374 > 



bitants of Europe, and from which proceeded not only the Greek and 

 Roman languages, but the foundation of the modern Italian, Swiss, 

 French, and Spanish, with much of the Dutch and German ; and 

 though at this time little understood or spoken except by the natives, 

 and even by them in a very corrupt manner, appears to have been 

 when in its utmost purity, a bold and masculine language, not consist- 

 ing of a number of words, but extremely expressive ; and when properly 

 spoken, had an harmonious and beautiful cadence, rendering it proper 

 for poetic composition,"* Leibnitz gives it a still more exclusive 

 pre-eminence ; while he suggests that if there were an island beyond 

 Ireland, whose inhabitants spoke the same language, it would furnish 

 a clew to lead us into still higher antiquity ."i* 



By a striking coincidence with the latter remark of Leibnitz, Mr. 

 O'Flaherty says of the Isles of Aran, that " perhaps in no portion of 

 the Celtic world, could one at this time be more powerfully and faith- 

 fully reminded of the primitive manners and religious notions of the 

 Celts."J Sir William Temple says, the Irish is " an original lan- 

 guage, without any affinity to the old British, or any other upon the 

 continent, and perhaps with less mixture than any other of these 

 original languages yet remaining in any parts of Europe. "§ 



Of its internal structure many evidences could be adduced to its 

 untranslateable excellencies ; that it is " copious without luxuriance, 



* Vail. Coll. de Reb. Hib. vol. ii. p. 232. 



t " Postremo ad perficiendam vel certe valde promovendam literaturam Celticam, diligen- 

 tius linguae Hibernicae studium adjungendum censeo, ut Lloydius egregie facere coepit. * * 

 * * * Ex Hibernicis vetustiorum adhuc Celtarum Germanorum, et ut generaliter dicam 

 accolarum oceani Britannici Cismarinorum Antiquitates illustrantur. Et si ultra Hiberniam 

 esset aliqua insula Celtic! sermonis, ejus file in multo adhuc antiquiora duceremur." — Coll. 

 Elymol. p. 1 29. This opinion is not to be considered as militating with the similarity traced 

 between the Eastern and the Irish language. — See ante, pp. 11, &c. 



X O'Flaherty's Isles of Aran, p. 61. § Introduction to the History of England, p. 27. 



