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and felt that confusion had prevailed in the Welsh language ever since.
It suggested inquiring whether the word
Welsher as applied, I am told, on the
English race-course to any swindler, grew out of this early bewilderment in the use of words . . .
I learned on inquiry that the medical profession at least if not the clerical suffers through this confusion of tongues.
The only physician in Bettwsycoed, a spot known by the irreverent as
Betsy Coit, told us that the only
Welsh sentence which he had yet mastered was the phrase ordering a patient to put the tongue out, which he rightly thought essential to his practice.
Having employed this with success on an elderly peasant woman, it occurred to him too late that he had not yet learned in
Welsh the request that should have followed—to put it in again —so that it is not quite clear whether the good woman is not still standing with that useful member protruded.
This was a confusion of tongues indeed; and since the tongue is clearly the banner of health it may be the very disaster which
Gray's bard predicted.
Such are the anxieties of the wanderer; and when I think how many opportunities I have missed of attending a prescribed worship in
Dublin, N. H., I feel that I may have erred in wandering too far and must next year confine my sober wishes to
Dublin.
Ever faithfully, in any one dialect,
Your
Warden.
