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    in France , wtiere they Settled ; arid from -whence colonies were subsequently sent into Italy , Spain , altd Brftain . Frdrri these facts , combined with various researches recently made in India , some learned Welshmen , the late Mr . E , Williams among the rest , have traced a * similarity between the language , customs and maxims of the Hindoos , and those of the Cymmry ; but whether the Welsh and the Sanscrit be the same language , or even approximate towards each other , I know not , being totally unacquainted with the latter .

    If , The assertion of Dr . Davies , that the Welsh language has remained unaltered , is supported by fact , notwithstanding the scepticism of your correspondent upon the subject . The works of our oldest Bards are still familiar to learned Welshmen , and there is hardly a word in the poems of Aneurin , Taliesin , Merzin , and Llywarc , Hen , which is not , even yet , ih common use in one part of Wales or another . With reference to the stability of the Welsh language , the learned editors of the Archaiology of Wales , no mean judges , have expressed themselves in the following appropriate language , whlcn I

    here transcribe :- — " Those who may take some pains to acquire a pWper knowledge of our language will be convinced of its rich copiousness and powers ; it retains within itself the primitive roots of every word it possesses , and those , for aught that we can discover to the contrary , in their primeval acceptations . These roots so aptly associate , in easy and elegant Compounds , dial we are not under the necessity of borrowing a single term , in any art or science , from other languages , ancient or modern . The origin of our verb is obvious ; our derivations are peculiarly neat ; the names of persons &nd places , as Caswallawn , Casivelaunus ; Cynvelin , Cunobelinus ;

    Caratoc , Caractacus ; Prydain , Britain ; Cetyzon , Caledonia ; Essyllwyr , Silures , Sfc * tyt . j are compounds and derivatives , on precisely the same principles that still actuate the language , and are as familiar to us as if they were of recent formation ; Which proves to a demonstration that our language has altered btit very little or nothing ; and equally demonstrates that it was formed long before the Roman invasion . It appears to have at that time attained to

    a stability , which secured it against all the storms that , through almost two thousand years , have assailed it . This accounts for its having escaped with life , when all the languages of the ancient Roman empire died in its fall , even the Latin itself . Through all the dark ages , which succeeded the ruin of that empire , the Welsh , for every purpose of literature , used their own language , whilst every other neighbouring nation were generally obliged to have recourse to the Latin tongue . " *

    III . Though the Welsh language has not altered , yet its orthography has often varied . This has not arisen either from the ignorance or the carelessness of copyists , but from the following cause . The bardic alphabet , which , from the similarity of its letters to the old Etruscan character , Csesar inadvertantly calls Greek , consists of forty-four distinct letters , each of which has an appropriate sound , and which is never confounded with another . When the Romans obtained a settlement in the island , they introduced their own

    alphabet , but the struggle for preponderance was severe and indecisive for ageSj until in the end a species of compound or mixed alphabet was generated from these two , as is evident from several inscriptions on ancient monuments Still existing both in Wales and England . This compound al p habet was adapted by the Saxons ; for several most respectable and learned m ^ j > ((|> r . Johnson among the rest ) have admitted that the Saxons had neither literature nor alphabet when they first invaded Britain . The departure of the Romans and the bloody ware which the Britons had to carry on with the Saxoxls ' —• : ¦ — ¦ — » , ¦¦ .. . i . . * Arch , of Wales , Vol . I ., Preface , p . yv .

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    886 Tahesin ' s Poems .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1827, page 886, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1803/page/30/