Page:A View of the State of Ireland - 1809.djvu/82

 Marsilians it is said, that the Gaules learned them first, and used them only for the furtherance of their trades and privat busines; for the Gaules (as is strongly to he proved by many ancient and authentical writers) did first inhabite all the sea coast of Spaine, even unto Cales, and the mouth of the Straights, and peopled also a great part of Italy, which appeareth by sundry havens and cities in Spaine called from them, as Portugallia, Gallecia, Galdunum, and also by sundry nations therin dwelling, which yet have received their own names of the Gaules, as the Rhegni, Presamarci, Tamari, Cineri, and divers others. All which Pomponius Mela, being himselfe a Spaniard, yet saith to have descended from the Celts of France, whereby it is to be gathered, that that nation which came out of Spaine into Ireland, were anciently Gaules, and that they brought with them those letters which they had anciently learned in Spaine, first into Ireland, which some also say, doe much resemble the old Phenician character, being likewise distinguished with pricke and accent, as theirs aunciently, but the further enquirie hereof needeth a place of longer discourse then this our short conference.

Eudox. Surely you have shewed a great probability of that which I had thought impossible to have bin proved; but that which you now say, that Ireland should have bin peopled with the Gaules, seemeth much more strange, for all the Chronicles