Welsh Journals

LEWIS MORRIS AND THE CARDIGANSHIRE MINES. By David Bick and Philip Wyn Davies. The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1994. Pp x, 89. £ 15.00. This volume 'publishes for the first time' Lewis Morris's 'An Account of the Lead and Silver Mines in the King's Mannor called Cwmmwd y Perveth in the County of Cardigan in South Wales-with proper Maps and Draughts of the Several Works, and the quality of the Ore and their situations whether on the Common or on Freeholders Lands, with all other Observations that are necessary in a Survey of this kind'. Such an assignment would have taxed the energy and patience of any 'professional' surveyor, but Lewis Morris, the 'amateur', completed the task with apparent ease, and when the 'Account' is examined it can only arouse in the reader a feeling of amazement, more especially when it is realized that in his day Morris was acknowledged, above all else, a leading authority on the history and literature of Wales! Lewis Morris was one of an extraordinary group of eighteenth-century Welshmen whose collective contribution to the history and literary heritage of Wales was so unique that their influence on Welsh scholarship has endured to this day. Born in 1701, Lewis Morris was the eldest of three famous brothers-the Morrises of Anglesey (Morisiaid Mon). His father was a cooper by trade, a craft which Morris himself mastered. It appears he received little, if any, formal education, yet during his relatively short life he became well-versed in the history of Welsh and English literature, and was exceptionally knowledgeable about the antiquities, agricultural science, land- surveying, hydrography, mineralogy, mechanics, medicine and music. He was also a poet of some standing and an avid letter-writer-he left a wealth of information regard- ing his Cardiganshire experiences in his correspondence. The book under review deals mainly with Lewis Morris's association with Cardigan- shire and its mines which covered a period extending from c. 1740 until his death on 11 April 1765. However, the first section contains a brief biographical sketch together with a fairly full list of sources for further study. (The singular omission from the list of the authoritative article by R. T. Jenkins in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography [London 1949] must surely be attributed to an oversight.) In the second section David Bick presents an informative account (with notes and references) of mining operations in Perfedd 'before Lewis Morris' (i.e. pre- c.1740). There follow a few brief, but impor- tant, bibliographical notes on the provenance of the several manuscripts and manuscript maps that together form the corpus of original sources upon which the contents of the next section rest. In it (pp. 15-64) we are given Lewis Morris's 'Account of the Lead and Silver Mines. painstakingly transcribed and meticulously edited by Philip Wyn Davies. This work clearly demonstrates inter alia Lewis Morris's knowledge and practi- cal skills, in much the same way as did the Plans of Harbours, Bars, Bays and Roads in St. George's Channel. (London, 1748).' During Morris's investigations into the locations and the quality of the ore on the commons and freehold lands in the commote of Perfedd, he incurred the odium of many of the gentry. During one serious altercation Reproduced in 1987 by Lewis Morris Productions, Beaumaris, to mark the 250th anniversary of the commencement of that maritime survey.