"Adieu, my Lord;

I have a speech of fire that fain would blaze,

But that this folly douts it."

Snive, to swarm or crowd.

"What a snive of bees."

To be brainsick, to be irrational, to rave, to be deli

rious.

"LADY M. "Why, worthy Thane,

You do unbend your noble strength, to think

So brainsickly of things."-Macbeth, act ii, sc. 2.

Brave, out-spoken Latimer, in a sermon preached before Edward VI at Westminster, 22nd March, 1549, exclaims :

"Ye braynsycke fooles."

Drab, a prostitute. A term of reproach upon women, formerly implying an unchaste woman. "Go to the house, you drab."

"Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling drabbing, -you may go so far."-Hamlet, act ii, sc. 1.

"I would rather be known for the spurious issue of a highwayman, ditch-delivered of a drab."

Sir P. Francis, Notes and Queries, July 1871, p. 4.

Rip, a rough uncouth woman.

Crowner, a coroner.

The crowner hath set on her, and finds it Christian burial.”
Hamlet, act v, sc. 1.

Quest, inquest. "Ay, marry is't; crowner's quest law."-Hamlet, act v, sc. 1.

Lungous, a cruel vindictive person. Did you ever see such a lungous man, he kicked the other man on the ground, bit him, and no one could make him be quiet." Clip, to embrace by encircling the neck with the

arms.

"You elements that clip us round about."

Othello, act iii, sc. 3.

'O, let me clip you in arms as sound."

Coriolanus, act i, sc. 6.

Great, intimate, familiar, friendly. "They are very

great," that is, they are very great friends. This word in the sense of intimate is current in other Welsh counties and in Scotland. Mr. Hartshorne, remarking thereon, says that it is "a word now chiefly confined to the vocabulary of schoolboys, though formerly in higher circulation." A remark which does not hold good with regard to Montgomeryshire, where great has still a large circulation amongst adults and children, but by-and-bye it may come to the schoolboy stage, and then finally disappear.

Stut, to stammer.

Nec, to pelt. "He is necking the ducks," that is, throwing stones at them with the intention of knocking them.

Nec, the word used when calling young pigs together to feed them.

Plug, to pull, possibly a corruption of pluck. "A fish plugs the hook." "I saw four horses plugging a

wagon.

Lazing, gleaning. "Mother is lazing in yonder field." Fretchet, peevish, irritable. The word is chiefly used in reference to babies and children.

Reeve, to corrugate, as to reeve the forehead.

Fiddy-faddy, adj. Always at work but never finishing anything. A fiddy-faddy man is a fussy man.

Sloven, slanney, flommucky. These words have much the same meaning in ordinary conversation, and as might be expected, are often used one for the other. It is difficult, if possible, to define so as to clearly shew the different shades of meaning which each word has or was intended to convey. They all carry with them the idea of untidiness. Perhaps, though, the first word refers more immediately to women who are untidy in dress or person; the second and third to those who lack order in their household affairs; but this distinction is certainly not made by the persons who use these words. ELIAS OWEN.

(To be continued.)

OWEN GLENDOWER'S PARLIAMENT HOUSE

IN MACHYNLLETH.

(Note to page 328, supra.)

THE steel engraving from which our photo-lithograph was produced, appeared in a periodical called The Youth's Instructor and Guardian, August 1845, vol. ix, new series, p. 337, as an illustration to an interesting article upon Owen Glendower, written by a lady under the nom de plume of "Dorothea," who appears to be well acquainted with the neighbourhood. She describes the building as it then (1845) stood in the following passage:

"In this famous town (Machynlleth) Owen Glendower held his Parliament, and the house is still in being in which he and his adherents assembled. Its exterior appearance is barn like, and it is now used as a granary, etc., a small part at one end having been fitted up as a dwelling-house. Its exterior exhibits great age; at the back are the ruinous remains of a stone staircase, which led into the great room in which are curved ribs, etc., of timber."

Since 1845 the building has undergone further change, being now divided into three dwelling-houses, and the upper part being used as a store-room for wool. Upon visiting it at a recent period, we found the massive oak timber roof still existing in good preservation, and exhibiting some architectural pretensions. The site comprises an area of twenty yards by ten yards. It is hoped that the inhabitants of Machynlleth will prize this historic building, and by suitable repre

sentations to its owner, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. Bart., induce him to convert it to some less ignoble use. From its size, sixty feet by twenty feet, it is evident that by gutting the building-leaving only the walls and roof, with its ribbed beams, it may, by judicious and obvious alterations, and at a slight expence, be converted into a commodious room suitable for public purposes, such as a lecture and concert hall, or newsroom, or both; and when thus altered, it would probably produce more rental than the small dwellings that now occupy the space.

There are few such interesting relics' left in Wales, and the subject of its restoration and re-dedication to some more suitable purpose is well worthy of consideration.

1 It was in 1402 that Owen Glendower summoned his parliament to Machynlleth, where he exerted his first acts of royalty. He subsequently convened a parliament in Dolgelly, and held it in the upper room of a picturesque old building, still standing, situate in a court immediately behind the post-office. From this place he sent ambassadors, who concluded a treaty with Charles, King of France. Their appointment is dated from Dolgelly in princely style. "Datum apud Dolgellui, 10 die Mensis Maii MCCCC quarto et principatus nostri quarto," and begins, " Owinus Dei gratia princeps Wallia." The French king, in one document, designates him as "magnificus et potens princeps Walliarum." Rymer's Fodera, vol. viii, p. 356 see also pp. 365-6-7; also p. 382.

THE CALCULATED AGE OF YEW-TREES IN GUILS

FIELD CHURCHYARD.

I DROVE lately across with two archæological friends to examine the fine old church of Guilsfield, which is believed to have been erected in the thirteenth century. It is probably unique in the form of its pews, each family being penned in folds, like sheep, by high enclosures of every kind of size and shape. The woodwork is old oak, ornamented in various ways, and in one case with a brass plate, giving the Earl's coronet and initial letter of the Powis family, but what I have never seen elsewhere, there was on the door of a pew a memorial brass to its former possessor. The stone font is particularly striking, hollowed out of one large stone, and placed high on a pedestal. The oaken roof of the chancel is said to have been brought from the celebrated abbey of Strata Marcella, in its vicinity, to which Guilsfield was attached. On the outside of the church the dormer windows give it a quaint appearance, and the tower rises to a pinnacle, being covered with shingles.

But what was specially interesting to me was the following tomb-stone at the entrance to the churchyard, which, it has occurred to me, may furnish data to calculate the age of yew-trees.

The epitaph runs thus:

Here lyeth ye body of RICHARD JONES of Moysgwin, gent., who was interred December ye 10th, 1707, aged

90.