Welsh Journals

The National Library has an unpublished translation into Welsh of one of his works, viz. De Institutions Feminae Christianae. Originally written in Latin,1 this well-known work by Vives was first published at Antwerp, the first English edition of the translation of R. Hyrde appearing in [? 1540]. The author of the Welsh translation was Richard Owen, whose work is dated 1552, and whose version survives in Peniarth MS. 403 (formerly Hengwrt MS. 326). Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt (died 1667), in the catalogue which he compiled, circa 1658-1659, of his large and valuable library of books and manuscripts at Hengwrt, refers to the MS. as Llyfr y Merched ieuainc o waith Lewis Vives, wedi ei gyfieithu gan Rich. Owen an°. 1552. This is how Richard Owen2 introduces his translation :­ Llyma lyver Gwir ffrwythlaw[n a] moddus a elwir dysgeidieth kristnoges o verch yn gyntaf a wnaethpwyd yn lladyng drwy r Gwir enwog ysgo[l]haic maister lewys vives ac ai treiglwyd or lladyng mewn Kymraec drwy [Ri]chard Owen. Ar lly[fer hwn ?] a ddechreued i scrivennv [yn?] gymraec pymed die [.] RRagvyr pann o[edd] oed yn arglw[ydd] ni Jesu g[r]ist y[n] 155[2 ?] Unfortunately the late Professor Foster Watson, D.Litt., who held the Chair of Education at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, for many years and who was the foremost English authority in his time on Vives and his writings, was unaware of the existence of this Peniarth MS. Among books on Vives presented to the National Library of Wales by Dr. Watson is a copy of a Spanish translation {Tratado de laEnsenanza) of his work which is called Vives On Education (Cambridge, 1913). W. LL. DAVIES. WILLIAM THOMAS, CLERK OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL. Richard Owen was not the only Welshman in the Tudor period who was interested in the subject of education. Sir D. Lleufer Thomas contributed, in 1898, a good account of the career of another to the Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. lvi. This was William Thomas [d. 1554], Clerk of the Privy Council in the reign of Edward VI. Since 1898 fresh information concerning Thomas has come to hand, largely in Public Record Office publications. When, therefore, in 1924, Mr E R Adair was writing on William Thomas for the volume called Tudor Studies: Presented by the Board of Studies in History in The University of London I The preface is dated April 5, 1523. El Senor Bonilla in his Luis Fives y la Filosofia del Renacimiento. Memoria premiada por la Real Academia de Ciencias Morales y Politicas (Madrid, 1903), records 40 editions in the 16th century. The work (dedicated to Vives's countrywoman Katherine of Arragon, first wife of Henry VIII), was translated into Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English. 2 Many Welshmen in the Tudor and Stuart periods must have known Spanish. Here we need not give the reasons it will suffice to cite the names of two other Welshmen who translated from Spanish. They are David Rowland of Anglesey whose English version of that pioneer of the picaresque novel, Lazarillo de Tormes, appeared in 1586 and was republished as recently as 1924, and Daniel Powel who published, in 1608, a work which is now very rare, called The Redemption of lost time. Translated out of Spanish. (There is a facsimile in the National Library, made by the courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, U.S.A.) See also various references by Elis Gruffydd in N.L.W. MS. 3054, e.g. reference to Dafydd fab Rhobert, yr hwn a anesid yn Llangollen." The name of John Williams (1582-1650),Lord Keeper, Bishop of Lincoln, and afterwards Arch- bishop of York, can also be added.