tleman of the Hebrew nation, has to say respecting his own language. In page 72 of his Grammar, he tells us, "The Hebrew has two tenses only, the PRETER signifying the time past, and the FUTURE signifying the time to come; and instead of the present tense is used the participle called Bienoonee, signifying between, i. e. between the past and future.

"Both the preter and future tense are often used to express the time present, especially in the parts of prophecy where the preter is used instead of the future."

The agreement between the Welsh and Hebrew is much more intimate than that of the tenses. But as this subject has taken up quite enough space already, I must leave it till another time. FIOR GHAEL likewise says, that the English much more resembles the Hebrew than either the Gaelic or Welsh, for the English has only two tenses, the present and past. Verily, Mr. Urban, I have no doubt that the languages would very well agree on the score of mutual accommodation, for then the Hebrew might borrow its present tense from the English, whilst the English could be supplied with a future from the Hebrew-er uno disce omnes. In conclusion, I beg to state, that FIOR GHAEL will find all the words mentioned in my last letter, the substantives p. 14, and the adjectives p. 20, of McAlpine's Rudiments of Gaelic Grammar.

Y gmir yn erbyd y byd.

GOMER.

THE GAELIC A VERY CORRUPT
LANGUAGE.

MR. URBAN, MY assertion that no authority can be shown for applying to the Gaelic language the designation of Celtic, has produced a reply from FIOR GHAEL, in which he maintains that such authority can be shown; but instead of authority he adduces nothing but inference and probability, the value of which I beg to leave to yourself and the public to estimate: a court fully competent to deal with such testimony. In support of my argument I also asserted that the present word Gael is a modern corruption of the ancient Gaoidhel, and this FIOR GHAEL also denies; and as he does in this instance

profess to produce authority, it is incumbent upon me either to invalidate that authority, or to acknowledge my error; and with your permission I will attempt the former.

In the first place, then, FIOR GHAEL says, "he could prove that the word Gael was sounded as at present at least a thousand years ago." This, should he make it good, would, I must confess, very materially alter my position, and would at least place me under the necessity of retracting the expression recent, if not demand more ample concessions. A thousand years ago will bring us to the year 839, a period of no inconsiderable antiquity in Gaelic history. But with these resources at his command, what authority does FIOR GHAEL adduce?-BUCHANAN ! And that, too, only respecting the name of Argyle. "Argathelia, seu potius Ergahelia." And upon this evidence he pronounces that Buchanan "uses the word Gael exactly as it is done this day." Now I must beg to say that to me the fact appears absolutely the reverse, as the aspirate [h] in the middle of the word, makes it evident that, to Buchanan's ear at least, it was not sounded exactly as at the present day. In short, it appears that the word was at this time in a state of transition from Gathel to Gael, still retaining enough of its original structure to mark its dissyllabic character. Otherwise, why should Buchanan introduce the aspirate, and why the undecisive "seu potius," if there was a positive error to be corrected.? FIOR GHAEL refers me to the oldest form of the name of Argyle. I have attended to his suggestion as far as my opportunities admit, and I believe its oldest form to be Ardgathel. But I have not met with the word at all, except in compositions very modern compared with a thousand years ago. And by the time FIOR GHAEL has occupied himself a little in making researches for it in the form he maintains at that period, I doubt not he will begin to think that he has been making a precipitate assertion.

But, however this may be, I am disposed to believe that the name of Gael in any form was not that of the Irish race, as a general and national appellation, in early ages. The Roman writers never mention it at all when

speaking of Ireland or the Irish; and in the succeeding ages the people of this race are called Scots, and Ireland Scotia. And from the absence of the name of Gael as a general designation, I am justified in assuming that it was originally that of a particular tribe, which afterwards became so influential as to impart it to the race in general. If it should be asked how a whole people came to adopt the name of a single tribe, I can only reply by another question. How did the Lowlanders come to call themselves Scots? and how did the Saxons call themselves English? The adoption of national appellations was independent of distinction of race. It does not appear that what we call generic names were always preserved by barbarous nations; perhaps the name of Galli would not have been recognised by any of the three nations of Gaul in the time of Cæsar, whatever it might have been by the followers of Brennus. And, probably, it was conferred upon these nations by the Romans before it was adopted by themselves.

