Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
of this very report, Mr Symons; neither of whom, we will bet a leek to
a potato, can hold a conversation in Welsh.
One of the main difficulties in the way of education in Wales, if not
the principal difficulty of all, results from the circumstance that
the language of the principality is not that of the rest of the
kingdom. To understand this difficulty fully, it must be remembered
that the Welsh belong to a race of men essentially and altogether
distinct from those that inhabit the lands eastward of Offa's dyke;
that the peculiarities of national character which subsist among them
have been only in a very small part removed by amalgamation of the two
races; and that these differences are so wide, and so deeply seated,
that here, as elsewhere--wherever, indeed, the Celtic and Teutonic
races have been brought into contact,--a struggle and an opposition, a
repulsive tendency, more or less open and active, have ever existed,
and have brought about the subjugation, the inferiority, and, to a
certain degree, the degradation of the former. The Saxons produced few
or no results of importance by their attacks on the Welsh; the hardy
mountaineers generally gave them as much as they brought; and, had
they been doomed to meet with no men of sterner stuff, they would
still have held their own in unbroken integrity. But the energy of the
Normans, their fire and gallantry, animating and directing the slower
impulses of their Teutonic vassals, made the monarch of England at
length the conquering sovereign of Wales; and, from that moment, with
the transient exception of Owen Glyndwr's bright resistance, Wales not
only became the conquered and suffering country, but showed all the
symptoms of it, and brought forth all its fruits. The higher classes
either became replaced by Anglo-Norman nobles, or imitated both their
customs and their language;--many of the largest landed proprietors no
longer resided in the principality; and those who did, held themselves
far above their Celtic vassals in proud and domineering exclusiveness.
The common people--the mass of the nation, including the petty
free-holders and the remains of the conquered native nobles--formed a
national party, ever opposed to their haughty masters; adhered to
their national language with the greater devotion, as it was to them
the only relic of their former independence; retained their ancient
national customs and superstitions; and were content to turn their
backs upon the progress of that nation whose power they could not
throw off, though the desire to do so remained, and is not, even at
the present day, extinguished. The Welsh still call themselves "the
Cymry," and the English "the Saeson." They still look on the English
as foreigners; and this fact alone speaks volumes as to the antagonism
that still subsists between the two races. It is not our intention to
go into any discussion upon the political bearings of this state of
things: we will only observe, that the gentry and clergy of Wales
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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