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power when the old Queen died. The Welsh aspects of this revolt, and the part played in it as liaison officer with Wales by Sir Gelly Meyrick (the "Sir Gilly Merrick" of Mr. Strachey's "Elizabeth and Essex") have, we believe, never been so fully investigated before, and they form a new and interesting postscript to the history of the Welsh struggle for independence. If the dramatic qualities of the story are but imperfectly reflected in Father Mathew's book, that is in part due to his very conscientiousness as a historian. He is too honest to simplify a complex situation into sharp antitheses, too fair- minded to deal in heroes and villains. Even the width of his learning (already familiar from his contributions to the "English Historical Review" and the "Bulletin of Celtic Studies," some of which are incorporated in this volume) has been something of a snare; for if on the one hand it has enabled him to clothe his wide-ranging generalisations in the flesh and blood of personal and topographical detail, on the other it keeps tempting him into a discursiveness which threatens time and again to snap the tenuous thread of his narrative, despite the thoughtful provision of short connecting passages to explain the gist of each chapter and link it to the next. Told in a style which is allusive often to the point of obscurity, with a luxuriance of poetic rhythm and diction and an irritating economy of punctuation, the story makes very heavy going indeed; yet it amply repays the labour, for­ apart from the handsome print and the eight beautiful illustrations-it bears throughout the marks of a scholar and a thinker who has also the gift of a sensitive imagination. He not only makes the past live again, but leaves his readers with a haunting sense of what might have been. Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catom and it needs a robust faith in the divine right of things as they are to smother down lingering regrets for what was lost in that fateful century when the bureaucratic national state triumphed over what was left of the looser, more variegated structure of Celtic society and of the dream of a united Christendom. A. H. DcDD. Y WLAD-ei bywyd, ei haddysg, a'i chrefydd By David Evans, Aberystwyth Hugh Evans & Sons, Liverpool The "Brython Press" has had the wonderful good fortune to publish within a year or so two of the most remarkable books on the rural life of Wales that have ever seen daylight. The first was Mr. Hugh Evans' "Cwm Eithin," already universally regarded, almost immediately after its publica- tion, among Welsh-speaking Welshmen as a little classic. Its charming anecdotal character is rem- iniscent of Evelyn, Pepys, and the "Diary of a Country Parson," but without the ego-centrism of the diarists. At its heels appeared Professor Evans' "Y Wlad," a purely impersonal and a detached, semi- philosophic study of the rural life of a country,- Wales, its importance in the great organisation of civilisation, the forces that are undermining it, and the inevitable consequences of the resultant anaemia and debility in the general life of the Commonwealth. The ease and charm of the style in which the book is written, the never failing appeal both sentimental and intellectual to any reader who has his roots in the life of "Y Wlad," the intimacy of the author's acquaintance with his facts and his dexterity in their presentation con- spire to produce agreement all the way through. But a little contemplation after the feast of its reading will make many a reader realize, I hope, that the book is a most challenging one and that every chapter of it raises a controversy. I would advise every reader of the book-and I hope they will be many-to turn and read the chapter on "The 'Weltanshanung' of Fascism" in Major J. S. Barnes' "Fascism" in the Home University Lib- rary,-if they have not the time or opportunity of reading the larger books on the subject. Then they will realize along what lines Professor Evans' mind is working philosophically. His book is not a charming prose essay, as one is at first inclined to think, but a very definite political challenge and portent. Some of us may agree with what he says, others will find causes of contention with him time and time again, but all those who are politically conscious in Wales must read it. T.H.D. CYMRU'R OESAU CANOL Gan yr eAthro Robert Richards Hughes a'i Fab, Wrexham. 15S. It is a matter of the greatest regret for us that Professor Richards' scholarly and fascinating book on the "Wales of the Middle Ages" did not appear in time for the "Welsh Outlook" to have an opportunity, before its disappearance in its present form, of publishing the adequate and con- sidered notice it deserves from one of the author's peers in the fields of historical and economic studies. The last twenty years have witnessed a re- markable activity in historical research in Wales. It is only twenty two years since the publication of Professor J. E. Lloyd's monumental two vol- umes on the History of Wales to the Edwardian Conquest. Since then some quite outstanding historical studies have been published, such as Dr. William Rees's "South Wales and the