THE WEARING OF THE LEEK. Britons do not seem to have paid any very particular attention to chronology previous to the age of Prydain ap Aedd Mawr, which is variously dated from the year 1780 to 480 before the nativity of Christ." Before I proceed to notice these explanations let me say that none of them can be met, as has sometimes been supposed, by asserting that the leek is of recent introduction into this island, is in fact of not more than three centuries' standing on onr soil; for, in the section on Corn Damage in the Venedotian or North-Welsh version of the Laws of Hywel the Good we read, in a passage that must have been written soon after 1200, that "kennyn" were among the crops which an owner was so securely to fence in that wander ing cattle could not get at them, and for damage to which he was, therefore, not to be compensated. The word "ceninen" itself, which cannot be connected with the name of the leek in English, Latin, Greek or Irish, seems to show that we have to deal with no newcomer, but with one of the oldest items of the national diet. The first explanation of the custom of wearing the leek boldly takes St. David himself into the battle-field, and avers that on one occasion the Saint led his fellow-countrymen on a first of March to battle against the Saxons, and bade them put leaks into their caps ere they plunged into the fray. The modernity of this story is proved by the very unnatural position it assigns to St. David, the man of peace, who had forsworn all worldly strife and tumult. It appears to me to be only a forcible attempt to connect the details of what is probably the genuine story with the hallowed name of Dewi Sant- Its main interest is, perhaps, that it imposed upon the bard Goronwy Owain, who in his "Cywydd ar Wyl Ddewi, 1755," fearlessly writes: Pan lew arweiniodd Dewi Ni rodd, pan enillodd, nod 39 The second account connects the custom with a battle fought against the English by Cadwallon, during the struggle waged by that king against Northumbria. This, too, is said to have taken place on the first of March, and the notion of wearing the leek was adopted, we are told, in order that the Weish might the more readily distinguish friends from foes. But nothing is said of Cadwallon's device in any of the old records of his career, not even in the highly imaginative pages of the genial Geoffrey of Monmouth. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this, too, is an attempt to give widely prevalent Welsh custom the prestige of a greater antiquity than it could justly claim. For the references to leek-wearing are, so far as I know, all comparatively modern, and the two oldest of which I know concur iu ascribing the origin of the practice to a date in the fourteenth century. "In the year 1346," says a MS. in Iolo Morganwg's collection, "was fought the battle of Cressy, in which the Welsh won great renown for their valiant fighting under the Black Prince Edward. It was then that Captain Cadwgan Voel shouted to the Welsh and bade them put leeks in their headgear. battle took place in a field of leeks; and when folk looked round them The they were all Welsh save twenty-nine in that host, the English being in another spot where there was no fighting. And this was the first occasion of the wearing of the leek by Welshmen." My second authority, dating from about the same period, is the poet Shakespeare, who, in "King Henry V.," puts the same explanation into the mouth of Fluellen: "Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your majesty, and your great-Uncle, Edward, the Plack Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France. K. Hen. They did, Fluellen. Flu. Your Majesty says very true. If your Majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leaks in their monmouth caps, which, your Majesty know, is to this hour an honorable badge of the service. From several points of view this third explanation commends itself as the most likely to rest on a foundation of historical truth. It does not seek to carry the origin of the custom back to any suspiciously remote antiquity, nor is there any attempt to connect it with the 1st of March, which indubitably owes its importance to the fact of its being the day of St. David's death, end has probably only within recent times attracted around it an atmosphere of leeks. The facts as stated are also on the whole quite credible. We have it on the authority of Froissart that the infantry in the van of the English army, which, under the Black Prince, bore the brunt of the battle, consisted largely of Welsh troops, to the number of one thousand. We may perhaps be allowed to believe that more than twenty-nine Englishmen shared the laurels. of the day, but otherwise the chronicler's statements seem to bear upon them the impress of truth. It is to be regretted that fate has not assigned us as a nation a more delicate and pretic emblem. One certainly envies the people who may express their sentiments by means of a primrose, a violet, or a shamrock. But to all scoffers we may well address Gower's question-"Will you mock at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honorable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour?" THE