But this is not the only point on which I must differ from FIOR GHAEL. He assumes for the Gaelic a very high degree of purity as an original language: an assumption against which decidedly protest; and am prepared to shew that it is, on the contrary, in an exceedingly corrupt state, and possesses no claim whatever to be made the criterion of originality, either Celtic or other; and the following are amongst my reasons.

The Gaelic abounds with Latin words. And as the Romans never had any settlements in Ireland, these words are supposed to have belonged to some primitive language, from which, in very remote ages, both Gaels and Latins derived them, independently of each other. Many of these words are doubtless of such origin; but it is very evident, from their form and application, that multitudes are of a much later date, being of ecclesiastical introduction. Ireland at one time abounded with ecclesiastical establishments, in which learning, i. e. the Latin language, was very assiduously cultivated; the ancient writings of that country still evidence the fact in the mixture of Latin which they exhibit, even in Irish compositions. Here

then we have one cause of the corruption of the Gaelic language, and a slight examination of an Irish or Gaelic Dictionary will furnish abundant proofs of the correctness of this assertion.

In the next place, Ireland was for some centuries under the dominion of the Danes; and the whole of the Northern Highlands of Scotland, together with the Western Isles, having been conquered by the Norwegians, were equally subject to the Scandinavian yoke; and in the southern portion of that country the various names of foreign origin with which it abounds, from the De Campo Bellos of the western coast to the De Gordouns of the east, clearly indicate the influence which has been exercised there. To speak of any European nation having always continued unconquered, is doing violence to the clearest evidences of history; and whether through force of arms or unresisting submission, few countries have been more decidedly under foreign dominion than the Highlands of Scotland. Where conquest has been preceded by a struggle for liberty, the fact is honourable to the conquered; but where the submission is of a more yielding description, still the influence of the governing people must always be perceptible in the language and manners of the governed. Therefore, whether it is to the sword of Haco or of Cromwell that we look, or the more gentle dominion of the English crown in later days, each successive subjugation must have been attended by a corresponding effect upon the language. And accordingly if we inquire into the influence which these events have had on the Gaelic, we shall find it precisely what might have been anticipated-the language has undergone so great a change that its early specimens are now unintelligible even to the best Gaelic scholars. And this we are assured of by men fully competent to form a correct judgment, and whose well-known nationality must preclude every suspicion of unfavourable bias.

of the Highlanders of Scotland, how "We yet perceive, in the instance much the dialect of the Irish spoken by that people has, from the want or disuse of a written standard, become, in the course of time, changed and cor

rupted; and still more remarkably in the instance of Ireland itself, where, notwithstanding its acknowledged possession of the art of writing from the time of the mission of St. Patrick, so

great a change has the language under gone during that interval, not only as spoken but written, that there are still extant several fragments of ancient laws and poems, whose obsolete idiom defies the skill of even the most practised Irish scholars to interpret them."* Moore's History of Ireland, vol, i. p. 61.

* "Lingua enim Hibernica, qua incolæ Hiberniæ et Albaniæ nunc vulgo utuntur, in pluribus diversa est ab antiqua; et cum id in Codicibus scriptis pateat, quis nisi fatuis studiis abreptus non percipit, diversitatem longe majorem necessario oriri debere in lingua non scripta." Rer. Hibern. Script. Ep. Nunc.

"The learned Colqan, in speaking of some poems ascribed to Dallan, an Irish bishop of the sixth century, declares them to have been written in so ancient a style as to be wholly unintelligible, even to many who were versed in the ancient idiom of the country: A multis alioquin in veteri patrio idiomate versatis nequeunt penetrari.'"' (Quoted by Dr. O'Connor, Prol. ii. lxxiv.)

And this is the language that FroR GHAEL holds up as a model of purity in itself, and as a criterion by which to determine the genuineness of others! And having taken this " changed and corrupted" dialect as his interpreter in studying the Welsh, he expresses his surprise and disappointment that it was of no service to him. Indeed it might have been a matter of surprise had he found it otherwise; for from the above extracts it is evident that the Welsh is by far the least corrupt of the two.

