OF THE WELSH LANGUAGE. 305 



brought with them all their books, and their tomb- 

 ftones alfo. In no part of Germany is there fuch a 

 charadler as tlie Saxon to be found. — That they 

 invented the letters after their arrival in Britain, is 

 altogether improbable ; for, at all events, there was 

 at that time the Roman charader ready to their 

 hands, and in common ufe. — The Irifh hiflorians 

 fay that they borrowed them from that country. It 

 is probable that the Irifh had the letters, as well as 

 their language, in common with the Britons j but 

 there was little necelTity for the Saxons to go over 

 into Ireland to borrow what they would find in their 

 own ifland and neighbourhood. 



That the Britons ufed this alphabet in the mofl 

 remote periods, feems alfo extremely probable, even 

 from an expreflion of Csefar, in his defcription of the 

 Druids, ^^Gracis Uteris utuntiir," ' they ufe the Greek 

 letters :' — feveral of thofe, now called the Saxon cha- 

 rafters, have a great refemblance to the letters of the 

 old Greek alphabet. — Many of the ancient Britifh 

 manufcripts are alfo written in the Saxon character, 

 as part of the Liber Landavenfis, and feveral depo- 

 fited in the libraries in North Wales. — In one of 

 the prefaces to Lhwyd*s Archseologia, there are 

 three flanzas of the ancient Pidifh poetry, which 

 the author difcovered in the Highlands of Scotland. 

 They were written on vellum, in this old character, 

 or in one very nearly refembling it, and he believed 

 them to be above a thoufand years old. — There is 

 yet to be feen on a flone over the fouth iloor of the 



VOL. n. X church 



