Two Very Remarkable Men Have At Different Periods Conferred A Kind
Of Lustre Upon Bangor By Residing In It, Taliesin In The Old, And
Edmund Price In Comparatively Modern Time.
Both of them were
poets.
Taliesin flourished about the end of the fifth century, and
for the sublimity of his verses was for many centuries called by
his countrymen the Bardic King. Amongst his pieces is one
generally termed "The Prophecy of Taliesin," which announced long
before it happened the entire subjugation of Britain by the Saxons,
and which is perhaps one of the most stirring pieces of poetry ever
produced. Edmund Price flourished during the time of Elizabeth.
He was archdeacon of Merionethshire, but occasionally resided at
Bangor for the benefit of his health. Besides being one of the
best Welsh poets of his age he was a man of extraordinary learning,
possessing a thorough knowledge of no less than eight languages.
The greater part of his compositions, however clever and elegant,
are, it must be confessed, such as do little credit to the pen of
an ecclesiastic, being bitter poignant satires, which were the
cause of much pain and misery to individuals; one of his works,
however, is not only of a kind quite consistent with his sacred
calling, but has been a source of considerable blessing. To him
the Cambrian Church is indebted for the version of the Psalms,
which for the last two centuries it has been in the habit of using.
Previous to the version of the Archdeacon a translation of the
Psalms had been made into Welsh by William Middleton, an officer in
the naval service of Queen Elizabeth, in the four-and-twenty
alliterative measures of the ancients bards.
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