Blair Collection > History of the Celtic language

CELTIC LANGUAGE. 27
effecting what it defied the sword to accomplish,
namely, the ejection of those who use that language
from their native fastnesses, it appears to us not
unimportant here to submit opmions of eminent
scholars relative to its character in general. This
precaution shows our disposition to favour readers
of short or cripple belief, to whom our grand pro-
position might prove too high a barrier to leap
at a bound ; but who, by dividing the ascent into
stairs, half stairs, and steps, may, if they will, be
able to accompany us, and see for themselves these
grand objects, which people grovelling upon gross
earth never can see — which, indeed, it was never
intended they should see.
FIRST WITNESS.
Mons. Pezron, Abbot of La Charmoye, in France. —
Vide, '■'■Antiquities of Nations." Paris, 1703.
" Japhet* was the eldest of Noah's three sons. This
patriarch's eldest son was Gomer, and next to him Magog
and Madai. It is certain that Madai was the father of the
Medes ; the scriptures, and especially the prophets, speak not
otherwise. Magog is also looked upon to be the origin of
the Scythians, or people of Great Tartary. Gomer, who was
the eldest, must, certainly, as well as the rest, be the founder
of a people, and who could they be but the Gomarians, from
whom, according to Josephus, the Celtcs or Gauls were de-
scended ? And if Gomer be the true stock of the Gauls, as
* rW' iP^^ Prophet of God ?