Welsh Journals

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Old Country-House Libraries in South Wales By HERBERT M. VAUGHAN DURING the past fifty years and more I have become acquainted with a good many private libraries, in the seven counties of South Wales. Some of these I have helped to investigate or catalogue in the company of the late Sir John Ballinger, first Librarian of our National Library of Wales. From my long and varied experience I can fairly say that the libraries in the country-houses, or Mansions," of South Wales were all very much alike in character. They contained very few books and pamphlets in Welsh, but nearly always a fair number of standard works connected with Welsh history, topography and antiquities. Every library also seemed to include a well-bound En- cyclopaedia in many volumes, some books on farriery and agriculture, and a number of calf-bound volumes concerning legal administration at Quarter and Petty Sessions. The reason for this marked absence of books in the Welsh language is not far to seek. Few people seem to realize that books own a third purpose, besides those of reading and reference. This is the appeal of domestic ornament. What can better serve to decorate a library, or even a parlour, than a quantity of finely bound books in leather gilt or gay bindings shown in suitable glazed cabinets ? Is it not obvious ? Now publications in Welsh rarely possess this third quality, as everyone must admit on seeing any library chiefly or wholly composed of books in Welsh, however important such a collection may be deemed. They are, with few exceptions, shabby and bound in soiled covers, and often in torn wrappers. I remember well noting this aesthetic flaw on seeing the fine Welsh library of the late Principal J. H. Davies of Cwrtmawr it was undoubtedly a most valuable collection but it certainly was not a decorative one. Now, what the Squire of the last century liked to see-and really I cannot blame him- was a handsome book-case filled with choicely bound volumes and consequently his Welsh publications found no place behind its glass doors, but were relegated to some out-of-the-way corner of the house. Human nature and human pride of possessions are, and ever will be, what they are, so it is useless for us to sneer at the taste which preferred the ornamental to the intellectual. Nearly all the Libraries I have visited