ing a different language from all other nations; and what is the inference? assuredly, that they are the direct descendants of the aborigines; and, by consequence, genuine Celts.

Again, the ancestors of the present Welsh were, according to their own sage Triads, in possession of the fertile plains of England about the middle of the fifth century, when they were driven to their present fastness by the Saxons. From the time of Cæsar till very near the period of the Saxon invasion, they were under the government of the Romans, and never lost sight of. There cannot be a question, then, that they are the direct descendants of the Belgic tribes alluded to by Cæsar; and, consequently, have no title to the appellation of Celts, if that be of any great importance. These historical inferences I consider as a much more weighty answer to CYMRO than what "he believes to be the only one that can be given."

CYMRO is pleased to anticipate a plausible, though not a very profound reply, that he may have the pleasure of refuting it; viz. "Gael resembles Gallus; and as the Gauls were a Celtic race, therefore the Gaelic is Celtic." Now if CYMRO expected this logic from me, I beg leave to disclaim the compliment thereby intended to my learning. I should never have said, for instance, that "the Gauls were a Celtic race:" it being quite subversive of historical facts, about which I am a little particular. The Celts were, by the Romans, called Gauls, but the Gauls were not all Celts. There were your Belgians on the north-east, and the Acquitanians on the south-west, and another race among the Alps and about the banks of the Rhone. All these the Romans included under the name of Gauls, but I am not yet aware of their Celtic paternity.

But to meet CYMRO on his own ground, the relationship between Gael, Gallus, and KeλTIKη, is not altogether so absurd as some things of the sort which I have seen. I am not much given to etymological researches, the art having been "most vilely abused" by several writers whom I formerly pointed out. Yet I cannot here avoid attempting a brief essay in that line. The people to whom I applied the term

Celtic, call themselves Gael, and their country Gaeltachd, or, as it is pronounced, Gaeltache to this day. Now it seems to me highly probable that the word Gaeltache furnished the Greeks with the word KeλTIKŋ, which they uniformly applied to the country of the Celts. Nay, further, all France continued to retain the name of Keλrukn even unto the time of Strabo, who repeatedly applies it to the whole country; merely because it was the land of the Celts when the Greeks first knew of it. In the same manner the Romans called the whole country Gaul long after it ceased to be exclusively occupied by the Celts or Gael proper. I mention these circumstances merely as a proof that the Celts were the primitive inhabitants, or at least those first heard of by the Greeks and Romans,-but to resume. The word Gael would naturally furnish the Romans with Gallus, assimilating the name to a familiar word of their own; a common occurrence in all languages, of which we have an illustration in the name of a quondam Nawab or Viceroy of Bengal, Sarrajud-doula, of the black-hole celebrity, an appellation which the chroniclers of the day (the more shame to them) transformed into the Christian-like title of Sir Roger Dowler. Finally the Greeks converted the patronymic Gael into Galatoi, a word already familiar to them in Asia Minor.

It remains now for me to remove CYMRO's objection to the th or dh which appears in the spelling of the word Gathel, &c. &c. in all its variations. In the Gaelic language the letters th, dh, bh, and mh, &c. are frequently used merely as a separation between two vowels, like our hyphen, without any sound of their own; and we have no means of ascertaining whether they ever were sounded otherwise or not. At present they serve to divide a word into two syllables, which a hyphen or two dots on the last vowel would have done just as well. Thus in the word suan, sleep, the ua is a diphthong; while in the word suthan, a kind of sour juice, the u and a form distinct syllables, and might have been written thus, su-an, or suän. In short, the Roman alphabet seems to have been very clumsily applied to the Gaelic, to express whose sounds it is at best but

ill adapted. It is probable, however, that the th, dh, &c. in a vast number of Gaelic words were never intended for any thing else than a separation of the vowels; their power and office being very similar to that of the symbol called hamza in the Arabic alphabet; and this is further confirmed by the fact, that in many words they are interchangeable, as in the word Gathel or Gadhel for example.

CYMRO says, however, that the Welsh still sound the th in their version of the word Gwyddel. Well, if they were uniform in the practice of sounding all the letters of such Gaelic words as they possess, I should admit this as a sort of argument. But we find the word dubh, black, of the Gaelic, written du in Welsh; and the compound word dubh-ghlas of the Celtic is in the Cimbric dulas, meaning darkgrey, the well-known origin of the illustrious name of Douglas; which, by the way, proves that the bh in this case has not been sounded in Gaelic for something less than a thousand years.

CYMRO has observed "that the word Gael, in its present form, is not only modern, but absolutely of the most recent construction." I am afraid I must plead my dissent with that gentleman's opinion, as to what is most recent. In the first place, Buchanan in his History (lib. ii. cap. 28), uses the word Gael exactly as it is done at this day. This is of the more authority as Buchanan was himself a Gael, in proof of which Holinshed styles him an Irish Scot." In the first book of Buchanan's History, c. 23, we have the expression," Argathelia seu potius Ergahelia," for Argyle (Iar-ghathel, which signifies western Gael, or Irish Gael, in opposition to those of Scotland). Now let Cymro find out the oldest mention made of Argyle, and he may rest assured that the th or dh in Gathel was not sounded then. In the works of Gavin Douglas, who lived a generation before Buchanan, we find

"Fin mac Coul," instead of Fin mac Comhul. Let these instances suffice. In the mean time, if I had leisure to pore over old records, I could prove to CYMRO's satisfaction, that the word Gael was sounded as at present at least one thousand years ago; and if that gentleman calls this most recent, I can only say that he must be possessed of pretty liberal notions of what constitutes antiquity. At this rate Cæsar's visit to our island must be classed among the very recent events; and the famous mill between the Greeks and Trojans, quite a modern affair.

