fly from the beaten iron, the men laid hold of their wives, these of their children, and all fled. Lagediack was the first whom we could convince of the unreasonableness of his fear; and, to prove to him the utility of the forges, we made a neat harpoon very quickly, and gave it to him. His joy at this present was excessive; holding it above his head, he called back his comrades, who, encouraged by his example, again collected round us. Another harpoon for Rarick, and some fish-hooks for my favourites, were made in their presence, and their attachment to us increased in the same proportion, as every new art raised us in their estimation. The forge was left on shore for the night, under the care of the smith, and Lagediack promised to watch, in order that nothing might be stolen.

The 25th.—The night passed on shore without any one attempting to come near the forge. When the work was begun again in the morning, an old man laid hold of a piece of iron, with which he ran off; but his comrades, pursuing him with the cry, eabuderi! (stealing,) overtook him, and were obliged to take away his prey from him by force. Without the least embarrassment he returned to his seat, raving against all who had pursued him, and immediately after tried to seize upon another piece, when he was effectually driven away. This old man, who was here on a visit from another island, could hardly be called a thief, as he committed his robbery publicly, and merely tried to exercise the right of the strongest.

On the 26th the pigs, to which the islanders had by this time become accustomed, were brought on shore and given to Rarick, near whose but they were placed within a small enclosure. A sailor was left on shore for some days to teach the inhabitants how to treat these animals. Rarick was still so much afraid of them that he would not approach them; when, on landing, their grunting struck upon his ear, he and the women, who had never been on board, fled at the sight of thein into the woods. I wandered through the island with my gun, hoping to meet with some land-bird that I might shoot, but I saw none, except a few wild pigeons. Rarick and Lagediack accompanied me, and, wishing to give them an idea of fire-arms, I showed them a water-snipe, standing at about fifty yards from us, on the shore, and shot it; but in the same moment I repented my rashness, as both were lying at my feet, whining aloud, and hiding their heads in the grass. It was only after repeatedly assuring them they had suffered no harm, that they rose up, but still trembled and looked timidly upon the gun, which was placed against a tree. The sight of the bleeding bird was not calculated to make a joke of the matter; they remained mistrustful and timiri, and ran away as soon as they thought them.selves unnoticed. I had great difficulty in regaining their confidence; I never dare show myself again with a gun.

FROM TIE BRITISH REVIEW

ON THE ORIGINAL POPULATION OF IRELAND. 1. An Inquiry concerning the primitive Inhabitants of Ireland ; illustrated by Ptolemy's Map, corrected by the lid of Bardic History. By Thomas Wood, M. D. author of an essay “On the Mixture of Fable and Fact in the early Annals of Ireland; and on the best Mode of ascertaining what Degree of Credit these ancient Docu

ments are justly entitled to. 8vo. pp. 310. London, 1821. 2. Chronicles of Eri; being the History of the Gaal Sciot Iber, or the

Irish People'; translated from the Original Manuscripts in the Phoenician Dialect of the Scythian Language. By O'Connor. 8vo. 2 vols.

pp.

944. 1822. The former of these works lay before us while recently investigating the original population of Britain; and our remarks upon it were postponed, only that we might connect them with such as should be demanded by the long announced "Chronicles of Eri,” which have since appeared. The latter performance having been elaborately puffed by the same periodical publication, and in the same sceptical style, as the “ New Researches of Ancient History, by C. F. Volney," we had no room to doubt of its hostility to revealed religion : but we did not ex. pect to find it, from the beginning to the end, altogether constructed for the purpose. We can only infer, that infidelity feels itself to be on its last legs: and that, as help can no longer be derived from the supposed Zodiac of Dendera (which has now been dragged forth into open day,) a still more desperate attempt must be made to insist, even by dint of Irish traditions, that the Bible is needless and false, rather than wholly relinquish the contest.

With this notice, we should (for the present) dismiss “O'Connor Cier-rige, Head of his Race,” “and chief of the prostrated people of his nation;" as his titles stand, annexed to a frontispiece which represents him with a manuscript in his left hand, and his right grasping a Crown; but that his title-page may be so unintelligible to our readers, as to render a brief exposition of it acceptable, before we proceed to the proper subject of this article. Gaal signifies merely a tribe; Sciot is its assumed name, whence that of Scotland originated; and Iber was that of some of its reputed ancestors. The Irish is the language intended, though certainly not recognizable by the description. of the Scythian language, nothing is known, but that it had affinity to the Sarmatian (Herodotus, Melp. 117). Of the Phænician, or Punic, also, we know little more, than, from Augustin's testimony, that it nearly resembled the Hebrew; which is corroborated by the ease with which the Punic scenes of Plautus have been accommodated to Hebrew phrases of similar import by Bochart and others. Irish and Bâs-breton, indeed, have been made of the same passages, but in defiance equally of meaning and etymology. With the ancient Sarmatian, the modern Slavonic dialects are historically connected: and these are alike remote from Irish and from Hebrew. As it is not, however, the first time that Irish has been mistaken for Hebrew, or that Scots have been identified with Scythians, such blunders might be excusable in the author : but what can we say, when he insists that the Gothic radically Vol. I. No.5,-Museum.

