[45] Lindley Murray, anonymously copying somebody, I know not whom, says:  “Words derive their meaning from the consent and practice of those who use them. There is no necessary connexion between words and ideas.  The association between the sign and the thing signified, is purely arbitrary.”—­Octavo Gram., Vol. i, p. 139.  The second assertion here made, is very far from being literally true.  However arbitrary may be the use or application of words, their connexion with ideas is so necessary, that they cannot be words without it.  Signification, as I shall hereafter prove, is a part of the very essence of a word, the most important element of its nature.  And Murray himself says, “The understanding and language have a strict connexion.”—­Ib., Vol. i, p. 356.  In this, he changes without amendment the words of Blair:  “Logic and rhetoric have here, as in many other cases, a strict connexion.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 120.

[46] “The language which is, at present, spoken throughout Great Britain, is neither the ancient primitive speech of the island, nor derived from it; but is altogether of foreign origin.  The language of the first inhabitants of our island, beyond doubt, was the Celtic, or Gaelic, common to them with Gaul; from which country, it appears, by many circumstances, that Great Britain was peopled.  This Celtic tongue, which is said to be very expressive and copious, and is, probably, one of the most ancient languages in the world, obtained once in most of the western regions of Europe.  It was the language of Gaul, of Great Britain, of Ireland, and very probably, of Spain also; till, in the course of those revolutions which by means of the conquests, first, of the Romans, and afterwards, of the northern nations, changed the government, speech, and, in a manner, the whole face of Europe, this tongue was gradually obliterated; and now subsists only in the mountains of Wales, in the Highlands of Scotland, and among the wild Irish.  For the Irish, the Welsh, and the Erse, are no other than different dialects of the same tongue, the ancient Celtic.”—­Blair’s Rhetoric, Lect.  IX, p. 85.

[47] With some writers, the Celtic language is the Welsh; as may be seen by the following extract:  “By this he requires an Impossibility, since much the greater Part of Mankind can by no means spare 10 or 11 Years of their Lives in learning those dead Languages, to arrive at a perfect Knowledge of their own.  But by this Gentleman’s way of Arguing, we ought not only to be Masters of Latin and Greek, but of Spanish, Italian, High- Dutch, Low-Dutch, French, the Old Saxon, Welsh, Runic, Gothic, and Islandic; since much the greater number of Words of common and general Use are derived from those Tongues.  Nay, by the same way of Reasoning we may prove, that the Romans and Greeks did not understand their own Tongues, because they were not acquainted with the Welsh, or ancient Celtic, there being above 620 radical Greek Words derived from the Celtic, and of the Latin a much greater Number.”—­Preface to Brightland’s Grammar, p. 5.