101 



many words from the barbarians.* When it thus appears that letters 

 were known to the northern Celts before the Romans invaded their 

 territories, we think we might make a rest, and ask by what probabi- 

 lity, may we say possibility, could Ireland be exempt from this literary 

 dispensation ? Do the proofs advanced of the Swedes — of the Danes — 

 of the Gauls, having letters, inscriptions, and characters, leave a doubt 

 that the Irish had them too ? Is the proposition less problematic, 

 when Camden, that great antiquarian, (and who never flattered Ire- 

 land,) records his opinion, that the Saxons borrowed their alphabet 

 from Ireland?"'!' And last of all, when Spencer, another powerful, as 

 also a reluctant evidence, enforces the absurdity of doubting the most 

 ancient existence of letters in Ireland ? " Where you say the Irish have 

 always been without letters, you are therein much deceived ; for it is 

 certain that Ireland hath had the use of letters very auntiently and 

 long before England, • * * * ^u^ whether they at their first 

 coming into the land, or afterwards by trading with other nations 

 which had letters, learned them of them, or devised them amongst 

 themselves, is very doubtful ; but that they had letters auntiently is 

 nothing doubtful, for the Saxons of England are said to have their 

 letters and learning and learned men from the Irish, and that also 

 appeareth by the likeness of the character, for the Saxon character is 

 the same with the Irish, Now the Scythians never, as I can read of 

 old, had letters amongst them, therefore it seemeth that they had 

 them from the nation which came out of Spain, for in Spain there was 

 (as Strabo writeth) letters aunciently used, whether brought unto 



E»yo« y«j »T( ■x-oXXx 01 EAA)i»s; tyofiara, ecXXaf rs ti virt toi« S«jC«{o({ eixouvTi? lea^at 

 T«f Zx^Zx^tii tiXrt<p»rt." — Plato, edit. Stephani, vol. 1. p. 409. 



f " Indeque prisci Angli majores nostri rationem formandi literas accepisse videantur, 

 quum eadem plane characlere usi fuerint, qui bodie Hiberaicis est in usu." — Camden, Hib. 

 edit. 1607, p. 730. 