EARLY WELSH BAPTIST CHURCHES OF PENNA. BY MR. DAVID JONES, PHILADELPHIA. In the account of "Early Pennsylvania Baptists," by the Rev. Dr. Henson, he states that there was only one Baptist in Pennsylvania, and that was a little Welsh girl named Mary Davies, that came to America in 1682. I have made further searches and I find that her name was Sarah Davies, and she was the daughter of Rev. Peter Davies, pastor of the Welsh Baptist church at Doleu, Radnorshire, South Wales. In 1684 or 85 several members of that church, named, George, John and Jane Eaton, together with Samuel Jones, a minister at Doleu, emigrated to America and founded the Baptist church at Pennypeck, in 1688 They brought over with them a Welsh Bible, which was in the pulpit at the Pennypeck church for many years. This old Welsh Bible was printed in London in 1678, and can now be seen in the Library room at the Publication House, 1420 Chestnut St., Phila. An account of this church has been found in a history of the Baptist Association of Wales from 1650 to 1790. given of the Doleu Church which is as follows: "Here it should be noted that about 1682 or 1684, some of the members of this church emigrated to Pennsylvania, and in January, 1687 or 1688, with a few more, formed the first Baptist church in that Province, of which one of them. Mr. Samuel Jones, in time, became minister. He was a very benevolent, active, solid man, and of great use to that church in its infancy. From that small company sprung two or three Baptist ministers in America, particularly that great SOME LITERARY TREASURES. character of the late Rev. Isaac Eaton, M. A., whose name will be precious for ages. Indeed, many went from Wales to Pennsylvania, and a considerable number of the first constituents of the original churches beyond the Atlantic emigrated from the Principality." "Remember man as though standst by, 41 The third Welsh Baptist church was organized about the year 1714 at Dyffryn Mawr (Great Valley, Penn). A colony came from Dyffryn Mawr, in Wales, at that date and named it after their old home. The writer of this account is not familiar with the his informed by the late Samuel Jenkins that there was Welsh preaching at the church occasionally up to the year 1800. BY MRS. J. MOSTYN JONES, OAK HILL, O. The recent deaths of Lord Tennyson, the Poet Laureate of Old England, and of Whittier the Quaker poet of New England, and of other authors of note, revive in us the sense of gratitude which we feel is due to poets and authors generally who have been imbued with the art of perpetuating thought in prose and verse. In 1711, Rev. Abel Morgan, who was born at Allt Goch, Cardiganshire, South Wales, came to Philadelphia and preached for years at the Penny-tory of this old church, but has been peck church. He was a great man, an eloquent speaker, and a man of learning. He was the author of a Welsh Concordance, a valuable work on the Holy Scriptures, which was printed here in 1732, Hon. Horatio SOME LITERARY TREASURES. Gates Jones has now in his possession one of the books. Abel Morgan died here in 1722, his death was much regretted by all, and to this day his name is a honsehold word in Wales and America among the Welsh people. The second Welsh Baptist church was at the Welsh Tract in the state of Delaware. In the summer of 1702 there sailed from Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, a small colony from the Counties of Cardigan, Pembroke, and Carmarthen. They arrived in Philadelphia in the fall of that year, and proceeded direct to the land that William Penn had granted to them. The Baptist called their chosen lot Welsh Tract, others called theirs Pencader, after a well-known place in Carmarthenshire. Among those who came over in the colony was Rev. Enoch Morgan, an oider brother of Rev. Abel Morgan, and the church was organized shortly after they settled at the Welsh Tract. In the grave-yard attached to the church will be found to-day a number of the old tombstones with their names and an epitaph, which had been translated from the Welsh and placed on the tombstone in 1707. It is as follows: The general experience of man is the same in all ages-his love and hatred, his hopes and fears, his happiness and sorrows, his life and death; and they have and will be the theme and root ideas of all that ever has or will be said or written of him. But when these are melted in the individual crucible of the author, they are issued afresh and with additional value, having for their superscription the undeniable impress of genius. As such they are in circulation as current coin in literature with which we are better enabled to express our feelings and thoughts. And such is the structural grace, the colossal weight, the rugged grandeur of some, and the sublimity and peaceful beauty of others, that in contemplating them we become conscious of something greater and beyond what we actually see, hear, or understand of them; elevating us to the ideal, the infinite element in material things, even to the presence of the infinite personality of the divine Being Him self. The reading public of good education, with a taste