dialects of the same language; but this is certainly incorrect. I myself know little about it, but quite enough to agree with those who maintain, that they are two different languages, not indeed as different as Basque and Gaelic, for the Basque has not the least resemblance to either of them. I once heard an English officer boldly assert, that soldiers from the Highlands of Scotland conversed with the people of Ireland; but this is as impossible as it would be for a person unacquainted with Slavonic to converse with a Slavonian. No native Gael can understand the smallest Welsh sentence; the whole grammar of the two is different. It is further said that the two languages have a number of words in common, and that one fourth of all the words are akin to one another; but this statement seems suspicious, as it is not confirmed by any glossary. But admitting that the agreement actually exists, it is only a local affinity, two nations having in some points a resemblance, while their fundamental characters are nevertheless different; so that they have either diverged immensely from the same root, or else incline towards each other, proceeding from totally different races. An investigation of this subject belongs to general philology, and if it were always entered upon with sound principles, many prejudices would be dispersed, and much that is mysterious would be cleared up. According to what I have said, we cannot conceive the Belgae and Celts to be as nearly allied, as, e.g., the Scandinavians and Germans, or the Goths and Saxons, but they are as foreign to each other as the Persians and Slavonians; in the languages of the two last nations, many forms, nay, many particles and words, are the same, but the grammar is different. We must, therefore, be on our guard not to transfer to the Belgae that which we know of the Gauls; we know nothing of the institutions of the former, while those of the Celts are well known. _Gael_ is the root of the old German word _Welsh_, which signifies anything that is not German.