school also distinguishes the year 1524. The sounder of the German Oratorio was Heinrich Schutz 1585 167s. He composed on the subject of the "Passion" and the Resurrectian." The Christian church had now attained to great dignity and influence and our unassuming little stream had also flowed on generation after generation, rapidly acquiring greater power and glory, widening and deepening in its course until at length England gave birah to that remarkable and ingenious Englishman, H. Purcell 1658 1695. Notwithstanding Purcell's pramature death at rhe age of 37 years. he did mestimable sevice to the cause of sacred music by means of his divine anthems. This century was prolific in music for the Church of Englund. The productive genius of the multitude of her able and learned composers was devoted to the Sanctuarr, thoug many, nevertheless, were the contributions to musical lore outside its pale. The majority of nations had by this time begun to establish and elaborate those styles which atc peculiar to the genius and habits of their people. In England the motette, sing, and glee, the offsprings of the English school, were springs of the English school, were exceodingly popular; the chanson in France; the lied and oratorio in Germany; the frottole, villotte, canzonette, mass, and opera in Itoly. BACH AND HANDEL. In 1685 there appeared in Germany two musical geniuses, Bach, died 1750 and Handel, died 1759, both of whom had the sad misfortune of being afflicted with blindness during the latter part of their careers. These remarkable men enriched the Church of Christ as it had never been enriched before by their immortal masterpieces, all of which were colossal achievements of musical art, brimful of as the richest gems, and flowers in the garden of the sanctuary, whose fragrance will never cease to gratify and delight even to the end of time. The Christian religion-Protestant well as the Catholic-elicited from Bach the following works:-Mass in Minor, 1773, Christmas Oratorio, 1734, the Passion, after the versions of St. John and St. Mathew, 1729, as well as incomparable and immortal organ music, and the following from Handel 22 oratorios, 2 Italian Resereczione 1709, and Il Trionfo, 1708, the Chandos Te Deums and Anthems 1718 1720, a German oratorio, the Passion 1717, and 19 English oriatorios-Esther, 1732, Deborah and Athaliah 15s3, Saul and Israel in Egypt, 1739, Messlah, 1841, Samson, 1743, Belshaezar, Hercules, and Joseph 1744, Occasional Oratorio, and Judas Maccabæus, 1646, Joshua, 1747, Alexader's Feast, 1747, Solomon, 1748, Theodorah and Susannah, 1740, Time and Truth, 1751, Jeptha, 1751, together with numerous other sacred productions, all destined to be everlasting ornaments in the Church of Christ. Be it remembered there existed an army of other sacred composers contemporaneous with, and after, Bach and Handel, but the feeble light of these stars was outshone by the far more intense brilliancy of these suns of the musical firmament. HAYDN, MOZART, AND BEETHOVEN. Close at the heels of the departing shadows of the last-named pair of gi gantic intellects came two other masters of their art-Haydn, 1732-1809, Mozart 1766-1791. Haydn supplied the church with some fifteen masses; an oratorio, The Creation, in 1782, when 66 years of age; his last work, The Seasons, together with innumer. able other compositions. Mozart also (although he died when only 36 years and 10 months old) created 13 mas GALLANT LITTLE WALES. ses, as well as numerous smaller productions, a large proportion of which will devolve to posterity as imperish able flowers. Then, also, came the king of all kings in the world of harmony-Beethoven 1770-1827, the final portion of whose career was saddened by deafness. In him we discover the Paul of a new musical faith, and also the Livingstone, to whom belongs the honor of having opened new and fertile territories in this most enchanting and hitherto unexplored realm. His great and lotfy genius bequeathed to the Church the Mount of Olives," 1809, the Mass in C, 1807, and his choral Snowdon the Mass in D, 1822. While sojourning here it will be impossible to pass over unobserved the eminent Cherubini, 1760-1842, with his divine Masses in D minor and C major, and his Requiem Mass in C minor, 1810; neither can Spohr, 1784-1859, be ommitted and his chegs d'oeuvres Calvary, 1735 and the Last Judgement, 1842; nor Schubert 1707 1828, and divinely inspired Masses. Then appeared our "beloved disciple," in the person of Mendelssohn 1809 1828 in whose works one feels the genial influence and the warmth of a Protestant inspiration in its purest and holiest phase. This is to be appreciated more especially in his oratorios, St Paul, 1836, the Hymn of Praise 1840, aud the staunchest pillar of his immortality, the Elijah 1846. Thus at this epoch in the history of the Christian church she has inexhaustible resources in the musical productions of intellects engendered in all parts of the civilized globe the chief minds of the English school, Dovarak. of Bohemia, Brahms and others in Germany, Liszt in Hungary, Berlice and Gounod in France, Verdi in Italy, Rubenstein in Russia, and occasional contribution from poor uncultured little Wales, which, are mere 269 ly very tiny stars, meek heralds of the more brilliant ones yet to appear and astonish the devotees of music in all parts of the world. GALLANT LITTLE WALES. The following letter with the above head ing appeared lately in the Evening Post. We reproduce it for the Readers of THE CAMBRIAN. A century ago the Principality was but little visited, and was regarded as a remote, uncivilized district, whose inhabitants had been rescued by Wesley and