Musical and poetical relicks of the Welsh bards

Full title: Musical and poetical relicks of the Welsh bards: preserved by tradition, and authentic manuscripts, from remote antiquity; never before published. To the tunes are added Variations for the Harp, Harpsichord, Violin, or Flute. With a choice collection of the Pennillion, epigrammatic stanzas, or, native pastoral sonnets of Wales, with English translations. Likewise a history of the bards from the earliest period to the present time; and an account of their Music, Poetry, and Musical Instruments, with a delineation of the latter. Dedicated, by permission, to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, by Edward Jones. of Henblas, Llandderfel, Morionethshire.

Folio. pp. [6], 78. Calf-backed marbled boards. Contains frontispiece plate drawn by Philip James de Loutherbourg, the figures engraved by John Hall, and the landscape by Samuel Middiman, an engraving by Thornthwaite, delineated by Edward Jones, and sheet music, including pencil notes. Includes bookplate of “Joseph Alfred Bradney of Llanfihangel-Ystern-Llewern, Esq., 1883” and, on the title page, an inscription by “J. Jones, Fell. of Jes. Coll. 1784 Price ₤1 S1 D0.”

A pioneering work, but credulously ‘Ossianic.’ In Wales, the Ossianic spirit inspired Edward Jones (‘Bardd y Brenin’) to some credulous assumptions about the sources of his – otherwise dependable and pioneering – ‘Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards, Preserved by Tradition, and Authentic Manuscripts, from Remote Antiquity.’ Jones’s imaginary ancient Welsh college, the ‘Gorfedd,’ cited as having authenticated his manuscripts, has been compared to the equally imaginary Irish college at Tarah earlier evoked by John Toland and Geoffrey Keating (see I. Haywood, The Making of History. Rutherford & London, 1986, pp. 114-115, 40-42 anachronistically asserting that Keating had ‘expanded Toland’s vision’ (p. 40)).

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