eformation was regarded in Ireland and Wales is worthy
of remark. During the Stuart wars the Welsh nobles fought invariably
on the Royalist side, and there is plenty of other evidence that the
aristocracy of Wales was becoming thoroughly anglicized both in
sentiment and language. At the same time the practice of the Tudors
was reversed in many particulars. Thus it became the custom to appoint
Englishmen ignorant of the national language to the Welsh bishoprics.
In this manner it is not a matter for surprise that a feeling of
estrangement should grow up between the bulk of the population, who
only knew Welsh, and the clergy and nobles, their intellectual
leaders. The neglect of the national language is evident from the
large number of English words which have even crept into such
classical works as Prichard's _Canwyll y Cymry_ and Ellis Wynn's
_Gweledigaethau y Bardd Cwsg_. It is stated that, of the 269 works
published by Welshmen between 1546 and 1644, 44 were in Latin, 184 in
English and only 41 in Welsh, and of these 37 consist of works of
piety. Thus at the beginning of the 18th century there seemed a fair
chance that Welsh would soon become extinct like Cornish.

An extraordinary change was brought about by the Methodist movement in
Wales. The preachers, in order to get hold of the masses, addressed
them in the vernacular, and their efforts were crowned with enormous
success. At the same time a minister of the Established Church,
Griffith Jones, went about Wales establishing lay schools to which
young and old might come to learn to read the Welsh Bible. Between
1737 and 1761 3395 such schools sprang up, at which no fewer than
158,238 persons of all ages learned to read their native language.
After Griffith Jones's death this work was carried on by others,
notably by Charles of Bala (1755-1814), who passed over to Calvinistic
Methodism and whose schools were transformed after the model of the
Sunday schools instituted in 1782 by Robert Raikes. Charles of Bala
was largely instrumental in the founding of the British and Foreign
Bible Society, and Wales was provided with 100,000 copies of the Bible
and Testament at very moderate prices. Bishop's Morgan's version of
the Scriptures made in 1588 (final revision 1620) represents the
speech of North Wales which had remained more or less free from
English influence, so that the language of the Welsh Bible is