Blair Collection > Kelt or Gael

The Kelt or Gael. 25
England is lower than it is in any other country
having any pretension to education ; while Ebel,
the learned editor of Zeuss, has declared, and I
fully endorse the expression, that the key to the
early history of Europe lies in the Keltic lan-
guages and literature. Zeuss's grammar requires
more scholarship than is at the command of
every reader, inasmuch as it is written in Latin,
makes a large volume in itself, and the method
is highly complicated. He does not admit words
later than the ninth century of our era ; and
although Mr Whitley Stokes sent to the editor of
the second edition, Professor Ebel, some new voca-
bularies, he does not seem to have made much use
of them. As it would therefore be useless to refer
all readers to Zeuss, and as some are perhaps no
better informed than the friend of whom I have
spoken, I shall just indicate the nature of an
Irish and Welsh grammar, and also the nature
and differences of their alphabets, and the causes
of those differences. That again will lead to a
short consideration of alphabets in general.