One would think that the Irish, by reason of their vicinity to England, would have spoken the same language; yet it is found that the old Irish tongue has very little affinity with the Welsh. Sir William Temple asserts[15] that the Erse, or Caledonian language, and the old Irish, which are radically the same, and spoken also on the Isle of Man, have no affinity with any other language now spoken. But the celebrated Lluyd and others, who have been more critical in their investigations of this subject, maintain that the Irish has a real affinity with the Cambrian or British. They further show that many names of places in S. Britain, the meaning of which is lost in the Welsh, can be explained only by words now extant in the Irish and Erse. This is a sufficient proof of a common origin.[16] But on this point historians are divided in opinion. Some suppose that the north of Ireland was first peopled by emigrations from Scotland, and the sameness of their language renders this opinion probable. But whence do the Scots derive their origin? The most probable account of the settlement of Scotland is, that it was peopled from Norway or some other northern country, by a tribe of those nations that went under the general denomination of _Scythians_; for _Scot_ and _Scythian_ are from the same root. There are writers, however, who contend that Ireland must have been settled from Spain, for there are many Spanish words found in the language of the country. But the number of these is too inconsiderable to render the argument conclusive. Within a few years, an attempt has been made to trace the origin of the Irish nation, to the Carthaginians. The author of a small work, entitled "An Essay on the Antiquities of Ireland," has examined, in a play of Plautus, the Punic speech which has the marks of being the genuin language of Carthage, and has collated it with the ancient Irish. In this speech there is a surprising affinity between the languages.[B] But without running into a field of conjecture, it is sufficient for my purpose to observe, that the Irish, the Erse, and the language spoken on the Isle of Man, are indisputably the same, and must have been very ancient: That the Welsh, the Cornish, and the Armoric are now a distinct language, and unquestionably the remains of the Celtic, or that language which was common to Gaul and Britain, when they were invaded by Julius Cesar. The Irish and the British may be as distinct as the Hebrew and the British, and yet a critical etymologist may discover in both, common radicals enough to convince him that both are the offspring of the same parent. Hitherto our researches have thrown but little light upon the present English language. For the substance of this we must look to the Saxon branch of the Teutonic.[17]