for literature, have their favorite authors and books, and portions of prose and poetry which they treasure as though they were the reader's special property. With respect to poetry, the London Spectator remarks "That not one man in twenty of any literary pretensions ever reads any poetry at all." Although endorsing this, we may add that not one man in twenty of literary pretensions, but has more poetical selections in his memory than prose; for the rhythm and musical cadence of words which convey thought in poetry have a subtle charm on the feelings and insure an easy access and permanent place in the memory; but the mere stringing of words together "a word of sound to another word" does not give us poetry, for many prose writers have more poetry in their writings than what is found in the guise of much verse. Rhyme affects only the ear, and compared to living poetry is as a sounding symbol to real music. True poetry is that which awakens the emotions of the heart, elevates the soul and inspires the whole mind. It is not con fined within the province of words, but we meet with it as we look over the expanse of great waters or towards the mountain's dizzy heights, as we gaze at a picture or statue, or stand in the aisle or cloisters of some of the old cathedrals and sacred edifices of the east. Many of these are in themselves a poem. We do not imply that all perceive it, for a man only understands what is akin to something already existing in himself. At present it is not our object to treat of the art of poetry, but to quote promiscuously as our memory serves us at this writing, and without grouping or careful arrangement a few favorite and familiar quotations from the poets. The quatrain (the stanza of four lines) is probably the most favored form of verse; as it suits the average memory better than the sonnet, &c. In Gray's "Elegy in a Country Church-yard" are stanzas which are acknowledged to have some of the most beautiful combinations of ideas and sounds, sentiment and diction of anything that has ever been written in the English language, and the poem as a whole is inimitable. A few stanzas will suffice: "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea; The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. * Now fades the glimmering landscape o'er the sight, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds." * "Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full mauy a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.', As Gray is invariably linked with his 66 Elegy," so with the name of Tennyson is joined that of his "In Memoriam," a poem which takes its place in the foremost rank, serving as a model for most of the In Memoriams that have since been written, and is a source from which so many quotations are frequently made. Few among them being the following: "That loss is common would not make SOME LITERARY TREASURES. "And bore thee where I could not see And the more familiar stanza- "I hold it true, what e'er befall; Than never to have loved at all;" In addition to the noble sentiment of worthy praise which pervades the poem, there are some beautiful and graphic descriptions; the one in Cants 67, describing Hallam's resting place is one of the favorites, and interesting to the writer as having herself looked on the mural tablet in that little gray stone church. "By that broad water of the west,' (the river Severn, England) and glanced "Along the letters of thy name, And o'er the number of thy years." And could fancy how the "Tablet glimmers to the dawn" when "A lucid veil from coast to coast" (the Welsh and English coasts) "is drawn" over the scene; no words could be found to depict the feelings but those of Tennyson himself: "And I would that my tongue could utter Which are from the little song, "Break, "The Barefoot Boy," of Whittier is veritably a "One touch of nature, which makes the whole world a kin," the ennumeration of the "Knowledge never learned of schools, Flight of fowl and habitude 43 Of the tenants of the wood, &c." is one of those pictures which seem to breathe with our own life. Oh for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread-- Cloudy-robed, the sunset bent, &c. This picture of perfect contentment reminds us of the "Adgofion Mebyd," by some of our Welsh bards, that of Hiraethog comes very near being 80, had it not been for the incorrigible wanderer which he immortalises in the last lines of the quotation following: "Awn i rodio hyfryd fryniau On' bai'r ddafad ungorn hono Buasem berffaith ddedwydd ddau." But seldom if ever has the happiness of childhood been described with such accuracy and condensed to such a small compass as by Derfel Hughes (Author of "Cyfammod Disigl,") "Marblan, a bottwm, A nyth deryn bach." The following, too, has a wealth of sentiment in a small space. It is a translation by Sir William Jones, from the Persian if rightly we place it. "On parent knees, a naked, new-born child, Weeping thou sat'st, while all around thee smiled; So live that sinking to thy last long sleep, thee weep. The youthful poet, Kirk White has left us in simple form some great Scriptural truths "The good alone has joy sincere |