Last Saturday visited one of Llandudno's best kept secrets, the bookshop of Trystan and Llinos in Mostyn Street - Siop Lyfrau Lewis. There you can browse amongst the books, buy greetings cards, and enjoy refreshments in a laid-back ambiance. On the shelves was a book I'd never come across before, George Borrow's Celtic Bards, Chiefs and Kings - a collection of pieces forming a sort of appendix to Wild Wales. What particularly caught my eye was the chapters on the eighteenth-century Welsh poet Goronwy Owen - whom Borrow considered "the last of the great poets of Cambria, and with the exception of Ab Gwilym, the greatest which she has produced." Whether Goronwy would have been quite so complimentary about Borrow- who declares in Celtic Bards that Anglesey is as ugly an island as he had ever seen - is a moot point, because for the poet Anglesey was a sort of second Eden:

Henffych well, Fon, dirion dir,

Hyfrydwch pob rhyw frodir.

Goludog ac ail Eden

Dy sut, neu Baradwys hen..

Evidently Borrow had forgotten what he had written in chapter 33 of Wild Wales, where, looking out over Red Wharf Bay, he writes "I thought I had never beheld a more beautiful and tranquil scene."

Goronwy exerted a strong appeal for Borrow not just because he was a great poet, but because he was a swarthy Celtic outsider who looked like a gipsy - an Anglican parson, admittedly, but from a humble background, and continually denied advancement in the Church by small-minded, unsympathetic anglicising bishops with no appreciation of his genius. Small wonder that, like his fellow priest and poet, Evan Evans (Ieuan Brydydd Hir) he took to the bottle. Borrow uses the case history of Goronwy to underline a general point about what he calls "the crazy rage for gentility" - which he says (in Wild Wales) "will be the ruin of the Welsh". Borrow's loathing of gentility interestingly anticipates the loathing of Flaubert and Maupassant for the philistine bourgeoisie of nineteenth century France. And, for that matter, Tolstoy's similarly strong feelings, writing in the same decade as Borrow. Visiting Lucerne, Tolstoy had met a scruffy Tyrolean strolling player whom he invited to play under the windows of the hotel. When nobody threw any coins into his hat, Tolstoy invited the Tyrolean into the hotel and ordered champagne, much to the disgust of an Englishman and his wife who were eating mutton chops. Tolstoy began to write a story about it some days later.

Which is more civilized, which more of a barbarian: the lord who stamped away from the table in a huff at the sight of the singer's threadbare suit, who refused to pay him for his work with the millionth part of his fortune, and who now, after eating a hearty dinner, is sitting in a handsome, well-lighted room, calmly passing judgment on events in China and justifying the murders committed there [the Opium Wars?] or the little singer who has been out on the road for twenty years, with two sous in his pocket, risking prison, doing no harm to anyone, roaming over hill and dale, cheering people with his songs, and has now gone off, humiliated, almost driven away, tired, hungry and ashamed, to sleep in some nameless place on a heap of rotting straw?

Call it escapist if you like but for my money reading online the daily drips from New Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is much more fun than reading the national press - which as often as not is headache inducing. Yesterday's offering was by T.A.B. Corley, on the subject of Robert James (1703-1776) physician and inventor of James's fever powder. I don't know if the powders dispelled headaches, but Corley's biography has a benign effect. James evidently had a flair for marketing and the powders did very well.

In February 1746 James appointed the publisher and bookseller John Newbery as sales agent for the powders. Newbery, also a wholesale and retail druggist, pushed the remedy enthusiastically, even working puffs for it into some of his books. In consequence the powders became all the rage among the well-to-do, who alone could afford 2s. 6d. for a pair of doses. They were taken not only against fevers-containing as they did phosphate of lime and oxide of antimony as sweating agents-but also as general pick-me-ups. A veritable pantheon of authors lauded them and their efficacy, Thomas Gray and William Cowper demurely, Horace Walpole ecstatically, and Richard Cumberland in many stanzas of inflated verse. At Eton College a widespread distribution of the powders sharply reduced the death-rate from fever there, but an attempt in 1759 by an over-zealous admiral on board HMS Monarque similarly to dose his exhausted ship's company back to health only led to plentiful burials at sea.

The concluding paragraph of the biography is also worthy of note, and should help dispel the idea that the 18th century is all about flowery toffs talking in epigrams and incapable of calling a spade a spade.

