136 



MAETJN L. ROUSE^ ESQ., B.L., ON 



words nimol and slumerian, turning them into nimble and shimber. 

 Moreover, our own island presents us, at the same time, with an 

 analogy to this change and a further link in the chain of 

 evidence; for that part of England which lies north of the 

 Mersey Eiver and has the Pennine Mountains for its eastern 

 wall, and which the Anglo-Saxons failed to conquer for about 

 four hundred years, was known to them as Cumerland, or 

 Ciimbreland, and as Cumberland a large section of it is known 

 to ourselves to-day. One with the Welsh too, during that 

 conquest, as both language and history show, were the men of 

 Cornwall and of Brittany ;* so that the name Kumri also 

 applies to them. 



And further, as is generally known, the literature ancient and 

 modern of the native Irish and of the Highland Scots and the 

 vestiges of the old Gaulish tongue that have descended to us prove 

 that Erse, Gaelic, and Gaulish were nearly related to Welsh, so 

 that the whole of France and of the British Isles was once in- 

 habited by a homogeneous people speaking a language akin to 

 modern Kumric, a language which we call Keltic. That the 

 Welsh should differ in appearance and somewhat in language 

 from the Erse and the Gaels is accounted for by a presumed 

 early colonization of south-west Britain from Spain, an idea first 

 mooted by Tacitus, who says ; " The dark faces of the Silures and 

 their usually curly locks, coupled with the fact that Spain lies 

 over against them, create a l)elief that ancient Iberians crossed 

 over and took possesion of this region as a settlement. "f But in 

 spite of foreign admixtures, when Sir Eichard Garnett examined 

 a list of Erse monosyllables given in an Irish grammar he found 

 that out of 27() no fewer than 140 had the same sense and origin 

 as words of like form in the Welsh tongue, while 40 more were 

 clearly related to Welsh words.J 



A year ago, for a second time, there was held a representative 

 gathering of all the branches of the Keltic race that still have 

 a distinct existence. The gathering-point this time was Holy- 

 head, in the island of Anglesey ; and, after a cordial interchange 

 of speeches and the singing of a united anthem, wliose verses 

 were in Knmric, but its chorus in all their languages, the 

 representatives set up a pillar of six large stones in honour of 



* Who are descended in part from the British followers of Maxinuis, 

 who crossed over to Gaul in a vain atteni])t to establish his claim to the 

 em])ire, and in j)art from fn<i;itives from the war with the Anglo-Saxons. 

 — Knijrht's J/ist. Evij. I, r)4,'r)5. t Afjncola, XI. 



\ Chambers's C/yc?., " Welsh Language." 



