Presently The Valley Became More
Narrow, And Continued Narrowing Till There Was Little More Room
Than Was Required For The Road And The River, Which Ran Deep Below
It On The Left-Hand Side.
Presently I came to a gate, the boundary
in the direction in which I was going of the Hafod domain.
Here, when about to leave Hafod, I shall devote a few lines to a
remarkable man whose name should be ever associated with the place.
Edward Lhuyd was born in the vicinity of Hafod about the period of
the Restoration. His father was a clergyman, who after giving him
an excellent education at home sent him to Oxford, at which seat of
learning he obtained an honourable degree, officiated for several
years as tutor, and was eventually made custodiary of the Ashmolean
Museum. From his early youth he devoted himself with indefatigable
zeal to the acquisition of learning. He was fond of natural
history and British antiquities, but his favourite pursuit, and
that in which he principally distinguished himself, was the study
of the Celtic dialects; and it is but doing justice to his memory
to say, that he was not only the best Celtic scholar of his time,
but that no one has arisen since worthy to be considered his equal
in Celtic erudition. Partly at the expense of the university,
partly at that of various powerful individuals who patronized him,
he travelled through Ireland, the Western Highlands, Wales,
Cornwall and Armorica, for the purpose of collecting Celtic
manuscripts. He was particularly successful in Ireland and Wales.
Several of the most precious Irish manuscripts in Oxford, and also
in the Chandos Library, were of Lhuyd's collection, and to him the
old hall at Hafod was chiefly indebted for its treasures of ancient
British literature. Shortly after returning to Oxford from his
Celtic wanderings he sat down to the composition of a grand work in
three parts, under the title of Archaeologia Britannica, which he
had long projected. The first was to be devoted to the Celtic
dialects; the second to British Antiquities, and the third to the
natural history of the British Isles. He only lived to complete
the first part. It contains various Celtic grammars and
vocabularies, to each of which there is a preface written by Lhuyd
in the particular dialect to which the vocabulary or grammar is
devoted. Of all these prefaces the one to the Irish is the most
curious and remarkable. The first part of the Archaeologia was
published at Oxford in 1707, two years before the death of the
author. Of his correspondence, which was very extensive, several
letters have been published, all of them relating to philology,
antiquities, and natural history.
CHAPTER XC
An Adventure - Spytty Ystwyth - Wormwood.
SHORTLY after leaving the grounds of Hafod I came to a bridge over
the Ystwyth. I crossed it, and was advancing along the road which
led apparently to the south-east, when I came to a company of
people who seemed to be loitering about.
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