THE following remarks on the study of Celtic Literature formed the
substance of four lectures given by me in the chair of poetry at Oxford.
They were first published in the _Cornhill Magazine_, and are now
reprinted from thence. Again and again, in the course of them, I have
marked the very humble scope intended; which is, not to treat any special
branch of scientific Celtic studies (a task for which I am quite
incompetent), but to point out the many directions in which the results
of those studies offer matter of general interest, and to insist on the
benefit we may all derive from knowing the Celt and things Celtic more
thoroughly. It was impossible, however, to avoid touching on certain
points of ethnology and philology, which can be securely handled only by
those who have made these sciences the object of special study. Here the
mere literary critic must owe his whole safety to his tact in choosing
authorities to follow, and whatever he advances must be understood as
advanced with a sense of the insecurity which, after all, attaches to
such a mode of proceeding, and as put forward provisionally, by way of
hypothesis rather than of confident assertion.
To mark clearly to the reader both this provisional character of much
which I advance, and my own sense of it, I have inserted, as a check upon
some of the positions adopted in the text, notes and comments with which
Lord Strangford has kindly furnished me. Lord Strangford is hardly less
distinguished for knowing ethnology and languages so scientifically than
for knowing so much of them; and his interest, even from the
vantage-ground of his scientific knowledge, and after making all due
reserves on points of scientific detail, in my treatment,—with merely the
resources and point of view of a literary critic at my command,—of such a
subject as the study of Celtic Literature, is the most encouraging
assurance I could have received that my attempt is not altogether a vain
one.
Both Lord Strangford and others whose opinion I respect have said that I
am unjust in calling Mr. Nash, the acute and learned author of
_Taliesin_, _or the Bards and Druids of Britain_, a ‘Celt-hater.’ ‘He is
a denouncer,’ says Lord Strangford in a note on this expression, ‘of
Celtic extravagance, that is all; he is an anti-Philocelt, a very
different thing from an anti-Celt, and quite indispensable in scientific
inquiry. As Philoceltism has hitherto,—hitherto, remember,—meant nothing
but uncritical acceptance and irrational admiration of the beloved
object’s sayings and doings, without reference to truth one way or the
other, it is surely in the interest of science to support him in the
main. In tracing the workings of old Celtic leaven in poems which embody
the Celtic soul of all time in a mediæval form, I do not see that you
come into any necessary opposition with him, for your concern is with the
spirit, his with the substance only.’ I entirely agree with almost all
which Lord Strangford here urges, and indeed, so sincere is my respect
for Mr. Nash’s critical discernment and learning, and so unhesitating my
recognition of the usefulness, in many respects, of the work of
demolition performed by him, that in originally designating him as a
Celt-hater, I hastened to add, as the reader will see by referring to the
passage, {0a} words of explanation and apology for so calling him. But I
thought then, and I think still, that Mr. Nash, in pursuing his work of
demolition, too much puts out of sight the positive and constructive
performance for which this work of demolition is to clear the ground. I
thought then, and I think still, that in this Celtic controversy, as in
other controversies, it is most desirable both to believe and to profess
that the work of construction is the fruitful and important work, and
that we are demolishing only to prepare for it. Mr. Nash’s scepticism
seems to me,—in the aspect in which his work, on the whole, shows it,—too
absolute, too stationary, too much without a future; and this tends to
make it, for the non-Celtic part of his readers, less fruitful than it
otherwise would be, and for his Celtic readers, harsh and repellent. I
have therefore suffered my remarks on Mr. Nash still to stand, though
with a little modification; but I hope he will read them by the light of
these explanations, and that he will believe my sense of esteem for his
work to be a thousand times stronger than my sense of difference from it.
