Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/62

42 THE DECLINE AND FALL deep lakes and bays wliieh 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 lerne, or Ireland. It is prolnihlc 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 deejily 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 vener- able Bede, who scattered some rays of light over the darkness of the eighth centmy. On this slight foundation, a huge super- structure 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. i^"* 11* 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 Man- chester, vol. i. p. 430, 431 ; and Genuine History of the Britons asserted, &c. , p. 154-293). Yet he acknowledfjes, i. That the Scots of Ammianus Marcellinus {..V). 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 (..T). 150) were of Caledonian e.xtraction. 4. That a younger branch of Caledonian princes, of the house of Fingal, acquired and