The mysteries of the art, fatigue rather than gratify the ears
of others, who seeing, do not perceive, and hearing, do not
understand; and by whom the finest music is esteemed no better than
a confused and disorderly noise, and will be heard with
unwillingness and disgust.
They make use of three instruments, the harp, the pipe, and the
crwth or crowd (CHORUS). (22)
They omit no part of natural rhetoric in the management of civil
actions, in quickness of invention, disposition, refutation, and
confirmation. In their rhymed songs and set speeches they are so
subtle and ingenious, that they produce, in their native tongue,
ornaments of wonderful and exquisite invention both in the words
and sentences. Hence arise those poets whom they call Bards, of
whom you will find many in this nation, endowed with the above
faculty, according to the poet's observation:
"Plurima concreti fuderunt carmina Bardi."
But they make use of alliteration (ANOMINATIONE) in preference to
all other ornaments of rhetoric, and that particular kind which
joins by consonancy the first letters or syllables of words. So
much do the English and Welsh nations employ this ornament of words
in all exquisite composition, that no sentence is esteemed to be
elegantly spoken, no oration to be otherwise than uncouth and
unrefined, unless it be fully polished with the file of this
figure.
