Welsh Journals

Brogyntyn MS. 11 (Porkington 8) links together two notable figures in the history of seventeenth century Welsh scholarship. A small quarto manuscript of two hundred and eight pages, it contains what was probably the working copy of the final recension by Dr. John Davies, Mallwyd, of his collection of Welsh proverbs translated or paraphrased into Latin, with introductory matter and other notes by William Maurice, the antiquary, of Cefnybraich, a scion of the house of Moelyrch, or Moeliwrch, in Llansilin, Denbighshire. John Davies (1567-1644), lexicographer, grammarian, and divine, is deservedly better-known than the less accomplished, but more pretentious, antiquary of Llansilin, though the latter merits fuller treatment than he received at the hand of his biographer in the Dictionary of National Biography William Maurice (d. 1680) appears on the stage of Welsh scholarship as a man of means who devoted the last twenty years or so of a long life to the collection of books and manuscripts, employing his own amanuenses, and also transcribing with his own hand, annotating his transcripts and even original manuscripts lent to him for copying. His earlier life is hidden, probably through the loss of all but a fragment of his great collection, for which he is said to have caused a three-storied building to be erected by his house in Cynllaith. This building, locally known as 'the Study', was standing at the end of the eighteenth century, when it was described as a replica of Friar Bacon's study at Oxford.1 Local tradition may have magnified the Cefnybraich library, for when Edward Millington of Little Britain, in 1682, from a rough list of its contents, it is true, valued it, prior to its sale to [Sir] William Williams, better known as 'Speaker Williams', he considered it to be worth no more than £ 60. Maurice had left it to his daughter Lettice, and as the entire transaction was more or less a family con- cern, her elder sister, Ann, being wife of David Williams, brother of William Williams, it is possible that Millington's valuation was not intended to be exact, LLYFRGELL GENEDLAETHOL CYMRU THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES JOURNAL VOLUME VII. THE BROGYNTYN WELSH MANUSCRIPTS (PLATE VII. I) CYLCHGRAWN Summer, 1951 IX NUMBER I.