Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/363

 9* 8. IV. Nov. 18, '99.] 413 NOTES AND QUERIES. Hate 1 It is catalogued as the work of one Peter Ellis, of Maelor, jurisconsultus, but this is, I venture to think, a mistake; the actual entry in the book is " Peter Ellis let. Maelorensis Armiger, corpus genealogicum inchoatu' destinatu' nondu1 consumatu'." I would read this that it is the genealogical work of Peter Ellis, Esq.. of Iscoit,in Maelor Hundred. There is no such vill as Maelor that I know of, though there is such a hundred. There are other names in the book—one Humphry Lloyd, of Bersham ; another John Edwards, of Langollen Pecham; and another J. W. Moore Winsor, 1830. I do not think it is the work of either of them. It seems to have been purchased 10 April, 1869, of Mr. Meirs, and there is a letter in it from a well-known writer; Octavius Morgan, dated 1832, stating that it seems to be the private notes, if not a copy, of one Peter Ellis, written about 1700. The handwriting is much earlier, and I should think of the time of James and Charles I. There is a record of Sir Hugh Cholmondeley, who died 43 Eliz., as then dead, and of his son Sir Robert, who died 1659, as living,and Sir Richard Qrosvenor, who died 1645, is also mentioned as living, so that as it was written between 1601 and 1645 it could not be the work of Humphry Lloyd, the famous antiquary, who was member for Denbigh, which is close to Bersham, and who died 1567. I can find no trace of Peter Ellis of Iscoit or of any other place. I therefore had some pages photographed, and took them to the Bodleian Library to compare with the writing of Humphry Lloyd which is in the Ashmolean Library. I found one signature there, but little of his actual handwriting; the signature was not dissimilar to that of this MS. I was fortunate at Oxford to meet Mr. J. G. Evans, M.A., who is now engaged in making a catalogue of the grand library of Mr. Wynne at Peniarth, which contains the Hengwrt Library formed by Robert Vaughan of that place. Mr. Evans unhesitatingly asserts that this MS. is in the handwriting of Robert Vaughan. Through Mr. Wynne's courtesy I compared a MS., No. 96 in the catalogue at Peniarth, with these photo- graphs, and it is quite obvious that one is the copy of the other; but this may be said in a qualified way of all Welsh genealogists, they invariably copy each other. I found also at Peniarth another MS., which was as clearly a copy of MS. No. 96, and I found a note written in it by the late Mr. Wm. H. E. Wynne, of Peniarth, to this effect :— " Hengwrt MS. 359, vol. i. This MS. is marked No. 14 in one of Anuerin Owen's quarto catalogues, wherein he gives a separate list of the MSS. pur- chased for the Hengwrt collection from the Sebright collection; it is numbered 1232 in the sale catalogue, and was sold for 201. These vols, form about two- thirds of a transcript of the folio volume of the pedigrees in the autograph of the antiquary Robert Vaughan, No. 96 in this collection. The remaining part of the transcript is in the British Museum, Earl. 2299." In the volume 359 is the bookplate of Mr. R. W. Vaughan, of Hengwrt. It begins at E. 556. There is a note on the margin of the rst page which Mr. Wynne writes is in the autograph of Mr. Edward Lloyd, of the Ash- molean Museum. Mr. Franks, of the British Museum, writing in 1863, stated that there was a copy of the Sebright sale catalogue in that institution. Mr. Owen writes that the volume was bought at the sale of such part of Edward Lloyd's collection as remained in the possession of Sir John Sebright in 1807. There is a note, also in the late Mr. Wynne's handwriting, in the Hengwrt MS., No. 96 :— "This is referred to in the 'Cambrian Reg.,' vol. iv. fo. 289, and is numbered 80, in these terms : 1 This is undoubtedly the most perfect and authentic collection of Welsh pedigrees now extant, digested with wonderful ingenuity into a form totally new, after an unremitting labour of many years; nor is it the least part of its merits that it is written as neatly as it is curiously planned, so that well the handwriting might be called parhous [?], an epithet peculiarly adapted to its character, which, how- ever the fashion of penmanship may alter, can never become difficult or antiquated, being like the style of our great Shakspere suited to every age' "j and Mr. Wynne adds: " It is in the auto- graph of Robert Vaughan, the well-known antiquary of Hengwrt. Now the great question arises, Which is the original, the Hengwrt 96 or the British Museum copy ? It may be asserted positively that the British Museum copy is much older than the other; besides, there is a striking difference between them; the lines which connect the several generations are much more free and bold in the British Museum copy, the other being more formal and precise. If the Hengwrt book is the hand- writing of Robert Vaughan, the other is an older work ; but both of them cite the same authorities, the chief of which are Griffith Hiraethog, who died 1566. and Symwnt Vaughan, who died 1606, and who was chief bard in 1568. Robert Vaughan was much later in date; he was born 1592 and died 1667. I think the British Museum copy is the original of the Hengwrt No. 96, which is a copy in the handwriting of Robert Vaughan's son, Griffith Vaughan, and I base this upon the fact that in Mr. Wynne's collection at Peniarth there is another volume of North Wales pedigrees in a handwriting very