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PREFACE.
tLiscT imbued with a competent knovrledge of the Greek
aad Roman languages,! imbibed, ala«g with them, every possible
prejudice against the Celts.
I was, from my infancy, taught to
consider them a parcel of demi.savages, their language an unin.
teiligible jargon, and their boasted antiquity the raving of a dis.
ordered imagination.
Dazzled with the splendour of the classic
page, I endeavoured to derive every tiling from the Greek and
Roman languages. I had even gone the hopeful \ength of deriv.
ing Penpont from Pene Pontus ; Cattertfmn from Castra Thani;
Dunnipace from Duni Pads ; Cruden from Cruor Danorum
with a thousand other fooleries of the same luind.
About twenty years ago,
the treatise now offered to the pub,
lie, fell into my hands. I was astonished to find that it tore up
by the roots the whole philological system, which I had so long
held sacred and invulnerable.
The boasted precedency of the
Greek and Roman languages now appeared, at
least, doubtful.
Determined to probe the matter to the bottom, I devoted jny se.
rious attention to the history, the antiquities, and language of
the Celts :
the result was, that I found it established by the mlist
unquestionable authorities that the Celtic language was a dialect
of the primary language of Asia; that the Celts were the abo.
riginal inhabitants of Europe, and that they had among them,
froai the most remote antiquity, an order of Literati named
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