PRELATES-THE FAREWELL.

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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 pent 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.

BUILDINGS-ORGANS-PRELATES.

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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 patria, Leoline de Bromfield, a most fruitful tract of ground in this county.++ Under king Edward the

+ Zonaras, tom. iii.

|| Sabellicus Exemplar, 10. lib. 8.

Camden's Britannia, in Denbighshire. Bruschius, de Monast. Germ. fol. 107. Marian Scot, in Chron. sub anno 757. Lord Bacon's Henry the Seventh, p. 133. ** Bishop Godwin, in the Bishops of Saint Asaph. + Camden's Britannia, in Denbighshire.

First, anno 1293, he was consecrated bishop of Saint Asaph; and deserved right well of that see, by his manifold benefactions, appropriating some churches to his chapter.

As for a portion of tithes in the parish of Corwen, appropriated to the fabric of the church, he reduced it to its former estate;* the first and last instance (for precedent I dare not call it) which I have met with, of a church legally appropriated, which reverted to its presentative propriety. Had king Henry the Eighth, at the dissolution of the abbeys, followed this example, the church had been richer by many pounds; the exchequer not poorer by a penny. I find also, that he asked leave of king Edward the First to make a will,† which may seem very strange, whether it was a court compliment, or "ex gratiâ cautelâ," or because Welch bishops in that age might not testamentize without royal assent. By his will he bequeathed much of plate, rich vests and books, to the canons of that church and his chaplains, dying anno Domini 1313.

SINCE THE REFORMATION.

GODFREY GOODMAN was born of wealthy parentage in this county; bred under his uncle (of whom hereafter) in Westminster school; then in Trinity College, in Cambridge, where he commenced doctor of divinity; successively preferred prebendary of Windsor, dean of Rochester, and bishop of Gloucester. He might have been joined to the prelates before (though he lived long since) the Reformation, because he agreed with them in judgment, dying a professed Romanist, as appeareth by his will. Yet the adversaries of our hierarchy have no cause to triumph thereat, who slanderously charge Popish compliance on all his order, being able to produce, of two hundred bishops since queen Elizabeth, but this only instance, and him a person of no great eminency; not only disavowed by his fellow prelates, but imprisoned in the late Convocation for his erroneous opinions.

Indeed, in his discourse, he would be constantly complaining of our first reformers; and I heard him once say, in some passion, "that bishop Ridley was a very odd man;" to whom one presently returned, "He was an odd man indeed, my lord; for all the Popish party in England could not match him with his equal in learning and religion." To give Goodman his due, he was a harmless man, hurtful to none but himself, pitiful to the poor, hospitable to his neighbours, against the ruining of any of an opposite judgment, and gave the most he left to pious uses. He was no contemptible historian; but I confess an undermatch to doctor Hackwell. But I remember the ring bequeathed to me in his will, with the posy thereof, Requiem defunctis; and therefore I will no longer be troublesome to his memory, who + Idem, ibid.

Bishop Godwin, ut prius,
Gabriel Goodman.

WRITERS-BENEFACTORS.

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was made bishop 1624, and some seven years since deceased in Westminster, almost 80 years of age.

WRITERS SINCE THE REFORMATION.

WILLIAM SALESBURY was born in this county, where his family flourisheth at this day. This gentleman, out of a love to his native language, amor patriæ ratione valentior omni, composed a short English and Welch dictionary, first privately presented to and approved by king Henry the Eighth (being a Tuthar by his father's side of Welch extraction), and then publicly printed, anno Domini 1547.

Some captious spirits will quarrel the usefulness thereof, seeing the Welch did not want, and the English did not wish, a book of that nature. But let them know that it is useful for both nations; to the English for attaining, to the Welch for retaining, that language.

Attaining. For, being an original tongue, an antiquary is lame without it (which I find by my own defect) to understand the (few of many) remaining monuments of that nation.

Retaining. That tongue, as well as others, by disuse being subject not only to corruption but oblivion, by the confession of the natives of that country. Indeed all dictionaries of languages are very useful: words bringing matter to the tongue, and, as Plato well observed, ὄνομα ἔτι ὄργανον διδασκαλικὸν, (α name or word is an instrument of instruction*), and ushereth knowledge into our understanding.

However, seeing nothing can be begun and finished at once, Salesbury's book (as the first of this kind) did rather essay than effect the work, and since hath been completed by others. He died about the year 1560.

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC SINCE THE REFORMATION.

Sir THOMAS, Son of Richard ExMEW, was born at Rythin in this county. Being bred in London a goldsmith, he thrived therein so well, that, anno 1517, he was lord mayor thereof. Besides other benefactions in his own country, and to Saint Mary Magdalen in Milk-street, London (where he lies buried), he made the water conduit by London-wall at Moorgate.† Apisov pèv vowo (so Pindar begins his poems), water is a creature of absolute and common concernment, without which we should be burnt with the thirst, and buried with the filth, of our own bodies.

GABRIEL GOODMAN, son of Edward Goodman, Esq. was born at Rythin in this county; afterwards doctor of divinity in Saint John's College in Cambridge, and dean of Westminster, where he was fixed for full forty years; though, by his own

* In Cratylo. † Stow's Survey of London, p. 578.