373 



and dynasties; the facts so simply detailed are, where capable of 

 foreign illustration, authenticated by writers to whom the Irish 

 annalists could by no possibility have had access ; and withal, the 

 characters of the personages that figure in these memoirs, exhibit an 

 individual consistence that could only be grounded in truth, and a 

 respective diversity that could have originated but in human nature. 



Some of these evidences it is true fail to impress a full conviction 

 on those, who are unacquainted with the Irish language, but, while 

 enough remains to shake the most sceptical, it may be allowed to re- 

 gret the prejudice that has hitherto limited the communication in that 

 tongue to grades, that, ignorant of its pristine beauty and value, have 

 deformed and debased it with all the consequences of vulgar currency. 

 Yet, perhaps, but one other language, of all that emanated from the 

 plains of Shinar, has more powerful claims on the attention by its 

 structure, its antiquity, and its associations. Hebrew speaks to the 

 soul, it is linked with all the evidences of a Christian's faith ; it is 

 associated with the land of the most holy, it was the language of 

 God's chosen people, that in which the divinity deigned to communi- 

 nicate with man. With such attributes it stands paramount to all the 

 varieties of human philology, and it almost sounds blasphemy to 

 bring any other tongue in juxtaposition with it ; Stanihurst, however, 

 has hazarded the responsibility.* 



Doctor Beauford says, " the Irish language, notwithstanding the 

 several alterations which it must have undergone by time and other 

 circumstances, is with the Erse and Welsh the only genuine remains 

 at this day, of that universal tongue spoken by all the aboriginal inha- 



* " Gravissimorum hominum auctoritas fidem mihi jamdudum facit, earn (Hibernicam 

 linguam) verborum granditate, dietionum concinnitate atque dicacitate redundare, denique 

 cum Hebraica lingud communi conglutination is vinculo contineri." — Stanihurst de Reb. Hib- 

 p. 29. 



