Welsh Journals

98 NOTES AND QUERIES. The Six Eater (vi.—477 ; vii.—89 ; viii.—511).—I wish some of your cor¬ respondents would either drop all personalities, or make sure of their ground before indulging in them. In your November number Mr. Geo. H. Brierley (Oswes¬ try),replying to a question of mine on this subject, begins by saying that "had ' Blackletter Folio ' referred to Brand he would have found there all the informa¬ tion needed.". It is bad enough to impute ignorance of Brand to a man when he really deserves it, as I, on this occasion at any rate, most certainly do not, for I say in the very query to which Mr. Brierley replies (vi.—477), that " Brand in his Popular Antiquities quotes Aubrey. . . . but does not (at least not in my copy) give a reference." tarditf. Blackletter Folio. * * Sternhold and Hopkins, the Psalsiologists (viii.—614.)—It is rather amusing to find a Castell Nedd " Cantwr " asking whether these two well-known men were of Welsh origin, when one of them (Hopkins) happens to have been, if not a native of the same town of Neath as " Cantwr " himself, at least a long resident there. Sternhold married Hopkins' sister, or Hopkins Sternhold's, it is not very certain which. According to IoloMorganwg the Neath Hopkinses were descended "from Hopkin ap Thomas of Ynys Dawy, whose son was Thomas ap Hopkin, after whom his posterity took the fixed surname of Hopkin or Hopkins. Hopkin Thomas was a bard, and the most celebrated patron of the bards of his time. He wrote the Great and other works in MS., as also a Welsh Grammar, &c. He lived about the year 1350. His son Thomas Hopkin was, like his father, a patron <>f Welsh literature." Cardiff. Blackletter Folio. * * Mrs. Hemans (viii.—615.)—The poetess was born in Liverpool, in 1794. Her father's name was Brown. He died when she was a mere child, and her mother and herself lived in a solitary old house in North Wales. She married an officer in the 4th Regiment, Captain Hemans, who left her a widow with five sons. Lyss, Hants. Helen Watney. The poetess, whose maiden name was Browne (Felicia Dorothea), was not Welsh at all. She was born in Duke Street, Liverpool, September 25, 1793, her father, a merchant in a large way of business, being an Irishman belonging to a branch of the Sligo family. Her mother, whose maiden name was Wagner, was of mixed Italian and German descent. Glasgow. Mugwcmp. ["Gwenynen Gwynedd" (Wrexham) is thanked for a reply embodying some of the same facts.—ED. RD.] * » A Welshman's Guide to Bath (viii.- 478, 479, 617).—I must thank "Black¬ letter Folio " for his information. Since writing my query I have discovered something more about the illustrious " Phisician." In Mr. Carew Hazlitt's invaluable Collections and Notes there is a list of Mr. John Jones' works, while Wood (Athena., vol. 1, 418, Bliss's edition) gives a sketch of his life. Cambridge. W. A. * # Welsh Watering Places (viii.—478, 620.)—While hunting up a reference in an old number of the Gentleman's Magazine, I chanced on the following, which Bhows that Llandrindod Wells was a place of some importance by at least the middle of the last century. The passage is taken from the " Domestic Intelligence," 1757:— "The subscribers to Llandrindod races, in consequence of the many calamities and distresses of the poor, resolved to discontinue their races, and to dispose of the money raised last year to be run for this year {i.e. 1757) in a more rational manner, by employing the poor in enlarging the conveniences for the sick at the Wells, and beautifying the walks." Cambridge. / W. A.