Squire had been horse purchasing, he said,

And well divined where he should find a welcome and a bed.

The Curate begged him not to come to Church, for fear lest he

Should have his equilibrium disturbed, and, possibly,

Upset, in spite of all his efforts to be calm and grave.

He knew his visitor, and dreaded lie might misbehave.

Corbet, compounding his quandary, said that, if he did

Attend the Church, he would engage to keep concealed and hid.

The Sunday came, and Corbet, who was late, made for the pew

Belonging to> the Vicarage, and, to his promise true,

He hid himself by lying down outstretched upon the floor.

And there he stayed in ambuscade till everything was o'er.

I leave you guess how disconcerted was the curate who

Knew what a character was at the bottom of the pew.

Two letters of this Corbet to my Father I have seen —
The one, while fortune favoured and appeared all serene,
Described his breeding stock, and what his " Jenny Jones " had done-
How she had some five hundred pounds upon a race-course won.
' He missed," it told, " the old Domain of Ynys, but he had
Not much occasion to complain — his farm was not so bad."
The other letter was, alas ! of quite another kind —
A record of reverses which were harrowing his mind —
He begged my Father to beseech a sister to concede
Ten shillings as a weekly dole tO' keep him in his need ;
And intimated how some of the London Clergy were
Considerate and kind, although they had not much to spare.
1 need not add that all he could, My Father to the last
Did willingly for his old friend whose pace had been too fast.
A mutual old friend informed my parents by and by
Of the deplorably sad end of Corbet's history : —
The quondam owner of the hounds, Ynysymaengwyn's pride,
Became conductor to a 'bus, and in a stable died.

My father had not long been wed, when, happening to go

Out on a ride, but whereabout it was I do not know,

He met a man and woman, on the tramp apparently,

Attended by a carriage dog. He spotted it, and he

Fell into conversation with the pair, and presently

They bargained, and he bought the dog, and paid the money down.

The price was, as I well remember hearing, a crown.

Of course he wanted his investment home with him to bring,

And therefore told the tramp to tie him with a bit of string,

So that he could conveniently, though seated on his steed,

Be able by such handy means his animal to lead.

The knave tied insufficiently the knot, and left it slack,

And when his customer had started off, he whistled back

The dog, who struggled, and, succeeding in becoming free,

Departed to regain the man and woman's company.

Turning his hack about and back, my Father civilly

Desired the man to tie the dog with more security.

The wretch responded with a blow aimed at my Father's head,

A murderous assault it was, enough to drop him dead.

The Governor consigned his mare to the convenient care

Of someone who was in the ditch engaged at its repair ;

And then ensued a desperate and most exciting tight —

The tramp was powerful, and each exerted all his might —

The lion and the unicorn in earnest o'er the crown —

Upstanding was the battle now, and next a tumble down.

His big old-fashioned long top-coat was in my Father's way.

Nor had he time to strip, so unexpected was the fray.

The battle raged, and while my Father lay upon the ground

One moment under his assassin's welter weight, he found

The woman brandishing a knife with evident intent

To do for him. He wriggled round and wrestled to prevent

Her would-be stab. With either fist he fought until he won.

And made his huge antagonist acknowledge he was done.

Then off he galloped to Llanfyllin, eager to relate

The story to old Hughes, a brother County Magistrate.

He got a warrant written down, all ready cut and dry.

Against the tramp, who in the town appeared by and by.

Resolved upon endeavouring to get a warrant too

For his opponent, if he could, so as to make him rue.

The constable secured the tramp, and promptly put him in

The lock-up house, in spite of all his insolence and din.

It was believed that afterwards the scamp by bribery

Prevailed upon the constable to set his captive free.

Whether or not such was the case, the tramp decamped some way

But left behind the carriage dog, the cause of that affray.

It was a brute inclined to bite, if apt or not to bark,

And was presented finally to John, the Parish Clerk.

As soon as it was heard that Llamfihangel Rectory
Was vacant, Mr. Phillips (Tynyrhos, near Oswestry)
Rode hastily to tell my Father that he should apply
Without delay, for, as it has been often times observed
Of Bishop's patronage, it often was first come first served.
My Sire applied, and had his wish. So from the curacy
Of Llansaintffraid he got to Llanfihangel Rectory.
There he expended of his income many hundred pounds
In renovating an old house, and laving out the grounds.

His predecessor's widow found in him a friend indeed
Who was above the thought of taking from her in her need
Dilapidation dues. He undertook her cause, and craved
A pension for her, and from want a Rector's widow saved.

No memoir made by mortal man can tell my Mother's worth,

For all her words and works evinced an angel upon earth :

And, while my Father's character was intrepidity,

Nobility and honour, her bright star was charity.

Full two score years and four are o'er since they departed hence,

Yet Llanfihangel still remembers them with reverence.

Old-fashioned flowers were my Mother's favourites, and, when young,

She deftly played upon her harp, and hymns and anthems sung.

She could the cadencies of tunes from bar to bar transpose,

And with uncommon aptitude new melodies compose.

With my Great Uncle Gould she used along the lanes to ride

Upon a pillion, with a groom before her set astride.

She' physiced all the Parish poor with potions and with what

They much preferred, you may be sure, broth from the kitchen pot.

A clothing club she founded and administered herself, —

An excellent example to the votaries of wealth —

I recollect a story that my sisters used to tell

Of Betty Owen, Tynyllydiart, whom I knew full well,

How she and her young progeny, Susanna, Mary Ann,

And Ruth, and all the rest of them unhappily began

To sicken, tiphus stricken, and how they refused to take

The Parish Doctor's medicine, for fear that they might make

A die of it, and how they fixed what measures to pursue,

Namely, " To leave the case to God along with Lady Pughe."

Nor did her kind solicitude confine itself alone

To wants and ailments under which the sick and needy groan,

Aware that infants ought to be fed with the Bread of Heaven,

She, therefore, sought with holy thoughts their wayward hearts to

The Llanfihangel Sunday School owes her a lasting debt [leaven.

Of gratitude and reverence for kindnesses which yet

Are bearing fruit, as it was she that made that Sunday School,

And for most part of thirty years observed a constant rule

Of going thither each Lord's Day, and with true charity

Teaching the little ones to pray and say their A.B.G.

There my five sisters also taught the little lads and lasses ;

Thus from one house the Sunday School had teachers for six classes.

Some of the scholars were adults. Among them I remember

A contrast as remarkable as April and December: —

A man who numbered four score years, or more than that, his name

Was Francis Gittins, to one class right regularly came

With spectacles upon his nose. A spectacle, indeed,

Was that exemplar, as lie sat endeavouring to read.

A grand old man he was, although 'not up to politics,

Or sophistries, or sub titties, or any such-like tricks.

" The Duke of Wellington is dead," my Father told him once,

! And who is he?" replied our unsophisticated dunce.

Nevertheless old Francis was a grand old man, 1 ween,

For he was true and loyal too to England's Church and Queen.

In our back kitchen once arose at midnight a loud call,
' There is a polecat hiding in a hole within the wall !"
They soon got at his habitat, and, as he stood at bay,
Blucher attacked him stoutly. In the middle of the fray.
By candle-light my Father missed his aim, and on the head
He knocked his terrier who dropped apparently stone dead.
Llewelyn wept his honest hound. His scion felt the same
Deep grief until, to> his relief, old Blue got up again
And very fiercely fell on the foulmart, and the fate
Of that fowl fancier it is superfluous to state.

I recollect the rumours of the riots at Newtown,

When Chartist weavers wanted to demolish Church and Crown.

