Welsh Journals

July, 1876. BYE-GONES. 81 secret confided to his keeping, and, in connection with his brothers, successfully managed to secure the person of his sovereign, and to convey him away in safety to another place. Humphrey Penderel was born at Hobbat Grange, in the parish of Tong, in the county of Salop, and was one of six brothers, all born at the same place. One of them, Thomas, was slain at Stow fight, and two others—John and George—were soldiers in the first war for King Charles I. It remained especially for Humphrey, Richard, and William to befriend the son, and history has done them justice for all they had done on his behalf. PENDEREL, Richabd. So long as the English people care to read the history of Charles the Second, the name of "Trusty Dick Penderill," will retain the interest his ser¬ vice to the King so fairly entitles it to command. Salop may well be proud of so loyal a son, nor will she ever allow her Staffordshire neighbours to filch him from her, The story of his honest adherence to the cause of Charles is a sunny chapter in the dark record of that Prince's life, and he has been truly designated upon his tombstone as " the great and unparalleled Penderill" for his generosity equalled his loyalty, and his loyalty was but the true expression of his honest heart and of the child-like devotion he felt to the crowr. He died in 1671. PENDERILL, William, brother to the former and like him true and loyal to the royal cause. The Earl of Darby having been attacked at Wigan in August, 1651, by Colonel Lilburn, was defeated and had to fly. For two days, we are told, he remained hid under the care of William Penderill, who at that time was a woodman employed by Mr Gifford, of Chillington. After the battle of Worcester, Charles wa^ taken to the same hiding place, and there under the watch¬ ful protection of the brothers Penderill he was left by his devoted band of followers " Who took leave of him with sad hearts but hearty prayers."—William Penderill redded with his wife in Boscobel House, and if the reader desires to follow the fortunes of the king and to ascertain the service rendered to him by William Penderill and his family, he will find the whole story related with care in Mr Hughes's edition of the "Boscobel Tract?," published in 1857. He is supposed to have lived unto King William the 3rd's reign, and then to have died aged 84. PENNY, Edward, a painter, was born at Xnutsford, in Cheshire, in 1714, and was placed under Thomas Hudson, in London, for his education. He afterwards went to Rome, where he became a pupil under Marco Benefial. Upon his return to England he joined in the formation of the Royal Academy, and was the first professor of painting, a situa¬ tion he continued to fill until 1783, when declining health compelled his retirement, and his removal also to Chiswick, where he died in 1791. One of his paintings—the Death of General Wolfe—has been engraved, and a poitrait of the Marquis of Granby from his pencil, has also been engraved. PEPLOE, Samuel, was a native of Shropshire, and had descended from a very ancient family in that county. He was educated at Penkridge, and proceeded thence to ^xr0rd, where he became M.A, and entering into holy orders was presented to the Rectory of Kedleston, in Derby¬ shire, and afterwards to the Vicarage of Preston, in Lan¬ cashire, where, in 1715, he distinguished himself by his *°yai attachment to the cause of King George the First. Riier rec/1'iDS otb-*r preferment he eventually was made 3 ° Chester. He died in 1752, and is buried in the cathedral church of that city. XXX July 5, 1876. NOTES. LLYN-Y-DYWARCHEN,-In Bye-goncs, Jan. 10, 1872, Edeibniost mentioned a floating island in Merioneth¬ shire, on a small lake called Llyn Mynyllod, and he also stated that the lake was sometimes called "Llyn-y- Dywarchen—the Lake of the Turf Island." The latter name has probably been given to the Merionethshire lake in imitation of the more celebrated one in Carnarvonshire. Pennant speaks of Llyn-y-dywarchen, or Lake of the Sod, situate near the Cawellyn lake, and remarks that it was " celebrated by the hyperbolical pen of Giraldus, for its insula erratica, its wandering island, as he calls it." As seen by PenDant towards the end of the last century, the floating island was " of an irregular shape, and about nine yards long." The little lake, he says, "is seated in the middle of a turbery," and the island (which really did float) " appeared to be only a piece of the turbery, under¬ mined by the water, torn off, and kept together bv the close entangling of the roots, which form that species of ground." Giraldus Cambrensis (1188) either saw more, or through different spectacles, for he says of the island that it " is often driven from one side to the other by force of the winds ; and the shepherds behold with astonishment their cattle whilst feeding carried to the distant parts of the lake." Between the days of Giraldus and Pennant we have Leland (1520) speaking of this as " The Swymming Island." In 1695 Gibson only saw a little green patch near the brink, " which is all the occasion of the fable of the wandring Island." Halley, the astronomer, visiting the spot a year or two after the editor of Camden, controverts Gibson's statement (in the Philosophical Trans xctions, for 1698) thus :—" In one of these lakes I was on board a floating island, as it may be called ; the lake is scarce half- a-mile about, environed with a boggy, turfy soil, a piece of which, about six yards long and four broad, floats on the water, having broad spreading fungous roots on its sides, the lightness of which buoys it up. It was driven on the lee shore, but I lanched it off and swam it, to be satisfied it floated. This I take the more notice of, because it is denied to be true by the author of the additions to Cam¬ den, lately published ; but I myself saw it as described, and was told it had formerly been bigger, there being a lesser spot that they told us had been heretofore a part thereof, which floated likewise." Speed says:—"The miracles famoused by Giraldus and Gervasius . . . that there is a movable island, which as soon as a man traadeth thereon it forthwith floateth a great way off, whereby the Welsh are said to have often 'scaped and deluded their enemies assailing them . . . are matters not of my creed ... I think the reader had rather believe them than go to see whether it be so or no." Fuller is equally scep¬ tical, and remarks, " But it seemeth that it [the island] either always swimmeth away from such who endeavour to discover it, or else that this vagrant, wearied with long wan- dering, hath at last fixed itself to the continent." Bingley writing twenty years after Pennant (1798) saw a willow- tree on the island, and wa9 told it would bear the weight of cattle, and often, when dislodged by the wind, "bire away a sheep or two to other parts of the bank." Mr Halliwell (1860) says the "detached piece of turbary" is now no longer to be seen, although " the lake and the island are introduced by Wilson into one of his pictures." Of Wilson's treatment of the subject the following story ig told, " It is said that the artist was for a long time puzzled how to give a notion of the phenomenon in a painting, but at length he conquered the difficulty by depicting a man 21