"In reading in Suetonius the life of Augustus," he says, "I found that Aesar in the Etruscan tongue signified God. The import in Irish being the same, it struck me forcibly that this might not be accidental, but that the Etruscan language might be essentially Celtic, and therefore capable of interpretation by the Irish. On examination, the conjecture proved well-founded. The results of the investigation, consequent on the discovery of this clue, will be found in the following pages."
It is true the Etruscan Aesar is said to have a like meaning with an alleged Irish word, coined and spelled by Vallancy aosfhear; but it has also an identical meaning with the Indian eswara, and the Egyptian osiris, and the Islandic aesæ, which makes æsar in the plural; and it would be just as reasonable to infer, that therefore the Etruscans spoke the Hindostanee, or the Coptic, or the Islandic language, as that they spoke Irish.
All the nations of Christendom give God the name Christ; but he would be justly deemed insane who would argue, that therefore English is the proper medium of interpretation for a Russian ukase.
Common sense, without any further learning, might have told Sir William Betham, that till he stood on some surer ground than the coincidence of a single word, even supposing that word a genuine one, it would be the excess of folly to venture on such an application of a modern language; and further learning (if he had possessed it) would have confirmed the suggestion of common sense. With a moderate amount of learning, he would have known that, besides the names of known deities—Kupra, Nyrtia, Mantus, Aukelos, Camillus, corresponding to the heathen Juno, Fortuna, Pluto, Aurora, Mercury—there are also several other Etruscan words of which we know the meanings, such as faland, the heavens; andras, the north wind; lucumo, a king; drouna, a kingdom or principality; damnos, a horse; capra, a goat; agalletor, a youth; verse, fire; ites, the ides of a month; hister, a stage-player; subulo, a trumpeter; italos, a bull; arimoi, monkeys, antar, an eagle; arakos, a lark; gnis, a crane; capys, a falcon; gapos, a chariot; burros, a bowl; atarin, a wine-cruet; nanos, a wanderer; mantissa, an increase or addition; turseis, a space enclosed with walls; and several others, not one of which bears the remotest resemblance to any Irish or Celtic word of equivalent meaning.
Further learning, also, would have taught him the hopelessness of reconciling the Etruscan with any of the languages of Europe known as spoken languages immediately before the Christian era—Dionysius of Halicarnassus having expressly declared, that neither in language nor in customs were the Etruscans of his time similar to any other known nation; and Dionysius was well acquainted with both Celts and Phœnicians.
Besides, the Phœnician 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 Phœnician 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.
The first line of the first table, reading from right to left, he reads thus: we say he, for the very form of some of the letters are still doubtful:—Pune: Carne: Speturie: Atuerie: Abiecati: Naroclum. Is this Irish? If so, we would expect some six Irish words to be adduced, of corresponding sound, and having a grammatical dependence and sensible meaning among themselves. Instead of this, Betham professes to find the equivalent expressions in twenty-four Irish, or quasi-Irish words, which have neither grammatical relation to one another, nor any coherent meaning in their united senses—viz. Pune car na is be tur i e at i i er i e a bi e ca ta na ra ac lu am; i. e. "Phœnician to Carne (the turn) it is night voyage in it likewise in knowledge great in it the being away how it is the going with water on the ocean." And this he tells us, being interpreted, signifies, "O Phœnicians, this is a statement of the night voyage to Carne, (the turn,[7]) and of the manner of going such great seawise over by the waters of the ocean!"
The only glimmering of any thing like meaning in this string of unconnected verbiage, appears in the detached phrases "night voyage," "the being away," and "going with water on the ocean." But the syllable be, which he renders "night," (on what authority Night and Chaos only know,) is not found in the original; and "being away," depends for its meaning wholly on the certainty that e means "away" in that collocation of words, and not "it," as in the phrases immediately preceding; and there is no suggestion of any reason why it should not here have the same signification as above, or why it should not mean "of" or "from," in both of which senses the writer employs it in the subsequent sentences. "Going with water on the ocean," owes its only pretension to meaning, however absurd, to "going" and "ocean;" but there is no am for "ocean" in the original, and the "ra" which he interprets "going" and "moving," is wholly a coinage of his own brain.
The same may be observed throughout the endless rigmarole of "moon," "stars," "steering," "ocean," "night," "day," "knowledge," "science," and "O Phœnician!" that succeed one another in monotonous repetition for the next 200 pages. Wherever there appears the least symptom of connected meaning or applicable language, (admitting the preposterous supposition that these tables are the records of early voyagers to Ireland,) we invariably find that either the original is departed from, or that the alleged equivalents belong to no known language of articulately-speaking men.