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agree with each other in what they say of their knowledge of the Irish language *. "It is well known,” says Dr. Parsons, "that the Irish have preserved their letters and orthography entirely the same it ever was, without any change† to this day, in the manuscripts of the most ancient as well as the most modern times. And hence it is, that their written language seems to differ greatly from what they speak; because they soften or abridge the greatest part of it in the course of conversation. This makes the study of their mauuscripts certain." It may be added, that it fixes the annals written in this character with a higher degree of antiquity, than the period at which the Roman character was introduced. The erudite General Vallancey speaking of an ancient Irish manuscript written in the old Irish character, says, "Chance at length threw into my hands a small treatise of astronomy in Irish. It was sent to me for the translation of certain passages by my ingenious and learned friend, the late

cedarium; and not because they stood in any need of letters to write in their own language." Rem. of Japh. 409, and ibid. 405. “The Irish amanuenses wrote out the Latin Gospels in their own characters, of which I have seen several copies, and very finely executed."

Rem. of Japh. p. 255.

+ Herodotus, about 400 years before the birth of Christ, and above 1000 years after the admitted prevalence of the Pelasgian tongue (the Pelasgians were a tribe of the Scythian nomades, or shepherds), seems to attribute the peculiarity of immutability to that, which was no other, than the Scythian language. (Clio, lvii.) "These circumstances induce us to believe, that their language has experie ed no change."

Col. de Reb. Hyb. vol. vi. 317.

Mr. Astle, author of the Origin of Alphabetical Writing, since which time many other fragments have come into my possession. This manuscript had been in the hands of Dr. Parsons, author of the Remains of Japhet, as I found by the following letter between the sheets of the astronomical treatise."

"Red Lion Square, June 6, 1795.

"DEAR SIR,

"I have looked over your curious manuscript with great pleasure, and find it to be very valuable on several accounts: first, for its antiquity, as it was certainly written within the century of the conversion of the people to Christianity; for this is the most pure and ancient character of the Magogian tongue, from which the Greek and every other alphabet of Europe had its rise."

proofs of th

the Irish

Mr. Davies * traces these characters up to a period, Further which naturally accounts for the antiquity of character, antiquity of in which the Irish annals were written. He quotes Mela, character. the Spaniard, as making the Turditani, his countrymen, a branch of the Celtic stock, of whom Strabo said, "these are the wisest of the Iberians. They have letters and written histories of ancient transactions and poems, and laws in verse, as they assert, 6000 years old." Dropping then the hyperbole, it appears, that this people had preserved very ancient letters, which belonged to the Celtic nation, and it has not altogether escaped the notice of the learned, that from

* Celt, Res. p. 212

remote antiquity the Celta possessed letters not very dissimilar from those of the ancient Greeks. * There are those, who think the druids had ancient characters, which were both elegant and similar to those of the Greeks. For, according to the testimony of Xenophon and Archilochus, the figures of those letters, which Cadmus brought out of Phoenicia into Greece resembled Gaulish rather than Punic or Phoenician characters. We cannot, concludes Mr. Davies, accuse either Xenophon or Archilochus of recording absolute nonsense. They must have meant, that the Gauls or Celtæ, from remote antiquity, even before the supposed æra of Cadmus, had possessed letters, that were similar to those which had been ascribed usually to that celebrated personage. Mr. Astle, and the more learned investigators of this matter attribute the invention of letters to the Pelasgians. They comprised the Celto Scythæ, and are generally admitted to have been the descendants of Japhet, who after the dispersion of nations overran Europe, which more anciently was called Celtica. Mr. Astle pronounces the Etruscan alphabet to be Pelasgian, and cites the authority of Herodotus, that a colony of Pelasgians went by sea from Lydia into Italy, under Thyrenus, and he dates this expedition about A. M. 2011, or 1993 before the birth of Christ †.

*Bucher. Frs. p. 183.

+ Herodotus says, that the Pelasgian language was called by the Greeks a barbarous tongue, that was spoken by the Athenians, who had originally descended from them, until, by residing in Greece, they learned the Grecian language. He believed it had experienced no change in his days. Clio. lvii.

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A settled alphabet of this antiquity may well cover Deduction or account for annals committed to writing one thou- proofs. sand years later. We are not staggered at Herodotus' account of the use of letters and ships two thousand years before the christian æra: why then recoil at similar accounts in the annals of a nation, which have been preserved ever since in the identical language, which from those days cannot be proved to have undergone any sensible alteration.

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of the Irish

tile.

It becomes a more important part of our duty to Objections defeat the principle, than to refute the particular theses thenticity of the fastidious Pyrrhonites in the matter of Irish annals, fuantiquity. Their strength rests generally upon mere negation; and where their assertions are positive, they are of that general and indefinite nature, as never to bring the matter in question to a fair issue. Of this description is the assertion, that the accounts of Irish transactions previous to the fifth century of the christian æra, are in great part manifest forgeries fabricated after the introduction of christianity amongst the Irish by monks and other such dreamers. Now after so flippant an assurance, it was to be expected, that the chaff should have been winnowed from the corn; that the forgeries should have been rejected, and the reality and truth admitted. This and all similar admissions, that a great part is fiction, induces the conclusion, that in the whole there is a remnant or relict of what is original and genuine. We agree, that a large portion of the ancient Irish annals is fiction; but we deny it to be the fiction of christian monks, or other such dreamers after the fifth

The story

being freed

century. We contend, that these fictions are the poetical fancies, flights and embellishments of the original phillids, bards, or minstrels, who composed those metrical annals, which have preserved the original facts of history, however concealed, disguised or misrepresented by their poetry. In fact the partial fiction must have been coeval with the genuine recording of that part of the annals, which is not fiction. If then the fiction be brought down to the christian monks, they also must have feigned the remainder of the story, or have received the truth from others, who preceded them. The real difficulty then is to fix upon the persons, who furnished the monks with the genuine records; for if there be any thing genuine and authentic in them, the whole is not the fiction of a monk or a dreamer and our thesis is so far admitted. These pyrrhonites lay the fictions at the doors of the monks or Culdees, (Dei Cultores,) as they affect to call them, of the middle ages. It will then be obviously admitted, that their fictions were calculated to enhance the superstitious credulity of the early christians: and they retained according to modern pyrrhonism much of the heathen doctrines, and gave credit to St. Patrick for all the thaumaturgic powers attributed to him by his monkish biographers.

There prevails at this day a belief amongst the geof Ireland's nerality of the native Irish, that the clearance of the from veno- island from venomous creatures, was owing to the intercession of St. Patrick; whatever therefore might be found in these ancient annals authenticating the fact, would naturally be directed to strengthen their belief

mous creatures.

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