[ page ]ture. Those, too, who would become masters of the living idiom will do well to study it in the purity of its early days. They will thus be enabled to judge with certainty between the better and the worse in modern usage. They will also understand better the great and varied powers of expression with which our language is endowed.
5°. Notes and Queries on all matters of difficulty, obscurity, or curious interest in connexion with the Irish language. This department will enable many students to settle their own doubts and to bring information to others on the many knotty and uncertain points that necessarily arise in the study of a language circumstanced like ours. It will also place on permanent record many of the observations of the numerous acute scholars whose labours have hitherto been as writings on the sand. We cordially invite both classes to make the fittest use of this section of the Journal.
6°. The News of the Month, informing our readers of the most important things done, written and spoken, in regard of Irish Literature and of the movement to maintain the use of the Irish language, and also of the progress of kindred movements among our brothers of Scotland, our cousins of Wales, and other peoples.
7°. Original Contributions, especially in prose. To be candid, we have too many poets. It should be remembered that only a master of language can write poetry. Prose is much better material for apprentice work.
8°. Gaelic Life in general, past and present, history, archaeology, music, arts, games, and all the customs of our race, will find occasional space within our columns.
It now rests with our readers to enable us to fulfil all that we hold out. It is acknowledged on all hands that the Gaelic Journal has not hitherto been unworthy of its place as the representative in journalism of the cause of the Old Tongue in the Old Land. If brighter days seem now to be in store for the Old Tongue, the decade's work done by the Journal against very adverse circumstances has had no small part in bringing about that result. The issue of our present proposals will be an excellent test of the prospects of the language and of the reality of the revival in the movement for its preservation. The figure mentioned by us as a minimum ought not to be one-third of our normal circulation in this country. We may state that already promises of widely-extended support are reaching us. One reader undertakes to get twenty new subscribers in one one locality. Another promises ten. Another has brought in orders from three. There are few of our readers who are not in a position to do equal work in the cause of the national language.
A SPECIMEN OF LITERARY IRISH OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Ar dTeanga Dhúṫċais.
[Teabóid Gallduḃ, Sagart Éireannaċ, 1639]
Fr. Theobald Stapleton.—Preface to his Catechism.
Ní ḟuil náisiún ar feaḋ an doṁain naċ onóraċ leis ḃeiṫ ceanaṁail ar a ṫeangain féin, agus a leuġaḋ agus a sgríoḃaḋ. Tugadar na Róṁánaiġ an oiread sin do ċion agus d’uaisle do’ n teangain Laidne, bioḋ go raḃadar go ro-eólgasaċ ’san teangain nGreugaiġ, do ḃí go ceanaṁail ’san am san—tar a ċeann sin, níor ḃ’ḟiú leó teaċtairí na leitreaċa na nGreugaċ do ḟreagra aċt ’san teangain Laidne; agus fós, tar éis na nGreugaċ do ḃeiṫ fúṫa agus fá n-a smaċt, do leigidís orrra féin naċ tuigidís an teanga Ghreugaċ, bioḋ go dtuigidís í go ro-ṁaiṫ. Óir ní ’san Róiṁ aṁáin do ḃí so, aċt ar feaḋ na hAisia go hiomlán, agus fós i n-iomlán na Gréige; agus sin, ċum móír-ċion do ḃeiṫ ar an teangain Laidne. Fós, dá ḋearḃaḋ sin, (mar do sgríoḃ Diónisius Cassius,) is ro-ġeur do smaċtuiġ an tImpire Claudius
