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80 THE HISTORYraiicli antieiiter tliau tlie AVelsh, sIiiavs beyond allcontradiction the necessity of this language forretrieving the knowledge of the Celtic religionCamden and others have long sinceand learning.taken notice of the agreement between the presentBritish and those old Gallic words collected bylearned men out of Greec and Roman authors:and the industrious Mr. Edward Lhuyd, latekeeper of the Museum at Oxford, perceiv'd thisaffinity between the same words and the Irish,even before he study^d that language,by the demonstrationI gave him of the same in all the saidinstances. Nor does he deny this agreement intlic comparative Etymologicon he afterwards madeof those languages, where he quotes Camden andBoxhornius affirming it about the Gallic and British;hut there heing, says he*, no Vocabulary extant,meaning no doubt inprint, of the Irish, ormttient Scottish, they coudnot collect that languagetherewith, which the curious in those studies ivill nowfind to agree rather more than ours, with the Gaulish,That it does so, is absolute fact, as will beseen by hundreds of instances in this present work.I am aware that what I am going to say will soundvery oddly, and seem more than a paradox ;but Ideserve, my lord, and sliall be content with yourseverest censure, if,before you have linish'd readingthese sheets, you be not tirndy of the sameiniiid yourself; namely, that, without the know-* In the preface to tis Archccolo^ia Britannka, pa^. 1,