Cymro a'r Celt Llundain

Notes and News. The first day's gathering augurs well for a successful London Festival. Although the morning was dull and heavy, the Gorsedd meetings at Hyde Park, was an unqualified success. Cadfan was very patriotic at the morning meeting, and paid a eulogistic compliment to King Edward VII. The first englyn delivered .at the Eistedd- fod was one by Dyfed Eiliwn garol yn gywrain-i'r Wyl fawr Eilw fyd i Lunden Ac hyd lwybrau celfau cain Daw henaduriaid i'n harwain. At the first Gorsedd, addresses were delivered by representatives from Brittany and America. The bardic circle, in Kensington Gardens, was ideally situated, and presented a pictur- esque rural effect in the midst of a large city. At the Albert Hall the decorations were very well arranged, and above the organ was placed the Eisteddfod motto-" Y Gwir yn erbyn y Byd." Among the persons whose names were commemorated on the building were Sir John Puleston, Cadwaladr Davies, Sir Lewis Morris, Mynorydd, Sir Hugh Owen, Burne Jones, and George Meredith. The first public performance at the hall was a competition on penillion singing by a party of four. Only one quartette appeared and it was declared well worthy of the prize. The Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P., delivered an interesting speech at the Eis- teddfod, on Tuesday. We celebrate," he said, a national festival whose memory goes back to the very twilight of our history. I can boast but little Welsh blood in my veins, though I believe there is some," he went on, amid laughter. But I may speak as, at all events, a fellow citizen of these islands when I say that one of our great characteristics, whether we be Welshmen or Scotsmen or Englishmen, is that reverence for the past, that love of historical continuity which, so far at all events, have never been found to stand in the way of true develop- ment and true progress. It was the tragedy of all art," he said, which was embodied in language-the tragedy of the Tower of Babel-that the value of its artistic performances never could be fully appreciated outside the circle of those who had from birth an intimate acquaintance with the language in which those works of art were embodied. But if those who gave to their fellow countrymen literature in the Welsh language were necessarily confined to a comparative few who could fully appreciate their work," he rejoiced to think that the people of Wales from immemorial ages had shown them- selves to be masters of another form of artistic expression not confined by national barriers or hampered by linguistic limita- tions." If he read the history of Wales aright, music had ever been one of the great arts in which Welshmen had excelled. Music, as it seemed to him, was in the true and good sense of that much-abused word, the most democratic of all the arts. Pictures are the luxury of the rich. They cannot have any universality. In your galleries, open to all, they are merely gazed upon by the stream of passers-by, and are not lived with as pictures ought to be. I. You have to consider music subject to no such limitations. Music does not pay death duties (laughter and cheers). You have not to find £ 80,000 to prevent music going out of the country (laughter). You have not got to consider whether a foreign millionaire will not absorb all your works of art as time goes on. Music is of the people music at its best should be. and ought to be, the greatest of popular arts. And because the Welsh have from time immemorial shown their appreciation of that great truth, I think that they are, among all the inhabitants of these islands, those who should do most io spread that creed to all classes of the community (cheers)." The Rev. Thomas Williams, C.M. minister at Gwalchmai, Anglesey, was, on Friday, married to Miss Elizabeth Jones, daughter of the late Rev. Edward Jones, Holyhead, formerly of Dublin. The ceremony took place at Morian Chapel, Carnarvon, and was solemnised by the Rev. John Williams (Brynsiencyn), assisted by the Revs. R. Lewis and H. Williams, Gwalchmai. Miss Madge Williams, Gwalchmai, and Miss Hannah Hughes, Holyhead, were the bridesmaids, and the bridegroom was attended by the Rev. John Evans, Holyhead.