544 Rev. Mr Williams on one Source of the 



posed to have entered deeply into the composition of the present 

 Cumrian tongue. The sceptical examiner may, therefore, rea- 

 sonably object that any similarity between the two languages 

 might have originated in the adoption of that of Rome by the 

 British provincials. 1 In answer to this I refer, in the first place, 

 to Lloyd's reasoning, quoted in the note. In the second place, 

 to the fact, that Wales and Cornwall do not appear to have been 

 occupied like the rest of England by the Romans. 2 The main 

 roads of the Antonine itinerary do not pass to the westward of a 

 hue drawn from Eggerton (Muridunum) to Abergavenny (Goban- 

 nium) thence from a spot near Draiton (perhaps Mediolanium) 

 to Chester (Deva). The main road connecting Isca Silurum (Ca- 

 erleon on Usk), the station of the legion 2nda Augusta, with 



1 Humphrey Lhwyd (Humphrey Lloyd), to whom the original inhabitants of 

 Great Britain, Ireland, and France, owe so much, states the question as plainly as 

 the prejudices of the day would allow him. " Additions to Merionethshire in 

 Camden." " It seems to me the word Torques was Celtic before it was Roman. 

 For although I acknowledge it to be derived from Torqueo, yet we also have the 

 verb Torchi in the same sense ; and seeing that both the British words Torch and 

 Torchi are in all appearance derived from the common word Troi, i. e. to turn ; and 

 also that grammarians know not well whence to derive Torqueo, I know not but 

 we may find the origin of it in the British Torch. Nor ought any one to think it 

 absurd that I thus endeavour to derive Latin words from the Welsh, for there are 

 hundreds of words in that language that agree in sound and signification with 

 the Latin, which yet could not be borrowed from the Romans, because the Irish 

 retain the same, who must have been a colony of the Britons long before the 

 Roman conquest ; and also that the Welsh or British is one dialect of the old 

 Celtic, whence, as the best critics allow, the Roman tongue borrowed several words, 

 and I presume, by the help of the Irish, which was never altered by a Roman con- 

 quest, it might be traced much farther. For instance, we must acknowledge these 

 British words, Tir, Awyr, Mor, Avon, &c. to have one common origin with those 

 of the same signification in the Latin, Terra, Aer, Mare, Amnis ; but seeing the 

 Irish also have them, it is evident they were not left here by the Romans, and I 

 think it no absurdity to suppose them used in these islands before Rome was built." 



2 With the exception of the road along the sea- shore from Chester to Carnarvon, 

 which appears to have been merely the road to Ireland. 



