92 



mities of Iiis country, whofe woes required no fiction, and where truth 

 had beft i'erved his purpofe, cloathes his hero with flefti and blood ; 

 and farther, that the Britons were of northern extraction, the truth or 

 the fahehood of the one and of the other {landing committed on the 

 fame bottom. This fingie authority is worth a volume of conjeftures. 

 Gildas, who quotes our poet, lived at the latter end of the fifth, or 

 beginning of the fixth century ; Thalieffin, therefore, raufl; have flouriflied 

 in the fifth, perhaps about the middle of it. This then traces the rhime 

 one century higher than the rhimes of the Italian monks in the fixth. 



This long note fliall be doled by obferving, that the Gododyn, in 

 the century after Thalieffin, on the battle of Cattraeth, is compofed of 

 363 flanzas, containing ten or eleven fines each, the rhime of every 

 flanza being refpeftively the fame, as was the fafliioa, and is flill in 

 ufe with the Arabians and other eaftern nations. But while this is a 

 proof of the antiquity of the rhime in Europe, it fliews alfo the great 

 facility with which the Welch receives it. Who then fliall fay that 

 the Britons borrowed their rhime, and that monks gave it birth ? When the 

 French, therefore, would feek the origin of their rhime, they would do 

 well, inftead of rummaging the rotten archives of Weiflembourg, to 

 explore the records of Bretagne. Mr. Ellis has well obferved, that it 

 " is well known the Welfli foldiers who ferved in our army at the fiege 

 " of Belille, (in the year 1756,) found little difficulty in underflanding 

 " the language of the Bretons." Yet this learned author, whofe judg- 

 ment on other occafions is not apt to fail him, has afcribed to the Latin 

 rhimes of the fixth century, that which Fauchet and other French wri- 

 ters might have found indigenous, or at leaft as ancient as the 650th 

 year of old Rome, when the Cimbri and Teutones invaded the Roman 

 province, and no doubt brought with them their Cimbrian or Cambrian 

 war-fongs. Mr. Ellis has likewife remarked, that " the Sclavonian fai- 

 lors, employed on board Venetian ihips, in the Ruffian trade, never 

 fail to recognife a kindred dialeft, on their arrival at St. Peterfburgh." 

 All this goes to prove, that the rhime is not borrowed: and Ruffia 



now 



