_dd_, _ll_, _ch_, but indeed all these are indications of the softening of the letter; in a word, the impressions entertained of the harshness of the language are altogether erroneous. The supposition that the Welsh language is made up of consonants is more especially singular from the fact that it possesses, says a writer in the _Quarterly Review_, what perhaps no other nation has,—a poem of eight lines in which there is not a single consonant. These verses are very old, dating from the seventeenth century;—of course the reader will remember that the Welsh language has seven vowels, both _w_ and _y_ being considered and sounded as such. This epigram or poem is on the Spider, and originally stood thus,— “O’i wiw ŵy i weu e â;—o’i iau Ei wyau a wea, E wywa ei wê aua, A’i weau yw ieuau ia.” To this, the great Gronwy Owen added a kind of counter change of vowels, and the translation has been given as follows:— “From out its womb it weaves with care Its web beneath the roof; Its wintry web it spreadeth there— Wires of ice its woof. “And doth it weave against the wall Thin ropes of ice on high? And must its little liver all The wondrous stuff supply?” A singular illustration of the vowel power in a language ignorantly supposed to possess no vowels. And these remarks are not at all unnecessary, for they illustrate to the reader, unacquainted with the language, the way in which it becomes such a means of immediate emotion; its words start before the eye like pictures, but are conveyed to the mind like music; and yet the bony character of the language, to which we have referred before, adds to the picture dramatic action and living strength. What a language, then, is this for a competent orator to play upon,—a man with an imaginative mind, and a fervid and fiery soul! Then is brought into play that element of Welsh preaching, without knowing and apprehending which there would be no possibility of understanding the secret of its great power; it is the “_hwyl_.” When the Welsh preacher speaks in his best mood, and with great unction, the highest compliment that can be paid him, the loftiest commendation that can be given, is, that he had the “_hwyl_.” “_Hwyl_” is the Welsh word for the canvas of a ship; and probably the derivation of the meaning is, from the canvas or sails of a ship filled with a breeze: the word for breeze, _awel_, is like it, and is used to denote a similar effect. Some years since, when the most eminent Welsh preacher we have recently seen in England, at an ordination service, was addressing his nephew in a crowded church in the neighbourhood of London, he said, “And, my dear boy, remember you are a Welshman; don’t try to speak English, and don’t try to speak like the English.” A great many of his hearers wondered what the good man could mean; but both he and his nephew, and several others of the initiated, very well knew. He meant,