102 
themselves. It is not difficult, however, to disprove their negatives : 
positive arguments they do not, and cannot advance. Aran may 
be considered the Mona of Ireland, and distinguished seat of Dru- 
idism. If my description of that primitive worship be rather de- 
tailed, I hope it will not, at least, be considered irrelevant. If I 
succeed in vindicating our venerable memorials of antiquity, the 
candid and learned reader will not, I think, much care, whether 
I take occasion to do so, by setting out with our local, rather than 
with our general history. No portion of the Irish population has 
preserved the primitive manners, language, and recollections, with 
more fidelity than the secluded inhabitants of Aran. 
Pliny derives the word, Druid, from Ages, oak, I suppose, be- 
cause in the Druidic tenets the oak and misleto were held sacred. 
Several have injudiciously adopted this notion, unmindful of the 
absurdity of attempting to trace Celtic words to Greek derivations. 
Strabo ridicules the practice; and Plato, in his Cratylus, is ex- 
pressly of opinion, that the Greeks had borrowed many words from 
the barbarians.* Hence he concludes, that ‘“ whoever endeavours 
to adjust the etymologies of those words with the Greek language, 
and not rather seek for them in that to which they originally belong, 
must necessarily be disappointed.” Quintilian informs us, that, 
before the time of the consuls, the Latin was rude and barbarous 
in expression, having’ many words from other languages, especially 
Gallic (Celtic) words. In fact, the Lingua Prisca of Italy was 
the language of the Umbrians and Sabines, who were Celts. _ Italy 
was called Gallia Cisalpina, as being colonized from Gaul. 
There is such a thing as philological bigotry. Omnia Grece is no 
* Paris Edit. fol. 1. p. 409. + Ibid. 
t Polyb. 1. 2. Leibnitz. collect. Etymol, vol. 1. 
