which is confidered as expreffive of the highest mark that even filial piety can pay to the deceased. If the distance from the houfe to the church be confiderable, they are relieved by fome of the congrega tion; but they always take it again before they arrive at the church.-I have been informed that in fome parts of the country it is ufual to fet the bier down at every cross-way, and again when they enter the church-yard, and at each of these places to repeat the Lord's prayer.

In some parts of Wales it was formerly customary for the friends of the dead to kneel on the grave, and there to say the Lord's prayer for several Sundays fubfequent to the interment, and then to dress the grave with flowers. It was alfo reckoned fortunate for the deceased if a fhower of rain came on while they were carrying the body to church, that his coffin might be moistened with the tears of heaven.

I have obferved that in moft parts of North Wales, the fame practice prevails which is common in England, of crowding all the bodies into that. part of the church-yard which is fouth of the church. The only reason that I have heard the Welth people give for this custom is, that the north is the wrong fide. The true reason, however, is, that formerly it was customary for persons, on entering a churchyard, and seeing the grave of a friend or acquaintance, to put up to heaven a prayer for the peace of their foul; and fince the entrances to churches were

ufually either on the weft or fouth fide, thofe perfons who were interred on the north efcaped the common notice of their friends, and thereby lost the benefit of their prayers. Thus the north fide becoming a kind of refufe fpot, only paupers, ftillborn infants, or perfons guilty of fome crime, were buried there *.

In Mr. Pratt's Gleanings through Wales I obferve a charmingly animated defcription of the neatnefs and elegance of the Welfh church-yards, and of the attention that is beftowed by the furviving relatives, to the graves of their kindred: but I am forry to fay, if this gentleman has stated facts, that the cuftom is not general, as he has afferted; it must be completely local. During the feven months that I spent in visiting and examining North Wales, I never faw, nor could I ever hear, of an inftance of the graves being weeded every Saturday; "of their being every week planted with the choiceft flowers of the feafon," or that, if a nettle or weed were feen on the Sunday morning, the living party to whom the grave belonged, "would be hooted, after divine fervice, by the whole congregation."

CHAP. XXIV.

ESSAY ON THE ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE WELSH LANGUAGE*.

The Character of the Language.—Of the Poetry.-Other Languages Dialects of the Welfb.—Analogy betwixt the Hebrew and Welsh. Betwixt the Greek and Welf.-The Welsh Letters, and their Force-Lift and Explanation of feveral of the primitive Words. -Lift of Welf Words in common Ufe.-The Saxon Alphabet most probably belonging to the Welsh.-Prefent State of the Welf Language.

THE Welsh is a rich and copious language, which (however harsh and unpleasant it may found to foreign ears) has numerous elegancies, and many beautiful forms of expreffion. Its copiousness is without rival, principally arifing from the various combina

*For the principal part of this effay, (which is intended only for the inftruction of the English traveller,) I am indebted to the following works:-Commentarioli Britanniæ defcriptionis fragmentum, auctore Humfredo Lhwyd;-Powel's History of Wales; -Edward Lhwyd's Notes in Gibfon's Camden ;-Rowland's Mona Antiqua reftaurata ;-Owen's Tranflation of the Elegies of Llywarch Hên;-Owen's Welsh Dictionary;-Jones's Relics of the Welsh Bards;-the Monthly Magazine; -and the Cambrian Register, vols. i. and ii. I have alfo to acknowledge, in addition to the above authorities, the correfpondence and corrections of my valuable friend, the reverend Peter Williams of Llanrug, in Caernarvonshire.

tions

in

tions of its verbs. Each of these has about twenty modifications, by means of qualifying prefixes; and every form they can each be conjugated, either by inflexions like the Latin, or by auxiliaries, as in the English language. The author of Letters from Snowdon has juftly remarked, that the Welsh language, at the fame time that it boafts "the foftness and harmony of the Italian, has all the majesty and expreffion of the Greek." Of this I fhall transcribe two fingular inftances: the one in an englyn, or kind of epigram, on the Silk-Worm, compofed entirely of vowels; and the other in a distich on Thunder, the grandeur of which is fcarcely furpaffed in any language:

O'i wiw ŵy i weu ê â, a'i weuau

O'i ŵyau y weua;

E' weua ei we aia',

A'i, weuau yw ieuau iâ.

I perish by my art;

Dig my own grave:

I fpin my thread of life;

My death I weave.

The metre of the poetry is very artificial and alliterative. The language abounds with confonants

* Jones's Welsh Bards.

U 2

and

and monofyllables, which, as they are incompatible with quantity, the bards were not able to reduce into concord by any other means than by placing its harfher confonants at fuch intervals, fo intermixing them with the vowels, and fo adapting, repeating, and dividing the several founds, as to produce an agreeable effect from their ftructure. To the ears of the natives the Welsh metre is extremely pleasing; and it does not fubject the bard to more restraint than the different forts of feet occafioned to the Greek and Roman poets. The laws of alliteration were prefcribed and obferved with fuch fcrupulous exactnefs, that for many centuries a line, not perfectly alliterative, was condemned as much by the Welsh grammarians, as a falfe quantity was by the Greeks or Romans.

The Welsh, the Cornish, and the Armoric* languages, agree in their grammar, ftructure, and nomenclature; and the Irifh, and Erfe or Gaelic, are fundamentally the fame with the Welsh, though they differ much, in confequence of the long feparation of the inhabitants, in dialect and pronunciation. They all proceeded from one common fource, the ancient Celtic, or British tongue.

* Armorica, or Bretagne, in France, was colonized by the Britons about the year 384. Its name is properly Ar y-môr-ucha,' "On the upper Sea." The natives of Cornwall began to lose their ancient language in the reign of queen Elizabeth. I believe the latter is now extinct.

There