PROVERBS. Craig Eriry, or Snow don, will yield sufficient pasture for all the cattle of Some will say this cannot be literally true, except the cattle of Wales be few beneath, and Snowdon hills fruitful above, all belief. The best is, the time is not expressed how long these hills will suffice for their pasture. But let us not be so morose, but understand the meaning of this expression, importing, by help of an hyperbole, the extraordinary fruitfulness of this place. "Diange ar Gluyd, a boddi ar Gonway."] That is," to 'scape Clude, and be drowned in Conway :" paral lel to the Latin, "Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charibdin." However that pilot is to be pitied, who, to shun Scylla, doth run on Charibdis, because these rocks were near, and a narrow passage betwixt them; whereas the two rivers of Clude and Conway are twenty miles asunder, affording men scope enough to escape them; but little or much in such cases are the same with indiscreet persons. PRINCES. EDWARD, the fourth (but first surviving) son of king Edward the First and queen Eleanor, was born at Carnarvon in this county, April 25, 1284. No prince ever ascended the English throne with greater, or used it with less, advantage to himself. First, (though his father had in a manner surprised the Welch to accept him for their prince (pleading his royal extraction, birth in Wales, inability to speak a word of English, and innocence that none could tax him with actual sin); yet I find them not for his father's fallacy to think the worse of his son―sic juvat esse deceptos-and generally they accepted him, as preferring that a prince should be put with wit rather than with violence upon them. In England he succeeded to a wise and victorious father, who happily had hit the expedient to be both beloved and feared by his subjects, leaving the land in so good a posture for government, that touch the wheel, and it would turn in the right track of itself. But this Edward first estranged himself from his subjects, and, in effect, subjected himself to a stranger, Pierce Gaveston, his French minion, and after his execution to the two Spencers, who, though native Englishmen, were equally odious to the English for their insolence. Hence it was that he first lost the love of his subjects, then of his queen (the vacuity of whose bed was quickly filled up), then his crown, then his life. Never any English king's * Camden's Britannia, in Carnarvonshire. case was so pitiful, and his person less pitied, all counting it good reason that he should give entertainment to that woe which his wilfulness had invited home to himself. His violent death happened at Berkeley Castle, September 22, 1327. SAINTS. There is an island called Berdsey, justly reduceable to this county (lying within a mile of the south-west promontory thereof) wherein the corpse of no fewer than twenty thousand saints are said to be interred.* "Estote vos omnes sancti." Proud Benhadad boasted that "the dust of Samaria did not suffice for handfuls for all the people that followed him."+ But where would so many thousand bodies find graves in so petty an islet? But I retrench myself, confessing it more facile to find graves in Berdsey for so many saints, than saints for so many graves. STATESMEN. JOHN WILLIAMS was born at Aber-Conwy in this county; bred fellow of St. John's college in Cambridge, proctor of the university, dean of Westminster, bishop of Lincoln, lord keeper of the great seal of England, and lastly archbishop of York. In my "Church History" I have offended his friends, because I wrote so little in his praise; and distasted his foes, because I said so much in his defence. But I had rather live under the indignation of others, for relating what may offend, than die under the accusation of my own conscience for reporting what is untrue. He died on the 25th day of March, 1649. PRELATES SINCE THE REFORMATION. RICHARD VAUGHAN, born at Nuffrin (or else at Etern) in this county, was bred fellow in Saint John's College in Cambridge, and was afterwards successively bishop of Bangor, Chester, and lastly of London; a very corpulent man, but spiritually minded; an excellent preacher and pious liver, on whom I find this epigram, which I will endeavour to English: Prasul es (6 Britonum decus immortale tuorum) Tu Londinensi primus in urbe Brite. Hi mihi Doctores semper placuere, docenda Of thine own Britons) first who had that place. 1 Kings xx. 10. • Camden's Britannia, in Insulis Britannicis. Here, to justify the observation, Præsul must be taken for a plain bishop, and Primus accounted but from the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity: for otherwise we find no fewer than sixteen archbishops of London before that time, and all of the British nation.