Finally, even if the th or dh in Gathel were sounded to this day, it would avail nothing on CYMRO's side of the argument; because I could overrule the objection, by a well-authenticated case in point. On the banks of the Ganges, there anciently stood a city, by name Pataliputra, as the Sanscrit hath it. This city the Greeks, with their usual freedom in such matters, converted into Palibothra. Now, if this fastidious people deemed it necessary to take such liberties with the harmonious Sanscrit, I opine that they would pay no greater respect to the less cultivated Celtic. As to the word Gathelus, which CYMRO brings forward as a "Latin authority," I have only to say that it exists not in the Latin at all. Gathelus ought to be Greek, if anything; but, in sober sadness, it is too ridiculous to be quoted, being the clumsy invention of some patriotic monk, whose lucubrations were intended to rival Virgil's stories of the Pious Æneas and his trusty crew. But I must now quit this subject, and I appeal to the unprejudiced portion of your readers, whether I have not reasons for saying; 1st. That the Irish and Highlanders are the only people in the British Isles, I may say the only people on earth, to whom the appellation Celtic is applicable. 2nd. That the Welsh are the descendants of the South Britons of Cæsar's time,

and not of those to whom he alludes in the interior, as "having been generated in the island itself:" hence the Welsh are the offspring of the Belgae who came to the north of Gaul, and thence to Britain, long after the Celts, which last fact is admitted by Lhuyd, and is most fully confirmed by the difference of their language from that of the Celts.

Or

In reply to your correspondent R. G., I beg to say that it would afford me great pleasure to discuss that interesting part of the subject to which he alludes, did I feel myself at all competent for the task. Respecting the non-Celtic portion of the Welsh language, he asks, "Is it most nearly allied in structure to the Latin or Teutonic, or Slavonic, or Reinish? is it an anomalous tongue, altogether sui generis?" For my own part, I candidly confess that my knowledge of the languages to which he alludes is so very limited, as to render my opinion utterly useless. I see no reason, however, why the Welsh should not be a language sui generis, though not anomalous. I might ask R. G. the same question, with regard to the Gaelic, the Basque, and some others still extant in retired corners of Europe. May they not all be remnants of distinct languages, descended from those spoken by different tribes in very remote ages? I am strongly inclined to think so, and I will endeavour to state my reasons.

It seems to me, then, that in barbarous times and regions there is a tendency not only to a great variety of languages, but a total dissimilarity between each. Witness the numerous languages mentioned by Mungo Park in the first few chapters of his Travels, and the apparently utter dissimilarity between them. We find the same rule to hold in America, and, in fact, among all savages that we read of. It is highly probable, then, that the languages of Europe were from two to three thousand years ago much more numerous and less analogous to each other than at the present day. Where is the wonder, then, that the few fragments that have reached us more or less mixed, should so differ among themselves? I conceive that the Basque,

the Welsh, the Gaelic, the Finnish, and a few others, are genuine remains of the less cultivated (not to say barbarous) languages of ancient Europe, as the Greek and Latin are among the civilised. The latter have survived from their own intrinsic value, and the former from the isolated and inaccessible nature of the regions where they have so long flourished, or where they made their last stand against persecution.

I am afraid that this is all that I can say to R. G. on this subject, and I can only regret that my reply should be so unsatisfactory. The only copious sources of information to which I can refer him are Adelung's Mithridates and Balbi's works, though I must confess neither of them is to be implicitly relied on. For example, Adelung gives us an Irish version of the Lord's Prayer as the idiom of a tribe inhabiting the county of Essex; an interesting fact, no doubt, as he says, only it wants confirmation. (Mithridates, vol. ii. page 203.) However, the two works are useful to the philologist, and errors are inevitable in such vast performances. FIOR GHAEL.

MR. URBAN, Dublin, Feb. 17. I AM surprised your correspondent FIOR GHAEL should still adhere to the notion that Ireland was peopled from Britain, and both from Gaul, in the teeth of all evidence, even of Scottish writers; and that it was the remnant of the Scotish Picts of the sixth or seventh century who conquered Wales; and particularly that he should imagine that I ever propounded such an opinion. My position is, that the Picts conquered the West of South Britain (i. e. Wales) at the fall of the Roman Empire early in the fifth century, when the Scots and Picts invaded the Roman colony. The extirpation of the Picts who remained in the east of Scotland was an event long subsequent to that period. The peopling of Ireland and Britain from Gaul rests merely on its probability, which is an argument for the peopling of New South Wales by the Chinese, on account of their prox. imity being closer than England.

Yours, &c. W. BETHAM,