To lead towards solid ground, where the Celt may with legitimate
satisfaction point to traces of the gifts and workings of his race, and
where the Englishman may find himself induced to sympathise with that
satisfaction and to feel an interest in it, is the design of all the
considerations urged in the following essay. Kindly taking the will for
the deed, a Welshman and an old acquaintance of mine, Mr. Hugh Owen,
received my remarks with so much cordiality, that he asked me to come to
the Eisteddfod last summer at Chester, and there to read a paper on some
topic of Celtic literature or antiquities. In answer to this flattering
proposal of Mr. Owen’s, I wrote him a letter which appeared at the time
in several newspapers, and of which the following extract preserves all
that is of any importance:—
‘My knowledge of Welsh matters is so utterly insignificant that it would
be impertinence in me, under any circumstances, to talk about those
matters to an assemblage of persons, many of whom have passed their lives
in studying them.
‘Your gathering acquires more interest every year. Let me venture to say
that you have to avoid two dangers in order to work all the good which
your friends could desire. You have to avoid the danger of giving
offence to practical men by retarding the spread of the English language
in the principality. I believe that to preserve and honour the Welsh
language and literature is quite compatible with not thwarting or
delaying for a single hour the introduction, so undeniably useful, of a
knowledge of English among all classes in Wales. You have to avoid,
again, the danger of alienating men of science by a blind partial, and
uncritical treatment of your national antiquities. Mr. Stephens’s
excellent book, _The Literature of the Cymry_, shows how perfectly
Welshmen can avoid this danger if they will.
‘When I see the enthusiasm these Eisteddfods can awaken in your whole
people, and then think of the tastes, the literature, the amusements, of
our own lower and middle class, I am filled with admiration for you. It
is a consoling thought, and one which history allows us to entertain,
that nations disinherited of political success may yet leave their mark
on the world’s progress, and contribute powerfully to the civilisation of
mankind. We in England have come to that point when the continued
advance and greatness of our nation is threatened by one cause, and one
cause above all. Far more than by the helplessness of an aristocracy
whose day is fast coming to an end, far more than by the rawness of a
lower class whose day is only just beginning, we are emperilled by what I
call the “Philistinism” of our middle class. On the side of beauty and
taste, vulgarity; on the side of morals and feeling, coarseness; on the
side of mind and spirit, unintelligence,—this is Philistinism. Now,
then, is the moment for the greater delicacy and spirituality of the
Celtic peoples who are blended with us, if it be but wisely directed, to
make itself prized and honoured. In a certain measure the children of
Taliesin and Ossian have now an opportunity for renewing the famous feat
of the Greeks, and conquering their conquerors. No service England can
render the Celts by giving you a share in her many good qualities, can
surpass that which the Celts can at this moment render England, by
communicating to us some of theirs.’
Now certainly, in that letter, written to a Welshman and on the occasion
of a Welsh festival, I enlarged on the merits of the Celtic spirit and of
its works, rather than on their demerits. It would have been offensive
and inhuman to do otherwise. When an acquaintance asks you to write his
father’s epitaph, you do not generally seize that opportunity for saying
that his father was blind of one eye, and had an unfortunate habit of not
paying his tradesmen’s bills. But the weak side of Celtism and of its
Celtic glorifiers, the danger against which they have to guard, is
clearly indicated in that letter; and in the remarks reprinted in this
volume,—remarks which were the original cause of Mr. Owen’s writing to
me, and must have been fully present to his mind when he read my
letter,—the shortcomings both of the Celtic race, and of the Celtic
students of its literature and antiquities, are unreservedly marked, and,
so far as is necessary, blamed. {0b} It was, indeed, not my purpose to
make blame the chief part of what I said; for the Celts, like other
people, are to be meliorated rather by developing their gifts than by
chastising their defects. The wise man, says Spinoza admirably, ‘_de
humana impotentia non nisi parce loqui curabit_, _at largiter de humana
virtute seupotentia_.’ But so far as condemnation of Celtic failure was
needful towards preparing the way for the growth of Celtic virtue, I used
condemnation.
