By this means he would be enabled in time to ascertain the true reading in many MSS. that have been altered and mangled by the ignorance of transcribers. I am satisfied there are not many copies of the Bards of the sixth century extant, nor indeed of those from the conquest to the death of Llewelyn. But two or three ancient copies on vellom, if such can be met with, will be sufficient; for in some transcripts by good hands that I have seen, they are imperfect in some copies. This would in a great measure enable our traveller to fill up the blanks, and help him to understand what, for want of this, must remain obscure, if not altogether unintelligible. We should by the means of such a person have a great many monuments of genius brought to light, that are now mouldering away with age, and a great many passages in history illustrated and confirmed that are now dark and dubious. Whole poems of great length and merit might be retrieved, not inferior, perhaps, to Ossian’s productions, if indeed those extraordinary poems are of so ancient date, as his translator avers them to be. The Gododin of Aneurin Gwawdrydd is a noble heroic poem. So are likewise the works of Llywarch Hen about his battles with the Saxons, in which he lost twenty-four sons, who all were distinguished for their bravery with golden torques’s. _Aurdorchogion_. Taliesin’s poems to Maelgwn Gwynedd, to Elphin ap Gwyddno, to Gwynn ap Nudd, and Urien Reged, and other great personages of his time, are great curiosities. We have, besides these, some remains of the works of Merddin ap Morfryn, to his patron Gwenddolau ap Ceidis, and of Afan Ferddig to Cadwallon ap Cadfan; and, perhaps, there may be in those collections some besides that we have not heard of. All these treasures might be brought to light, by a person well qualified for the undertaking, properly recommended by men of character and learning: and I think, in an age wherein all parts of literature are cultivated, it would be a pity to lose the few remaining monuments now left of the ancient British Bards, some of which are by their very antiquity become venerable. Aneurin Gwawdrydd above-mentioned is said, by Mr. Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt, to be brother to Gildas ap Caw, author of the _Epistle de excidio Britanniæ_ which is the most ancient account of Great Britain extant in Latin by a native.—No manner of estimate can be made of the works of our Bards and Historians that have been destroyed from time to time; nay some very curious ones have been lost within this century and a half. I think, therefore, it would be an act becoming the Antiquarian Society, and all patrons of learning in general, to encourage and support such an undertaking, which would redound much to their honour, and be a fund of a rational and instructive amusement.—Nor would those benefits alone accrue from a thorough knowledge of our Bards, but still more solid and substantial ones. For who would be better qualified