that an identity of names is an evidence, which the author, on other occafions, justly rejects as indecifive.

He next traces the fource of the European and Scandinavian Sarmatæ, and the Slavi; thofe other barbarous nations which ravaged the western world. So far as these different nations preserved their original distinction, we can discern their collective migrations through the profpect of history; but when, by a mixture of the whole, which happened in fucceeding periods, the peculiar complexion of each was altered, we are abandoned by all the refources of written and authentic information. Here, therefore, we must entirely join iffue with our author, that language becomes the fureft evidence of national extraction, and that wherever any radical tongue is ufed with moft purity, there the blood of the ancient people, from which it it derived, moft prevails. This obvious prin ciple greatly influences fome of the author's fubfequent induc tions, and it must be allowed to be as conclufive as it is juft.

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Leaving the ftate and revolutions of Europe, the author carries his inquiry into the origin of the ancient British nations, the Gaël, the Cimbri, and the Belgæ, on whom he makes the following obfervations.

The three great British nations, whofe origin we have endea. voured to investigate, muft have differed confiderably from one another in language, manners, and character. Though defcended from the fame fource, their feparation into different channels was very remote. The Gaël who poffeffed the northern Britain, by the name of Caledonians, having paffed from the continent before the arts of civil life had made any confiderable progrefs aniong them, retained the pure but unimproved language of their ancestors, together with their rude fimplicity of manners.

The British Cimbri derived their origin from the Gallic colonies who, in remote antiquity, had fettled beyond the Rhine. Thefe, with a fmall mixture of the Sarmatæ, returned, in all their original barbarifin, into the regions of the South. During their feparation from their mother nation, their language and manners must have fuffered fuch a confiderable change, that it is extremely doubtful whether their dialect of the Celtic and that of the old British Gaël were, at the arrival of the former in this island, reciprocally understood by both nations. The third colony differed in every thing from the Gael and Cimbri. Their manners were more humanized; and their tongue, though perhaps corrupted, was more copious. They had left the continent at a period of advanced civility. Their character changed with the progrefs of the arts of civil life; and new inventions had introduced new words and new expreffions into their language.

But though the three nations who poffeffed the British Isles at the arrival of the Romans fpoke three diftin&t dialects, and differed materially from one another in the formation of their phrafes, and conftruction of their fentences, the radical words ufed by all were certainly the fame. The names of places in the Roman Britain, however much difguifed they may have been by the orthography of the writers of the empire, may be, with great facility, traced to

their original meaning in the language spoken to this day by the poAerity of the Gaël in the northern Britain.

• To descend into a minute detail of the various petty tribes into which the three British nations were fubdivided, would neither furnish inftruction nor amusement. The Cimbri and Belgæ, falling under the power of the Romans foon after they were mentioned by hiftorians, were loft in the general name of Britons; and the internal state of the Gaël of North Britain and Ireland is covered with that impenetrable cloud which invariably involves illiterate nations who lie beyond the information of foreign writers.'

As a peculiar advantage attending the author of this Introduction, is his intimate acquaintance with the Celtic language, we shall here give our readers his etymon of Albion, and Britain, both which names appear to be derived from the fame idea.

'Alba or Albin, the name of which the ancient Scots, in their native language, have, from all antiquity, diftinguished their own divifion of Britain, feems to be the fountain from which the Greeks deduced their Albion. It was natural for the Gaël, who tranfmigrated from the low plains of Belgium, to call the more elevated land of Britain by a name expreffive of the face of the country. Alb or alp, in the Celtic fignifies high, and in invariably, a country. The name of Albion being imposed upon the Inland by the Gaël, the first colony was known before the appellation which the Romans latinized into Britiannia.

The Cimbri, the fecond Celtic colony who paffed into Britain, arriving in Belgium, and defcrying Albion, gave it a new name, expreffive of the fame idea which firft fuggefted the appellation of Albion to the Gaël. Comparing the elevated coast of Pritain to the fenny plains of the lower Germany, they called it Brait-an, a word compounded of brait high, and an or in a country.

This new name never extended itself to the Gaël or North Britain; and the pofterity of the Cimbri have lost it in the progrefs of time. The Scottish and Irish Gaël have brought down the name of Alba or Albin to the prefent age; the Welsh ufe no general appellation. The era of its impofition ought to be fixed as far back as the arrival of the Cimbri in the Island. The Phoenicians of Gades and the Maffilian Phoceans, who traded to the ports of Britain, learned the name of the natives, and communicated it to the writers of Greece and Rome.'

