great in such. “There is,” he says, “an English folk, and there is a
British Crown.” There is also, it might be affirmed, a Scotch folk,
and a British Crown, and until Mr. Gladstone shall accomplish his
visionary project of Irish Home Rule, there is, and will be an Irish
folk and a British Crown. “But the homes of the English folk,” we are
to note, “and the dominions of the British Crown do not always mean
the same thing.” Does any one suppose they do? “Here by the border
stream of the Angle and the Saxon” we are in “the dominions of the
British Crown,” &c. If by the “border stream” be meant the Tweed, it
is more than doubtful if the Angles and Saxons ever saw that stream.
In Professor Freeman’s “youth,” the “Anglo-Saxon race was unheard of,”
and by some strange delusion, for which it is difficult to account, the
“British race” dates, he believes, from some speech delivered a week
before the time at which he writes. It is evident Professor Freeman
has not been a reader of _Good Words_, at least of its early numbers
published more than thirty years ago. In one of these he will find “The
British race has been called Anglo-Saxon,” &c., and a good deal more
which it might be inconvenient for him to learn.
Professor Freeman “shows how some writers, sometimes more famous
writers, now and then get at their facts.” “One received way,” he
tells us, “is to glance at a page of an original writer, to have the
eye caught by a word, to write down another word, that looks a little
like it, and to invent facts that suit the words written down. To roll
two independent words into a compound word with a hyphen is perhaps a
little stronger; but only a little.” Are we to suppose that Professor
Freeman is recounting his individual experience in dealing with the
facts of English history?
The gifted Edmund Spenser, who charmed the world with his _Faery Queen_
died forsaken and in want. Milton sold his copyright of Paradise Lost
for fifteen pounds, and Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield was disposed of
for a trifle to save him from the grip of the law. _Tempora mutantur!_
Third rate contributions by high class writers command their market
value. If men can obtain payment for writing such articles as that of
Professor Freeman’s criticism of _The Viking Age_ that appeared in the
January number of the _Contemporary Review_ it shows that there is
something in a name, that the conductors of such periodicals pay more
regard to the reputation of the writer, than to the quality of the
writing. Professor Freeman is no doubt a very able writer, but this is
not the conclusion that would be reached in reading his captious and
illogical criticism of M. du Chaillu’s book.
I have evidently wounded the susceptibilities of some extreme churchman
or irascible Celt, in the person of a reviewer in the _Literary
World_, whose hostility is hardly explainable on the ground of mere
difference of opinion. According to this disposer of events, I fall
wofully short in the qualifications of one who is entitled to speak
on the subject of archæology. I might, however, plead in extenuation,
and in mitigation of punishment the reason given by Mr. Gladstone for
upholding the verity of Old Testament Scripture, that “there is a
very large portion of the community whose opportunities of judgment
have been materially smaller than my own,” and that, “in all studies
light may be thrown inwards from without.” I profess not to unravel
the hidden mysteries of prehistoric antiquity, but simply to deal with
the historical aspect of outside facts, though, as the _Saturday_
reviewer justly remarks, I must get into prehistory somewhere. Among
the numerous disqualifications manifested in my treatise, I show “a
very indifferent acquaintance” with “Language;” and its “twin sister,
Ethnology,” of which, however, I may reasonably be presumed to
know as much as my censor. Most persons who write on any subject do
something to keep in touch with current facts and common knowledge.
If the critic of the _Literary World_ had taken the trouble to read
my book attentively, he would have found many references to what has
been done by philologers and Ethnologists on whose labours he sets so
much store. “As the book is in a second edition,” he condescends to
inform us, he has “occupied more space than he should otherwise have
done in estimating its claims to authority.” The conclusion he has
reached is that I go as far astray in one direction as the Celticists
do in another, an opinion which is quite within the limit of legitimate
criticism. When, however, from his lofty tribune he looks down and
imputes to me ignorance of what has been done by the great masters of
“Language,” the Joneses, and Colebrookeses, and Bopps, and Potts, and
Grimms, and Steinthals, and suggests that I do not know what has been
said by such writers as Camper, Jacquart, Blumenbach, Cuvier, Prichard,
Latham and Morton, not to mention the pernicious nonsense of Darwin,
and the vagaries of Professor Huxley, I must be permitted to take
exception. It is one thing to know what they have written, and quite
another to accept their conclusions as absolute and final, considering
how often we hear the most arrant nonsense solemnly propounded as the
deductions of scientific investigation. It has been pointed out by a
late minister of the Crown that “Newton’s projectile theory of Light”
which had apparently been firmly established has given place to “the
theory of undulation,” which, citing from the Virginian philosopher Dr.
Smith, he says, “has now for fifty years reigned in its stead.” On this
he grounds the suggestion that we should not “receive with impatience
the assertion of contradictions.” On the subject of specialists we have
the opinion of the same eminent individual, notable among the great
intellects of the age, one who like Brougham, “has the languages of
Greece and Rome strung like a bunch of keys at his girdle.” No less
a personage in fact, than the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, with whom,
while admiring the versatility of his genius, I differ politically,
_toto cœlo_. To none of the sciences, rightly or wrongly so named, do
his remarks more aptly apply than to the “Science of Language,” and
its twin sister, “Ethnology.” “I have had the opportunity,” he says,
“of perceiving how, among specialists as with other men, there may
be fashions of the time and school, which Lord Bacon called idols
of the market-place, and currents of prejudice below the surface,
which may detract somewhat from the authority which each enquirer may
justly claim in his own field, and from their title to impose their
conclusions upon mankind.” In proof of the fluctuating and uncertain
character of this so-called science Dr. Morton in regard to “certain
points of primary importance found himself compelled to differ in
opinion from the majority of scholars.” I believe with Bishop Percy,
Dr. R. Angus Smith, and others, that the Celts and Teutons even
remotely had not a common origin, but were _ab origine_ distinct races
of mankind. As to _authority_ I hold that “no man is an authority for
any statement which he cannot prove,” and although according to the
critic of the _Literary World_, I deliver my opinions in a manner “more
forcible than elegant”[5] my pretensions are exceedingly humble. “I
venture to draw attention to the subject, in the hope that the matter
may be taken up by some one with more time and better appliances at
his disposal than I can command.” Without pretending to be “exhaustive
or specially erudite” I have done the best I can to extinguish a
national delusion, and I hope cannot finally, and altogether fail. If
I be deficient in language, in whatever acceptation, I am in no worse
position than the statesman already referred to, who maintains the
truth of ancient Scripture avowedly without any knowledge of the Hebrew
tongue. Language, as Lord Southesk most accurately, and pertinently
points out, “is a thing that seems like a boomerang, so queer are
the twists it takes, and so uncertain its returns.” Ethnology, or
Anthropology--whichever its votaries choose to call it--is not, as
I think, a science. It consists of the conceits and assumptions of
men learned and unlearned who have reached certain conclusions, and
who profess to bring back from the depths of prehistoric antiquity
facts which may not be facts, or which at least we have no means of
knowing to be true. The whole subject is “feeble, perplexed, and to all
appearance, confused.” Many years since Mr. Hyde Clarke, at a meeting
of the Ethnological Society, remarking on the utterances of Professor
Huxley, suggested that, although the latter “had laid down his
statements as established by men of science, there was little capable
of proof.” What then is the value of a study, the results of which are
as unstable as the passing vapour? It was a conception of the late Sir
David Brewster, that _science_ is the only earthly treasure we can
carry with us to a better state. Let us hope that if _Language_, and
its _twin sister_ be among the number destined thither, they will be
freed from their mundane misconceptions and uncertainties.
The Reviewer of the _Literary World_ thinks I “make a sorry jumble
of races and languages. All sorts of people, and tribes, dialects,
and remains, related and unrelated, are said to be Goths or Gothic,”
though in dealing with my shortcomings, real or supposed, he does
not always keep faith with facts. The ancient Scythians, he makes me
to say, were Goths, for which the only foundation is that I cite Dr.
Macculloch and Mr. Planché from each a paragraph in which the name
Scythian is mentioned. “The occupiers of prehistoric lake dwellings
Goths.” Precisely what I do not say. I mention the facts that “a
species of combat called _holmgang_, peculiar to the old Northmen, was
usually fought in a small island or holm in a lake,” and that islands
in lakes were places resorted to by the Scandinavian “foude,” or
magistrate, with his law officers, &c. In Iceland, the men on whom
sentence of death had been passed, were beheaded upon an islet in a
lake or river. I submit these facts to the candid consideration of
those who are capable of judging, because if my conjecture be correct,
palisaded islands were neither inhabited nor are they prehistoric.
“The Caledonians, Goths; the Picts, Goths.” I was taught to believe
that Pict and Caledonian are convertible terms. “The Icelanders and
others were Goths.” I do not, of course, know which “others” the
reviewer may have had in his mind, but the Icelanders are certainly
Goths. “Sometimes,” the critic says, “Gothic appears as the equivalent
of Scandinavian.” Certainly as opposed to Celtic. “And the sum of the
whole matter is that ‘the Scandinavians are our true progenitors,’”
which, he points out, is “the same blunder that M. du Chaillu has been
dashing his head against.” All wise beyond conception! By a figure of
speech a writer might be said to dash his head against a rock, but
hardly I should think, against a _blunder_! It is rather odd that this
captious censor should be ignorant of the fact that the quotation which
he cites from my preface contains the _ipsissima verba_ of the writer
of an article that appeared in _Good Words_ nearly forty years ago,
by whom M. du Chaillu was anticipated, and that the same views and
opinions were advocated by myself nineteen years since in the pages of
_Notes and Queries._
The languages or dialects to be dealt with as regards the British
islands, are few in number, and we can judge of them in an outside
fashion, without the aid of Bopp, or Grimm, or Zeuss, or Steinthal.
These are the Welsh of the Principality, which, roughly speaking,
includes the extinct dialect of Cornwall. The Erse or Gaelic of
Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. The Teutonic of the Belgae,
which Prichard calls Celtic, but which we gather from Cæsar was German.
At least it is a fair inference from his statement, _Belgas esse ortos
a Germanis_, that they spoke some dialect of Teutonic speech.[6] The
language of the Picts or Caledonians, which Skene affirms is neither
Welsh nor Gaelic, but a Gaelic dialect partaking largely of Welsh
forms. This, however, on the faith of Tacitus, I believe to have
been Scandinavian, _rutilæ Caledoniam habitantium comæ magni artus
Germanicam asseverant_. The Saxon, or earlier Scandinavian of South
Britain, and the confessedly Scandinavian dialects of Yorkshire,
Derbyshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Northumberland and North Britain. In
point of fact only two languages, the Gothic or Teutonic, and the
Celtic, or whatever else may be the structure, foundation or admixture
of the dialects so named. I have elsewhere stated that “The several
dialects of what has been called Celtic might be compared to so many
dust heaps to which has been swept the refuse of all other languages
from time immemorial,” and I see no reason to change my opinion. It
will thus be seen that there is not much room to jumble either races
or language. The jumble, if such there be, arises out of the confusion
and obscurity of the critic’s own mind. He ridicules the idea of
identifying the “Gothic _Magus_” with what he calls the “Celtic _Mac_
or _Maqui_.” I deny that _Mac_ is Celtic, and I identify it with the
_Maqui_ of the Ogham inscriptions, because I think there are good
grounds for believing that Oghams and runes were equally the work
of the Northmen, although Lord Southesk, who has made these remains
a special study, differs from me in opinion. There is certainly an
uncommon outside resemblance between the two words. It is however,
satisfactory to know that his Lordship is in substantial agreement
with me on the main subject of my contention, the preponderance of the
Scandinavian element in the British Isles. Coming to the essence of
the controversy, he says, “Where I agree with you thoroughly is in the
belief that the prevalence and influence of the Scandinavian races in
Britain and Ireland have been largely underrated, and that much due
to them has been ascribed to the various peoples commonly classed as
Celts.” “One has only to look at the people inhabiting Aberdeenshire,
Angus, &c., to convince one’s-self that Norse blood predominates.”
