of our readers by the description of the vessels in which the 107 Quin et Aremoricus piratam Saxona tractus Sidon. in Panegyr. Avit. 369. The genius of Cæsar imitated, for a particular service, these rude, but light 108 The best original account of the Saxon pirates may be found in Sidonius Apollinaris (1. viii. epist. 6, p. 223, edit. Sirmond.), and the best commentary in the Abbé du Bos (Hist. Critique de la Monarchie Françoise, &c., tom. i. 1. i. c. 16, p. 148-155. See likewise p. 77, 78). [The Saxons made settlements in the north of Gaul, for instance at Bayeux (Saxones Baiocassini); cp. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc. ii. 18, 19; v. 26.] II. BRI- Picts The task, implored the assistance of Severus, master-general of the infantry. The Saxons, surrounded and out-numbered, were forced to relinquish their spoil, and to yield a select band of their tall and robust youth to serve in the Imperial armies. They stipulated only a safe and honourable retreat; and the condition was readily granted by the Roman general; who meditated an act of perfidy,109 imprudent as it was inhuman, while a Saxon remained alive, and in arms, to revenge the fate of his countrymen. The premature eagerness of the infantry, who were secretly posted in a deep valley, betrayed the ambuscade; and they would perhaps have fallen the victims of their own treachery, if a large body of cuirassiers, alarmed by the noise of the combat, had not hastily advanced to extricate their companions and to overwhelm the undaunted valour of the Saxons. Some of the prisoners were saved from the edge of the sword, to shed their blood in the amphitheatre; and the orator Symmachus complains that twenty-nine of those desperate savages, by strangling themselves with their own hands, had disappointed the amusement of the public. Yet the polite and philosophic citizens of Rome were impressed with the deepest horror, when they were informed that the Saxons consecrated to the gods the tythe of their human spoil; and that they ascertained by lot the objects of the barbarous sacrifice.110 111 II. The fabulous colonies of Egyptians and Trojans, of Scots and Scandinavians and Spaniards, which flattered the pride, and amused the credulity, of our rude ancestors, have insensibly vanished in the light of science and philosophy. The present age is satisfied with the simple and rational opinion that the islands of Great Britain and Ireland were gradually peopled from the adjacent continent of Gaul. From the coast of Kent to the extremity of Caithness and Ulster, the memory of a Celtic origin 109 Ammian. (xxviii. 5) justifies this breach of faith to pirates and robbers; and Orosius (1. vii. c. 32) more clearly expresses their real guilt: virtute atque agilitate terribiles. 110 Symmachus (1. ii. epist. 46) still presumes to mention the sacred names of Socrates and philosophy. Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, might condemn (1. viii. epist. 6 [§ 15]) with less inconsistency the human sacrifices of the Saxons. 11 In the beginning of the last century the learned Cambden was obliged to undermine, with respectful scepticism, the romance of Brutus the Trojan, who is now buried in silent oblivion with Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, and her numerous progeny. Yet I am informed that some champions of the Milesian colony may still be found among the original natives of Ireland. A people dissatisfied with their present condition grasp at any visions of their past or future glory. was distinctly preserved, in the perpetual resemblance of language, of religion, and of manners; and the peculiar characters of the British tribes might be naturally ascribed to the influence of accidental and local circumstances.112 The Roman province was reduced to the state of civilized and peaceful servitude; the rights of savage freedom were contracted to the narrow limits of Caledonia. The inhabitants of that northern region were divided, as early as the reign of Constantine, between the two great tribes of the Scots and of the PICTS,113 who have since experienced a very different fortune. The power, and almost the memory, of the Picts have been extinguished by their successful rivals; and the Scots, after maintaining for ages the dignity of an independent kingdom, have multiplied, by an equal and voluntary union, the honours of the English name. The hand of nature had contributed to mark the ancient distinction of the Scots and Picts. The former were the men of the hills, and the latter those of the plain. The eastern coast of Caledonia may be considered as a level and fertile country, which, even in a rude state of tillage, was capable of producing a considerable quantity of corn; and the epithet of cruitnich, or wheat-eaters, expressed the contempt, or envy, of the carnivorous highlander. The cultivation of the earth might introduce a more accurate separation of property and the habits of a sedentary life; but the love of arms and rapine was still the ruling passion of the Picts; and their warriors, who stripped themselves for a day of battle, were distinguished, in the eyes of the Romans, by the strange fashion of painting their naked bodies with gaudy colours and fantastic figures. The western part of Caledonia irregularly rises into Tacitus, or rather his father-in-law Agricola, might remark the German or Spanish complexion of some British tribes. But it was their sober, deliberate opinion: "In universum tamen æstimanti Gallos vicinum solum occupâsse credibile est. Eorum sacra deprehendas . . . sermo haud multum diversus (in_Vit. Agricol. c. xi.)