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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #68323 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68323)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Celtic mss. in relation to the
-Macpherson fraud, by J. C. Roger
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Celtic mss. in relation to the Macpherson fraud
- With a review of Professor Freeman's criticism of "The Viking
- Age," by the author of "Celticism a myth"
-
-Author: J. C. Roger
-
-Release Date: June 15, 2022 [eBook #68323]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Thomas Frost and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
- at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
- generously made available by The Internet Archive)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CELTIC MSS. IN RELATION TO
-THE MACPHERSON FRAUD ***
-
-
-
-
-
- CELTIC MSS.
-
- IN RELATION TO
-
- THE MACPHERSON FRAUD;
-
- WITH A REVIEW OF
-
- PROFESSOR FREEMAN’S CRITICISM
-
- OF
-
- “The Viking Age,”
-
- BY
-
- THE AUTHOR OF
-
- “CELTICISM A MYTH.”
-
- “I thought your book an imposture. I think it an imposture
- still.”--_Dr. Johnson._
-
-“The purposeless tortuosities of Celtic falsehood, and its most subtile
- manifestations.”--_Weekly Scotsman._
-
- “The received accounts of the Saxon immigration, and subsequent
- fortunes, and ultimate settlement, are devoid of historical truth in
- every detail.”--_J. M. Kemble._
-
- “And, armed in proof, the gauntlet cast at once
- To Scotch marauder, and to Southern dunce.”--_Byron._
-
- LONDON:
- E. W. ALLEN, 4, AVE MARIA LANE.
-
- MDCCCXC.
-
-
-
-
- LONDON
- PRINTED AT THE COURTS OF JUSTICE PRINTING WORKS
- BY DIPROSE, BATEMAN AND CO.
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE.
-
-
-That portion of this tractate which relates to Celtic manuscripts and
-the doings of Macpherson, was transmitted to the _Scotsman_ newspaper,
-in reply to an article by Professor Mackinnon which appeared in that
-journal. My communication was however returned by the editor on the
-plea that he could not find room for its insertion. It was perhaps
-too much to expect that a journal owned by one of the secretaries of
-a Society, which had engaged the services of the Celtic Professor at
-Oxford, to uphold what I call the Celtic myth, should open its columns
-to one inimical to Macpherson, and utterly sceptical in regard to his
-pretended translation. Mr. Mackinnon’s enumeration seems a vindication
-of the antiquity of Celtic MSS. in general, and was no doubt also
-projected “as a basis for more extended collaboration.”
-
-It occurred to me that my remarks on the Ossian MSS. might with
-advantage be incorporated with some notice of Professor Freeman’s
-criticism of “The Viking Age,” both tending in the same direction. One
-wipes out the Celts as the pioneers of civilization, the other explodes
-the Saxons as a race distinct from the Scandinavians. With this in view
-I have been aiming for some time past, to put my thoughts in train for
-publication, but want of time has always stood in the way.
-
- J. C. ROGER.
-
- FRIARS WATCH,
- WALTHAMSTOW.
- _October, 1890._
-
-
-
-
-CELTIC MSS.
-
-IN RELATION TO
-
-THE MACPHERSON FRAUD, &c.
-
-
-My attention was lately directed to a lengthy article that appeared in
-_The Scotsman_ of the 12th of last November, bearing the initials of
-Mr. Mackinnon, Professor of Celtic at the University of Edinburgh, to
-whom I sent a copy of my book, _Celticism a Myth_, then just issued
-from the press. The article begins with a tribute to the assiduity of
-the Historiographer Royal in the cause of Celtic literature; but is
-plainly intended as a refutation of my statement to the effect that
-“It is no longer pretended that any Gaelic poetry has been preserved
-in early manuscripts,” &c. In citing the remark of Dr. Irving it was
-certainly not my intention to call down an exhibition of Professor
-Mackinnon’s Celtic wares--of the authenticity and character of which I
-am profoundly ignorant--but simply to express my conviction that the
-alleged manuscript documents of which Macpherson professed to give a
-translation did not exist. _De non existentibus et non apparentibus_
-Dr. Johnson says, _eadem est ratio_. There are unfortunately now no
-Doctor Johnsons, or Pinkertons or John Hill Burtons to deal with these
-possible inventions or forgeries of a later age, the perhaps “other
-evidences” of what the great lexicographer characterised as “Scotch
-conspiracy in national falsehood.” Ample time and opportunity has been
-afforded since 1762--the date when Macpherson first gave to the world
-his _Ossian the Son of Fingal_--to fabricate missing documents or
-supply others of more startling character. A pungent criticism from the
-pen of Mr. Hill Burton, or a crushing commentary by either of the other
-named critics, would probably have relegated these so-called Celtic
-MSS.--some of them at least--to the nothingness whence they came. It is
-clear that what Professor Mackinnon brings forward is not _evidence_,
-certainly not such as would be accepted in a Court of Law. There is
-no substantiation of the Macpherson manuscripts save the statements,
-and what I fear must be regarded as the fabrications, of a number of
-interested individuals retailed at second-hand, none of all whom can
-be accepted as unprejudiced witnesses. After the strictest search
-for the originals of Ossian, Dr. Johnson came to the conclusion that
-as regards Scotland and the pretensions of James Macpherson, there
-was not in existence “an Erse manuscript a hundred years old.” Any
-attempt therefore, in our day to bring into agreement this literary
-imposture with the difficulties which stultify all conception of its
-genuineness is foredoomed to failure. If, as Mr. Mackinnon alleges,
-it be “perfectly established” that Macpherson carried away from the
-North-West Highlands several Gaelic manuscripts it is equally certain
-he never exhibited them to anyone capable of forming a judgment as to
-their authenticity. “The collection proper,” it would appear, “consists
-of sixty-three separate parcels.” How many of these are genuine we
-shall probably never know. These are “Transcripts of several MSS. or
-portions of MSS. by Mr. McLachlan, and the Rev. Donald Mackintosh,” and
-collections of “Ossianic poetry made by a schoolmaster at Kilmelford,”
-volumes of tales which belonged to Mr. Campbell of Islay, a collection
-of Gaelic poetry made by a schoolmaster at Dunkeld, the MSS. whatever
-these may be, written in “The old Gaelic hand!” the use of which, we
-are told, was discontinued about the middle of the last century.
-“Regarding the history of the great majority of these documents,” it
-is said “we are ignorant”--certainly at least, I am, most profoundly.
-It appears however, that “The Rev. Mr. Gallie saw in Macpherson’s
-possession” ‘several volumes, small octavos, or rather large duodecimo
-in the Gaelic language and characters’! Scarcely less authentic is the
-fact that Lachlan Macviurich “remembers well that Clanranald made his
-father give up the _Red book_ to James Macpherson,” and that Macpherson
-himself deposited certain MSS. with his publishers Messrs. Beckett and
-Dehondt which for a whole year remained in the custody of that firm.
-These manuscripts mentioned by Mr. Mackinnon were probably the Gaelic
-leases of Macleod of Rasay referred to by me in _Celticism a Myth_.
-The fact that Macpherson so prostituted his talents, and character
-for integrity was stated to me many years ago by an aged clergyman of
-the Church of Scotland, who vouched for his statement on the faith
-of his friend George Dempster of Dunichen, who was cognizant of the
-circumstance. Father Farquharson, it is alleged, made a collection of
-Gaelic MSS. before 1745, the last leaves of which were used to kindle a
-stove fire in the Roman Catholic College at Douay, a circumstance, as
-I think, not greatly to be deplored, while the “illiterate descendant”
-of the _Seanachies_ attached to the family of Clanranald describes the
-dispersion of the manuscript library accumulated by his ancestors,
-and the fate of certain parchments [? old leases] which were cut down
-for tailors’ measuring tapes. “He himself” (the descendant of the
-_Seanachies_) “had possession of some parchments after his father’s
-death,” but not being able to read, these disappeared from view. A
-valuable witness truly in the identification of doubtful MSS. “Such
-acts of vandalism,” we are told, “are not likely to occur again.”
-Probably not. Like Joshua arresting the Sun and the Moon, they are
-“things that have once been done but can be done no more.” The fact of
-the dispersion, however, and the fate of the parchments, leases, title
-deeds, literary treasures or by whatever name they may be called, rests
-on the testimony of this Celtic ignoramus who, it is to be feared,
-would not be too particular in any relation concerning the “glories and
-greatness” of his country, his personal consequence, or the departed
-grandeur of his clan. I well remember, many years ago, meeting with
-an ignorant Highlander of some property, who offered to sell for ten
-pounds an ancient claymore, with a pretentious, but unauthenticated
-pedigree, for which he declared, with the voluntary accompaniment of
-an oath, he had previously declined “_A Sousand pounds_.” It is my
-experience that to persons of this class it comes more natural to state
-a falsehood than to speak the truth. We all remember Charles Surface’s
-exculpatory witness in _The School for Scandal_, “Oh yes, I swear.” Mr.
-Mackinnon states that “The Gaelic text of Ossian which James Macpherson
-handed over to Mr. Mackenzie, and which was given to the editor of the
-edition of 1807, has disappeared.” How very odd that manuscripts on
-which the human eye never rested should thus so strangely disappear!
-Can that be said to disappear which was never visible? Of the poems of
-Ossian, Dr. Irving says, “We are required to believe that these were
-composed in the third century; and that by means of oral tradition,
-they were delivered by one generation to another for the space of
-nearly fifteen hundred years. If this account could be received as
-authentic, if these poems could be regarded as genuine, they must be
-classed among the most extraordinary effort of human genius. That a
-nation so rude in other arts, and even unacquainted with the use of
-letters, should yet have carried the most elegant of all arts to so
-high a degree of perfection, would not only be sufficient to overturn
-every established theory, but would exceed all the possibilities of
-rational assent. But if we could suppose an untaught barbarian capable
-of combining the rules of ancient poetry with the refinements of modern
-sentiment one difficulty is indeed removed; but another difficulty
-scarcely less formidable still remains--By what rare felicity were
-many thousand verses, only written on the frail tablet of memory,
-to be safely transmitted through fifty generations of mankind? If
-Ossian could compose epic poems on the same model as Homer, how was
-it possible for them to preserve their original texture through the
-fearful vicissitudes of nearly fifteen centuries? * * * * It is utterly
-incredible that such poems as Fingal and Temora, consisting each of
-several thousand lines were thus transmitted from the supposed age
-of Ossian to the age of Macpherson.” “It is” Dr. Irving continues
-“no longer pretended that any Gaelic poetry has been preserved in
-early manuscripts; and indeed the period when Gaelic can be traced
-as a written language is comparatively modern.” “That many poems
-and fragments of poems,” he goes on to say, “were preserved in the
-Highlands of Scotland cannot however be doubted; and it is sufficiently
-ascertained that Macpherson was assiduously employed in collecting such
-popular reliques, some of which had perhaps existed for many ages.
-_From the materials which he had thus procured he appears to have
-fabricated the various works which he delivered to the public under
-the name of Ossian, and afterwards to have adjusted the Gaelic by the
-English text._” “The ground upon which Hume finally decided against the
-authenticity of the _Poems of Ossian_, was the impossibility of any man
-of sense imagining that they should have been orally preserved ‘during
-fifty generations, by _the rudest, perhaps of all European nations;
-the most necessitous_, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled.’”
-Such is the historian Hume’s estimate of the Macpherson fraud as stated
-by the _Edinburgh Review_, and such the beggarly array of evidence on
-which, according to the abettors of Macpherson, the honour and glory
-of Scotland, must rest in all time to come. The Scotch are a stubborn
-race on which to operate, especially in matters that concern their
-nationality. They have conceived the idea that in the dark ages--dark
-to all but them--their countrymen, a Celtic race, were skilled in the
-sciences and acquainted with art. This as an article of faith has
-hardened into a conviction not to be shaken, and is that which, in
-their view, distinguishes Scotland above all competitors. In it, in the
-remote ages of the past, there existed culture and refinement rivalling
-that of the most literary nations of antiquity whether Egyptian,
-Etruscan, Greek or Roman. The roving Northmen, according to their
-account, were but plundering pirates, and other nations barbarians.
-No evidence, however overwhelming, will alter or modify this opinion.
-Not on any terms will they be induced to give up their preconceptions.
-Philologers and Ethnologists, Professors, and specialists, _et hoc
-genus omne_, are called to the rescue, while they refuse to look at the
-clearest facts. When their favourite idol begins to shake they rush
-into the market-place crying “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” It is
-impossible to doubt that Macpherson was an impudent impostor. When his
-veracity was impugned no simpler method of clearing his reputation
-from the aspersions cast upon it could have been devised than the very
-reasonable plan suggested by Dr. Johnson, that he should place the
-manuscripts in the hands of the professors at Aberdeen where there were
-persons capable of judging of their authenticity. The manuscripts were
-never produced, and in admitting this fact the defenders of Macpherson
-resign the whole question. “To refuse,” Dr. Johnson says, “to gratify
-a reasonable curiosity is the last refuge of impudent mendacity.” Dr.
-Johnson’s letter to this vain-glorious boaster repelling a threat of
-personal violence is a master-piece of contemptuous scorn and defiance.
-“Mr. James Macpherson, I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any
-violence offered me I shall do my best to repel, and what I cannot do
-myself the law will do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred from
-detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian. What would
-you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture. I think it an
-imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public
-which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities since
-your _Homer_ are not so formidable, and what I hear of your morals
-inclines me to pay regard, not to what you shall say, but to what you
-shall prove. You may print this if you will.”
-
-We are told that the subject of the Pictish language has been
-thoroughly discussed by Dr. W. F. Skene in his _Four Ancient Books
-of Wales_, that, in addition to _Pean Fahel_, the sole Pictish word
-formerly known he has discovered four other distinct words, besides a
-number of syllables entering into proper names; and from all these he
-deduces the opinion that Pictish “Is not Welsh, neither is it Gaelic;
-but it is a Gaelic dialect partaking largely of Welsh forms” whatever
-that may mean. “More especially,” we are told, “he holds that Pictish
-as compared with Gaelic, was a _Low_ dialect, that it differed from
-the Gaelic in much the same way that Low German differs from High.” It
-is perhaps unnecessary to add that I regard this supposed solution of
-the Pictish difficulty as so much figment. It is simply the arbitrary
-conclusion of a man looking into a mill stone, and giving a deliverance
-in regard to which he is in no more commanding position than the
-most illiterate specimen of humanity to be found in the slums of the
-Northern Metropolis. On the other side of the question it is open to
-me to state that the Pictish words which Mr. Skene persuades himself
-he has discovered, and which on his own shewing are neither Welsh nor
-Gaelic but, belonging to a Low dialect of the latter may after all
-be only the obsolete remains of an early Gothic speech. The ruler of
-the Picts about the end of the sixth century, it is said, was _Brude_,
-the son of _Mailcon_, who died in 586. The most active of all the
-Pictish sovereigns, according to the received accounts, was _Hungus_ or
-_Ængus_ who began to reign in 730. In so far then as these names may
-not be absolute myth, they may be claimed as Scandinavian. With _Brude_
-compare the Norse personal names _Brodi_, _Breid-r_, and _Brodd-r_ (the
-_r_ final separated by a hyphen being merely the sign of the nominative
-case). _Mailcon_ is the united Scandinavian personal names of _Miöl_
-and _Kon-r_. With _Hungus_ or _Ængus_ compare the Scoto-Norwegian names
-_Magnus Anguson_, and _Angus Magnuson_.
-
-The Norwegians in Man, in the Hebrides, and in the North, and
-North-Western Highlands were confessedly the dominant and more numerous
-race, and there for upwards of four centuries held uninterrupted sway.
-
-Did the Norwegian colonists eventually go off in vapour, leaving behind
-them only a native residuum speaking a purely Celtic dialect freed
-from all taint of the Northman’s language after the close contact of
-so many centuries? If the Norwegian element was not so sublimated, but
-as Pinkerton affirms, and which I believe, continues in the modern
-population of those portions of the United Kingdom, what becomes of
-the purity of the so-called “Primitive Celtic tongue”? Assuming that
-it was Celts among whom the Norwegians settled, is it possible to
-conceive that men of such force of character as the Northmen made no
-lasting impression on the speech of the wretched Celtic inhabitants
-whom they trampled under foot? Despite the researches of philologers
-is it rational to conclude that what is now called Celtic can on any
-intelligible hypothesis be the primeval speech of the unlettered
-savages who before the advent of the Romans had been driven into the
-western portion of the Island by the Belgae? “It is not in nature,”
-the _Saturday Reviewer_ says, “that people should accept Mr. Roger’s
-or Pinkerton’s opinion in preference to the universally held belief
-that the Celtic speech is a language of the Indo-European family of
-speech,” &c. But it is not alone Mr. Roger and Pinkerton with whom the
-_Reviewer_ has to deal. The late Lord Neaves, an eminent Scotch judge
-and antiquary, held an opinion very much akin to that of Pinkerton,
-that the Erse, and Gaelic, and Manx dialects, if not entirely a form
-of obsolete Gothic speech, contain at least a very large admixture of
-the northern tongue. The editor of the _Athenæum_ too, in reviewing
-Skene’s _Highlanders of Scotland_, draws attention to the fact of
-the striking resemblance between the oldest Erse monuments and those
-dialects confessedly Teutonic, holding this decisive of the question
-that the _Scots_ were Germans. On the same side of the question is the
-strongly expressed opinion of the late Dr. R. Angus Smith, F.R.S. “I
-consider,” he says, “those who hold the nations called Celtic and those
-called Teutonic, as one race, to be simply abolishing the knowledge we
-get from history, and refusing to look at very clear facts.” I am not
-however going to quarrel with the _Saturday Reviewer_, who virtually
-concedes all for which I contend, that the Celts were entirely without
-art or culture, of which more hereafter. On the question of civilizing
-influences we have the testimony of Professor Kirkpatrick, of the
-Scotch Bar, a gentleman of well-known scholarly accomplishments, who
-occupies the Chair of Constitutional Law and History in the University
-of Edinburgh. “I have long been of opinion,” he writes, “that we
-owe the _whole_ of our civilization to Scandinavian and Teutonic
-ancestors, and partly to Roman influence, and your very interesting
-volume confirms that opinion.” There is still another phase of the
-question with which the philological critic has to deal, and this is,
-that only where the Northmen settled are found those remains of what
-is called Celtic speech. “The Northmen formed colonies in Wales, in
-Cornwall, in Brittany, in Ireland, in the Highlands and islands of
-Scotland, and in the Isle of Man, and there only do we find those
-dialects usually known as Celtic.” I do not pretend to explain this,
-but I state it as an outside fact, which, in my view, it is incumbent
-on the Celtic philologer to explain. It is, of course, impossible to
-reach any confident conclusion as to what may have been the language
-on which the Northman grafted his Teutonic speech, though it must be
-obvious to every unprejudiced enquirer, that those dialects must now
-be very much mixed and altered and corrupted from close contact for
-many centuries with the language of a dominant race. Having regard to
-this fact, the question arises whether “the universally held belief”
-referred to by the _Saturday Review_, be not founded on the Gothic
-accretions derived from the Northmen, rather than on the structural
-peculiarities of the original language of the people among whom the
-Northmen settled. It is evident from the remarks of Professor Max
-Muller that too much importance is not to be attached to what is told
-us by the Celtic philologer. “Celtic words,” he says, “may be found in
-German, Slavonic, and even Latin, but only as foreign terms, and their
-number is much smaller than commonly supposed. A far larger number
-of Latin and German words have since found their way into the modern
-Celtic dialects, and these have frequently been mistaken by Celtic
-enthusiasts for original words from which German and Latin might in
-their turn be derived.”
