Etruria Celtica.-Etruscan Literature and Antiquities investigated; or, the Language of that ancient and illustrious People identified with the Iberno-Celtic, and both shewn to be Phoenician. By Sir William Betham, Ulster King of Arms, F.A.S. M.R.I.A., &c. 2 vols. 8vo.

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AS the corruscation from electric cloud discloses to the be

nighted wanderer in some unknown tract, in the twinkling of an eye, all the features of a rich and varied landscape, so the no less rapid glance of a thought frequently reveals to the student, in an instant, the clue to researches before pursued with fruitless labour.

Something in this way our author appears, by his own account, to have conceived the whole theory on which his volumes depend: the identity of the Etruscans with the Iberno-Celts, he tells us, was suggested to him by that passage of Suetonius, in the Life of Augustus, which relates that an inscription under a statue of the emperor was struck with lightning, and the letter C of the word Cæsar effaced, leaving only AESAR, which, in the Etruscan language, signified God. It was no difficult task for the augurs to attach a mystical meaning to this accident, and to predict that within a hundred days (indicated by the renoval of the C, taken as a numeral) the emperor should be received among the gods. Now, it happening in the Irish language, as well as the Etruscan, that this word aesar signified God, the identity of both tongues flashed at once upon the imagination of our author. Sir William Betham, however, admits that it is not altogether a new idea that the Irish Celtic was derived from the same source as the language of the most ancient inhabitants of Italy. O'Brien, who compiled the first published Irish dictionary, gives a long list of words in the Irish having affinity to the Latin and Greek, which, he presumes, is a proof that the tongue of the aborigines of Italy was but a GENT. MAG. VOL. XIX.

dialect of the Celtic with some admixture of the Eolic Greek.

Sir William Betham desires to simplify the whole matter by supposing that the Phoenicians, those eminent universal navigators, were the colonists of ancient Etruria; that the Etruscans sent forth their vessels to the shores of the continent of Europe and the British Isles; and that in Ireland, where the population was not commingled with the Romans, the Etrusco-Phoenician language became and remained that of the ancient Irish nation. Now the old language of Ireland, termed by Sir W. Betham the Iberno-Celtic, consisted, he says, of monosyllabic words, and it struck him forcibly that the Etruscan should be examined by

that test. The difficulties which stood in his way, and which he himself has candidly acknowledged and pointed out, will be noticed by us hereafter; and we shall for the present proceed briefly to detail the result of his experiments in decyphering the most considerable remains of Etruscan writing extant, the celebrated Eugubian tables.

"Gubbio, or Ugubbio, is an episcopal city in the duchy of Urbino, within the papal territory, in the delegation of Ancona, containing a population of about 4,000 souls, in latitude 40° 30' north, longitude 13°31', at the western point of the Appenines, about ten British miles north of Perugia. It was anciently called Eugubium or Inguvium."

Mrs. Hamilton Gray (whose "Tour to the Sepulchres of Etruria" we reviewed in our Mag. for April 1841,) in her account of the papal cities, says,

"Of these I place Gubbio first; it is a beautiful place, and ought to be included in every tour. Its ancient name was Ikuvine, and it was much favoured by Rome after it lost its liberty. It is an Umbrian city of untold antiquity, and was conquered by the Etruscans about one There are kept the famous Eugubian tables thousand years before the Christian era. found at La Scheggia, a little to the north of the town, in A.D. 1444, close to the temple of Jove Appeninus. They are tables of brass engraved on both sides, with a long liturgy, and the names of

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places and deities, and references to local manners and customs, which but for them would be unknown. These tables were seven in number, but only six are preserved.

One was sent to Venice to be translated before the conquest by Napoleon, and has never been recovered. It and the old Italian MSS. of the four Gospels are in some private collection. According to Sir William Gell, eight of the inscriptions are in Umbrian or Pelasgic, commonly called Etruscan, and four in Latin characters.. The archæo

logical professors at Rome told me that the language here called Umbrian was the Oscan, not identical with the Etruscan, but as near to it as the Swedish is to the German, and Portuguese to Spanish, perhaps as near as modern English is to that of Henry II. or nearer. The third table is an edict for the feast called Plenarum Urnarium; one of the oldest Latin tables, is a prayer for the agriculture of Ikuvium, often written IIOVINA, or thus, ANIVVOII. The Latin of these tables was not understood in the days of Livy or Polybius."

Sir William Betham here takes occasion to caution his readers that the above account is to a certain extent incorrect, without, however, in the slightest degree depreciating the very entertaining volume produced by Mrs. Hamilton Gray. It is true, indeed, that every rendering of the purport of inscriptions which have hitherto defied all interpreters, ought to be received with some diffidence. The correctness of the statement that the tables are engraved on both sides is much doubted, for they were originally discovered (nine in number) in the crypt or vault of an ancient temple built into the wall, an application of them which must have rendered any engraving on the reverse side invisible. Seven of the tables are preserved in the Museum at Gubbio. The two sent to Venice for interpretation in 1505, have never been recovered. There is some discrepancy, it will be observed, between this and the account of Mrs. Gray just quoted. Sir William Betham says,

"These tables being original inscriptions may be considered accurate representations of the ancient language, but the Punic passages which appear in the Pœnulus of Plautus, have passed through the hands of so many transcribers, none

*Tour to the Sepulchres of Etruria, p. 496.

of whom understood the meaning of a sentence, and are thereby so much corrupted and disfigured, as to render them as historical or philological testimony of very little value." "The Eugubian inscriptions, although of much higher antiquity, and consequently of more simple construction of language, can be treated of with certainty."

