chap, xxxviii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 167 ance of a fierce people, who had been recently subdued on the confines of Wales and Cornwall. The sage Ina, the legislator of Wessex, united the two nations in the bands of domestic al- liance ; and four British lords of Somersetshire may be honour- ably distinguished in the court of a Saxon monarch. 162 The independent Britons appear to have relapsed into the Manners of state of original barbarism, from whence they had been imper- fectly reclaimed. Separated by their enemies from the rest of mankind, they soon became an object of scandal and abhorrence to the Catholic world. 163 Christianity was still professed in the mountains of Wales ; but the rude schismatics, in the form of the clerical tonsure, and in the day of the celebration of Easter, obstinately resisted the imperious mandates of the Boman pon- tiffs. The use of the Latin language was insensibly abolished, and the Britons were deprived of the arts and learning which Italy communicated to her Saxon proselytes. In Wales and Armorica, the Celtic tongue, the native idiom of the West, was preserved and propagated; and the Bards, who had been the companions of the Druids, were still protected, in the sixteenth century, by the laws of Elizabeth. Their chief, a respectable officer of the courts of Pengwern, or Aberfraw, or Csermarthaen, accompanied the king's servants to war; the monarchy of the Britons, which he sung in the front of battle, excited their courage and justified their depredations ; and the songster claimed for his legitimate prize the fairest heifer of the spoil. His subordinate ministers, the masters and disciples of vocal and instrumental Music, visited, in their respective circuits, the royal, the noble, and the plebeian houses ; and the public poverty, almost exhausted by the clergy, was oppressed by the importunate demands of the bards. Their rank and merit were ascertained by solemn trials, and the strong belief of super- natural inspiration exalted the fancy of the poet and of his audience. 164 The last retreats of Celtic freedom, the extreme 182 See Carte's Hist, of England, vol. i. p. 278. 163 At the conclusion of his history (a.d. 731) Bede describes the ecclesiastical state of the island, and censures the implacable, though impotent, hatred of the Britons against the English nation and the Catholic church (1. v. c. 23, p. 219). 164 j^ ri Pennant's Tour in Wales (p. 426-449) has furnished me with a curious and interesting account of the Welsh bards. In the year 1568, a session was held at Caerwys by the special command of Queen Elizabeth, and regular degrees in vocal and instrumental music were conferred on fifty-five minstrels. The prize (a silver harp) was adjudged by the Mostyn family.
