Cylchgronau Cymru

THE CAMBRIAN QUARTERLY MAGAZINE AND Qttltit Bepertorg* No. 17.—JANUARY 1, 1833.—Vol. V. THE ELECTION. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to account at once for the fondness for literature, and the objection Welshmen have to particular departments of information afforded them by that great magician, the printing press; but that it is so, is fully borne out by experience gleaned during our now not very brief career as public journalists. Four years ago we entered upon our editorial labours, convinced that there was no sound reason why Welshmen should not be alive to certain events important to themselves, in common with the rest of mankind ; but we have had reason to doubt the cor¬ rectness of our first conclusion. According to the dictum, or rather, we will say, the importunate counsel of corres¬ pondents, who, perhaps, because they had lived through the greater part of the space usually allotted to humanity, or because in their respective neighbourhoods they held dic¬ tatorial rule, felt themselves qualified to admonish us as to what was or was not admissible to the pages of the Cam¬ brian Quarterly, and to pronounce for us the limits of cir¬ cumscription, even as Offa's dyke; we were not to pass over the barbaric demarcation which ignorance or prejudice had pointed out, we were only to ascend the mountain bar¬ riers of Wales, and might enjoy from afar the beauteousness of the scene before us, but were prohibited, on pain of loss of life or mutilation, to descend and partake of the intelli¬ gence and refinements of England. Such absolutely has been the intolerable coercion which has been exercised upon us by certain black-letter Cambrians. We ever felt a xvn. b