Welsh Journals

|g*-$mit& We purpose devoting a column, more or less, each week to the publication of NOTES, QUERIES, and REPLIES, on bye-gone events interesting to North Wales and its Borders. To enable us to make the column interesting— as well as valuable to future historians, we respectfully invite the co-operation of our readers, in the supply of queries and of replies—in the loan of old pamphlets, fly- sheets, and newpapers; and, where practicable, in flies of old letters or other MS.S. We need scarcely say that all documents submitted to the editor of this column will be most carefully treated, and promptly returned. All communications for the column must be addressed "Bye-gones, Caxton Works, Oswestry.' Correspondents are reminded that the space at our disposal is limited, so they must not be disappointed if their com¬ munications are sometimes withheld a week or two. Cor¬ respondents are also requested to send their real names and addresses, not necessarily for publication but as a guarantee of good faith. Oswestry Advertize**, Oct. 4,1871. NOTES. PORKINGTON—" Madoc holds of the Earl Haustune and Burtone. Seuuard held them. Here ii hides geldable. There is land for iiii ox-teams. It is waste."—Domesday Rook, fo. 259, b 2. " Burtone in the 12th century was called Broginton, and Porkington in the 19tb. Madoc, Domesday lord of Porkington, is said to have been a younger son of Blethyn-ap-Oonvyn, Prince of North Wales."—J. C. Andebson. " Porkington takes its name from a singular entrenchment in a neighbour¬ ing field, called Oastell Brogynton, a fort belonging to Owen Brogynton, a natural son to Owen Madoc ap Meredydd jjpnce of Powis Vadog."—Powel. "The name of the house was soon altered to one very nearly resem¬ bling the present. In 1218, Henry III., in an address to Llewelyn, Prince of "Wales, informs him, that among others,' 'Bleddyn Filius Oeni de Porkington' had per¬ formed to his majesty the service he owed."—Rymer. Mr J. E. Urmsby Gore, M.P., the present owner of Porkington, has signified his intention of again changing the name to Brogynton. ROBERT WAITHMAN.—In the Gossiping Guide to Wales there is some account of this energetic Welsh¬ man (who hailed from Wrexham), and his services for Radicalism in the metropolis. Naturally bo pronounced a man had strong enemies as well as hearty friends. The Guardian of February, 1820, published an epitaph on him, as follows :— J "Those who have heard of-the death and burial of Partridge, the Almanac Maker, will not be surprised to hear of the bodily extinction of a few of our Radical patriots. When a man's life is good for nothing, there is certainly no reason that he should continue to live; and the statesman and linen-draper in question had pledged himself to withdraw when his services could be no longer useful to his country. His time is more than cornel" Then follows the epitaph :— M.S. Eoberti x" Heu I immature abrepti SoKo . * Nondum everso i Vexillo tricolori in curia nondum fixo * Imperio Salvo From counter, council, constitution torn, Oheapside be sad ! thou too, Blackfriars, mourn ! Fleet Market thou, tho' often on the ear Thy accents rise, not over fit to he_ar. Try to say something tender now, and keep From gin and tears, your champion's grave to steep ; And ye, too, lovely purlieus, where St. Giles Tricks out his native fair in filth and smiles— Shout all! -tiU fierce from Chelsea to Rag-fair, One general aDguish fills the darkening air; Trail, Radicals, your pikes the grave abound, The high-soul'd linen-draper's under ground. He's gone ! the tongue is mute whose bold harangue Could rouse the inmost spirit of his gang, Teach lurking faction, careless of its ears, To eye with firmer glance the scourge and shears; Stir up the coward eye and shrinking nerve, Then leave them to " the master that they serve." Touch'd by his flame, the bowing cockney burned, Threw by his yard, the ribbon rollers spurned, And gradual learn'd at second hand to bawl, His patriot ravings in the Common Hall. Woke in his chains, the felon heard the yell That swept the darkness of his iron cell; Then wild and desperate, sinking on his straw, Curs'd in his soul, the unequal grasp of law. DE QUINCEY AT OSWESTRY.—There is an interesting chapter in the Confessions of an English Opium Eater, in which De Quincey relates his experiences at Oswestry, He says :— "My farewell to the Principality was in the same un¬ assuming character of pedestrian tourist as that in which I had entered it. Impedimenta of any kind—that is, the encumbrances of horse or baggage—I had none even to the last. Where I pleased, and when I pleased, I could call a halt. My last halt of any duration was at Oswestry; mere accident carried me thither, and accident very natu¬ rally in so small a town threw me across the path of the very warmest amongst my Welsh friends, who, as it turned out, resided there. He, by mere coercion of kind¬ ness, detained me for several days ; for denial he would not take. Being as yet unmarried, he could not vivify the other attractions of his most hospitable abode by the rein¬ forcement of female society. His own, however, coming recommended as it did by the graces of a youthful frank¬ ness and a kindling intellect, was all-sufficient for the beguiling of the longest day. This Welsh friend was one ef many whom I have crossed in life, chained by early accident or by domestic necessity to the calls of a profes¬ sional service, whilst all the while his whole nature, wild and refractory, ran headlong into intellectual channels that could not*be trained into reconciliation with his hourly duties. His library was already large, and as select as under the ordinary chances of provincial book collection could be reasonably expected. For generally one-half, at the least, of a young man's library in a provincial town may be characterized as a mere dropping or deposition from local accidents, a casual windfall of fruits stripped and strewed by the rough storms of bankruptcy. In many cases, again, such a provincial library will represent simply that part of the heavy baggage which many a family, on removing to?some distant quarter, has shrunk from the cost of transporting", books being amongst the heaviest of household goods. Sometimes also, though more rarely, it happens that an ancient family dying out, having unavoidably left to executors the duty of selling ever chattel attached to its ancient habits of life, sud-