min-strel's free hand! From the love of my

soul with

I bless thee! yet not for the beauty which dwells
In the heart of thy hills, on the waves of thy shore;
And not for the memory set deep in thy dells
Of the bard and the warrior, the mighty of yore;
And not for thy songs of those proud ages fled,
Green land, poet land of my home and my dead!

I bless thee for all the true bosoms that beat
Where'er a low hamlet smiles under thy skies;
For thy peasant hearths burning, the stranger to greet,
For the soul that looks forth from thy children's kind eyes!
May the blessing, like sunshine, around thee be spread
Green land of my childhood, my home, and my dead!

F. H.

THE BARDS.

An Ode; by Miss M. Potter.

Dear Cambria, place of my birth,

Round the hearts of true Britons entwine;
What spot so enchanting on earth,
Fam'd for minstrels and poets divine.

Cadwalader's fame was renown'd,

Prince Llewelyn with victories bled;
The names of our heroes resound,

As warriors just mix'd with the dead.

When dying, they breath'd a request,
That Britons united would stand;
With valour like those gone to rest,
They might conquer by sea and by land.

Hoel's harp was silent thro' grief,

Modred wept for the chieftains so brave;

But nor lyre nor song gave relief,

Sorrow hastened the bards to their grave.

HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE GAULS AND OF THE ARMORICANS;

By Dan. L. Miorcec de Kerdanet,

Docteur en Droit, Avocat à la Cour, &c.

Corresponding Member of the Royal Cambrian Institution.

Translated from the French by DAVID LEWIS, editor of the Cymrodorion Transactions.

THE language of the Gauls, and of part of the west, was the Celtic, or Breton. Asia is its cradle, from whence it has been spread through Europe, with the nations who have peopled that vast quarter of the world.

Moses says that, after the deluge, the children of Japhet dispersed themselves into different countries, in the islands of the nations, where each had its own language, families, and people.*

A learned Bas-Breton, Jacques le Brigant, at the end of his Observations on the primitive (or Breton) Tongue, has given an engraving of the tower of Babel, with this inscription: A hann a lampus, it is from hence that it came.

NO. I.

M

Josephus, the historian, adds, that Gomer, the eldest son of Japhet, brought with him into Europe the language of his generations, and that he transmitted it to the Gomerians, or Gauls, his descendants.*

We shall pass with rapidity through its phases, descending from century to century to the present time.

We shall mention what people have spoken that language, and, without having recourse to comparative tables to etymologies, a species of labour already executed by a number of writers, it will be in the works of ancient authors that we shall seek the proofs of our assertions. We shall then follow the order and course of centuries, and introduce in their intervals whatever of interest the volumes we have perused may have presented us with.

Such will be the history of the celto-breton language. In the first place we shall speak of

The different People of Gaul. Of the Belgians, the Aquitains, and the Celts.

Cæsar divides Gaul into three parts, one inhabited by the Belgians, and another by the Aquitains, and the third by those "who," says he, "in their language are called Celts, and whom we name Gauls."t

So far we see that Cæsar states these three people to have possessed one common language; but that language was subject to several dialects. "In reality," continues the same author, "all these people differ from each other in language, laws, and institutions." In this place, by paying the least attention to the expressions of Strabo, we shall find that the word language only means dialect. "The language of all the Gauls is the same; but it varies a little."t

We know, moreover, that the Druids were accustomed to assemble every year in the country of Chartres, for the purpose of administering justice to the private persons of the realm, who came from all parts to consult them.§ There must then have been a general language, and that of the Druids familiar to all the Gauls; which appears still more evident, from our not finding either in Cæsar, or any other author, that they had any occasion for interpreters. What still strengthens our opinions, is, our finding

* The word Europe is from the Breton, e-vro-pen, the extremity of his share, viz. of the share or portion of the earth allotted to Japhet.

+ Cæsar, init. The Celts," says Pausanias, "did not name themselves Gauls or Galates until after a long space of time; for, anciently, they themselves said they were Celts. Celts and Gauls are, therefore, the same names."

Eâdem non usquequaquè linguâ utuntur omnes, sed paululum variatâ. Strab iv.

§ Cæsar, vi. 13.