Every one who travels through the Armorican peninsula experiences a
change of the most abrupt description, as soon as he leaves behind
the district most closely bordering upon the continent, in which the
cheerful but commonplace type of face of Normandy and Maine is
continually in evidence, and passes into the true Brittany, that
which merits its name by language and race. A cold wind arises full
of a vague sadness, and carries the soul to other thoughts; the
tree-tops are bare and twisted; the heath with its monotony of tint
stretches away into the distance; at every step the granite
protrudes from a soil too scanty to cover it; a sea that is almost
always sombre girdles the horizon with eternal moaning. The same
contrast is manifest in the people: to Norman vulgarity, to a plump
and prosperous population, happy to live, full of its own interests,
egoistical as are all these who make a habit of enjoyment, succeeds
a timid and reserved race living altogether within itself, heavy in
appearance but capable of profound feeling, and of an adorable
delicacy in its religious instincts. A like change is apparent, I am
told, in passing from England into Wales, from the Lowlands of
Scotland, English by language and manners, into the Gaelic
Highlands; and too, though with a perceptible difference, when one
buries oneself in the districts of Ireland where the race has
remained pure from all admixture of alien blood. It seems like
entering on the subterranean strata of another world, and one
experiences in some measure the impression given us by Dante, when
he leads us from one circle of his Inferno to another.
Sufficient attention is not given to the peculiarity of this fact of
an ancient race living, until our days and almost under our eyes,
its own life in some obscure islands and peninsulas in the West,
more and more affected, it is true, by external influences, but
still faithful to its own tongue, to its own memories, to its own
customs, and to its own genius. Especially is it forgotten that this
little people, now concentrated on the very confines of the world,
in the midst of rocks and mountains whence its enemies have been
powerless to force it, is in possession of a literature which, in
the Middle Ages, exercised an immense influence, changed the current
of European civilisation, and imposed its poetical motives on nearly
the whole of Christendom. Yet it is only necessary to open the
authentic monuments of the Gaelic genius to be convinced that the
race which created them has had its own original manner of feeling
and thinking, that nowhere has the eternal illusion clad itself in
more seductive hues, and that in the great chorus of humanity no
race equals this for penetrative notes that go to the very heart.
Alas! it too is doomed to disappear, this emerald set in the Western
seas. Arthur will return no more from his isle of faery, and St.
Patrick was right when he said to Ossian, "The heroes that thou
weepest are dead; can they be born again?" It is high time to note,
before they shall have passed away, the divine tones thus expiring
on the horizon before the growing tumult of uniform civilisation.
Were criticism to set itself the task of calling back these distant
echoes, and of giving a voice to races that are no more, would not
that suffice to absolve it from the reproach, unreasonably and too
frequently brought against it, of being only negative?
Good works now exist which facilitate the task of him who undertakes
the study of these interesting literatures. Wales, above all, is
distinguished by scientific and literary activity, not always
accompanied, it is true, by a very rigorous critical spirit, but
deserving the highest praise. There, researches which would bring
honour to the most active centres of learning in Europe are the work
of enthusiastic amateurs. A peasant called Owen Jones published in
1801-7, under the name of the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, the
precious collection which is to this day the arsenal of Cymric
antiquities. A number of erudite and zealous workers, Aneurin Owen,
Thomas Price of Crickhowell, William Rees, and John Jones, following
in the footsteps of the Myvyrian peasant, set themselves to finish
his work, and to profit from the treasures which he had collected. A
woman of distinction, Lady Charlotte Guest, charged herself with the
task of acquainting Europe with the collection of the Mabinogion,
[Footnote: The Mabinogion, from the Llyfr Coch O Hergest and other
ancient Welsh Manuscripts, with an English Translation and Notes. By
Lady Charlotte Guest. London and Llandovery, 1837-49. The word
Mabinogi (in the plural Mabinogion) designates a form of romantic
narrative peculiar to Wales. The origin and primitive meaning of
this word are very uncertain, and Lady Guest's right to apply it to
the whole of the narratives which she has published is open to
doubt.] the pearl of Gaelic literature, the completest expression of
the Cymric genius. This magnificent work, executed in twelve years
with the luxury that the wealthy English amateur knows how to use in
his publications, will one day attest how full of life the
consciousness of the Celtic races remained in the present century.
Only indeed the sincerest patriotism could inspire a woman to
undertake and achieve so vast a literary monument. Scotland and
Ireland have in like measure been enriched by a host of studies of
their ancient history. Lastly, our own Brittany, though all too
rarely studied with the philological and critical rigour now exacted
in works of erudition, has furnished Celtic antiquities with her
share of worthy research. Does it not suffice to cite M. de la
Villemarque, whose name will be henceforth associated among us with
these studies, and whose services are so incontestable, that
criticism need have no fear of depreciating him in the eyes of a
public which has accepted him with so much warmth and sympathy?