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Why the Irish obtained, in the days of Orofius, the name of Scots, when their tranfmigration from Caledonia was fo remote, requires to be explained. The name of Scotti was communicated to the Romans by the Picts and Britons. The Britons and Romans discovering a perfect refemblance in the manners, cuftoms, drefs, arms, and language of the Iar ghaël, or weftern Caledonians, and the Irish, agreed to call both nations by one common name. Irish being no strangers to the military reputation that their friends of Caledonia had acquired against the Romans and their provincials, either adopted their name, or acquiefced afterwards in an appellation which fome writers had impofed upon them. The illi terate, and confequently the bulk of the Irish nation, were never reconciled to this innovation. They preferved the Caledonian defigna tion of Gaël, or the name of Erinich, which they had affumed after their tranfmigration into Ireland; and the adventitious names of Scotti and Scottia fell at laft into total defuetude.

In the course of the preceding difcuffion, the author of the Introduction has laid no ftiefs upon the teftimony of the Poems of Offian. Having rejected the Hibernian bards, there might be an appearance of partiality in drawing authorities from the ancient poet of Caledonia. In the prefent ftate of the argument, there is no need of his affiftance. The fabric we have raised demands no collateral prop; it even can beftow the aid it does not require. The perfect agreement between Offian and the genealogical fyftem we have established, has placed his æra beyond the commencement of the popular opinion of the Hibernian defcent of the Scots which was old enough to be placed in a period of remote antiquity by Bede, who flourished in the beginning of the feventh age.'

We should here take our leave of this tedious, and now exhausted subject, did we not think it a matter of fome curiofity to prefent our readers with the author's elegant and natural account of the rife and progrefs of a fiction which has fo much engaged antiquarians.

• Could ancient tradition, the belief of ages, the pofitive affertions of English antiquaries and Irish annalifts, and the univerfal acquiefcence of the hiftorians of the British Scots be fufficient to establish the credit of the Hibernian defcent of that nation, it must be confessed that it were idle to hope to reconcile the public judgment to a new fyftem fo diametrically oppofite to the old. But we have feen that tradition could not have extended to that period in which the transmigration of the Scots is placed, and therefore the belief of ages, which was founded upon that pretended tradition, was no more than a popular error. This error, rendered venerable by its antiquity, mifled, to fay no worfe, the writers of the annals of Ireland, and deceived the hiftorians of North Britain. The antiquaries of England, it must be confeffed, could not be influenced by the prejudices which led aftray the writers of both the Scottish nations; but the former were under no temptation to contradict or expofe a tradition which was not difagreeable to themselves, tbough from a very different caufe than that which rendered it fo highly favoured in Scotland and Ireland.

It may not be improper, in this place, to inquire into the rife and progress of thofe traditionary fictions which have fo much obfcured the antiquities of the Scots of both the iles. When the first dawn of learning rofe among those barbarous tribes who had

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The description of that part of Catalonia which lies be tween Alcaraz and Piera is lively and ftriking.

We cannot omit quoting the history of the fair foundress of the Benedictine convent of Montferate near Igualada. The romance, though extravagant, is amufing; nor is it without its moral instruction. Though it has neither probability nor art to recommend it, yet it excites a juft horror against acts of cruelty; and the miraculous events which it relates, ftrongly exemplify the credulity and weakness of uncultivated minds.

• About the middle of the ninth century, when Catalonia was governed by its own fovereigns with the title of counts, there was one of them who had an only daughter no less beautiful than good.

"That princess had fcarce reached fourteen, when he took into her head to turn hermitefs; nor was it in the power of her father's remonftrances, her mother's tears, her lover's fighs, and the people's intreaties, to make her change fo frange a refolution. She gave orders for a cell to be built in the wildest part of the mountain now called Montferrate, where the retired quite alone to lead a life of prayer and pennance, feeding upon acorns and berries, and drinking of the limpid ftream.

• On the fame mountain, and at no great distance from the royal maiden's abode, there lived a hermit called Guarino, who, though in the prime of youth, had already gone through fo many voluntary aufterities and fufferings, that he was reputed to be as great a faint as St. Jerom, St. Hilary, or St. Macarius.

The devil, as you may well think, did not look upon this pair with a favourable eye. He was afraid left their virtue should prove contagious, and refolved to oppofe its effects. To obtain his wicked end, he tempted Guarino to go and pay a visit to the princefs, under the notion of encouraging her, and be encouraged himself, to perfevere in their holy course of life. The vifits by degrees grew more frequent than was neceffary. The confequence of them was, that the devil's fcheme took place, and the princefs began to fwell about the hips, to the immenfe grief of the poor hermit, who now faw himself in the imminent danger of lofing a reputation for fanctity, which he had laboured hard to acquire.

Abyfus abyffum invocat. What did the wicked Guarino do, in order to hide his wicked fin? Alas! he cut the young lady's throat, and fecretly buried her body under a heap of ftones!

The dreadful feat being atchieved; Guarino went on in his wonted courfe, and continued a while to impofe himself for a faint upon the few inhabitants of the wilderness. But his crime, though it efcaped the notice of others, never could escape

efcape his own; and the consciousness of it tormented him so much, and fo inceffantly, that, unable to bear it, he refolved at last, to take a journey to Rome, to confefs himself to the Pope, and fue for that absolution which, he thought, never could be granted him by any body but his Holinefs.

The Pope's hair ftood an end upon hearing of fo horrible a crime, and told Guarino it was not to be expiated but by going back to his hermitage quite naked and upon four, like a beaft; adding that he was never to attempt walking in an erect pofture again, until he received a positive command from heaven to do so.