The next subject of the Introduction is the origin of the Scots, for determining which we entirely agree in deviating from the opinion of Tacitus. For the language of a people affords fuch an intrinfic evidence of their extract, as must be fufficient to overturn the authority of every other species of conjecture.

It is unneceffary to controvert the opinion of Cornelius Tacitus concerning the origin of the ancient inhab tants of North Britain. The name by which the celebrated writer himself distinguishes their country, is fufficient to demonftrate that they came from a very different quarter of the continent than what he fuppofed. When the arms of the empire under Julius Agricola laid open all the nations of Britain to the enquiry of the Romans, it has been already

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obferved that the whole ifland was poffeffed by three nations, whom Tacitus endeavours to deduce from communities on the continent very diftant from one another. The posterity of two of those nations preferve, to this day, in their names, proofs that altogether fubvert this opinion. The Silures or Cumri of the fouth, it has already appeared, had a much better title to a Germanic extraction than the Gael of Caledonia.

The Gaël, or ancient Gauls, having tranfmigrated from the continent at a period when the arts of civil life had made but very little progrefs among them, muft have maintained themselves chiefly by hunting; and we may fuppofe, that in purfuit of their game they foon extended themfelves to the northern extremity of the island. A people whofe fubfiltence arifes chiefly from the chace are never numerous; it is confequently natural to believe that the Cimbri met with little oppofition from the Gael, when the former paffed from the continent and feized upon the fouthern divifion of Britain.

In proportion as the Cimbri advanced towards the north, the Gael, being circumfcribed within, narrower limits, were forced to tranfmigrate into the iflands which crowd the northern and western coafts of Scotland. It is in this period, perhaps, we ought to place the first great migration of the British Gaël into Ireland; that kingdom being much nearer to the promontory of Galloway and Cantyre, than many of the Scottish ifles are to the continent of North Britain. This vicinity of Ireland had probably drawn partial emigrations from Caledonia before the arrival of the Cimbri in Britain; but when these interlopers preffed upon the Gaël from the fouth, it is reafonable to conclude that numerous colonies passed over into an island fo near, and so much superior to their original country in climate and fertility.

The inhabitants of the maritime regions of Gaul croffing, in an after age, the British Channel, eftablished themfelves on that part of our inland which lies nearest to the continent; and, moving gradually towards the north, drove the Cimbri beyond the Severn and Humber The Gaël of the north, reduced within limits still more circumfcribed by the preffure of the Cimbri, fent freth colonies into Ireland, while the Scottish friths became a natural and strong boundary towards the fouth to thofe Gaël who remained in Britain.

Jt was, perhaps, after the Belgic invafion of the fouthern Britain, that the Gaël of the northern divifion formed themselves into a regular cominunity, to repel the incroachment of the Cimbri upon their territories. To the country which they themselves poffeffed they gave the name of Caël doch, which is the only appellation the Scots, who fpeak the Galic language, know for their own divifion of Britain. Caël doch is a compound made up of Gael or Caël, the firft colony of the ancient Gauls who tranfmigrated into Britain, and Doch, a district or divifion of a country. The Romans, by tranfpofing the letter L in Call, and by foftening into a Latin termination the ch of Doch, formed the well-known name of Caledonia.'

This ingenious etymon was communicated by the author to Dr. Macpherson, who adopted it in his Differtations.

The origin of the British nations being established upon the moft incontrovertible principles of critical investigation, no

thing is more probable, than that Ireland was thence supplied with its inhabitants. This opinion is not only countenanced by the more remote fituation of that ifland from the continent, which was the fource of all the western migrations; but it is even confirmed by the teftimony of the mofl antient hiftorians.

'Diodorus Siculus, fays our author, mentions it as a fact well known in his time, that the Irish were of British extract, as well as that the Britons themfelves derived their blood from the Gauls. Cornelius Tacitus affirms that the nature and manners of the Irish did not, in the days of Domitian, differ much from the Britons ; and many foreign writers of great authority give their testimony to the British defcent of the old inhabitants of Ireland.'

The name of Gaël, ftill retained by the old Irish, fufficiently demonftrates that they derive their blood from those Gaël or Gauls, who, in an after periód, were diftinguished in Britain by the name of Caledonians. The wildeft enthufiafts in Hibernian autiquities never once afferted that the Caledonians, or their pofterity the Picts, were of Irish extract; yet nothing is better afcertained than that the ancient Britons of the South, gave to the Scots, the Picts, and the Irish, the common name of Gael; and confequently that they very justly concluded that the three nations derived their origin from the fame fource, the ancient Gaël of the continent.

