Welshman

“ As for the talk, the bridge over the Dee is the place to hear Welsh. That favourite lounging-place becomes on market-days as noisy as a parrot-house with the excited talk of Welshmen black-haired and Welshmen red. Who can shout like a Welshman, and who but a Taffy or Frenchman works himself up into such gesticulating rages on such trivial occasions? Feather-headed pride, conceit, insincerity, treachery, fickle enthusiasms, religiosity, falsehood, and superstition, have always characterised the Welsh in the pages of history ”

“ There is an old jest that, in the pride of antiquity, a Welshman generally traces back his lineage not only as far as Adam, but a great deal further. Nothing was easier, before the age of historical criticism, than for men or nations, whose real origin was lost in obscurity, to link their names to an illustrious past. Nothing was easier than to develope the obscurity itself into a long line of remote ancestors, whose names and virtues could be invented and multiplied at pleasure. ”

“ As a Welshman, familiar with the condition of his own country, he solemnly warned the authorities against provoking a man who, though of only moderate estate, was so powerful and so popular among his own people. ”

“ Let every Welshman, while he maintains intact and undiminished the real honour of his country, join with his Saxon neighbour, imitating his good qualities, correcting his evil ones by his own good example; and let their children, mingling in blood, obliterate the national distinctions that now are mischievously sought to be revived;—so shall the union of Wales with England remain unrepealed, and the common honour of the two countries, distinct yet conjoined, be promoted by their common weal. ”

“ He loves a Welshman extremely for his diet and orthography; that is, for plurality of consonants, and cheese. Like a horse, he is only guided by the mouth; when he's drunk you may thrust your hand into him like an eel's-skin, and strip him, his inside outwards. He hoards up fair gold, and pretends 'tis to seethe in his wife's broth for consumption ”

“ They all seem to dwell morbidly on death and its surroundings, ignoring the lighter and happier side of life altogether. And any one who did not know Wales might imagine from reading these tales that the Welsh were a sullen and silent people, given to solitude and brooding. Nothing could be further from the truth; they are a lively and gregarious race and never seem to cease talking amongst themselves. Nobody is fonder of junketing than a Welshman or Welshwoman, nothing in the way of an outing comes amiss ”

“ Of course this excited a curiosity so vast that it almost belittled the main matter—but the Welshman allowed it to eat into the vitals of his visitors, and through them be transmitted to the whole town, for he refused to part with his secret. ”

“ But to my mind there was nothing visible in these hills and valleys, and their sloping towards the sea, which could make a true Welshman doubt the priority of Welshland. For with us the sun is better, and the air moves less in creases, and the sea has more of rapid gaiety in breaking. ”

“ One would conclude, that as a Welshman is almost proverbially distinguished for deeming himself illustriously descended, and relating his long pedigree, he would naturally boast of, and exhibit to the public, some account of these vestiges of his ancestors ”

“ A Welshman has a profound faith in his country and himself, especially as regards oratory. There are no such preachers as those of Wales, and I was quite amused when I first lived in Cardiff with the way in which a Welshman, who lodged in the house where I had taken up my abode, descanted on the gifts of Welshmen in London of whom I had never heard, and I felt quite ashamed of my ignorance as he rolled forth one Welsh name after another, and had to admit my ignorance of the eminent men whose names he had at his fingers’ ends. Why, there were no such clever men anywhere, according to his p. ”

“ In his far-away home he seemed to me to retain his love for Wales and the sense of the superiority of the Welshman to any one on the face of the earth. The Doctor is an ardent Gladstonite—and people of that way of thinking are not quite as numerous in the Colonies as they are at home.
Another Welshman who made his mark in London was the Rev. Dr. Thomas, a Congregational minister at Stockwell, a fine-looking young man when I first knew him as a minister at Chesham. He developed the faculty of his countrymen for lofty ideas and aims to an extent that ended in disastrous failure. ”