-
-Professor Kirkpatrick’s opinion suggests a natural connection between
-the Celtic myth, and M. du Chaillu’s account of _The Viking Age_. The
-_Scotsman_, in its review of this book, wonders what Professor Freeman
-will say, and we are not long left in doubt. He looks down upon M. du
-Chaillu from a lofty eminence, evidently regarding him with something
-like pitying contempt. He is not sure he should have thought the
-doctrine set forth by M. du Chaillu worthy of serious examination,
-but for the singular relation in which it stands to Mr. Seebohm’s
-“slightly older teaching,” in his book called _The English Village
-Community_. Mr. Seebohm’s views, he says, are the evident result
-of honest work at original materials, and eminently entitled to be
-considered, and if need be, answered. But obviously both are eminently
-objectionable. Though differing in method, they rival each other in
-daring and absurdity. The only question is whether M. du Chaillu’s
-theory need be discussed at all. Professor Freeman has decreed this,
-and after so supreme a master in the art of criticism it is vain to
-question it.
-
-It will thus be seen he lauds the one in order to disparage the other.
-He compliments Mr. Seebohm and spits contemptuously in M. du Chaillu’s
-face. I am Jupiter, and by contrast in the scale of intelligence,
-you, M. du Chaillu, are only a black beetle. “The strife in its new
-form,” he tells us, “has become more deadly.” M. du Chaillu threatens
-to wipe out entirely Professor Freeman’s antiquated conception of a
-Saxon invasion, and the latter is constrained to worship in secret the
-divinity he pretends to despise. Professor Freeman’s views will be
-found in _The Teutonic Conquest in Gaul and Britain_. He has had his
-say, and “if anybody cares to know what that say is, he may read it
-for himself.” Professor Freeman has written what he has written, and
-woe to him who reads to controvert. It does not, however, follow that
-what Professor Freeman has written is necessarily the gospel of English
-history. Both theories alike, it would appear--Mr. Seebohm’s and M.
-du Chaillu’s--throw aside the recorded facts of history! What are the
-recorded facts of history in relation to the so-called Saxon invasion?
-The Saxon invasion was doubted in the days of Bishop Nicolson, who
-refers to the short and pithy despatch Sir William Temple makes of the
-Saxon times, and the contempt with which he speaks of its historians.
-The good Bishop himself is constrained to admit he does not know what
-has become of the book written by King Alfred against corrupt judges,
-nor of that gifted King’s collection of old Saxon sonnets.[1] The late
-J. M. Kemble taught the learned world to believe that, “the received
-accounts of the Saxon immigration, and subsequent fortunes, and
-ultimate settlement are devoid of historical truth in every detail.”
-Here is an eminent scholar who, having examined the subject with
-perfect historical candour, regarded the Saxon invasion as fiction and
-fabrication from beginning to end, and who surely may be accepted as
-a valuable witness. To the same purpose we have the statement of Mr.
-James Rankin, F.R.A.S., “Who the Saxons were, or when they arrived, or
-where they settled, is a subject on which tradition is entirely silent,
-for of written history there is none.” Professor Freeman says that M.
-du Chaillu has put forth two very pretty volumes with abundance of
-illustrations of Scandinavian objects. He contemns the pictures but
-admires the frames. Most of them, however, he adds, will be found in
-“various Scandinavian books,” but he does not suggest that the “various
-Scandinavian books” are not readily accessible to the English reader.
-
-Professor Freeman indulges in that species of raillery to which men
-usually resort when they are driven into a corner. “We are really not
-ourselves,” he says, “but somebody else.” “The belief as to their own
-origin which the English of Britain have held ever since there have
-been Englishmen,” and such incoherent trifling. The ordinary average
-Englishman has no independent belief on the subject. He is told in
-his youth the story about Hengist and Horsa, and if he remembers it
-at all it gives him no particular concern. The bulk of Englishmen and
-Scotchmen too, are profoundly ignorant as to their history and origin.
-The Englishman has some vague conception that he is an “Anglo-Saxon,”
-while the Scot takes it for granted that all Scotchmen are Celts, and
-that all art found in Scotland is Celtic. Sir Daniel Wilson could
-discern in the rude rock scroll the “stately Cathedral.” There are
-others “who can see a coffin in a flake of soot.” It is hardly by
-such an adversary as M. du Chaillu, Professor Freeman says: “that
-we shall be beaten out of the belief that there is such a thing as
-English people in Britain. Perhaps too we shall not be more inclined
-to give up our national being, when we see its earliest records tossed
-aside with all the ignorant scorn of the eighteenth century.” This
-is absolutely childish. It reads more like mental imbecility than
-intellectual acumen. M. du Chaillu does not deny that there is an
-English people in Britain. He only doubts that the English people are
-Saxon, and affirms that they are Scandinavian, and in this view of the
-matter he is sustained by many and strong presumptions. Neither does
-he ask us “to give up our national being,” which he does not assail.
-Macaulay says: “it is only in Britain that an age of fable separates
-two ages of truth,” and the void, it would appear, is to be filled up
-with “some hints” by Professor Freeman, who, to his own satisfaction,
-at least, has bridged over the dreary gulf. Professor Freeman thinks it
-odd that the so-called Saxons were led into such strange mistakes as
-to their own name and origin. Is it an exceptional thing for a nation
-to be mistaken as to its remote history? Can Professor Freeman tell us
-who were the aborigines of Ancient Greece? Professor Freeman declines
-to be brought from the North by M. du Chaillu even more strongly than
-he declines to be brought from the South by Mr. Seebohm. Mr. Seebohm,
-according to Professor Freeman, “does leave some scrap of separate
-national being to the ‘Anglo-Saxon invaders’ * * * * M. du Chaillu
-takes away our last shreds; we are mere impostors,” &c. Must a nation
-be accounted impostor because it does not possess an accurate knowledge
-of its remote history? We might, indeed, be justly termed impostors if
-in the face of overwhelming evidence we should continue to adhere to
-the foregone conclusions of dogmatic historians built on the fictions
-and figment of monkish tradition. “As far as M. du Chaillu’s theory
-can be made out,” Professor Freeman holds it to be this, “The Suiones
-of Tacitus are the Swedes, and the Suiones had ships; so far no one
-need cavil. But we do not hear of the Suiones or any other Scandinavian
-people doing anything by sea for several centuries. But though we
-do not hear of it they must have been doing something. What was it
-they did? Now in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries we hear of the
-Saxons doing a good deal by sea; therefore the name _Saxones_ must be a
-mistake of the Latin writer’s for _Suiones_.” The assumption that goes
-through all this, Professor Freeman continues, is that “because the
-Suiones had ships in the days of Tacitus, as they could not have left
-off using ships it must have been they who did the acts attributed to
-the Saxons.” He condescends to admit that “a good deal is involved in
-this last assumption; it is at least conceivable,” he says, “and not
-at all unlike the later history of Sweden, that the Suiones went on
-using their ships, but used them somewhere else, and not on the coasts
-of Gaul and Britain.” But this begs the question in dispute. Setting
-aside M. du Chaillu’s conjecture as to the possible confounding of
-names,[2] the question still remains who were the Saxons? Whether is it
-more reasonable to believe that the Suiones or Swedes referred to by
-Tacitus, not to mention the Danes and Norwegians, did not continue to
-make their descent on the shores of Britain so readily accessible to
-their fleets, or that the so-named Saxon invader was one and the same
-with the Scandinavian? “There is nothing very strange,” the _Quarterly_
-thinks, “in supposing that some of the ‘Angles’ or ‘Saxons’ may have
-descended from the Suiones of Tacitus.” M. du Chaillu, it says, “rests
-his case mainly on the fact that, while the so-called Anglo-Saxon
-remains found in England correspond minutely with those discovered
-in enormous quantities in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, there are no
-traces of such objects in the basins of the Elbe, the Weser, and the
-Rhine, nor anywhere else, save in places which Scandinavians are known
-to have visited.” “Every tumulus,” M. du Chaillu says, “described
-by antiquaries as a Saxon or Frankish grave, is the counterpart of a
-northern grave, thus showing conclusively the common origin of the
-people.” Professor Freeman considers M. du Chaillu’s theory “several
-degrees more amazing than that of Mr. Seebohm,” though why the two
-should be connected I hardly know. “No one denies,” Mr. Freeman
-says, that the Scandinavian infusion in England is “real, great, and
-valuable,” only the date of the Scandinavian descent on the shores of
-Britain, and the degree and manner of the northern immigration must
-be taken on the faith of Professor Freeman. According to his account
-the Scandinavian invasion was an _infusion_ that dates from the ninth
-century. This is exactly the pivot on which the whole question turns.
-There are strong grounds for believing that the Northman incursions and
-settlements in Britain were not limited to the Danish invasions of the
-ninth century. Did the fleets of the Northmen fully equipped start into
-existence in the middle or end of the ninth century? If not, how were
-they engaged during the centuries that immediately preceded? Professor
-Freeman affirms that they were employed “somewhere else.” If they were
-not used in the subjugation of Britain, perhaps Professor Freeman
-will state circumstantially what portions of Europe are comprehended
-under the vague generality of “Somewhere else.” We want something more
-convincing than his _ipse dixit_. Danish writers, we are told, have
-often greatly exaggerated the amount of Scandinavian influence in
-England, a remark that applies with equal force to the advocates of the
-Saxon and Celtic theories. Things, it is said, have been set down as
-signs of direct Scandinavian influence, which “are part of the common
-heritage of the Teutonic race.” Admitting this “common heritage,” and
-having regard to the fact, that the language of the Scandinavian, and
-that of the so-called Anglo-Saxon are almost identical, who shall
-decide between their conflicting claims? The _Quarterly_, citing from
-the _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_ of Vigfússon and Powell in reference
-to the poetry of the Norsemen, says, “The men from whom these poems
-sprung took no small share in the making of England; their blood is
-in our veins, and their speech in our mouths.”[3] The preponderance
-of the direct Scandinavian element in the English language has been
-shown by Archbishop Trench, who states “That of a hundred English
-words, sixty come from the Scandinavian, thirty from the Latin, five
-from the Greek, and five from other sources.” “Dane and Angle, Dane
-and Saxon,” according to Professor Freeman’s own shewing “were near
-enough each other to learn from one another, and to profit by one
-another.” Their dialectic difference was never such as to prevent them
-from understanding each other. “There is,” the _Quarterly_ affirms,
-“very high authority for saying that there was as little difference
-in those early times between a Dane and an Englishman, as there was
-between two Englishmen in different parts of the country.” The Saxons
-were in fact only an earlier swarm of northern adventurers of the same
-race who were afterwards known in history as Danes and Northmen. Still
-Professor Freeman thinks the Scandinavian element was but an _infusion_
-into the already existing English mass. Hardly I should think if the
-existing English mass, and the invading Northmen had a common origin!
-The name of England’s principal city, it may be remarked, the great
-metropolis of the Empire is Scandinavian. Neither are there wanting
-persons who believe that such also is the name England itself. In
-a communication to _Notes and Queries_ by Mr. Henry Rowan in 1868,
-he suggests a derivation of this name from the Danish _Eng_. “While
-travelling in Denmark,” he says, “I met with a word which seems to me
-to afford a derivation of our name of England, as probable, at least
-as the ordinary one of _Angle land_. The word I mean is _Eng_, an
-old Danish name applied even yet to the level marshy pasture lands
-adjoining rivers. I believe the Saxons and Angles, from the time of
-whose invasion the name is supposed to date, first landed and possessed
-the Isle of Thanet, which in parts, especially those about Minster, and
-the river _Stour_, would answer very well to the description of Danish
-_Eng lands_. It is from this word I think the name may have sprung,
-instead of from the Angles, whom we have no reason for supposing to
-have been so superior to the Saxons as to leave the remembrance of
-their name to the entire exclusion of the latter.” M. Worsaae, in
-the first words of his history unwittingly confirms what Mr. Rowan
-here points out. “The greater part of England,” he says, “consists
-of flat and fertile lowland, particularly towards the southern and
-eastern coasts, where large open plains extend themselves.” There is a
-low-lying district of Aberdeenshire called the _Enzie_, a name of the
-same character, evidently imposed by the Northmen. This is pronounced
-by the natives _aingie_, the sound of the first portion of the name
-being as the _aing_ in the Scotch surname of _Laing_. The derivation
-just cited, coupled with my conjecture that the name Scotland is the
-ancient gothic _Skot-land_, land laid under tribute, Icelandic _Skat_,
-a tax (Skat-land) goes to confirm M. du Chaillu’s contention that the
-British people, and tongue (by tongue, I mean the present speech of the
-British nation) are of northern origin.
-
-The contention that the Danish influx into England was in any sense a
-mere infusion must in the nature of things be pure fiction. It was a
-full rolling tide of conquest and colonization swelling a population
-already essentially Scandinavian.
-
-The first authentic particulars relating to the ancient Britons are
-derived from Cæsar who made his descent in the year 55 before Christ.
-The original inhabitants appear to have been Celts from France and
-Spain. We learn from the Roman historian that they had been driven
-into the interior and western portion of the island by the Belgae who
-settled on the east and south-eastern shores of England, and were now
-known as Britons. He tells us in language, about which there can be no
-misconception, that the Belgae were descended from the Germans. These
-were the Britons with whom Cæsar had to do, and these the Romanized
-Britons who, in their dire extremity, sent forth their despairing cry
-to the gates of Imperial Rome, “The barbarians drive us to the sea,
-and the sea to the barbarians.” Prichard demonstrated, at least to his
-own satisfaction, that “the ancient Belgae were of Celtic, and not
-of Teutonic race, as had previously been supposed,” and ethnologists
-are agreed in setting aside the testimony of Cæsar! What amount of
-hypothetical evidence is sufficient to overturn an historic fact? It
-might be difficult to say who is an authority on language, but anyone
-reasonably endowed with judgment may be an authority on matters of
-fact and practical sense. The science of language is not an exact
-science, and leaves a good deal of room for the imagination to play.
-I would rather doubt the conclusions of philologers than believe
-that the Roman historian wrote without knowledge of his subject, or
-deliberately stated what he had no means of knowing to be true. The
-weight of evidence is certainly on the side of Cæsar. Not all the
-ingenuity of all the Bopps and Grimms and Potts and Zeusses who ever
-applied themselves to the elucidation of this most obscure of all
-unintelligible subjects can ever be sufficient to overturn an outside
-historical fact. “In the history of all nations,” Pinkerton says,
-“it is indispensable to admit the most ancient authorities as the
-sole foundation of any knowledge we can acquire. If we reject them
-or pretend to refute them no science can remain, and any dreamer may
-build up an infinite series of romances from his own imagination. When,
-therefore, a modern pretends to refute Cæsar and Tacitus in their
-accounts of the inhabitants of ancient Britain, any man of science
-would disdain to enter the field.” It does not by any means follow
-that every scholar who is familiar with the structural peculiarities
-of language has necessarily any aptitude for perceiving the exact
-relations of things. Many distinguished men eminent in literature have
-been singularly deficient in ordinary reasoning power. The late Charles
-Kingsley, it is well known, “could not discern truth from falsehood.”
-Though occupying “an historical chair, he lacked every qualification of
-an historian.”
