The firmness of touch owned by the capital
Glamorgan folk was brought home to my
shoulders by an enthusiastic treble, who came
forward from her seat behind me, rapt in pleasure
and excitement, and beat very good time as on
a timbrel, just below my collar, while three bards
were singing Pennillion.—A North Welsh nightingale
was well received; but she was welcomed
as a mere wren, compared with a South Welsh
linnet belonging to the shire, for whose advancement
and education many a mite of money had
been laid together by the hands of homely working
folks, and many a mile had been walked, in
order that their own old neighbour and playfellow
might not want a chorus.—This apportionment
of admiration was not fair in an artistic
point of view—not untinctured with local vanity;
yet there was so much of honest, cordial, affection
in it, that it was good to see.

Another truly pleasant exhibition could have
been seen nowhere else than at one of these
meetings: the competition of single female voices.
They had to sing for a prize, without accompaniment,
"The Blackbird," as lovely and symmetrical
a melody as exists, from the collection of old
melodies noted down by a lady, in her day the
most exquisite amateur singer I have ever heard
—Miss Jane Williams, of Aberpergwm. In
turn, called to present themselves by all manner
of unpronounceable names, such as would befit
the sprites that hop round a witches' caldron in
the opening of a pantomime, but which, when
translated, might possibly express a lark, a linnet,
a missel-thrush, and a soul's delight, there stepped
forward four candidates, one after the other—
Linnet, Missel, Thrush, and Soul's Delight,
irresistibly recalling the wives of Shem, Ham, and
Japhet, as they appeared with quaint hats, rosy
cheeks, and petticoats calculated to stand much
wear and tear in the Noah's ark of our infant
days.—I never saw the vocal female who thought
so much of her music, so little of herself—so little
of the " eyes to be made" from under those straw
saucers,—or of the shrinkings which so touchingly
bespeak indulgence,—as every one of these
four sweetly-voiced South Welsh singers.—The
face of a fifth girl, on the second day, who was
excluded from a like competition because she had
not given due warning of her ambition, I shall
not soon forget—as she crept back to her seat,
after a vain appeal for remission of rule—it was
so sad, yet not in the least jealous.

The men, as a body, having bright intelligent
faces, some very finely featured, though
generally sallow, seemed more conscious,—not,
therefore, more ill at ease,—than the women.
When the competitions of the choirs took place,
it might, be perceived, from more than one
wielder of the baton, that the airs and graces of
a conductor do not depend on an embroidered
shirt, neither on a coat without a wrinkle. I noted
one handsome fellow, who, without meaning it,
was as whimsical to see as the diligently
prepared original "Bones" of the first black band,
that let in the enchantment of pseudo-negro
melodies upon the public of England.

The controversy, again, for the prize triple
harp (price fifteen pounds), which also included
a year's instruction on that bardic instrument,
was curious, though among the less estimable
passages of the festival. Why the perpetuation
of an inferior instrument, because it was the
one beloved by the Ap Festiniogs and Pwyll
Rhuddlans, who had nothing better to discourse
upon, should be encouraged, brings us back to
the weakness of nationality, which is the weak
side of these exhibitions.—Why not keep in an
Eisteddfod all that is real and permanent? Why
encumber it with anachronisms such as these,
which, if they contain any education at all, only
contain the education of prejudice? An excellent
artist, in every sense honourable to Wales,
who, I verily believe, would " die on the breach"
rather than see its old customs wear out,—whose
heart and soul have been in this festival,
—received the first great modern commission, given
under the new dispensation of common sense—
to write a national Cantata for Swansea. This
has been accomplished most creditably by him:
only the Welsh words have been translated into
English before having been set—and there is far
more of Bellini in the body and soul of his melodies
and their treatment than of " Daffyd y
Garryg-wen," or " Nos Galan."

One more scene,—and I have done with
these desultory notes on what I saw and heard
during four as curious and amusing days as I
have ever spent.—The crowd was tremendous
on the evening of the third concert, many
hundreds having forced their way in more than the
Pavilion could hold.—A beam in one of the
galleries gave way; splinters began to fall from
another, and this in a building rocking with a
crowd, and so frail, so flaring with line upon
line of gas-jets, and so scantily provided with
adequate outlets, that the panic which grew
and spread, and the screams (if ever screams are
excusable), were justified by what was really
imminent as a matter of peril. The women,
though a few did scream, were more valiant than
the men, I fancy;—since I hear of one brute of a
fellow (no Bard, I hope) leaping over the gallery
on the heads of the women,—and I have
since enjoyed in print the thanksgiving for safety
of a clergyman who was so overcome by terror,
he declares, as to have fallen into drowsiness,
and who rejoiced greatly when he could rid himself
of the " fatal grasp" of two merciless ladies
who had clung to him for protection.— Per
contra, however, a most remarkable example
of the manner in which a man should behave
under such circumstances was shown by the
Mayor, to whose instant coolness, courage, and
admirable decision in calling out, not the military,
but the music—the saving of hundreds of
lives may have been owing. He commanded
instant attention by a trumpet-call; he quieted
the fast-growing agitation by suddenly bidding
the choir strike up our National Hymn,
and when the chorus, supported by all the
people, died away, he then insisted on the hall
being cleared till its security could be ensured
for the subsequent performances.—No one less
resolute could have got this done, so unwilling