The Osceola times., 1882-01-14
Ancient Literature.


been added to the Chicago Public Ii
brary. These are lac-similes of three
Gaelic manuscripts, entitled, respective
w. the Book of the Dun Cow, the Speck-
! led Book and the Rook of Ieinster II
may be said that in the first named of
these we have a sample of the Gaelic
language Of the sixth century, though il
WAS copied about the year A. ID 1850.
The Book of Leiuster existed prior tn
Norman invasion under Strongbow.
The Speckled Book was com lied some
| time in the fourteenth century. Some
! OF the most ancient specimens of Gaelic
;,,nt ;cxt.nt are 10 be found in the Speckl,d
lrelanf f'f'f'2.,sh WIS .. he Iang.asa current in
the Dun Cow was transcff'hrs@'s. sonk Ok. Of
ascertained by the means Of marginal
entries in the book itself which saws
that it WIS compiled by a certain lav
monk of Clonmacnois about the year
1850 The data for fixing the age of the
Sleckle1 Book exactly are wanting, but
none of the Celtic autiqusries believe
that it was cnmpiled previous to the
middle of the fourteenth century Scot
| ish in the fourteenth century was hard.
/ lv different from the Gaelic spoken in
/ those countries al present
These old books are almost as much
works Of art as they are repositories of
| literature Some the ga ital letters In
/ them it must have taken hours 10 make.
and there is an evenness, regularity and
beauty in the handwriting which it
won.d be almost impossible to initiate At
present. In some places the Vellum is
81 black and discolored that an uu-
practiced eve would fail to discover a
~iogle leeible word; and it ~ 70 the
scholarship aud skill of the late Mr..
! O'Longan hat we are indebted for heir
re-toration.
The best Celtic scholar that ever lived,
one who would know every word in
them could not read them without
practice; for, whether from pedantry or
! from a desire TO spare the velIum and
| crowd as much matter rs possible into a
small space the writers practired a sys-
/ TEN Cf fcontractions many of which seem
/ 10 have had no object whatever, except
/ 20 puzzle the reader. Hardly one word
| in three is written in full, and sometimes
| the initial letter only is given. Many Of
the coutraotions are arbitrary; aud some
/ of them simply mean that q certain let
| ter or letters are omitted; what those
letters are can only be ascertained by
Z one who has the most complete knowl-
edge of the language.
The contents Of these old books is of
/ the most varied character. Much Of
would be called RUBBISH, but much Of il
is extremely interesting, and some of
the poetic pieces are OF great beauty,
As may easily he supposed, very large
portion OF the contents is of a relig
| ious character, while some of the
stories are purely Pagan, and relate to
| Pagan times. These books We're i'm fact
something Of the nature Of a modern
magazine but embracing a very much
more heterogeneous table of contents
than either Harper or the .iH1Hhr Month
~.
These books are written in q character
called by the different names Of deb8~ad
Roman, Celtic and Saxon, hut more COM
monty called Irish Thatit is Roman no
one conver ant with the subject has any
doubts whatever az present, nor that the
Celtic scholars Of the last century be
l leved that the Celts of Irel md were not
indebted 20 the Romans for their aliabet
and that the so-call,d Irish letters were
indigenous 20 Ireland Celtic scholars
ofthe present day do not think so. ana
are of the opinion that the Oghnm char.
afters were the only kind Of letters
known 20 the irish before the in,roduc
ton of Christianity AMONGST them. The
character in which the old Gaelic books
are written was the same IS that in use
almost all over Europe until about the
twelnh century, when the variation Of
the Roman known as black-leiter Gothic
or German, made its appearance This
latter was the most barbarous change
made in the ancient Il man letters The
present small Roman letters now in gen
eral use almost all over he civilized
world appeare first in Italy about the
middle Of the sixteenth century. They .
were so much clearer and handsomer /