be of the nature of a loan, and has been fued for and recovered at law" P. 287. Vol. I.

The general state of agriculture in Brecknockshire, foils, farms, cattle, manures, labour, &c. &c. occupies the remainder of the volume; to which a long appendix is added, containing the ftate of the population, tables of genealogy, lifts of theriffs, judges, reprefentatives in parlia❤ ment, &c.

The fecond volume commences with a preface, which contains fome reflections on the guardians of literature (the Reviewers), for neglecting the former volume. With regard to ourselves, we frankly acknowledge that, except in partic lar cafes, our rule is to wait for the final completion of a literary undertaking. We can have no fcruple in affirming, that this work on Brecknockshire might well juftify a violation of our ordinary proceedings. We have feldom perufed a work combining fo many juft claims to commendation.

This fecond volume will, to the general reader, per. haps, afford lefs gratification than the firft; but to the inhabitants of the county will be of conftant and per petual intereft. It contains the topography and a paro chial defcription of the county, a furvey of the Archdeaconry of Brecon, and a correction of the errors in Ecton's Thefaurus.

The plates occur in great numbers, and there are alfo many portraits, armorial bearings, monuments, &c. Of thefe, fome are very beautiful, which may truly be faid of Cilhepfte waterfall, engraved by Landfeer. It feems a maté ter of juftice to give a fpecimen of this part of the work, and with this we shall conclude.

"" LLANDDEWI-ABERG WESSIN.

"I am now travelling into the wildeft, moft uncultivated, and uninhabitable parts of Brecknockshire,

Where the gilt chariot never mark'd the way,'

"And where no carriage, unless it be the finall wheel cart and fledge, can pafs with fafety; a few narrow glens, (where fmall inclofures, low cottages, and one manfion house only excepted are interfperfed here and there) interfect the dreary wafte; man feems doomed here to furrender these regions to the sheep, and to those of his own race only, who are accustomed to collect the produce, watch the habits, and occafionally protect these ufeful and profitable little animals from the perils of the ftorm or fnow. If I have been fortunate enough to retain the attention of my reader, and to lead him thus far into the bowels of the

land,'

land,' I beg he will ftop here, and meet me when I return to the more cultivated vallies of Breconshire; if, however, he perfe veres, though my journey lies through feveral parishes, whose defcription must be nearly fimilar, I promife that I will detain him upon these bleak and dreary mountains for as short a time as I can.

"The parish and chapel of Llanddewi Abergweffin is appendant and appurtenant to Llangamarch, and is dedicated to Saint David, as its name (Saint David's on Gweffin-fall) clearly indicates. Llanvihangel Abergweffin is placed with tolerable accuracy, by Adams, in latitude 52 16, longitude 3 34; he has omitted Llanddewi Abergweffin; but the churches are so near one another, the latter being a few yards weftward of the Irwon, and the former on the other side, just on the junction of the Gweffin, that the above distances will apply to both, as the space between is fo fmall that is hardly worth noticing. There is nothing worthy of remark or obfervation in the church or church-yard, or indeed within this parish, which has come to my knowledge. Nant y Flaiddaft, or the brook of the fhe-wolf, one of the Termini, mentioned in the charter of Rees ap Griffith to the monks of Ystradflur, is the name of a rill, and now also of a small farm within this precinct; on the weftern boundary was formerly the manfion of John Lloyd, who defcribes himself of Towy, but whe very fenfibly changed his refidence and removed to a more fhel. tered fpot; he was the fon of Thomas Lloyd, the lineal defcendant in the elder line of Elyftan Glodrydd, by Angharad, his fecond wife, daughter of Morgan ap Evan Lloyd. This Thomas Lloyd was a partizan of the Earl of Richmond, after wards Henry the Seventh, and probably joined him with a confiderable body of men in Caerdiganfhire, on his march to the battle of Bosworth Field; as a reward for his fervices, he had ample poffeffions bestowed upon him by the crown, and was appointed lord lieutenant of the county of Brecon, which office he held for forty years: his only fon by the fecond wife, John Lloyd, went early into England, and ferved in the French and Scotch wars, under Henry the eighth; he was afterwards, as the infcription on a plate of brafs in Builth church informs us, Squer to the bodie, (Efq. to the body) of Queen Elizabeth, the firft fheriff and juftice of the peace, who refided in the county after the union, and steward of the manor or lordship of Builth, under Walter, earl of Effex and earl marshal of Ireland, who was buried at Carmarthen.

