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TORQUES.

graving, with the infcriptions, taken from the 2d volume of my Tour, gives a full idea of these funebrial memorials.

THE golden torques, that invaluable morfel in poffeffion of this family, was found by digging in a garden near to Harlech caftle in 1692. It is well described by Camden, as a wreathed rod of gold, about four feet long, with three fpiral furrows, with sharp intervening ridges running its whole length to the ends, which are plain, truncated, and turn back like pot-hooks. Whether this was purely Roman, or whether it might not have been common to both nations, I will not difpute. The ufe was that of a baldric, to fufpend gracefully the quiver of men of rank, which hung behind, by means of the hook; and the golden wreath croffed the breaft, and paffed over the fhoulder. Virgil, in his beautiful description of the exercises of the Trojan youth, expreffes the manner, in these frequently mifconftrued lines:

Cornea bina ferunt præfixo haftilia ferro:

Pars leves humero pharetras: ait pectore fummo
Flexilis obtorti per collum circulus auri.

Each brandifhing aloft a cornel fpear:

Some on their backs their burnish'd quiver bore,

Hanging from wreaths of gold, which fhone before.

THE torch, or torques, worn by the Gauls and Britons, was a very different affair, a collar of gold, or other metal, worn round the neck. Our heroine Boadicea had a great one of that precious metal; and Virdomarus wore round his neck another, fastened behind with hooks, which fell off when the conqueror cut off his head.

AN A POP HERETA.

Published as the Act directs, fan 7.1.1796, by 16.5, J. White.)

Illi virgatis jaculanti ex agmine braccis
Torquis ab incifà decidit unca gula.

Manlius acquired the addition of Torquatus, from a torques which he won from a Gaul, whom he flew in fingle combat, in fight of the army; and Publius Cornelius, after the flaughter of the Boii, took, among other fpoils, not fewer than four thousand and feventy golden torques.

THEY were also in use among the Romans, who bestowed them as military rewards; and, as Pliny pretends, the golden on the auxiliaries, the filver on the citizens. They probably were made in feveral ways. I have feen a very beautiful one (I think at present in poffeffion of the Rev. Mr. Prescot, of Stockport) composed of several links of filver wire, moft elegantly twisted together: it was long enough to go twice round the neck, and had clafps which faftened it on.

THE Custom of wearing the torques was continued from the more remote periods of Britain, to later times. of Yale, was called Llewelyn aur Dorchog,

Llewellyn, a lord
Llewelyn, with the

golden torques,' on that account; and the common proverb, • Mi a dynna'r dorch a chwi, I will pluck the torques with you,' fignifies to this day, a hard struggle of a perfon before he would yield a victory.

THE next antiquity is, as to material, British; as to its deftination, Roman. I refer to the cake of copper fmelted at the antient Conovium, the modern Caer-bên, near to Conwy, which probably was smelted from the ore of the Snowdon hills, where of late years much has been got. This mafs is in fhape of a cake of bees

wax :

COPPER CAKE.

SILVER HARP.

wax on the upper part is a deep concave impreffion, with the words 'Socio Rome, To my partner at Rome:' across these is impreffed obliquely, in leffer letters, Natfol. I cannot explain it, unless Nat stands for Natio, the people who paid this fpecies of tribute; and fol for folvit, that being the ftamp-mafter's mark. These cakes might be bought up by a merchant refident in Britain, and configned Socio Roma, to his partner at Rome.' The weight of this antiquity is forty-two pounds; the diameter of the upper part eleven inches; the thickness in the middle two and three quarters.

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THE filver harp is purely British, both as to the metal, and the ufe; which, with the commiffion for holding an Eisteddfod, or feffions of bards, at Caerwis, in 1568, is ftill in poffeffion of Sir Roger Moftyn. The harp from time immemorial had been in the gift of his ancestors, to give as a temporary mark of excellency on the chief of the faculties, or those who had excelled in their different ways, poetical or mufical. I fhall only prefent the reader with the copy of the patent to Sir Richard. Bulkeley, knight, and to William Mofton, and many others. William Mofton is the gentleman mentioned at p. 72. This commiffion is in fome measure hiftorical: but the reader who wishes for a fuller account of the Eifteddfod, may gratify his curiofity by turning to p. 457, and from thence to p. 478, of the first volume of my Tour in Wales. The commiffion is as follows:

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ELIZABETH, by the grace of God, of England, Fraunce, and Ireland, Quene, defendor of the fayth, &c. to our trustie and

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