863 



WELSH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 



WELSH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 



851 



clown, asked in the English language of a Welsh peasant who was 

 standing near, where he might safely ford the stream. He was told 

 in reply, " Keep straight on, for that is the shortest and best way to 

 thy home." Sir Edward rode on to the bank, and chanced before 

 entering the water to speak a feu- words to his soldiers in Welsh, on 

 which the peasant, perceiving he was not an Englishman, called out in 

 haste to him not to enter the stream at that point, for if so he would 

 I".-.- M.s life. There was a whirlpool on the spot, to which the 

 malignant peasant, when he thought Sir Edward a Saxon, had directed 

 the stranger with a view to drown him. Such feelings are far from 

 extinct, even in modern times, unless those who are well acquainted 

 with Wales are much mistaken. 



The Welsh language is now ill a very flourishing state. The fate of 

 its neighbour, the Cornish, which gradually perished of mere neglect, 

 led to the supposition that the Welsh would also disappear from the 

 same cause ; and indeed Mr. Wynne, the president of the Asiatic 

 Society, himself a Welshman, referred to the decline of Welsh as a 

 proof of the efficacy of the non-interference system in such cases, in 

 a discussion on the subject of endeavouring to introduce the English 

 in the place of some of the native languages of India. More than a 

 century ago, Goronwy Owen, the Welsh poet, related in one of hia 

 letters (printed in the ' Cambrian Register '), that in a discussion on 

 the Welsh language with another \\ elshman, Owen, the translator of 

 Juvenal into English, " the wicked imp, with an air of complacency and 

 satisfaction, said there was nothing in it worth reading, and that to 

 his certain knowledge the English daily got ground of it, and he 

 doubted not but in a hundred years it would be quite lost." The 

 experience of the time that has since elapsed has shown that Mr. 

 Owen was mistaken. " For upwards of ten centuries," says the Rev. 

 W. J. lieea, in an address delivered in 1821 on the formation of the 

 Cambrian Society in Gwent, ' since the reign of Offa, who made 

 his celebrated dyke to prevent incursions of the Welsh into his 

 territories, the Welsh language has receded comparatively but little 

 within the boundary, especially in some parts of North Wales ; and in 

 other districts, when the long lapse of time since the conquest by 

 Edward I., and the intimate incorporation by Henry VIII., and the 

 great encouragement given for the attainment of the English language 

 are considered, it has gained less ground than could be expected. An 

 Kn^litihman travelling the public roads of the principality often meets 

 with persons who speak English, and those whom he has occasion to 

 address at the inns are able to accommodate themselves to his language : 

 the gentry he may visit speak English, and those who call upon them 

 probably use the same language in his hearing ; and from these slight 

 facts which come to his knowledge, he erroneously concludes t! 

 English is the prevailing language of the country. Jt is only one who 

 has resided a long time in the interior, having intercourse with the 

 common people, that can form a true estimate of the extent of the 

 Welsh language ; and most persons will readily assent to the truth of 

 the assertion, that the Welsh is the sole living speech not only of 

 thousands, but of teps of thousands, and even of some hundreds of 

 thousands of the inhabitants of the principality." (' Cambro-Briton,' 

 vol. iii., p. 2:2!'.) It not only holds its ground in the Old World, but 

 has emigrated to the New. While Dr. Macleod, in the preface to his 

 ' Leabhar nan Cnoc,' exulted in the hope that if Gaelic is destined 

 to perish in the Highlands, it will survive beyond the Atlantic in 

 the living speech of numbers greater than ever spoke it in Europe, 

 the Hev. T. Price, in his ' Hanes Cymru,' related with similar exul- 

 tation that he had received from America some numbers of a Welsh 

 periodical, the ' Cyfaill yr Hen Wlad," or ' Friend of the Old 

 Country,' which was publishing at New York. This progress con- 

 tiuui^. In an account of the press in the United States in 1861 it is 

 mentioned that five Welsh newspapers are printed in that country, a 

 circumstance which may probably lead some future Celtic historian to 

 infer the truth of the belief, so firmly entertained by some Welsh- 

 men, that the language has flourished on the American continent since 

 the days of Madoc. At the same time the periodical press of Wales 

 itself is increasing yearly, while in the first number which ever appeared 

 of a Welsh news^Kiper, not fifty years ago, a notion was stated that 

 the language would hardly survive that generation. Eisteddvods or 

 Bardic meetings, formerly rare, are now frequent and more and more 

 popular. The call for bishops who understand the Welsh language 

 has been loud enough to compel the attention of the English cabinet. 

 At the present moment the patriotic aspiration so often on the lips 

 of Welshmen, " Oes y byd i'r iaith Gymreig," " May the WeUh 

 language last as long aa the world," appears in small danger of non- 

 fulfilment. 



If it be really decided that the language of "some hundreds of 

 thousands " in to continue to be cultivated amidst its native mountains, 

 side by side with the language of sixty millions, to which fresh millions 

 are added every year, care should be taken to avoid the disadvantages 

 that might arise from such a state of things. The preservation of the 

 old language ought to be combined with the cultivation of that which 

 has grown up beside it, of the great English language that has put 

 a girdle round the earth, and is now spoken by mighty communities in 

 each quarter of the world, and on the shores of every ocean. The 

 " Cymro uniaith " " the Welshman of one language," a phrase in 

 common use is not necessarily more patriotic than the Welshman of 

 two languages ; but he is, by a great deal, a member of society less 



capable of aiding others and of aiding himself. Were the English 

 language introduced into every school, and were the youth of Wales 

 induced to make themselves thoroughly familiar with it, much good 

 would undoubtedly be the result. The acquisition of the general 

 language of the empire, of the language of great cities and high 

 civilisation, and ample stores of learning, would open a new field 

 to the abilities of many a young Welshman, whose ignorance of any 

 but his native language confines him to a small circle and a narrow 

 career the general diffusion of English would invite more frequent 

 visitors from England to the lovely and romantic scenery of the 

 principality, and a new era of more cheerful prosperity might dawn 

 upon Wales. 