-
-M. Worsaae, the Danish antiquary, after a good deal of hesitation
-and circumlocution in regard to several matters of disputed origin,
-in particular the Ruthwell cross which he casts out of the category
-of Scandinavian remains, and contradicts himself in the following
-sentences: “Ornaments with similar so-called Anglo-Saxon runic
-inscriptions are not altogether uncommon in England, particularly
-in the North. But as not a few ornaments, as well as runic stones
-with inscriptions in the self-same character, are also found in the
-countries of Scandinavia both in Denmark and Norway, and particularly
-the latter, and the west and south-west of Sweden (and there mostly
-in Bleking), it may be a question whether this runic writing was not
-originally brought over to England by Scandinavian emigrants. It
-would otherwise be inexplicable that they should have used entirely
-foreign runic characters in Scandinavia, whilst they possessed a
-peculiar runic writing of their own.” I do not think there can be
-any question in the matter. No stronger evidence could be given in
-proof of the fact that the so-called Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians
-were radically one and the same people. M. Worsaae has done much to
-illustrate the Scandinavian antiquities of the British islands, and I
-am unwilling to cast reflection on the memory of one so eminent and so
-well-intentioned, but it is evident throughout his book, that he has
-accepted at second-hand, on a variety of subjects, the conclusions of
-English and Scotch antiquaries, which as a foreigner he was incapable
-of dealing with by independent investigation. The Hunterston brooch,
-which in every lineament is distinctively Scandinavian, he has been
-told to call _Celtic_. He deals with this most interesting monument
-of art in the ambiguous manner for which he is always remarkable
-where his judgment seems to contradict his conclusion. “An excellent
-silver gilt brooch,” he says, “found near Hunterston, about three
-miles from Largs, was once said to have been lost by some Norwegian
-who fled from the field of battle [nothing more probable]. There is
-a short Scandinavian runic inscription scratched on the back of it,
-but from what has hitherto been deciphered, it would rather seem to
-denote the name of a Scotchman than of a Norwegian. Professor Munch
-reads ‘Malbritha a dalk thana--Melbridg owns this brooch.’” M. Worsaae
-here obviously means _Celt_, as opposed to Scandinavian, but uses
-the term Scotchman to allow himself, if need be, a door of escape.
-“Scotchman” would apply equally to anyone born in Scotland, whether
-Celt by extraction, Scandinavian, Fleming or Norman. This seems to me
-an undignified way of getting out of a difficult position. The runic
-writing of the Hunterston brooch, which is in the Norse tongue, has
-been accurately explained by Professor George Stephens, of Copenhagen.
-M. Worsaae, we know, accepted the attentions of eminent British
-antiquaries, and could not gracefully seem to doubt their conclusions
-on special subjects submitted to his decision. He is first told what to
-say, and then cited by his instructors, as an authority for statements
-which they themselves have put into his mouth. Perhaps, under the
-circumstances, this may not be an exceptional manner of dealing with
-matters of disputed history, but it is certainly not the way to reach
-the truth that reveals itself to intelligence. “In workmanship,” M.
-Worsaae says, “the Hunterston brooch resembles the contemporary Irish
-and Scotch more than Scandinavian ornaments.” Now, it certainly does no
-such thing. It does not appear to me that as regards the Scandinavian
-remains of Great Britain, one like M. Worsaae groping his way darkly
-with the help of such lights as he can find is at all competent to
-pronounce dogmatic judgments. Ireland and Scotland were invaded, and
-subdued, and peopled by the Northmen, and brooches of the self-same
-character are found in the Viking interments of Scandinavia. The
-contemporary Irish and Scotch brooches may reasonably be presumed to
-be Scandinavian. The resemblance of the Hunterston brooch to that
-found at Tara, and to others of like character found in Scotland is
-certainly not greater than to the brooch in the Bergen Museum exhumed
-from a Viking mound at Vambheim, or to that dug up at North Trondheim
-in another grave of the Viking period. The inscription contained on the
-Hunterston brooch proves to demonstration, not only that its art, and
-that of all others of kindred type is Scandinavian, but that the name
-“Melbridg” is Norwegian. Whatever be the _origin_ of the art exhibited
-on the brooches, it is plain that this cannot be Celtic, inasmuch as
-that no one has ever shewn that the Celts possessed any knowledge of
-art. It is all very well to talk in an off-handed way about Celtic
-art, but something more than this is necessary to carry conviction.
-To my perceptions a Celtic statement is much improved by some form of
-_evidence_. Dr. Soderberg of Lund doubts if I will find many adherents
-among Scandinavian scholars. “We are all of us,” he says, “more or
-less imbued with Celticism.” So much the worse for Scandinavia,
-that her sons deny her legitimate claims to her own historic and
-archaic remains. It is not however, as I think, so much a question of
-scholarship as of practical sense, the capacity to deal with facts
-which may be weighed by anyone possessed of ordinary reasoning power
-or capable of speech and thought in their simplest forms. One can
-understand a Scotch antiquary of the Celtic type placing himself in
-an attitude of antagonism, just as we might imagine Professor Freeman
-gliding like a shark along the Saxon line ready to do battle on behalf
-of his cherished delusion, because that to both of these the Northman
-theory is total extinction. But that the Scandinavian antiquary, who
-as regards his national remains has no reason to falsify the facts of
-history, should in the interest of an exotic fable, waste his ingenuity
-in disclaiming the art that especially belongs to his country surpasses
-my comprehension. Let us hear what the _Saturday Review_ has to say on
-the subject of Celtic art. Taking exception to many of my positions,
-it says: “He [Mr. Roger] is on much firmer ground when he declines
-to believe in any art or culture that can fairly be called Celtic.
-The very patterns which are usually spoken of as Celtic are common to
-all the gold work of the Mycenæan graves, which few people, we think,
-will now place much later than 1500 B.C.” “Dr. Schliemann’s Mycenæan
-discoveries deprive the Celts of any credit for originality in their
-system of spiral ornament.” Again “‘_Celtic_’ patterns certainly
-existed on the shores of the Ægean fifteen hundred years before our
-era.” “Mr. Roger is probably right when he claims a Scandinavian
-origin for the ancient claymores (two handed), for the Tara brooch and
-other brooches, for stone crosses, dirk handles, and what so else is
-too commonly attributed to Celtic art.” “‘What is Celtic art?’ cries
-Mr. Roger, triumphantly. What, indeed? ‘The Celts, Pinkerton tells
-us, had no monuments, any more than the Finns or savage Africans, or
-Americans.’ As to Americans, Mr. Roger can see their bas-reliefs at
-the South Kensington Museum;[4] _but for Celtic art not derived from
-the Scandinavians or Romans, we know not where to bid him look_.”
-I am content to rest the matter here. There is no art known as
-distinctively Celtic, and in this aspect of the question I am confirmed
-by the _Saturday Review_. But to return to Professor Freeman. In a
-number of the publication called _The Antiquary_, issued on November
-16th, 1872, the writer of a paper on _The Landing of the Saxons in
-Kent_, tells us that “after pillaging for ‘a hundred and fifty years’
-the British shores,” the Jutes, or Saxons, landed under Hengist and
-Horsa, “and here,” the writer says, “we must halt for a few moments
-till we have disposed of Mr. E. A. Freeman’s astounding statement that
-Horsa meant _mare_. Hors, our misspelt _horse_,” the writer says, “is
-like its German equivalent Ross, a neuter word. The Saxon hero is
-sometimes called simply Hors, but more frequently by the addition of a
-masculine termination--a, as in ‘Ida Ælla,’ and some thousands more,
-he becomes Horsa, masculine and male. _Mare_ is Myre, feminine.
-* * * * If Mr. Freeman will be good enough to tell us how he came to
-fall into this preposterous error, we may possibly clear up the cause of
-his mistake; for the most part, when he makes a bad blunder, we can
-form a notion what better authority has misled him; but in this case
-no English dictionary, grammar, or history can have been consulted
-by him. Can it have been a Latin grammar? Mr. Freeman is extensively
-known as blowing weekly a shrill trumpet, ‘_asper, acerba, sonans_,’
-in reviews of literary and illiterate performances, but then he is
-in hiding; we hear the obstreperous whirr, but the midge is behind
-the screen; when he appears in human body, he makes lapses, trips and
-stumbles, and lays himself bare to stings,” &c. This is in Professor
-Freeman’s early days, but men carry their idiosyncrasies into their
-riper years. It gives us an insight into this critic’s mind according
-to the estimation in which he was then held by his fellow-scribblers.
-To the article in question, which occupies nearly two columns of
-_The Antiquary_, the editor appends the following note:--“The story
-of Hengist and Horsa (including the so-called Anglo-Saxon invasion)
-is an exploded fable. The Anglo-Saxons of England, like the Picts
-or Caledonians of Scotland, were only the earlier Northmen or
-Scandinavians.”
-
-This is pre-eminently an age of platitudes and Professor Freeman is
-great in such. “There is,” he says, “an English folk, and there is a
-British Crown.” There is also, it might be affirmed, a Scotch folk,
-and a British Crown, and until Mr. Gladstone shall accomplish his
-visionary project of Irish Home Rule, there is, and will be an Irish
-folk and a British Crown. “But the homes of the English folk,” we are
-to note, “and the dominions of the British Crown do not always mean
-the same thing.” Does any one suppose they do? “Here by the border
-stream of the Angle and the Saxon” we are in “the dominions of the
-British Crown,” &c. If by the “border stream” be meant the Tweed, it
-is more than doubtful if the Angles and Saxons ever saw that stream.
-In Professor Freeman’s “youth,” the “Anglo-Saxon race was unheard of,”
-and by some strange delusion, for which it is difficult to account, the
-“British race” dates, he believes, from some speech delivered a week
-before the time at which he writes. It is evident Professor Freeman
-has not been a reader of _Good Words_, at least of its early numbers
-published more than thirty years ago. In one of these he will find “The
-British race has been called Anglo-Saxon,” &c., and a good deal more
-which it might be inconvenient for him to learn.
-
-Professor Freeman “shows how some writers, sometimes more famous
-writers, now and then get at their facts.” “One received way,” he
-tells us, “is to glance at a page of an original writer, to have the
-eye caught by a word, to write down another word, that looks a little
-like it, and to invent facts that suit the words written down. To roll
-two independent words into a compound word with a hyphen is perhaps a
-little stronger; but only a little.” Are we to suppose that Professor
-Freeman is recounting his individual experience in dealing with the
-facts of English history?
-
-The gifted Edmund Spenser, who charmed the world with his _Faery Queen_
-died forsaken and in want. Milton sold his copyright of Paradise Lost
-for fifteen pounds, and Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield was disposed of
-for a trifle to save him from the grip of the law. _Tempora mutantur!_
-Third rate contributions by high class writers command their market
-value. If men can obtain payment for writing such articles as that of
-Professor Freeman’s criticism of _The Viking Age_ that appeared in the
-January number of the _Contemporary Review_ it shows that there is
-something in a name, that the conductors of such periodicals pay more
-regard to the reputation of the writer, than to the quality of the
-writing. Professor Freeman is no doubt a very able writer, but this is
-not the conclusion that would be reached in reading his captious and
-illogical criticism of M. du Chaillu’s book.
-
-I have evidently wounded the susceptibilities of some extreme churchman
-or irascible Celt, in the person of a reviewer in the _Literary
-World_, whose hostility is hardly explainable on the ground of mere
-difference of opinion. According to this disposer of events, I fall
-wofully short in the qualifications of one who is entitled to speak
-on the subject of archæology. I might, however, plead in extenuation,
-and in mitigation of punishment the reason given by Mr. Gladstone for
-upholding the verity of Old Testament Scripture, that “there is a
-very large portion of the community whose opportunities of judgment
-have been materially smaller than my own,” and that, “in all studies
-light may be thrown inwards from without.” I profess not to unravel
-the hidden mysteries of prehistoric antiquity, but simply to deal with
-the historical aspect of outside facts, though, as the _Saturday_
-reviewer justly remarks, I must get into prehistory somewhere. Among
-the numerous disqualifications manifested in my treatise, I show “a
-very indifferent acquaintance” with “Language;” and its “twin sister,
-Ethnology,” of which, however, I may reasonably be presumed to
-know as much as my censor. Most persons who write on any subject do
-something to keep in touch with current facts and common knowledge.
-If the critic of the _Literary World_ had taken the trouble to read
-my book attentively, he would have found many references to what has
-been done by philologers and Ethnologists on whose labours he sets so
-much store. “As the book is in a second edition,” he condescends to
-inform us, he has “occupied more space than he should otherwise have
-done in estimating its claims to authority.” The conclusion he has
-reached is that I go as far astray in one direction as the Celticists
-do in another, an opinion which is quite within the limit of legitimate
-criticism. When, however, from his lofty tribune he looks down and
-imputes to me ignorance of what has been done by the great masters of
-“Language,” the Joneses, and Colebrookeses, and Bopps, and Potts, and
-Grimms, and Steinthals, and suggests that I do not know what has been
-said by such writers as Camper, Jacquart, Blumenbach, Cuvier, Prichard,
-Latham and Morton, not to mention the pernicious nonsense of Darwin,
-and the vagaries of Professor Huxley, I must be permitted to take
-exception. It is one thing to know what they have written, and quite
-another to accept their conclusions as absolute and final, considering
-how often we hear the most arrant nonsense solemnly propounded as the
-deductions of scientific investigation. It has been pointed out by a
-late minister of the Crown that “Newton’s projectile theory of Light”
-which had apparently been firmly established has given place to “the
-theory of undulation,” which, citing from the Virginian philosopher Dr.
-Smith, he says, “has now for fifty years reigned in its stead.” On this
-he grounds the suggestion that we should not “receive with impatience
-the assertion of contradictions.” On the subject of specialists we have
-the opinion of the same eminent individual, notable among the great
-intellects of the age, one who like Brougham, “has the languages of
-Greece and Rome strung like a bunch of keys at his girdle.” No less
-a personage in fact, than the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, with whom,
-while admiring the versatility of his genius, I differ politically,
-_toto cœlo_. To none of the sciences, rightly or wrongly so named, do
-his remarks more aptly apply than to the “Science of Language,” and
-its twin sister, “Ethnology.” “I have had the opportunity,” he says,
-“of perceiving how, among specialists as with other men, there may
-be fashions of the time and school, which Lord Bacon called idols
-of the market-place, and currents of prejudice below the surface,
-which may detract somewhat from the authority which each enquirer may
-justly claim in his own field, and from their title to impose their
-conclusions upon mankind.” In proof of the fluctuating and uncertain
-character of this so-called science Dr. Morton in regard to “certain
-points of primary importance found himself compelled to differ in
-opinion from the majority of scholars.” I believe with Bishop Percy,
-Dr. R. Angus Smith, and others, that the Celts and Teutons even
-remotely had not a common origin, but were _ab origine_ distinct races
-of mankind. As to _authority_ I hold that “no man is an authority for
-any statement which he cannot prove,” and although according to the
-critic of the _Literary World_, I deliver my opinions in a manner “more
-forcible than elegant”[5] my pretensions are exceedingly humble. “I
-venture to draw attention to the subject, in the hope that the matter
-may be taken up by some one with more time and better appliances at
-his disposal than I can command.” Without pretending to be “exhaustive
-or specially erudite” I have done the best I can to extinguish a
-national delusion, and I hope cannot finally, and altogether fail. If
-I be deficient in language, in whatever acceptation, I am in no worse
-position than the statesman already referred to, who maintains the
-truth of ancient Scripture avowedly without any knowledge of the Hebrew
-tongue. Language, as Lord Southesk most accurately, and pertinently
-points out, “is a thing that seems like a boomerang, so queer are
-the twists it takes, and so uncertain its returns.” Ethnology, or
-Anthropology--whichever its votaries choose to call it--is not, as
-I think, a science. It consists of the conceits and assumptions of
-men learned and unlearned who have reached certain conclusions, and
-who profess to bring back from the depths of prehistoric antiquity
-facts which may not be facts, or which at least we have no means of
-knowing to be true. The whole subject is “feeble, perplexed, and to all
-appearance, confused.” Many years since Mr. Hyde Clarke, at a meeting
-of the Ethnological Society, remarking on the utterances of Professor
-Huxley, suggested that, although the latter “had laid down his
-statements as established by men of science, there was little capable
-of proof.” What then is the value of a study, the results of which are
-as unstable as the passing vapour? It was a conception of the late Sir
-David Brewster, that _science_ is the only earthly treasure we can
-carry with us to a better state. Let us hope that if _Language_, and
-its _twin sister_ be among the number destined thither, they will be
-freed from their mundane misconceptions and uncertainties.
-
-The Reviewer of the _Literary World_ thinks I “make a sorry jumble
-of races and languages. All sorts of people, and tribes, dialects,
-and remains, related and unrelated, are said to be Goths or Gothic,”
-though in dealing with my shortcomings, real or supposed, he does
-not always keep faith with facts. The ancient Scythians, he makes me
-to say, were Goths, for which the only foundation is that I cite Dr.
-Macculloch and Mr. Planché from each a paragraph in which the name
-Scythian is mentioned. “The occupiers of prehistoric lake dwellings
-Goths.” Precisely what I do not say. I mention the facts that “a
-species of combat called _holmgang_, peculiar to the old Northmen, was
-usually fought in a small island or holm in a lake,” and that islands
-in lakes were places resorted to by the Scandinavian “foude,” or
-magistrate, with his law officers, &c. In Iceland, the men on whom
-sentence of death had been passed, were beheaded upon an islet in a
-lake or river. I submit these facts to the candid consideration of
-those who are capable of judging, because if my conjecture be correct,
-palisaded islands were neither inhabited nor are they prehistoric.
-“The Caledonians, Goths; the Picts, Goths.” I was taught to believe
-that Pict and Caledonian are convertible terms. “The Icelanders and
-others were Goths.” I do not, of course, know which “others” the
-reviewer may have had in his mind, but the Icelanders are certainly
-Goths. “Sometimes,” the critic says, “Gothic appears as the equivalent
-of Scandinavian.” Certainly as opposed to Celtic. “And the sum of the
-whole matter is that ‘the Scandinavians are our true progenitors,’”
-which, he points out, is “the same blunder that M. du Chaillu has been
-dashing his head against.” All wise beyond conception! By a figure of
-speech a writer might be said to dash his head against a rock, but
-hardly I should think, against a _blunder_! It is rather odd that this
-captious censor should be ignorant of the fact that the quotation which
-he cites from my preface contains the _ipsissima verba_ of the writer
-of an article that appeared in _Good Words_ nearly forty years ago,
-by whom M. du Chaillu was anticipated, and that the same views and
-opinions were advocated by myself nineteen years since in the pages of
-_Notes and Queries._
-
-The languages or dialects to be dealt with as regards the British
-islands, are few in number, and we can judge of them in an outside
-fashion, without the aid of Bopp, or Grimm, or Zeuss, or Steinthal.
