Cylchgronau Cymru

and crebwyll. They deserve to be exempted from service for the next ten years like a tired jury The main weakness of the book is due to the fact that it is the biography of far the merriest and wittiest man of his day, written by a man who jokes with deeficulty," as was said of the Scotsman. No man with an adequate sense of humour would have printed such a dull and uninteresting set of letters, merely because of the signatures they bore, and still less would he have padded that chapter with explanations which in some cases make the letters themselves superfluous. Worst of all and hardest to forgive, is the author's unhappy trick of explaining Watcyn Wyn's jokes. Penar ought to see that it is a reflection either upon the quality of the jokes or upon the intelligence of his readers, and in neither case is it very good manners. Not that we want to suggest for a single moment that there is anything like conscious discourtesy shown by the author. Indeed, there is a certain friendliness and geniality to be discerned in the book from end to end. It is the grace of humour that is lacking, and no man of course can make up his defect in that regard. Is that why Penar has only given us half the joke about the wasp on p. 51 ? Years ago it was told in this fashion, with a distinct score for the disciple which no one would enjoy more than Watcyn Wyn himself :­A noisy buzzing wasp disturbing the school on a sultry afternoon prompted Watcyn Wyn to say in his ready way Cyfod, Petr, lladd a bwyta whereupon the witty Peter replied with equal swiftness Nid felly, Arglwydd, canys ni fwyteais i erioed ddim aflan na chyffredin." If this version be authentic, the author has committed a literary crime. There are not too many good jokes in this world. It is comforting to learn from this book that Watcyn Wyn's humour was not suppressed even on his deathbed, but that he took his wonderful gaiety with him into the presence of his Maker. It is a pity that the story of Watcyn Wyn's youth is not written by such an one as Gwydderig, for it is the romantic story of a phase of social life in Wales that is fast disappearing, not only out of existence, but also out of human memory. It is far too good to be lost. This book aims at showing the development of Watcyn Wyn's powers as a bard as well as at giving a comprehensive picture of his many-sided activities. The impression one gets is that he wrote with great ease and naturalness, and that for that reason it was always his danger to lapse into carelessness with regard to poetic form. One also feels that his best work is hardly quoted in this book, the intention apparently being to preserve Abel and others of his longer and more ambitious poems to a volume of selected works that is to follow some time later. So far as the present work goes, it tends to give the impression that Watcyn Wyn's enduring fame as a poet will rest on his englynion, his penillion telyn, and his hymns. This book will serve to remind those who had the rare privilege of knowing Watcyn Wyn of one of the most charming men on earth, who combined in the focus of a single personality a number of most unusual gifts and graces and who served the land he loved with distinction in far more ways than is given to most men. Witty, wise, hospitable, simple, and unworldly, trainer of prophets and inspirer of bards, who will not think with delight and with regret of such an one as he was, and wonder when so much genial gaiety and so much disinterested devotion will cross our path again ? Can Young Wales and the New Learning provide such men as were moulded in the university of the coal mine and the village eisteddfod? The Place-Names of England and Wales." By the Rev. James B. Johnston, M.A., B.D. 1915. London John Murray. 15s. net. Many excellent monographs have been published in recent years on the place-names of particular counties and districts, but there was a great oppor- tunity for a comprehensive work of this kind. The older works that have delighted the scholars of a previous generation are not up to the recent level of philological science, and Mr. Johnston, who has worked for so many years upon the great Oxford English Dictionary, was undoubtedly the right man to compose the new book. The bulk of it is taken up with an alphabetical list of the chief place-names and their interpretations, and a long introduction expounds the general principles of the study. We naturally turn to the pages upon Wales and the Keltic element, and read that Wales has been a great difficulty. Accessible and trustworthy literature has proved very scarce." This is putting the position mildly. In fact there is no good book on the place-names of Wales, and not even a mono- graph upon a county or a district such as now exist for so many English counties. The author refers with praise to the best source of all-the notes to the Cymmrodorion Society's edition of George Owen s Pembrokeshire, but they are unfortunately very unmethodically arranged. It will be interesting to quote Mr. Johnston's account of the name Cardiff (p. 67) As we have referred to Cardiff, the history of the great seaport s name is quite worth telling before we proceed further.