Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

THE WIGFAIR MANUSCRIPTS. It will interest many to know that the National Library has nearly seventy letters written by Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820; D.N.B., iii, 129), naturalist, traveller, President of the Royal Society, etc., to his Welsh friend, John Lloyd, F.R.S. (1749-18 15), of Wigfair and Hafod- unos, Denbighshire, on whom a biographical note will appear shortly in this Journal. The Wigfair Manuscripts, N.L.W. MSS. 12,401 et seq.-the deeds and cognate papers are separately scheduled-are a rich quarry, although they do not perhaps equal in importance that other group of North Wales papers known as the' Wynn of Gwydir Papers,' of which a Calendar was published by the Library in 1926. The collection is rich in autograph letters, ranging in date from that written in Welsh by Sion Tudur, the poet, who died in 1602, to the middle of the nine- teenth century. The best known member of the family was probably the John Lloyd who was Banks's contemporary and friend. Besides those written to Lloyd by Sir Joseph there are letters sent to him from Dr. Solander, the Honourable R. F. Greville (the diarist, and second cousin of a still better known diarist), Sir William Herschel, Jonas Dryander, Sir George Shuckburgh-Evelyn, the Reverend Dr. Nevil Maskelyne (Astronomer Royal), Sir Henry Englefield, Sir Charles Blagden, Sir John Rennie, Samuel Lysons, Thomas Pennant, Philip Yorke of Erthig, various bishops of St. Asaph and Bangor (Shipley, Bagot, Wynne, Warren, etc.), Dean Shipley, Mrs. Piozzi, the Honour- able Daines Barrington, Walter Davies (' Gwallter Mechain '), etc. John Lloyd's library at Wigfair of nearly ten thousand volumes and his collection of scientific instruments were sold by auction in 1816, the sale lasting thirteen days. w. LL. DAVIES. BINDING AT THE GREGYNOG PRESS. The Gregynog Press, founded in 1923, is best known, probably, because of the excellence and beauty of the long series of books which it has printed. The printing of a book, however, is only one phase of its work. The Press is concerned with the whole art of fine book production and considers the binding as important as any part of the format of a book. A copy of practically every book printed at the Press has been specially bound for the National Library and presented by the Misses G. E. and M. S. Davies, of Gregynog. Each work has been treated as a separate entity and the binding