5

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396 NOTES.
of Cadransj to these Palamedes added four, about the time of
the Trojan war. Simonides, at an after period, added four
more, making in all twenty-four. If we deriye the Irish from
tJie Greek alphabet, we must select the tera
when these alphabets
approximate nearest both as to number and identity of let.
lers. This sera is prior to the siege of Troy, when the alphabets
of Pheenicia, of Greece, and of Ireland, (with the exception of
the letter F, the origin of which is uncertain, and which might
still be spared without any material injury to the Celtic Ian.
gnage) absolutely coincided both in number and identity of let.
ters.
It is, indeed, worthy of remark, that the Irish have added
only one letter (F) to the alphabet of Cadmus, whilst the Greeks
have added eight, and the Romans nine. Though there are instances
of a nation enlarging its alphabet, there is not one (as
far as I know) of curtailing or abridging it. Had the Celts bor^
rowed their alphabet posterior to the siege of Troy, when the
Greek alphabet (which, no doubt, kept pace with the Phcenician
one) was increased to twenty letters, they must have borrowed
the same number; and if after the time of Simonides, they must
have borrowed twenty.four letters. It is, therefore, no vain
boast, when the Irish ascribe their alphabet to the Phcenicians
for there is, in fact, no alphabet in the world, which, at the pre.
sent day, bears the same intrinsic, unequivocal, and characteris.
tic marks of identity, with that of Cadmus. Nor is there any
well founded reason to conclude that the Celts borrowed this
alphabet through the medium of the Greeks. They were them.
selves an Asiatic colony, who long preceded the Greeks, and
might have brought this alphabet along with them to Enrope.
We find them, at the first dawn of history, situated to the west
of Greece, and along the shores of the Mediterranean, whence
their intercourse with the Phoenicians was frequent and easy.
But as I have no certain data whereby to fix this point, J shall
content myself with having clearly established that the Irish
alphabet is of Phoenician origin—that it (S older than the siege of
Troy—and (hat the Celts have cousequently had th« use of letters
at least 3000 years.