weight is due to the concurrent testimony of ancient as well as modern historians, and to these the reader's attention shall now be directed. That the Gauls and Albions, or Britons, were originally one people, and the language of the druids of Gaul and of those of Britain was of the same parent or Celtic stock, is not to be questioned. We have given from Cæsar, some account of the education of their disciples by the druids of Britain. That celebrated author further informs us, that the druidical system was believed to have originated in Britain, and to have been thence transferred into Gaul; and that in his day, such of the Gauls as wished to make greater proficiency, passed over to study in Britain. The stores of private knowledge, with which the memories of their students may be said to have been loaded, are also mentioned; and the reasons why" they do not hold it lawful to commit those subjects to writing, though in almost all their other public transactions and private business they use the Greek characters.”* Cæsar adds, "they are employed in discussions on the stars and their motion, on the magnitude and subdivisions of the earth, on natural philosophy, and on the power and dominion of the immortal gods; their knowledge in which sciences they communicate to their youth, or disciples."t Neque fas esse existimant ea literis mandare; quum in reliquis ferè rebus publicis, privatisque rationibus, Græcis literis utantur. + Multa præterea de sideribus atque eorum motu, de mundi ac terrarum magnitudine, de rerum naturâ, de deorum immortalium vi ac potestate disputant; et juventuti transdunt. Cæs. Com. Lib. vi. c. 13. Here then, in as far as Cæsar can be relied upon, it is fully established, that in Britain, during his age, the art of writing was so generally known, as to be used in even the common transactions of life; and, lest this should surprise his reader, he shews to what length the knowledge of the druids of Britain had in other respects extended. That the still more ancient druids had a knowledge of letters, and used symbols in writing, is proved by the most eminent antiquaries; and the following testimony, as given by Bucher, carries their knowledge of that art to the remotest period of history, viz. "that the druidical characters were not only considered elegant and similar to the Greek, but, on the authority of Xenophon and Archilochus, that those characters which Cadmus introduced into Greece bore a greater resemblance to the Gaulish than to either the Punic or Phoenician letters." * Indeed Cadmus's characters are ascertained to be similar to the druidical and bardic letters of Celtic origin, by the best of all possible evidence, a comparison of the several specimens exhibited by Monsieur de Gebelin in his Monde Primitif, and by Mr. Astle in his Origin and Progress of Writing. Mr. Davies, in his learned and ingenious work † lately published, observes "that the similarity of the two Non desunt qui priscos druidorum characteras et elegantes et Græcis similes fuisse credunt. Xenophonte siquidem et Archilocho testibus, literarum figuræ, quas in Græciam e Phœniciâ Cadmus intulit, Galaticis quam Punicis sive Phoeniciis similiores extitere. Bucher, p. 183. + Celtic Researches, p. 243. series is a good argument of their common origin; but it furnishes no clue for the discovery of their first proprietors. Did the Celtæ borrow letters from Greece, or Greece from the Celta? The invention of letters," Mr. Davies adds, "is concealed in the darkness of time; I therefore think it most reasonable to suppose, that both nations derived them from a common ancestor." The ancient druidical or bardic alphabet had only sixteen powers, and each letter conveyed the name of a tree or plant. Mr. Davies has given much luminous information respecting the analogy between the system of druidical symbols, considered as a method of writing, and the similar practice of other nations from the remotest periods. It may therefore suffice, in this place, to have touched upon the prominent points, which prove, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the ancient druids of Britain and Gaul had a written languge of the Celtic stock; and to suppose, that the British or Scottish bards, their disciples and successors, were ignorant of the art of writing, or that the science became extinct on the destruction of the druidical order, is just as improbable as to conceive that the art of printing will now be ever lost. But that, in point of fact, the bards were acquainted with writing is proved by evidence of the most irrefragable nature. The several monasteries that existed in Scotland, more especially in the Western Isles, at very remote periods, such as Iona (now generally known by the * Celtic Researches, Sect. 8. name of Icolmkill), Oransa, Ardchatton, Uist, Rowdle, Melrose, &c. cultivated letters in the Celtic or Gaelic language, which, though now spoken partially in remote corners of Great Britain and Ireland,* was the vernacular tongue of the greater part of Scotland from time immemorial to the eleventh or twelfth century. In those monasteries, not only the Gaelic, but the Latin language was cultivated; and we have instances, to be hereafter noticed, of both Gaelic and Latin treatises written by the abbots and monks at very remote periods, after the introduction of Christianity into Ireland and the Isles of Scotland. This need not surprise us, when we are told on good authority by Mr. Warton,† that "the Latin language was familiar to the Gauls, when conquered by the Franks, for they were a province of the Roman Empire until the year 485. It was the language of their religious offices, their laws, and public transactions. The Franks, who conquered the Gauls at the period just mentioned, still continued this usage, imagining there was a superior dignity in the language of imperial Rome, although this incorporation of the Franks with the Gauls greatly corrupted the Latinity of the latter, and had given it a strong tincture of barbarity before the reign of Charlemagne." The monk Adamnanus, as already observed in note N. to Cesarotti's Dissertation, wrote the history of St. Columba, the founder of Iona, and the lives of some other monks of the sixth century, Bedæ Eccles. Hist. Nicolson's Scottish Historical Library. which is said by Innes, in his Critical Essay, to have been first written in Gaelic.* Iona and all the other monasteries were pillaged, anno 1296, by Edward I.; "who," as remarked by Hume, " gave orders to destroy the records, and all those monuments of antiquity which might preserve the memory of the independence of the kingdom, and refute the English claims of superiority." In 1304, the same monarch abrogated all the Scottish laws and customs, and ordered such records or histories, as had escaped his former search, to be burnt or otherwise destroyed. That the monastery of Iona, or Icolmkill, was, until'so pillaged and destroyed, possessed of a valuable library of ancient and numerous MSS. appears from Boethius,† who informs us, that King Eugene VII. about the beginning of the eighth century, ordered all records and books relative to the history of Scotland to be deposited at Icolmkill, where he caused the old building, which contained the library, (then much decayed) to be pulled down, and a new splendid building to be erected for this sole use and purpose. Boethius, in the same work, also mentions, that Fergus II. who assisted Alaric the Goth, in the sacking of Rome, anno 410, brought away, as part of the plunder, a chest of MSS. which he presented to the monastery of Iona; and Mr. Pennant, in his * An Account of the Life, Miracles, and Writings of St. Columba has been lately published by an eminent Gaelic scholar, the Rev. Dr. Smith of Campbeltown, author of Gaelic Antiquities, &c. + Boethius, Hist. of Scotland, lib. x. fol. 180. Boethius, lib. vii. The author was born at Dundee, in the shire |