-These are the Welsh of the Principality, which, roughly speaking,
-includes the extinct dialect of Cornwall. The Erse or Gaelic of
-Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. The Teutonic of the Belgae,
-which Prichard calls Celtic, but which we gather from Cæsar was German.
-At least it is a fair inference from his statement, _Belgas esse ortos
-a Germanis_, that they spoke some dialect of Teutonic speech.[6] The
-language of the Picts or Caledonians, which Skene affirms is neither
-Welsh nor Gaelic, but a Gaelic dialect partaking largely of Welsh
-forms. This, however, on the faith of Tacitus, I believe to have
-been Scandinavian, _rutilæ Caledoniam habitantium comæ magni artus
-Germanicam asseverant_. The Saxon, or earlier Scandinavian of South
-Britain, and the confessedly Scandinavian dialects of Yorkshire,
-Derbyshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Northumberland and North Britain. In
-point of fact only two languages, the Gothic or Teutonic, and the
-Celtic, or whatever else may be the structure, foundation or admixture
-of the dialects so named. I have elsewhere stated that “The several
-dialects of what has been called Celtic might be compared to so many
-dust heaps to which has been swept the refuse of all other languages
-from time immemorial,” and I see no reason to change my opinion. It
-will thus be seen that there is not much room to jumble either races
-or language. The jumble, if such there be, arises out of the confusion
-and obscurity of the critic’s own mind. He ridicules the idea of
-identifying the “Gothic _Magus_” with what he calls the “Celtic _Mac_
-or _Maqui_.” I deny that _Mac_ is Celtic, and I identify it with the
-_Maqui_ of the Ogham inscriptions, because I think there are good
-grounds for believing that Oghams and runes were equally the work
-of the Northmen, although Lord Southesk, who has made these remains
-a special study, differs from me in opinion. There is certainly an
-uncommon outside resemblance between the two words. It is however,
-satisfactory to know that his Lordship is in substantial agreement
-with me on the main subject of my contention, the preponderance of the
-Scandinavian element in the British Isles. Coming to the essence of
-the controversy, he says, “Where I agree with you thoroughly is in the
-belief that the prevalence and influence of the Scandinavian races in
-Britain and Ireland have been largely underrated, and that much due
-to them has been ascribed to the various peoples commonly classed as
-Celts.” “One has only to look at the people inhabiting Aberdeenshire,
-Angus, &c., to convince one’s-self that Norse blood predominates.”
-I regard the questions of races, art, and culture entirely from an
-outside or historic view. In the face of such facts as I have adduced
-to continue to call _Mac_ Celtic is simply persistent dogmatism--a
-perverse determination to adhere _per fas et nefas_ to a foregone
-conclusion. The prefix _Mac_ though found in Scotch Gaelic and other
-dialects of the Erse, has obviously been imported thither only as a
-foreign term, in the same manner that the Norse word _jarl_, an earl,
-found its way into the Welsh. _Mac_, as I have elsewhere pointed out,
-occurs in the Anglo-Norse dialect of Craven, West Riding of York. It
-was used in the sense of _son_ by the Danes and Northmen. It occurs
-as a prefix to an interminable number of personal names distinctively
-Scandinavian, and in one form or other is found in every dialect of
-the Teutonic. We must “deal with the evidence before us according to a
-rational appreciation of its force.” “_Plaid_,” the critic, affirms,
-“does not exist in Moeso-Gothic.” Thomson in _Observations_ prefixed to
-his Lexicon, says, “Plaid, a cloke in Moeso-Gothic, was the Icelandic
-_palt_.” I would rather believe that the critic of the _Literary World_
-does not know where to look for the word, than that the erudite private
-secretary to the Marquis of Hastings in India, presuming on their
-ignorance, sought to impose on his readers a word which he knew did not
-exist. Again this critic says, “Denying to another (Anglo-Saxon) a word
-that does (foster).” The expression is confused, but he evidently means
-that “foster” _is_ found in Anglo-Saxon. In the text of my treatise
-I say, “Neither can there be any doubt as to the Northern derivation
-of the word _foster_.” To this I append a footnote taken from the
-_Quarterly Review_, vol. 139 (1875), p. 449. “The word _foster_ is
-not found in Anglo-Saxon, Moeso-Gothic, or German,” and at the same
-time indicate the source whence my information is derived. I accepted
-the statement on the faith of the writer. If it does occur, it only
-shows how little dependence can be placed on facts adduced by literary
-critics even in connection with such responsible publications as the
-_Quarterly Review_. Another evidence of disqualification as “a writer
-on Archæological matters,” is that the word _Celte_ cited from the
-Vulgate was shown long ago by Mr. Knight Watson to be a misprint for
-_Certe_. The critic must indeed have been much at a loss for a peg on
-which to hang his hypercriticism. I hardly know why it is incumbent on
-me before delivering my views on the Celtic myth to know all that has
-been explained on collateral subjects by Mr. Knight Watson. I found
-neither note nor marginal reference declaratory of this gentleman’s
-critical acumen, or of the great service he had rendered to archæology
-in resolving this enigma, nor if I had should I have introduced it
-into my treatise. My remark in regard to the Vulgate is an incidental
-reference of the vaguest description on which nothing depends. To
-borrow the expression of an eminent individual, Would the critic of
-the _Literary World_ “be surprised to learn” that by a defect of
-information, quite as glaring as that which he imputes to me, he has
-entirely missed the point of my stricture which is directed against
-the executive of the _Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_. At page 11
-of its _Catalogue of Antiquities_, printed in 1876, it is stated as
-the heading of a section, “STONE CELTS OR AXE HEADS.” Behind the word
-“Celts,” an asterisk, and underneath, a footnote corresponding thereto
-the explanation “Celtis, a chisel,” of all which the critic shows
-himself to be entirely ignorant. He mentions the Gothic word _afar_.
-Thomson calls it _hafar_. I can only conjecture that the critic may
-have first seen the light within the vibrations of certain well-known
-sounds, and that he habitually drops the letter _h_. In the course of
-my “polemic,” he thinks, I “undoubtedly score a point here and there
-in matters of detail.” “Thus,” he says, “he maintains what ought to
-be obvious enough [but which to the Celtic expositor it never is]
-that remains inscribed in Northern runes must be attributed to the
-Scandinavians.” I give, he says, “and this appears to be my _chef
-d’œuvre_, a very probable reading (GRIMKITIL THANE RAIST, Grimkitil
-engraved this) to a fragmentary inscription ( ... KITIL TH ...) on
-what is known as the bronze plate of Laws. And inasmuch as” that this
-critic “formed a similar opinion many years ago, he is bound to approve
-my suggestion that the old Greek and runic alphabets were derived from
-some common source, and not either from the other.” He is “bound to
-approve.” How very condescending! It is evident he does not perceive
-the effect of his own conclusion. If my reading of the inscription
-on the Laws plate be correct it involves something more than a mere
-matter of detail. It is the solution of a problem which has perplexed
-and bewildered most antiquaries of the present century, because it
-demonstrates the symbols of the Laws crescent plate, and those of the
-Scotch sculptured stones to be the work of the Scandinavians. This has
-long been my individual opinion, though I doubt if the critic of the
-_Literary World_ will make many converts among antiquaries on the other
-side of the Tweed. When I attempt to establish “my own peculiar views,”
-he says, I seem to “break down.” Are not the points on which--to borrow
-his elegant diction--I “score” as much my “peculiar views” as those on
-which he alleges I fail? “Of the Teutonic tribes, whose settlements
-grew into our old Heptarchy, or Octarchy, none, and no discoverable
-part of any, were Scandinavian proper. [This is mere arbitrary
-statement.] There was subsequently, of course, in certain districts,
-a large infusion of Scandinavian forms, proper names, &c. [What does
-he mean by _forms_? The Scandinavians brought their _names_ when they
-brought their bodies] in consequence of the invasions and settlements
-of the ‘Danes,’ but in spite of this, and of much more serious
-disturbance afterwards, our language from the Channel to the Forth,
-owing to its power of absorption, and assimilation, remained, and
-remains substantially ‘English.’” “Remained and remains substantially
-English.” These remarks are unanswerable, which it is said, is the
-happy property of all remarks sufficiently wide of the purpose. Is the
-language of the British nation less “English” because derived from the
-_Scandinavian_ rather than from the _Saxon_, two dialects of the same
-speech in their essential elements hardly distinguishable? If this be
-true--as beyond all question it is true--it demolishes utterly the
-bugbear which the suggestion he advocates sets up.
-
-While accepting with becoming humility the disparaging estimate of
-my performance, it is not desirable that a reviewer of this character
-should have his say uncontradicted, though in setting myself right
-with those whom his strictures might have influenced, I have perhaps
-honoured him with too much notice. It is not a very formidable matter
-to cope with such an adversary.
-
- “While these are censors, ’twould be sin to spare;
- While such are critics, why should I forbear?”--BYRON.
-
-
- THE END.
-
-
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-
-[1] The sonnets were originally discovered in the Monastery of the
-“Monks of Therfuse,” which stood on the site now occupied by the
-terminus of the “Glenmutchkin Railway.” They were afterwards placed for
-safe custody with the MSS. of Ossian.
-
-[2] “Well-known scholars,” the _Quarterly_ says, “have shown before
-him, and he is justified in adopting the conclusion, that the name of
-‘Saxon’ must have been loosely applied to all the pirates that scoured
-the Narrow Seas. We may conjecture that many crews from Scania and the
-Danish Isles, or from the great bay by the Naze of Norway, which gave
-its name to the Vikings, must have been found among the roving fleets
-of the fourth and fifth centuries, when the Empire was crumbling into
-ruins.”
-
-[3] “The red-bearded Thor was called ‘The Englishmen’s
-God.’”--_Quarterly Review._
-
-[4] I suspect these were not the savage Americans Pinkerton had in his
-mind.
-
-[5] A writer who, to denote that which is without foundation, makes
-use of the expression “mere fudge” cannot be a very competent judge of
-elegance.
-
-[6] That cannot be regarded as _science_ which based only on the
-uncertain hypothesis of _language_ contradicts the ascertained facts of
-history.
-
-
-
-
-OPINIONS OF THE PRESS, AND OTHERS IN REGARD TO THE SECOND EDITION OF
-“CELTICISM A MYTH.”
-
-
-“This issue of the work, resumes in an able statement the arguments of
-those antiquaries who hold that the early civilization of these islands
-was the work, not of Celts, but of Scandinavians.”--_Scotsman._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“He [Mr. Roger] is on much firmer ground when he declines to believe in
-any art or culture that can fairly be called Celtic. The very patterns
-which are usually spoken of as Celtic are common on the gold work of
-the Mycenæan graves, which few people, we think, will now place much
-later than 1500 B.C. ... Mr. Roger is probably right when he claims a
-Scandinavian origin for the ancient claymores (two handed), for the
-Tara brooch, and other brooches, for stone crosses, dirk handles, and
-what so else is too commonly attributed to Celtic art.”--_Saturday
-Review._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“The book throughout in its many pages bears evidence to an exceeding
-amount of careful research, clever reasoning, and close intimacy with
-the subject.... Until contradicted and disproved the facts in the pages
-of ‘Celticism a Myth’ must carry conviction.”--_Montrose Standard._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“A further issue of this learned work is evidence that the arguments
-advanced against the pet theories of such recognised authorities as Dr.
-Joseph Anderson, and Dr. Daniel Wilson have aroused some commotion in
-the camp of archæologists.”--_Publishers’ Circular._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“A second edition of Mr. Roger’s argument against the prehistoric
-existence of a Celtic civilization, and his ‘demonstration beyond
-reasonable doubt,’ that the only civilization in Scotland, of which
-we have any knowledge, was brought there by the Scandinavians.”--_The
-Bookseller._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“It is a vigorous piece of controversy in favour of the argument that
-Celtic literature, and Celtic art never existed.”--_Evening News and
-Post._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“It is a book that has interested me much.”--_The Most Hon. The Marquis
-of Lorne, K.T., &c._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“Where I agree with you thoroughly is in the belief that the
-prevalence, and influence of the Scandinavian races in Britain and
-Ireland have been largely underrated, and that much due to them has
-been ascribed to the various peoples commonly classed as Celts.”--_The
-Right Hon. The Earl of Southesk, K.T., F.S.A. Scot., &c._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“I have long been of opinion that we owe the _whole_ of our
-civilization to Scandinavian, and Teutonic ancestors, and partly
-to Roman influence, and your very interesting volume confirms that
-opinion.”--_John Kirkpatrick, Esq., Advocate, M.A., Ph.D. LL.B., LL.D.,
-Professor of History, University of Edinburgh._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“Bertrand gives maps shewing the course followed by the megalithic
-monument builders in entering Europe, and this, I think, dispels the
-idea of their being due to the Celts.”--_Rev. S. Baring-Gould, M.A.
-&c., &c._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“Your case is so well put, your rebutting evidence so cogent, and your
-reasoning so clear, that you must by this time have convinced many of
-your readers that ‘Celticism’ _is_ ‘A Myth.’”--_John C. H. Flood, of
-the Middle Temple, Esq._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“You have certainly dispelled my illusion as to Celtic art, and I
-consider you have proved your case certainly in the main, if not
-altogether.”--_Walter L. Spofforth of the Inner Temple, Esq._
-
- * * * * *
-
-“I have seldom perused a more interesting work. The whole argument
-is clearly stated, and most convincing.”--_Rev. George Brown, F.S.A.
-Scot., Bendochy Manse._
-
-
-DIPROSE, BATEMAN & CO., PRINTERS, SHEFFIELD STREET, LINCOLN’S INN
-FIELDS.
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Note
-
-
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-
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-Otherwise, as far as possible, original spelling and punctuation have
-been retained.
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-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Celtic mss. in relation to the Macpherson fraud, by J. C. Roger</p>
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-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Celtic mss. in relation to the Macpherson fraud</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>With a review of Professor Freeman&#039;s criticism of &quot;The Viking Age,&quot; by the author of &quot;Celticism a myth&quot;</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: J. C. Roger</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 15, 2022 [eBook #68323]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
- <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Thomas Frost and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CELTIC MSS. IN RELATION TO THE MACPHERSON FRAUD ***</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<h1>CELTIC MSS.<br />
-
-<span class="p50">IN RELATION TO</span><br />
-
-THE MACPHERSON FRAUD;<br />
-
-<span class="p50">WITH A REVIEW OF</span><br />
-
-<span class="p80">PROFESSOR FREEMAN’S CRITICISM</span><br />
-
-<span class="p50">OF</span><br />
-
-<span class="p80">“The Viking Age,”</span></h1>
-
-<p class="center"><b>BY<br />
-
-THE AUTHOR OF</b></p>
-
-<p class="p130 center"><b>“CELTICISM A MYTH.”</b></p>
-
-<hr class="r20" />
-
-
-<p class="center">
-“I thought your book an imposture. I think it an imposture still.”
-—<span class="italic">Dr. Johnson.</span></p>
-
-<hr class="r10" />
-
-<p class="center">“The purposeless tortuosities of Celtic falsehood, and its most subtile
-manifestations.”—<cite>Weekly Scotsman.</cite></p>
-
-<hr class="r10" />
-
-<p class="center">“The received accounts of the Saxon immigration, and subsequent
-fortunes, and ultimate settlement, are devoid of historical truth in
-every detail.”—<span class="italic">J. M. Kemble.</span>
-</p>
-
-<hr class="r10" />
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0 outdent">“And, armed in proof, the gauntlet cast at once</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To Scotch marauder, and to Southern dunce.”—<span class="italic">Byron.</span></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="r20" />
-
-<p class="center p110">
-LONDON:<br />
-E. W. ALLEN, 4, AVE MARIA LANE.</p>
-
-<hr class="r5" />
-
-<p class="center">
-MDCCCXC.
-</p>
-
-
-<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop mb1" />
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</span></p>
-
-
-<p class="center break p80 p0">
-LONDON<br />
-PRINTED AT THE COURTS OF JUSTICE PRINTING WORKS<br />
-BY DIPROSE, BATEMAN AND CO.<br />
-</p>
-
-
-<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>That portion of this tractate which relates to
-Celtic manuscripts and the doings of Macpherson,
-was transmitted to the <cite>Scotsman</cite> newspaper, in
-reply to an article by Professor Mackinnon which
-appeared in that journal. My communication
-was however returned by the editor on the plea
-that he could not find room for its insertion.
-It was perhaps too much to expect that a journal
-owned by one of the secretaries of a Society, which
-had engaged the services of the Celtic Professor
-at Oxford, to uphold what I call the Celtic
-myth, should open its columns to one inimical to
-Macpherson, and utterly sceptical in regard to
-his pretended translation. Mr. Mackinnon’s
-enumeration seems a vindication of the antiquity
-of Celtic MSS. in general, and was no doubt also
-projected “as a basis for more extended collaboration.”</p>
-
-<p>It occurred to me that my remarks on the
-Ossian MSS. might with advantage be incorporated
-with some notice of Professor Freeman’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</span>
-criticism of “The Viking Age,” both tending
-in the same direction. One wipes out the Celts
-as the pioneers of civilization, the other explodes
-the Saxons as a race distinct from the Scandinavians.
