On the Affinity of the Phenician and Celtic Languages. 23 
that the solving the mystery of the origin of the Pelasgi and the Etruscans is within 
my reach: I shall, therefore, reserve that subject for a future paper. 
Heeren’s Researches has rendered services to historic literature, surpassing all other 
writers, and too much praise can scarcely be given, or any eulogium, perhaps, be too 
laudatory, for the soundness of his reasoning and the general accuracy of his deduc- 
tions; it is, therefore, with great diffidence and reluctance I venture to promulgate 
opinions differing, or even slightly varying from his, and but for the irresistible force 
of the evidence I have to adduce, as it appears to my mind, I would not venture on so 
great a responsibility. 
* Heeren supposes, and argues on the supposition, that Sidon, Tyre and Aradus, 
were the first seats of Phenician greatness—that they were a Syrian people, a@ Canaan- 
itish tribe, which settled on the coast, the descendants of Ham. “ Zhe oldest of these, 
the first-born of Canaan, according to the Mosaic record, was Sidon,” the foundress 
of the trade and navigation of the Phenicians.’ It is true, as far as the western 
greatness of the Phenicians was concerned, that Sidon was their first seat, but erro- 
neous as to the eastern world and their origin; they were no originally Syrians, or 
descendants of Ham, but from Shem; they were Arabians, from Yemen, or Arabia 
Felix, and originally Chaldeans. 
It is singular that Heeren should have considered so lightly, and worthy of so little 
weight, what Herodotus states so distinctly and clearly, that the Phenicians were 
a colony of the Homerite (which name he says, means the same as Phenician 
in their language) a great commercial people, who inhabited the southern coast 
of Arabia Felix; and Dyonisius declares they came from Chaldea, to the Persian 
Gulph, and eventually settled on the southern coast of Arabia.” There, from 
their ports of Aden, Hargia, Cana, &c. they carried on their commerce with all parts 
of the Erythrean ocean for ages before they knew of the existence of the Mediter- 
ranean. They first possessed the island of Tyrus (now Tylos) and Aradus, in the 
Persian Gulph, from which it is said, and truly, I think, the Tyrian cities bor- 
rowed their names. The inhabitants of those islands, claimed to be the parent 
country of their Syrian namesakes. 
Heeren observes—‘ The principal direction in which the Phenician race extended 
itself by colonization, was towards the west, because, from their situation, their sea 
trade could take no other. But notwithstanding this, so soon as their land trade 
through Asia had reached the coasts of the Indian ocean, the want of settlements 
there must naturally have been felt. Traces of them, though certainly only doubtful 
traces, are found both on the Persian and Arabian Gulphs. The names of two islands 
in the midst of the Persian Gulph, named Tyrus, or Tylos, and Aradus, bear striking 
marks of Phenician origin; and in these have lately been discovered vestiges of Phe- 
nician workmanship and buildings.” 
Again, in the chapter on Babylonish commerce, he says—“ First, however, there 