." Cæsar had observed their common religion (Comment. de Bello Gallico, vi. 13); and in his time the emigration from the Belgic Gaul was a recent, or at least an historical, event (v. 10). Cambden, the British Strabo, has modestly Ascertained our genuine antiquities (Britannia, vol. i. Introduction, p. ii-xxxi). us In the dark and doubtful paths of Caledonian antiquity, I have chosen for my guides two learned and ingenious Highlanders, whom their birth and education had peculiarly qualified for that office. See Critical Dissertations on the Origin, Antiquities, &c., of the Caledonians, by Dr. John Macpherson, London, 1768, in 4to; and Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, by James Mecpherson, Esq., London, 1773, in 4to, third edit. Dr. Macpherson was a minister in the Isle of Sky: and it is a circumstance honourable for the present age that a work, replete with erudition and criticism, should have been composed in the most remote of the Hebrides. [See Appendix 2.] wild and barren hills, which scarcely repay the toil of the husbandman and are most profitably used for the pasture of cattle. The highlanders were condemned to the occupations of shepherds and hunters; and, as they seldom were fixed to any permanent habitation, they acquired the expressive name of Scots, which, in the Celtic tongue, is said to be equivalent to that of wanderers or vagrants. The inhabitants of a barren land were urged to seek a fresh supply of food in the waters. The deep lakes and bays which intersect their country are plentifully stored with fish; and they gradually ventured to cast their nets in the waves of the ocean. The vicinity of the Hebrides, so profusely scattered along the western coast of Scotland, tempted their curiosity and improved their skill; and they acquired by slow degrees, the art, or rather the habit, of managing their boats in a tempestuous sea and of steering their nocturnal course by the light of the well-known stars. The two bold headlands of Caledonia almost touch the shores of a spacious island, which obtained, from its luxuriant vegetation, the epithet of Green; and has preserved, with a slight alteration, the name of Erin, or Ierne, or Ireland. It is probable that in some remote period of antiquity the fertile plains of Ulster received a colony of hungry Scots; and that the strangers of the North, who had dared to encounter the arms of the legions, spread their conquests over the savage and unwarlike natives of a solitary island. It is certain that, in the declining age of the Roman empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, were inhabited by the Scots, and that the kindred tribes, who were often associated in military enterprise, were deeply affected by the various accidents of their mutual fortunes. They long cherished the lively tradition of their common name and origin; and the missionaries of the Isle of Saints, who diffused the light of Christianity over North Britain, established the vain opinion that their Irish countrymen were the natural as well as spiritual fathers of the Scottish race. The loose and obscure tradition has been preserved by the venerable Bede, who scattered some rays of light over the darkness of the eighth century. On this slight foundation, a huge superstructure of fable was gradually reared, by the bards and the monks: two orders of men who equally abused the privilege of fiction. The Scottish nation, with mistaken pride, adopted their Irish genealogy; and the annals of a long line of imaginary kings have been adorned by the fancy of Boethius and the classic elegance of Buchanan,114 sion of A.D. 343-366 Six years after the death of Constantine, the destructive The invainroads of the Scots and Picts required the presence of his Britain. youngest son, who reigned in the western empire. Constans visited his British dominions; but we may form some estimate of the importance of his achievements by the language of panegyric, which celebrates only his triumph over the elements; or, in other words, the good fortune of a safe and easy passage from the port of Boulogne to the harbour of Sandwich.115 The calamities which the afflicted provincials continued to experience, from foreign war and domestic tyranny, were aggravated by the feeble and corrupt administration of the eunuchs of Constantius; and the transient relief which they might obtain from the virtues of Julian was soon lost by the absence and death of their benefactor. The sums of gold and silver which had been painfully collected, or liberally transmitted, for the payment of the troops were intercepted by the avarice of the commanders; discharges, or, at least, exemptions, from the military service were publicly sold; the distress of the soldiers, who were injuriously deprived of their legal and scanty subsistence, provoked them to frequent desertion; the nerves of discipline were relaxed, and the high 114 The Irish descent of the Scots has been revived, in the last moments of its decay, and strenuously supported, by the Rev. Mr. Whitaker (Hist. of Manchester, vol. i. p. 430, 431; and Genuine History of the Britons asserted, &c., p. 154-293). Yet he acknowledges, 1. That the Scots of Ammianus Marcellinus (A.D. 340) were already settled in Caledonia; and that the Roman authors do not afford any hints of their emigration from another country. 2. That all the accounts of such emigrations, which have been asserted, or received, by Irish bards, Scotch historians, or English antiquaries (Buchanan, Cambden, Usher, Stillingfleet, &c.), are totally fabulous. 3. That three of the Irish tribes which are mentioned by Ptolemy (A.D. 150) were of Caledonian extraction. 4. That a younger branch of Caledonian princes, of the house of Fingal, acquired and possessed the monarchy of Ireland. After these concessions, the remaining difference between Mr. Whitaker and his adversaries is minute and obscure. The genuine history which he produces of a Fergus, the cousin of Ossian, who was transplanted (A.D. 320) from Ireland to Caledonia, is built on a conjectural supplement to the Erse poetry, and the feeble evidence of Richard of Cirencester, a monk of the fourteenth century. The lively spirit of the learned and ingenious antiquarian has tempted him to forget the nature of a question, which he so vehemently debates, and so absolutely decides. [It is now generally admitted that the Scots of Scotland were immigrants from (the north-east of) Ireland. See Appendix 2.] 15 Hyeme tumentes ac sævientes undas calcâstis Oceani sub remis vestris ; insperatam imperatoris faciem Britannus expavit. Julius Firmicus Maternus de errore Profan. Relig. p. 464, edit. Gronov. ad calcem Minuc, Fel. See Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 336). |