-With this in view I have been aiming
-for some time past, to put my thoughts in train
-for publication, but want of time has always
-stood in the way.</p>
-
-<p class="right mr5">
-J. C. ROGER.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-<span class="smcap"><span class="ml5">Friars Watch,</span><br />
-<span class="ml10">Walthamstow.</span></span><br />
-<span class="ml5"><span class="italic">October, 1890.</span></span>
-</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CELTIC_MSS">CELTIC MSS.<br />
-<span class="p50">IN RELATION TO</span><br />
-THE MACPHERSON FRAUD, &amp;c.</h2></div>
-
-<hr class="r10" />
-
-<p>My attention was lately directed to a lengthy
-article that appeared in <cite>The Scotsman</cite> of the
-12th of last November, bearing the initials of
-Mr. Mackinnon, Professor of Celtic at the
-University of Edinburgh, to whom I sent a copy
-of my book, <cite>Celticism a Myth</cite>, then just issued
-from the press. The article begins with a
-tribute to the assiduity of the Historiographer
-Royal in the cause of Celtic literature; but is
-plainly intended as a refutation of my statement
-to the effect that “It is no longer pretended
-that any Gaelic poetry has been preserved in
-early manuscripts,” &amp;c. In citing the remark of
-Dr. Irving it was certainly not my intention to
-call down an exhibition of Professor Mackinnon’s
-Celtic wares—of the authenticity and character
-of which I am profoundly ignorant—but simply
-to express my conviction that the alleged manuscript
-documents of which Macpherson professed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span>
-to give a translation did not exist. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">De non
-existentibus et non apparentibus</i> Dr. Johnson
-says, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">eadem est ratio</i>. There are unfortunately
-now no Doctor Johnsons, or Pinkertons or
-John Hill Burtons to deal with these possible
-inventions or forgeries of a later age, the
-perhaps “other evidences” of what the great lexicographer
-characterised as “Scotch conspiracy
-in national falsehood.” Ample time and opportunity
-has been afforded since 1762—the date
-when Macpherson first gave to the world his
-<cite>Ossian the Son of Fingal</cite>—to fabricate missing
-documents or supply others of more startling
-character. A pungent criticism from the pen
-of Mr. Hill Burton, or a crushing commentary
-by either of the other named critics, would
-probably have relegated these so-called Celtic
-MSS.—some of them at least—to the nothingness
-whence they came. It is clear that what Professor
-Mackinnon brings forward is not <em>evidence</em>,
-certainly not such as would be accepted in a
-Court of Law. There is no substantiation of
-the Macpherson manuscripts save the statements,
-and what I fear must be regarded as the fabrications,
-of a number of interested individuals
-retailed at second-hand, none of all whom can
-be accepted as unprejudiced witnesses. After<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>
-the strictest search for the originals of Ossian,
-Dr. Johnson came to the conclusion that as
-regards Scotland and the pretensions of James
-Macpherson, there was not in existence “an
-Erse manuscript a hundred years old.” Any
-attempt therefore, in our day to bring into
-agreement this literary imposture with the
-difficulties which stultify all conception of its
-genuineness is foredoomed to failure. If, as
-Mr. Mackinnon alleges, it be “perfectly established”
-that Macpherson carried away from the
-North-West Highlands several Gaelic manuscripts
-it is equally certain he never exhibited
-them to anyone capable of forming a judgment as
-to their authenticity. “The collection proper,”
-it would appear, “consists of sixty-three
-separate parcels.” How many of these are
-genuine we shall probably never know. These
-are “Transcripts of several MSS. or portions of
-MSS. by Mr. McLachlan, and the Rev. Donald
-Mackintosh,” and collections of “Ossianic poetry
-made by a schoolmaster at Kilmelford,” volumes
-of tales which belonged to Mr. Campbell of
-Islay, a collection of Gaelic poetry made by a
-schoolmaster at Dunkeld, the MSS. whatever
-these may be, written in “The old Gaelic hand!”
-the use of which, we are told, was discontinued<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>
-about the middle of the last century. “Regarding
-the history of the great majority of these documents,”
-it is said “we are ignorant”—certainly
-at least, I am, most profoundly. It appears
-however, that “The Rev. Mr. Gallie saw in
-Macpherson’s possession” ‘several volumes,
-small octavos, or rather large duodecimo in the
-Gaelic language and characters’! Scarcely less
-authentic is the fact that Lachlan Macviurich
-“remembers well that Clanranald made his
-father give up the <cite>Red book</cite> to James Macpherson,”
-and that Macpherson himself deposited certain
-MSS. with his publishers Messrs. Beckett and
-Dehondt which for a whole year remained in the
-custody of that firm. These manuscripts mentioned
-by Mr. Mackinnon were probably the
-Gaelic leases of Macleod of Rasay referred to
-by me in <cite>Celticism a Myth</cite>. The fact that
-Macpherson so prostituted his talents, and
-character for integrity was stated to me many
-years ago by an aged clergyman of the Church
-of Scotland, who vouched for his statement on
-the faith of his friend George Dempster of
-Dunichen, who was cognizant of the circumstance.
-Father Farquharson, it is alleged, made a
-collection of Gaelic MSS. before 1745, the last
-leaves of which were used to kindle a stove fire<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>
-in the Roman Catholic College at Douay, a
-circumstance, as I think, not greatly to be
-deplored, while the “illiterate descendant” of
-the <span class="italic">Seanachies</span> attached to the family of
-Clanranald describes the dispersion of the manuscript
-library accumulated by his ancestors, and
-the fate of certain parchments [? old leases]
-which were cut down for tailors’ measuring tapes.
-“He himself” (the descendant of the <span class="italic">Seanachies</span>)
-“had possession of some parchments after his
-father’s death,” but not being able to read, these
-disappeared from view. A valuable witness
-truly in the identification of doubtful MSS.
-“Such acts of vandalism,” we are told, “are
-not likely to occur again.” Probably not. Like
-Joshua arresting the Sun and the Moon, they
-are “things that have once been done but can
-be done no more.” The fact of the dispersion,
-however, and the fate of the parchments, leases,
-title deeds, literary treasures or by whatever name
-they may be called, rests on the testimony
-of this Celtic ignoramus who, it is to be feared,
-would not be too particular in any relation
-concerning the “glories and greatness” of
-his country, his personal consequence, or the
-departed grandeur of his clan. I well remember,
-many years ago, meeting with an ignorant Highlander<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>
-of some property, who offered to sell for
-ten pounds an ancient claymore, with a pretentious,
-but unauthenticated pedigree, for which
-he declared, with the voluntary accompaniment
-of an oath, he had previously declined “<em>A
-Sousand pounds</em>.” It is my experience that to
-persons of this class it comes more natural to
-state a falsehood than to speak the truth. We
-all remember Charles Surface’s exculpatory
-witness in <cite>The School for Scandal</cite>, “Oh yes, I
-swear.” Mr. Mackinnon states that “The
-Gaelic text of Ossian which James Macpherson
-handed over to Mr. Mackenzie, and which was
-given to the editor of the edition of 1807, has
-disappeared.” How very odd that manuscripts
-on which the human eye never rested should
-thus so strangely disappear! Can that be said
-to disappear which was never visible? Of the
-poems of Ossian, Dr. Irving says, “We are
-required to believe that these were composed in
-the third century; and that by means of oral
-tradition, they were delivered by one generation
-to another for the space of nearly fifteen hundred
-years. If this account could be received as
-authentic, if these poems could be regarded as
-genuine, they must be classed among the most
-extraordinary effort of human genius. That a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>
-nation so rude in other arts, and even unacquainted
-with the use of letters, should yet have
-carried the most elegant of all arts to so high a
-degree of perfection, would not only be sufficient
-to overturn every established theory, but would
-exceed all the possibilities of rational assent.
-But if we could suppose an untaught barbarian
-capable of combining the rules of ancient poetry
-with the refinements of modern sentiment one
-difficulty is indeed removed; but another difficulty
-scarcely less formidable still remains—By
-what rare felicity were many thousand
-verses, only written on the frail tablet of memory,
-to be safely transmitted through fifty generations
-of mankind? If Ossian could compose epic
-poems on the same model as Homer, how was it
-possible for them to preserve their original
-texture through the fearful vicissitudes of nearly
-fifteen centuries? * * * * It is utterly
-incredible that such poems as Fingal and Temora,
-consisting each of several thousand lines were
-thus transmitted from the supposed age of Ossian
-to the age of Macpherson.” “It is” Dr. Irving
-continues “no longer pretended that any Gaelic
-poetry has been preserved in early manuscripts;
-and indeed the period when Gaelic can be traced
-as a written language is comparatively modern.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>
-“That many poems and fragments of poems,”
-he goes on to say, “were preserved in the Highlands
-of Scotland cannot however be doubted;
-and it is sufficiently ascertained that Macpherson
-was assiduously employed in collecting such
-popular reliques, some of which had perhaps
-existed for many ages. <em>From the materials
-which he had thus procured he appears to have
-fabricated the various works which he delivered
-to the public under the name of Ossian, and
-afterwards to have adjusted the Gaelic by the
-English text.</em>” “The ground upon which Hume
-finally decided against the authenticity of the
-<cite>Poems of Ossian</cite>, was the impossibility of any man
-of sense imagining that they should have been
-orally preserved ‘during fifty generations, by
-<em>the rudest, perhaps of all European nations;
-the most necessitous</em>, the most turbulent, and the
-most unsettled.’” Such is the historian Hume’s
-estimate of the Macpherson fraud as stated by
-the <cite>Edinburgh Review</cite>, and such the beggarly
-array of evidence on which, according to the
-abettors of Macpherson, the honour and glory of
-Scotland, must rest in all time to come. The
-Scotch are a stubborn race on which to operate,
-especially in matters that concern their nationality.
-They have conceived the idea that in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>
-the dark ages—dark to all but them—their
-countrymen, a Celtic race, were skilled in the
-sciences and acquainted with art. This as an
-article of faith has hardened into a conviction
-not to be shaken, and is that which, in their
-view, distinguishes Scotland above all competitors.
-In it, in the remote ages of the past,
-there existed culture and refinement rivalling
-that of the most literary nations of antiquity
-whether Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek or Roman.
-The roving Northmen, according to their
-account, were but plundering pirates, and other
-nations barbarians. No evidence, however
-overwhelming, will alter or modify this opinion.
-Not on any terms will they be induced to give
-up their preconceptions. Philologers and Ethnologists,
-Professors, and specialists, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">et hoc genus
-omne</i>, are called to the rescue, while they refuse
-to look at the clearest facts. When their
-favourite idol begins to shake they rush into the
-market-place crying “Great is Diana of the
-Ephesians.” It is impossible to doubt that
-Macpherson was an impudent impostor. When
-his veracity was impugned no simpler method of
-clearing his reputation from the aspersions cast
-upon it could have been devised than the very
-reasonable plan suggested by Dr. Johnson, that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>
-he should place the manuscripts in the hands of
-the professors at Aberdeen where there were
-persons capable of judging of their authenticity.
-The manuscripts were never produced, and in
-admitting this fact the defenders of Macpherson
-resign the whole question. “To refuse,” Dr.
-Johnson says, “to gratify a reasonable curiosity
-is the last refuge of impudent mendacity.” Dr.
-Johnson’s letter to this vain-glorious boaster
-repelling a threat of personal violence is a
-master-piece of contemptuous scorn and defiance.
-“Mr. James Macpherson, I received your
-foolish and impudent letter. Any violence
-offered me I shall do my best to repel, and what
-I cannot do myself the law will do for me. I
-hope I shall never be deterred from detecting
-what I think a cheat by the menaces of a
-ruffian. What would you have me retract? I
-thought your book an imposture. I think it an
-imposture still. For this opinion I have given
-my reasons to the public which I here dare you
-to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities
-since your <em>Homer</em> are not so formidable, and
-what I hear of your morals inclines me to pay
-regard, not to what you shall say, but to what
-you shall prove. You may print this if you
-will.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p>
-
-<p>We are told that the subject of the Pictish
-language has been thoroughly discussed by Dr.
-W. F. Skene in his <cite>Four Ancient Books of
-Wales</cite>, that, in addition to <i lang="xpi" xml:lang="xpi">Pean Fahel</i>, the sole
-Pictish word formerly known he has discovered
-four other distinct words, besides a number of
-syllables entering into proper names; and from
-all these he deduces the opinion that Pictish
-“Is not Welsh, neither is it Gaelic; but it is a
-Gaelic dialect partaking largely of Welsh forms”
-whatever that may mean. “More especially,”
-we are told, “he holds that Pictish as compared
-with Gaelic, was a <em>Low</em> dialect, that it differed
-from the Gaelic in much the same way that Low
-German differs from High.” It is perhaps unnecessary
-to add that I regard this supposed
-solution of the Pictish difficulty as so much
-figment. It is simply the arbitrary conclusion
-of a man looking into a mill stone, and giving a
-deliverance in regard to which he is in no more
-commanding position than the most illiterate
-specimen of humanity to be found in the slums
-of the Northern Metropolis. On the other side
-of the question it is open to me to state that the
-Pictish words which Mr. Skene persuades himself
-he has discovered, and which on his own
-shewing are neither Welsh nor Gaelic but,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>
-belonging to a Low dialect of the latter may
-after all be only the obsolete remains of an early
-Gothic speech. The ruler of the Picts about
-the end of the sixth century, it is said, was
-<i lang="xpi" xml:lang="xpi">Brude</i>, the son of <i lang="xpi" xml:lang="xpi">Mailcon</i>, who died in 586.
-The most active of all the Pictish sovereigns,
-according to the received accounts, was <i lang="xpi" xml:lang="xpi">Hungus</i>
-or <i lang="xpi" xml:lang="xpi">Ængus</i> who began to reign in 730. In so
-far then as these names may not be absolute
-myth, they may be claimed as Scandinavian.
-With <i lang="xpi" xml:lang="xpi">Brude</i> compare the Norse personal names
-<i lang="non" xml:lang="non">Brodi</i>, <i lang="non" xml:lang="non">Breid-r</i>, and <i lang="non" xml:lang="non">Brodd-r</i> (the <em>r</em> final
-separated by a hyphen being merely the sign of
-the nominative case). <i lang="non" xml:lang="non">Mailcon</i> is the united
-Scandinavian personal names of <i lang="non" xml:lang="non">Miöl</i> and <i lang="non" xml:lang="non">Kon-r</i>.
-With <i lang="xpi" xml:lang="xpi">Hungus</i> or <i lang="xpi" xml:lang="xpi">Ængus</i> compare the Scoto-Norwegian
-names <i lang="non" xml:lang="non">Magnus Anguson</i>, and <i lang="non" xml:lang="non">Angus
-Magnuson</i>.</p>
-
-<p>The Norwegians in Man, in the Hebrides, and
-in the North, and North-Western Highlands
-were confessedly the dominant and more
-numerous race, and there for upwards of four
-centuries held uninterrupted sway.</p>
-
-<p>Did the Norwegian colonists eventually go off
-in vapour, leaving behind them only a native
-residuum speaking a purely Celtic dialect freed
-from all taint of the Northman’s language after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>
-the close contact of so many centuries? If the
-Norwegian element was not so sublimated, but
-as Pinkerton affirms, and which I believe, continues
-in the modern population of those portions
-of the United Kingdom, what becomes of the
-purity of the so-called “Primitive Celtic tongue”?
-Assuming that it was Celts among whom the
-Norwegians settled, is it possible to conceive
-that men of such force of character as the Northmen
-made no lasting impression on the speech
-of the wretched Celtic inhabitants whom they
-trampled under foot? Despite the researches
-of philologers is it rational to conclude that what
-is now called Celtic can on any intelligible
-hypothesis be the primeval speech of the unlettered
-savages who before the advent of the
-Romans had been driven into the western portion
-of the Island by the Belgae? “It is not in nature,”
-the <cite>Saturday Reviewer</cite> says, “that people should
-accept Mr. Roger’s or Pinkerton’s opinion in
-preference to the universally held belief that the
-Celtic speech is a language of the Indo-European
-family of speech,” &amp;c. But it is not alone Mr.
-Roger and Pinkerton with whom the <cite>Reviewer</cite>
-has to deal. The late Lord Neaves, an eminent
-Scotch judge and antiquary, held an opinion
-very much akin to that of Pinkerton, that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>
-Erse, and Gaelic, and Manx dialects, if not
-entirely a form of obsolete Gothic speech, contain
-at least a very large admixture of the northern
-tongue. The editor of the <cite>Athenæum</cite> too, in
-reviewing Skene’s <cite>Highlanders of Scotland</cite>,
-draws attention to the fact of the striking resemblance
-between the oldest Erse monuments
-and those dialects confessedly Teutonic, holding
-this decisive of the question that the <em>Scots</em> were
-Germans. On the same side of the question is
-the strongly expressed opinion of the late Dr.
-R. Angus Smith, F.R.S. “I consider,” he says,
-“those who hold the nations called Celtic and
-those called Teutonic, as one race, to be simply
-abolishing the knowledge we get from history,
-and refusing to look at very clear facts.” I am
-not however going to quarrel with the <cite>Saturday
-Reviewer</cite>, who virtually concedes all for which I
-contend, that the Celts were entirely without
-art or culture, of which more hereafter. On the
-question of civilizing influences we have the
-testimony of Professor Kirkpatrick, of the
-Scotch Bar, a gentleman of well-known scholarly
-accomplishments, who occupies the Chair of
-Constitutional Law and History in the University
-of Edinburgh. “I have long been of opinion,”
-he writes, “that we owe the <em>whole</em> of our civilization<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>
-to Scandinavian and Teutonic ancestors,
-and partly to Roman influence, and your very
-interesting volume confirms that opinion.”
