In the following example from the divine poems of the celebrated Vicar of Llandovery, written about the year 1600, every word almost is French, Sonied marsiand am varsianda, Sonied morwr am yr India, A sonied cybydd am ei gist, Ond sonied Cristian byth am grist. Of their rich merchandize let merchants boast, Let sailors boast of either India's coast, Let misers boast the countless sums they hoard, Yet, let not Christian's boast, but of their Lord. This example is chosen, because the late Rev. Evan Evans, author of Dissertatio de Bardis, Specimen of Welsh Poetry, &c. who certainly must be allowed to have been a good judge of poetic compositions, used to repeat these lines with rapture, and then clench his fist, after his manner, and exclaim, "There is poetry, Sir, you will not shew we four such artless and yet poetic lines together in all Pindar, nor indeed in any of your hards, nor in any of your boasted Grecian authors." It is extraordinary that the Vicar of Llandovery, the Rev. Rees Prichard, M. A. should not be mentioned in the Cambrian Biography. No book has ever been so popular as the Vicar's Poems, every peasant in Wales has them by heart. They were translated into English about the year 1776, but the adoption of the quaint title prefixed to them in Oliver Cromwell's time, spoiled the sale. It is impossible in any language to give the force and beauty of the original within the compass of four lines, the French however will admit of almost a literal translation, as, les soins d'un marchand sent de marchander, &c. but in point of softness and mellifluence of sound, it will not admit of a comparison with the CambroBritish. The French affect to despise every antiquated expression, and to condemn it as gaulois, or Gallic; but it appears that the best and most harmonious part of the language is Gallic, and that it has not improved much by the verbal importation made by the Franks, nor by the abbreviation of words borrowed from the Latin; and that the stock of words left them for their portion by their Celtic ancestors, forms the best part of their philological stores. Voltaire did as much injury to the language, as he did to the morals of the country, though otherwise a man of geuius. The absurd practice of writing every word as it is pronounced has obscured the etymology, and barbarized the sound of half the language, by giving the words borrowed from the Latin and other sonorous languages that minced curtailed form, resembling the broken imperfect speech of French children of the last age. It is difficult for this reason to trace at present the derivation of many words, mouton, for instance, was anciently written moulton, a sheep, which is evidently a diminutive from the Celtic word moult, or molld, a sheep or weather. Gwilym in one of his poems has, O gron mollt i grino mys, Nor shame my fingers with a sheep-skin glove. Still, however, (notwithstanding these modern revolutions in orthography,) manifest marks of the effects of a Celtic descent may be observed in the patois of every province, especially towards the Pyrenees and the Cevennes Mountains. Many of these provinces retain the Gallic language, particularly on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, where the Celtiberians once resided. The common language of Gallicia, and of Biscay, is in a great measure Celtic, and whatever difference of tongue may be observed to prevail in those districts, is more occasioned to From these examples it will appear evident that the Spanish bears great resemblance the ancient Celtic, and that it still retains the Celtic sound of the Ll, which is not now preserved in any other European language, except in the Ll of the Welsh, and the Gl of the Italians. The similarity is very striking in several other respects between the Spanish and the Welsh, and no cultivated modern language retains so many Celtic words, or so much of the Celtic style and manner, unless perhaps the Italian. The poetic compositions of Spain evidently bear a greater resem- Awn i Veth❜lem, bawb dan gânu, To Bethlem's precincts let us throng To whom this happy morn gave birth. In traversing the coast from the Spanish territories towards the confines of Italy, many places and objects present themselves, which recal to the mind the transactions of former ages, the residence of the Celts, or the Celtiberi, in Spain, and in the south of France, the monuments that remain of their Ꮮ power, and the vestiges still discernible of their customs and of their language. The etymology of several places in these provinces hath long puzzled the geographers. The name of the people called Arverni, has not been satisfactorily accounted for, but the Celtic offers a ready explication in Ar werni, the tribes tribes residing on the swamps and marshy grounds; the name of the river Rhone has been supposed to be derived from a Greek word implying agitation. A Greek colony it is true, once settled at Marseilles, but is it probable that they should give name to a river, whose source was at so great a distance from them, pursued the tenor of its way through many nations, and most probably had its name long before it reached their vicinity? And does not the derivation it self, of Rhone from godai, appear forced and unnatural? Does it not seem more probable from its rapidity in some places, and meandering course and circling eddies in others, that it received the name Rhoden, or Rhodanus, that is the circling river, from this circumstance, especially when we find a town called Rhodau, or the Meanders, (in latin Rhoda,) mentioned by Pliny, as having been built on its banks. Very high hills, as those of Scotland, were called Alban by the Celts, from ban, a hill, and al, very high, or elevated. The Alps probably derive their name from this source, as the Appenine hills, may from the Gallic word pen, a head, or the sum mit of a mountain. But of the names of places in this part of Europe derived from the Celtic, Pezron is very plausibly ingenious, and what may have escaped his diligence may be found among the fruit of our countryman, Baxter's Researches. Many of their derivations however may be only the productions of a warm imagination, for what so uncertain as etymological conjectures? But the extent of the Celtic possessions in these districts, and their long residence in them, give to the derivations from their language more consistency and verisimilitude. The descent of much of the language of these parts from the Celtic, though like the Rhone it may have been enriched by other streams in its course, appears to be a very probable and rational conjecture, and that the observation has not often been made, is because the ancient British language is not so much studied, or so well understood, as from its copiousness and its beauties, it appears amply to deserve. A considerable portion of the languages of the southern parts of Europe, may be more immediately derived from the La * Vide Pliny's Natural History, Book iii, chap iv. |