Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/326

Rh 314 CELTIC LITERATURE WELSH LITERA TURE. Manu scripts. is based upon a tale of the heroic age called the Exile of the Sons of Uisnech, we have Deirdriu (Dar-thula), Nois (Nathos), Ardan, and Cathlad (Cathba) the Druid, actors of the original tale, associated with Oisin and Cormac who belong to a different time and another phase of Irish legend. In Temora we have Find son of Cnmall (Fiugal), his sou Oisin (Ossian) and grandson Oscar, and Cormac Mac Airt, associated with Cathaeir Mor, Nois (Nathos), Cuchulaind (Cuthulin), and the antediluvian Carill. Again, in Fiugal, which has manifestly been written under the influence of the Tain Bo Cuailnge, we have Carill, Cuchulaind, Cathbad, Conlaech (Conloch) son of Cuchulaind, Ferdiad son of Daman (Ferdia), associated with Finn. (Fingal), Oisin (Ossian), Oscar t Goll Mac Morna (Gaul, son of Morna), and other heroes of the Ossianic period. This mingling of the heroes of two different cycles of romance would be sufficient to prove, did we possess no other test, that MacPherson had no original. The old Celtic tales are especially characterized on the one hand by the detailed descriptions they give of the personal appearance, dress, and arms of the chief actors in a tale, and of the internal arrangements of the houses, &c.; and on the other by the absence of descriptions of scenery, except when Tir Tairngirc, the Land of Promise, is in question. The aspects of nature were familiar to those who listened to those tales, what they wanted to realize was the actors and their deeds. MacPherson s poems on the contrary are full of word-pictures of nature, sometimes no doubt bombastic, but generally giving beautiful, and often grandly poetic, descriptions of the most characteristic features of the scenery of the Highlands. But the actors in his epic are like figures seen through a mist, barely sketched in outline, whose dress, ornaments, and arms are so generally and vaguely described as to lose all peculiar and distinctive character. The Poems of Ossian are thoroughly modern, more so even than the current legends of the west of Scotland which retain many things talking ravens, soothsaying, &c., which savour of old times. An examination of the poems and prose tales of the Irish Oisianic cycle is very instructive in this connection; the older they are the more detailed are the descriptions of the actors and of their dress and arms ; the newer the vaguer and more general the more like MacPherson s heroes do they become. In this respect MacPherson did no more than what he was entitled to do, and what has been done by others who have used similar materials for the construction of poems. The author of the Xibelungen Lay fused in the 12th century legends of the Horny Siegfried with those of a different and newer cycle concerning Attila, Dietrich von Bern, Brunhild, &amp;lt;tc. So the romances of Arthur and the St Graal, though of a totally different origin have mingled together. So, too, the mediaeval German poets took many liberties with the French romances, which served them as materials. What he had no right to do was to call his poem a translation. It is unfortunate for his fame that he should have supported this comparatively trivial error by the grave one of producing his pretended original. Let us add that the publication of a selection of the poems in the manuscript known as the Dean of Lismore s Book by Mr W. F. Skene and the Rev. T. M Lauchlan, and Mr J. F. Campbell s collection of Popular Tales of the West Highlands, have done more to settle the Ossianic controversy than all that had been written by the combatants on both sides. The number of Welsh manuscripts is considerable, but with the exception of those in the British Museum, the library of Jesus College, Oxford, and that of the university of Cambridge, they are all in private collections. Of these the most important is the Hengwrt collection, con sisting of the manuscripts collected by Mr Jones of Gelly Lyvdy, between the years 1590 and 1630, and by the antiquary Mr Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt, who died in 1666. The two collectors arranged that their manuscripts should be united on the death of one of them, the survivor to become the possessor of the whole. According to this arrangement they became the property of Mr Vaughan, and hence got the name of the Hengwrt collection. Some years ago Sir Robert Vaughan bequeathed the collection, comprising, we believe, about four hundred volumes, to Mr W. W. E. Wynne of Peniarth, in whose possession it now is. But although Welsh manuscripts are numerous there are very few of any considerable antiquity, the others being comparatively modern compilations, often the work of ignorant scribes, the contents of which seem for the most part to have been in the first instance taken from the old books just spoken of. Of such old books there are, ex clusive of law manuscripts, only five of such antiquity or importance as to deserve special mention here. The first is a copy of the hexametrical paraphrase of the Gospels of Juvencus in the University Library of Cambridge, as old at least as the 9th century. The only W r elsh it con tains are some glosses and two short poems written in Irish characters ; but as the oldest specimens of W r elsh known they are invaluable as a standard wherewith to compare the language of other manuscripts. The second is the Black Book of Carmarthen, a small quarto vellum manuscript of 54 leaves, written in Gothic letters by various hands in the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189). This manuscript originally belonged to the Priory of Black Canons at Carmarthen, and was given by the treasurer of the Church of St David to one of the commissioners appointed by Henry VIII. for the suppressed monasteries, Sir John Price. It is now in the Hengwrt collection at Peniarth. The third is the Book of Taliessin, also in the Hengwrt collection, a small quarto manuscript consisting of 38 leaves of vellum written in Gothic letters through out in one hand, some time in the early part of the 1 4th century. Its history before it came into the possession of Robert Vaughan, the antiquary, is not known. The fourth is the Book of Aneurin, a small quarto manuscript of 19 leaves of vellum, written probably in the ead of the 13th century. It was purchased by the late Sir Thomas Phillips of Middlehill, and may have been formerly in the Hengwrt collection. The fifth is the Red Book of Hergest, so called from Hergest Court, one of the seats of the VaughanSj for whom it was probably compiled. This important manuscript, the chief repository of Welsh litera ture, is a folio volume of 360 leaves of vellum, written in double columns at different times, from the early part of the 14th to the middle of the 15th century, and is now in the library of Jesus College, Oxford. The text of a large number of the poems and other compositions contained in W T elsh manuscripts has been published in a work in three volumes, called the Myvyrian Arcliaiology of Wales. The first volume, containing poems, and the second, chronicles and historical documents of various kinds, were published in 1801 ; and the third, moral, didactic, legal, and miscellaneous pieces, in 1803. This publication is due to the noble patriotism of three men, Owen Jones, a furrier in London, and the son of a Welshman, with whom the idea originated while still a young man, and who devoted no inconsiderable portion of his fortune to its realization ; Edward W r illiams, a stone mason, better known by his assumed name of lolo Mor- ganwg, the chief contributor to the collection ; and William Owen, who afterwards assumed the name of Pughe, the author of the principal dictionary of the Welsh. Had the critical judgment and knowledge of the editors equalled their patriotism, the work would be of great value. Welsh manuscript literature may be classed for our Myvyrian Archaio- ^-^ of