Llangollen owes its name to St. Collen, the patron saint of the parish church. “The name,” says the Reverend W. Bingley, “is pretty enough, and of no great length.” Sarcastic Mr. Bingley! Here is a portion of St. Collen’s name, quoted by him:—“Collen ap Gwynawc, ap Clydawc, ap Cowrda, ap Caradawc Freichpas ap Lleyr Meirion, ap Einion Urth, ap Cunedda Wledig,” and so forth, like recurring decimals. “Ap” being Welsh for “son of,” it becomes quite evident that Collen’s ancestry was, speaking in the decimal manner, corrected to at least six places. Welshmen, happily, have long ceased to thus trail their genealogical trees after them, and life in the Principality becomes simplified by so much. Nay, the “ap,” for all the tenacity with which the Welsh cling to their nationality, is rarely in use nowadays, and has long been used as a kind of alloy, wherewith to coin new family names. From this source come the patronymics of Price, Prichard, Probert, and other common Welsh surnames, once Christian; originally Ap Rhys, Ap Richard, and Ap Robert. “Prothero,” too, derives from Ap Rhyddero, “Pugh” from Ap Hugh, and Bevan and Bowen from Ab Evan and Ab Owen. In the case of the Thomases and other names where the combination is impossible, the prefix has been generally abandoned, and so while the Scot and the Irishman retain their “Mac” and “Mc,” Taffy has in this respect at least Anglicised himself.

St. Collen’s Church is by no means beautiful or interesting, and its crowded churchyard is damp and dismal. It is the first on the journey along the Holyhead Road in which the Welsh language usurps the place of English, and here certainly, if even other signs were wanting, the Englishman—the “Saxon” as the Welsh called him—will find himself, to all intents and purposes, in a foreign land. The average educated Englishman, from whom the general sense, at least, of Latin epitaphs and those in two or three Continental languages is not hidden, stands mystified before these Cymric tombstones and, if he be of a reflective nature, finds it not a little humiliating that even the ragged little urchins in the streets of Welsh towns and villages are often bi-lingual, and in this respect better educated than he.

Among the few English epitaphs is one not often met:—

The subject of those lines had a short reckoning. He went (to pursue the simile) after lunch, dying in his nineteenth year.

The chief monument in the churchyard (ornament it is not) is the triangular pillar to those fantastical old frumps, the Ladies of Llangollen, and their servant. On it you may read of the “Amiable Condescension” of the one, the friendship of the other, and the faithful service of the servant. “It is believed,” continues the epitaph, “they are now enjoying their Eternal Reward.” Let us hope so—but what may be the most appropriate reward in the hereafter for collecting old oak and entertaining society travellers along the Holyhead Road to tea and small-talk, it is not easy to imagine. Let us hope the Bricklayers, Cabinet-makers, Blacksmiths, and Bakers who lie around, with their trades all duly specified on their tombstones, also have their reward for well and truly bricklaying, cabinet-making, blacksmithing, and baking.

That Llangollen is not only geographically but socially in Wales is very evident, in the churchyard, in the names over the shops, and in the talk of the streets. Griffiths, Jones, Williams, Roberts, and Evans have it all their own way, and are repeated over and over again, recalling the humorous story of how the Welsh originally got their names. Llewelyn—was it?—had spent a long time in naming the clans, and at last, growing weary of the work, said: “Let all the rest be called Jones!”

As for the talk, the bridge over the Dee is the place to hear Welsh. That favourite lounging-place becomes on market-days as noisy as a parrot-house with the excited talk of Welshmen black-haired and Welshmen red. Who can shout like a Welshman, and who but a Taffy or Frenchman works himself up into such gesticulating rages on such trivial occasions? Feather-headed pride, conceit, insincerity, treachery, fickle enthusiasms, religiosity, falsehood, and superstition, have always characterised the Welsh in the pages of history; but the modern Welshman is not superstitious, and has no faith in the wild legends of his own land, nor belief in the diablerie that was part of his grandparents’ creed. He regularly attends the services of his hideous Calvinist-Methodist Chapel, and is as completely, religiously and politically, under the thumb of the Boanerges who ministers within as is the Irish peasant beneath the sway of the Romish priest. The Welshman clings fanatically to his nationality and his language, and is saturated with matter-of-fact Radicalism; but although he does not believe in the fairies, is careful not to speak ill of the little people, lest evil come of it; and although so pious, is commonly a shameless and resourceful liar. Untruthfulness has always been a characteristic of Taffy, and judges have quite recently commented upon the prevalence of perjury in Welsh courts of law.

Education is advancing by leaps and bounds in the Principality, and sometimes lights heavily on the shoulders of some decent farmer’s son, and constrains him thenceforth to walk the world an example of the perfect prig. Culture, in fact, brings all the acrid defects of the Cymric character into prominence, and impels those who have taken it badly towards political nostrums of unpatriotic bias, or social “movements” where the faddist shrieks and has his being.