"'No. 20,'" read he,—"what does that mean?" "The twentieth bottle launched, perhaps," said I, and he went on—"'For Godsake, if you find this, keep to the south-west—we are going that way, we think—we've fallen amongst regular Thugs, I fear—just from the folly of these three—(they're looking over my shoulder, though)—we are not ill-treated yet, but kept below and watched—yours in haste—' What this signature is I can't say for the life of me, Ned; no date either!" "Did the fellow think he was writing by post, I wonder," said I, trying to make it out. "By the powers! Westwood, though," and I jumped up, "that bottle might have come from the Pacific, 'tis true—but what if it were old Rollock after all! Thugs, did you say? Why, I shouldn't wonder if the jolly old planter were on the hooks still. That rascally brig!" And accordingly, on trying the scrawl at the end, over and over, we both agreed it was nothing but T. Rollock!
MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF WALES.[14]
We have before us a valuable and interesting work on a portion of the British dominions much visited but little known, and one which is satisfactory, not only from the good feeling and taste it evinces on the part of its author, but also from its setting at rest a question that was lately much agitated, and to which we at the time adverted in our pages for May 1848. Sir Thomas Phillips has taken up the cudgel, or rather the pen, to defend the honour of his beloved country, and has acquitted himself well of the task, partly in combating real opponents, partly in knocking down men of straw. The book, however, comes so far late of its subject as that the interest felt upon it had been gradually subsiding. No very mighty grievance could be alleged by our hot-blooded Cambrian brethren; many hard words and blustering speeches had been uttered throughout the length and breadth of Wales, and a sort of Celtic agitation had been got up by sundry ladies and gentlemen, not much connected with the country. The nation at large, however, had not paid great attention to it; the British lion did not show any indication to lash his sides into foam with his magnanimous tail; the storm in a tea-cup was left to itself: oil had been floating on the face of the troubled waters; and though a few disappointed persons had tried to revive a little excitement, for the sake of "having their names before the public," peace was again reigning throughout Cambria's vales, and her people were following their own simple occupations, unknowing and unknown. Sir Thomas Phillips, however, with a most patriotic motive, determined to fire one shot more against his country's traducers; and thus, while concocting a final reply to the "Blue Books,"—as they are commonly called in the Principality—found himself led on and on, from page to page, and chapter to chapter, until, instead of a pamphlet, he has produced a thick volume of six hundred pages, and has compiled what may be termed a complete apology for Wales.
Our readers will very likely remember that certain Reports on the state of education in Wales, printed by order of the House of Commons, gave immense offence to all who had got ever so little Welsh blood in their veins. We reviewed these very reports, and gave our opinions on Welsh education at considerable length; and therefore we do not open Sir Thomas Phillips' pages with the intention of reverting to that part of the subject, though the author, in compiling it, seems to have had the education of his countrymen principally in view.
