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192 Merion tn the Welsh Tract.
or farmers were not so rich, or so extensive land-holders as
their more lucky kinsmen, they were still their equals in blood,
in intelligence, in social standing, and in education. They were
equally proud of the noble stock from whence they sprang,
and were careful to designate themselves as “gentlemen” in
documents of that day, a term which, with them, had a very
different significance than is usually understood by it at the
present time. .
The Welsh held that a well-born man might follow any
honorable trade or calling, and yet remain a gentleman; but
that a person who could not show at least nine descents in every
line to gentle blood, could not properly be so designated, no
matter what his wealth, and the base-born son of gentle birth
was esteemed of higher rank than the son of an unknown man
who had recently acquired riches.
The amusements of the Welsh were few and simple.
Games, some of them very ancient and curious, and athletic
sports occupied the young, whilst the old amused themselves
with their books or with fishing and hunting. Often, especially
on Sunday evenings, the Welsh were accustomed to gather at
each other’s houses to sing and play upon their national instru-
ment, the harp, and they then, as now, held periodical musical
festivals. In the morning, it is said, the maidens would go up
to the hills to tend the flocks, returning in the evening sing-
ing, and playing on their small harps. And it is believed that
this old custom is still followed in some parts of ‘the Princi-
pality. The introduction of the Quaker faith into Wales seems
to have suppressed, to a great extent, the musical tendencies
of our Cymric forefathers. That occasionally, however, in their
new home beyond. the seas, their old ballads were remem-
bered, is yet a tradition in Merion, and more than one Welsh
Friend, it is said, was privately admonished that his ‘tuneful in-
clinations must cease forthwith. It is pleasant, though, whilst
looking backward ‘to the first settlement, to think that often
through the wild woodland of Colonial Merion there has
echoed the burthen of some ancient British war song, chanted
ages ago in battle against the legions of Imperial Rome.
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