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Article EEVIEWS OF UEW BOOKS ← Page 5 of 6 →
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Eeviews Of Uew Books
because they were taught by the Devil at the tower of Babel ! " —or not , we will not stop to give an opinion . Or whether , as they also say , " the poetical inspiration of the Welsh is a divine inspiration proceeding from God ! " need not be discussed here . Certain it is that the Welsh language unmistakably does
present a very ugly appearance to the uninitiated ; and equally certain that , when rendered into English , however " imperfect , ignoble , and half-witted" that language may be , to us Saxons it really does read very prettily . If any excuse be needed , this must be ours for quoting such passages as the following , which we decidedly deem worthy of transcript . It is one of the series of songs of the renowned bard Taliesin : —
THE MEAD SONG . iC I pray the Lord , the Ruler of every place , He who sustains the heavens , the Lord over all , He who made the waters and all things good , He who bestows every gift and all prosperity . A giver of mead is Maelgwn of Moena , and at his mead-board His mead-horns circulate wine of the right colour . The bee has collected it and has not used it .
For the distilling of the luscious mead , praised be it above all The numerous creatures the earth has produced . God made it as a gift to man . The wise and the foolish enjoy it . Some wild , some fame , God has made them , They produce good clothing . * - % ¦ * * % * "
Others of these poems , and tales interspersed therewith , contain much of " ' . Magic , and sorcery . " Some of an Irish origin , by the way , are also alluded to in the chapter we have in hand , and which especially bear the character of " magic lore . " But these details of necromancy we leave alone . The writer next proceeds to " Neo-Druidism and the Druidical Philosophy , " in a chapter in which the mysteries of the dark ages are elaborately ventilated . This , too , is interspersed with illustrative songs and poetic compositions worthy of perusal ; but we have not room for further extracts . All we can here record is that our
brother Nash brings to light the author of a work published in London , in 1852 , who conceives the Welsh language to be Hebrew ! And , what is more outrageously ludicrous still , that the said author explains all names of places and rivers—e . g . — -Oxford , Bucks , Thames , Spithead , & c , out of the latter language !! With this we think we may fairly dismiss this chapter ! The next , which deals with the " Druidism of the Welsh in the twelfth , thirteenth , and fourteenth centuries , " is of peculiar interest , comprehending a no less striking subject than the
supposed worship of the solar god , or deified patriarch JN oah , and of the existence of the Druidical institution in Wales in the fourteenth century of the Christian era . This existence appearing to have been doubted by many writers , our author lays bare the whole question . The concluding chapter of the work treats of " The Welsh Romances , " and the dissertation therein on the question of the precise time at which they were written , and who , if not Taliesin , was their author , is altogether very interesting . On the Druidical inquiry the writer comes to the conclusion , that " there can be no hesitation in asserting that the Druid is a figure
altogether unknown to Welsh romance , and at the time the Mabinogion and tho Taliesin ballads were composed , no tradition or popular recollection of the Druids or the Druidical mythology existed in Wales . " Altogether the work will be found to abound in matter whose curious nature alone—not to speak of the able manner in which it is woven together—will render its perusal gratifying . It is in the highest degree creditable to the author , and we wish for his work tho heartiest success .
" Prayer Ansioercd , in more than one Hundred Cases , in the Old Testament" by Elizabeth Gillespie . London : J . Nisbett . —The authoress of this collection states , that on reading the Sacred Scriptures she was struck with the great num *
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Eeviews Of Uew Books
because they were taught by the Devil at the tower of Babel ! " —or not , we will not stop to give an opinion . Or whether , as they also say , " the poetical inspiration of the Welsh is a divine inspiration proceeding from God ! " need not be discussed here . Certain it is that the Welsh language unmistakably does
present a very ugly appearance to the uninitiated ; and equally certain that , when rendered into English , however " imperfect , ignoble , and half-witted" that language may be , to us Saxons it really does read very prettily . If any excuse be needed , this must be ours for quoting such passages as the following , which we decidedly deem worthy of transcript . It is one of the series of songs of the renowned bard Taliesin : —
THE MEAD SONG . iC I pray the Lord , the Ruler of every place , He who sustains the heavens , the Lord over all , He who made the waters and all things good , He who bestows every gift and all prosperity . A giver of mead is Maelgwn of Moena , and at his mead-board His mead-horns circulate wine of the right colour . The bee has collected it and has not used it .
For the distilling of the luscious mead , praised be it above all The numerous creatures the earth has produced . God made it as a gift to man . The wise and the foolish enjoy it . Some wild , some fame , God has made them , They produce good clothing . * - % ¦ * * % * "
Others of these poems , and tales interspersed therewith , contain much of " ' . Magic , and sorcery . " Some of an Irish origin , by the way , are also alluded to in the chapter we have in hand , and which especially bear the character of " magic lore . " But these details of necromancy we leave alone . The writer next proceeds to " Neo-Druidism and the Druidical Philosophy , " in a chapter in which the mysteries of the dark ages are elaborately ventilated . This , too , is interspersed with illustrative songs and poetic compositions worthy of perusal ; but we have not room for further extracts . All we can here record is that our
brother Nash brings to light the author of a work published in London , in 1852 , who conceives the Welsh language to be Hebrew ! And , what is more outrageously ludicrous still , that the said author explains all names of places and rivers—e . g . — -Oxford , Bucks , Thames , Spithead , & c , out of the latter language !! With this we think we may fairly dismiss this chapter ! The next , which deals with the " Druidism of the Welsh in the twelfth , thirteenth , and fourteenth centuries , " is of peculiar interest , comprehending a no less striking subject than the
supposed worship of the solar god , or deified patriarch JN oah , and of the existence of the Druidical institution in Wales in the fourteenth century of the Christian era . This existence appearing to have been doubted by many writers , our author lays bare the whole question . The concluding chapter of the work treats of " The Welsh Romances , " and the dissertation therein on the question of the precise time at which they were written , and who , if not Taliesin , was their author , is altogether very interesting . On the Druidical inquiry the writer comes to the conclusion , that " there can be no hesitation in asserting that the Druid is a figure
altogether unknown to Welsh romance , and at the time the Mabinogion and tho Taliesin ballads were composed , no tradition or popular recollection of the Druids or the Druidical mythology existed in Wales . " Altogether the work will be found to abound in matter whose curious nature alone—not to speak of the able manner in which it is woven together—will render its perusal gratifying . It is in the highest degree creditable to the author , and we wish for his work tho heartiest success .
" Prayer Ansioercd , in more than one Hundred Cases , in the Old Testament" by Elizabeth Gillespie . London : J . Nisbett . —The authoress of this collection states , that on reading the Sacred Scriptures she was struck with the great num *