PREFACE.

THIS Volume, which appears under the auspices of the CAMBRIAN ARCHEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, contains three Papers of considerable importance to those engaged in studying the antiquities of Wales.

The first is an examination of the evidence in favour of the existence of a Gaelic tribe in North Wales within the historic period, not as mere invaders, but as settled occupants of the country. The subject has hitherto comparatively escaped the notice of Welsh historians and antiquaries. It is, however, one which, in the hands of its author, offers a fruitful harvest to the inquirer, sufficiently well read, and endowed with critical acumen enough, to follow the faint indications of a former race, whether afforded by local tradition, by a local nomenclature, or by general history. The Paper was read, in substance, at the Annual Meeting of the Association, at Dolgellau, in August, 1850; the proofs and illustrations in the second, third, fourth and fifth sections, the theory developed in the seventh, and the whole of the last, being omitted in recitation.

The next Paper was also read at the Dolgellau Meeting, and contains a sketch, rather than a detailed account,

of what may be fairly inferred to have been the agricultural and commercial condition of Britain before, during, and after the Roman sway. It is to be hoped that its learned author will develope certain parts of his Essay rather more fully in the pages of the Archæologia Cambrensis; and that he will there bring forward the authorities which he has consulted, with the various passages on which he grounds opinions, in themselves highly probable. Few persons have penetrated so deeply into the more abstruse, and comparatively unknown, pages of the writers of the Lower Empire, than the author of this Paper; and few antiquaries are able to discuss incidental topics, or to draw forth latent conclusions, with greater skill and more logical acuteness.

The third and last Paper in this Volume, contains a copious Glossary of the ancient names of Articles of British Dress and Armour, as far as they are met with in the bardic and diplomatic documents remaining in the Welsh language. Part of this Paper has already been printed in the pages of the Archæologia Cambrensis; but from the interesting nature of the materials amassed by the author-growing under his hand as the work proceeded-it has been deemed more useful to the antiquarian world that this Glossary should be published in a collective form, as being easier of reference than when scattered through various Numbers of the Journal of the Association. In this case, as in the former, it is much to be desired that the author may have the leisure to compile a similar glossary for objects of domestic use, perhaps even of architectural and industrial objects, of manufactured articles, &c.; for, doubtless, the study of

Welsh antiquities, and the ethnological history of the nation itself, would be thereby greatly facilitated.

The judicious reader will scarcely fail to observe how, in these three Papers, a tone of acute and accurate logical induction—a spirit of scientific archæology-prevails, in the absence of all that wild and unfounded rhapsodical speculation in which other writers have been too apt to indulge. Archæology is a science inseparable from, if not identical with, history; and it requires to be treated with all the learning, all the reasoning, all the argumentative discrimination, which are necessary to any man before he can presume to attempt anything really worthy of the historic muse. The antiquities of Wales have often suffered from this absence of extended learning in the minds of those who have handled them; for it should be remembered that no one is competent to treat of the history, or language, or archæological condition, of his country, unless he is skilled in all these points, as connected with other nations and countries besides his own. In this point of view, the attention of the reader is particularly claimed for the contents of the present Volume.

It may not be out of place to express the further wish, that the several authors of these Papers will listen to the following suggestions as to their future labours. A critic, in one of the weekly organs of public opinion, has already hinted that the author of the Vestiges, &c., should undertake a scientific-we might perhaps call it an ethnological and social-history of Wales. Such a work, notwithstanding the labours of Carnhuanawc, is still much wanted; and he is quite able to accomplish it.

The author of the State of Agriculture, &c., is the only man now remaining who is competent to write the history of Caernarvonshire--perhaps, to complete the Antiquitates Parochiales of Rowlands. His collections upon these subjects are great; his own store of tradition and of local knowledge is much more considerable; and unless what he thus possesses be digested and committed to writing, it will entirely perish with him, whenever he is summoned to leave us.

The author of the third Paper is already engaged in the excellent national service of re-editing the Myvyrian Archaiology. When this shall be finished, let him only rest upon his pen, not lay it aside; his country expects still more, even than this, from his patient research amongst, and his calm examination of, her ancient records.

The three Papers are also published, and may be purchased, separately.