But what befell? O thou, whose gentle heart 121 Lists, scornful not, this undiurnal rhyme; If, as thy steps to busier life depart, Still in thine ear rings low the haunting chime, When leisure suits once more forsake the throng, Call childhood back, and redemand the song. NOTES TO BOOK II. 1.--Page 218, stanza iii. _By lips as gay the Hirlas horn is quaft._ The Hirlas, or drinking-horn, made of the buffalo horn, enriched with gold or silver. The Hirlas song of "Owen Prince of Powys" is familiar to all lovers of Welch literature. 2.--Page 219, stanza viii. _Therein Sir Brut, expell'd from flaming Troy._ Caradoc's version of the descent of Brut differs somewhat from that of Geoffrey of Monmouth, but perhaps it is quite as true. According to Geoffrey, Brut is great-grandson to AEneas, and therefore not expelled from "_flaming_ Troy." Caradoc follows his own (no doubt authentic) legends, also, as to the aboriginal population of the island, which, according to Geoffrey, were giants, not devils. The cursory and contemptuous way in which that delicious romance-writer speaks of these poor giants is inimitable--"_Albion a nemine, exceptis paucis gigantibus, inhabitabatur._"--"Albion was inhabited by nobody--except, indeed, a few giants!" 3.--Page 219, stanza viii. _And bids that Saint, who now speaks Welch on high._ Saint BRAN, the founder of one of the three sacred lineages of Britain, was the first introducer of Christianity among the Cymry. 4.--Page 223, stanza xxxv. _And thou, fair favourite in the Fairy court._ Gwyn-ab-nudd, the king of the fairies. He is, also, sometimes less pleasingly delineated as the king of the infernal regions; the Welch Pluto--much the same as, in the chivalric romance-writers, Proserpine is sometimes made the queen of the fairies. 5.--Page 226, stanza lv. _"Arthur my name, from YNYS VEL I come._ Ynys Vel; one of the old Welch names for England. 6.--Page 227, stanza lxv. _"A witch."--"All women till they're wed are witches!_ The witch MOURGE, or MORGANA (historically ANNA), was Arthur's sister. 7.--Page 228, stanza lxxiv. _Loud neigh'd the destrier at the welcome clang._ _Destrier_;--This word has been objected to, but it is so familiarly used by our Anglo-Norman minstrels, as well as by the great Masters of romantic poetry, that I have ventured, though not without diffidence, to retain it. MONTAIGNE, in his chapter on "the Warhorses called Destriers," derives the word from the Latin _Dextrarius_. BOOK III. ARGUMENT.