go, ticket or no ticket. After the eisteddfod, St. David's dinner, annual meetings of three benefit societies, we wind up with a tea party-that's the programme for the next two months. The Manhattan Choral Union," composed of seventy members, the majority of whom are Welsh, now in its third season, had its first concert of the season on the 16th inst., Chickering Hall being filled. The selections sung were by Brinley Richards, Handel, J. W. P. Price, and others, the conductor being Professor J. H. Parson Price, with Mrs. Price as accompanist. The concert was a decided success and gave entire satisfaction to its patrons. I think I have said enough at present. Wishing you every success, and if I can be in any way of use towards furthering the interests of the Red Dragon, I will be glad to give you assistance. Yours very truly, HENRY BLACKWELL. We shall always be glad to hear from Mr. Blackwell, the Welsh of New York and other States, and transatlantic friends and subscribers in general, the latter, we are happy to say, a large and constantly increasing number. "Wales is the land of great thoughts, daring deeds, and soft, enchanting music," remarks Mr. Kynnersley Lewis in a letter written us recently from Aberystwith; "the land of poetry and divination. The ancient bards, with their inspirations and prophecies, were as essential to its victories as the bow of the warrior, the prowess of its princes, and the light of day or the darkness of night. Thoughts worthy a Milton or a Shakspeare slumber through the ages in its untranslated lore. Mystic utterances of Oriental brilliance have died away in the wreck of its Druidic past. But its language lives. The babe mutters it, and the scholar gives emotion to his eloquence by its intuitive force. Its mountains still commune with the heavens in the whispers that appeal to the soul rather than to the intellect, and its valleys are garlanded with flowers that, modestly retiring from the hubbub and tumult of life, speak comfort to the pensive and the sad. It demands more light, knowledge and power; and, reflecting on its past, seeks to make its present worthy its traditions!" “No, Doctor Thomas, of Merthyr, used to tell the following anecdote, illustrative of the times when the dislike to Englishmen was strong, and frequently expressed. One of the Tyntes of Cefn Mably, coming to a ford at Radyr, on horseback, met a labourer and asked him, in English, if he could safely cross. The man replied sullenly, "Yes you can, if you like." but is it safe to do so," said Tynte. "Cross you," was the muttered reply. Tynte looking hard at the man then said in his best Welsh, "But what is your opinion as to one's safety ?" "O, good Lord!" bellowed the Welshman with amazing energy. "Don't think of it on your life. I thought you were one of the Saxon devils." "The beautiful lines of Dafydd ap Gwilym in the March Dragon," writes a correspondent, "are ringing in my ears. Who could have imagined that five hundred years ago such fine thoughts found utterance." Exactly, good friend; it sets one a thinking on what the sage of Chelsea would call the eternal continuity of nature. One of my choristers in the present spring is a blackbird, pouring out its soul every morning. The blackbird also was a great favourite with Dafydd ap Gwilym, and five hundred years ago it flourished even as now. Endless the ring of harmony, AN EPIGRAM. Beneath the wide extended skies But things we never knew before, Ye gods! whilst thus my thoughts pursue When shall I see that wonder new, An old and faithful friend? Translated from the Italian of BOCCACCIO, by Dr. John Rhys, author of a WELSH GRAMMAR in the sixteenth century. A stray donkey was some time since found dead on the land of a North Wales farmer, who immediately wrote to acquaint the local burial board with the sorrowful event, praying that the usual arrangements might be made for an early interment. The clerk of the board replied, thanking him for the information, and assuring him that the board felt no wish to deprive him of the honour of burying the deceased, or of employing his own minister to officiate. To this the farmer wrote a final apology, saying he had simply acted upon the general impression that it was always the duty, and indeed the custom, of the nearest relatives to bury their dead. "Seven years ago," says a newspaper of July, 1835, "there was but one public-house in Dowlais, now there are one hundred and ten. In Merthyr, which is in the same parish as Dowlais, at the same period there were forty-six retailers of beer, there are now four hundred.” In the same year, 1835, there was no butcher's shop in Cowbridge, Carmarthen, or Haverfordwest. There was a jolly and vigorous beggar in Carmarthen Gaol in 1821. His name was James Davies, his age seventy-six, and his crime "getting into debt!" He had been an incarcerated insolvent debtor for four years, but must have been a veritable Mark Tapley, for he "undertook to run four hundred and twenty yards during the time another insolvent debtor could eat two half-penny muffins!" The sun shone bright, and the walls of the debtors' yard were dazzling, and the old man, more than once, stumbled up against them; but so exciting did the affair become, that even the muffin consumer forgot to take his bites, and the runner won! The Carmarthen Journal says that "considerable bets were pending on the match." Joachim Miller contributes to an American paper the following charming little poem, so thoroughly according with the genius of a religion which glorifies, not worldly success and honour, but failure, and sorrow, and martyrdom, and death: "FOR THOSE WHO FAIL." "All honour to him who shall win the prize," But greater many, and many a time, 1 За ваши |