At Llanfihangel I beheld some half-a-dozen men

Who had been at those riots, and were coming home again :

They had been special constables to pacify the mob,

And one of them, a butcher, had been hit upon the nob

Through turning tail, and by mishap endeavouring to hide

Himself among the throng which was all on the rebels' side.

Our old Church bell began to ring. My curiosity

Conveyed me to the belfry Hoor to see what I could see :

And there I found a foaming pot of interdicted ale.

But I was bound by those around it to be no tell-tale.

Whether or not I kept it dark I cannot now aver,

i may, perhaps, have told the Clerk, but not the Governor.

Meredith hardly merited a prize for his disaster.

Though he was granted by the State a pension, as a plaster

For his dilapidated pate. My Parent was pay-master.

There was another pensioner for whom the Governor

Was wont to act in character of Royal Almoner,

One David Lloyd, who was employed for years at Llwydiarth Park

As butler, and enjoyed a lark as well as John the Clerk.

Tfiis man had hazarded his life by venturing to save

The Duke of Cambridge when a child from an untimely grave.

A carriage accident had been the trial of his pluck,

And proved that it's an evil wind that never blows good luck.

His Grace, appreciating David's intrepidity,

Most graciously rewarded him with an annuity

Oi five and twenty pounds which used to come from Colonel Keete,

Whose quarters were in London at a place called Half Moon Street.

Lloyd was a marvellous adept upon the violin,
And would enchant us, as we stept, by playing on one string.
How merrily we used to dance and prance in days gone by
With the Park Lane young ladies, to that artist's harmony !

Below the Churchyard gate, and more than half a century

Ago, there stood what would be now a curiosity, —

A certain oaken instrument, — the village stocks, to wit.

It had a padlock, and my Father kept the key to it.

But it was very seldom used. Whenever too much beer

Was flowing in the public-house, the Governor would clear

It of its Bachanalians, and few there were that dared

To disobey him, as they knew that he was quite prepared

To swear in special constables, and help himself a bit

In taking an offender up fast in the stocks to sit.

Although, however, he could be, on an emergency,

Judge, Jury, Constable and all, his generosity

And warmth of heart were widely known. The poor man's friend was

And that is how the Parish now respects his memory. [he,

I faintly recollect a date- when bonny little lambs

Were driven through the churchyard gate, all bleating for their dams.
Tithe lambs those were, for then the Tithes used to be paid in kind ;
And this suggests a tale or two that I recall to mind.

Once John, the Clerk, a tithing went, and Keeper limped behind,

For he had sniffed John's holding scent, and was rejoiced to find

His friend, and, though the Clerk with dark investives urged him back,

The dog was doggedly resolved to follow on his track.

Thus these Ecclesiastical retainers hobbled on.

The one a Jack in office, and his white companion

Without a tail, yet, with, no doubt, some nous within his head

And ample indications of an animal well bred.

And fortunate it was for John that Keeper did attend

With voluntary faithfulness his old rheumatic friend,

For, entering a meadow, John imagined he was done, —

An angry bull appear'd, and he was impotent to run,,

And felt, as only they can feel who feel that they are lost,

That he to all appearance must instantly be tost.

The dog, which had been hanging in the rear of the Clerk,

Now to the front, appeared and eyed the crisis as a lark

Quite in his line, as I opine, and as you may suppose,

For, without bark, but with a bite, he pinned the gristly nose

Of that rough, ramping, roaring wretch, and there like wax he hung,

While Billy, like a muffled peel, in minor accents sung.

Recovered of his wits, the Clerk belaboured Billy's hide,

And cut in scores his cross by mark upon his either side.

He thrashed as he was wont, within our barn, bo thrash the corn,
For well he knew the brute could do no harm with hoof or horn.
He thrashed with all his main and might, until he paused for Wreath
While Keeper kept his grip as tight as leeches, or grim death.
The story goes that John began to beat his friend in need
To make him loose. That was, if true, a very dirty deed :
For Keeper had a keeper proved, entitled to his name,
And worthy to be mentioned as of honourable fame.

This John, the Clerk, when on the lark, had been inclined to get

Above the mark in consequence of too much heavy wet.

My father had a remedy for him both safe and sure, —

A drench of salts and senna tea, which proved a perfect cure.

To go to John was my delight, although, to tell the truth,

He loved to snare a hare at night, but that was in his youth.

Through age and rheumatism staid, he occupied the trade

Of Parish Sexton, and he made a living with his spade.

His father and grandfather in their days and generations

Had been his predecessors in the very same vocations ;

The Bell Sheaf had belonged to both in a direct succession,

And its commuted charge continued in his son's possession.

Here I may add that John's old dad was held to be a poet,

A publication by a Welsh historian will shew it.

Another tale concerning Tithes, which I remember well,
Because I caught a fever when it happened, I will tell.

Through Llwynymoelgae's fold I strolled, when quite a little lad.

The day was cold, but I was bold, and glad to go with dad.

Stock still I stood. My Father could not get me to proceed,

For there I saw scratching the straw what was a sight indeed, —

A cock with a capacious crown exactly like a> king,

Or Sultan, and I settled down to view the lovely thing.

His crown was quite as white as snow, his body black as ink.

And he was larger than are now the Polish fowl, I think.

Two crimson horns adorned his brow, resplendent was his tail,

But to describe his grand contour all panegyrics fail.

My father kindly sympathised, and, as a tithe was due

Then from that homestead's flock of geese, he got the farmer to

Compound and let me have the bird. Ned Jones was satisfied.

And you can not imagine how George Pughe was gratified.

Thus I contracted what some call " Hen Fever'' in their fun,

And though a Brahma bred by me The Palace Cup lias won.

And the first Crystal Palaee Prize two years alternately,

And charming as might be her charms of plumage, symmetry,

And toute ensemble comeliness, still in my memory

That old top-knotted chanticleer yet crows A one to me.

The Commutation of the Tithe succeeded by and by

The Patriarchal custom of Divine Authority ;

And then the Rector took to give a dinner to those who

Paid him his Tithe Pent Charge when it half-yearly fell due.

Yet hardly ever would he take his proper dues, but he

Returned some back with his accustomed liberality.

Some scandal-monger thereupon spread forth the calumny

That that was done to make them come to church more frequently,

And that each kind gratuity was only bribery.

Indignant at such utter lies, the Rector ceased to give

The dinners and gratuities, and let a friend receive

The Tithe Pent charge. Thus J. 0. Jones, a neighbour of the Rector,

And his and our sincere friend, became the Tithe Collector.

A garden roller may be seen at Llanfihangel yet,

And how my Father handled it I never can forget ;

He would across it reach and stretch and lift it easily

From off the gravel to display his muscularity.

He lifted, when it was a foal, his little brown black cob

Over a stile in style, I style that a complete cob job.

He to Llanfrothen once performed on foot a pilgrimage

From Llansaintffraid a distance of, as far as he could gauge.

Full three score miles of up and down o'er mountains and through

And mountains are no joke to climb or to descend in Wales. [vales,

Two fifty-sixes at anus' length I've seen him slowly raise

Above his head, and make them touch, and then, to my amaze,

Still at arms' length extending each, depose them slowly down.

I never met another of such muscular renown.

And he has held his hand and arm outstretched, and I have stood

Upon his hand, touching his head to balance as I could.

This feat, he told me, he attempted once with John Bill Price,

When at Trewylan Hall, but it was anything but nice

For his old friend who heavily descended on his head,

And it was very fortunate that he did not fall dead.

Nor was my Father's energy confined to land, for he

Would swim a mile in buoyant style when bathing in the sea.

Helpless, half-Hedged and famishing with hunger, on the gro

A little robin redbreast had been by my sisters found

In the big field. My sire evinced intense commiseration,

And was most interested in the creature's preservation.