-There is still another phase of the question
-with which the philological critic has to deal,
-and this is, that only where the Northmen
-settled are found those remains of what is
-called Celtic speech. “The Northmen formed
-colonies in Wales, in Cornwall, in Brittany,
-in Ireland, in the Highlands and islands of
-Scotland, and in the Isle of Man, and there
-only do we find those dialects usually known as
-Celtic.” I do not pretend to explain this, but I
-state it as an outside fact, which, in my view, it
-is incumbent on the Celtic philologer to explain. It
-is, of course, impossible to reach any confident conclusion
-as to what may have been the language on
-which the Northman grafted his Teutonic speech,
-though it must be obvious to every unprejudiced
-enquirer, that those dialects must now be very
-much mixed and altered and corrupted from
-close contact for many centuries with the language
-of a dominant race. Having regard to this fact,
-the question arises whether “the universally
-held belief” referred to by the <cite>Saturday Review</cite>,
-be not founded on the Gothic accretions derived
-from the Northmen, rather than on the structural<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>
-peculiarities of the original language of the
-people among whom the Northmen settled. It
-is evident from the remarks of Professor Max
-Muller that too much importance is not to be
-attached to what is told us by the Celtic philologer.
-“Celtic words,” he says, “may be
-found in German, Slavonic, and even Latin,
-but only as foreign terms, and their number is
-much smaller than commonly supposed. A
-far larger number of Latin and German words
-have since found their way into the modern
-Celtic dialects, and these have frequently been
-mistaken by Celtic enthusiasts for original words
-from which German and Latin might in their
-turn be derived.”</p>
-
-<p>Professor Kirkpatrick’s opinion suggests a
-natural connection between the Celtic myth, and
-M. du Chaillu’s account of <cite>The Viking Age</cite>.
-The <cite>Scotsman</cite>, in its review of this book,
-wonders what Professor Freeman will say, and
-we are not long left in doubt. He looks down
-upon M. du Chaillu from a lofty eminence, evidently
-regarding him with something like pitying
-contempt. He is not sure he should have
-thought the doctrine set forth by M. du Chaillu
-worthy of serious examination, but for the
-singular relation in which it stands to Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>
-Seebohm’s “slightly older teaching,” in his
-book called <cite>The English Village Community</cite>.
-Mr. Seebohm’s views, he says, are the evident
-result of honest work at original materials, and
-eminently entitled to be considered, and if need
-be, answered. But obviously both are eminently
-objectionable. Though differing in method, they
-rival each other in daring and absurdity. The
-only question is whether M. du Chaillu’s theory
-need be discussed at all. Professor Freeman has
-decreed this, and after so supreme a master in
-the art of criticism it is vain to question it.</p>
-
-<p>It will thus be seen he lauds the one in order
-to disparage the other. He compliments Mr.
-Seebohm and spits contemptuously in M. du
-Chaillu’s face. I am Jupiter, and by contrast
-in the scale of intelligence, you, M. du Chaillu,
-are only a black beetle. “The strife in its new
-form,” he tells us, “has become more deadly.”
-M. du Chaillu threatens to wipe out entirely
-Professor Freeman’s antiquated conception of
-a Saxon invasion, and the latter is constrained
-to worship in secret the divinity he pretends to
-despise. Professor Freeman’s views will be
-found in <cite>The Teutonic Conquest in Gaul and
-Britain</cite>. He has had his say, and “if anybody
-cares to know what that say is, he may read it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>
-for himself.” Professor Freeman has written
-what he has written, and woe to him who reads
-to controvert. It does not, however, follow that
-what Professor Freeman has written is necessarily
-the gospel of English history. Both
-theories alike, it would appear—Mr. Seebohm’s
-and M. du Chaillu’s—throw aside the recorded
-facts of history! What are the recorded facts
-of history in relation to the so-called Saxon
-invasion? The Saxon invasion was doubted
-in the days of Bishop Nicolson, who refers to
-the short and pithy despatch Sir William Temple
-makes of the Saxon times, and the contempt
-with which he speaks of its historians. The
-good Bishop himself is constrained to admit he
-does not know what has become of the book
-written by King Alfred against corrupt judges,
-nor of that gifted King’s collection of old Saxon
-sonnets.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> The late J. M. Kemble taught the
-learned world to believe that, “the received
-accounts of the Saxon immigration, and subsequent
-fortunes, and ultimate settlement are
-devoid of historical truth in every detail.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>
-Here is an eminent scholar who, having
-examined the subject with perfect historical
-candour, regarded the Saxon invasion as fiction
-and fabrication from beginning to end, and who
-surely may be accepted as a valuable witness.
-To the same purpose we have the statement of
-Mr. James Rankin, F.R.A.S., “Who the Saxons
-were, or when they arrived, or where they
-settled, is a subject on which tradition is entirely
-silent, for of written history there is none.”
-Professor Freeman says that M. du Chaillu has
-put forth two very pretty volumes with abundance
-of illustrations of Scandinavian objects.
-He contemns the pictures but admires the frames.
-Most of them, however, he adds, will be found
-in “various Scandinavian books,” but he does
-not suggest that the “various Scandinavian
-books” are not readily accessible to the English
-reader.</p>
-
-<p>Professor Freeman indulges in that species of
-raillery to which men usually resort when they
-are driven into a corner. “We are really not
-ourselves,” he says, “but somebody else.” “The
-belief as to their own origin which the English
-of Britain have held ever since there have been
-Englishmen,” and such incoherent trifling. The
-ordinary average Englishman has no independent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>
-belief on the subject. He is told in his youth
-the story about Hengist and Horsa, and if he
-remembers it at all it gives him no particular
-concern. The bulk of Englishmen and Scotchmen
-too, are profoundly ignorant as to their
-history and origin. The Englishman has some
-vague conception that he is an “Anglo-Saxon,”
-while the Scot takes it for granted that all
-Scotchmen are Celts, and that all art found in
-Scotland is Celtic. Sir Daniel Wilson could
-discern in the rude rock scroll the “stately
-Cathedral.” There are others “who can see a
-coffin in a flake of soot.” It is hardly by such
-an adversary as M. du Chaillu, Professor Freeman
-says: “that we shall be beaten out of the belief
-that there is such a thing as English people in
-Britain. Perhaps too we shall not be more
-inclined to give up our national being, when we
-see its earliest records tossed aside with all the
-ignorant scorn of the eighteenth century.” This
-is absolutely childish. It reads more like mental
-imbecility than intellectual acumen. M. du
-Chaillu does not deny that there is an English
-people in Britain. He only doubts that the
-English people are Saxon, and affirms that they
-are Scandinavian, and in this view of the matter
-he is sustained by many and strong presumptions.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>
-Neither does he ask us “to give up our national
-being,” which he does not assail. Macaulay
-says: “it is only in Britain that an age of fable
-separates two ages of truth,” and the void, it
-would appear, is to be filled up with “some
-hints” by Professor Freeman, who, to his own
-satisfaction, at least, has bridged over the dreary
-gulf. Professor Freeman thinks it odd that the
-so-called Saxons were led into such strange
-mistakes as to their own name and origin. Is it
-an exceptional thing for a nation to be mistaken
-as to its remote history? Can Professor Freeman
-tell us who were the aborigines of Ancient
-Greece? Professor Freeman declines to be
-brought from the North by M. du Chaillu even
-more strongly than he declines to be brought
-from the South by Mr. Seebohm. Mr. Seebohm,
-according to Professor Freeman, “does leave
-some scrap of separate national being to the
-‘Anglo-Saxon invaders’ * * * * M. du
-Chaillu takes away our last shreds; we are
-mere impostors,” &amp;c. Must a nation be accounted
-impostor because it does not possess
-an accurate knowledge of its remote history?
-We might, indeed, be justly termed impostors if
-in the face of overwhelming evidence we should
-continue to adhere to the foregone conclusions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>
-of dogmatic historians built on the fictions and
-figment of monkish tradition. “As far as M. du
-Chaillu’s theory can be made out,” Professor
-Freeman holds it to be this, “The Suiones of
-Tacitus are the Swedes, and the Suiones had
-ships; so far no one need cavil. But we do not
-hear of the Suiones or any other Scandinavian
-people doing anything by sea for several centuries.
-But though we do not hear of it they
-must have been doing something. What was it
-they did? Now in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries
-we hear of the Saxons doing a good deal
-by sea; therefore the name <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Saxones</i> must be a
-mistake of the Latin writer’s for <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Suiones</i>.” The
-assumption that goes through all this, Professor
-Freeman continues, is that “because the Suiones
-had ships in the days of Tacitus, as they could
-not have left off using ships it must have been
-they who did the acts attributed to the Saxons.”
-He condescends to admit that “a good deal is
-involved in this last assumption; it is at least
-conceivable,” he says, “and not at all unlike the
-later history of Sweden, that the Suiones went
-on using their ships, but used them somewhere
-else, and not on the coasts of Gaul and Britain.”
-But this begs the question in dispute. Setting
-aside M. du Chaillu’s conjecture as to the possible<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>
-confounding of names,<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> the question still
-remains who were the Saxons? Whether is it
-more reasonable to believe that the Suiones or
-Swedes referred to by Tacitus, not to mention
-the Danes and Norwegians, did not continue to
-make their descent on the shores of Britain so
-readily accessible to their fleets, or that the
-so-named Saxon invader was one and the same
-with the Scandinavian? “There is nothing
-very strange,” the <cite>Quarterly</cite> thinks, “in supposing
-that some of the ‘Angles’ or ‘Saxons’
-may have descended from the Suiones of
-Tacitus.” M. du Chaillu, it says, “rests his
-case mainly on the fact that, while the so-called
-Anglo-Saxon remains found in England correspond
-minutely with those discovered in enormous
-quantities in Norway, Sweden and Denmark,
-there are no traces of such objects in the
-basins of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Rhine,
-nor anywhere else, save in places which Scandinavians
-are known to have visited.” “Every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>
-tumulus,” M. du Chaillu says, “described by
-antiquaries as a Saxon or Frankish grave, is
-the counterpart of a northern grave, thus
-showing conclusively the common origin of the
-people.” Professor Freeman considers M. du
-Chaillu’s theory “several degrees more amazing
-than that of Mr. Seebohm,” though why the two
-should be connected I hardly know. “No one denies,”
-Mr. Freeman says, that the Scandinavian
-infusion in England is “real, great, and valuable,”
-only the date of the Scandinavian descent on the
-shores of Britain, and the degree and manner
-of the northern immigration must be taken on
-the faith of Professor Freeman. According to
-his account the Scandinavian invasion was an
-<em>infusion</em> that dates from the ninth century.
-This is exactly the pivot on which the whole
-question turns. There are strong grounds for
-believing that the Northman incursions and
-settlements in Britain were not limited to the
-Danish invasions of the ninth century. Did
-the fleets of the Northmen fully equipped start
-into existence in the middle or end of the ninth
-century? If not, how were they engaged
-during the centuries that immediately preceded?
-Professor Freeman affirms that they were employed
-“somewhere else.” If they were not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>
-used in the subjugation of Britain, perhaps
-Professor Freeman will state circumstantially
-what portions of Europe are comprehended
-under the vague generality of “Somewhere else.”
-We want something more convincing than his
-<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ipse dixit</i>. Danish writers, we are told, have
-often greatly exaggerated the amount of Scandinavian
-influence in England, a remark that
-applies with equal force to the advocates of the
-Saxon and Celtic theories. Things, it is said,
-have been set down as signs of direct Scandinavian
-influence, which “are part of the
-common heritage of the Teutonic race.” Admitting
-this “common heritage,” and having
-regard to the fact, that the language of the
-Scandinavian, and that of the so-called Anglo-Saxon
-are almost identical, who shall decide
-between their conflicting claims? The <cite>Quarterly</cite>,
-citing from the <cite>Corpus Poeticum Boreale</cite> of
-Vigfússon and Powell in reference to the
-poetry of the Norsemen, says, “The men from
-whom these poems sprung took no small share
-in the making of England; their blood is in our
-veins, and their speech in our mouths.”<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> The
-preponderance of the direct Scandinavian element<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>
-in the English language has been shown
-by Archbishop Trench, who states “That of a
-hundred English words, sixty come from the
-Scandinavian, thirty from the Latin, five from
-the Greek, and five from other sources.” “Dane
-and Angle, Dane and Saxon,” according to
-Professor Freeman’s own shewing “were near
-enough each other to learn from one another,
-and to profit by one another.” Their dialectic
-difference was never such as to prevent them
-from understanding each other. “There is,”
-the <cite>Quarterly</cite> affirms, “very high authority for
-saying that there was as little difference in
-those early times between a Dane and an Englishman,
-as there was between two Englishmen in
-different parts of the country.” The Saxons
-were in fact only an earlier swarm of northern
-adventurers of the same race who were afterwards
-known in history as Danes and Northmen.
-Still Professor Freeman thinks the Scandinavian
-element was but an <em>infusion</em> into the already
-existing English mass. Hardly I should think if
-the existing English mass, and the invading
-Northmen had a common origin! The name of
-England’s principal city, it may be remarked,
-the great metropolis of the Empire is Scandinavian.
-Neither are there wanting persons<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>
-who believe that such also is the name England
-itself. In a communication to <cite>Notes and
-Queries</cite> by Mr. Henry Rowan in 1868, he
-suggests a derivation of this name from the
-Danish <i lang="da" xml:lang="da">Eng</i>. “While travelling in Denmark,”
-he says, “I met with a word which seems to me
-to afford a derivation of our name of England,
-as probable, at least as the ordinary one of
-<em>Angle land</em>. The word I mean is <i lang="da" xml:lang="da">Eng</i>, an old
-Danish name applied even yet to the level
-marshy pasture lands adjoining rivers. I believe
-the Saxons and Angles, from the time of whose
-invasion the name is supposed to date, first
-landed and possessed the Isle of Thanet, which
-in parts, especially those about Minster, and
-the river <em>Stour</em>, would answer very well to the
-description of Danish <i lang="da" xml:lang="da">Eng lands</i>. It is from
-this word I think the name may have sprung,
-instead of from the Angles, whom we have no
-reason for supposing to have been so superior to
-the Saxons as to leave the remembrance of their
-name to the entire exclusion of the latter.”
-M. Worsaae, in the first words of his history
-unwittingly confirms what Mr. Rowan here
-points out. “The greater part of England,” he
-says, “consists of flat and fertile lowland, particularly
-towards the southern and eastern<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>
-coasts, where large open plains extend themselves.”
-There is a low-lying district of
-Aberdeenshire called the <em>Enzie</em>, a name of the
-same character, evidently imposed by the Northmen.
-This is pronounced by the natives <em>aingie</em>,
-the sound of the first portion of the name being
-as the <em>aing</em> in the Scotch surname of <em>Laing</em>.
-The derivation just cited, coupled with my conjecture
-that the name Scotland is the ancient
-gothic <i lang="got" xml:lang="got">Skot-land</i>, land laid under tribute,
-Icelandic <i lang="is" xml:lang="is">Skat</i>, a tax (Skat-land) goes to confirm
-M. du Chaillu’s contention that the British
-people, and tongue (by tongue, I mean the
-present speech of the British nation) are of
-northern origin.</p>
-
-<p>The contention that the Danish influx into
-England was in any sense a mere infusion must in
-the nature of things be pure fiction. It was a full
-rolling tide of conquest and colonization swelling
-a population already essentially Scandinavian.</p>
-
-<p>The first authentic particulars relating to the
-ancient Britons are derived from Cæsar who
-made his descent in the year 55 before Christ.
-The original inhabitants appear to have been
-Celts from France and Spain. We learn from
-the Roman historian that they had been driven
-into the interior and western portion of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>
-island by the Belgae who settled on the east
-and south-eastern shores of England, and were
-now known as Britons. He tells us in language,
-about which there can be no misconception, that
-the Belgae were descended from the Germans.
-These were the Britons with whom Cæsar
-had to do, and these the Romanized Britons
-who, in their dire extremity, sent forth their despairing
-cry to the gates of Imperial Rome, “The
-barbarians drive us to the sea, and the sea to
-the barbarians.” Prichard demonstrated, at
-least to his own satisfaction, that “the ancient
-Belgae were of Celtic, and not of Teutonic race,
-as had previously been supposed,” and ethnologists
-are agreed in setting aside the testimony of
-Cæsar! What amount of hypothetical evidence
-is sufficient to overturn an historic fact? It
-might be difficult to say who is an authority on
-language, but anyone reasonably endowed with
-judgment may be an authority on matters of fact
-and practical sense. The science of language is
-not an exact science, and leaves a good deal of
-room for the imagination to play. I would rather
-doubt the conclusions of philologers than believe
-that the Roman historian wrote without
-knowledge of his subject, or deliberately stated
-what he had no means of knowing to be true.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>
-The weight of evidence is certainly on the side
-of Cæsar. Not all the ingenuity of all the Bopps
-and Grimms and Potts and Zeusses who ever
-applied themselves to the elucidation of this most
-obscure of all unintelligible subjects can ever be
-sufficient to overturn an outside historical fact.
