Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Besides, the Phoenician equivalents for most of the Etruscan words in
the list we have just enumerated, are known, and ought to have been known
to any writer undertaking an investigation of either language; and if
known to Sir William Betham, ought at once to have deterred him from this
preposterous attempt. Thus the Phoenician equivalent of aesar is _aloni_
or _alonim_; of kypra, _astarte_; of nyrtia, _god_; of mantus, _much_; of
faland, _samen_; of andras, _carbon_; of lucumo _malaho_; of damnos,
_rackabe_, &c. &c., in none of which, except _samen_, does there appear
the least similarity, either with the Etruscan or the Irish words of like
signification. So also in respect of a number of Gaulish words, the
meanings of which have come down to us, and of which no one pretending
competency to such enquiries ought to be ignorant, but of the existence of
which this vice-president of a leading literary society of Ireland seems
utterly unconscious. But fools will rush in where angels fear to tread,
and Ignoramus walks with confidence where Eruditus fears to take a step.
Reader, do not think that Christopher is too severe! For what but
condemnation and contempt can any rational mind conceive, for a writer so
incapable of dealing with even the rudiments of his subject, and yet so
presumptuous in the temerity of his ignorance, as to declare that "till
_now_ not a scintilla of light has appeared on the subject of Etruscan
antiquities?" We can pardon learned trifling, but when a man wholly
unlearned, on a subject of the greatest interest to the learned world,
presumes to dogmatize in this manner, we strip him in an instant, and have
no mercy in exposing to both learned and simple the nakedness of his
pretensions.
Still facts are facts, and if the fact be, that the tablets of Gubbio are
written in the Irish language, and that Sir William Betham, though as
ignorant of his subject as was the boy who invented the safety-valve of
the steam-engine, has happened in any way, by skill or by chance,
learnedly or unadvisedly, modestly or arrogantly, on the truth, let him,
together with the condemnation, have the credit he deserves, if not as a
Columbus of a new world of letters, at least as a Madoc or a Thorfinn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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