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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
Multa reuascentur , quae jam cecedere , cadeiitque Quac nunc sunt in honore vocabula , si volet u « us , Quern penes arbhrium © tetjBS ^| t norma -loqpendi . We ail . know how the proper English nds varied ; from the time of Alfred ( and much higher still ) even to that of Chaucer ; from the time of Chaucer to that of Har . VIII . ; from the time of Har * VIII . to the present ; so'that
if w ^ step backward to a very femtrie period we shall appear to be hatdl y in gossessHofrof the same language . Mr . Williams talks of haying perused WelskM& 1 $ . of the eighth , ninth , and tenth centuries , and I have pertised MSS . perhaps , much older still in the ancient Irish character , and containing s $ me C 5 reek , in ; the large Uncial letters . Taliesin must have had writings or records , lope since lost , which went back hundreds and hundreds of years from his have
time ; and what varieties the British language may gone through during that period * or what variations there may have been in the style of particular bajds , it would be difficult to say . Though the people might bein a mapper what we call barbarous , yet the Druids had much literature am , ong ! them > for the acquisition of which the Gauls , as Csesar tells us , came to JJritain ; lie , also tells us , among other particulars , that the Druids had among them the Greek characters . , .
But as most probably some of your Cambrian readers jnay , t ; hink what , is tltus advanced a mere theory of possibilities , or rather inipo ^ sibyi ^ s ^ as fickle as what it was intended to bring forward on the , Sanserif , and , inay urge the . unchanged , unchangeable state of his native language * he may ( ti # n back to the lines quoted in the former number of the Repository , aqd ; accjpujlt jfpr , tfee appearance of those foreign lines in Taliesin ' s poems , ^( 1 , . fe ^< $$ c to account for it , with due allowances for one who understands neither Sanscrit nor Welsh , in some more probable , clearer way . , (( , v M „
£ EQ 5 GE ; MERr ... < P S , Since forwarding the above communication to the N ^ w Series of the Monthly Repository , I have had an opportunity of referin ^ to the Welsh Archaeology ^ as pointed out to me in a note to the formerikttter . v The Welsh Archaeology is a work in three thick volumes , large octavo , consisting of Welsh poetry and Welsh prose . The poetry is * placed ) chiv > - iwlogically , and the lines under consideration , as quoted in my last commw * -
mcatiqn from Mr . Williams ' s letter , appear under the division ' 5 » 20 ^ tti 57 O , with Taliesin ' s name added to the date . But his name does not accompany the poem under consideration , as it does under some others in that series . Hence , ! should infer , that though the poem may not be wetter * by : TaHesiw , yet that it must be either obsolete Welsh , or erroneous Welsh , introduced by cornet ibkindering . copyist : for , as it appears , the lines are not Sanscrit ^ < I ^ iJ ^ niistJdiarther observe , that the lines occur in a poem of about eighjty
Hflfis in ; length / and not as a quotation , but as a regular part of the poem , entitled ^ iGwawd Ludd-y-Mawr , the Praise of Ludd the Greats ailfith ^ ultcies under consideration and the poem itself are not Welsh , how could tfcei three responsible editors insert them in a collection of . Welsh fxoeBos {? - ( ( Andwhydo they not explain the circumstance in a note , or in the spTefacev which is sufficiently ample , minute , and judicioua , and written iti
English * \? BxA » what puizles me most , is , that Edward Williaixis ' s ow ^ i naooiie jtpljearai ^ is Dhai of thes ^ three responsible Editors . I r <( . j xVm m -wo ml finl ^ havefalkjr on this subject , as / you may perceivey without / design : i » ut mfl twroj or thueerfoieign idea ^ have obtruded themselves intpi my itiirtd , I may ( Jmihapanendeavj ^ ir to « telieve myself of themibyiforwaixliBgtWm t 6 * you on flOihe ibtXJt ^ e bccasiont t > fjj \< j j . a . niJoi .- j ^ n < ,,: -mlt } r . ud : )»;;> j [ 1 <> 1 AUninr ^^ ' ^ Mi
Untitled Article
7 ^ 0 T ( tfiemW Ppems .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1827, page 740, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1801/page/28/
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