The _Times_, however, prefers a shorter and sharper method of dealing
with the Celts, and in a couple of leading articles, having the Chester
Eisteddfod and my letter to Mr. Hugh Owen for their text, it developed
with great frankness, and in its usual forcible style, its own views for
the amelioration of Wales and its people. _Cease to do evil_, _learn to
do good_, was the upshot of its exhortations to the Welsh; by _evil_, the
_Times_ understanding all things Celtic, and by _good_, all things
English. ‘The Welsh language is the curse of Wales. Its prevalence, and
the ignorance of English have excluded, and even now exclude the Welsh
people from the civilisation of their English neighbours. An Eisteddfod
is one of the most mischievous and selfish pieces of sentimentalism which
could possibly be perpetrated. It is simply a foolish interference with
the natural progress of civilisation and prosperity. If it is desirable
that the Welsh should talk English, it is monstrous folly to encourage
them in a loving fondness for their old language. Not only the energy
and power, but the intelligence and music of Europe have come mainly from
Teutonic sources, and this glorification of everything Celtic, if it were
not pedantry, would be sheer ignorance. The sooner all Welsh
specialities disappear from the face of the earth the better.’
And I need hardly say, that I myself, as so often happens to me at the
hands of my own countrymen, was cruelly judged by the _Times_, and most
severely treated. What I said to Mr. Owen about the spread of the
English language in Wales being quite compatible with preserving and
honouring the Welsh language and literature, was tersely set down as
‘arrant nonsense,’ and I was characterised as ‘a sentimentalist who talks
nonsense about the children of Taliesin and Ossian, and whose dainty
taste requires something more flimsy than the strong sense and sturdy
morality of his fellow Englishmen.’
As I said before, I am unhappily inured to having these harsh
interpretations put by my fellow Englishmen upon what I write, and I no
longer cry out about it. And then, too, I have made a study of the
Corinthian or leading article style, and know its exigencies, and that
they are no more to be quarrelled with than the law of gravitation. So,
for my part, when I read these asperities of the _Times_, my mind did not
dwell very much on my own concern in them; but what I said to myself, as
I put the newspaper down, was this: ‘_Behold England’s difficulty in
governing Ireland_!’
I pass by the dauntless assumption that the agricultural peasant whom we
in England, without Eisteddfods, succeed in developing, is so much finer
a product of civilisation than the Welsh peasant, retarded by these
‘pieces of sentimentalism.’ I will be content to suppose that our
‘strong sense and sturdy morality’ are as admirable and as universal as
the _Times_ pleases. But even supposing this, I will ask did any one
ever hear of strong sense and sturdy morality being thrust down other
people’s throats in this fashion? Might not these divine English gifts,
and the English language in which they are preached, have a better chance
of making their way among the poor Celtic heathen, if the English apostle
delivered his message a little more agreeably? There is nothing like
love and admiration for bringing people to a likeness with what they love
and admire; but the Englishman seems never to dream of employing these
influences upon a race he wants to fuse with himself. He employs simply
material interests for his work of fusion; and, beyond these, nothing
except scorn and rebuke. Accordingly there is no vital union between him
and the races he has annexed; and while France can truly boast of her
‘magnificent unity,’ a unity of spirit no less than of name between all
the people who compose her, in England the Englishman proper is in union
of spirit with no one except other Englishmen proper like himself. His
Welsh and Irish fellow-citizens are hardly more amalgamated with him now
than they were when Wales and Ireland were first conquered, and the true
unity of even these small islands has yet to be achieved. When these
papers of mine on the Celtic genius and literature first appeared in the
_Cornhill Magazine_, they brought me, as was natural, many communications
from Welshmen and Irishmen having an interest in the subject; and one
could not but be painfully struck, in reading these communications, to
see how profound a feeling of aversion and severance from the English
they in general manifested. Who can be surprised at it, when he observes
the strain of the _Times_ in the articles just quoted, and remembers that
this is the characteristic strain of the Englishman in commenting on
whatsoever is not himself? And then, with our boundless faith in
machinery, we English expect the Welshman as a matter of course to grow
attached to us, because we invite him to do business with us, and let him
hold any number of public meetings and publish all the newspapers he
likes! When shall we learn, that what attaches people to us is the
spirit we are of, and not the machinery we employ?
