The Romans held Britain from the invasion of Julius Caesar till their voluntary withdrawal from the island, A.D. 420,—­that is, about five hundred years.  In that time there must have been a wide diffusion of their arts and institutions among the natives.  The remains of roads, cities, and fortifications show that they did much to develop and improve the country, while those of their villas and castles prove that many of the settlers possessed wealth and taste for the ornamental arts.  Yet the Roman sway was sustained chiefly by force, and never extended over the entire island.  The northern portion, now Scotland, remained independent, and the western portion, constituting Wales and Cornwall, was only nominally subjected.

Neither did the later invading hordes succeed in subduing the remoter sections of the island.  For ages after the arrival of the Saxons under Hengist and Horsa, A.D. 449, the whole western coast of Britain was possessed by the aboriginal inhabitants, engaged in constant warfare with the invaders.

It has, therefore, been a favorite boast of the people of Wales and Cornwall that the original British stock flourishes in its unmixed purity only among them.  We see this notion flashing out in poetry occasionally, as when Gray, in “The Bard,” prophetically describing Queen Elizabeth, who was of the Tudor, a Welsh race, says: 

    “Her eye proclaims her of the Briton line;”

and, contrasting the princes of the Tudor with those of the Norman race, he exclaims: 

    “All hail, ye genuine kings, Britannia’s issue, hail!”

THE WELSH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

The Welsh language is one of the oldest in Europe.  It possesses poems the origin of which is referred with probability to the sixth century.  The language of some of these is so antiquated that the best scholars differ about the interpretation of many passages; but, generally speaking, the body of poetry which the Welsh possess, from the year 1000 downwards, is intelligible to those who are acquainted with the modern language.

Till within the last half-century these compositions remained buried in the libraries of colleges or of individuals, and so difficult of access that no successful attempt was made to give them to the world.  This reproach was removed after ineffectual appeals to the patriotism of the gentry of Wales, by Owen Jones, a furrier of London, who at his own expense collected and published the chief productions of Welsh literature, under the title of the Myvyrian Archaeology of Wales.  In this task he was assisted by Dr. Owen and other Welsh scholars.

After the cessation of Jones’ exertions the old apathy returned, and continued till within a few years.  Dr. Owen exerted himself to obtain support for the publication of the Mabinogeon or Prose Tales of the Welsh, but died without accomplishing his purpose, which has since been carried into execution by Lady Charlotte Guest.  The legends which fill the remainder of this volume are taken from this work, of which we have already spoken more fully in the introductory chapter to the First Part.