An impetuous and improvident man, James had attractive social gifts and was always happy to enliven a good dinner. In his working life he was a prolific and laborious author and a dabbler in chemical experiments. According to Dr Johnson, he never drew a sober breath during the final twenty years of his life; this scarcely impaired his medical practice as he was extremely adept at concealing his squiffiness. In his Birmingham days he had also been known as an assiduous womanizer, and he persisted in his lechery to an advanced age. When in his sixties he called with his latest doxy to take Dr Johnson for a ride, the latter angrily protested that at their time of life it was indecent to be driving about the streets with a whore. James replied, 'it is very indecent for both of us. But such is my infirmity, that if I go six weeks without a woman, my ballocks swell so that I cannot keep them in my breeches' (Ryskamp and Pottle, 113-14).

In the global village no one is surprised to learn that an Anglesey lad is making a living in, say, Sao Paolo, or Singapore, or Seoul, but in the eighteenth century being far removed from country, kindred and friends was more unusual, and more of a thing. The famous eighteenth century Welsh poet Goronwy Owen (1723-1769) hailed originally from Llanafan Mathafarn Eithaf, but died as a plantation owner in Virginia at the age of 46, worn out by poverty, loss of loved ones, ill health and addiction to drink. The story of Owen Tudor, a couple of centuries earlier, is a happier one. Originally from Penmynydd he was involved in a relationship with Henry V's widow that led to the establishment of the Tudor dynasty. That boy done well.

Not so well known is another Anglesey lad, whose memorial plaque is to be found on the wall of the King's Chapel in Gibraltar. The plaque itself is a beautiful object, with lovely calligraphy (see photo) and, carefully pondered, reveals a lot about the eighteenth century.

There's more about William Paget in an article that appeared in the Anglesey Antiquarians' Magazine some years ago - the compositor having just completed a course in not how to do it. The author of the article dug up a fair bit of info about William, especially about the severe and obstinate conflict at Miconi (Mykonos) in the Greek archipelago, but was not able to cast any light on that intriguing reference to the dagger of an assassin in a foreign land. The logs of the Romney also show that William was behaving erratically prior to his death on the voyage west back to Gib. The Pagets of course were an aristocratic family, and about to become more prominent due to the exploits of William's younger brother Henry William Paget (1768-1854) who was Wellington's right hand man at the battle of Waterloo, then elevated to First Marquess of Anglesey, and who now surveys the Menai Straits from the top of his lofty column in Llanfairpwll.

Added to the enigma of William is the puzzle of why he doesn't figure in Aled Eames's book Ships and Seamen of Anglesey, given that his exploits are discussed in William Laird Clowes's History of the Royal Navy, and that there is a long and circumstantial account of the fight at Miconi in William James's Naval History of Great Britain 1793-1820. Westminster educated boys who figure in Burke's Peerage are not generally seen as belonging to the weriniaeth. As an Anglesey gentleman rather than a hogyn Sir Fon or an Anglesey lad, could it be said that William Paget is thereby penalised for being a class act rather than an ethnic one? It would have been interesting to hear Aled's views, but, alas, he is no longer with us.... At all events, it's an interesting dilemma for the local historian.

Would the world not be a better place if everybody kept free range chickens - useful and ornamental as they are? To the objection that this is not possible the way the world is currently organised (i.e. with folks living in congested urban agglomerations, in high rises etc etc) one could respond by suggesting that the current arrangements leave much to be desired - with a great deal of land in the hands of a few who do not manage it as productively and (dare one say it?) as lovingly as it might otherwise be managed.

Be that as it may, one would be surprised to learn that many, or indeed any, of those who have initiated conflict, mayhem and mischief in the history of the world were prominent in the ranks of chicken keepers. Those territories just don't seem to go together.

My favourite 18th century lady - second only to Smollett's Winifred Jenkins (who is admittedly fictional, and no lady) is Mrs Thrale, who upset Dr Johnson, after the death of her brewer husband, Mr T., by marrying her daughters' Italian music teacher, Gabriel Piozzi. She spent much of her life in London, but built an elegant house at Tremeirchion, on the escarpment overlooking the vale of Clwyd. The house, called Brynbella (bella as in Italian, not Welsh) still stands, and may be viewed from the road that skirts the parkland.

