In the depth of antiquity, misty superstition and pristine tradition gave a false magnitude to the founders of human knowledge; and our own literary historians who have been over-curious about "the Genesis" of their antiquities, have inveigled us into the mystic groves of Druidism in all their cloudy obscurity. The "Antiquities of the University of Oxford" open with "the Originals of Learning in this Nation;" and our antiquary discerns the first shadowings of the University of Oxford in "the universal knowledge" of the Druidical institution in "ethics, politics, civil law, divinity, and poetry." Such are the reveries of an antiquary.
[2] The existence of these _giants_ was long historical, and their real origin was in the fourth verse of the fifth chapter of Genesis, which no commentator shall ever explain. AYLET SAMMES in his "Britannia Antiqua Illustrata, or the Antiquities of Ancient Britain derived from the Phoenicians," has particularly noticed "two teeth of a certain giant, of such a huge bigness, that two hundred such teeth as men now-a-days have might be cut out of them." Becanus and Camden had however observed, that "_the bones of sea-fish_ had been taken for _giants' bones_;--but can it be rationally supposed that men ever entombed fishes?" triumphant in his arguments, exclaims Aylet Sammes. The revelations of geology had not yet been surmised, even by those who had discovered that giants were but sea-fish. So progressive is all human knowledge.
[3] The miraculous event was perpetuated by the whole Teutonic people, "while it was fresh in their memories," as our honest Saxon asserts; hence to this day we in our Saxon _English_, and our Teutonic kinsmen and neighbours in their idiom, describe a confusion of idle talk by the term of _Babel_, now written from our harsh love of supernumerary consonants _Babble_; and any such workmen of Babel are still indicated as _Babblers_.--"A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence," 138, 4to. Antwerp, 1605.
The erudite Menage offers a memorable evidence of the precarious condition of etymology when it connects things which have no other affinity than that which depends on _sounds_. See his "Dictionnaire Etymologique, ou Origines de la Langue Françoise," ad verbum BABIL. Not satisfied with the usual authorities deduced from _Babel_, this verbal sage appeals to us English to demonstrate the natural connexion between _Babbling and Childishness_; for thus he has shrewdly opined "The English in this manner have _Babble_ and _Baby_!"