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to the highest pitch of alliterative exactness. This conjecture, however, that the Welsh Bards borrowed any thing from the Poets of any other country, will hardly be allowed me by the British Antiquaries, who, from a laudable partiality, are jealous of the honour of their countrymen[1]; nor is it worth contending for: It is sufficient to observe, that a spirited emulation between the Bards
- ↑ It would be unfair to conceal the objections of the same learned person, especially as it would deprive the Reader of some very curious information concerning the ancient Celtic Poetry. “I can by no means think that our Bards have borrowed their Alliteration from the Scalds of the north: for there are traces of it in some very old pieces of the Druids still extant, which I am persuaded are older than the introduction of Christianity; and were composed long before we had any commerce or intercourse with any of the inhabitants of Scandinavia,
that a line not perfectly alliterative, is condemned as much by our Grammarians as a false quantity by the Greeks and Romans. They had six or seven different kinds of this consonantical harmony, some of which were of a loose nature, and were allowed in poetry, as well as the most strict Alliteration, &c.”
“The most ancient Irish Poems, were also Alliterative according to Mr. Llwyd, of the Musæum; and as he was well versed in all the branches of the Celti now extant, viz. The British, Irish, Armoric, Cornish and Manks, no person was better qualified to judge in this matter.”