We consider, however, that a work written by a gentleman, known for his forensic abilities and literary pursuits, upon a large portion of this island, and purporting to be a complete account of its moral and social condition, must form a suitable topic for review and discussion. Our readers will not repent our introducing it to their notice: we can at once assure them that it will amply repay the trouble—if it be a trouble at all—of perusing it. The style is graceful and yet nervous; the whole tone and colour of the thoughts of the author show the gentleman; while the general compilation and discussion of the facts collected prove Sir Thomas Phillips to have the mind and the abilities of a statesman.[15] Another, and a more important reason, however, why this work will be acceptable to many of our readers, is that it touches upon various questions which, at times like the present, are of vital importance to the welfare, not of Wales only, but of the British empire; and that it proves the existence of feelings in the Principality—mentioned by us on a previous occasion—which ought to be brought before the notice of the public, and commented upon. This is the task which we reserve for ourselves after reviewing more in detail the work of the learned author; for Wales may become a second Ireland in time, if neglected, or it may continue to be a source of permanent strength to the crown, if properly treated and protected. The existence of such a state of things is hinted at in the preface—an uncommonly good one, by the way, and dated, with thorough Cambrian spirit, on St David's Day, if not from the top of Snowdon, yet from the more prosaic and less mountainous locality of the Inner Temple. The author's words are—
"Amongst the mischievous results which the temper and spirit of the reports have provoked in Wales, I regard with discomfort and anxiety a spirit of isolation from England, to which sectarian agencies, actively working through various channels, have largely ministered. In ordinary times this result might be disregarded; but at a period of the world's history when the process of decomposition is active amongst nations, and phrases which appeal to the sympathies of race become readily mischievous, it behoves those very excellent persons, who claim Wales for the Welsh, to consider whether they are prepared to give up England to the English, and to relinquish the advantages which a poor province enjoys by its union with a rich kingdom. For generations, Welshmen have been admitted to an equal rivalry with Englishmen, as well in England as in those colonial possessions of the British crown, which have offered so wide a field for enterprise, and secured such ample rewards to provident industry; and, whether at the bar or in the senate, or in the more stirring feats of war, they have obtained a fair field, and have won honourable distinction. There are offices in the Principality, the duties of which demand a knowledge of the Welsh language, and for them such knowledge should be made a condition of eligibility, in the same manner as a knowledge of English would be required, under analogous circumstances, in England. In the law these offices will be few, and probably confined to the local judges; as it will not be seriously proposed that, in our assize courts, the pleadings of the advocate, and the address of the judge, shall be delivered in the Welsh language; and even in the courts of quarter-sessions, which are composed of local magistrates most of whom were born and reside in the country, but few of those gentlemen could address a jury in their own tongue. A remedy for the inconvenience occasioned by an ignorant or imperfect acquaintance, on the part of the people, with the language employed in courts of justice, must be looked for in that instruction in the English language which is intended to be provided for all, and which is necessary to qualify men to appear as witnesses, or to serve as jurors, in courts wherein the proceedings are conducted in that tongue. The difficulties arising from language are principally felt in the Church: and it seems a truism to affirm, that where Welsh is the ordinary language of public worship, and the common medium of conversation, the language should be known to those who are to teach and exhort the people, and to withstand and convince gainsayers. The nomination of foreign prelates to English sees before the Reformation, occasioned great dissatisfaction in the minds of the English clergy, and tended to alienate them from the papacy; and yet men who are prompt to recognise that grievance, are insensible to the effect produced on the Welsh clergy, by their general exclusion from the higher offices of the Church. The ignorance of Welsh in men promoted to bishoprics in Wales, may be more than compensated for by the possession of other qualifications; and a rigid exclusion from the episcopal office in the Principality of every man who is unacquainted with the language of the people, might be inconvenient, if not injurious, to the best interests of the Church. The selection, however, for the episcopal office of men conversant with the language of the country, when otherwise qualified to bear rule in the Christian ministry, would give a living reality to the episcopate in the Principality, and might materially aid in bringing back the people into the fold of the Church."
