Illustrations of this kind fill volumes. It is not for us here to say how much of the admirable, or the imitable there may be in the method. It was the method of the old Welsh mind; it was the method into which many of the best preachers fell, not because they, perhaps, knew so much of the words of the bards, as because it represented the mind of the race. Take a few of the Welsh proverbs. “He that is intent upon going, will do no good before he departs.” “Every one has his neighbour for a mirror.” “The water is shallowest where it bubbles.” “A lie is the quickest traveller.” “Fame outlives riches.” “He that is unlucky at sea, will be unlucky on land.” “There is always time for meat, and for prayer.” “He mows the meadow with shears.” “Calumny comes from envy.” “Every bird loves its own voice.” “The life of a man is not at the disposal of his enemy.” “He that loves the young, must love their sports.” “Prudence is unmarried without patience.” “He that is the head, should become the bridge.” “Three things come unawares upon a man: sleep, sin, and old age.” But it is not only that this sententious characteristic of the Welsh language makes it a vehicle for the transparent expression of sentiment; even our translations cannot altogether disguise the pathetic tones of the language, and bursts of feeling. The following verse of an old Welsh prayer, which, a _Quarterly Reviewer_ tells us, used to form, with the Creed and Ten Commandments, part of the peasant’s daily devotion, illustrates this:— “Mother, O mother! tell me, art thou weeping?” The infant Saviour asked, on Mary’s breast. “Child of th’ Eternal, nay; I am but sleeping, Though vexed by many a thought of dark unrest.” “Say, at what vision is thy courage failing?” “I see a crown of thorns, and bitter pain; And thee, dread Child, upon the cross of wailing, All heaven aghast, at rude mankind’s disdain.” It is singular that Mr. Borrow found, on an old tombstone, an epitaph, which most of our readers will remember, as very like that famous one Sir Walter Scott gives us, from an old tomb, in a note to “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.” The following is a translation:— “Thou earth, from earth, reflect, with anxious mind, That earth to earth must quickly be consigned; And earth in earth must lie entranced, enthralled, Till earth from earth to judgment shall be called.” The following lines also struck Mr. Borrow as remarkably beautiful, of which he gives us this translation. They are an inscription in a garden:— “In a garden the first of our race was deceived; In a garden the promise of grace was received; In a garden was Jesus betrayed to His doom; In a garden His body was laid in the tomb.” Such verses are very illustrative of the alliterative character of the Welsh mind.