last reprint of the
Bible appeared in 1819, that of the New Testament in 1810 (?). As a
curiosity it may be mentioned that recently _Aesop's Fables_ have been
translated into the vernacular (Douglas, 1901).

AUTHORITIES.--H. Jenner, "The Manx Language: its Grammar, Literature
and Present State," _Transactions of the London Philological Society_
(1875), pp. 172 ff.; _Publications of the Manx Society_, vols. xvi.,
xx., xxi.; L.C. Stern, _Die Kultur d. Gegenwart_, i. xi. 1, pp.
110-11.

Early MSS.

IV. WELSH LITERATURE.--The oldest documents consist of glosses of the
9th and 10th centuries found in four MSS.--Oxoniensis prior and
posterior, the Cambridge Juvencus and Martianus Capella. These glosses
were published by J. Loth in his _Vocabulaire vieux-breton_ (1884), but
their value is entirely philological. In addition, we possess two short
verses, written in Irish characters, preserved in the Juvencus
Manuscript in the University Library at Cambridge (printed in Skene's
_Four Ancient Books of Wales_). This manuscript is a versification of
the Gospels dating from the 9th century. The value of these two verses
is threefold: they give us, in the first place, a specimen of the Welsh
language at a time when the modern laws of euphony were in a
comparatively elementary stage; secondly, they are of the utmost
importance to the historian tracing the development of Welsh
versification, and, in future research, they must be taken into account
by the historian of modern metres in other languages; and, thirdly, the
similarity of their form and diction to other verses, attributed to
Llywarch Hen, and preserved in a much later orthography, will be a
serious consideration to the higher critic in Welsh literature.

"Black Book of Carmarthen."

"Book of Aneirin."

"Book of Taliessin."

"Red Book of Hergest."

All the prose and verse of the succeeding centuries, that is to say from
the 10th to the beginning of the 14th, is preserved in four important
manuscripts, written during the latter half of the period. The first of
these manuscripts is the _Black Book of Carmarthen_, a small quarto
vellum manuscript of fifty leaves, written in Gothic letters by various
hands during the reign of Henry II. (published in facsimile by
Gwenogvryn Evans, Oxford, 1907). This book belonged originally to the
priory of Black Canons at Carmarthen, from whom it passed to the church
of St David; at the suppression of the monast