LETTER LXXVII.

TO the Caledonian Britons, says Mr. Macpherson, we must look for the genuine origin of the Irish. Their name of Gaël, their language, the conformity of their manners and customs with those of the old Britons, all concur in proving, beyond the possibility of reply, that the Irish are the posterity of the Gaël, who, after having traversed the island of Great Britain, passed over, in a very early period, into Ireland, from the promontories of Galloway and Cantire. The indigenous appellation of Gaël. for the Irish, serves strongly to evince them, what history demonstrates them to be, the descendants of the Britons.

This knotty point, which has for a century and a half engaged two nations of contending antiquaries in war, is thus in an instant determined; and the Irish, unless they would continue in the obstinacy of parricides, are enjoined

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to a silent submission to this the decree of their parents, the Caledonians of the north. There are no tribes upon earth, I readily acknowledge, to whom it would be a greater honour for the Irish to be allied. But, really to give people fathers and mothers, whether they will or no; and to oblige them to acknowledge a line of relationship, which is, in every link, contradicted by the good old stories of their own family; is more than can be expected even from good-nature itself. Moreover, the Irish are tossed about in such different directions by contending authorities, that it is not to be wondered at, if they hold to their altars with tenacity, and battle with vigour for some of the Penates of their ancestors.

The Scots insist upon it, that the Irish are their children; the Southern Britons claim them again, as more immediately their descendants. Thus, we read that about 350 years before Christ, the Belgæ crossed the channel into Britain, and seized the whole extended line from Kent into Devonshire. Numbers of the former inhabitants, who had gradually retired. before the enemy, were under the necessity at last to take shipping upon the Western coast,

and

and passed over into the uninhabited isle of Ireland. And these were afterwards joined by another body of Britons, at the great attack upon the neighbouring states by the Belge under Divitiacus, who pursued the track of their brethren, and associated with them in Ireland. Thus, the first population began, not by the Northern, but by the Southern Britons; not from the promontories of Caledonia, but from the shores of the channel. The second colony that entered Ireland, was about roo years before Christ. For two centuries and a half, these colonies were recruited in the same manner. The third and fourth colonies that settled there, were, indeed, it may be supposed, derived through the Mulls of Galloway and Cantire. Ireland, in a word, seems to have been planted with colonies, from the whole range of the Western coast of Britain. The Belge of Dorsetshire and Cornwall at one end; the Epidii, and Damnii of Caledonia at the other; and almost every nation between, all contributed to the population of Ireland: and the whole circuit of the country was completely peopled about 150 years before Christ.*

• Whitaker.

Ireland has certainly been greatly indebted for this favour; and especially for the animated and brisk manner in which the population of so tolerably extensive a country was carried on. Barely two hundred years, and without superfætation in the first settlers! This was doing marvellously. But, what is to become of poor Milesius and his posterity all this time, who, the Irish chronicles say, invaded the country 1267 years before the Christian æra; or about one thousand years, according to these new systems, before it was inhabited? I am not inclined to an absurd predilection for the fictions of the early periods of the Irish story; neither will I disturb the manes of their giant Partholanus. But, this I cannot refrain from observing, and it is at least worthy of the attention of those who doubt in the gross, that in Ireland, and Ireland alone, we first meet with Celtic history, in Celtic language; and this long before the nation had any acquaintance with the learning of Greece or Rome.

The Milesian story, says Whitaker, concerning the first population of Ireland, and the account of the migration of the Scots from Ireland into Britain, are two incidents that are founded upon very different authorities. The former rests solely upon the credit of writers

that

that never existed; and upon the authority of records, that were written some ages before the use of letters was known in Ireland. The latter is grounded upon the authority of writers actually, or nearly, contemporary with the facts; upon histories of the best credit; and upon records of the greatest authenticity. The Irish systems of antiquity, says Dr. Macpherson, were formed after the Holy Scriptures were known in that country; and it is beyond all doubt, that their fictions on that head are engrafted upon names in the Old Testament. All the knowledge now remaining, even of what passed in Ireland before the light of the Gospel began to dawn there, is extremely little.* Tradition, indeed, might, for a time, have preserved a confused shadow of great events. The compo sitions of bards and fileas, might have transmitted, through a few generations, some occasional atchievements of their heroes; but, nothing is more absurd, than to depend upon either, for the regular and continued history of any nation.†

I will not animadvert upon this incautious assertion of the respectable divine. He ought, however, to have recollected, how widely scep+ ticism

• Sir James Ware.

+ Dr. Macpherson.