176 Druidism in connection with Wiltshire. 
The Phenician language has an intimate affinity also with the 
Hebrew, which accounts for the intercourse of the spies of Joshua 
and the Israelites with the Canaanites. The Phcenicians were not, 
it must be remembered, the original inhabitants of Canaan, nor 
were they ever conquered by Joshua, they were merely colonists, 
and derived, like the Israelites their origin from the Chaldeans. 
“Tt has escaped all observation,” says Sir W. Betham, “as far 
as I have discovered, that the country about Tyre and Sidon, 
as far as Acre, anciently bore this name of Galilee, or country of 
the Gael on the sea coast; this very name, Gael, the Pheenician 
colonies in Europe called themselves, and gave to their settlement 
in Europe. The facts which support this deduction appear to me 
so strong that they force themselves on my judgment, and are 
also supported by the probable and apparently natural and rea- 
sonable course of events. The conclusion appears irresistible, that 
the Gael were a Pheenician colony” (probably ejected from Egypt), 
“who conquered and settled Celtic Europe at such remote antt- 
quity, that when they were found by the Romans in Gaul, Britain, 
and Ireland, they had forgotten all but a tradition of their original 
country,! their gods, their religion, and their language.” 
The identity of the Hebrew, Phenician, and Celtic (¢.e. Irish, 
Gaelic, and Manx) languages, has already been mentioned. As 
nothing more clearly proves the affinity of different*races than 
their language and religion, we shall conclude this account of 
the Phoenicians with an extract from a passage in Plautus, which 
shews the identity of the Hebrew, Punic, and Irish dialects. From 
the similarity of language it will appear, that not merely the 
Pheenicians and the Israelites were entitled to deduce their origin 
from the most ancient of people the Chaldeans, (with whom also 
the Bramins of India, and the Magi of Persia are similarly con- 
nected), but that the Celtae, judging from their religion and lan- 
guage, can trace their original to the same source; and that their 
priests and philosophers the Druids, are almost identically the same 
with the Chaldeans, the Bramins, the Magi, and the ancient 
1 The use of war chariots by the ancient Britons, proves their Syrian and 
‘astern origin. 