* He was a most pleasant man in discourse, especially at his table, maintaining that truth, "At meals be glad, for sin be sad," as indeed he was a mortified man. Let me add, nothing could tempt him to betray the rights of the church to sacrilegious hands, not sparing sharply to reprove some of his own order on that account. He died March 30, 1607, much lamented. HENRY ROWLANDS, born in this county, bred in the university of Oxford, was consecrated bishop of Bangor, November 12, 1598. We have formerly told how bishop Bulkeley plundered the tower of Saint Asaph of five fair bells; now the bounty of this bishop bought four new ones for the same (the second edition, in cases of this kind, is seldom as large as the first), whereof the biggest cost a hundred pounds. He also gave to Jesus College in Oxford means for the maintenance of two fellows. He died anno Domini 1615. THE FAREWELL. The map of this county (as also of Denby and Flintshire) in Mr. Speed is not divided (as other shires in England and Wales) with pricks into their several hundreds, which would have much conduced to the completing thereof, whereof he rendereth this reason, That he could not procure the same (though promised him) out of the sheriff's books; fearing lest the riches of their shire should be further sought into by revealing such particulars. He addeth moreover," This I have observed in all my survey, that where least is to be had the greatest fears are possessed." I would advise these counties hereafter to deny no small civility to a painful author, holding a pen in his hand, for fear a drop of his ink fall upon them; for, though juice of lemon will fetch such spots out of linen, when once printed in a book they are not so easily got out, but remain to posterity. * Reckoned up by Bishop Godwin, in his Catalogue. † Godwin, in the Bishops of Bangor. DENBIGHSHIRE. DENBIGHSHIRE hath Flintshire, Cheshire, and Shropshire on the east, Montgomery and Merioneth-shires on the south, Carnarvonshire (divided by the river Conway) on the west, being from east to west thirty-one, from north to south twenty miles. The east part of this county (towards the river Dee) is fruitful; but in the west the industrious husbandman may be said to fetch his bread out of the fire, paring off their upper turfs with a spade, piling them up in heaps, burning them to ashes, and then throwing them on their barren ground, which is much fertilized thereby. NATURAL COMMODITIES. AMELCORNE. This English word (which I find in the English Camden*) is Welch to me. Let us therefore repair to his Latin original, where he informeth us, that this county produceth plenty of Arinca. Here the difficulty is a little changed, not wholly cleared. In our dictionaries arinca is Englished: 1. Rice; but this (though a frequent name of many in this country) is a grain too choice to grow in Wales, or any part of England: 2. Amelcorn; and now having run round, we have not stirred a step, as to more information of what we desired a kind of. At last, with long beating about, we find it to be RYE; in Latin more generally called Serale. Pliny's pen casts three dashes on this grain, being (it seems) no friend to it, or it to him: 1. "Est tantum ad arcendam famem utile," (good only to drive away famine, as not pleasant at all.) 2. "Est, licet farre mixtum, ventri ingratissimum," (as griping the guts.) 3. "Nascitur quocunque solo," (any base ground being good enough to bear it.) However (whatever his foreign rye was) that which groweth incredibly plentiful in this county is very wholesome; and generally, in England, rye maketh moistest bread in the dryest summer, for which cause some prefer it before wheat itself. BUILDINGS. The church of Wrexham is commended for a fair and spacious • In his Britannia, in the description of this county. † Nat. Hist. lib. xxviii. cap. 16. building; and it is questionable, whether it claimeth more praise for the artificial tower thereof, or for the ORGANS. These were formerly most famous* (the more because placed in a parochial, no cathedral church) for beauty, bigness, and tunableness; though far short of those in worth which Michael emperor of Constantinople caused to be made of pure gold,† and beneath those in bigness which George the Salamitan abbot made to be set up in the church of his convent, whose biggest pipe was eight and twenty feet long, and four spans in compass.‡ The first organ, which was ever seen in the west of Europe, was what was sent anno 757 from Constantine, the Grecian emperor, to Pepin king of France ;§ and their general use in churches began about the year 828. I read that the form of this instrument was much improved by one Bernard a Venetian (who was absolutely the best musician in the world) with addition of many pipes thereunto. What is become of Wrexham organs I know not; and could heartily wish they had been removed into some gentleman's house; seeing such as accuse them for superstitious in churches must allow them lawful in private places. Otherwise such Moroso's deserve not to be owners of an articulate voice sounding through the organ of a throat. But to return to the buildings in this county. Holt castle must not be forgotten. How well it is now faced, and repaired without, I know not; I know when it was better lined within than any subject's castle (I believe) in Europe at that time, viz. when in the possession of William lord Stanley; when the ready money and plate therein (besides jewels and rich household stuff) amounted unto forty thousand marks, got by the plunder of Bosworth field. But as the river Dee, running by this castle, is soon after swallowed up in the Irish ocean; so it was not long before this vast treasure, upon the owner's attainder, was confiscated into the coffers of king Henry the Seventh. PRELATES. LEOLINE being born in the Marches, he had a double name, to notify him to posterity. One, after the Welch mode, à patre Leoline ap Llewelin ap Yuyr ;** the other according to the custom of the English clergy, à patriá, Leoline de Bromfield, a most fruitful tract of ground in this county.++ Under king Edward the Camden's Britannia, in Denbighshire. †Zonaras, tom. iii. Sabellicus Exemplar, 10. lib. 8. * Bishop Godwin, in the Bishops of Saint Asaph.. tt Camden's Britannia, in Denbighshire. |