"The pubic are indebted to the writer of this epitaph, whoever he may have been, for the account of the appointment or grant by the crown to the earl of Effex, of this manor, which has efcaped the notice of hiftorians, as well as antiquaries, and of the indefatigable and learned Dugdale among the reft. Upon the attainder of the gallant but eccentric and unfortunate Ro

bert,

bert, earl of Effex, I prefume, the lordship reverted to the

crown.

"Sometime previous to his deceafe, which happened in 1585, he refided at his manfion of Porth y crwys, or the gate of the crofs, in Llanynis; no veftige of this houfe now remains, but its fituation in a field, being part of a farm called Cefnllys gwin is very well known; and here a difficulty occurs, which I know not well how to folve. By his will in the register office, proved foon after his death, wherein he ftill describes him. felf as John Lloyd of Towy, efquier,' though then living in a different parish, he gives his foul to God and his body to be buried in the parish church of Llanynis, yet the infcription in Builth church afferts that he lieth there; on the one hand it is hardly to be fuppofed that his fon would have disobeyed an injunction thus folemnly impofed upon him, and in those days al ways religioufly obferved; and on the other, I am loath to dif believe the affertion in his epitaph: upon the whole I incline to think that it was a mere inaccuracy, that instead of here lieth,' memoria facrum, or facred to the memory, was only in. tended, and that this monument of gratitude to a benefactor to the town and country, was placed there at the expence of the inhabitants and his friends, as being a more public place than the church of Llanynis, where he was actually buried.

"He proceeds by his will above noticed to give his fecond fon, John Lloyd, Tyr Jeuan ap Gwilym Jeuan dew yn y Felindre, Tyr Brithwernydd, Tyr Jeuan with hîr, Cae Jeuan Llwyd, Gardd Meredith ap Morgan, Gardd Hugh ap Rhys, in the Caftle-ftreet, Ty Madoc David Morgan at Brigend, Ty yn y Fynwent, alias Ty Robert Dio ap Howel, Ty Howel Madoc, Ty Mallt verch Jenkin Owen, and Ty John Bannor, all in Builth, to be holden for twenty-one years, provided he gave his elder brother, David Lloyd, a band + to furrender it up at that time; he alfo gave his fon, John, his dyrie, (dairy) cattle and chattels, at Cae du, to Gwenllian, viz. William, his woyret, twelve heifers to Robert John, his woyre, and to his other grandchildren, other legacies. In his inventory, is a debt due from Robert Toy, of Carmarthen, merchant, of forty marks, given into the hands of Robert Kerver, his man, to be delivered over to him at a daie long paft; and another from David ap Meredith, Efq. recovered at the laft affizes for the county of Radnor, being nineteen pounds and fix fhillings, whereupon he says he had tow capiafes, one upon his bodie

* "Corruptly for Barwn, a furname."

+"A bond, thus written in the reign of Elizabeth, and the Welsh fill pronounce it band."

"Wyr, a grandfon. This Welsh word continually occurs in old wills, the remainder of which are written in English."

and

and the other upon his goods.' The pedigree of this John Lloyd will appear in that of Lloyd of Rhosferig, from which it will be feen that his male iffue failed with his grandfon.

hand.

"Notwithstanding the distance from markets, the badness of the roads, and the inclemency of the climate, during the greatest part of the year, a gentleman, of the name of Jones, poffeffed of confiderable property, real and perfonal, and a magiftrate in the commiffion of the peace for the county, has built fome house, called Llwyndrw, or the oak grove, in this parish, where he refides, and pays his attention principally to rearing fheep, of which he is fuppofed to be the greatest proprietor in South Wales, if not in the principality; he is faid to have upwards of ten thousand, worth upon an average ten or twelve fhillings each. The Leicestershire farmer will fmile at the individual value of each of thefe diminutive animals; but let him introduce his rank, overgrown ftock to these mountains, and fee what his profit will amount to at the end of the year.

