Welsh Journals

standpoint (as I do), and I would argue that this enabled him to understand Ferrar better. On the other hand, when he comes to discuss Ferrar's 'troubles', he consistently gives him the benefit of the doubt vis-a-vis his opponents, and I for one find it difficult to believe that Ferrar was always right whereas Thomas Young, Rowland Meyrick and George Constantine-to name only three-were always wrong. Ferrar strikes me as an amiable eccentric who was also a pretty hopeless manager of men-hardly ideal qualifications for a reforming bishop. Yet no one should doubt for a moment his utter integrity and shining courage at the last: he is fully worthy to stand with Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley and Hooper and the hundreds of less eminent Marian martyrs who faced the flames with what seems to us incredible equanimity. Incidentally, the poem in NLW Peniarth MS. 60, 77-9, said by J. Gwenogvryn Evans-with uncharacteric rashness-to be in praise of Ferrar, is a rather earlier poem probably in praise of Bishop John Morgan (ep. Men. 1496-1504), as Mr Daniel Huws discovered some years ago (personal communication, unpublished). That is at least one complication out of the way! In addition to Mr Huws, I have to thank my colleague Mr Owen Thomas for helping to clarify this point. R. GERAINT GRUFFYDD Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth R. L. Brown, Llandaff Figures and Places, Aspects of the Ecclesiastical History of Llandaff, Welshpool, Gwasg Eglwys Trallwng, 1998, pp 76 + iv and 4 illustrations, £ 4.50. This small but excellent book contains six chapters, each rescuing from relative obscurity a person or place in Llandaff diocese since 1800. In each case Roger Brown synthesises primary and secondary sources to place the subject in a historical context. The first chapter is on Herbert Marsh, briefly bishop of Llandaff from 1816-19, who revived the office of rural dean and completed the secession of the Welsh Methodists from the Church. Marsh emerges as a stem, inflexible diocesan who managed to offend the entire Glamorgan bench of magistrates by impugning their willingness to quash profanation of the Sabbath. The second chapter traces the career of one of Marsh's rural deans, Richard Pritchard. Pritchard had stormy relations with Bishop Copleston but was an active pastor and clergyman. Dr Lisle, rector of St Fagans, the subject of the third chapter is a more eccentric clergyman. Attacked as a pluralist and non-resident by contemporaries, he had twice changed his name to gain inheritances and had lost a large fortune in a banking failure. As a prebendary of Llandaff he exploited chapter leases to rebuild some of his estate. For Brown, Lisle was a good pastor tainted with a whiff of corruption. Thomas Clarke, vicar of Whitchurch 1875- 1903, the subject of the fourth chapter, was beset with financial difficulties arising from his mortgage with Queen Anne's Bounty. His protracted financial wrangling with QAB exemplifies why eighteenth century clergy were better advised to become