-“In the history of all nations,” Pinkerton says,
-“it is indispensable to admit the most ancient
-authorities as the sole foundation of any
-knowledge we can acquire. If we reject them
-or pretend to refute them no science can remain,
-and any dreamer may build up an infinite series
-of romances from his own imagination. When,
-therefore, a modern pretends to refute Cæsar
-and Tacitus in their accounts of the inhabitants
-of ancient Britain, any man of science would
-disdain to enter the field.” It does not by any
-means follow that every scholar who is familiar
-with the structural peculiarities of language has
-necessarily any aptitude for perceiving the exact
-relations of things. Many distinguished men
-eminent in literature have been singularly deficient
-in ordinary reasoning power. The late
-Charles Kingsley, it is well known, “could not
-discern truth from falsehood.” Though occupying
-“an historical chair, he lacked every
-qualification of an historian.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span></p>
-
-<p>M. Worsaae, the Danish antiquary, after a
-good deal of hesitation and circumlocution in
-regard to several matters of disputed origin, in
-particular the Ruthwell cross which he casts out
-of the category of Scandinavian remains, and
-contradicts himself in the following sentences:
-“Ornaments with similar so-called Anglo-Saxon
-runic inscriptions are not altogether uncommon
-in England, particularly in the North. But as
-not a few ornaments, as well as runic stones
-with inscriptions in the self-same character, are
-also found in the countries of Scandinavia both
-in Denmark and Norway, and particularly the
-latter, and the west and south-west of Sweden
-(and there mostly in Bleking), it may be a question
-whether this runic writing was not originally
-brought over to England by Scandinavian
-emigrants. It would otherwise be inexplicable
-that they should have used entirely foreign runic
-characters in Scandinavia, whilst they possessed
-a peculiar runic writing of their own.” I do
-not think there can be any question in the
-matter. No stronger evidence could be given
-in proof of the fact that the so-called Anglo-Saxons
-and Scandinavians were radically one
-and the same people. M. Worsaae has done
-much to illustrate the Scandinavian antiquities<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>
-of the British islands, and I am unwilling to cast
-reflection on the memory of one so eminent and
-so well-intentioned, but it is evident throughout
-his book, that he has accepted at second-hand,
-on a variety of subjects, the conclusions of
-English and Scotch antiquaries, which as a
-foreigner he was incapable of dealing with by
-independent investigation. The Hunterston
-brooch, which in every lineament is distinctively
-Scandinavian, he has been told to call <em>Celtic</em>.
-He deals with this most interesting monument
-of art in the ambiguous manner for which he is
-always remarkable where his judgment seems to
-contradict his conclusion. “An excellent silver
-gilt brooch,” he says, “found near Hunterston,
-about three miles from Largs, was once said to
-have been lost by some Norwegian who fled from
-the field of battle [nothing more probable].
-There is a short Scandinavian runic inscription
-scratched on the back of it, but from what has
-hitherto been deciphered, it would rather seem
-to denote the name of a Scotchman than of a
-Norwegian. Professor Munch reads ‘Malbritha
-a dalk thana—Melbridg owns this brooch.’”
-M. Worsaae here obviously means <em>Celt</em>, as
-opposed to Scandinavian, but uses the term
-Scotchman to allow himself, if need be, a door<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>
-of escape. “Scotchman” would apply equally
-to anyone born in Scotland, whether Celt by
-extraction, Scandinavian, Fleming or Norman.
-This seems to me an undignified way of getting
-out of a difficult position. The runic writing of
-the Hunterston brooch, which is in the Norse
-tongue, has been accurately explained by Professor
-George Stephens, of Copenhagen. M.
-Worsaae, we know, accepted the attentions of
-eminent British antiquaries, and could not gracefully
-seem to doubt their conclusions on special
-subjects submitted to his decision. He is first
-told what to say, and then cited by his instructors,
-as an authority for statements which
-they themselves have put into his mouth.
-Perhaps, under the circumstances, this may not be
-an exceptional manner of dealing with matters of
-disputed history, but it is certainly not the way
-to reach the truth that reveals itself to intelligence.
-“In workmanship,” M. Worsaae says,
-“the Hunterston brooch resembles the contemporary
-Irish and Scotch more than Scandinavian
-ornaments.” Now, it certainly does no such
-thing. It does not appear to me that as regards
-the Scandinavian remains of Great Britain, one
-like M. Worsaae groping his way darkly with
-the help of such lights as he can find is at all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>
-competent to pronounce dogmatic judgments.
-Ireland and Scotland were invaded, and subdued,
-and peopled by the Northmen, and
-brooches of the self-same character are found in
-the Viking interments of Scandinavia. The
-contemporary Irish and Scotch brooches may
-reasonably be presumed to be Scandinavian.
-The resemblance of the Hunterston brooch to
-that found at Tara, and to others of like
-character found in Scotland is certainly not
-greater than to the brooch in the Bergen
-Museum exhumed from a Viking mound at
-Vambheim, or to that dug up at North Trondheim
-in another grave of the Viking period.
-The inscription contained on the Hunterston
-brooch proves to demonstration, not only that
-its art, and that of all others of kindred type is
-Scandinavian, but that the name “Melbridg” is
-Norwegian. Whatever be the <em>origin</em> of the art
-exhibited on the brooches, it is plain that this cannot
-be Celtic, inasmuch as that no one has ever
-shewn that the Celts possessed any knowledge of
-art. It is all very well to talk in an off-handed
-way about Celtic art, but something more than
-this is necessary to carry conviction. To my perceptions
-a Celtic statement is much improved
-by some form of <em>evidence</em>. Dr. Soderberg of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>
-Lund doubts if I will find many adherents
-among Scandinavian scholars. “We are all of
-us,” he says, “more or less imbued with Celticism.”
-So much the worse for Scandinavia,
-that her sons deny her legitimate claims to her
-own historic and archaic remains. It is not
-however, as I think, so much a question of
-scholarship as of practical sense, the capacity to
-deal with facts which may be weighed by
-anyone possessed of ordinary reasoning power
-or capable of speech and thought in their
-simplest forms. One can understand a Scotch
-antiquary of the Celtic type placing himself in
-an attitude of antagonism, just as we might
-imagine Professor Freeman gliding like a shark
-along the Saxon line ready to do battle on behalf
-of his cherished delusion, because that to both of
-these the Northman theory is total extinction. But
-that the Scandinavian antiquary, who as regards
-his national remains has no reason to falsify the
-facts of history, should in the interest of an
-exotic fable, waste his ingenuity in disclaiming
-the art that especially belongs to his country
-surpasses my comprehension. Let us hear what
-the <cite>Saturday Review</cite> has to say on the subject
-of Celtic art. Taking exception to many of my
-positions, it says: “He [Mr. Roger] is on much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>
-firmer ground when he declines to believe in any
-art or culture that can fairly be called Celtic.
-The very patterns which are usually spoken of
-as Celtic are common to all the gold work of the
-Mycenæan graves, which few people, we think,
-will now place much later than 1500 B.C.”
-“Dr. Schliemann’s Mycenæan discoveries deprive
-the Celts of any credit for originality
-in their system of spiral ornament.” Again
-“‘<em>Celtic</em>’ patterns certainly existed on the
-shores of the Ægean fifteen hundred years
-before our era.” “Mr. Roger is probably right
-when he claims a Scandinavian origin for the
-ancient claymores (two handed), for the Tara
-brooch and other brooches, for stone crosses,
-dirk handles, and what so else is too commonly
-attributed to Celtic art.” “‘What is Celtic art?’
-cries Mr. Roger, triumphantly. What, indeed?
-‘The Celts, Pinkerton tells us, had no monuments,
-any more than the Finns or savage
-Africans, or Americans.’ As to Americans,
-Mr. Roger can see their bas-reliefs at the South
-Kensington Museum;<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> <em>but for Celtic art not
-derived from the Scandinavians or Romans, we
-know not where to bid him look</em>.” I am content<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>
-to rest the matter here. There is no art known
-as distinctively Celtic, and in this aspect of the
-question I am confirmed by the <cite>Saturday Review</cite>.
-But to return to Professor Freeman. In a
-number of the publication called <cite>The Antiquary</cite>,
-issued on November 16th, 1872, the writer of a
-paper on <cite>The Landing of the Saxons in Kent</cite>,
-tells us that “after pillaging for ‘a hundred and
-fifty years’ the British shores,” the Jutes, or
-Saxons, landed under Hengist and Horsa, “and
-here,” the writer says, “we must halt for a few
-moments till we have disposed of Mr. E. A.
-Freeman’s astounding statement that Horsa
-meant <em>mare</em>. Hors, our misspelt <em>horse</em>,” the
-writer says, “is like its German equivalent Ross,
-a neuter word. The Saxon hero is sometimes
-called simply Hors, but more frequently by the
-addition of a masculine termination—a, as in
-‘Ida Ælla,’ and some thousands more, he
-becomes Horsa, masculine and male. <em>Mare</em> is
-Myre, feminine. * * * * If Mr. Freeman
-will be good enough to tell us how he came
-to fall into this preposterous error, we may
-possibly clear up the cause of his mistake; for
-the most part, when he makes a bad blunder, we
-can form a notion what better authority has
-misled him; but in this case no English dictionary,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>
-grammar, or history can have been consulted
-by him. Can it have been a Latin
-grammar? Mr. Freeman is extensively known
-as blowing weekly a shrill trumpet, ‘<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">asper,
-acerba, sonans</i>,’ in reviews of literary and
-illiterate performances, but then he is in hiding;
-we hear the obstreperous whirr, but the midge
-is behind the screen; when he appears in
-human body, he makes lapses, trips and stumbles,
-and lays himself bare to stings,” &amp;c. This is in
-Professor Freeman’s early days, but men carry
-their idiosyncrasies into their riper years. It
-gives us an insight into this critic’s mind
-according to the estimation in which he was
-then held by his fellow-scribblers. To the
-article in question, which occupies nearly two
-columns of <cite>The Antiquary</cite>, the editor appends
-the following note:—“The story of Hengist and
-Horsa (including the so-called Anglo-Saxon
-invasion) is an exploded fable. The Anglo-Saxons
-of England, like the Picts or Caledonians
-of Scotland, were only the earlier Northmen or
-Scandinavians.”</p>
-
-<p>This is pre-eminently an age of platitudes and
-Professor Freeman is great in such. “There is,”
-he says, “an English folk, and there is a British
-Crown.” There is also, it might be affirmed, a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>
-Scotch folk, and a British Crown, and until Mr.
-Gladstone shall accomplish his visionary project
-of Irish Home Rule, there is, and will be
-an Irish folk and a British Crown. “But the
-homes of the English folk,” we are to note,
-“and the dominions of the British Crown do
-not always mean the same thing.” Does any
-one suppose they do? “Here by the border
-stream of the Angle and the Saxon” we are in
-“the dominions of the British Crown,” &amp;c. If
-by the “border stream” be meant the Tweed, it
-is more than doubtful if the Angles and Saxons
-ever saw that stream. In Professor Freeman’s
-“youth,” the “Anglo-Saxon race was unheard of,”
-and by some strange delusion, for which it is
-difficult to account, the “British race” dates, he
-believes, from some speech delivered a week
-before the time at which he writes. It is evident
-Professor Freeman has not been a reader of
-<cite>Good Words</cite>, at least of its early numbers published
-more than thirty years ago. In one of
-these he will find “The British race has been
-called Anglo-Saxon,” &amp;c., and a good deal more
-which it might be inconvenient for him to learn.</p>
-
-<p>Professor Freeman “shows how some writers,
-sometimes more famous writers, now and then
-get at their facts.” “One received way,” he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>
-tells us, “is to glance at a page of an original
-writer, to have the eye caught by a word, to
-write down another word, that looks a little like
-it, and to invent facts that suit the words
-written down. To roll two independent words
-into a compound word with a hyphen is perhaps
-a little stronger; but only a little.” Are we to
-suppose that Professor Freeman is recounting
-his individual experience in dealing with the
-facts of English history?</p>
-
-<p>The gifted Edmund Spenser, who charmed the
-world with his <cite>Faery Queen</cite> died forsaken and
-in want. Milton sold his copyright of Paradise
-Lost for fifteen pounds, and Goldsmith’s Vicar
-of Wakefield was disposed of for a trifle to save
-him from the grip of the law. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Tempora mutantur!</i>
-Third rate contributions by high class
-writers command their market value. If men
-can obtain payment for writing such articles as
-that of Professor Freeman’s criticism of <cite>The
-Viking Age</cite> that appeared in the January number
-of the <cite>Contemporary Review</cite> it shows that
-there is something in a name, that the conductors
-of such periodicals pay more regard to the
-reputation of the writer, than to the quality of
-the writing. Professor Freeman is no doubt a
-very able writer, but this is not the conclusion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>
-that would be reached in reading his captious
-and illogical criticism of M. du Chaillu’s book.</p>
-
-<p>I have evidently wounded the susceptibilities
-of some extreme churchman or irascible Celt, in
-the person of a reviewer in the <cite>Literary World</cite>,
-whose hostility is hardly explainable on the
-ground of mere difference of opinion. According
-to this disposer of events, I fall wofully short
-in the qualifications of one who is entitled to
-speak on the subject of archæology. I might,
-however, plead in extenuation, and in mitigation
-of punishment the reason given by Mr. Gladstone
-for upholding the verity of Old Testament
-Scripture, that “there is a very large portion of
-the community whose opportunities of judgment
-have been materially smaller than my own,”
-and that, “in all studies light may be thrown
-inwards from without.” I profess not to unravel
-the hidden mysteries of prehistoric antiquity,
-but simply to deal with the historical
-aspect of outside facts, though, as the <cite>Saturday</cite>
-reviewer justly remarks, I must get into prehistory
-somewhere. Among the numerous disqualifications
-manifested in my treatise, I show
-“a very indifferent acquaintance” with
-“Language;” and its “twin sister, Ethnology,”
-of which, however, I may reasonably be presumed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>
-to know as much as my censor. Most
-persons who write on any subject do something
-to keep in touch with current facts and common
-knowledge. If the critic of the <cite>Literary World</cite>
-had taken the trouble to read my book attentively,
-he would have found many references to
-what has been done by philologers and Ethnologists
-on whose labours he sets so much store.
-“As the book is in a second edition,” he condescends
-to inform us, he has “occupied more
-space than he should otherwise have done in
-estimating its claims to authority.” The conclusion
-he has reached is that I go as far astray
-in one direction as the Celticists do in another,
-an opinion which is quite within the limit of
-legitimate criticism. When, however, from his
-lofty tribune he looks down and imputes to me
-ignorance of what has been done by the great
-masters of “Language,” the Joneses, and Colebrookeses,
-and Bopps, and Potts, and Grimms,
-and Steinthals, and suggests that I do not know
-what has been said by such writers as Camper,
-Jacquart, Blumenbach, Cuvier, Prichard,
-Latham and Morton, not to mention the pernicious
-nonsense of Darwin, and the vagaries of
-Professor Huxley, I must be permitted to take
-exception. It is one thing to know what they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>
-have written, and quite another to accept their
-conclusions as absolute and final, considering
-how often we hear the most arrant nonsense
-solemnly propounded as the deductions of scientific
-investigation. It has been pointed out by
-a late minister of the Crown that “Newton’s
-projectile theory of Light” which had apparently
-been firmly established has given place to
-“the theory of undulation,” which, citing from
-the Virginian philosopher Dr. Smith, he says,
-“has now for fifty years reigned in its stead.”
-On this he grounds the suggestion that we
-should not “receive with impatience the assertion
-of contradictions.” On the subject
-of specialists we have the opinion of the
-same eminent individual, notable among the
-great intellects of the age, one who like
-Brougham, “has the languages of Greece
-and Rome strung like a bunch of keys at
-his girdle.” No less a personage in fact, than
-the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, with whom,
-while admiring the versatility of his genius, I
-differ politically, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">toto cœlo</i>. To none of the
-sciences, rightly or wrongly so named, do his
-remarks more aptly apply than to the “Science
-of Language,” and its twin sister, “Ethnology.”
-“I have had the opportunity,” he says, “of perceiving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>
-how, among specialists as with other
-men, there may be fashions of the time and
-school, which Lord Bacon called idols of the
-market-place, and currents of prejudice below
-the surface, which may detract somewhat from
-the authority which each enquirer may justly
-claim in his own field, and from their title to
-impose their conclusions upon mankind.” In
-proof of the fluctuating and uncertain character
-of this so-called science Dr. Morton in regard to
-“certain points of primary importance found
-himself compelled to differ in opinion from the
-majority of scholars.” I believe with Bishop
-Percy, Dr. R. Angus Smith, and others, that
-the Celts and Teutons even remotely had not a
-common origin, but were <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ab origine</i> distinct
-races of mankind. As to <em>authority</em> I hold that
-“no man is an authority for any statement
-which he cannot prove,” and although according
-to the critic of the <cite>Literary World</cite>, I deliver
-my opinions in a manner “more forcible than
-elegant”<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> my pretensions are exceedingly humble.
-“I venture to draw attention to the subject, in
-the hope that the matter may be taken up by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>
-some one with more time and better appliances at
-his disposal than I can command.” Without pretending
-to be “exhaustive or specially erudite”
-I have done the best I can to extinguish a
-national delusion, and I hope cannot finally, and
-altogether fail. If I be deficient in language,
-in whatever acceptation, I am in no worse
-position than the statesman already referred to,
-who maintains the truth of ancient Scripture
-avowedly without any knowledge of the Hebrew
-tongue. Language, as Lord Southesk most
-accurately, and pertinently points out, “is a
-thing that seems like a boomerang, so queer are
-the twists it takes, and so uncertain its returns.”
-Ethnology, or Anthropology—whichever its
-votaries choose to call it—is not, as I think, a
-science. It consists of the conceits and assumptions
-of men learned and unlearned who have
-reached certain conclusions, and who profess to
-bring back from the depths of prehistoric antiquity
-facts which may not be facts, or which at least we
-have no means of knowing to be true. The
-whole subject is “feeble, perplexed, and to all
-appearance, confused.” Many years since Mr.
-Hyde Clarke, at a meeting of the Ethnological
-Society, remarking on the utterances of Professor
-Huxley, suggested that, although the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>
-latter “had laid down his statements as established
-by men of science, there was little capable
-of proof.” What then is the value of a study, the
-results of which are as unstable as the passing
-vapour? It was a conception of the late Sir
-David Brewster, that <em>science</em> is the only earthly
-treasure we can carry with us to a better state.
-Let us hope that if <em>Language</em>, and its <em>twin sister</em>
-be among the number destined thither, they will
-be freed from their mundane misconceptions and
-uncertainties.</p>
-
-<p>The Reviewer of the <cite>Literary World</cite> thinks
-I “make a sorry jumble of races and languages.
