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In the second place, we may learn from the following evidences, general or external, and internal or particular, that the Celtæ first peopled the British Islands; and that they are now represented truly by the Welsh, Highlanders, Cornish, Armoricans, &c., &c.

We have no tradition or intimation of the extermination of any race in Britain: let us then look for the people in our own day who most closely resemble the primitive and patriarchal type. An unprejudiced and intelligent person, placed amongst the primitive and patriarchal Highlanders and Welsh of our own day, would feel "that he lived amongst a people who had been there from the beginning." Consider the evidences in favour of this conclusion, such as they are.

Moses having enumerated the sons of Javan and Gomer, parallel in descent to Salah, who was born 37 years after the flood, adds as follows:-" By these were

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from the beginning. One was obtained by Adam in Paradise, but he lost it when, through the deceit of the devil, he ate the apple, and was driven from Paradise to till the earth with his pâl, that is, a sharp pointed pole. The second language is the one which Moses obtained, and which he used whilst turning back the Red Sea, until its bed became dry land. That language was used by the prophets after him, in prophesying of Christ, for three thousand years; and it is now found in Holy Scripture, and is understood by sages of learning and piety. The third language is the Cymraeg, which was obtained by Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam; and he was the first man after the expulsion of Adam from Paradise that praised God and goodness in vocal song. The Cymraeg was preserved over the waters of the deluge by Japheth the son of Noah the Aged, and his posterity brought it to the utmost parts of the world, when the language of the men who built the castle of Babylon into a tower of monstrous size, against the will of the Holy Ghost, was corrupted. It was hence that failure, corruption, and degeneracy befell all the languages of the world, except the Cymraeg. And in memory of this fact and occurrence the castle and tower of Babylon is seen, a pile of monstrous size and form, and it cannot by any means be dissolved. Of the three primitive languages, the first is now spoken in heaven by God, His saints and angels. The second is preserved in Holy Scripture, as already said, in the works of the sacred prophets. The third is the Cymraeg, which is spoken at this day in its perfect kind and quality by us, Cymry, in the Isle of Britain."-pp. 29, 30.-ED. CAMB. JOUR.

the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.' If this be not a positive declaration that a regular and complete division, agreeably to certain general rules, actually took place in the time, and under the direction, of the patriarchs, we know not by what words such a fact could be recorded.

By those parts which he calls "the isles of the Gentiles," it is understood that Moses meant Europe and the adjacent islands." These were divided by the sons and grandsons of Japhet, or, that is to say, by Javan and Gomer, and their sons. "In their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations." This division must have been regularly conducted, and must have taken place in the time of the patriarchs; for the act was theirs, and the nations retained their names to the time of Moses; nay, many of them long afterwards, for we find them recognized by history and geography.

Javan is well known as the parent of the Greeks. His family was not called Celtæ, or Cimmeri: we must look, then, for the Celtæ amongst the descendants of Gomer. A people named from Gomer would be Gomerim, or Gomeri; and it could be shown in a multitude of instances that C or K in the Celtic occupies the place of the Hebrew Cymri, or Kimmeri, may be nothing more than Gomerim. The Hebrew word signifies to come, or bring to an end. It may also point out the abode of the posterity of this patriarch at the end of the earth.

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Celtæ, in the language of the Celts, means men of the extremity, or extreme corners or retreats, and also northern regions. Josephus, an able critic in Hebrew geography, declares that those whom the Greeks called Galatæ, or Celtæ, were descendants of Gomer.

Of his three sons, Ashkenaz was understood to keep possession of the Ascanian or Euxine Sea, as well as of

3 Davies' Celtic Researches, pp. 123, 124.

the nook which lies between that sea and the Propontis. This nook was never intended for the sole inheritance of the eldest branch of the Noachidæ. It was a mere halting-place upon the road.'

In this corner of Asia we find the Heneti, or Veneti,— which pronounced by a Celt would be Henet, Kenet, or Gwenet,-well known tribes wherever the Celtæ are found. The country of these Heneti, or Veneti, seems to have been the Henydd, the origin, source, or native land of the Celtæ.

The family of Ashkenaz did not find in this neighbourhood that ample patrimony which they could be content to retain in peace, and leave to their children for ever. Their portion lay far to the west, and the way was open as yet for them to go in search of it. After they had reached their destined acquisitions they still retained their generic name, for Herodotus places the Cynetæ in the western extremities of Europe.

