To such as would view critically the historical use of these half-fabulous names and would hesitate to accept as authentic, poems that have come down to us through so long a series of ages, we reply that the objections raised to the antiquity of the bardic literature—­ objections of which W. Schlegel made himself the interpreter in opposition to M. Fauriel—­have completely disappeared under the investigations of an enlightened and impartial criticism. [Footnote:  This evidently does not apply to the language of the poems in question.  It is well known that mediaeval scribes, alien as they were to all ideas of archaeology, modernised the texts, in measure as they copied them; and that a manuscript in the vulgar tongue, as a rule, only attests the language of him who transcribed it.] By a rare exception sceptical opinion has for once been found in the wrong.  The sixth century is in fact for the Breton peoples a perfectly historical century.  We touch this epoch of their history as closely and with as much certainty as Greek or Roman antiquity.  It is indeed known that, up to a somewhat late period, the bards continued to compose pieces under the names—­which had become popular—­of Aneurin, Taliessin, and Liwarc’h Hen; but no confusion can be made between these insipid rhetorical exercises and the really ancient fragments which bear the names of the poets cited—­ fragments full of personal traits, local circumstances, and individual passions and feelings.

Such is the literature of which M. de la Villemarque has attempted to unite the most ancient and authentic monuments in his “Breton Bards of the Sixth Century.”  Wales has recognised the service that our learned compatriot has thus rendered to Celtic studies.  We confess, however, to much preferring to the “Bards” the “Popular Songs of Brittany.”  It is in the latter that M. de la Villemarque has best served Celtic studies, by revealing to us a delightful literature, in which, more clearly than anywhere else, are apparent these features of gentleness, fidelity, resignation, and timid reserve which form the character of the Breton peoples. [Footnote:  This interesting collection ought not, however, to be accepted unreservedly; and the absolute confidence with which it has been quoted is not without its inconveniences.  We believe that when M. de la Villemarque comments on the fragments which, to his eternal honour, he has been the first to bring to light, his criticism is far from being proof against all reproach, and that several of the historical allusions which he considers that he finds in them are hypotheses more ingenious than solid.  The past is too great, and has come down to us in too fragmentary a manner, for such coincidences to be probable.  Popular celebrities are rarely those of history, and when the rumours of distant centuries come to us by two channels, one popular, the other historical, it is a rare thing for these two forms of tradition to be fully in accord with one another.