“ The broad-headed dark Welshman is identical with the broad-headed dark Frenchman, and the Welsh people may be defined ethnologically as principally Celtic and Iberian, every intermediate variety between the two extremes being represented. ”

“ Surely the Reason why they do so much affect the Circumference of their Country, and abominate the Centre, is, because they are asham’d of the Dominion; and indeed, [39] ’tis a Sign they have but a little Kindness for their Nation, who (like unnatural Sons) run from their Mother their Country, and when out of her Embraces, never return again. A Welshman, when once abroad, hath no more Tendency Home, than a Stone an Inclination to fall upward: He will trot o’er the Globe, and rather endure the Affliction of any Exile, than the cruel Punishment of being banish’d Home ”

“ The Welsh character is the echo of natural feeling, and acts from instantaneous motives. The fine arts are strangers to the principality; and the Welshman seldom professes the buskin, or the use of the mallet, the graver, or the chisel ”

“ Once when he had been sold up and had little more than a wife and a walking-stick in the world, and his position attracted some trifling compliments and condolences from his old harriers, he stood up, and, wielding his stick and motioning to his wife to be silent, gave an inventory of the things he had lost with such decoration as would have abashed an auctioneer. There is a Welsh proverb, "A Welshman keeps nothing until he has lost it" ”

“ This releases the captive beau, and displays a strong instance of female affection; which, being once planted in the bosom, is rarely eradicated by the coldest neglect, or harshest cruelty.
The high-born, haughty Welshman, with an enormous leek, and a countenance keen and lofty as his native mountains, establishes the chronology, and fixes the day to be the first of March; which being sacred to the titular saint of Wales, was observed at court.
Mr. Nichols remarks of this plate:—"In the early impressions, a shoe-black steals the Rake's cane. ”

“ Some relate to church matters, such as the baptism of children, the payment of church-scot, and the jurisdiction of bishops. A special interest attaches to those which concern the Welsh within the West-Saxon kingdom, for they illustrate the change in the treatment of the conquered people consequent upon the acceptance of Christianity by their conquerors. Under Ine English and Welsh lived peacefully side by side, and his laws recognise the right of the Welshman to hold property, and declare the weight to be given to his oath and the legal value of his life. ”

“ He regularly attends the services of his hideous Calvinist-Methodist Chapel, and is as completely, religiously and politically, under the thumb of the Boanerges who ministers within as is the Irish peasant beneath the sway of the Romish priest. The Welshman clings fanatically to his nationality and his language, and is saturated with matter-of-fact Radicalism; but although he does not believe in the fairies, is careful not to speak ill of the little people, lest evil come of it ”

“ He was careful to keep alive the same feeling in another part of the British dominions; and the young prince appears to have been regarded with great affection by the Welsh; for when once the prince asked a gentleman at what mark he should shoot, the courtier pointed with levity at a Welshman who was present. ”

“ The Welsh pride themselves on hanging on. They are a nation that has never been whipped. Every people has its characteristics. “You can't beat the Irish” is one slogan, “You can't kill a Swede” is another, and “You can't crowd out a Welshman” is a motto among the mill people.
I didn't want to leave Wales when my parents were emigrating. Though I was not quite eight years old I decided I would let them go without me. The last act of my mother was to reach under the bed, take hold of my heels and drag me out of the house feet first. ”

“ As for all those things of which a Welshman hath, without the lawful judgment of his peers, been disseised or deprived of by King Henry our father, or our brother King Richard, and which we either have in our hands or others are possessed of, and we are obliged to warrant it, we shall have a respite till the time generally allowed the crusaders ”

“ In a flood, although the torrent sometimes reduces the number of inhabitants, the catch of salmon is greater, and the villagers face the delicate task of balancing an all-wise but unscrupulous Providence.
The way to a Welshman’s heart, nevertheless, is not through his stomach; the Welsh think but little of what they eat. Before English tourists came to the village the inns of the place, Ty Ucha—now the Saracen’s Head—and Ty Isaf, provided a bill of fare consisting of oat and barley bread, ale, porter, and eggs. ”