The difference of language is here made the principal grievance between the Saxon and Celtic population; and it is certainly one of the principal, though not the main, nor the only, cause of the unpleasantness and unsettledness of feeling that exists in Wales towards England and English people. Where two languages exist, it is impossible but that national distinctions should exist also; and as the traditions of conquest, and the hereditary consciousness of political inferiority, are some of the last sentiments that abandon a vanquished people, so it is probable that the Welsh will remain a distinct people for more centuries to come than we care to count up. We do not know but that, to a certain extent, it may be a source of strength to England that it should be so, though it will undoubtedly be a cause of weakness and division to Wales. Nevertheless, the difficulty is not so great as may be at first sight supposed. In adverting to this part of the subject, Sir Thomas Phillips observes—
"When Edward the First conquered the country, and subjected the natives to English rule, he was deeply sensible of the difficulty which now paralyses education commissioners, and he dealt with it in a manner characteristic of the monarch and the times. Of him Carlyle would say, he was a real man, and no sham; and did not believe in any distracted jargon of universal rose-water in this world still so full of sin. Accordingly, he gathered all the Welsh bards together, and put them to death; and Hume, a philosophic and ordinarily not a cruel historian, says this policy was not absurd. English legislation, between the conquest of the country by Edward the First and its incorporation with England by Henry the Eighth, was characterised by a deliberate and pertinacious endeavour to extirpate the language and subjugate the spirit of the inhabitants. By laws of the Lancastrian princes, (whose usurpation was long resisted by the Welsh people,) 'rhymers, minstrels, and other Welsh vagabonds,' were forbidden to burden the country; the natives were not permitted to have any house of defence, to bear arms, or to exercise any authority; and an Englishman, by the act of marrying a Welsh woman, became ineligible to hold office in his adopted country. By statutes of Henry the Eighth, it was enacted, that law proceedings should be in the English tongue; that all oaths, affidavits, and verdicts, should be given and made in English; and that no Welsh person, 'who did not use the English speech' should hold office within the King's dominions. Even at the Reformation, which secured the sacred volume to Englishmen 'in their own tongue wherein they were born,' the revelation to man of God's will was not given to Welshmen in a language understood by the people. In 1562, however, provision was made for translating the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into the British or Welsh tongue, by an act which declared that the most and greatest part of the Queen's loving subjects in Wales did not understand the English tongue, and therefore were utterly destitute of God's holy Word, and did remain in the like, or rather more, darkness and ignorance than they were in the time of papistry, and required that not only a Welsh, but also an English, Bible and Book of Common Prayer should be laid in every church throughout Wales, there to remain, that such as understood them might read and peruse the same; and that such as understood them not might, by conferring both tongues together, the sooner attain to the knowledge of the English tongue.
"Nearly six centuries have elapsed since the first Edward crossed the lofty mountains of North Wales, which, before him, no King of England had trodden, and in the citadel of Caernarvon received the submission of the Welsh people; and more than three centuries have passed away since the country was incorporated with, and made part of, the realm of England; and although, for so long a period, English laws have been enforced, and the use of the Welsh language discouraged, yet, when the question is now asked, what progress has been made in introducing the English language? the answer maybe given from Part II. of the Reports of the Education Commissioners, page 68. In Cardiganshire, 3000 people out of 68,766 speak English.[16] The result may be yet more strikingly shown by saying that double the number of persons now speak Welsh who spoke that language in the reign of Elizabeth."
It is a mistaken idea to suppose that the Welsh language is hard to be acquired,—the very reverse of this is the fact,: there is probably no spoken language of Europe, not derived from the Latin, which may be so soon or so agreeably acquired as the Welsh. A good knowledge of it, so as to enable the learner to read and write it currently, may be attained certainly within a year by even a moderately diligent student; and the power of conversing in it with ease and fluency is to be gained within the course of perhaps a couple of years. The language is daily studied more and more by persons not connected with the Principality, and acquired by them; nay, what is a remarkable fact, next to the galaxy of the Williamses,[17] the best Welsh scholar of the present day is Dr Meyer, the learned German librarian at Buckingham Palace; while Dr Thirlwall, the present bishop of St David's, has made himself, with only a few years' study, as good a Welsh scholar as he had long before been a German one. We believe that, if the present system of education be steadily carried out, with its consequent developments, in the Principality, the two languages, English and Welsh, will become equally familiar to those who may be born in the second generation from the present day; and that the inhabitants of Wales, becoming thoroughly bilingual—for we do not anticipate that they will abandon their ancient tongue—this apparent obstacle to a more complete amalgamation of interests between the two races will be entirely removed. One thing is certain, that the aptitude of Welsh children to learn English, of the purest dialectic kind, is very remarkable—and that the desire to acquire English is prevalent amongst all the people.