He gently nursed and cherished it, and made my sisters find

Some worms : And all unconscious of inflicting pain, and blind

To the grubs' writhing agonies, he with a penknife chopped

Them up to feed the foundling which had into favour hopped.

All honour to a kind intent. Yet it has puzzled me
How commonly with charity we mingle cruelty.
Straining at gnats I find myself who have been frequently
Impaling many worms in sport, and not for charity.

Our servant, Thomas Morgan, Quenlli's husband, used to be

A miller's man employed upon the Halston property

In days of yore, sometime before my own nativity.

With Thomas I was hand and glove because I loved to go

With him, and with a can and spade to dam and lade, you know.

This crony told me once that he requested Mytton to

Give him a Christinas box ; and he received a good one too.

The tip encouraged his old mate to make the same request — -

He found the Squire who frowned and was not in the very best

Of tempers. All the box he got was one upon the ear —

Yes, that was all, enough I call it too, to make him queer.

" Shew us a sample of your sire's dare-devil tricks," said one

Young officer, intent on fun, once to John Mytton's son :

The sample was immediately produced. The man was hit

By Mytton's worthy scion, and he fell as in a fit.

Since, a new church has been erected on the self-same site

Whereon a former stood, it would be quite ats well to write

My reminiscences of what the special features were,

Yiewed from without and from within of our old House of Prayer.

Surmounted by the Weather Cock, its Belfry was of wood,

And no one knows how many blows of storms it once withstood.

There was no date. Its whitewashed walls were thick. Its situation

Upon the shoulder of a hill gave it the designation

Of being (other things combined to make me think the same)

" The nearest Church to Heaven." And there's something in a name.

' Yngwynfa," for distinction, was considered its right name,

Though to " Yngwynt," some people hint, it has a higher claim.

The latter appellation, " In the wind," is not so nice

As is the former one, which means " The Church in Paradise."

Turn we to its interior construction. Contrary

To architectural ideas of propriety,

Eastward, and all across its broadest breadth it was a square,

But there was not the slightest sign of any chancel there.

Westward it grew much narrower and oblong-shaped. There were

In its right place the Table, and upon its either side

Here an unshapely cumberous threedecker, there a wide

High-backed and green baized pew, belonging to* the Rectory.

In front, antique and ponderous, in contiguity,

There was Sir Watkin's pew like to an omnibus, ornate

With coats of arms in wondrous forms, all in ai faded state.

The Gallery front panels were emblazoned with accounts
Of Benefactions, and explained names, objects and amounts.
Would that we could more commonly such evidences scan !

This charitable Lady," was how one of them began,
*' Gave this forever to the poor for bread, and that to be
'" A dole to dress twelve pauper boys and educate them free."
The Bread was in the porch each month apportioned to the poor ;
And those who from afar were there enjoyed it, I am sure.
The corduroys of all the boys were country cut, you know,
Their breeches buttons through their vests appeared in a row.
And, though there Avere no monuments of brass or marble there,
An individuality rilled all that House of Prayer.
Heraldic emblems, as I said, adorned the LlAAydiarth pew,
Which, like a 'bus, or canopied old bedstead, hurt the view.
And here and there against the Avails appeared a coffin plate,
Each a grim index of a name, an age, a death, a date.
There was a remnant of a. screen, of Avhich one chiselled part
SheAved that of old it must have been a cunning Avork of art.
A slab Avith cross raguled and savoitI adorned, thought to have been
The monument to some crusader's memory, was seen
Close to the Hector's pew inserted as a Avindow sill.
Transferred to form the mantel-piece it's in the Vestry still.
1 must allude to one memento more, against one Avail,
Which was conspicuous, and which I frequently recall
To mind. It Avas, what many might disparage, but a dark
Dingy disfigurement upon the AvhiteAvash, — a broAvn mark
Impressed by the storm wetted coat of one Avho always came
To Church from a long distance off. I quite forget his name,
But it is not forgotten in the Paradise above
By Him Who registers all such impressions of His love.

" High Church ! Loav Church ! No Church at all !' is very often now

The cant of those that rant about three acres and a coav.

While Avishing all such heretics a session in the stocks,

I shall attempt to represent old customs orthodox,

As they existed in old days long vanished and among

The Avorshippers at Llanhhangel Church, Avhen I Avas young.

The congregation, all apparelled in their homely best,

Entered the consecrated acre on the Day of Best.

The Rector, in good time arrived, Avithin the Porch, Avould greet

With kindly salutations Avhomsoever he might meet,

And up and down Avould promenade, and have a friendly chat

With those that on each side the Porch on oaken benches sat.

Above their her.ds, inside that Porch a pair of biers Avere SAvung,

The one, Avorm-eaten and unused, had long in cobAvebs hung :

Both were as monitors to shew the company beloAv

That all are near to the bier and on it have* to o-0.

If it was tine, some would recline on tombstones in the yard,

Study the time-worn epitaphs with reverent regard,

Or else admire the big balloon-shaded yew tree's berried head

Which flourishes upon the bones of the long buried dead.

And, though wide open always stood the nail bestudded door,

If tine, the people seldom thought of entering before

The Parson, save the Parish Clerk, who, deaf as any post,

Possessed a host of aptitudes, and had a son a host.

On oaken wood, a Dial stood before the Church, and there

The Rector, watch in hand would stand, and watchfully compare

Horologies. And then were heard uplifted in the air

Sometimes the chimes of sweet Llanfyllin Bells. The Clerk would

In expectation of my Father's nod which he knew well [stare

Was meant to be a hint that he begin to ring the Bell.

He would begin one way to ring expertly Ding, Dong, Dum,

Until into the Pleading Desk he saw the Hector come

And don the surplice which was there conveniently hung.

When all preliminaries were completed, John would ring,

In monotone, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, the people in to bring ;

And each and all the congregation used to bow, or make

A curtsy, just before they turned aside their seats to take.

The men on backless benches sat in front, the female kind

Had separate compartments in the pews, which were behind.

And, as a nod had been to John the signal to begin

To pull the Bell, another nod would bid him cease to ring,

When John would to his Desk advance and sit contentedly

Beside his son, the Publican, who was his deputy.

And in his father's shoes attended to his dues with glee.

And more and more became his father's own facsimile.

The last that in the Church appeared was " Smot," a little cur,

Blear-eyed and tulip-eared, I think, a Cheshire terrier,

Who for a, primitive decayed straw hassock always made,

And, after scratching up a cloud of dust for those who prayed.

Turned round and round until he found that he was satisfied,

Then sneezed and squeezed himself to sleep by John, his owner's side

The service in the British tongue begun, my Father's voice
Was one to make a sinner shudder, and a saint rejoice.
No minister, at least, not one that I have ever heard,
Could render as he read the Prayers and emphasise The Wrord ;
Nor have I ever heard a man preach as he preached, or seen
One with so dignified a port and worshipful a mien ;
And rustic as its ritual might have been deemed to be,
No place so like a very Bethel ever seemed to me.

At " The Ter Sanetus " all would bow or curtsy. In the Creed,

When they confts ed The Great Redeemer's Name, they took good heel

To do the same, and so they did at each Doxology ;

It is a pious custom of remote antiquity

Observed by Apostolical Evangelists before

Augustine and his forty monks arrived on Albion's shore.

But to resume my recollections, after he had reached

The end of each full service and had from the Pulpit, preached,

Tne Rector would disrobe, descend, and walking down the aisle,

The congregation bowing, or else curtsying the while,

First leave the Church. The men would follow after him, and then

The women, last of all of them the pair that said Amen.

A quaint old custom, which obtained at funerals, I may

Describe. We had not formerly much funeral display

Of feathers, hearses and the like paraphernalia, —

Follies more fit for carnivals, or Saturnalia.

