Welsh Journals

An unrecorded Welsh book dated 1629. It is something of an event in the annals of Welsh bibliography to discover an unrecorded Welsh book printed during the early years of the XVIIth century. An illustration giving in facsimile the title-page of a Welsh manual for the visitation of the sick appears in the present number of the JOURNAL. The tract, 32 pages, is bound up with about fifteen other pieces, all in English, of an ecclesiastical nature, ranging in date from 1605 to 1649. The Welsh tract comes last in the volume. The other pieces are not arranged in any kind of order. The volume came from a house in Kent. It was one of a number of books which had been packed up for the last fifty years, and recently brought out for division among the members of a family. The existence of the Welsh tract was communicated to the National Library by Mr. Herbert M. Vaughan. By the courtesy of the owners the volume was acquired for the National Library. The description of the book is — Rheol o I gyfarwyddyd iw I harfer wrth ym- weled ar Claf. Colophon. A Brintywyd yn Llundain gan Thomas Harper, 1629. Title enclosed in wood-cut border. Text in BLACK LETTER. Signatures A-D., 32 pp. 180 X 136 mm. Though compiled on the general lines of the Order for the visitation of the sick as given in the Prayer Book of 1621, the tract is in no sense a reprint of that service. It is much longer than the Prayer Book service, and the rubrics are quite different.