64 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. V. 



WALES AND ITS LITERATURE. 



By Neil MacNish, B D.. LL.D. 



\Read ist Febniary, iSp6.] 



In his "Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations," Pritchard thus writes: 

 ' There are six dialects of the language termed Celtic which may be said to 

 survive, as five of them are still spoken, and one of them, viz., the Cornish, 

 is sufficiently preserved in books. These six dialects are the Welsh, the 

 Cornish, the Armorican, the Irish or Erse, the Gaelic or Highland Scottish, 

 and the Manks. The three former are the relics of the idiom of the 

 ancient British ; the three latter of that spoken by the inhabitants of 

 Ireland." That division of the Celtic dialects is sufficiently lucid, and 

 may be accepted, with the exception of the undue importance which is 

 assigned to Irish, as if it were older than the Gaelic of Scotland. Thomas 

 Stephens, the learned and ingenuous author of the Literature of the 

 Kyinry, remarks " that Welsh or Walsch is not a proper name, but a 

 Teutonic term signifying strangers. The proper name of that people is 

 Kymry. They are the last remnant of the Kimmerioi of Homer, and of 

 the Kymry (Cimbri) of Germany. From the Cimbric Chersonesus 

 (Jutland) a portion of these landed on the shores of Northumberland, 

 gave their name to the County of Cumberland, and in process of time 

 followed the seaside to their present resting-place, where they still call 

 themselves Kymry, and give their country a similar name, Kynirur It 

 is difficult to ascertain what the political divisions of Great Britain were 

 at any given time, in those unsettled ages which extend over the invasion 

 of the Romans and of subsequent nations, until an approximation at 

 least to the settled divisions of more modern days was reached. The 

 position of the tribes or nations that were contending for the superiority 

 in Britain was continually changing, according to the chances of war. 

 The Celtic inhabitants fought bravely for their homes and firesides, and 

 surrendered what they had every reason to regard as their own country 

 only after a bold and fearless effort to retain possession of it, and to expel 

 those who had no claim on it, save that which came from unprincipled 

 adventure, and an irrepressible love of plunder. Skene, in his Four 

 Ancient Books of Wales, thus writes : "We find the seaboard of Wales 

 in the west in the occupation of the Gwyddyl or Gaels, and the Cymry 

 confined to the eastern part of Wales only, and placed between them and 

 the Saxons." Skene is of the opinion that " the Gaels who," according 