The Llaiifihangel lanes were such that, when we found a> friend

Would come to visit us on wheels, the Governor would send

His Clerk and hind to rectify the ruts, so that the friend

Might with unbroken springs and limbs arrive at our lane end.

Those rotten roads were, I surmise, an ample reason why

Our people did not patronise expensive mummery.

A cart sufficed, when they conveyed a corpse; as they drew near

Our homely village, they transferred the coffin to the bier,

And often, as the funeral ascended, they would sing

To some pathetic harmony the verses of a hymn,

While from the Parish Church upon the village height, the Bell

Responding with an iron tongue tolled dolefully the knell.

After the service by the grave had come quite to an end,

There was a very quaint old custom which our worthy friend,

The Clerk, never forgot to favour. He would hold his spade,

As he knew how, for you must know his perquisites were paid

By primitive prescription on that useful implement.

The chief among the mourners was expected to present,

For service done, a certain sum, at least a silver coin ;

And, after him, the next ; so on they went, and all would join

In tendering an offering to help old John to live.

But if, as now and then occurred, a niggard chanced to give,

In leading off, a, paltry piece, John would hide out of sight

That coin by sliding down his spade upon it his big thumb,

In hope that none would notice, and that better luck would come.

Small blame to him for his spade trick, there may be trickeries.

In Clerks in Holy Orders who have taken high Degrees,

My Great-aunt Gould, of Goifa, loved her ducks and her Malays,
And Chinese pigs, and monkey, though he had uncannv ways

About him. His apartment was inside the saddleroom,

And his attendant was a certain Andrews, who was groom,

And brought his rations in a basin with ai silver spoon.

The count of spoons, in course of time, grew less and less and less,

Until the servants felt suspected, and in much distress.

The missing plate they failed to rind. There must be robbery

Mv Aunt and Uncle both opined, but could not find whom by.

Meanwhile the monkey, Don, rode on one of the greyhounds, Fly,

The Fly that had been wetnursed by the cat in infancy.

The beggar bounded out of bounds beyond the grounds and would

Go down the dingle tiespassing and wander in the wood.

Or scramble up the chimney-stacks and grin, as grin he could.

His private bedroom window was above the piggery,

And someone, happening to go to' right it by and by,

Made a discovery which brought to light the mystery :

There were the spoonsi indented by the teeth of pigs. The prig

Had been the monkey who was always at some roguish rig.

After the beast had had his feast, he would for frolic shy

The spoon to tease the poor Chinese beneath him in the sty.

No mortal thing, excepting him, on earth my Father dreaded :

He would, I ween, with joy have seen the manikin beheaded.

The great Malays of other days are now not often seen,

In Aunt Gould's time they used to shine ablaze with golden sheen.

It happened, once upon a time, that an unhappy duck,

One of Aunt Gould's idolatries, experienced ill-luck ;

It broke its leg, so with a peg of wood my x\unt turned quack,

And spliced the limb with tape or string. She must have had a knack

Of splicing, since she had herself two times been spliced. However,

She failed in her endeavour, notwithstanding she was clever.

To set the limb exactly right. It certainly recovered,

But when the bandages were off, it was too late discovered

That the poor foot was backward put towards the parson's nose,

And how the crippled thing could swim, or waddle, no one knows.

I recollect a tawny dog, one of the bloodhound kind,

With iron hurdles all around his kennel, chained behind

Golf a, the seat of my Great Uncle Gould, my native place,

At which I was within an ace of ending a brief race

Of life ; and I will tell you why those hurdles were erected :

They were set up there purposely that I might be protected

Against old Lion who was apt to sieze a duck or hen

Which happened, hapless, to be trapped by him when near his den.

In infancy, by some bad luck, I had approached his den,

When, thinking me a little duck, he took me in, and then

Would willingly have potted me within his abdomen,

Most providentially for me, right in the nick of time,
Before the bloody-minded monster could commence to dine,
Up in a trice came Thomas Price, and proved himself to be
A friend in need and friend indeed in that emergency.
He saved me from impending: hurts. The beast was afterwards
rromoted, not for his deserts, the Cast ell Coch to guard.
His kennel, hurdles and himself' I can remember well ;
My peril and escape I don't, and do but hearsay tell.

That bloodhound helps my memory to track another tale

Concerning an alarm which once made many people pale.

At Powys Castle, long ago, some visitors, intent

On viewing curiosities, into the chamber went

Which was prepared for Charles the First. It's hung with tapestry,

Furnished and uniformly kept as it Avas formerly.

; And this," a knowing maid was saying, " is the selfsame bed

Whereon King Charles ought to have slept." No sooner had she said

These words than all were rilled with dread, as there appeared a red

And bloody hand and arm outstretched out of that antique bed ;

And visitors and maid afraid away like rabbits iled.

The castle sounded an alarm, the constables were called,

And every face about the place with horror was appalled.

More than a phantom, or a ghost, the limb was found to be

When by and by they came to try to sound the mystery: —

They found a pauper imbecile reposing in the bed.

He, as a scrutiny revealed, had on that day been bled,

And, after airing in the Park, he had contrived to get

Inside the castle where, it seems, he roamed about, and met

With nobody to bother him. He had observed the bed

To be the thing for him wherein to rest his harmless head.

He had crept underneath the clothes, and fallen fast asleep.

The ligature which he had on, however, would not keep

Aright. He had been in a dream, perhaps, excited so

As to disturb the bandages, and cause the blood to flow.

The steps of visitors had roused him ; he had raised his arm,

And been the cause of all the terror, exit, and alarm.

My great great grandmother maternal, Mrs. Somerson,

I tell of what my grandmother told me when I was young,

Was living at Mile End, a place suburban in her time,

Now part and parcel of all London. I can not define

Its situation, though I know some curious old tales

About my ancestry before a Gould arrived in Wales.

The shades of night, were falling when to her front entrance came

A stranger with a rare black mare, declaring it was lame,

And begging he might be allowed to lead it to a stall

Inside her stable, as he vowed that it could hardly crawl.

A servant led them with a light and introduced tlieni to

The stable where the two became completely closed from view.

Scarcely secured was the door when there was heard quite nigh

To them a loud uproar : — " Stop thief !" It was '" The Hue and Cry. '

The myrmidons of Justice had arrived and galloped by.

The stranger in the stable was Dick Turpin, and the steed

A\ as beautiful Black Bess, of whom in Ainsworth's works we read

Such wondrous tales. The gallant Turpin generously paid

For his escape a golden guinea to the grateful maid,

And off he vanished into night and his audacious trade.

This Mrsi. Somerson, when young, was once returning home,

With other ladies in a hackney coach along a lone

And solitary lane when they were called upon to stop

Stand and deliver, or be shot. A highwayman had got

Possession of the lot, and out they had to fork each ring,

Watch, bracelet, earring, and every suchlike costly thing.

The highwayman was on the wing, extremely satisfied,

When one young lady loudly shouted after him, and cried: —

"Stop, stop, stop stop ! You have not got my buckles !" At that time

Shoe buckles were the fashion and were often set with tine

Expensive jewels.. Over honest was, indeed the maid;

Imagine bawlling out and calling back a brute who made

A livelihood by robbery. The thief, I trust was paid

Upon the gibbet finally for his unlawful trade.

A London doctor, in those days, attacked by highwaymen,

Gave one of them a leaden pill to settle him, and then

He tied the corpse and let it drag along behind his coach.

Nor e'er again would highwaymen that Galen dare approach.

My Father had a stick which he told me was cut below

The shadow of a gibbet tree, but where I do not know.