Whitfield from the materialism in which they had been left by the unfaithfulness of the Church of England. It was believed that English civilization, advancing over the Welsh borders, would before long as completely eliminate all traces of the old language and peculiarities as those of Cornwall had been eliminated. Wales is, however, to-day as dissenting as Ireland is Catholic. She has clung to her language with a desperate tenacity; while in Ireland the people have discarded the older from. the Celtic, which one hundred years. ago was spoken in every corner of their land. Wales comprises the twelve western counties of England, south of the estuary of the Dee, north. of the estuary of the Severn. covers 5,000,000 of the 37,000,000, acres commonly known as "England," and has 1,500,000 out of the 29,000,000 inhabitants. Her population has increased just in the proportion that Ireland's has diminished within the decade. She returns thirty members to Parliament, twenty-eight of whom are enthusiastic Gladstonians. She It is opined that one form of Celtic Great Britain and Ireland. It branched into two families, now more widely different than the Germanic and the Scandinavian divisions of the Teutonic stem-into (1) Irish, Scottish, Manx; into (2) Welsh, Cornish, and the Armoric of Brittany. Irish is the most archaic form; it is richest in ancient records. It alone has adopted a different form of letter from the ordinary Roman, and the orthography is simpler than that of Scottish or Welsh, in that the modification at the beginnings of the words are effected for the most part by accent and not by radical alteration in the spelling. Scottish-Gaelic is practically the same as Irish; so was the Manx (now practically extinct) until modified by communication with Wales after the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland. LINGUISTIC FEATURES. Phonetically, Welsh, in its tendency to labiation, stands to Irish as Greek stands to Latin-the Irish ben, a high mountain, becomes in Welsh pen; the Irish mac, son, map, Welsh is the oldest of its branch of the family, and differs from Cornish (100 years extinct) much as French differs from Spanish. The Cornish differs from the Armoric of Brittany much as Spanish from Portugese. Welsh is more spoken than ever before; it is the language of fully three-fourths of the inhabitants of the Principality, and of this proportion the greater number can not speak English. It is the only tongue except English ever heard in the lobbies and libraries of the House of Commons. Government forms and returns in Wales are issued in both English and Welsh ; so also are the notices outside postoffices and churches. The leaders of Welsh thought are determined to make and preserve their country bilingual. The great English proprietors, with estate in the en Principality, who see the necessity of maintaining their influence among their tenants and neighbors, now gage Welsh-speaking governesses for their children. Forty years ago it was possible for a writer in Blackwood to declare that "there is no Welsh literature worthy of the name," and that there were only 405 books circulating in the language-309 religious and poetic, 50 scientific, 46 general. There were few newspapers and they had only a small circulation. At present there are printed in Welsh no fewer than seventeen weeklies with circulation ranging from 1,500 23,000. There are besides several monthlies and quarterlies, one of which prints 37,000 copies. There is an ever-increasing library of Welsh books covering all departments of literature and representing every science and turn of thought. A WelshEnglish dictionary is now being published, the first volume of which, running to 400 quarto pages and comprising only the first letter of the alphabet, sell at half a guinea; £18,000 has, with profit, been spent upon the production of one Welsh book. The sales of one firm alone in the vernacular trade reach £36,000 per annum. The total annual value of such literature is said to amount to $200,000. The establishment of a lively Welsh Review (in English, it is true) in London is not the least striking sign of Cambrian vitality. IN PARLIAMENT. The Welsh members of Parliament sit for the most part below the gangway. There is among many of them a certain family type. They are a lighter, brighter, more boyish, alertlooking set of men than the ordinary British and Irish by their side. Their pronunciation is somewhat labial-it has somewhat the distinction of an acquired language. Some of these THE STORY OF GWEN. members made a distinguished stand over the Tithe bill of last year. A measure for the disestablishment of the Church in Wales was brought forward by them this session. London and Birmingham (the one 170, the other 79 miles distant) are vying for the possession of certain Welsh water-sheds, whence to draw their water supplies. The Welsh members are fiercely watchful to guard the interests, present and prospective, of some of their own rapidly increasing centers of population, and of the present owners and inhabitants of the districts proposed to be preempted. In the inquiry about to be held into the financial relations of England, Scotland and Ireland, the Welsh desire to have their interests considered apart from the rest of "England." They have this session brought in a national institutions bill for the Principality. It proposes the appointment of a secretary of state for Wales, the constitution of a Welsh education department, of a Welsh university and a national museum, and the creation of a national council to control waste lands, foreshores, woods and forests, railway and private bills, charities, the appointment of