The British Gae, in an early age, extending themselves to the very extremities of the Ifland, defcried Ireland from the Mulls of Galloway and Cantire, and croffing the narrow channel which separates the two countries, became the progenitors of the Irish nation. In proportion as fresh emigrants from the continent of Europe forced the ancient Gaël towards the North in Britain, more colonies tranfmigrated into Ireland from the promontories which we have fo often mentioned. It is probable that it was after the arrival of the Cimbri in Britain, a number of the Gaël, fufficient to deferve the name of a nation, fettled themfelves in Ireland. But they became fo numerous in that country before the arrival of the Belge in Britain, that the colonies which tranfmigrated from that nation into Ireland were, together th their language, manners, and customs, loft in the Gaël; fo that in one fenfe the Caledonians may be reckoned the fole progenitors of the old Irish.

When the Gaël arrived first in Ireland they naturally gave it the name of lar-in, or the Western Country, in contradiftinction to their original fettlement in Britain. From Iar-in is not only to be deduced the Eirin of the Irish themselves, but thofe various names by which the Greeks and Romans diftinguished their ifland. The appellation of Iar-in was not altogether confined to Ireland by the Gaël of North Britain. They gave it also to those numerous Islands which crowd the western coafts of Caledonia; but when by degrees they became acquainted with the vast extent of Ireland, when compared to the other Scottish Isles, they called it by an emphasis H'Iarin, or H'Erin, the western country or ifland.

Hibernia, the most common name by which the Romans diftinguished Ireland, may appear to fome too remote in the pronunciation and orthography from Iar in, or H'Erin, to be derived from either. This difficulty is eafily removed. Julius Cæfar mentions, for the first time, Ireland under the name of Hibernia. One of two reafons induced the illuftrious writer to ufe that appellation. He either latinized the H'Yverdhon of the fouthern Britains, or, what

is

is more probable, he annexed to Ireland a name which fuited his own ideas of its air and climate. The Romans, long after the expedition of Cæfar, entertained a very unfavourable opinion of the climate of Ireland; Strabo thought that the feverity of the weather rendered that ifland extremely uncomfortable, and Pomponius Mela was told that corn never ripened there on account of the inclemency of the feafons. The attention of Cæfar was engaged by much more important objects than in informing himfelf minutely concerning the climate of a country to which he never intended to carry his arms. If Strabo and Mela, whofe fubject led to enquiries of that kind, fuppofed that the air of Ireland was extremely intemperate, it is no wonder that Cæfar fhould have fallen into a fimilar mistake; and we may from this circumftance conclude that he formed the name of Hibernia from the adjective Hiburnus. He thought that a perpetual winter reigned in Ireland; and he was informed that, in the leffer islands in the neighbourhood, one winter night was equal to thirty in Italy.'

The author afterwards exposes, at confiderable length, the abfurdity of the fiction that letters were known in Ireland many ages before Greece itself emerged from ignorance and barbarity. This ridiculous fable has already been exploded by Camden, Bolandus, and Innes. The learned Ufher appears to have been fo fenfible of its extravagance, that he is totally filent on the affairs of Ireland prior to the fifth century; and even Sir James Ware, though an avowed advocate for the honour of his country, renounced the Irish pretenfions to any knowledge of an alphabet, before it was introduced by St. Patrick. In fact, the fabulous tranfactions, which have been adduced by the Irish antiquarians, in fupport of their ancient pretenfions to literature, afford fufficient proof, that the inhabitants of that ifland were involved, not only in the groffeft ignorance, but the meaneft credulity, before the period abovementioned. This fubject has been fo fully difcuffed by other writers, that we doubt not but the modern literati of Ireland, who, we are perfuaded, are no abettors of the fystem of the fileas and fenachies, will think that our author here has entered upon a very unneceffary investigation. As Mr. Mac. pherson, however, has added a few arguments to what have been formerly advanced, we shall present our readers with an extract from this part of the work.

It is unneceffary, with Bolandus and Innes, to pursue the abettors of the pretended literature of Ireland, before the miffion St. Patrick, through all the maze of a conteft, in which pofitive affertions, on the fide of the latter, fupply the place of argument, To a brief detail of fome other unanswerable objections advanced by the two learned writers, we fhall annex fome additional dbfervations, to put an end for ever to the difpute. Keating, O'Fla herty, and Toland, upon the authority of the book of Lecan, a manufcript fcarcely three linndred and fifty years old, affirm that one Phenius Farfa invented the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Irish alphabets, together with the Ogum of Ireland, little more than a

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