Welsh Journals

culture as writers, collectors and publishers.7 Lewis, the eldest brother, moved to Cardiganshire in 1742, but between 1723 and 1727 was engaged as land surveyor to the Meyricks of Bodorgan, an Anglesey family which had earlier served as patron to Robert ap Huw's grandfather, the poet Siôn Brwynog (1510-62).8 The Meyricks apparently possessed several books of music. Lewis Morris's nephew, John Owen, wrote to Evan Evans on 2 November 1758: 'My uncle Lewis has got a curious manuscript wrote in Charles the 1 st time by one Robt ap Huw of Bodwigen in Anglesey I am told there are more of the sort in Bodorgan Library which phaps you may see one time or other',9 while a note on page 22 of the Robert ap Huw manuscript itself (see Table 1, pp. 66-7) indicates that the clymau cytgerdd section also appears in 'Mr Meyrick's manuscript'. This was perhaps even the lost book of Wiliam Penllyn (fl.c. 1550- 70) on which this section is allegedly based. Lewis Morris was the first of a long succession of antiquarians and scholars to examine the harp manuscript, and the added texts which precede and follow Robert ap Huw's original book (or what remained of it) are mostly in his hand. Fifteen extra leaves were fixed around the original material when the book was bound in London for eighteen pence, probably in late 1742. These additions comprise a variety of documents, copied over several years. The substantial extract from the Statute of Gruffudd ap Cynan at the end of the volume was written out as early as 1727, possibly even before Morris had acquired the manuscript, while a fragment on fo. 7r (p. 3) is dated 1738, and Morris was still amending the book in 1748, when he re-checked his earlier (undated) copy of the proclamation 'By the Queen' against the Mostyn original of 1693 (fos. 3v-4r). The manu- script had clearly become something of a prize possession. In a letter of 10 May 1743 to Dr Edward Wynne of Bodewryd, chancellor of the diocese of Hereford, Morris refers to it as 'a MS. of ye Music of ye Ant. Brit which is much admired by ye Italian Masters &c.10 and this is echoed by his new title page proclaiming the ancient bardic origins of the music: clear evidence that he was not only keen to understand the musical content of the book, but also to locate it with- in Welsh history as an authoritative document of an heroic cultural past. After Lewis's death in 1765, the book passed to his second brother, Richard (1703-79), who spent the greater part of his life employed at the Navy Office in London, and who was a key figure in the founding of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion in 1751. Richard was also interested in music, and as a young man in Anglesey had collected folk verses and built up an extensive reper- toire of traditional and popular melodies.11 Richard made his own,