county court judges, and the application of "provisional orders" to Wales. Inquiries seem to show that there is a large body of opinion in the district desirous of even greater powers-such as the appointments of magistrates. Wales is, after all, more populous than any one of twenty-eght of the United States, and than any one of the self-governing British colonies, except Ontario. The principal supporter of this bill, Alfred Thoms, member for East Glamorgan, declares in the course of a recent magazine article: "My firm opinion, based on the fullest knowledge, is that the Welsh people do not desire home rule on 271 the same lines as what has been demanded and proposed for Ireland. They will be content with something very different, and, in view of many more moderate. But all the same it is home rule. The great feature in the national spirit of Wales in the past is that all attempts to absorb Wales into England have only hardened and strengthened our national characteristics. And the British empire is all the better for the tenacity with which Welshmen cling to their language and institutions, and the patriotic pride they cherish for the land of their fathers. If the national institutions bill, which has received indorsement from such a large number of representative Welshmen, should be passed into law, it would lay the foundation for a future development of Wales, and for such a material progress of the Principality as would enable Welshmen to develop those great natural abilities which are unsurpassed by any race or people." However this may be, the steady current of national feeling in Wales must lead to important developments and the solution of a "Welsh question," will, doubtless, before long engage the attention of Imperial Parliament. THE STORY OF GWEN. (Founded on Fact.) About the year 1756 there lived in the Pass of Lanberis, in the county of Carnarvon, a giantess Welsh woman Cadi'r Cwmglas, pronounced Kaldie'r Koomglahs. Englis: Kate of the Green Vale. At this time she was in the prime of life, and remarkable of course, for her stature and her strength, towering head and shoulders above her neighbors. She wore the old Welsh costume of home-made winsey, censisting of a loose blouse, short skirt, covered in front by a large winsey apron ; woolen stockings and thick hob-nailed shoes. A sugar-loaf hat completed the costume. Her stays were made of leather and looked as substantial as a saddle. Her home was not made with hands but was naturally formed of a huge rock, which stands on the edge of the highway, along which the coaches filled with delighted tourists now run. This highway is closely bound on both sides by the highest and most romantic of Cambria's high mountains-with those on the one side, leaning over toward their fellows on the other side of the pass, and threatening to fill the gap which so cruelly severs them. The shape of this rock which formed Cadi's home reminds one of a cottage bonnet, with its front towards the mountain side and its crown forming the back wall of the house, running parallel to the highway. The sides of the bonnet formed the side walls, sheltering the inmates from the cold blasts which swept whistling and whining up and down the wild pass. The inside of the bonnet formed a room some 20 feet long by as many wide in the widest part, and about 12 feet high. This room, with the addition of a dairy built outside, had been turned by Cadi's ancestors into a snug little farmhouse, where she was monarch of all she surveyed. The nearest house, the Pass Hotel, was three miles away. There on the mountain side she reared her kine and her sheep, made her butter and her cheese, slaughtered and salted her meat, sheared her sheep, spinning some of the wool and selling the remainder. Geologists tells us that this remarkable farmhouse once formed a part of the top of the mountain at the foot of which it now stands. The tourist's "guide" points to the cavity in the mountain, and the tourist, comparing that with the shape of the rock, sees at once how nicely the rock would fit into the cavity. But it needs not a good geologist, gentle reader, to tell us of this, for we can distinctly trace this great fall from the mountain top by means of the deep scars still left on the face of old mother earth. Every Saturday, Cadi would take her sweet, fresh butter to Carnarvon Market, ten miles off, rowing herself in a punt four miles of the way along the Llanberis Lakes, then shouldering her load, or what was far commoner in those days, forming her apron into a firm turban, she would place her load on her head, and with erect mien and arms akimbo, would walk the remaining six miles there, and back agein in time to milk her black mountain kine. Most remarkable stories are still told by the natives of her wondrous feats of strength. It is said that one day, while she was gathering her sheep into the fold on the distant mountain side, she thought she could espy forms of men lurking around her cottage home. Down she strode with giant strides, arriving there just in time to see two men disappearing with their bocty round a distant bend in the highway. She however, soon overtook the thieves-a couple of fierce-looking tramps carrying a huge tub of butter between them, by means of a rope tied aronnd it. The rogues, finding that they were pursued, dropped the butter tub and, men-like, fully believed in the old Welsh adage, that "a sinew of a man is equal to a mountain of a woman, "turned and faced their pur suer. Cadi, however, with a tremendous blow of her fist, felled one to the ground, and hastily tying his foot to the butter tub, hotly pursued the other cowerd, who on seeing his friend's |