Note 17 — Basque Poetry.
Reading edition
“I am sorry that the Altabiscarraco cantua, mentioned in your same number, is acknowledged as a gem of ancient popular poetry. Truth compels me to deny that it is universally admitted as such, for one of my Basque neighbours has often named the person who, about twenty four years ago, composed it in French, and the other person, who translated it into modern but indifferent Basque.17 The latter idiom, on purely philological ground, stands peerless among the most ancient languages in Europe, and I have felt it my duty to disclaim unfounded pretensions of which it has no need.—I am, etc.,