This is a very different
matter from the political and social Celtisation of which certain
enthusiasts dream; but it is not to be despised by any one to whom
the Celtic genius is dear; and it is possible, while the other is
not.
I.
To know the Celtic case thoroughly, one must know the Celtic people;
and to know them, one must know that by which a people best express
themselves,--their literature. Few of us have any notion what a mass
of Celtic literature is really yet extant and accessible. One
constantly finds even very accomplished people, who fancy that the
remains of Welsh and Irish literature are as inconsiderable by their
volume, as, in their opinion, they are by their intrinsic merit; that
these remains consist of a few prose stories, in great part borrowed
from the literature of nations more civilised than the Welsh or Irish
nation, and of some unintelligible poetry. As to Welsh literature,
they have heard, perhaps, of the Black Book of Caermarthen, or of the
Red Book of Hergest, and they imagine that one or two famous
manuscript books like these contain the whole matter. They have no
notion that, in real truth, to quote the words of one who is no
friend to the high pretensions of Welsh literature, but their most
formidable impugner, Mr. Nash:- 'The Myvyrian manuscripts alone, now
deposited in the British Museum, amount to 47 volumes of poetry, of
various sizes, containing about 4,700 pieces of poetry, in 16,000
pages, besides about 2,000 englynion or epigrammatic stanzas.
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