The injunction was hard; yet Guarino complied with it. He ftripped and began his journey back to Montferrate. In a little time his hair grew fo long all about his body, that he looked rather like a bear, than like a human creature.

Thus did Guarino crawl about for fome years, avoiding as much as he could the few habitations that were in the mountain, hiding himself in a cavern by day, and going only towards night in fearch of food.

It happened one day, that the count of Catalonia, father to the murthered young lady, being upon a hunting match, faw Guarino as he attempted to clamber over a cliff to get fome wild roots. The fight of fo extraordinary a monfter made the prince approach in order to attack it; but finding it was not so wild as he had conceived at first sight, and that it fuffered two or three blows in a moft humble pofture, he ordered his attendants to chain it, and carry it to Barcelona, where he used to keep it in his own apartment, feeding it with crufts and bones as he was at dinner, and often diverting himself and his courtiers by kicking it about, and making it continually play a thousand anticks.

This kind of life proved much more hard and mortifying to Guarino, than that of wandering about the mountains. Yet he bore it with fuch perfect patience and refignation, that at laft it atoned for his crime. One day as the count was at his dinner, and the monfter by him, a tremendous voice refounded from on high, that faid, "Rife up Guarino, rife up: thy fin is forgiven."

• The poor penitent, who had long wifhed in vain for fuch a command, ftood prefently upon two, and turning his eyes up to heaven, spoke a prayer of thanks with audible voice and fervent emotion.

6 You may well imagine the furprize both of the count and his attendants at this unexpected adventure. Having thus broken his feptennial filence, Guarino related with a flood of tears his whole ftory to the thunder-ftruck fovereign, and implored

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plored a pardon which was easily granted. The count ordered him to be washed and cloathed; then went with him to the mountain in fearch of the place where his unhappy daughter had been murthered, with an intention to give her remains a more decent burial than they had had from her pitiless lover. When lo! miracle upon miracle! They found the princefs alive juft by the place where he had received the wound, which was ftill open, and the blood still streaming down her breaft to the ground.

Who will attempt to tell the mixed grief and joy of a father at fuch a fight! He had her taken directly to her cell, where a furgeon foon cured her. It is needlefs to tell, that she had repented time enough the fins committed with Guarino, and recommended herself fo fervoroufly to the Virgin Mary at the time he drew his knife upon her, that the Virgin Mary took pity on her, and preserved her life in that wonderous manner.

As foon as the princess was reftored to her former health, fhe ordered a church and convent to be erected on the very fpot where Guarino had treated her fo barbarously. The church he dedicated to her patronefs, not only for the favour received, but also because a moft miraculous image of her had been found concealed just about that time in one of the many hollows, that are about the mountain.

As to the convent, the princefs begged of her father that it fhould be given to the Benedi&ine monks, who have fucceflively been in poffeffion of it from that time to this day.'

The fix chapters immediately following that from which we have made this quotation, chiefly contain an account of the induftry, agriculture, various improvements, and manners of the Catalonians. They deserve better to be known, they afford more matter to a traveller than the rest of the Spaniards; and Mr. Baretti has judiciously given them his particular attention.

Mr. Baretti tells us that he and his companions were ordered by an officer, in a very rude manner, to produce their paffports at the gate of Girona. The officer kicked one of their muleteers, for betraying fome impatience at being needlefsly detained. This brutality recalls to his mind the fimilar behaviour of the old Colonel at San Pedro, which he relates in his forty-fecond letter. Thefe accidents unfortunately lead our author into a political difquifition, in which he does not acquit himself very philofophically; for inftead of making a fair comparison of cafes, and determining accordingly, he is mifguided by local impreflions and habits of thinking.

He feems only to have difcovered, when he reflected on the infolence of thofe two Spanish officers, that military power is

very great in Spain as well as in Piedmont; though he might have known that the oppreflion of the fword is a neceffary confequence of arbitrary government. After a tranfient compliment to the British conftitution, by which the persons and properties of our countrymen are fecured from the infults and rapine of the army and of the great, he is weak enough gravely to compare a mild and equal diftribution of liberty with an unlimited monarchy; and to infer that the trifling inconveniences which refult from the former, are as great as those which flow from the latter.

He founds his inference upon another falfe principle. Becaufe a Spanish grandee would be extremely fhocked if fuch liberty fhould be taken with him in his country, as an English nobleman must fometimes put up with from an English mob, he thinks the licentioufnefs of the lower people with us hath as bad effects as the defpotifm of Spain.

This is not a rational, manly way of arguing. If we would judge properly of any form of government, we must not confider how its confequences operate upon weak and prejudiced minds; but how far they are, in their own nature, beneficial, or injurious to mankind.

Mr. Baretti is induftrious to enumerate the fhocking evils that flow from the English conftitution; but he skims over those which refult from the political fyftems of Spain and his own country.

And pray what are the dreadful calamities which he obferves are confequent of British liberty?

Why, the English populace will too often force even a lord to give a filly cry in favour of this and that candidate at an election, and tumble a gentleman into the mud, or fling dirt at his coach, or break his windows, upon their coming to the knowledge that fuch a gentleman is not of the party, which mere chance, or fondness for noife, or fome fuch other potent caufe, has made them efpoufe the day or the week before. The English populace will stop the vehicle of a lady going to a mask, and force her with a most arbitrary violence to uncover her face, that they may look at her: a piece of rudeness that nothing could reconcile mankind to, but the fondeft partiality to national abufes and irregularities when grown inverate. What fignifies enumerating inftances of the contemptuous irreverence, with which the high in England are treated by the low? Too many might be produced, that would make a Spaniard fhudder as much as I did at the brutal conduct of the officer of to-day.'

Could any man have mentioned these circumstances with fuch terms of horror, but one who had been born and bred