LITERATURE. The quotation is peculiarly happy which was prefixed 

 to a magazine entitled ' The Cambro-Briton,' devoted to the cultivation 

 of Welsh literature : " Nulli quidem mihi satis eruditi videntur quibus 

 nostra ignota sunt." 



The history of the literature of Wales is as peculiar as that of its 

 language. It commences with poems ascribed to the 6th century, a 

 period of almost classical antiquity, to which no living language of the 

 Teutonic or Sclavonic families can be traced. It flourished undoubtedly 

 in the 12th century, and its "golden age" is referred to a date at 

 which no English literature could be in existence, because the English 

 language was as yet unborn. For the last six or seven hundred years 

 its course may be distinctly traced, almost the " solitary pride " of a 

 nation, that, amidst all obstacles and struggles, has been remarkably 

 constant in its attachment to letters. It is true that the value of this 

 literature is not to be compared for an instant with the value of our 

 own, but it is a literature eminently curious and eminently British ; 

 and the apathy can hardly be explained with credit to English scholars 

 that has allowed thu subject to remain as it has, in almost total 

 obscurity and neglect. 



Perhaps the most valid excuse that can be pleaded is that obstacles to 

 investigation were offered in the very quarter from which assistance 

 nii^ht be looked for. A mass of unfounded and uncritical statement 

 on the subject of Welsh antiquities is in existence and in print, 

 which obstructs in the most annoying way the endeavour to arrive 

 at a clear view of the subject. " A Scotsman," says Dr. Johnson, 

 " must be a sturdy moralist indeed if he loves not Scotland better than 

 truth." " How justly," says Edward Williams, or lolo Morganwg, the 

 most eminent Welsh antiquary of the 19th century, "might he have 

 said the same thing of every Welsh antiquary that has hitherto 

 appeared in the world." (' Cambrian Journal,' for 1860, page 18.) 

 ' How many truly learned and ingenious literary gentlemen, says the 

 same writer in another place, " applied to Mr. Evans and his fib-monger, 

 Lewis Morris, for information relating to Welsh literature and 

 \y'elsh antiquities, and how many of the most glaring falsehoods have 

 they had in return from these fellows," whose alleged ignorance and 

 bad faith he proceeds to expose. But the very lolo Morganwg whose 

 words we have quoted, and who up to his death, in 1826, was, and 

 is even now regarded by many as the chief authority on Welsh litera- 

 ture, is pointed out by others as absolutely still less worthy of 

 confidence than any Welsh antiquary who preceded him. Not only 

 therefore is the entrance into the cavern of Welsh antiquities dark and 

 difficult, but the guides are not to be trusted. The national practice 

 has not been iu accordance with the national motto of Wales, " Y 

 Gwir yn erbyn y Byd," " Truth against the world." 



Another obstacle, though an inferior one, has been the difficulty of 

 arriving at the materials for forming a judgment. The Welsh, as has 

 been said, claim to be in possession of a body of poetical compositions 

 extending over a period of thirteen hundred years. Till the com- 

 mencement of the 19th century almost all the compositions for which 

 this antiquity is claimed remained buried in the libraries of colleges 

 and of private individuals, some so difficult of access, that Lhuyd, 

 the author of the ' Archteologia Britannica,' who spent his life in 

 researches into Celtic literature, was never able to obtain a sight of 

 some of the most interesting. This reproach was removed, after inef- 

 fectual appeals to the patriotism of the gentry of Wales, by the liberality 

 of Owen Jones, a furrier iu Thames Street, father of Owen Jones, 

 the architect, so well-known by his publications on the 'Alhambra,' 

 and his restoration of it at the Crystal Palace of Sydenham. At the 

 expense of more than a thousand pounds Mr. Jones, the elder, collected 

 and published, in 1801 and subsequent years, in three volumes, under 

 the title of ' The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales,' the chief produc- 

 tions of Welsh literature for nearly nine hundred years, from about 500 

 to 1 400. In this task he was assisted by Edward Williams, better known 

 by the name of lolo Morganwg, or Edward of Glamorgan, already men- 

 tioned, and by Dr. Owen, afterwards Dr. Owen Pughe. The enterprise 

 was by no means undertaken too soon. " A number of manuscripts equal 

 to what now remains," says Owen in the fourteenth volume of the 

 ' Archiuologia ' of the Antiquarian Society, " hath perished through 

 neglect within the last two hundred years, that is to say, since the higher 

 ranks of Welshmen have withdrawn their patronage from the cultivation 

 of the literature of their native country. We have still upwards of two 

 thousand manuscript books of various ages, from the beginning of the 

 9th to the close of the 16th century." By the publication of the 

 ' Myvyrian Archaiology ' a vast mass of materials was placed out of 

 danger, but it did not comprise the whole of what Jones intended to 

 publish, in the library of the British Museum, no less than eighty 