Not only did Mrs T. like Wales and the Welsh (partly because they so closely resembled Italian country folk), she also kept chickens, and had interesting things to say about them. As follows:

"I had a black and white speckled Hen once changed entirely white at the moulting Season; She seemed very ill and drooping before the Change, and after her Plumage was milk white, & She was recovered her Illness, She used to hide herself among the Bushes as if ashamed of the alteration, which had indeed a very particular Effect. This Accident, joyn’d to some Observation inclines me to think whiteness rather an Imperfection wherever it is found… and indeed - to look no further, our own Hair grows white as we all know merely from Age, Grief, Sickness, Fright or some evil Accident befalling us: it is further observable that in the Torrid Zone there are few if any white Animals, in the Temperate Zone whiteness seems to be always an Effect of Decay - and in the Frigid Zone the Foxes, the Bears, the Deer - every thing is white: go still further - Human Creatures - which are black under the Line, get fairer in more temperate Latitudes, and the Scotch Highlanders we all know to be eminently white of Complexion - Horse as well as Men and Dogs grow grey with Age, but if they are naturally white or Cream Colour - does anybody think well of them? did ever white Horse win a Plate? or ever white Cock gain a Battle? - Newmarket is conscious of the contrary. in Vegetable Substances - has a white Rose the same Degree of fragrance as a Red? and in Minerals is not Silver less precious than Gold? To return to Animals are not People with white Hair and Eye brows reckoned foolish, and in effect did one ever hear of a great Man who was eminently white? are not Children fairest while they are Infants? - and does not the Complexion gain Colour as the Body & Mind gains Strength? - so much for my hypothesis concerning Whiteness, which Linnaeus carries still farther when holds the original Human Pair to have Been Black, and the Europeans to be only an accidental Variety."

The above from Thraliana, ed. K. Balderston. Entry dated 1777. BTW I'm looking for a copy of Thraliana, preferably under £70. Reading copy will do.

Came across a picturesque and interesting derelict church today - Eglwys Ty Mawr Llan, overlooking the Cefni marsh between Pentre Berw and Ceint. The access to the site and the site itself used to be completely overgrown, until they were recently cleared thanks to the efforts of Mr Ted Thomas and others. It is a lovely secluded spot, the original circular llan or enclosure surrounded by old trees, and the access to it is via a charming wooded lane, which eventually takes you down to the marsh. There are some good photos to be seen on the Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/31817797@N05/sets/72157615303513570/

The earliest gravestone I came across was dated 1766, belonging to Hugh Owen A.B. curate of the parish, who died in 1766, aged 33 years. But obviously the church itself considerably predates the eighteenth century. Most of the lapidary inscriptions are in Welsh, e.g. the following, inscribed on the gravestone of Hugh Thomas, died 1803 at the age of 90:

Dyma ddrych edrych pob oedran

A ddaw

Ai ddiwedd i'r graean

Nid yr henaint ei hunan

Ond ieunctid glendid glan.

(i.e. death is a mirror for all ages, showing that we all end in dust, not just the aged like Hugh Thomas, but also those in the pride of youth).

Some of the English inscriptions suggest a fairly shaky command of English, such as the following, on the gravestone of John Prichard, gent., late of Cayra (i.e. Caerau - shaky command of Welsh as well!) in the parish of Llanidan, died 1830 at the age of 48.

Dear wife now now [sic] my time is past

Whome to thee my love was fast;

Pray no Sorrow for me take:

But love my Memory for my sake.

Maybe this bit of verse was sparked by an earlier inscription, on the grave of John Hughes of Bridin, who died in 1815 at the age of 54:

Dear Wife now my time was [sic] past

Whom to thee my love was fast.

Pray no sorrow for me take,

But love my Children for my sake.

There's an unusual inscription in memory of Hugh Rowlands of Elusendy (i.e. almshouses) Penmynydd who died in 1842 aged 27.

He was a young man totally blind yet

he wrought the basket-making trade!

And could read by feeling!

So evidently braille, invented in 1821, didn't take long to get to Anglesey.

But even more unusual, to the point of being intriguing, is the gravestone above the remains of "Elizabeth Jones, daughter of Griffith Jones by Jane, his Wife, at Bryn Golau in the parish of Llanidan, who died on 16th April 1817 in the 11 Weeks [sic] of her Age."

Tu ne deroberas point.

Which is the eighth commandment, "Thou shalt not steal", in French. But why has that ended up on the gravestone of an ll week old baby - and not in Welsh (which would have been "Na ladrata") but in French? All a bit baffling. The coded or covert protest of a bereaved parent at untimely loss, perhaps?

Just came across a nice quotation from the Chinese poet Su Tung-Po (1056-1101) - cited as an epigraph in Simon Harcourt-Smith's book Alberoni, The Spanish Conspiracy (1943). An interesting, if unconventional, view on what it takes to qualify for the highest offices of state!

Families, when a child is born

Want it to be intelligent.

I through intelligence

Having wrecked my whole life

Only hope the baby will prove

Ignorant and stupid.

Thus he will crown a tranquil life

By becoming a Cabinet Minister.

For more poems by Su Tung Po (aka Su Shi) click on following link http://www.blackcatpoems.com/s/su_shi.html

For more about his life see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Shi