Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/408

 Chap.X. OF MANCHESTER. 373 ufe of the Roman chara&ers for his poems. From the (hore of Caledonia letters muft have been foon wafted over into Ireland. A continual intercourfe was maintained betwixt the inhabitants of the two countries 3 ; and Ireland muft certainly have received an alphabet before the period which is conftantly afligned for the introdudtion of it, even one or two centuries at leaft before the days of St. Patrick*. And the Cornifh the Welch the Scotch and the Irifh languages have from that period to the pre- fent invariably uied the characters of the Romans in, writing. The want of a Britifh alphabet naturally gave a ready admif- fion to the Roman. The long refidence- of the Romans in Bri- tain as naturally gave a free admiffion to the Roman language. And the latter became nearly as familiar to the Britifh ears as the former to the BritiQi eyes. The- Roman language feems to have been generally fpoken by the. Britons. Hence we find the fepulchral infcriptions of the Britons even after the departure of the Romans all uniformly infcribed in the Roman language. Such is Pabo's, fuch is Eneon*s, and fuch is Cadvan's, all three in. the ifle of Anglefey only 5. And though the Roman could never have been likely to fuperfede the genuine language of the ifland, yet it appears to have been greatly incorporated with it, and to have furniihed it with a fixth or a feventh of its prefent terms- 1 This remarkable paffage has been imagined by the generality of our critics not to be cited by St. Jude from any book of Enoch's exifting in the days of the apoftie, but to have beea merely fuggefted to his. mind by the power of infpiration* But this fuppofition, however general,, is obvioufly an. idle piece of critical refinement. The paffage is as formally cited by St. Jude from the book of Enoch as the well-known line and half- line are quoted by St. Paul from Epimenides and Aratus. And thefe quotations may as juftly be referred to the mere fuggeftien* of infpiration as that. Reafon is oftdn obliged ta appeal fronfc Criticifm to Common Senfe.— a Caefar p.. 120.— » Ofitan paffinw 4 See Ware, &c. — 5 Mona plates 9 and 10- WHEN;