THIS WORK IS, BY PERMISSION, INSCRIBED TO HIS EXCELLENCY SIR HENRY BARKLY, K.C.B., THE REPRESENTATIVE OF HER PRYDAINIG MAJESTY, AND GOVERNOR OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA, BY HIS HUMBLE AND OBLIGED SERVANT, JOHN JONES THOMAS. 24 REGENT STREET, VICTORIA PARADE, MY DEAR CARaddaeg, MELBOURNE, MARCH, 1860. Many of your friends, who attended the banquet held at the Prince of Wales Hotel, in celebration of the Anniversary of Sant Ddewi, or St. David's Day, (1st March, 1860), have expressed a wish that you should publish your interesting essays on the Language and Early History of the Cimmerians. I think the publication of a work upon the many curious and imperfectly understood subjects treated of in the papers, portions of which you read on the above-named and subsequent occasions, would be welcomed especially by your countrymen, and, I may add, by the public generally. It is believed, from the ability evinced therein, that, were you to apply your linqual talent and classical learning to the task of analysing those questions thoroughly, we should have access to more reliable data than are at present available, and a clearer light may be thrown upon the philological, ethnological, as well as the political history of the Cimmerians, and of their descendants, the Cymry or Ancient Britous, the primitive and heroic inhabitants of Ynys Prydain, or the Hyperborcan Isles of the West. There are many reasons which should induce you to attempt to strike out a new path through this terra incognita of history, and, as yet, comparatively unexplored field of Cimbric literature. It is the bounden duty of some one who claims kindred with the Cymry to grapple earnestly and manfully with the subject, and who is not only conversant with the Cimmerian, but having, also, an acquaintance with the idiomatic structure of the other learned languages of antiquity. There is honor and fame in store for him who can succeed in unravelling the symbolical meaning of the Coelbrennic or Bardic alphabet-which may be instrumental in the elucidation of phi losophical Druidism, the fervid poetry of Taliesin and the rest of the old Cimbro-Celtic Bards, together with the laws and fragmentary history of the Cymry-a peopic, notwithstanding the affected superiority of the plagiaristic Saxon, to whom the British Empire (with the Continent of Europe) is so much indebted, in polities, in arts, in arms, and industry, for its world-wide greatness and prosperity. You have now an opportunity, if you will embrace it, of unmasking the fashionable cant which has been so long indulged in by the historic libellers of the Cimmerians and Cymry ;-you may thereby vindicate the historic character of your forefathers, be doing honor to yourself; and, what is of far higher importance, be rendering great service to science and truth. In conclusion, I trust sufficient reasons present themselves to your mind to induce you to at once prepare the work for the press, and, of course, to extend the work beyond the original design as your judgment and taste may dictate; but, on behalf of myself and friends, including the members of the Cymmrodorion Society, I desire it to be distinctly understood that, for the particular opinions which you may express about men and systems, you must hold yourself alone responsible. Thanks for your letter. I gladly undertake the task, though conscious of the many difficulties that beset my path. Yours very sincerely, JOHN JONES THOMAS. J. B. HUMFFRAY, Esq., M. L. A., Regent Street, Fitzroy. |