My great grandfather, Captain Gould, possessed a pasture field
From which he could enjoy no good for reasons here revealed.
His herd of cattle would not stop to crop it. Every night
They broke away and went astray, astounded with affright.
The field was haunted by a ghost which often hove in sight,
An apparition wearing chains and habited in white,
Ii had bewildered all the neighbours in the pale moonlight.
There was, however, an exception to- the other cows,
The bailiff's property she was that was content to browse
Within that haunted field, alone una.wed by ghostly rows.
The Captain happened to have had a set of friends to dine,
And, after hours had worn away, just at the witching time
Of midnight, he related to the festive company
The botheration and vexation on his property.

After a sup, they made it up to interview the ghost,

And out they went, on fun intent, escorted by their host.

A sword was them by gentlemen the customary thing

To wear, and all of them took care a rapier to bring.

When well in sight of haunted ground, and entering the gate,

Most eagerly they looked around, and had not long to wait,

Ere they beheld a sight, and heard a sound at any rate : —

An apparition, all in white, and an infernal rattle, —

Enough to frighten honest people, let a lone the cattle, —

Enough, also, to make them know far more than tittle tattle.

The Captain, conscious that a first attack is half the battle,

Advanced upon his foe to shew himself in fighting fettle,

When off the spectre sped, his chains all jingling like a kettle.

The Captain hurried, and the spectre flurried in the race,

Tripped, at a grip, or gate, or gap, or some such awkward place

Where he lece'ved a sharp sword thrust, and dropped a chain and shee' .

Both which were found upon the ground beneath the Captain's feet.

Failing to light upon the^ sprite, that night, the company.

Departed with their host, and left, the ghost a mystery.

The morning after, when his work should have been going on,

It was reported that the bailiff wais a missing man,

And ill in bed, a rumour said. The Captain went to see

What was the matter, as the man had been apparently

Quite well the day before. The wife declared that he was ill,

And forced to lie abed, and try to keep his body still.

The Captain up the stairs repaired, inquisitive to see

And institute a, diagnosis of his malady.

He found the man an invalid, indeed, and on the bed

Beheld suspicious clots and spots all of a crimson red.

He pulled the bedclothes off, and then it was apparent how

The bailiff's untrustworthy self had horrified each cow,

Except his own, from feeding in the pasture field, and how

Bare his escape had been from being laid as ain apparition

Stark dead, with but himself to blame for such an exhibition.

Sir Robert Vaughan with horn and hounds went forth to hunt a strange

Locality beyond the bounds of his accustomed range.

Among them was his honest house-dog ; as he loved the fun,

The Baronet would often let him come and have a run.

While day was at a rapid pace dissolving into night,

The sportsmen, wearied with the chase, looked for, but could not light

Upon an inn wherein to sleep ; however, at a farm

They luckily got leave to keep the pack inside the barn :

And day was done, and night was on, and every man asleep

Dreaming of hounds, or hunting grounds, or some stupendous leap.

But soon the huntsman was aroused from slumber, when among

The paek an awful sound begun, and every hound gave tongue.

The deuce is in the dogs, the man believed, and ran to see,

Head out the riot act, and crack his whip with energy.

The hounds he found excited round the faithful dog who stood

Over the body of a child in a defensive mood,

With bristling hair and angry glare and teeth exposed to view,

Protecting with instinctive care the baby from the crew

Of cannibals who longed to tear the poor unfortunate

Among them thrown by some unknown hell-worthy reprobate.

Thus was the little foundling saved, and good Sir Robert, moved

With pity, made the babe his ward, and his kind patron proved.

He had him properly brought up, and christened Daniel.

Thus what had ill begun turned out eventually well.

This incident is what a farmer told my Father who

Related it to me much as I now report to you.

The great Sir Wat kin, when employed in Ireland to quell

The rebel Irish, years before O'Connell and Parnell,

Was somewhere at a banquet set, and his old nurse was there

Attending on the Baronet with her accustomed care.

She noticed underneath a face of hospitality

Enough to warn her that the place swarmed with baise treachery,

And, ere a cup was handed up to him, began to sing

In Welsh, "Mae gwenwyn yn y gwin, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn.5

(There's poison in the wine.)
The Cambrian chieftain took her warning, and declined to sup,
And thus) avoided poison which was hidden in the cup.
'Tis said that he compelled the knave who tendered him the draught
To drink it, and he dropped down dead as soon as he had quaffed.
King George the Fourth was with Sir Watkin at a certain place,
And, having nothing else to do, they betted on a. race
Between two snails. The Sovereign, solicitous to win,
Through spurring on his one was done, for it at once drew in.

The Bishop of St. Asaph was examining a class

Of children, and he thus addressed a little country lass: —

'' You know, my child, that everyone has some besetting sin ;

Pray, tell me what is mine?" The catechumen, with a grin

And an acute opining and divining look at him,

Responded, " Drunkenness.'' His Lordship answered her, 0, no,

I am, indeed, most thankful that with me it is not so ;

But my besetting sin is this :— I think that I can do

Things better than all other people." There's a tale for you.

To consecrate Dolanog Church his Lordship came in state

To Llaniihangel Tillage, and his carriage at our gate

Pulled up. Of course the children, in full force, were there to gaze

And stare at his rare coach and pair of beautiful blood bays,

But most of all at his enormous coachman, whose apparel

Was grand, whose corporation was rotund as any barrel.

Whose buttons glittered, and who was himself the cynosure

Of all the gaping lot, who quite forgot, and, I am sure.,

No wonder, to salute the Bishop who approached our house

Less noticed by the children than would be a poor church mouse.

The coachman was a. man of weight, and I have often heard

That, while the Bishop ruled the cloth, the coachman ruled my lord.

A countryman, our groom, began to take the horses out.

" You let my horses be," said he in livery. The lout

Replied, " I beg your pardon, sir," and humbly touched his hat ;

And was not Bob immensely trotted afterwards for that?

Dolanog lay four miles away, four heavy miles of deep

Bad ruts as rough as rivulets, occasionally steep

And narrow through and through. We knew that nothing else but

Or waggons were adapted to such ill-conditioned parts ; [carts,

We therefore requistioned our light harvest waggon, which

Would safely hold the young and old from falling in a ditch.

Turpin and Bob were on that job. Tit was reserved to be

The Bishop's pad. My Father had Taffy, the property

Of my young brother, Will. When all were ready to proceed,

And Tit was to the horse-block led, the Bishop paid no heed

To him, but said that he preferred the waggon to the steed.

Then up he hopped, and down he popped, in front, upon the prog ;

The ladies entered after him, and off they set full jog

Along the lane, which I explained was steep, indeed, so steep

As to unseat the ladies who could not their places keep,

But down on Doctor Short they slid. He, perched upon the lid

Of the provision hamper, was much hampered, almost hid

From view. The genial Divine was very much amused,

Yet felt that he had had enough of it, for he refused,

After the consecration ended, to remount the wain,

Lest, I suppose, the ladies' clothes encumber him again.

I held my Father's favourite, Tit, for Bishop Short to mount,

And then I thought I ought to tip him with a short account

Of Tit's idiosyncracies. " My Lord, pray mind your hits,"

In language tantamount, I said, "Because the creature kicks."

His Lordship answered, " I once bought a horse which in a field

Kicked thirty times," and on his Lordship went, It was revealed

To me by Canon Williams, of Llanfyllin, who was with

The Bishop on that very day, that Tit contrived to give.

Our kind old guest enough horse-play, for Tit upon the sward

Would bore a rider, even though he bore a Mitred Lord.

The Prelate catechised us on examination days,

And pleasantly surprised us with his eccentricities.

Resting his venerable head upon a couch, he said,

" Now talk, as you suppose you ought, to some sick man in bed."