-All sorts of people, and tribes, dialects, and remains,
-related and unrelated, are said to be
-Goths or Gothic,” though in dealing with my
-shortcomings, real or supposed, he does not always
-keep faith with facts. The ancient Scythians,
-he makes me to say, were Goths, for which the only
-foundation is that I cite Dr. Macculloch and Mr.
-Planché from each a paragraph in which the name
-Scythian is mentioned. “The occupiers of prehistoric
-lake dwellings Goths.” Precisely what
-I do not say. I mention the facts that “a
-species of combat called <em>holmgang</em>, peculiar to
-the old Northmen, was usually fought in a small
-island or holm in a lake,” and that islands in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>
-lakes were places resorted to by the Scandinavian
-“foude,” or magistrate, with his law
-officers, &amp;c. In Iceland, the men on whom
-sentence of death had been passed, were beheaded
-upon an islet in a lake or river. I
-submit these facts to the candid consideration
-of those who are capable of judging, because if
-my conjecture be correct, palisaded islands were
-neither inhabited nor are they prehistoric. “The
-Caledonians, Goths; the Picts, Goths.” I was
-taught to believe that Pict and Caledonian are
-convertible terms. “The Icelanders and others
-were Goths.” I do not, of course, know which
-“others” the reviewer may have had in his
-mind, but the Icelanders are certainly Goths.
-“Sometimes,” the critic says, “Gothic appears
-as the equivalent of Scandinavian.” Certainly
-as opposed to Celtic. “And the sum of the whole
-matter is that ‘the Scandinavians are our true
-progenitors,’” which, he points out, is “the same
-blunder that M. du Chaillu has been dashing his
-head against.” All wise beyond conception!
-By a figure of speech a writer might be said to
-dash his head against a rock, but hardly I should
-think, against a <em>blunder</em>! It is rather odd that
-this captious censor should be ignorant of the
-fact that the quotation which he cites from my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>
-preface contains the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ipsissima verba</i> of the
-writer of an article that appeared in <cite>Good
-Words</cite> nearly forty years ago, by whom M. du
-Chaillu was anticipated, and that the same views
-and opinions were advocated by myself nineteen
-years since in the pages of <cite>Notes and Queries.</cite></p>
-
-<p>The languages or dialects to be dealt with as
-regards the British islands, are few in number,
-and we can judge of them in an outside fashion,
-without the aid of Bopp, or Grimm, or Zeuss, or
-Steinthal. These are the Welsh of the Principality,
-which, roughly speaking, includes the
-extinct dialect of Cornwall. The Erse or Gaelic
-of Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. The
-Teutonic of the Belgae, which Prichard calls
-Celtic, but which we gather from Cæsar was
-German. At least it is a fair inference from his
-statement, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Belgas esse ortos a Germanis</i>, that
-they spoke some dialect of Teutonic speech.<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>
-The language of the Picts or Caledonians, which
-Skene affirms is neither Welsh nor Gaelic, but a
-Gaelic dialect partaking largely of Welsh forms.
-This, however, on the faith of Tacitus, I believe
-to have been Scandinavian, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">rutilæ Caledoniam<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>
-habitantium comæ magni artus Germanicam
-asseverant</i>. The Saxon, or earlier Scandinavian
-of South Britain, and the confessedly Scandinavian
-dialects of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Norfolk,
-Suffolk, Northumberland and North Britain.
-In point of fact only two languages, the Gothic
-or Teutonic, and the Celtic, or whatever else
-may be the structure, foundation or admixture
-of the dialects so named. I have elsewhere
-stated that “The several dialects of what has
-been called Celtic might be compared to so many
-dust heaps to which has been swept the refuse
-of all other languages from time immemorial,”
-and I see no reason to change my opinion. It
-will thus be seen that there is not much room to
-jumble either races or language. The jumble, if
-such there be, arises out of the confusion and
-obscurity of the critic’s own mind. He ridicules
-the idea of identifying the “Gothic <i lang="got" xml:lang="got">Magus</i>”
-with what he calls the “Celtic <i lang="sga" xml:lang="sga">Mac</i> or <i lang="sga" xml:lang="sga">Maqui</i>.”
-I deny that <i lang="sga" xml:lang="sga">Mac</i> is Celtic, and I identify it with
-the <i lang="sga" xml:lang="sga">Maqui</i> of the Ogham inscriptions, because I
-think there are good grounds for believing that
-Oghams and runes were equally the work of the
-Northmen, although Lord Southesk, who has
-made these remains a special study, differs from
-me in opinion. There is certainly an uncommon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>
-outside resemblance between the two words. It
-is however, satisfactory to know that his Lordship
-is in substantial agreement with me on the
-main subject of my contention, the preponderance
-of the Scandinavian element in the British Isles.
-Coming to the essence of the controversy, he
-says, “Where I agree with you thoroughly is
-in the belief that the prevalence and influence of
-the Scandinavian races in Britain and Ireland
-have been largely underrated, and that much
-due to them has been ascribed to the various
-peoples commonly classed as Celts.” “One
-has only to look at the people inhabiting
-Aberdeenshire, Angus, &amp;c., to convince one’s-self
-that Norse blood predominates.” I regard
-the questions of races, art, and culture
-entirely from an outside or historic view. In
-the face of such facts as I have adduced to
-continue to call <i lang="sga" xml:lang="sga">Mac</i> Celtic is simply persistent
-dogmatism—a perverse determination to adhere
-<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">per fas et nefas</i> to a foregone conclusion. The
-prefix <i lang="sga" xml:lang="sga">Mac</i> though found in Scotch Gaelic and
-other dialects of the Erse, has obviously been
-imported thither only as a foreign term, in
-the same manner that the Norse word <i lang="non" xml:lang="non">jarl</i>,
-an earl, found its way into the Welsh. <i lang="sga" xml:lang="sga">Mac</i>,
-as I have elsewhere pointed out, occurs in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>
-the Anglo-Norse dialect of Craven, West Riding
-of York. It was used in the sense of
-<em>son</em> by the Danes and Northmen. It occurs
-as a prefix to an interminable number of personal
-names distinctively Scandinavian, and in
-one form or other is found in every dialect of
-the Teutonic. We must “deal with the evidence
-before us according to a rational appreciation of
-its force.” “<i lang="sga" xml:lang="sga">Plaid</i>,” the critic, affirms, “does
-not exist in Moeso-Gothic.” Thomson in <cite>Observations</cite>
-prefixed to his Lexicon, says, “Plaid, a
-cloke in Moeso-Gothic, was the Icelandic <i lang="is" xml:lang="is">palt</i>.”
-I would rather believe that the critic of the
-<cite>Literary World</cite> does not know where to look
-for the word, than that the erudite private secretary
-to the Marquis of Hastings in India, presuming
-on their ignorance, sought to impose on
-his readers a word which he knew did not exist.
-Again this critic says, “Denying to another
-(Anglo-Saxon) a word that does (foster).” The
-expression is confused, but he evidently means
-that “foster” <em>is</em> found in Anglo-Saxon. In the
-text of my treatise I say, “Neither can there
-be any doubt as to the Northern derivation of
-the word <em>foster</em>.” To this I append a footnote
-taken from the <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, vol. 139 (1875),
-p. 449. “The word <em>foster</em> is not found in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>
-Anglo-Saxon, Moeso-Gothic, or German,” and
-at the same time indicate the source whence my
-information is derived. I accepted the statement
-on the faith of the writer. If it does occur, it
-only shows how little dependence can be placed
-on facts adduced by literary critics even in
-connection with such responsible publications as
-the <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>. Another evidence of
-disqualification as “a writer on Archæological
-matters,” is that the word <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Celte</i> cited from the
-Vulgate was shown long ago by Mr. Knight
-Watson to be a misprint for <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Certe</i>. The critic
-must indeed have been much at a loss for a peg
-on which to hang his hypercriticism. I hardly
-know why it is incumbent on me before delivering
-my views on the Celtic myth to know all
-that has been explained on collateral subjects by
-Mr. Knight Watson. I found neither note nor
-marginal reference declaratory of this gentleman’s
-critical acumen, or of the great service he
-had rendered to archæology in resolving this
-enigma, nor if I had should I have introduced it
-into my treatise. My remark in regard to the
-Vulgate is an incidental reference of the vaguest
-description on which nothing depends. To
-borrow the expression of an eminent individual,
-Would the critic of the <cite>Literary World</cite> “be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>
-surprised to learn” that by a defect of information,
-quite as glaring as that which
-he imputes to me, he has entirely missed
-the point of my stricture which is directed
-against the executive of the <em>Society of Antiquaries
-of Scotland</em>. At page 11 of its
-<cite>Catalogue of Antiquities</cite>, printed in 1876, it is
-stated as the heading of a section, “<span class="smcap">Stone
-Celts or Axe Heads</span>.” Behind the word
-“Celts,” an asterisk, and underneath, a footnote
-corresponding thereto the explanation “Celtis, a
-chisel,” of all which the critic shows himself to
-be entirely ignorant. He mentions the Gothic
-word <i lang="got" xml:lang="got">afar</i>. Thomson calls it <i lang="got" xml:lang="got">hafar</i>. I can
-only conjecture that the critic may have first
-seen the light within the vibrations of certain
-well-known sounds, and that he habitually drops
-the letter <em>h</em>. In the course of my “polemic,”
-he thinks, I “undoubtedly score a point here
-and there in matters of detail.” “Thus,” he
-says, “he maintains what ought to be obvious
-enough [but which to the Celtic expositor it
-never is] that remains inscribed in Northern
-runes must be attributed to the Scandinavians.”
-I give, he says, “and this appears to be my
-<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chef d’œuvre</i>, a very probable reading (<span class="smcap">Grimkitil
-thane raist</span>, Grimkitil engraved this) to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>
-a fragmentary inscription ( ... <span class="allsmcap">KITIL TH</span> ...)
-on what is known as the bronze plate of Laws.
-And inasmuch as” that this critic “formed a
-similar opinion many years ago, he is bound to
-approve my suggestion that the old Greek and
-runic alphabets were derived from some common
-source, and not either from the other.” He is
-“bound to approve.” How very condescending!
-It is evident he does not perceive the
-effect of his own conclusion. If my reading of
-the inscription on the Laws plate be correct it
-involves something more than a mere matter of
-detail. It is the solution of a problem which
-has perplexed and bewildered most antiquaries
-of the present century, because it demonstrates
-the symbols of the Laws crescent plate, and
-those of the Scotch sculptured stones to be the
-work of the Scandinavians. This has long
-been my individual opinion, though I doubt if
-the critic of the <cite>Literary World</cite> will make
-many converts among antiquaries on the other
-side of the Tweed. When I attempt to establish
-“my own peculiar views,” he says, I seem to
-“break down.” Are not the points on which—to
-borrow his elegant diction—I “score” as
-much my “peculiar views” as those on which
-he alleges I fail? “Of the Teutonic tribes,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>
-whose settlements grew into our old Heptarchy,
-or Octarchy, none, and no discoverable part of
-any, were Scandinavian proper. [This is mere
-arbitrary statement.] There was subsequently,
-of course, in certain districts, a large infusion
-of Scandinavian forms, proper names, &amp;c.
-[What does he mean by <em>forms</em>? The Scandinavians
-brought their <em>names</em> when they brought
-their bodies] in consequence of the invasions
-and settlements of the ‘Danes,’ but in spite of
-this, and of much more serious disturbance
-afterwards, our language from the Channel to
-the Forth, owing to its power of absorption, and
-assimilation, remained, and remains substantially
-‘English.’” “Remained and remains
-substantially English.” These remarks are
-unanswerable, which it is said, is the happy
-property of all remarks sufficiently wide of the
-purpose. Is the language of the British nation
-less “English” because derived from the <em>Scandinavian</em>
-rather than from the <em>Saxon</em>, two
-dialects of the same speech in their essential
-elements hardly distinguishable? If this be
-true—as beyond all question it is true—it
-demolishes utterly the bugbear which the suggestion
-he advocates sets up.</p>
-
-<p>While accepting with becoming humility the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>
-disparaging estimate of my performance, it is
-not desirable that a reviewer of this character
-should have his say uncontradicted, though in
-setting myself right with those whom his strictures
-might have influenced, I have perhaps
-honoured him with too much notice. It is not a
-very formidable matter to cope with such an
-adversary.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0 outdent">“While these are censors, ’twould be sin to spare;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">While such are critics, why should I forbear?”—<span class="smcap">Byron.</span></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p class="p2 center">THE END.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES" title="FOOTNOTES.">FOOTNOTES:</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> The sonnets were originally discovered in the Monastery of the
-“Monks of Therfuse,” which stood on the site now occupied by the
-terminus of the “Glenmutchkin Railway.” They were afterwards
-placed for safe custody with the MSS. of Ossian.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> “Well-known scholars,” the <cite>Quarterly</cite> says, “have shown before
-him, and he is justified in adopting the conclusion, that the name of
-‘Saxon’ must have been loosely applied to all the pirates that scoured
-the Narrow Seas. We may conjecture that many crews from Scania
-and the Danish Isles, or from the great bay by the Naze of Norway,
-which gave its name to the Vikings, must have been found among the
-roving fleets of the fourth and fifth centuries, when the Empire was
-crumbling into ruins.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> “The red-bearded Thor was called ‘The Englishmen’s God.’”—<cite>Quarterly
-Review.</cite></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> I suspect these were not the savage Americans Pinkerton had in
-his mind.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> A writer who, to denote that which is without foundation, makes
-use of the expression “mere fudge” cannot be a very competent
-judge of elegance.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> That cannot be regarded as <em>science</em> which based only on the uncertain
-hypothesis of <em>language</em> contradicts the ascertained facts of
-history.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="OPINIONS_OF_THE_PRESS_AND_OTHERS_IN_REGARD">OPINIONS OF THE PRESS, AND OTHERS IN REGARD
-TO THE SECOND EDITION OF “CELTICISM A MYTH.”</h2>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“This issue of the work, resumes in an able statement the arguments
-of those antiquaries who hold that the early civilization of
-these islands was the work, not of Celts, but of Scandinavians.”—<cite>Scotsman.</cite></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“He [Mr. Roger] is on much firmer ground when he declines to
-believe in any art or culture that can fairly be called Celtic. The
-very patterns which are usually spoken of as Celtic are common on
-the gold work of the Mycenæan graves, which few people, we think,
-will now place much later than 1500 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> ... Mr. Roger is probably
-right when he claims a Scandinavian origin for the ancient
-claymores (two handed), for the Tara brooch, and other brooches, for
-stone crosses, dirk handles, and what so else is too commonly attributed
-to Celtic art.”—<cite>Saturday Review.</cite></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“The book throughout in its many pages bears evidence to an
-exceeding amount of careful research, clever reasoning, and close
-intimacy with the subject.... Until contradicted and disproved
-the facts in the pages of ‘Celticism a Myth’ must carry conviction.”—<cite>Montrose
-Standard.</cite></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“A further issue of this learned work is evidence that the arguments
-advanced against the pet theories of such recognised authorities
-as Dr. Joseph Anderson, and Dr. Daniel Wilson have aroused some
-commotion in the camp of archæologists.”—<cite>Publishers’ Circular.</cite></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“A second edition of Mr. Roger’s argument against the prehistoric
-existence of a Celtic civilization, and his ‘demonstration beyond
-reasonable doubt,’ that the only civilization in Scotland, of which we
-have any knowledge, was brought there by the Scandinavians.”—<cite>The
-Bookseller.</cite></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“It is a vigorous piece of controversy in favour of the argument
-that Celtic literature, and Celtic art never existed.”—<cite>Evening News
-and Post.</cite></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“It is a book that has interested me much.”—<span class="italic">The Most Hon. The
-Marquis of Lorne, K.T., &amp;c.</span></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“Where I agree with you thoroughly is in the belief that the prevalence,
-and influence of the Scandinavian races in Britain and Ireland
-have been largely underrated, and that much due to them has been
-ascribed to the various peoples commonly classed as Celts.”—<span class="italic">The
-Right Hon. The Earl of Southesk, K.T., F.S.A. Scot., &amp;c.</span></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“I have long been of opinion that we owe the <em>whole</em> of our civilization
-to Scandinavian, and Teutonic ancestors, and partly to Roman
-influence, and your very interesting volume confirms that opinion.”—<span class="italic">John
-Kirkpatrick, Esq., Advocate, M.A., Ph.D. LL.B., LL.D., Professor
-of History, University of Edinburgh.</span></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“Bertrand gives maps shewing the course followed by the megalithic
-monument builders in entering Europe, and this, I think, dispels
-the idea of their being due to the Celts.”—<span class="italic">Rev. S. Baring-Gould, M.A.
-&amp;c., &amp;c.</span></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“Your case is so well put, your rebutting evidence so cogent, and
-your reasoning so clear, that you must by this time have convinced
-many of your readers that ‘Celticism’ <em>is</em> ‘A Myth.’”—<span class="italic">John C. H.
-Flood, of the Middle Temple, Esq.</span></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“You have certainly dispelled my illusion as to Celtic art, and I
-consider you have proved your case certainly in the main, if not
-altogether.”—<span class="italic">Walter L. Spofforth of the Inner Temple, Esq.</span></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“I have seldom perused a more interesting work. The whole argument
-is clearly stated, and most convincing.”—<span class="italic">Rev. George Brown,
-F.S.A. Scot., Bendochy Manse.</span></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-
-<p class="center mb3">DIPROSE, BATEMAN &amp; CO., PRINTERS, SHEFFIELD
-STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS.</p>
-
-
-<div class="transnote">
-<p class="center"><b>Transcriber’s Note</b></p>
-
-<p>Printer’s errors were corrected where they could be clearly identified.
-Otherwise, as far as possible, original spelling and punctuation have
-been retained.</p></div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CELTIC MSS. IN RELATION TO THE MACPHERSON FRAUD ***</div>
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