"Many passages of these inscriptions were found, according to our author, so palpably Irish, (such as port do bi do 'being arrived in port,' and tar sin at er, beyond that also much,') as to leave little doubt that the whole was of possible interpretation by means of the Irish language

By the experiment of monosyllabic division, the whole of the inscriptions have been resolved into Irish roots, and the tables from V to 1, reckoning more Hetruscano, found to treat of the discovery of Ireland," "which is attributed to the influence of Minerva or, as she is called in these inscriptions, Nerf or Nerfe, which was her true name, being the goddess of the moon, the sea, and maritime enterprize, as well as of wisdom. It is stated that a Phoenician vessel proceeded in a strong current along the coast of Spain beyond Cape Ortegal, then called the northern headland of the ocean,' (on which it appears a fire beacon was kept burning for the benefit of mariners at night)." Why this precaution was used by the aborigines of Ireland, then it may be supposed unenlightened by maritime intercourse, is not explained; this vessel keeping its course

"for twelve days, in a direction due north, observed by the polar star, saw land and came to a point which they denominated Car na, or the turn, in another place Tus cer, the first turn, being the first deviation from the direct northern track. They went round this point and got into smooth water, and were free from the heavy seas and swells they had so long encountered. They called this car na saor tus car, or the free turn of the first deviation. That point of land bears the name of Carnasoire point, and the rock the Tuscarrock: the peninsula is now the parish of Carne, in the county of Wexford; by Ptolemy, it was called Sacrum Promontorium."

The mariners, now in smooth water, proceeded to examine the coast, and soon discovered the mouth of the Slaney. They dedicated the country to their guiding divinity Nerf, and coins of bronze were struck to commemorate this discovery, bearing

in Etruscan characters, the word Icubini, synonymous with the IOVINA, or IOVINE, of the tablets of Ugubbio, which may be rendered, in Irish, i rid be i na, "by wisdom night and day in the ;" and from this our author considers was derived the Io Pæan of the Greeks, p. 98. In the

Eugubian table, we are told the points and circumstances of this voyage are marked out with extraordinary accuracy. Cape Ortegal, of which a map and delineation is given, is called the three hills, and its name indicates in the Irish, that a watch tower was kept upon it ur, coast, tig, house, cal, of watching. We shall here insert the version of the first fifteen lines of the fourth Eugubian table in the Etruscan, Irish, and literal English, on the authority of Sir William Betham's interpretation. The reader will thus have submitted to his view a fair specimen of the whole result of the ingenious author's PhoenicoEtrusco Ibernian hypothesis,-of the style, quality, and verisimilitude, or claim to truth, of the monosyllabic interpretations; and thus be enabled to form his own estimate of their value as bearing on philology in general, and on the history of the Celtic nations in particular. A few observations of our own we shall, in the sequel, subjoin.

We now transcribe the fifteen lines above mentioned, as resolved into monosyllables by Sir William Betham.

1. e su nu fu i a ther ter su me

e ro no fri a teor tar ro ma from this then under knowledge of the guiding beyond this happily 2. us ti te ses ten ta si ar u

us ti ta ras tan ta se i ar u

and to that indeed safe then it is this in steering from

3. ur na si ar u thun ta c bu ce pru mu pe tha tu

ur na se i a ro ton ta ac bu ca bro mo be ta do

coast the this in from to go waves indeed

4.

with was when very good night indeed to

i nuc u th tur u ur tes bu n tis

i cnoc u at tur u ur teas bu an tias knowledge of the hill from also the voyage from the coast south was the tides

5. f ra ter us ten tu ta pu re

fa ra teor us tan do ta bu re

cause going guiding sign and then to indeed was the moon

6. fra t ru mer sus fus t

fa ra at ro mear sos for ta
cause also of going also to go quickly
known easy it is

7. cum na c lei nuc u th tur ba be re com ra ac la cnoc u at tru ba be re security the by day knowledge of the hill from also the voyage will be night

u be am ur ta is bu an tear fa ra at ro am u pe tu ta

by night the ocean coast indeed it is was the south cause of going also to go ocean by night to indeed 11. i nu mec bi a mer su ba ar ba m en e tu ta

i no meac bi a mear ro ba ar ba am en e do ta

in then clear (knowledge then clear) being the soon this will be steering will be ocean water from and to indeed

12. er ac pir per s clu u re tu sa cre u be m

er ag bir bar is ag lu u're do sa ac re u be am

excellent with and short sea it is with water by the moon to the currents with the moon by night in the ocean

1. esunu fuia therter: sume: