say the Irish have alwayes bin without letters, you are therein much deceived; for it is certaine, that Ireland hath had the use of letters very anciently, and long before England.
Eudox. Is it possible? how comes it then that they are so unlearned still, being so old schollers? For learning (as the Poet saith) " Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros:" whence then (I pray you) could they have those letters?
Iren. It is hard to say: for whether they at their first comming into the land, or afterwards by trading with other nations which had letters, learned them of them, or devised them amongst themselves, is very doubtful; but that they had letters aunciently, is nothing doubtfull, for the Saxons of England are said to have their letters, and learning, and learned men from the Irish, and that also appeareth by the likenesse of the character, for the Saxons character is the same with the Irish. Now the Scythians, never, as I can reade, of old had letters amongst them, therfore it seemeth that they had them from the nation which came out of Spaine, for in Spaine there was (as Strabo writeth) letters anciently used, whether brought unto them by the Fhenicians, or the Persians, which (as it appeareth by him) had some footing there, or from Marsellis, which is said to have bin inhabited bv the Greekes, and from them to have had the Greeke character, of which