" You've been to Liverpool, and seen the vessels, I suppose,

Pray, tell me what wasi Noah's Ark in size compared with those?"

" This is a goose's skull, and that belonged once to a hare,

A pair which had an equal share of silly brains they are/'

"Whose is this image, and whose is the superscription, pray?"

He asked, and asking, handed us a certain coin which lay

Upon his study mantel piece. The coin contained a face

In full relief. Its letters were, however, hard to trace

Without a magnifying glass. His Lordship lent us one.

By which assisted, we deciphered "Caiisaros " upon

Its margin. It was. an old Roman Penny, quite the same

As what was shewn Immanuel, inscribed with Caesar's name.

His Lordship said, " How natural and human was Our Lord's

Request to be informed about its owner, as the words

Were indistinct, illegible to man's unaided eye,

And so they might appear to Him Who came in poverty.

And had no gold or silver to sustain His Royalty."

*" 1 have committed sins in youth," the Bishop said to me,

For which unto to-day I pray for pardon earnestly."

** This is the way," said he to me," to blow a candle out,

You hold it up, and upwards blow." It is one way, no doubt.

" Go to my coachman, he will shew my pigs," the Bishop said,

When at his own mahogany, with others, I was fed,

(All candidates who came' to him had welcome, board and bed.)

" It is not very clerical, perhaps, but my Archdeacon

And I possess the poor man's pig, which makes the best of bacon."

He once proposed a question thus: — 'And what ought I to be?"

You should be given," said a youth, " to hospitality."
'Must wait awhile," he with a sinile said to his guest, whose inner
Man,, I should think, inclined to sink, " and you will get your dinner."
Nepotic, Whig, or Alien, — whatever obloquy
Called Bishop Short, he was not short in hospitality.

Some twenty yards, or so, below the Golfa gate, beside

The Turnpike Road, there was a great old handsome elm with wide

Fantastic atrohing arms which overhung the road with shade.

(Its shattered stump remains. The winds have blown the trunk away ;

Yet from its roots some shoots display vitality to-day,

And one of them may be a tree again, — I hope it may.)

Whenever my Great Uncle Gould had a, long journey made,

And found himself beneath that elm's umbrageous canopy,

He used with gratitude to thank Almighty God that he

Had come in sight, of home all right and free' from injury.

There is another tree that stands behind the house, — a lime

Of nigh a hundred years' growth, and not yet in its prime :

My Mother planted it when she was young. My children, please,

Whatever change you may arrange, take care to spare those trees.

The variegated hedgehog holly from the Rectory

Of Llannhangel was sent to the shrubbery by me.

And that old variegated Ivy, by the greenhouse door

At Golfa, made me fancy Ivy, sixty years, and more,

Sixty and six, perhaps, ago, just so far back as I

Can trace the features of the place of my nativity.

When Llannhangel Parish Church, called from its situation

Y Pennant, underwent a very needed restoration,

Some forty years ago, the ceiling, which was most incongruous,

When taken all away, displayed the frame-work of a pondeious

Old oaken roof, of which about a quarter, at its West,

Shews indications of a date anterior to the rest :

Its beams and scantlings, here and there at intervals, appear

So laterally cut and mortised as to make it clear

That they must have been anciently components of a, strong

Construction similar to that to which they now belong.

Their second-hand appearance confirms an old tradition

Still credited by men of unimpeachable position

In that vicinity, to wit, that that old woodwork came

From an old chapel which was called by the Saint Cadvan's name.

And here I shall allude to some sayings and depositions

Of witnesses examined upon oathe at two commissions

Issued out of King Charles the Second's Court of Chancery,

And dated sixteen seventy-two and sixteen seventy-three,

Wherein John Tybbotte was the plaintiffe, and Hugh John ap Hugh

And David Lewis the defendants. I need not review

The matter which was in dispute, a caise of trespassing,

But only mention evidence which that examining

Elicited, as it affects and helps to verify

What I desire to record of archaeology.

One, Edward William, sworn upon his corporall oathe begun

By stating that he was a yeoman, aged ninety-one.

" In the churchyard of Towyn Parish lyeth a decayed

Chappell known as St. Cadvan's chappell, or its scite," he said.

'• He knoweth Buarth Meini (The Stone Fold) reputed and

Believed to have been anciently the said St. Cadvan's land

In Llannhangel Parish." This old man went on to say

That " on the Buarth Meini the freeholders doe nott pay

To the King's Majestic chieffe rent or ffeefarme rent, or to

The Lord or Lords of frees thereof as owners elsewhere do.

He doth nott know of any other ffreehold land of what

Tenure soever ffree thereof butt this St. Cadvan lot."

A widow, Anne, vereh Humphrey David, aged sixty-eight,

Continued a portion of what I try to abbreviate.

Owen John Arthur, yeoman, aged lower seoare yeares and two,

A certain chappell or the seite thereof in the Church yard

Of Towyn Parish, which the natives commonly regard

To bee St. Cadvan s Chapell. Moelvre fawr and Moelfre fechan

Are part and p'cell of what once was in the Saint's possession.

In Llanfihangel and in Towyn Parishes they lie,

Nor are the owners or ffreeholders ever hampered by

Charges of chieffe or ffee farme rent to the King's M'jtie

Or any lord or lords of ffees, nor do they pay releisse

As other tenants and ffreeholders do at a decease."

Another witness, Humphrey Morgan, aged seaventy yeares,

Gave evidence from which the same amount of fact appears: —

*' The Buarth Meini owners or ffreeholders never payed

Any chieffe rent, rent of Assize, or ffee-farine rent," he said.

John Tibbots, the then owner of the Moelfre property,

Whose name is notified in my Paternal Pedigree,

Complayned, at the greate Sessions held in sixteen seventy-three,

Of trespasses committed on his lands, which, he maintained,

Were part of that which anciently St. Cadvan's ground contained.

St. Cadvan's Chapel stood upon, Cantrybedd. I knew well

Its ruins, and what I remember will assay to tell.

When the Cautrybedd Quarry lease was altered years ago

I covenanted that they should remain in statu quo.

The ruins were composed of dry stone walls, and they enclosed

Two oblong squares. One of them., much the smaller, was supposed

To be St. Cadvan's ancient chapel where a congregation

Of five or six score people might have found accommodation.

The point whereat its entrance was 1 cannot now define.

Adjacent, and with its whole length extended in ai line

Straight with the shorter sides of this, the next enclosure, said

To hold beneath its four or five times ampler space the dead,

And held to be St. Cadvan's chapel yard, used to be shewn.

Until the very sites themselves of each ceased to be known.

The ruins averaged four feet in height, as I surmise,

And looked like sheep cots, only that they were of greater size.

The larger of the two compartments, I should here append,

Had its own entrance in the centre of its Northern end.

As these antiquities were found to stand in a position

Obstructive to slate quarrying, they were by my permission

Removed a little higher up the hill, and re-erected

Around an ornamental clump of trees which, thus protected,

Arise, as, living monuments to memories neglected.

While now the very site whereon our ancestors once prayed,

Together with the consecrated yard where they were laid,

Lies buried underneath a mass of rubbish, which, itself

Has been exhumed by man's exertions in the search of wealth.

There are some traces of an ancient hill-side path between

The Towyn road and old St. Cadvan's lands yet to be seen ;

The track is called St. Cadvan's Walk, because, as old men say,

The Founder of the Chapel used once to ascend that way.

The mountain was moie populous than now long years a£o,

As my old deeds and vestiges of habitations shew.

Our ancestors, a pastoral and yeoman race of men,

Once worshipped on that mountain, and resided on it then.

A well-built chimney still retains its upright attitude

Among the rocks. " Hafotty " people call it, and they trace

An oven excavated in the rock outside that place.

