Still from thy lonely plains, Ascend the old sweet strains, And by the mine, or plough, or humble home, This innocent, peaceful strife, This struggle to fuller life, Is still the one delight of Cymric souls. The gay pavilions fill! Soar, oh, young voices, resonant and fair! Still let the sheathed sword gleam o'er the bardic chair! And And the singers and the harp-players are dumb: Like a cloud upon the skies, my heart is full of joy for the songs that are still : The deep sea, and the soaring hills, and the steadfast Omnipotent will. EPIGRAMS FROM THE OLD POETS. No. 3. CRAFFDER. A wna angall o ddengair, ADDRESS OF LORD ABERDARE AT THE BIRKENHEAD EISTEDDFOD, 1878.1 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,-I beg to thank the committee very heartily for the kind, the only too kind and flattering language that they have addressed towards me. When I look at this vast building and see the audience, many of whom are so far removed from me, I cannot but wish that, like the hero in one of Dryden's poems, I had a voice like a silver trumpet. Unfortunately the change of weather we have had has visited me, and affected even those small natural powers of voice which I possess. I must ask, therefore, the consideration of those who have got one of the most difficult tasks I know of, and that is to listen patiently to a public speaker without being able to hear one word he says. I am happy to have heard from all quarters how entirely successful the visit of this great Welsh institution to your English neighbours has been. The Welsh have descended, as they used to do a hundred years ago, from their mountains, and carried off the Saxon spoil in large quantities. On this occasion, I am happy to think that 1 Several motives have urged us to give an enduring place to this speech in Y Cymmrodor; not the least of which has been the practical good sense it brings to bear on the Eisteddfod. Lord Aberdare speaks from a standpoint whence English prejudice and Welsh laudations are equally excluded. He holds and adjusts the scale with impartiality. It is well, occasionally, to have our weaknesses laid bare; and we, of all people, may well say with Burns : : "O, wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as others see us!" the spoil has been willingly surrendered-(laughter)—and that it will be a satisfaction to the Saxon if they hear that it has been ample and in all respects remunerative. (Applause.) Ladies and gentlemen, I feel that in the language addressed to me just now there was, amongst other qualities, a great deal of Christian charity, because it is well known that some twenty years ago I took upon myself to utter rash and, perhaps, presumptuous words of advice to the conductors of Eisteddfodau-words that have not been, on the whole I think, very accurately represented, but which I spoke at that time with the most sincere desire that these Eisteddfodau might be, even more than in the past, a means of educating and elevating the people of Wales. (Applause.) At that time a great controversy was waging in the press, and whilst some persons fastened entirely upon the merits of the institution, others, with even less of justice, fastened entirely on its defects. I could not but admit that there were defects in Eisteddfodau. There are still, probably the most judicious supporters of this institution will admit, defects in the institution, but it is an institution full of life and growth; and being full of life and growth, it needs constant attention, in order to develop its full usefulness. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I think it may be said of all the amusements of our people that they are, I am sorry to say, brutal, or innocent, or instructive, or even elevating. The brutal amusements, I am happy to think, are becoming less and less in their number. Bull-baiting and bear-baiting are things of the past, and if cock-fighting is practised—as I am afraid it is, not far from Birkenhead occasionally—it is done surreptitiously. I speak at any rate from official knowledge, which came to me as to practices in the county of Chester some years ago, when, I think, they were patronised not only by the common people, but even by a magistrate or two-(laughter)-who had given into the irre sistible attractions of what had been the amusement of his early youth. Well, they are disappearing. I am sorry to say some amusements of a brutal character still remain. We have still among us a good deal of dog-fighting, and we have still what I suppose must be considered a popular diversion amongst the most degraded of our classes, and that is, a little wife-beating. (Laughter.) As to pleasures in general, to my mind they are absolutely necessary to mankind. Life, in my opinion, would be intolerable if it were not relieved from time to time by its pleasures; and it is the duty of those who are more happily situated to do all they can to promote and to extend innocent amusements for the people. I know that perhaps the very greatest of modern Welshmen-who, however, had the misfortune to be born on the wrong side of the Wye-I mean Sir George Cornewall Lewis-once said that life would be very tolerable if it were not for its amusements"; but when he said that, he had in his eye the frivolous amusements of fashionable life, in which he found but little pleasure. He had his own amusements and diversions, which were to him what an Eisteddfod, no doubt, is to a Welshman, or what an occasional game of cricket is to a country rector, who wishes to recall the happy days of Eton and of Oxford. It was during the time that he held the seals of the Home Office that he roused himself by writing a work upon the astronomy of the ancients, and it is reported that within a fortnight of the time that he took the seals of the War Office, some friend of his, on calling at the office, found on his desk a treatise on the "Defensive Armour of the Lycadonians"-a treatise which it must be presumed he was studying rather for amusement and diversion than for any assistance it might render him in providing proper arms for the English forces. But with respect to the Eisteddfod, it does not seem to me to fall within the third category I have mentioned, as an amusement which can be turned into an instruction, and also into an elevation of the national character, especially if properly used. Now, if there is one expression in that very kind address to which I have listened with which I find fault, it is, perhaps, that I think the educational side of the Eisteddfodau is rather too much dwelt upon. It has its educational side; but let us be bold and manly, and say that it has also, and to a very great extent, and perhaps principally, the object of popular amusement. But we want to make even our amusements instructive and educational. No doubt it may be said that music is much more than an amusement; that, if properly followed, it may be made, like poetry or anything else, an instrument of education; but, on the whole, music as practised is a refining amusement, and I am happy to say that in my day I have seen a most extraordinary advance in the cultivation of music, and that advance throughout Wales has been very largely due to the Eisteddfodau, to the competitions, and to the means they afford to each choir of seeing what progress other choirs have made, and, above all, to the judicious and often courageous advice, such as has been tendered to the various choirs during this meeting by Professor Macfarren, and by other distinguished members of the musical world. I wish to say most emphatically that, living as I do in a thick population of the working classes, I have found the cultivation of music to have a most admirable effect on the people. In the village of Mountain Ash, which is a creation of yesterday you may say, we have a very considerable number of choirs, and I think I should hardly be exaggerating if I said that in a population of some 8,000 people there are at least 800 who devote themselves steadily to their improvement in the knowledge of music. I would also say that among those eight hundred there are hardly any who might not be considered as most excellent and credit |