Welsh Journals

1010 Morganwg's List of Subscribers By J. KYRLE FLETCHER. THERE is surely nothing more interesting after having read a book written say at the close of the 18th century, than to leave the author's own words, and to turn to the list of subscribers. With such a book in my hand I asked myself two questions, Who would subscribe to this kind of book ? and then secondly, having in the meantime glanced down the long list of subscribers, How ever did the author get such a mixed crowd of subscribers ? The book which prompted these questions was one entitled Poems Lyric and Pastoral by Edward Williams (' Iolo Morganwg '), printed and published in London in the year 1794. These poems have no general interest, in fact the only portion of the Second Volume which made any personal appeal to me was that dealing with the Welsh Triads, which the author gives first in Welsh, followed by an English translation. Evidently old Iolo had some very good and very energetic friends too, who must have roped in their own personal friends, so that the subscription list is the remarkable feature of the book, filled as it is with the names of the most distinguished men, and women too, of the late 18th century. Many authors of some local repute are able to show a goodly subscription list made up of the squires and dames of the County, with here and there the names of the unknown-the small fry of the literary world-but there are in Iolo's subscription list between forty and fifty names of the great ones of his day, men or women famous in the literary world of their time. In the shortened list of names which I proposed giving I even hesitated to include the name of George, Prince of Wales and Prince Regent, to whom the book is dedicated, as I feared he might take the place of some one more worthy of inclusion. It seems that in making a selection from a list of some six hundred subscribers, I am in fact giving a roll of those who honoured the little Welsh stone-mason. First on my short list