Cylchgronau Cymru

AS OTHERS SEE US? English tourists have often left journals of their visits to Wales, commenting particularly on the scenery, on ruins of castles and on the quaint customs of the natives. One traveller who paid close attention to the castles which he saw while staying at Llandeilo in May 1802 was the Reverend George Capper, described in Alumni Cantabrigienses as a well-known hunting person and a keen yachtsman, but he also passed judgment on the customs and morals of the inhabitants of that locality. Although he notes with obvious approval 'that respect which is every where paid to large property', and 'a sort of reverence for the domain & person of one of their antient families', he also recorded some of their less pleasing attributes: The attendance at Fairs & Markets in these parts is astonishing. You would suppose, at the times these are held, that the whole Country had risen en masse & were come for mutual barter. They depend entirely upon these times for the vent of their goods & the supply of their wants. And as a Welshman is naturally a light-hearted social Being he generally adjourns from the Market-Cross to the Ale House & stays 'till he is more indebted to his Horses head than his own for his safety home. This accounts for the number of Ale Houses in every petty Town. In Llandovery, which consists of little more than two small streets, I reckon'd 23 of these houses. There are houses of a still more ruinous resort & equally abundant in this Country-the offices of Attorneys. No monkey is so litigious as a Welshman. He is at good with all the world except his next neighbour-but there his love of a law-suit gets the better of him: & he will absolutely in the night make a gap in his own fence for his neighbours cattle to come in, that he may have the pleasure of suing him for a trespass the next morning. In the small Town of Carmarthen there are one or two & thirty Attorneys. One might be tempted to commend this tourist for his insight in being able to see some of the weaknesses of the populace in the space of a day or two. This, however, does not appear to have been the case. Mr. Capper states that he was armed with a letter from Miss Head to Mr. Beynon, which introduced him to 'a man of strong understanding improved by intensive reading'. The person so aptly described was none other than Thomas Beynon (1745-1833), who continued to live at Llandeilo after his appointment as archdeacon of Cardigan in 18 14, and was also an agent to the Golden Grove estate as well as a leading light of the eisteddfodau held at Carmarthen.3 His understanding of the people of the area stemmed from his being a native of the neighbouring parish of Llansadwrn, while his reading lists are ample evidence of his addiction to the printed word.4 D. EMRYS WILLIAMS 1 A handlist of manuscript journals describing tours made in Wales is available in the Library. 2 N.L.W. MS. 21235B. I am grateful to my colleague Mr. Dafydd Ifans for drawing my attention to this manu- script. 3 Major Francis Jones: 'The Vaughans of Golden Grove', The Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmro- dorion, 1966 (Part I), pp. 188-95 and 200s; D.W.B. 4 His reading list from 1763 to 1767 has been published in Volume IX of this Journal, while a continuation, 1767-1803, is available in N.L.W. Cwrtmawr MS. 496B.