{ 68} Lord Strangford observes here:—‘The original forms of Gael should be mentioned—Gaedil, Goidil: in modern Gaelic orthography Gaoidheal where the _dh_ is not realised in pronunciation. There is nothing impossible in the connection of the root of this with that of Scot, _if_ the _s_ of the latter be merely prosthetic. But the whole thing is _in nubibus_, and given as a guess only.’
{ 69} ‘The name of Erin,’ says Lord Strangford, ‘is treated at length in a masterly note by Whitley Stokes in the 1st series of Max Müller’s lectures (4th ed.) p. 255, where its earliest _tangible_ form is shown to have been Iverio. Pictet’s connection with Arya is quite baseless.’
{ 82} It is to be remembered that the above was written before the recent war between Prussia and Austria.
{ 84} The etymology is Monsieur Henri Martin’s, but Lord Strangford says—‘Whatever _gai_ may be, it is assuredly not Celtic. Is there any authority for this word _gair_, to laugh, or rather “laughter,” beyond O’Reilly? O’Reilly is no authority at all except in so far as tested and passed by the new school. It is hard to give up _gavisus_. But Diez, chief authority in Romanic matters, is content to accept Muratori’s reference to an old High-German _gâhi_, modern _jähe_, sharp, quick, sudden, brisk, and so to the sense of lively, animated, high in spirits.’
{ 85} Monsieur Henri Martin, whose chapters on the Celts, in his _Histoire de France_, are full of information and interest.
{ 97} The above is really a sentence taken from the _Cologne Gazette_. Lord Strangford’s comment here is as follows:—‘Modern Germanism, in a general estimate of Germanism, should not be taken, absolutely and necessarily, as the constant, whereof we are the variant. The Low-Dutch of Holland, anyhow, are indisputably as genuine Dutch as the High-Dutch of Germany Proper. But do they write sentences like this one—_informe_, _ingens_, _cui lumen ademptum_? If not, the question must be asked, not how we have come to deviate, but how the Germans have come to deviate. Our modern English prose in plain matters is often all just the same as the prose of _King Alfred_ and the _Chronicle_. Ohthere’s _North Sea Voyage_ and Wulfstan’s _Baltic Voyage_ is the sort of thing which is sent in every day, one may say, to the Geographical or Ethnological Society, in the whole style and turn of phrase and thought.’