{49a} _Maelgwn Gwynedd_.—He became lord over the whole of Wales about the year 550 and regained much territory that had once been lost to the Saxons. Indeed Geoffrey of Monmouth asserts that at one time Ireland, Scotland, the Orkneys, Norway and Denmark acknowledged his supremacy. Whatever truth there be in this assertion, it is quite certain that he built a powerful navy whereby his name became a terror to the Vikings of the North. In his reign, however, the country was ravaged by a more direful enemy—the Yellow Plague; “whoever witnessed it, became doomed to certain death. Maelgwn himself, through Taliesin’s curse, saw the _Vad Velen_ through the keyhole in Rhos church and died in consequence.” (_Iolo MSS._) {49b} _Arthur’s quoit_.—The name given to several _cromlechau_ in Wales; there is one so named, near the Bard’s home, in the parish of Llanddwywe, “having the print of a large hand, dexterously carved by man or nature, on the side of it, as if sunk in from the weight of holding it.” (_v. Camb. Register_, _1795_.) {54} _In the Pope’s favor_.—Clement XI. became Pope in 1700, his predecessor being Innocent XII. {55} _Their hands to the bar_.—Referring to the custom (now practically obsolete) whereby a prisoner on his arraignment was required to lift up his hands to the bar for the purpose of identification. Ellis Wynne was evidently quite conversant with the practice of the courts, though there is no proof of his ever having intended to enter the legal profession or taken a degree in law as one author asserts. (_v. Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry_, sub. tit. Ellis Wynne.) {67} “_The Practice of Piety_.”—Its author was Dr. Bayley, Bishop of Bangor; a Welsh translation by Rowland Vaughan, of Caergai, appeared in 1630, “printed at the signe of the Bear, in Saint Paul’s Churchyard, London.” {69} _At one time cold_.—Cp.: I come To take you to the other shore across, Into eternal darkness, there to dwell In fierce heat and in ice. —_Dante_: _Inf. c. III._ (_Cary’s trans._). {71} _Above the roar_.—Cp.: The stormy blast of Hell With restless fury drives the spirits on: When they arrive before the ruinous sweep There shrieks are heard, there lamentations, moans, And blasphemies. —_Dante: Inf. c. V._ (_Cary’s trans._). {73} _Amidst eternal ice_.—Cp.: Thither . . . all the damned are brought . . . and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce! From beds of raging fire to starve in ice Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immoveable, infix’d and frozen round Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire. —_Par. Lost_, _II. 597–603_. {85a} _Better to reign_.—This speech of Lucifer is very Miltonic; compare especially—