Blair Collection > On the antiquity of the Gaelic language shewing its affinity to Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, superseding the Masoretic points, and furnishing a key to the Hebrew vowel sounds

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and size, stands on the summit of tliat knoll, which he who
traces these lines conld see every day he looked out, as an
object of strange familiarity. The same sightly knoll supplies
a name to the adjacent lofty mountain, and ravine, and corrie,
as hcinn-an-tuim, eas-an-tuim, coir-an-tuwi.
We sidunit that list of names as a mere specimen of Celtic
topography and nomenclature pecidiar to the British Isles in
early times. No available authority can produce, or conde-
scend on, any earlier topography respecting England or Scot-
land. If so, and it is not too much to assert it affirmatively,
without fear of contradiction, no people could have preceded
the Celts, who left behind them those indelible traces of the
tongue they spoke in the land of their adoption. We would
speak advisetUy, but do positively and unhesitatingly affirm,
that this point deiies contradiction. The prestige which the
Celts possessed at the era of the Eoman mvasion, is another
evidence of the same truth, by the high head they carried as
a gTeat and very formidable nation. The Eomans, during the
foiu^ Inmdred and seventy -five years they occupied South
Britain, were obliged to construct walls to protect themselves
agamst the incursions of this bold and daring enemy, who
met these Roman invaders in many a fierce engagement, and
stood their ground unbeaten and unsubdued in their Caledo-
nian mountain fastnesses. That they were formidable rivals,
we have on respectable Eoman and Grecian authority.
Murum .... duxit qui Barbaros Romanosque divideret.
Spart. in Hadriano, xi.
^li'/tarog ti 6 BpsTTuvixo;, etc., etc.
Bio. Cass., lib. Ixxii.
The bravery and prowess of the Caledonians were sufficiently
tested in meeting the well-trained Eoman legions, which is
doubtless referred to in the poems of Ossian. Localities are
mentioned, still identified by the same name as the banks of the
mnding Carron (a small river in Stirlingshire), and the sound-
ing Cona (the river of Gleucoe in Argyllshire), which were
familiarly known to the Fingalians, and known by the same
name in om- times.
Upon the whole, then, we feel confident that, in the fore-
going analysis, we have shown the identity of the ancient
with the modern Gaelic, which is as ob\ious to any Gaelic
scholar as the letters of the Gaelic alphabet. In the full
belief of this, we now proceed to show still farther the evi-
dences of it as are furnished by the religion and poetry of the
Gael in ancient times, which forms the
(III. and IV.) Third and fourth sections of our Essay, and
which shall be discussed in combination, rather than separately.