5

NOTES. 395
the assertions of Greece and Rome, and to treat with contempt
the claim of the Celts, who are by far the most ancient race of
the three.
The pretensions of the Celts, the aborigines of Eu«
rope, and the precursors of the Greeks and Romans, are modest
ill the extreme, in as much as they go no higher than those of
Greece and Rome, nations only of yesterday, when compared
to the antiquity of the Celts, If there is any absurdity at all in
the case, it rests exclusively with the modern and upstart Greeks
and Romans, in carrying their pretensions as high as the Celts.
I am, however, far from disputing the authenticity of the Greek
and Roman claims. All I mean is to shew that there is nothing
immodest, extravagant, or absurd, in the Irish claim; and I do
not 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 Phoepician origin of the Irish alpha,
het, we involve ourselves in a still greater difficulty. Let iis,
however, probe the matter to the bottom, and look for its origin
in some other direction.
Here we have not many choices, but
must 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 con.
sequently it could not be derived from this quarter. St. Patrick
and hfs successors, notwithstanding all their influence, were
never. able to introduce the Reman alphabet into general use in
Ireland ; on the contrary, the Irish alphabet kept distinct and
aloof, without altering its form, or borrowing a single letter;
and after an arduous struggle, yard arm and yard arm (if I may
use a na>utical phrase) for twelve centuries, survived till the seventeenth
century, and might have survived to the present day,
had not James the First introduced English laws, English forms
of government, and English schools, with strict injunctions that
the Vernacular (Irish) language should neither be spoken nnr
taught in these seminaries. The Irish alphabet was not, there,
fore, borrowed from the Romans. The Greek alphabet has un.
dergone three gradations : it first consisted of the sixteen letters