to the language. The entire is submitted with every deference to the 

 Academy $ and as the writer's only motive is to benefit our national 

 literature, (if it be not presumptuous to suppose that his humble la- 

 bours can have that effect,) it is hoped that the intention will secure 

 him, at least, the indulgence of that portion of his fellow country- 

 men, who feel an interest in the preservation of the venerable lan- 

 guage of their ancestors. 



This language, as an object of literature, is deserving of the 

 utmost attention. It possesses all the marks of a primordial tongue, 

 and derives its origin from the most remote antiquity. Its primitive 

 words are generally monosyllables. The different classes of deriva- 

 tives are produced by a mechanism simple and regular. It furnishes 

 a key to all those other branches of the widely extended Celtic, 

 which imitate the formation of its inflections, but are much in- 

 ferior to it in simplicity and in the preservation of the common ra- 

 dices. These circumstances, particularly the latter, have recommended 

 the language of Ireland to the attention of the learned of Europe, 

 from some of the most distinguished of whom it drew forth the highest 

 eulogiums.* But however honoured abroad it is slighted at home. By 

 our gentry abandoned, and by our literati, ignorant of its beauties, 

 it has been generally but unmeritedly neglected. -J- Like some ma- 



* Among others, that prodigy of human learning, Leibkitz says — '* Postremo, ad perfi- 

 ciendam, vel certe valde promovendam literaluram Celticam, diligentius Ungues Hibernica stu- 

 dium adjungendum censeo, ut Lwydius egregie facere cepit. — Ex Hibernicis, vetustiorum adhuc 

 Celtarum, Germanorumque, et, ut generaliter dicam accolarum oceani Britannici cismarinorum 

 antiquitatis illustrantur. Colleet. Etymolog. Vol. I. p. 153. 



t An honourable exception to the above must be made in favour of three distinguished Fel- 

 lows of the College of Dublin, Doctor Anthony Raymond, who was deeply skilled in the lan- 

 guage and history of Ireland ; Doctor Young, late Bishop of Clonfert, whose valuable disquisi- 

 tions on the antient poetry of the country, appeared in the first volumes of the Transac- 

 tions of the Royal Irish Academy, and our talented and patriotic cotemporary. Doctor Whitley 

 Stokes, who has evinced a warm attachment to our literature. 



