Essay on Caerphilly Castle. 101 



With respect to the languages of the uatious whose distribution we have 

 been considericg, we have the Iberian, represented by the Basque, and 

 supposed to be unrelated to any other known tongue, tliongh possibly itself 

 an early Indo-European offshoot ; next we have the Celtic, the language 

 formerly of Celtic Gaul, and to this day, of Armorica or Brittany, and its 

 dialects, the Belgic, that of Belgic Gaul and Belgic Britain, now extinct, 

 and supposed to have resembled the Erse j the Cambro-Celtic or Welsh, 

 still spoken in the Principality; the Gaelic or Erse, also spoken in the 

 Highlands of Scotland, Ireland, and the Isles. 



Such, then, are the countries, and such were their inhabitants and lan- 

 guages, a slight account of which appeared to be a necessary prefix to any 

 more detailed observations upon the Archaeology of even a part of England. 

 The circumstances under which we write, necessarily preclude a longer 

 essay, or more accurate detail, upon this merely introductory part of our 

 subject. Those who are desirous of gaining more than a superficial know- 

 ledge of this subject, will do well to consult such works as Chalmers' 

 Caledonia, Gillies' History of the World, Thi^rri's Histoire des Gaulois, 

 the Appendix to Conybeai'e's Theological Lectures, Professor Murray's 

 work on the European Languages, and above all, as a condensed, and per- 

 fectly clear summary of the whole, together with a vast quantity of original 

 observation, the Physical History of Dr. Prichard, including his separate 

 tract upon the Celtic nations. All which books, with many others on the 

 same subject, may be conveniently referred to in the Bristol City Library, 

 which will be found tolerably strong in this department of literature. 



Welsh tarian. Taiubg, possibly connected with f?wayn, a javelin. The Welsh bor- 

 rowed cleddau from the Latin gladius, the ancient term liraOi] having vanished, if 

 indeed ever possessed by that language. Gillies supposes some of these to be Teu- 

 tonic ; they are evidently Celtic. In Galatia, we find the city Ecco-briga, clearlj' a 

 Celtic termination ; and St. Jerome tells us, that as late as his time, the Galatian 

 language was similar to that spoken at Treves : wherefore Celtic, and not Teutonic, 

 must have been the language of the Trevi. 



(To he continued.) 



€gsiaj) on Caerplnllt) Ca^tle^ 



No. II.— TOPOGRAPHY. 



( Continued from p. 71.) 



We next arrive at the consideration of the ground upon which the castle 

 of Caerpiiilly is constructed.* 



The hundred of Senghennytii, or Caerphilly, extending from the first rise 

 of the mountains above Cardiff, to Merthyr, on the south and north j and 



• We regret that, owing to unforeseen circumstances, the ground plan of Caer- 

 philly, wliich had been constructed for the illustration of this account, lias not been 

 appended to this number ; we shall supply this deficiency when the next pai't of the 

 article appears. — Ed. 



No. 3.— Vol. I. P* 