And, as you march along the path to Penal, you should look

At an old arch which forms the bridge across a mountain brook.

The very name, indeed, of lands divided by the brook.

From that whereon St. Cadvan's stood has a suggestive look,

For Brynyreglwys in English is Church Hill, a word

Indicative of Holy Ground devoted to The Lord.

Doubtless the grand old Psalm of David, which begins, "I will

Lift up mine eyes unto the hills," has echoed o'er that hill.

And Llwynyfynwent, an old farm upon my property,

Translated, means a churchyard wood very suggestively.

St. Cadvan's Chapel answered well its purpose at one time,
When population had withdrawn, it lapsed into decline,
And then the< timbers of its roof, according to tradition,
And that intrinsic evidence, their own unique condition,
Were thence transported right across the valley and along
The pass, to help to form the roof to which they now belong.

Change follows change. The Llanfihangel village, in its turn,

Is almost a deserted place of ivy, moss and fern.

Though still the present Rector, William Lewis, each Lord's Day,

Goes there to preach and pray, the flock have all but gone away.

A midway village now contains a modem generation

Of quarrymen who constitute most of its population.

Abergynolwyn is the name of this new place, which stands

Midway between old Llanfihangel and bt Cadfan's lands.

The Church of England people, who reside thereat, attend

St, David's Church, which owing to the labours of my friend,

The previous Rector, Thomas Edwards, decorates a brow

Which overhangs the village, and a pasture field where now

A series of surface marks enables us to trace

The site of an old mansion house, the Tybbotte's dwelling-place,

Those Tybbotte's were my ancestors some centuries ago.

Those' that have known their home describe it as large, long and low

Multa equidem evenient. LI nam inveniamus ; et istis
Yicissitudinibus tunc hand turbabimur usquam.

Vicissitudes will be, but, if we find

The one thing needful, wo need never mind.

REFERENCES.

(a) For Gwyddno Gara.n Hir see Hanes Cymru, by the Rev. Thomas

Price (Carnhuanawc), page 312, and Welsh Minstrelsy. " The
land beneath the sea."' by T. Jeffery Llewelyn Prichard.

(b) For David Lloyd of Mathafarn, see Lewis Glyn Cothi's works.

Part ii., xxxiv., and xxxv., and pages 419 and 119 ; and for
Puleston. part ii., pages loo and 158.

(d) Pedigree of Baron Lewis Owen, by Miss Esther Lloyd Jones of
Llanfairfechan, Caernarvon Eisteddfod, 1886 j also Cantref
Meirioneth, by Robert Prys Morris, page 587 , for Robert ap
Ivan of Tanybwlch and his wife Lowri (daughter of Ffowc
Price, the son of Archdeacon Edmund Price) who were .the
parents of Jane Evans, the wife of John Wynn of Gwynfryn.
Annals of County Families in Wales, by Thomas Nicholas, vol.
ii., page 709, under Thurstan of Talgarth, co. Merioneth, for
Edward Lewis of Talgarth. Page 686, for Ivan Evans of
Tanybwlch. head of the house in 1588, and page G89 for
Edmund Prys, Archdeacon of Merioneth, in 1578.

(c) Pedigrees of Montgomeryshire Families from Lewis Ihvnn's
Original Visitations, printed for The Powys Land Club, in
1888. For Pughe of Mathafarn, page® 68,* 71, and 72. For
Herbert, pages 62, 111, and 112 ; and page 5 for Owen ap
Howell Goch.

(e) Burke's Royal Descents, Pedigree ex., which records that Llewelyn,
the last Sovereign Prince of Wales, slain at Builth, 11th
December, 1282, was by his wife Eleanor (daughter of Simon
de Mont-ford, Earl of Leicester, by Eleanor, widow of William
Earl of Pembroke, and second daughter of John, King of
England), the father of the Princess Catherine, who was
married to Philip ap Ivor, Lord of Iscoed in Cardigan, and
had by him a daughter and heir, who married Thomas ap
Llewelyn, the last Lord of South Wales, and had by him a
daughter and co-heiress, the Lady Eleanor, who married
Griffith Vychan, Lord of Glyndyfrdwy, and by him was the
mother of Owen Glyndwr, Tudor, and Lowry, the wife of
Robert Puleston.

(e) Works of the Rev. Walter Davies (Gwallter Mechain), vol. iii.,
page< 62, for Owen Glyndwr. Owen Glendower, by the Rev.
Thomas Thomas. Also Owen Glendower, by Rowland Wil-
liams, D.D., son of the Rev. Rowland Williams, M.A., once
second Master of Bangor School, afterwards Rector of Ysceiviog.

(e) Burke's General Armoury, for Ithel of Trawsfynydd, second son of

Iorwerth ap Einion of Ynysymaengwyn, from Osborne Fitz-
gerald, Lord of Ynysymaengwyn.

(f) Peniarth big Book of Manuscript Pedigrees, page 712, for Edward

ap Richard de Cwmbychan and his wife Jane, daughter of
Rhys ap Hugh, or Rhys Hughes, of Maesypandy, Sheriff of co.
Merioneth in 1581, who descended through Einion Sais from
Caradoc Freichfras; and [ages 542, 543, and 544, for Anthony
Thomas and Hugh Thomas of Hendre Llwyngwril.

(c) Burke's Peerage of 1858 — Dynevor — for Thomas ap Griffith ap
Nicholas), father of Sir Rhys ap Thomas and Margaret, who
married Sir Richard Herbert, Knight, of Colebrook, and by
him was the mother of Sir Richard Herbert of Montgomery.

(e) Leinster — for Osborn Fitzgerald, from whom descended the
Vaughans of Corsygedol.

Kynaston — for Tudor, the brother of Owen Glyndwr.

Pembroke — for Gwladus, daughter of Sir David Gam, Knight
Banneret of Agincourt, who by her second husband, Sir William
ap Thomas, Knight, of Raglan Castle, was the mother of Sir
Richard Herbert of Colebrook.

Puleston- — for Robert Puleston, who married Lowry, the sister of
Owen Glyndwr.

Rodney — for Mortimer Rodney, who married Sarah, the daughter
of Robert Withy.

Wynn of Wynnstay for Llewelyn.

Burke's Landed Gentry of 1863.

Hughes of Gwerclas — for Einion ap Seysyllt — Herbert of Llanarth.

Wynne of Peniarth — for Vaughan of Corsygedol.

Yale of Plas yn Yale — for Griffith ap Einion of Corsygedol, who
married Lowry, daughter of Tudor ap Griffith Vychan, the

brother of Owen Glyndwr.

Nanney of Cefn deuddwr for John Wynne of Gwynfryn.

Burke's Landed Gentry of 1891, for Corfield,

Powys Land Club Papers.

Vol. ii., opposite page 387, Genealogical Key-chart oi the
Herberts.

Vol. iii., i., pages 187 and 201, for John Tibbot, Vicar of Daro-
wen, who married Anne Edwards, of Talgarth, second daughter
of Edward Lewis, gent., of Talgarth, co. Merioneth. Settle-
ment after marriage, dated 14th October, 1735.

Vol. iii., ii., pages 341 and 355, for Herberts. Sir Richard Her-
bert of Montgomery's daughter, Catharine, married John Pugh
of Mathafarn.

Vol. v., page 188, for Rowland Pugh.

Vol v., ii., page 269, for Rev. Edward Evans, Rector of Llaiiti-
hangel yn Gwynl'a : and page 488 for Rowland Pughe.

Vol. v., page 153, Herbertiana.

