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subjects of high interest , like the present ; but still such a degree of uniformity may exist , and is greatly to be desired , as will comprehend the majority of a nation in the same profession of faith , unite them under the same form of worship , and thus check that separation into an infinity of clashing sects so inimical to all the practical purposes of genuine religion . I will only add , that it is truly preposterous to suppose that
either the Knghsh clergy or the laity are required to believe that the church to which they belong is altogether faultless , and that it may not in some particulars admit of improvement . It is sufficient that they regard it as better adapted to the circumstances and events of the people at large than any other existing communion , and that , taken as a whole , they acknowledge it to be jusjtly entitled to their cordial approbation . Clericus Cantabrigiensis .
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Trelsh and Sanscrit Languages . To the Editor . Sir , In your September and October numbers you inserted two articles relating to a passage in Taliesin ' s Poems , and Mr . Edward Williams ' s opinion concerning it . I said in the course of the last letter ,
I had fully ascertained that the passage in question was not Sanscrit ; and I gave my reasons for thinking there were some words in it , at least , a little like Welsh , adding , however , that I had got together a few facts , and conjured up a few fancies , to account for the phenomenon , though , as the matter turned
out , there was no room left either for fancies or facts . After finishing the letter , I saw the Welsh Arc / aeologia , when I subjoined , " that as a few foreign ideas had obtruded themselves on my mind , I would endeavour , with your permission , to relieve myself of them by forwarding them to you on some future occasion . "
i am desirous , therefore , of fulfilling my promise by saying two or three words more . I . Mr . Williams ' s words , contained in his poems , and alluded to in ray last letter , are as follow ( Note in p . 7 , of the second volume ) : " The Welsh have always
called themselves Cymric the strictly literal meaning of the word is Aborigines : they , are the Cinibri or Cimmerians of the ancients , and-have been distinguished by this appellation in all agesj and in all countries , wherever they have at different times appeared , as if they
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considered themselves the Aborigines of the world ; they call their language Cymraig , that is , aboriginal or primitive language , for the word cannot possibly admit any other meaning . Some derive Cymri , or Cimbri , from the patriarch Gomer , a wild conjecture , a groundless etymology . Let them study the Welsh . " Dr . Davies , in his preface to his Welsh Grammar , speaks more guardedly : " Si
non a Gomero , ut quid am volunt , as some will have it . " He adds , however , ( he i « alluding to those who have spoken of the originality of the Welsh language , ) t ( nat that they believed that the nation , and with the nation the language , sprang out of the earth like mushrooms , but because the beginning of the nation and of the language is more ancient than all the memory of man . "
In a former letter , the grounds on which the eastern origin of the Welsh has been maintained were hinted at , and , at the same time , a passage in Taliesin ' s Poems was alluded to , which is of sufficient consequence to be quoted in this place :
*• A numerous race , fierce they are said to have been , Were thy originals , Britain , first of isles , Natives of a country in Asia , and the country of Gafis , Said to have been a skilful people ; but the district is unknown Which was mother to these warlike adventurers on the sea . Clad in their long dress , who could equal them ?
Their skill is celebrated ; they were the dread of Europe . " The original and the translation are in Mr . Higgins ' s Celtic Druids , ( p . 101 >) lately published . In this ingenious and learned work , the author , amidst many other curious and interesting particulars , aims ' to shew , that as the Welsh and Irish were colonies from the east , there will of necessity be an affinity in their alphabets , and
often a similarity in their language ; that the Welsh , the Cornish , the ' Irish , the Manks , and the Erse * have one common mother language , and that other European and Eastern languages , though subject to intermixtures and changes which the lapse of tfiine and other * circumstances would introduce , still find their origin in one parent language ; and he particularly shews correspondences of some of them with the Sanscrit , which he also thinks has the' aame common pa * rent . Without stating how far I may in all
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130 Occasional Correspondence .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1828, page 130, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2557/page/58/
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