Blair Collection > Vestigia celtica

But underlying this infinite variety of form
there is one definite dominating idea, pre-
sently to be illustrated. That underlying
idea is undoubtedly of high linguistic anti-
quity. Some little knowledge of languages
so far apart as Sanskrit and Archaic French,
as well as my special reading in the Celtic
tongues, has enabled me to trace its ana-
logue, more or less obvious, along the
whole front of that wide lingfuistic sfamut.
The common mother of the Gadhelic and
Cymric families of speech must have used
it ; for all her living descendants — Gaelic,
Irish, Breton, and to some extent Welsh —
use it to this day ; as did also the Cornish
to the last. As a linguistic fossil, in various
stages of development or degradation, and
very variously preserved, it is firmly bedded
in the substance of every language that I
know. But in the living Gaelic it displays,
in wondrous volume and variety, all the
plastic vitality of a living organism. And
what now is the philological significance
of this fact ? That I may overrate the
value of what I am about to lay before the