On a former occasion I adverted to the very corrupt state of the Gaelic as regards its pronunciation, and the great difference between the written and the spoken language, there being not only many letters, but even whole syllables mute. To give instances of this would require no more than a single passage out of any book whatever, for there is scarcely a word of any length that does not furnish a proof. But to avoid needless prolixity I will content myself with one example only, the word claidheamh, a sword. This word is pronounced cly: thus rejecting the whole of the last syllable, GENT. MAG, VOL. XI.

together with a good portion of the first. Now I believe it will not be denied that this word is the same with the Latin gladius, and we can trace a languages: the Welsh is cleddyv, and similar corruption in several other is pronounced clethyv, thus shewing a slight differing from the Latin. The French is glaive, in which the difference is still more marked; and the Gaelic cly reduces the word to the last shade of resemblance, while the letters claidheamh still point out what was once the sound of the word. This is precisely the mode in which Gaoidhel and hundreds of other words have been changed. And this tendency to discard consonants is perceptible even in English words, and that amongst the Lowlanders as well as the Highlanders, as may be noticed in the words ha', ca', wa', for hall, call, and wall, and multitudes besides. In fact all languages have been more or less subject to such corruptions, but none in so great a degree as the Gaelic.

I now persuade myself that I have to every unprejudiced reader established the following points:

That there is no authority for the Gaelic being exclusively termed Celtic; That the word Gael is a modern corruption of Gathel;

or

That there is no authority that Gael

Gathel was originally a generic name of the Irish race and language;

That the present Gaelic language is so corrupt that its early specimens are unintelligible; and the modern pronunciation so different to the written language, that the latter can no longer be recognised in the sound of the words;

And lastly, that the whole language is so "changed and corrupt " as to preclude all claim to be received as a test of originality, either with regard to the Celtic dialects or any other whatever.

Yours, &c. A CYMRO.

towards settling the dispute. Every other European tongue may be readily referred to its particular family; and it would obviate a great deal of controversy, if it could be shown that Welsh is closely allied in vocables and structure to Slavonic, Teutonic, or Latin. This, however, has not been done, nor do I expect that it ever will be.

That a connexion does really subsist between the Gaelic and the Cambro-British is allowed by several eminent Gaelic scholars. O'Brien, in the preface to his Irish Dictionary, p. 45, expresses himself as follows:

"The close and abundant affinity, or rather identity, in many instances, so remarkable between the Irish and Welsh dialects, prove to a demonstration that both people proceeded from the same country or the same nation, in times later by many ages than the epoch of the separation of the Gomerians and Magogians and as we are assured by Tacitus that the language and manners of the Britons agreed with those of the Gauls in his time, it evidently follows from the close affinity or agreement between the Irish and Welsh dialects, joined to this testimony of Tacitus, that both people were inhabitants of Gaul immediately before they passed over to the British Isles."

On the other hand, Schlözer, and Mr. Peter Roberts, to say nothing of Sir William Betham, maintain that there is no radical affinity between the two, and that the terms common to both have been borrowed, by the Cymro from the Gael, if I rightly understand their reasoning. It is clear that both parties cannot be in the right my present object is to submit a few facts, to help indifferent persons to determine on which side the truth lies.

It is not meant to be asserted that Welsh is a dialect of Gaelic, in the same sense that Irish and Manx are; but only that it is bona fide a Celtic dialect. Nor is it denied that there are many and serious discrepancies between the two, in words as well as forms; but, in order to judge a question fairly, we must consider the points of resemblance as well as those

*Unless we except the Basque; which, however, in the opinion of Rask has a strong family likeness to the Finnish and Tartarian.

