The Bardic Museum: of primitive British literature, and other admirable rarities

The Bardic Museum: of primitive British literature, and other admirable rarities

1802
Edward Jones
1752–1824

This second volume continues the work of Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards, rescuing “authentic documents of remote antiquity” from oblivion and recording them both for education and entertainment. The landscape in the frontispiece, etched by Thomas Rowlandson, is drawn by John Warwick Smith and the figures are by Julius Caesar Ibbetson. A modern blind harpist, John Smith, is shown surrounded by young people, seated on the shore of Llyn Peris, with Dolbadarn Castle in the background. Built by the Welsh prince Llywelyn in the early thirteenth century, Dolbadarn was captured by Edward I, the villain of Thomas Gray’s “The Bard,” in 1284, and some of its materials were used to build Caernarfon Castle.

M1742.A2 J77 1802 +
Yale Center for British Art, Rare Books and Manuscripts