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NOTES. 395the assertions of Greece and Rome, and to treat with contemptthe claim of the Celts, who are by far the most ancient race ofthe three. The pretensions of the Celts, the aborigines of Europe,and the precursors of the Greeks and Romans, are modestin the extreme, in as much as they go no higher than those ofGreece and Rome, nations only of yesterday, when comparedto the antiquity of the Celts, If there is any absurdity at all inthe case, it rests exclusively with the modern and upstart Greeksand Romans, in carrying their pretensions as higii as the Celts,1 am, however, far from disputing the authenticity of the Greekand Roman claims.All I mean is to shew that there is nothingimmodest, extravagant, or absurd, in the Irish claim; and I doKot hesitate to maintain, that if there is any priority in the case,the Celts, by far the most ancient race, are {caeteris partibus)clearly entitled to it.But if we surrender the Phoenician origin of the Irish alphabet,we involve ourselves in a still greater difficulty. Let us,however, probe the matter to the bottom, and look for its originin some other direction. Here we have not many choices, butmust ascribe it to the Goths, to the Romans, or to the Greeks.The Goths (on the evidence of their devoted advocate Pinkarton)•were unacquainted with letters till the ninth century, and consequentlyit cculd not be derived from this quarter. St. Patrickand his successors, notwithstanding all their influence, werenever able to introduce the Roman alphabet rnto general use inIreland ; on the contrary, the Irish alphabet kept distinct andaloof, without altering its form, or borrowing a single letter;and after an arduous struggle, yard arm and yard arm (if I mayuse a nautical phrase) for twelve centuries, survived till the seventeenthcentury, and might have survived to the present day,had not James the First introduced English laws, English formsof government, and English schools, with strict injunctions thatthe Vernacular (Irish) languf;ge should neither be spoken nnrtaught in these seminaries. The Irish alphabet was not, therefore,borrowed from the Romans. The Greek alphabet has under^onethree giadctions ; it Srst consisted of the sixteen ittters