80 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



nected with G-reat Britain and Ireland, that a dialect of their common 

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

 Eui'ope. It is much much to be regretted that the literature of a 

 people so ancient and so remarkable 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 Encyclopaedia 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 

 taiddle-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 Bttrsud braz Jezus, or the great mystery or 

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

 Resurrection." 



In his famous " Ai-chseologia 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 Vocabulai-y which have been mentioned, were written 

 in French by Julian Manoir, Jesuit, about the middle of the seven- 

 teenth century, and published by oi'der 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 

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

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

 to meet but with only two copies, and those in convents." There 

 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 enthusiastic Breton scholar, 

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