With regard to the above specimen, I will briefly observe, that it is fairly chosen, the list having been compiled by one who did not even think of the present controversy. Moreover, the words, being Irish, cannot be suspected of being borrowed from the Welsh; and being simple familiar terms, branching out copiously, in most cases, into compounds and derivatives, there is as much reason to believe them vernacular in one language as the other. Again, of the fifty words admitted as peculiar to the Gaelic, nine or ten strongly resemble the Norse or German, as many more may possibly be connected with Welsh terms bearing an apparent though doubtful likeness, and nearly all have synonyms, clearly allied to Cambrian or Armorican equivalents.

The words above specified are chiefly substantives and adjectives; but, as those may be excepted against as likely to be borrowed, we will see how the case stands with other parts of speech. In the grammar prefixed to Armstrong's Gaelic Dictionary, there is a list of about two hundred verbs in common use. Seventy, or more than one third of the whole, are unequivocally cognate with Welsh or Armoric, and twenty more probably so. This proportion would be greatly increased, if all compound and exotic words were rejected from the list, as in fairness they ought to be.

Reserving my remarks on pronouns for another branch of the inquiry, I now proceed to consider the prepositions, confessedly the most important

of indeclinable words. In Stewart's Gaelic Grammar, we have a list of twenty-four simple prepositions (omitting mere varieties of form), and about forty improper or compound. Of the former, fourteen are Welsh, and three Cornish; and of the latter, eighteen, or nearly one half, radically Welsh. The amount of resemblance is hardly so great between Icelandic and Ger

man.

1 could easily shew that a vast number of the terms descriptive of ordinary objects of sense are substantially the same in both languages; but I must confine myself to a few specimens. Popular names for colours are tenaciously preserved by all people, as long as they retain their national identity, for reasons too obvious to dwell upon. When it is ascertained that our appellations, swart, white, blue, green, grey, brown, red, are currently used by all classes in all parts of Germany, every one, competent to form an opinion, regards it as a strong indication of an original affinity of race, supposing him to know nothing of the language or early history of the Anglo-Saxons. The same conclusion holds good with respect to Gaelic and Welsh; in both of which we find, allowing for difference of form, the corresponding terms, du (or dubh), fion, gorm, glas, liath, donn, ruadh. It is very easy to assert that the above words have been borrowed by one of the two races; but he who attempts to prove it will soon find himself involved in inextricable difficulties.

Much stress is usually and justly laid upon the ancient local appellations of a country; it being obvious that those who imposed them would naturally employ words significant in their own language. In Beaufort's

It

Memoir of a Map of Ireland, pp. 146-7, there is a glossary of Irish words usually occurring in composi tion with the names of places. comprises forty-three terms, of which at least thirty are certainly Welsh ; and not merely used in proper names, but as separate words. Nor is this analogy confined to isolated terms; e.gr.-both glen and strath are common to the Gaelic and the Cambro-British; and of twenty-six synonyms for hill, in the English-Gaelic part of Armstrong's Dictionary, at least twenty are decidedly Welsh.

I trust I have now made it appear that there is some correspondence between the vocabularies of the two languages. The evidence from grammar and structure is, however, much stronger, and in my opinion quite decisive; but this I must reserve for a separate communication. I will only remark that I fear FIOR GHAEL makes a very rash concession in offering to surrender "half, or even all," the words common to Welsh and Gaelic. If they are borrowed, I ask, where did the Irish get them, or how could they do without them? The case of the Persian language, alleged by FIOR GHAEL, is by no means analogous. Ferdoose's Shah-Nameh proves that the Arabic expressions introduced into Persian are non-essential; but if the Gael were to renounce every term vernacular to the Welsh, they could not make an intelligible translation of any one chapter in the New Testament, nor hold a ten minutes' conversation on ordinary topics. Indeed, I can assure FIOR GHAEL that, like Monsieur Jourdain, he has all his life been speaking a great deal of Welsh without knowing it. Yours, &c. R. G.

Fox.

"I HAVE been learning by snatches, while dressing, (the only time, observe, when I could read, or hear reading hitherto,) Fox's History, and I long to undertake a more deliberate perusal. I do not happen to have heard many

people speak of it. The few whose opinions have reached me were people strongly opposed to Fox in politics, and who did not at all know the man. They certainly gave me reason to expect something very different from what I have found. He seems to write under a strong party bias, yet