Welsh Journals

Yr Eurgrawn Cymraeg: a Correction of its date. By THE REVEREND T. LLECHID JONES, B.A. LEWIS MORRIS'S Tlysau yr Hen Oesoedd (Holyhead, 1735) was the morning star of Welsh Periodical literature but it set after the appearance of the first number. In that case, Trysorfa Gwybodaeth, neu, Eurgrawn Cymraeg (Car- marthen, 1770), is rightly considered the first Welsh Periodical, as it continued to come out every fortnight for 30 weeks. Unfortunately there is another old Welsh Periodical, bearing exactly the same title, which came out in 1807, and which collectors must carefully distinguish. One is known as Eurgrawn Cymraeg 1770 and the other as Eurgrawn Cymraeg 1807. It is the former which we are considering in this note. A complete copy of this periodical is rare. We are under a debt of gratitude to the late Dr. Lewis Edwards of Bala for his two articles on it in Traethodydd (1848) reprinted in his Traethodau Llenyddol, pp. 505-547. He evidently had come across two copies of it. Dr. Edwards refers to former references to this periodical, and rightly feels indignant at the unsatisfactoriness of those references, especially as to its date. He has some praise for an article, under the title Welsh,' which had appeared in the Penny Cyclopaedia,' by a certain Thomas Watts, who appears to be on the staff of the British Museum. But this enlightened article, when referring to the Eurgrawn, could only say that it appeared about 1770,' and he connected with the British Museum In 1847, the year before the one in which the Doctor was writing, had appeared the Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales. A certain John James reports, in an Appendix F, on Welsh Literature.' In a footnote on page 326, we read The first periodical