“ There is such a striking resemblance between the ancient Cymric laws, as compiled by Dyfnval Moelmud, and the Institutes of Menu, that many of the most able Oriental and Welsh scholars have concluded that another branch of the Cymric race must have gone eastward from the Caucasus and penetrated into India. Sir William Jones, a son of a Welshman, translated these Institutes of Menu, [Pg 16] or Brahminic Laws, and says, "The name 'Menu' is clearly derived from menses, mens, or mind, as all the Pandits agree that it means intelligent." Menw in Welsh means the seat of intelligence. ”

“ The sensitive, impressionable poetical Welshman is a thousand years nearer to his past than his fellow-subject of King Edward across Offa's Dyke. In broad daylight, nay, by gas-and-candle-light, the man is as we, and in one or two of the arts is more than we ”

“ Many is the book I read, especially in my native language, for I was always fond of my native language, and proud of being a Welshman. Amongst the books I read were the odes of the great Ab Gwilym, whom thou, friend, hast never heard of; no, nor any of thy countrymen, for you are an ignorant race, you Saxons, at least with respect to all that relates to Wales and Welshmen. I likewise read the book of Master Ellis Wyn. The latter work possessed a singular fascination for me, on account of its wonderful delineations of the torments of the nether world.
‘But man does not love to be alone ”

“ The Welshman came in for a share of the satirist’s wit at the commencement of the Civil War. He generally figures under the name of ‘Ap Shinkin,’ and is made to speak English much the same as the Scottish Highlander does in Scott’s novels. ‘The Welsh mans Postures, or the true manner how her doe exercise her company of Souldiers in her own Country in a warlike manners,’ is a satire of a very broad character, and is illustrated with a woodcut representing men exercising with the pike. ”

“ He cannot conceal his sympathy with the imperishable determination of his countrymen to keep alive the language which is their differentia among the nations of the world. It is manifest in the story which he relates at the end of his “Description of Wales.” Henry II. asked an old Welshman of Pencader in Carmarthenshire if the Welsh could resist his might. “This nation, O King,” was the reply, “may often be weakened and in great part destroyed by the power of yourself and of p. ixothers, but many a time, as it deserves, it will rise triumphant. ”

“ The free tribesmen.
If the professed triads of Dyvnwal Moelmud may be taken to represent, as they claim to do, the condition of things in earlier centuries, the essential to membership in the cenedl, or tribe, was birth within it of Welsh parents.
Free-born Welshmen were 'tied' together in a 'social state' by the three ties of—
(1) Common defence (cyvnawdd) . (2) Common tillage (cyvar) . (3) Common law (chyvraith) .223
Every free Welshman was entitled to three things:—
(1) Five free erws (or acre strips) . (2) Co-tillage of the waste (cyvar gobaith) . ”

“ There are many exceptions like the squire, but we are sorry to add that in Wales we have more illiberal Englishmen, who sneer at all Welsh customs, because they are Welsh, than people would dream of. They forget that our usages are as dear to us, as theirs to them, and that however peculiar they may be in the eyes of an Englishman, the Welshman considers them p. ”

“ It is because Welsh cherish their traditions, harps, music, language and noble inheritances, with which they feed their souls, that they lead the four nations of the British Isles in the nobler virtues, that keep a nation alive, as well as in the sweet humanities of the Red Cross and in generous hospitality to the refugee Belgian. True to his motto, "I serve," the Prince of Wales who came to see us in 1919—as did his grandfather, whom the story-teller saw when he visited our Independence Hall in 1860—loved to be the servant of his people. ”

“ Many of the Welsh gentlemen lived peacefully by honest industry; others, especially along the Border, preferred the character of Highland chieftains, and from their mountain fastnesses levied black rent on the English counties. Surrounded with the sentiment of pseudo-heroism, they revelled in the conceit of imaginary freedom; and with their bards and pedigrees, and traditions of Glendower and Prince Llewellyn, they disguised from themselves and others the plain prose truth, that they were but thieves and rogues. ”