I regard the questions of races, art, and culture entirely from an
outside or historic view. In the face of such facts as I have adduced
to continue to call _Mac_ Celtic is simply persistent dogmatism--a
perverse determination to adhere _per fas et nefas_ to a foregone
conclusion. The prefix _Mac_ though found in Scotch Gaelic and other
dialects of the Erse, has obviously been imported thither only as a
foreign term, in the same manner that the Norse word _jarl_, an earl,
found its way into the Welsh. _Mac_, as I have elsewhere pointed out,
occurs in the Anglo-Norse dialect of Craven, West Riding of York. It
was used in the sense of _son_ by the Danes and Northmen. It occurs
as a prefix to an interminable number of personal names distinctively
Scandinavian, and in one form or other is found in every dialect of
the Teutonic. We must “deal with the evidence before us according to a
rational appreciation of its force.” “_Plaid_,” the critic, affirms,
“does not exist in Moeso-Gothic.” Thomson in _Observations_ prefixed to
his Lexicon, says, “Plaid, a cloke in Moeso-Gothic, was the Icelandic
_palt_.” I would rather believe that the critic of the _Literary World_
does not know where to look for the word, than that the erudite private
secretary to the Marquis of Hastings in India, presuming on their
ignorance, sought to impose on his readers a word which he knew did not
exist. Again this critic says, “Denying to another (Anglo-Saxon) a word
that does (foster).” The expression is confused, but he evidently means
that “foster” _is_ found in Anglo-Saxon. In the text of my treatise
I say, “Neither can there be any doubt as to the Northern derivation
of the word _foster_.” To this I append a footnote taken from the
_Quarterly Review_, vol. 139 (1875), p. 449. “The word _foster_ is
not found in Anglo-Saxon, Moeso-Gothic, or German,” and at the same
time indicate the source whence my information is derived. I accepted
the statement on the faith of the writer. If it does occur, it only
shows how little dependence can be placed on facts adduced by literary
critics even in connection with such responsible publications as the
_Quarterly Review_. Another evidence of disqualification as “a writer
on Archæological matters,” is that the word _Celte_ cited from the
Vulgate was shown long ago by Mr. Knight Watson to be a misprint for
_Certe_. The critic must indeed have been much at a loss for a peg on
which to hang his hypercriticism. I hardly know why it is incumbent on
me before delivering my views on the Celtic myth to know all that has
been explained on collateral subjects by Mr. Knight Watson. I found
neither note nor marginal reference declaratory of this gentleman’s
critical acumen, or of the great service he had rendered to archæology
in resolving this enigma, nor if I had should I have introduced it
into my treatise. My remark in regard to the Vulgate is an incidental
reference of the vaguest description on which nothing depends. To
borrow the expression of an eminent individual, Would the critic of
the _Literary World_ “be surprised to learn” that by a defect of
information, quite as glaring as that which he imputes to me, he has
entirely missed the point of my stricture which is directed against
the executive of the _Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_. At page 11
of its _Catalogue of Antiquities_, printed in 1876, it is stated as
the heading of a section, “STONE CELTS OR AXE HEADS.” Behind the word
“Celts,” an asterisk, and underneath, a footnote corresponding thereto
the explanation “Celtis, a chisel,” of all which the critic shows
himself to be entirely ignorant. He mentions the Gothic word _afar_.
Thomson calls it _hafar_. I can only conjecture that the critic may
have first seen the light within the vibrations of certain well-known
sounds, and that he habitually drops the letter _h_. In the course of
my “polemic,” he thinks, I “undoubtedly score a point here and there
in matters of detail.” “Thus,” he says, “he maintains what ought to
be obvious enough [but which to the Celtic expositor it never is]
that remains inscribed in Northern runes must be attributed to the
Scandinavians.” I give, he says, “and this appears to be my _chef
d’œuvre_, a very probable reading (GRIMKITIL THANE RAIST, Grimkitil
engraved this) to a fragmentary inscription ( ... KITIL TH ...) on
what is known as the bronze plate of Laws. And inasmuch as” that this
critic “formed a similar opinion many years ago, he is bound to approve
my suggestion that the old Greek and runic alphabets were derived from
some common source, and not either from the other.” He is “bound to
approve.” How very condescending! It is evident he does not perceive
the effect of his own conclusion. If my reading of the inscription
on the Laws plate be correct it involves something more than a mere
matter of detail. It is the solution of a problem which has perplexed
and bewildered most antiquaries of the present century, because it
demonstrates the symbols of the Laws crescent plate, and those of the
Scotch sculptured stones to be the work of the Scandinavians. This has
long been my individual opinion, though I doubt if the critic of the
_Literary World_ will make many converts among antiquaries on the other
side of the Tweed. When I attempt to establish “my own peculiar views,”
he says, I seem to “break down.” Are not the points on which--to borrow
his elegant diction--I “score” as much my “peculiar views” as those on
which he alleges I fail? “Of the Teutonic tribes, whose settlements
grew into our old Heptarchy, or Octarchy, none, and no discoverable
part of any, were Scandinavian proper. [This is mere arbitrary
statement.] There was subsequently, of course, in certain districts,
a large infusion of Scandinavian forms, proper names, &c. [What does
he mean by _forms_? The Scandinavians brought their _names_ when they
brought their bodies] in consequence of the invasions and settlements
of the ‘Danes,’ but in spite of this, and of much more serious
disturbance afterwards, our language from the Channel to the Forth,
owing to its power of absorption, and assimilation, remained, and
remains substantially ‘English.’” “Remained and remains substantially
English.” These remarks are unanswerable, which it is said, is the
happy property of all remarks sufficiently wide of the purpose. Is the
language of the British nation less “English” because derived from the
_Scandinavian_ rather than from the _Saxon_, two dialects of the same
speech in their essential elements hardly distinguishable? If this be
true--as beyond all question it is true--it demolishes utterly the
bugbear which the suggestion he advocates sets up.
