Plautus, a dramatic writer, and one of the great poets of antiquity, who lived from one to two centuries before the Christian era; was mentioned in the last section. In his PÆnulus, is the tale of some young persons said to have been stolen from Carthage, by pirates, taken to Calydonia, and there sold; one of these was Agorastocles, a young man; the others were two daughters of Hanno, and Giddeneme, their nurse. Hanno, after long search, discovered the place where his daughters were concealed, and by the help of servants who understood the Punic language, rescued his children from captivity. Plautus gives the supposed appeal of Hanno, to the gods of the country for help, and his conversations with servants in the Punic language, are accompanied with a Latin translation. The Punic, as a language, is lost, and those long noticed, but strange lines had long defied the skill of learned men. But at length, by attending to their vocal formation (and all language, Wills states, is addressed to the ear). It was discovered by O’Neachtan, or some Irish scholar, that they were resolvable into words, which exhibited but slight differences from the language of Keltic Ireland. The words were put into syllables, then translated by several persons, and these translations not only accorded with the drama, but also, with the Plautine Latin version. The lines were put to the test of more rigid examination, placed in the hands of different persons one of whom was Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore. They were also given to different Irish scholars for translation, to persons who had no correspondence with each other on this subject, nor knew the principal object in view; and by the whole the same meaning was given.

Bohn’s edition, by H. T. Riley, B.A., is before the writer; but from the edition used by the late Sir W. Betham, some few lines from Plautus, with the Gaelic or Irish underneath, are given, and the eye will at once perceive how closely the one resembles the other. Milphio, the servant of Agorastocles, addressed Hanno and his servants in Punic, and asked them “of what country are you, or from what city?”

The following is the reply, and the supposed appeal of Hanno to the god, or gods of the country:—

This alleged work of Plautus, and these strange lines, have long been before the world, and under the notice of men of letters. Is there any reason to doubt whether it is genuine? If not, can it be supposed that the writer purposely placed some strange jargon before his readers to bewilder them? and if so, by what singular hazzard should it so closely resemble the language of the Gael. Plautus avers, that Milphio addressed the strangers (Hanno and servants), in Punic, and declared to Agorastocles, his master, that “no Punic or Carthaginian man speaks Punic better than I”. Unless these statements can be proved to be worthless, will they not as connecting links appear to say, probably the Gaels of Britain, and the Punic people of Carthage, were branches of the old and once celebrated race, known as Phenicians?