"The river, which gives name to this and the adjoining pa rifh, fhould correctly be written Gwefin, a ftreamlet, being the diminutive of Gwês, that which moves on or goes, (Owen fub verb.) as the Welsh feldom if ever double the letters which always bear a hard found; I have, however, to accommodate English eyes, written it Gweffyn or Gweffin; after running a very few miles it lofes itself in the Irvon.

The nomination to this curacy, to which there is neither augmentation, parfonage house, or glebe, is in the vicar of Llangamarch.

"There are, as I apprehend, errors both in Eton and the printed return of the commiffioners in the time of Queen Anne, as to the certified value of the curacy. In the latter, Llanvihangel Abergweffin is faid to be of the annual value of 181. and Llanddewi Abergweffin is omitted in Ecton; Llanddewi Abergweffin is faid to be 181. and no value is annexed to Llanvihangel Abergweffin, and in both Llanddewi'r cwm is faid to be of the annual value of five pounds, though the united curacies of Builth and Llanddewi'r cwm are valued in one fum at iol. per annum, so that probably for Llanddwei'r cwm, thus feparately calculated at five pounds, we fhould read Llanddewi Abergweffin.

The regifter commences in 1740, and the curacy is not in charge." P. 229. Vol. II.

The execution of these volumes is very highly honourable to the ftate of provincial typography. They are remarkably well printed, and we have not had occafion to notice many errors. The work itself is one of the best of the kind we have perufed. The ftyle is vigorous throughout; the information of the author on all fubjects various and extenfive; his arrangements perfpicuous; and his diligence indefatigable. If we have any fault to find, and indeed we have very little, it is that he fometimes is apt to dilate upon matters of little

relative

relative importance; and fometimes goes out of his way to animadvert on opinions of cotemporary writers unworthy of his notice. As Mr. Jones will neceffarily have reputation from his work, we truft he will alfo have, what does not always accompany literary reputation, emolument.

ART. II. British Georgics: by James Grahame. 4to. 350. 11. 11s. 6d. Longman & Co. 1809.

"I

pp. HAVE not attempted," fays Mr. Grahame, "to exhibit

a fyftem of husbandry. I have aimed, not so much to instruct as to amufe; not to teach a science but to recommend the study of it."

This is the legitimate object of didactic poetry, which, when it heaps precept upon precept, in dry monotonous fucceffion, fails as completely of its object as it departs from the example of Virgil.

Mr. Grahame apologizes alfo, with equal modefty and good fenfe, both for the title of his poem, and for the attempt itfelf, after thofe able writers who have preceded him. It would be injuftice to him not to lay the whole of this paffage of his preface before our readers, who will in general, we truft, become his also.

If the title which I have chofen fhould be deemed an affum. ing one, I beg leave to obferve, that the word Georgics, though the title of the most beautiful and complete of Virgil's works, is as much the appropriate term for a poem on husbandry, as the word Tragedy is for a particular fpecies of dramatic compofition.

"In having chofen a theme that has been illuftrated by the genius of Virgil, I truft I fhall be acquitted of temerity, when it is confidered that the British ifles differ in fo many respects from the countries to which Virgil's Georgics alluded;—in foil, climate, and productions, in men and manners, that the art of agriculture, in reference to the one, may well be confidered as quite a different fubject from what it is in reference to the other.

"That I have been preceded by Thomson, is a confideration of a more serious kind. He no doubt, with a genius and felicity which none of his followers need ever hope to equal, has defcribed many of the moft ftriking appearances of Nature, and many of the most poetical proceffes, fo to speak, of husbandry. But though he has reaped, why may not others be permitted to glean?

"On the topics of that faithful and amiable painter of ruftic life, Bloomfield, I have rarely encroached; his allufions refer to a district of the island, and to appearances and customs, very

dif