In reply to this objection, I have to assure the reader, that it has now been fully ascertained to be founded wholly in mistake. It is probable that the idea originated in the circumstance of some Irish gentlemen, who had not studied the language, having said, upon first looking at an Irish book, that they could make nothing of it. "But no person," said Dr Stokes, "would expect that one who could speak and read English, and could also speak French, having never read it, should be able to read French at first trial. If, indeed, the letters had the same sounds in different languages, and that all letters were sounded, men might read a new language at sight, as they do music; but this is far from being the case." Let us proceed, however, to matter of fact. "I have read," said Mr Richardson, "the Bible in Irish to the common people both publicly and privately, and they declared that they understood very well; and that I might be satisfied they did so, I caused some of them to translate several sentences, which they did exactly; besides, if the case were not so, care might be taken for the future to print the Irish as it is spoken." Thus it was above a hundred years ago, and so it is now. The Rev. Mr Graham, Curate of Kilrush, county of Clare, in a letter dated the 3d of February, 1806, when speaking of certain young people, who understand and had learned to read Irish, says, 66 they are in the habit of reading in the intervals of labour, and particularly during the long winter nights, to circles of their friends and neighbours, who are illiterate, and understand the Irish only. By this means the knowledge of the divine truths of Scripture are propounded to the hearts and understandings of multitudes, who would otherwise have gone to the grave as ignorant as myriads of their ancestors." Whenever Mr Dewar announced that the Scriptures would be read in the Irish language, crowds not only came to hear, but they listened with manifest pleasure and eager intelligence. "I was astonished," says this gentleman, 66 to find, in the wildest parts of Donegal, a man with neither shoes nor stockings, who gave me a clear and correct account of the peculiarities of Irish grammar." In 1814, the writer, in passing through Connaught, found a schoolmaster teaching a school on his own account, who, for several months, had been in the habit of reading the Irish New Testament to his neighbours; and as a proof that

his labour was not lost to those poor people, one of them brought a candle alternately, or at least they furnished light, while he read to them the Irish Scriptures. On reading the affecting parable of the rich man and Lazarus, he said, they called out to him, "Read it again-read it again ;" and they also had their favourite passages in consequence of this exercise.

But it is in vain to multiply proofs, and happily now unnecessary. Any individual who chooses to acquaint himself with what has been going on for the last ten years, in the business of teaching the Native Irish to read their own language, will find many practical answers to every theoretical objection. Might I not rather ask now-What would the heathen abroad say, if they heard the pitiful objections that have been, and are still occasionally brought forward, to the enlightening of this particular branch of the empire? How would they feel amazement at our listening for one moment to such objections as these? "The Irish is a barbarous language; many indeed speak, but few can read it; there are few or no books in it; and, therefore, teaching to read it is of little consequence; indeed the sooner the Irish is extinct the better." What! might they not say, does all this mean? Why are not any, or all of these prejudices in operation as to us? How is it, that the same nation who have translated for us the Bible into our own tongue, have multiplied copies, supported schools for our instruction, and whose missionaries have actually acquired our own language so as to address us in it? How is it, that they should have vowed such vengeance against one class of their own fellow-subjects, in doing so against the medium by which, from their infancy, they have held intercourse with each other as rational and intelligent beings?

In conclusion, let every objector well consider the invincible attachment of the Native Irish to their mother tongue. It is of ancient standing, and it still remains. So early as the beginning of the fifteenth century, 1417, when the Irish septs were at deadly variance with each other, from whatever cause, there was even then one consideration, which could awaken and charm them into common sympathy. Sometimes when a par

ticular sept was in danger of total ruin, from the victory of some English forces, their neighbours were persuaded to come to their rescue, and for what?" for the sake of the Irish language," for so the manuscript annals express it, as quoted by Leland. As septs they might be distinct as the billows, as to the language, they were one as the sea; and whatever may be said to the contrary, this attachment does remain, and in all its power, nay it is common to all the Celtic tribes. There is a fascination in the language itself, and though there were not, the treatment it has received is sufficient to account for the present feeling; but this very attachment may be turned to the best account, and there is no occasion for fighting with it. Indeed it has lately been remarked by a French author, that "there seems to be in the language of the Celtic populations a principle of duration which sets time and the efforts of man at defiance."* I am inclined to go much farther than this, and apply the remark to any colloquial dialect whatever, when suffering under violent or abusive treatment. So it was with our own English or Anglo-Saxon; and the other instances adduced prove the fact. If we are to believe the Scriptures, the mysterious power which put an end to the erection of Babel was evidently an interposition, and in favour of man, though in what way I need not at present specify; but from the moment of that confusion, and often since, language, an instrument in the hands of Omnipotence, has been invincible, and though monarchs have repeatedly employed all their power to abolish one, it has been in vain. In no other country in the world has the experiment been so often attempted and so pertinaciously pursued as in our own, and the consequence is, that our history holds out to other nations a demonstrative proof, (whatever may be our philosophical theory respecting the origin, the formation and progress of language), that once spoken, once it is in use, language is an instrument which it is above the power of man as a conqueror to subdue. To one remark, therefore, already made, we are constrained to return and adhere;—that if any colloquial dialect is to decline, and the language spoken in its vicinity is to gain the ascendency, the most direct and effectual

Thierry's Norman Conquest, vol. II. p. 273.

process is that of teaching to read the colloquial dialect itself, leaving the rest to God and nature. To an Irishman in particular, or an Irish boy, you can then say-" Now you stand on the first spoke of the ladder of knowledge, but one effort more,only one spoke higher, and you are equal to the English around you."

In conclusion, let the Native Irish in general have only one fair and unfettered opportunity of starting from this point, and it will soon be seen whether many among them will not proceed far beyond the narrow limits of their native tongue.

SECTION V.

THE IRISH LANGUAGE,

With proofs of the extent to which it is spoken at present, or used daily by the Natives as the natural vehicle of their thoughts; and this extent accounted for or explained.

IN Britain it has for ages been a favourite idea with some, that the perfection of territorial unity can only be attained by uniformity of language; but it is still true, that there is not a kingdom in Europe where only one language is spoken. Even within the narrow limits of Denmark there is German as well as Danish, and in Sweden we find Norse and Finnish as well as Swedish, while the monarch of the day, like our Norman Conqueror of ancient time, speaks French. In France there are three if not four languages, independently of French proper. In Spain and Prussia there are at least three, perhaps four in each. In Austria five or six,—and the Czar of Russia, whether his kingdom in any sense resembles Nebuchadnezzar's image or not, like him, in addressing his subjects, may truly say, "The King, unto all people, nations, and languages." As for the united kingdom of Britain and Ireland, within its own comparatively little boundary, from before the days of Cæsar until now, there has always existed diversity of language. At present there are five colloquial dialects, and in some of the early ages such diversity has existed, owing to the entrance or invasion of other tribes, that the tongue once spoken by different