Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/118

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9< s. v. FEB. 10, 1900.

mistake, as sometimes happens ; but I think not, and I am inclined to think that the writer was trying to fit in Peter Ellis's con- tents to his own volume ; and both are written on the same paper, as the water-mark shows. There is a collection of the authorities from which 2299 is compiled which is partly want- ing in Peter Ellis, but which I fancy belongs to it, which, if it can be relied upon, gives a clue to the real author of the book. These are all initialled, not always with the name of the author, but generally. The book starts with "E. P.," which stands for Edward Pules- ton's book in folio ; "M. P.," a MS. of my own in quarto ; and later on, '' E. P. E.," " my own collections here in folio," principally one of E. P.'s book (no doubt Edward Puleston's).

There is a sheet wrongly bound up be- tween folios 54 and 55 of Peter Ellis, which is copied in 2299, and is headed ' The Come- dacon of Genealogies '; and there is this entry, "Ell his hand in E. P. 23 gre Mr. Davies his hand ibm 6269," and " Mr. Davies his hand in those 3 books of mine numbered with a con- tinued page, viz., 16, 22, 26, 30"; at this point the Peter Ellis fragment is torn off. The con- tinuation in 2299 does not greatly strengthen it, but it gives an important note showing, I think, that Robert Vaughan was not the author of it. It gives R. W., " Rob fc Vyn of Wengrais traditions." This was probably an older Robert Vaughan, for his family formerly were of that place.

I conclude from the above that this MS. Peter Ellis is the work, and in the auto- graph, of Edward Puleston. There is a very extensive pedigree of this family in Peter Ellis, and it accounts for several of the names written in this book, for it shows that Edward Puleston, of Havod y Werne, married Mar- garet, daughter of Humphrey Ellis, of Allrer, who after his death married Richard Lloyd, of Feme ; and in the book is contained a paper headed " Notes of Deeds given to me by my Cousin, Hugh Lloyd, of Hope." Now Richard Lloyd had a brother named Hum- phrey, which may account for his autograph on the fly-leaf. John Puleston, of Havod y Werne, married a grandson of R. Lloyd and Margaret Ellis, hence the book probably became the possession of Peter Ellis, who made some additions to it. The Ellises intermarried with the Davieses, and no doubt John Davies obtained possession of it legally, as he asserts on the fly-leaf.

It would be interesting to know something of Edward Puleston, but Williams, in his 4 Cambrian Biography,' is silent about him ; I presume because he was an Englishman; and of course the work which pretends to be com-

plete, the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' is also silent indeed, it would almost seem that no scholar connected with Wales is in- tended to be included in it. It is a pity that the compilers did not discover Williams's 4 Biography,' so that something might be given of Welshmen ; however, this grand work is by an Englishman, and this, no doubt, accounts for its chief value and use- fulness, for no Welshman ever gives himself the trouble to cite authorities. The Peter Ellis book is full of them not one, but some- times a dozen for the same pedigree, a fact which gives this book an immense superiority to 'The Golden Grove Book ' and others of that kind.

The connexion with the Ellis family and Robert Vaughan, of Hengwrt, is well known. Williams relates that several of the Ellises were rectors of Dolgelly, near Nanney (Robert Vaughan family's residence), and that he employed the Rev. Thomas Ellis in editing Powell's 'History of Cambria,' 1584, of which he only printed a few sheets, and this may account for Robert Vaughan obtain- ing a copy of Edward Puleston's book, which (96) was, no doubt, made by Griffith Vaughan, his son. If any of your correspondents can give a better account of the origin of the Peter Ellis book I shall be glad to learn it. Mine may be entirely wrong, since it is, indeed, chiefly conjectural.

The insight which a close study of this MS. has given me of the waj^s and methods of the old Welsh writers has enabled me to discover the author of the MSS. at Heralds' College, called there Prothero's. Upon con- sulting them some time since I found that the volumes for Radnor and Carmarthen were missing, and I was so fortunate as to find them at the Bodleian Library, Additional C 177, with a letter from Prothero showing that they were part of the set at the College of Arms ; in fact, he sold them to both institutions, though he was unaware of the author. ' The Golden Grove Book ' (Lord Cawdor's) at the Public Record Office contains numerous re- ferences to both sets, and proves conclusively that they were part of the collections of the celebrated antiquary John Edwards, of Rhyd y Gorz. According to Williaras's ' Welsh Bio- graphy,' he published a ' Display of Heraldry 'in 1724, and his nephew, John Reynolds, pub- lished his MSS. in 1735 ; the British Museum has not copies of either. These MSS. are supposed to be copies of ' The Golden Grove Book,' but this discovery gives them an earlier date; the water-mark of 'The Golden Grove ' is George Rex.

I trust there is authority for the assertion