80 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



nected with Great Britain and Ireland, that a dialect of their common 

 language is spoken by a very large population on the continent of 

 Europe. It is much much to be regretted that the litei'ature of a 

 people so ancient and so I'emarkable is not very extensive, and that 

 but few fragments have come down to our times from a date that 

 can be regarded as in any sense early or remote. In the article on 

 Celtic literature in the last edition of the Encyclopfedia Britannica, 

 it is stated that Armoric like Welsh is a living language, but that 

 no monument of the old form of the language exists. The relics of 

 middle-Breton literature consist of two miracle plays, a prayer-book 

 or " Hours," a dictionary and the chartularies of two monasteries. 

 Of this small list only one of the plays and the dictionary are known 

 to exist in early manuscript originals or copies. One of the plays 

 bears the title Buhez Santez Nonn, or the life of St. Nonna. The 

 other play is entitled Bursud hraz Jezus, or the great mystery or 

 miracle of Jesus, and consists of two parts, the " Passover and the 

 Resurrection." 



In his famous " Ai'chpeologia Britannica," which was published in 

 1707, Lhuyd inserted an Armorican Grammar and Vocabulary. In 

 the preface to his laborious work Lhuyd states " that the Armorican 

 Grammar and Vocabulaiy which have been mentioned, were written 

 in French by Julian Manoir, Jesuit, about the middle of the se\'eii- 

 teenth century, and published by order of the Bishop of Quimper. 

 The author was one of the masters at the Jesuits' school in that 

 town, and afterwards a famous missionary in Bass Britany. His 

 vocabulary, though not very considerable, was yet, so far as I could 

 learn, the most copious extant ; and so scax'ce that 'twas my fortune 

 to meet but with only two copies, and those in convents." Thei'e 

 was published at Paris in 1752, an excellent dictionary of the Breton 

 language by Dom Louis Le Pelletier, a Benedictine Monk. It is 

 said that he expended fifty years in the preparation of his dictionary. 

 Great ability and industry are perceptible in the work which cost so 

 much indefatigable pains, and which must continue to be of very 

 great service to the student of Armorican. Other works of more or 

 less value in connection with the literature and language of Brittany 

 might be enumerated. 



Le Gonidec may fitly be regarded as the Eugene O'Curry of 

 Armorican literature. In a notice of the enthvisiastic Breton scholar, 

 which is prefixed to a second edition of his Celto-Breton Grammar 



