Ossian Collection > Thoughts on the origin and descent of the Gael

132
elevated rank and dignity of character, which
alone can entitle them to that sublime distinc-
tion, which, in Homer's opinion, authorised him
to apply to the illustrious Pelasgi the epithet
divine.
It can hardly be maintained, that if the inha-
bitants of Greece were, prior to the period of the
arrival of the Pelasgi among them, acquainted
with the use of bark for receiving and retaining
written characters, they were altogether ignorant
of letters, or of signs of artici;late sounds form-
ing the component parts of words. Although
we are informed by C«sar, that the Gauls were
acquainted with the alphabetical characters of
the Greeks, we are not entitled thence to con-
clude, that they were unacquainted with any
other signs of letters. That the Gael made use
of written characters to denote letters, is a fact
well ascertained.* These were totally different
from the Greek characters, and could not have
been derived from the Pelasgi, or any other race
of people who had adopted or imitated the Pe-
lasgic characters. Hence it must be admitted,
that a people termed by the Greeks barbarouSy
had arrived at a knowledge of the component
principles of words, without the aid of any of
those lights which shone upon the Grecian
people at the earliest periods of their civilization,
by means of colonies of strangers more advanced
'' Vallency's Collectanea.