A new edition of Toland's History of the druids: - Free History Ebooks

54 THE HISTORYfrom the dead; and therefore, were that knowledgeof times and things containd in Lapponian, whichwe draw from the Greec, and that this last wereas barren as the first,I shou d then study Lapponian,and neglect Greec, for all its superiorityover most tongues in respect of sonorous pronunciation,copiousness of words, and variety of expression.But as the profound ignorance and slaveryof the present Greecsdoes not hinder, butthat their ancestors were the most learned, polite,and free of all European nations, so no revolutionthat has befallen any or all of the Celtic colonies,can be a just prejudice against the truly antientand undoubted monuments they may be able tofurnish, towards improving or restoring any pointof learning.Whether there be any such monumentsor not, and how far useful or agreeable, willin the following sheets appear.II. Among those institutions which are thoughtto be irrecoverably lost, one is that of the Druids;of which the learned have hitherto known nothing,but by somefragments concerning them out ofthe Greec and Roman authors. Nor are suchfragments always intelligible, because never explaind hj any of those, who were skillVlin theCeltic dialects, which are now principally six;namely Welsh or the insular British, Cornish almostextinct, Armorican or French British, Irishthe least corrupted, Manks or the language of theIsle of Man ;and liarse or Highland Irish, spoken