While accepting with becoming humility the disparaging estimate of
my performance, it is not desirable that a reviewer of this character
should have his say uncontradicted, though in setting myself right
with those whom his strictures might have influenced, I have perhaps
honoured him with too much notice. It is not a very formidable matter
to cope with such an adversary.
“While these are censors, ’twould be sin to spare;
While such are critics, why should I forbear?”--BYRON.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The sonnets were originally discovered in the Monastery of the
“Monks of Therfuse,” which stood on the site now occupied by the
terminus of the “Glenmutchkin Railway.” They were afterwards placed for
safe custody with the MSS. of Ossian.
[2] “Well-known scholars,” the _Quarterly_ says, “have shown before
him, and he is justified in adopting the conclusion, that the name of
‘Saxon’ must have been loosely applied to all the pirates that scoured
the Narrow Seas. We may conjecture that many crews from Scania and the
Danish Isles, or from the great bay by the Naze of Norway, which gave
its name to the Vikings, must have been found among the roving fleets
of the fourth and fifth centuries, when the Empire was crumbling into
ruins.”
[3] “The red-bearded Thor was called ‘The Englishmen’s
God.’”--_Quarterly Review._
[4] I suspect these were not the savage Americans Pinkerton had in his
mind.
[5] A writer who, to denote that which is without foundation, makes
use of the expression “mere fudge” cannot be a very competent judge of
elegance.
[6] That cannot be regarded as _science_ which based only on the
uncertain hypothesis of _language_ contradicts the ascertained facts of
history.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS, AND OTHERS IN REGARD TO THE SECOND EDITION OF
“CELTICISM A MYTH.”
“This issue of the work, resumes in an able statement the arguments of
those antiquaries who hold that the early civilization of these islands
was the work, not of Celts, but of Scandinavians.”--_Scotsman._
* * * * *
“He [Mr. Roger] is on much firmer ground when he declines to believe in
any art or culture that can fairly be called Celtic. The very patterns
which are usually spoken of as Celtic are common on the gold work of
the Mycenæan graves, which few people, we think, will now place much
later than 1500 B.C. ... Mr. Roger is probably right when he claims a
Scandinavian origin for the ancient claymores (two handed), for the
Tara brooch, and other brooches, for stone crosses, dirk handles, and
what so else is too commonly attributed to Celtic art.”--_Saturday
Review._
* * * * *
“The book throughout in its many pages bears evidence to an exceeding
amount of careful research, clever reasoning, and close intimacy with
the subject.... Until contradicted and disproved the facts in the pages
of ‘Celticism a Myth’ must carry conviction.”--_Montrose Standard._
* * * * *
“A further issue of this learned work is evidence that the arguments
advanced against the pet theories of such recognised authorities as Dr.
Joseph Anderson, and Dr. Daniel Wilson have aroused some commotion in
the camp of archæologists.”--_Publishers’ Circular._
* * * * *
“A second edition of Mr. Roger’s argument against the prehistoric
existence of a Celtic civilization, and his ‘demonstration beyond
reasonable doubt,’ that the only civilization in Scotland, of which
we have any knowledge, was brought there by the Scandinavians.”--_The
Bookseller._