by any who has heard a page of it read, to be extremely uncouth and
disagreeable. The Russian, on the contrary, is soft and musical. And to
recur to a more familiar instance, we shall find the Welsh tongue, on
examination, to be in fact very poetic, and peculiarly capable of giving
force and expression--whether of grandeur, of terror, or of melody--to
the idea the words are intended to convey. Let the reader who understands
the Welsh pronunciation, judge whether the following distich is not an
echo to, and as it were a picture of, the sense of the majestic sound of
thunder:--

"Tân a dwr y'n ymwriaw,
Yw'r taranau dreigiau draw."

The roaring thunder, dreadful in its ire,
Is water warring with aërial fire.


The next specimen will show the capability of the Welsh to express soft
and melodious sounds:--

"Mae mil o leisian meluson,
Mai mêl o hyd ym mola hon."


The mellifluence of these lines, written on a harp, is totally lost in
the translation:--

Within the concave of its womb is found
The magic scale of soul-enchanting sound.