The name is acknowledged by the ancient Britons. Taliesin, a bard of the sixth century, in a poem which he addresses to Urien, Prince of Rheged, calls his countrymen Cyn-wys, or Echen Cynwys, the nation of the Cyn men. Cyn, in British implying the first or foremost part, regularly forms Cynet for its plural, both in Welsh and Armorican.5

By these names Homer describes them as known in the age of the Trojan war. At the beginning of the 13th Iliad, Jupiter turns his eyes from the combatants before Troy. He views in succession Thrace, the land of the Hippemolgi, or milk eaters, and lastly the Abii, or those of the Cimmeri who dwelt beyond them."

The chief part of European Scythia had been possessed by the Cimmeri; but these Cimmeri, as alluded to above, were a devious branch of Ashkenaz, (collateral descendants, or a branch that had taken an independent position of its own,) and became subsequently mixed up with the Titans, or exiles from Babel.

+ Davies' Celtic Researches, p. 127. 6 Ibid. p. 139.

5 Ibid.

p. 129.

Respecting the origin of the Gaels, it will not be improper to observe that, under the character of Saturn, the heathens preserved the history of Noah. Saturn divided the world amongst his three sons. The eldest

of these was Dis, or Pluto, and for his share he had Europe, the western or lower regions. Thus he became the parent of the first Europeans, and consequently of the Gauls.

Thus far as regards external guidance, in the Mosaic history, the traditions of heathen mythology, and such historical allusions as are extant. Let us now turn to that which is internal; as amongst the old Welsh manuscripts we find many historical notices, upon the model of druidical triads, purporting to be the remains of druidical ages. Many collections of these triads are preserved at this day in old copies upon vellum.

Speaking of the various races in North Britain, Skene says of the Welsh triads,-" certainly the oldest and most unexceptionable authority upon the subject."

Milton, as quoted by the author of The Chronicles of the Ancient British Church, remarks, "that oftentimes relations, heretofore accounted fabulous, have been after found to contain in them footsteps and relics of something true, even if some men gave the triads this character."

They bear the following title:-"These are triads of the Island of Britain, and of the events which befel the race of the Cymry from the age of ages, that is to say, triads of memorial and record, and the information of remarkable men or things in the Island of Britain."

Again," These triads were taken from the Book of Caradoc of Nantgarvan, and from the Book of Ievan Brechva, by me, Thomas Jones of Tregaron, and these are all I could get of the three hundred." Dated 1601. Caradoc of Nantgarvan lived about the middle of the twelfth century.

In another part of his considerable collection, Jones

7 Davies' Celtic Researches, p. 153. SECOND SERIES, VOL. I.

K

says that he copied some from a manuscript 600 years old in his time.

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Triad 1.-" There were three names given to the Isle of Britain from the beginning. Before it was inhabited it was called The Sea-Girt Green Spot.' After it was inhabited it was called the 'Honey Island,' from the quantity of honey found in it. After the people were formed into a commonwealth by Prydain, the son of Aedd Mawr, it was denominated the Isle of Prydain. And no one has any right to it but the tribe of the Cymry, for they first settled in it; and before that time no persons lived therein, but it was full of bears, wolves, crocodiles, and bisons."

Triad 2.-" The three pillars of the race of the Island of Britain. The first was Hu Gadarn, who first brought the race of the Cymry into the Island of Britain; and they came from the land of Hav, called Defrobani, where Constantinople now stands; and they passed over Mor Tawch (the German Ocean) to the Island of Britain, and to Llydaw, where they remained: the second, Prydain, the son of Aedd Mawr, who first established regal government in the Island of Britain (before this there was no equity but what was done by gentleness, nor any law but that of force): the third, Dyvnwal Moelmud, who first discriminated the laws and ordinances, customs and privileges of the land and of the nation (and for these reasons they were called the three pillars of the nation of the Cymry)."

Triad 5.-" The three benevolent tribes of the Island of Britain. The first were the stock of the Cymry, who came with Hu Gadarn into the Island of Britain, for he would not have lands by fighting and contention, but of equity and in peace: the second were the race of the Lloegrwys, who came from the land of Gwasgwyn, and were sprung from the primitive race of the Cymry: the third were the Brython; they came from Llydaw, and

8 Dr. James, on the Patriarchal Religion of Britain, (p. 14,) traces the route by which the Cymry came into Britain.-Chronicles of the British Churches, p. 7.

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