Welsh Journals

May, 1873. BYE-GONES. 165 EPITAPHS (Apr. 9,1873).—In Phrllips's History of Shrewsbury it is stated that under a monument in St. Chad's Church, to the memory of Thomas Lyster, Esq., stands an old stone tomb, with the figure of a skeleton painted on the side of it, and over the skeleton the fol¬ lowing lines in gold letters, without any name or date, viz.— FPleshe and blode as Yow are so was I, dust and Asses as I am see shall Yov be. Salopian. May 7, 1873. NOTES. DRUIDISM AND DARWINISM. Druidism, the ancient religion of the Welsh, in one of its doctrines, seems near akin to Darwinism. Druidism whs not the religion of a barbarous and savage people, but rather of a race who had attained a certain state of civiliza¬ tion and intellectual refinement. One of its chief tenets was that the soul never dies, but transmigrates, after the decease of one body, into another. Nor were the ancient Welsh singular in their belief; this tenet was held by many heathen philosophers, and also by Origen and other eminent writers amongst the early Christians ; and there have not been wanting writers of modern times, who have maintained that the doctrine was confirmed, no less by Revelation than by reason and the appearance of things. This doctrine, as explained by the following extract, seems to involve something not at all unlike what is laid down in the comparatively modern doctrine of Darwinism, and suggests that if we are not satisfied with an ape as a progenitor, we may claim, according to Druidism, the earth-worm or even some lower organism as our antecedent. We call attention to the similitude between the two systems, which so far as we know has not been remarked upon. " The leading tenets in the Bardic religion were these : they believed in the existence of one Supreme Being, of whom they reasoned that he could not be material, and that what was not matter must be God. " The soul was considered as a lapsed intelligence, under a total privation of knowledge or happiness, by its falling to the lowest point of existence. To regain the state of intellect, it had to pass through all the intermediate modes of existence. For Buch a purpose was this world created, as well as other in numerable worlds; that is, as means of approximating eternally through varied states of being toward the Deity. Further, that this earth was originally covered with water, which, gradually subsiding, land animals arose, of the lowest or least perfect specie?, thus corresponding in organization with the then capa¬ city of the soul. New orders in the sc ile of being were succes¬ sively produced from these, continually improving in form, and augmenting the capacity of intellect, so that, in course of ages, man ultintately appeared, the most perfect receptacle of the soul on earth. Then tne soul had so augmented its faculties as to be capable of judging between good and evil, consequently it was a state of liberty, and of choice. If the soul became at¬ tached to evil, it fell again to brutal life, or the state of neces¬ sity, to a point corresponding with its turpitude of human exis¬ tence ; and it again transmigrated towards the state of man for a renewed probation. When the soul became attached to good, death was its release to a higher existence, where the loss of memory was done away, so that it then recollected the economy of every former state, thus being made happy in the knowledge of all animated nature below its then condition. It was con¬ ceived that in this world life was gradually increasing in quan¬ tity and perfection; that therefore truth and justice were ad¬ vancing therewith, so that the Bards looked for a period whrn ; those attributes should prevail over the principles ef evii and devastation; that when the period arrived, man would then make rapid approaches towards the summit of that perfec ion which the terrestrial state is susceptible of; an<l upon the con¬ summation of such an event the design of this world should then be answered, and it would then be destrraved by fire ! " (Essay on Druidism prefixed to Cambro-British Biography London, 1820, p. 23.) This idea is more tersely expressed in the following pas¬ sage from the same work :— "Their sen iments concerning the soul were, that it pre- exis'ed in a state of gradual advancement by transmigration, and that it was immortal. But in some of the leading tr-uts of their ideas on this subject there was a very striking peculiarity ; the wholb animated creation, they said, originated in the lowest point of existence, evil in the extreme, and arrived by a regular train of gradations, at the probationary state of humanity; those <»radations were necessarily evil, but more or less so as thev were removed from the first source. . . " (Ibid, p. 31). May we venture to append the query—Has Darwin bor¬ rowed from the Druids ?—Z. QUERIES. OSWESTRY. —Bloody Lane. — Why is this name given to a lane leading from Llwyn-y-Ri lane to the Bradley, just below Bryn Hafod? Bradley is the name of a lar^e field below The Ha\ es, nearly opposite Brogyntyn Lodge. Is it a corruption of Broad-lea ? -Ben Starch. HERALDIC GRIEVANCE OF WALES.—Under this heading some of 3rour ab'e correspondents once keenly contested an heraldic point connected with the Principality. I beg to offer to them a kindred point, if they will kindly give us their opinion on it. One W. B. wrote in London Society for March, 1864, an article on ' St. David's Day,' which concluded as fol¬ lows:—"One more observation have we to make. We know not whether to address it to Garter King-at-Arms, or to whom, but we find that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth there was an order of knighthood—that of St. David of Wales. What has become of it ? We have no knowledge when it was instituted or when it died out. But might it not be revived ? " The writer then goes on to ask, " Could not the Order of St. David once again have being, and might not its first and foremost knight be Albert Edward Prince of Wales ? "—Cymso am Btth. CORPORATION OF MEOLE.—I saw the other day, in looking over an old file of the Salopian Journal, in the number for June 19, 1799, the following:—" When the gallant Admiral Sir Thomas Paisley resided at Shrews¬ bury, he was admitted a member of the respectable Corporation of Meole; and we learn with pleasure that they are about to present him with their freedom in a very handsome box, made of the Heart of English Oak, with their Arms curiously wrought thereon. The Arms of the Corporation are particularly appropriate, viz , Three Jolly Topers, with the Motto, Nunc est Bibendum." What was this Corporation ? What connection had the Admiral with Shrewsbury? And why were the arms appropriate?— Salopian. REPLIES. BEIBL I BAWB O BOBL Y BYD (Apr. 9, 1873). —The late bard Robert Davies, Nantglyn, in his Ode (Awdl) on the Death of George III., gives this golden gem— " Carai anfon caer wynfyd, Beibl i bawb o bobl y bi/d." But the authorship is disputed, many supposing that Davies used the line, without quoting it, from another eminent bard, the late Robert Williams, Pandy—whose genius created the well-known line, " Llun cwr Jloer yn llyncu'r lli." Ctnddelw would be able to settle the ques¬ tion of authorship. —Mebvinian. 30