The Black Book of Caermarthen is the oldest. It is a MS. of the twelfth century in the Hengwrt collection, and contains only poems. It consists of fifty-four folios of parchment in small quarto, with illuminated capitals. There are four different handwritings, apparently of the same period, with the exception of a few insertions made by a subsequent writer. The MS. belonged originally to the six black Canons of the priory of Caermarthen. Hence the name. After the dissolution of that religious house at the Reformation, it passed into the hands of Sir John Price, a native of Brecnockshire, and before the year 1658 was in the Hengwrt collection. Last century it changed hands again, when the whole of the latter most valuable collection was bequeathed to W. W. E. Wynne, Esq., of Peniarth. The Book of Aneurin, second in point of antiquity, belongs to the thirteenth century. It also is a small quarto, consisting of nineteen folios of parchment. Here we have, perhaps, the most ancient copy now extant of that truly venerable and illustrious relic of Welsh poetry called the “Gododin,” as well as the four Gorchanau, not quite so old. The capitals which mark the beginning of the stanzas are coloured alternately red and green. This literary monument belonged formerly to the Hengwrt collection, but in more recent times was bought from Mrs. Powell of Abergavenny by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., of Middle Hill. The Book of Taliessin, third in order, is still in the same collection. A small quarto MS. written on vellum, in one hand throughout, of the early fourteenth century, it consists now of thirty-eight leaves, and wants the outer page both at the beginning and at the end. Hence it begins in the middle of one poem and ends in that of another. The last, but certainly not the least of this wonderful series, is the Red Book of Hergest in Jesus College, Oxford. It is a thick folio containing 360 leaves of vellum, and has been written at different times from the early part of the fourteenth century till the middle of the fifteenth. From this valuable codex Lady Charlotte Guest got eleven of her far-famed stories. The book takes its name from Hergest Court, a seat of the Vaughans, near Knighton, Radnorshire, and before it was finally gifted to Jesus College in 1701, it passed through several hands. It is written in double columns, in three different handwritings. There is reason to infer that it was begun in 1318 at the very latest, a date given in one of the columns, and that it was finished in 1454. The book is an enormous compilation of Welsh compositions in prose and verse, of all the periods from the sixth century till the middle of the fifteenth. Embellished lately in a magnificent binding of red morocco with steel clasps, and preciously preserved in a case, it is now shown as one of the curiosities of Oxford.