292 ESSAY ON THE ORIGIN AND CHARACT£R 



and monofyllables, which, as they arc incompatible 

 with quantity, the bards were not able to reduce 

 into concord by any other means than by placing its 

 harflier confonants at fuch intervals, fo intermixing 

 them with the vowels, and fo adapting, repeating, 

 and dividing the feveral founds, as to produce an 

 agreeable effefl: from their flruclure. To the eai*s 

 of the natives the Welfii metre is extremely pleafmg ; 

 and it does not fubjetl the bard to more reflraint 

 than the different forts of feet occafioned to the 

 Greek and Roman poets. The laws of alliteration 

 were prefcribed and obferved with fuch fcrupulous 

 exaclnefs, that for many centuries a line, not per- 

 fectly alliterative, was condemned as much by the 

 Welfli grammarians, as a falfe quantity was by the 

 Greeks or Romans. 



The Welfli, the Cornifli, and the Armoric * Ian-' 

 guages, agree in their grammar, flructure, and 

 nomenclature j and the Irifn, and Erfe or Gaehc, 

 are fundamentally the fame with the Welfli, though 

 they differ much, in confequence of the long fepa- 

 ration of the inhabitants, in dialed: and pronuncia- 

 tion. They all proceeded from one common fource, 

 the ancient Celtic, or Britifh tongue. 



* Armoiica, or Brcta^nc, in France, was colonized by the 

 Britons about the year 3S4. Its name is properly Jlr y-mor-ucha/ 

 " On the upper Sea." The natives of Corn\yaU began to loir' 

 their ancient language in the xx'r^w of queen Elizabeth. I believe 

 the latter is now cxtiiift. 



There 



