which a well eyed man may happily discover and finde out.
Eudox. How can here be any truth in them at all, since the auncient nations which first inhabited Ireland, were altogether destitute of letters, much more of learning, by which they might leave the verity of things written. And those Bardes, comming also so many hundred yeares after, could not know what was done in former ages, nor deliver certainty of any thing, but what they fayned out of their unlearned heads.
Iren. [o 1]Those Bardes indeed, Csesar writeth, delivered no certaine truth of any thing, neither is there any certaine hold to be taken of any antiquity which is received by tradition, since all men be lyars, and many lye when they wil; yet for the antiquities of the written Chronicles of Ireland, give me leave to say something, not to Justine them, but to shew that some of them might say truth. For where you
- ↑ Those Bardes indeed, Cæsar writeth,] Concerning them I finde no mention in Caesar's Commentaryes, but much touching the Druides, which were the priests and philosophers, (or Magi as [i 1] Pliny calls them) of the Gaules and British. "Illi rebus divinis intersunt, ([i 2] saith he) sacrificia publica ac privata procurant, religiones interpretantur. Ad hos magnus adolescentium numerus disciplinae caussa concurrit, magnoque ii sunt apud eos honore, &c." The word drωi [Sax. Dry.] had anciently the same signification (as I am informed) among the Irish. Sir James Ware.