Last year there was a project of holding a Breton Eisteddfod at Quimper
in Brittany, and the French Home Secretary, whether wishing to protect
the magnificent unity of France from inroads of Bretonism, or fearing
lest the design should be used in furtherance of Legitimist intrigues, or
from whatever motive, issued an order which prohibited the meeting. If
Mr. Walpole had issued an order prohibiting the Chester Eisteddfod, all
the Englishmen from Cornwall to John o’ Groat’s House would have rushed
to the rescue; and our strong sense and sturdy morality would never have
stopped gnashing their teeth and rending their garments till the
prohibition was rescinded. What a pity our strong sense and sturdy
morality fail to perceive that words like those of the _Times_ create a
far keener sense of estrangement and dislike than acts like those of the
French Minister! Acts like those of the French Minister are attributed
to reasons of State, and the Government is held blameable for them, not
the French people. Articles like those of the _Times_ are attributed to
the want of sympathy and of sweetness of disposition in the English
nature, and the whole English people gets the blame of them. And
deservedly; for from some such ground of want of sympathy and sweetness
in the English nature, do articles like those of the _Times_ come, and to
some such ground do they make appeal. The sympathetic and social virtues
of the French nature, on the other hand, actually repair the breaches
made by oppressive deeds of the Government, and create, among populations
joined with France as the Welsh and Irish are joined with England, a
sense of liking and attachment towards the French people. The French
Government may discourage the German language in Alsace and prohibit
Eisteddfods in Brittany; but the _Journal des Débats_ never treats German
music and poetry as mischievous lumber, nor tells the Bretons that the
sooner all Breton specialities disappear from the face of the earth the
better. Accordingly, the Bretons and Alsatians have come to feel
themselves a part of France, and to feel pride in bearing the French
name; while the Welsh and Irish obstinately refuse to amalgamate with us,
and will not admire the Englishman as he admires himself, however much
the _Times_ may scold them and rate them, and assure them there is nobody
on earth so admirable.
And at what a moment does it assure them of this, good heavens! At a
moment when the ice is breaking up in England, and we are all beginning
at last to see how much real confusion and insufficiency it covered;
when, whatever may be the merits,—and they are great,—of the Englishman
and of his strong sense and sturdy morality, it is growing more and more
evident that, if he is to endure and advance, he must transform himself,
must add something to his strong sense and sturdy morality, or at least
must give to these excellent gifts of his a new development. My friend
Mr. Goldwin Smith says, in his eloquent way, that England is the
favourite of Heaven. Far be it from me to say that England is not the
favourite of Heaven; but at this moment she reminds me more of what the
prophet Isaiah calls, ‘a bull in a net.’ She has satisfied herself in
all departments with clap-trap and routine so long, and she is now so
astounded at finding they will not serve her turn any longer! And this
is the moment, when Englishism pure and simple, which with all its fine
qualities managed always to make itself singularly unattractive, is
losing that imperturbable faith in its untransformed self which at any
rate made it imposing,—this is the moment when our great organ tells the
Celts that everything of theirs not English is ‘simply a foolish
interference with the natural progress of civilisation and prosperity;’
and poor Talhaiarn, venturing to remonstrate, is commanded ‘to drop his
outlandish title, and to refuse even to talk Welsh in Wales!’
But let us leave the dead to bury their dead, and let us who are alive go
on unto perfection. Let the Celtic members of this empire consider that
they too have to transform themselves; and though the summons to
transform themselves he often conveyed harshly and brutally, and with the
cry to root up their wheat as well as their tares, yet that is no reason
why the summons should not be followed so far as their tares are
concerned. Let them consider that they are inextricably bound up with
us, and that, if the suggestions in the following pages have any truth,
we English, alien and uncongenial to our Celtic partners as we may have
hitherto shown ourselves, have notwithstanding, beyond perhaps any other
nation, a thousand latent springs of possible sympathy with them. Let
them consider that new ideas and forces are stirring in England, that day
by day these new ideas and forces gain in power, and that almost every
one of them is the friend of the Celt and not his enemy. And, whether
our Celtic partners will consider this or no, at any rate let us
ourselves, all of us who are proud of being the ministers of these new
ideas, work incessantly to procure for them a wider and more fruitful
application; and to remove the main ground of the Celt’s alienation from
the Englishman, by substituting, in place of that type of Englishman with
whom alone the Celt has too long been familiar, a new type, more
intelligent, more gracious, and more humane.