Vol. vi., part xii., pages 92 and 94, David Lloyd's Elegy to Sir
Griffith Vaughan, Knight Banneret of Agincourt, who was per-
fidiously murdered in. the presence of Henry Grey, Lord Powys,
in the Courtyard of Powys Castle in 1447. Mont. Coll. vol. i.,
pages 337 and 338.

Part iii., of Mont, Coll. Oct, 1868, page 337, for Welsh Poem by
David Lloyd, of Mathavarn, Esq.

My Rendering of the Elegy.

My breast, with grief oppressed, bewails the best
Of men, who in a golden torque was dressed.
If, Griffith Vaughan, thou art alive and well,
Why dost thou not with blazing beacon tell I
If thou, tall hero, liest lifeless now,
0 may my God avenge thy manly brow !
None with a cruel hand could have slain thee
Except a fiend inflamed with jealousy.

My friend, I did not counsel thee to place

Thy confidence in one of foreign race.

0 wretched wreck of Troy's nobility !

For ages have we known the perfidy

Of aliens. It was our infatuation

That caused at Builth a King's decapitation.

The head of Griffith Yaughan, whose ruddy lance

Was like the lurid lightning in its glance !

His native country's hope ! The gallant Knight

Of the courageous arm is slain outright !

A head which would not be for money sold,

One, like S. John's, worth more than heaps of gold,

And fair, even when on a charger laid, —

A sacred head which laws for Powys made, —

An honourable Chieftain's head waylaid, — -

A beautiful and precious head betrayed !

What a safe conduct ? What a vile pretence !

When Harry Grey severed with violence

That head ! Long may the Earl of double tongue

And execrable villany be hung !

Powys Land Club Papers.

Vol. vi., ii., page 260, Ed'rus Pughe de Cwinbychan, gen. , on
the Grand Jury, in 1612.

Vol. vii., ii., page 225, Richardus Pugh de Cwmllowi, p 'ach cle
Darowen, in Com. Mountg., gen., vcnit cora me, Roger Mostyji
ar 'o uno Justice, etc.

Vol. viii., I., pages, 49, 51 and 101, for Pughe of Abernrydlan.

Vol. ix., ii., page 229, for Maud Mortimer.

Vol. x., i., pages 5 and 106, for Sir Richard Herbert of Mont-
gomery.

Vol. xi.. i.j part xxii., page 42, Ellin, wife of Jenkin ap Jorwerth
ap Einion of Ynysymacngwyn, under Pedigree of Griffith of
Glyntwymin.

Vol. xiii.. i.j pape 197, David Lloyd entertained Earl Richmond,
and predicted his victory at Bos worth.

Merlin, or Taliesin, had foretold

A coming crisis when round coins of gold

Should circulate, and Cambrians behold

The restitution of her ancient throne

To one that they should honour as their own

Blood-royal ruler. A distinguished bard,

David, called Llwyd, ap Llewelyn, Lord

Oi' old Mathafarn, and an ancestor

Of mine, had uttered words oracular

And fed his countrymen, four centuries

And more than that ago, with auguries

And extraordinary prophecies

That one of them would soon assume command

And free from further violence the land.

Sir Rhys ap Thomas headed his allies

Who rallied under David's auspices ;

Welsh warriors were thus induced to rise1

In favour of Earl Richmond's enterprise,

And, won on Bosworth Field, his victory

Fulfilled a memorable prophecy

Time treasured in the Principality.

Here is an anecdote of David Lloyd.

Whose talents were so loyally employed: —

The Earl of Richmond, ultimately King

Harry the Seventh, spent a night with him

When on his march from Milford. He desired

To have his fortune told him, and enquired

Of David, his enthusiastic friend,

A forecast of what issues would attend

His hazardous adventure. The reply

Made by the bard was worded warily: —

That an event of such importance could

Not be foretold at once, but that he would

Return an answer after morning's light

Should have dispelled the dimness of the night,

And rest should have restored his second sight.

When David and his dame had gone to bed,

Margaret, observing something in the head

Of her wise lord which robbed him of his rest.

Commenced to catechise — and he confessed

That it was Henry's curiosity

Which had occasioned him perplexity.

The wizard's wiser half encouraged him

To tell the coming King that he would win.

" Should he succeed," she said, " your fortune's made

But if he fail, you need not feel afraid.

For even then you will not have to rue. —

He never will return to trouble you."

And thus, as evidenced in history,

" A wife's unasked advice " began to be

A proverb in the Principality.

N.B. — When our present King and Queen, then Prince and
Princess of Wales, visited Machynlleth, in 1896, he said: —
" My Lords and Gentlemen, We aire very glad through the in-
vitation of our friend Lady Londonderry, to be her guests on
this occasion. There are- numerous: objects both in the town
and neighbourhood to arouse our pleasure and interest. Fore-
most among them, is your palace, in which, one of my prede-
cessors in the title of the Prince of Wale® (Owen Glen dower)
was crowned, nearly 500 years ago. Here, too, King Henry
VII., when Earl of Richmond, after he had landed at Milford,
visited, at Mathafarn, David Lloyd, the staunch supporter of
his cause, who was a direct ancestor of our hostess."

POWYS LAND CLUB PAPERS.

Vol. xvii., L, pages 51 and 61, for David Lloyd ap Owen ap Howcl
Goch, Mayor of Machynlleth, in 1566 and 1557 ; (will proved
Oct, 25th, 1582) ; who married Margaret, daughter of John
Pugh of Mathafarn, and his wife, Catharine Herbert.

Vol. xviii., i., page 101. Sheriffs of Montgomeryshire.

Richard Pryce of Gunley, for Gwyddno Garan Hir, and Einion
ap Seysyllt,

Vol. xviii., ii., page 68, for Pedigree of Pughe of Mathafarn.

Vol. xix., ii., page 208, for Gould of Golfa,

Vol. xxii., ii., page 217. The Herberts during the War of the
Roses.

Vol. xxiv., ii., page 243, for Pughe of Cwmllowi, and page 385,
for Maud Mortemeir, who married John son and heir of John
de Charleton, Lord of Powys. These were among the ancestors
of Owen Glyndwr, etc.

Vol. xxiv., i., page 89, for Herberts.

Vol., xxv., i., page 45, Ed'rus Pugh de Cwmllowi, gen., was a
Grand Juror in 1675. See also Morgan Meredith under Richard
Pughe, page 385.

Vol. xxvi., i., page 126, Edward Pughe was a Churchwarden at
Darowen in 1673. And page 117 for Captain George Gould of
Golfa.

Vol. xxvii., i., page 176, for Einion ap Seysyllt,

St. Cadvan, a native of Armorica, came over to Wales about the
year 516.

On November 29th, 1644, Mathafarn was burnt to the ground,
and two men were killed there by some of the regicide Crom-
well's rabble.

Names of Gentlemen who most kindly assisted my Genealogical

Researches :

The Rev. Canon D. Silvan Evans, B.D., Rector of Llanwrin, and
Chancellor of Bangor Cathedral.

The late David Howell, Esqr., of Craigydon, Aberdovey.

The late M. C. Jones, Esqr., F.S.A., and F.S.A. Scotland, of Gnngrog.
Welshpool.

The late Rev. Richard Jones, Rector of Darowen.

The late Rev. W. Valentine Lloyd, R.N., F.R.G.S., of Haselbech Rectory
Northampton ; formerly Chaplain to H.R.H. The Duke of
Eingburgh.

The late E. Rowley Morris, Esqr., F.S.A., of London.

D. C. Lloyd Owen, Esqr., F.R.C.S., of Birmingham.

Owen Owen, Esqr., of Hendre, Abergynolwyn, near Town, a nonage-
narian, my worthy tenant.

R. W. M. Wynne, Esqr., of Peniarth, Lord Lieutenant of Meirionydd.

1528

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