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differed from the German, and the Welsh from the Irish languages? At the same time, he plainly does not know Welsh from Irish; for he attributes to the Irish the population of Wales, Cornwall, and Bretagne. Of Gothic, he seems never even to have heard that Ulphilas translated the Gospels into that language. Yet he rests his argument, for the origins of the Irish and other nations, chiefly and constantly on radical distinctions of language: and nearly two hundred pages of a rhapsody which he strangely entitles "Demonstration,” are filled with

“ what he calls Etymologies! In Latin and Greek terms, alone, any real similitude of Irish appears; and this is only such as is common to all the southern languages of Europe. He might have found much stronger resemblances in the Gothic dialects, which he asserts to be wholly foreign to the Irish language; but these may easily be accounted for without any radical affinity. It is, notwithstanding, perfectly consistent for the author to charge those who are not versed in Irish, with ignorance of all languages; because this is evidently the only one with which he is himself acquainted. Even his English is such as never was written before, nor will probably ever be written again. In the orthography of proper names, we can make large allowance for errors of the press : but when so familiar a word as Mesopotamia, which recurs times beyond number in these volumes, is uniformly spelt Messipotamia, we cannot give the author the benefit of this shelter.

“Should any captious person,” says he, “be inclined to entertain suspicion of the antiquity of these manuscripts, I heg leave to observe, that I do not presume to affirm that the very skins, whether of sheep or of goats, are of a date so old as the events recorded: but this I will assert, that they must be faithful transcripts from the most ancient records ; it not being within the range of possibility, either from their style, language, or contents, that they could have been forged.” (Preface, p. ix.)

The absurdity of such an assertion is manifest. If there is a book in the world, the contents of which demonstrate the forgery of them to be impossible, we certainly have never seen such a book, excepting the Bible: yet we are not required to believe even that, merely on this ground; because, in addition to (at least) the extreme improbability that such a book ever could have been forged, we are furnished with incomparably stronger external evidence of its authenticity, than of any other book that is extant. To such authority, it is plain that the “ Chronicles of Eri,” have no shadow of pretence; and as to their internal evidence, it is with the fullest conviction, after a complete and careful examination, that we advance the exact reverse of the author's assertion; and insist, that they cannot but have been forged. From first to last, marks of contrivance are prominent. Circumstances and names are usually accommodated to facts that are misunderstood, and to current opinions that are erroneous. The sacred Scriptures are pirated with the avowed design of subverting their claim to inspiration. Laws, customs, teachers, and kings, far excelling all historical pattern, are ascribed, for above thirteen centuries preceding our era, to the very people whom Diodorus Siculus and others, about the time of its commencement, described as cannibals; and the sentiments, political, moral, and anti-christian, that were broached by French philosophers of the last century, are attributed to personages supposed to have lived 3000 years ago. Of this writer's correctness our readers may

a

judge from his venturing to state, in three several parts of his work, that Dean Prideaux, in his well-known “ Connexion of Sacred and Profane History," denied the credibility of the Hebrew Scriptures! What Prideaux asserted of Rabbinical traditions, is represented by Mr. O'Connor to have been said of the Bible.*

When the pledge of our early attention to Irish antiquities was given, we were aware that the subject of investigation differed much from the origin of our own population. Ireland having never been comprised in the Roman empire, classical information of its state can hardly be expected. Neither does it appear, that any thing like the Welsh historical triads was preserved memoritèr, from remote epochs, in the sister island. But while these advantages for research must be relinquished, it may fairly be maintained, that the balance of traditional records, in the ninth century of our era, was in favour of Ireland. Nennius, who frankly reported all the information that he received, was evidently imposed upon as to British traditions, by forgeries of Romanizing Britons. What he reported of Ireland, he avouches to have received from (peritissimis Scottorum) the most learned Scots. That there were such in his time, is well known. The three preceding centuries had produced many natives of Ireland that were emi. nent for the literature of that period. It was the effect of the rapid and extensive progress of the gospel, after its establishment in Ireland, in the fifth century. That its population, till then, remained as uncivilized as most of the South-sea islanders now are, and as all of them were twenty years ago, is intimated by obscure vestiges of authentic history. "The mere profession of Christianity could not but produce important changes in the customs of such a people; which, accordingly, is asserted by contemporary writers: but we do not assimilate these to the transformation recently effected by Christianity in the Georgian and Society islands, or among the liberated negroes at Sierra Leone. We know how destitute of education the English were, at Alfred's accession, soon after Nennius's time. Of the five languages in which, at the time of Bede, the gospel was preached in Britain, the Latin alone seems to have been commonly written; and this, in Ireland, was likely to be studied only in the numerous monasteries, where noble and royal pupils were instructed, that they might impart Christianity to their kindred in Britain (the northern Picts), to the Angli of Northumbria, and to various northern nations of Europe. What Nennius received from such men, may reasonably be depended upon, though not as historical fact, yet as the most credible tradition of that age, and greatly to be preferred to later and less probable legends. The substance of Nennius's report is as follows.

The first ancestor of the Irish was a noble Scythian, who, with his numerous family, resided in Egypt, at the time when the Israelites removed thence to Canaan. Being expelled by the Egyptians, the Scythian conducted his people westward in Africa during forty-two

If our readers deem it incredible that any man should publish so preposterous a statement, we request them to compare Prideaux's Connexion, Part I. Book 5. (pp. 501-503, 9th ed.) with O'Connor's first vol. p. viii. That he especially relied upon this argument against the Bible, appears from his double repetition of it, pp: cx. cxxvi. Though infidel writers, in general, trust greatly to the ignorance and indolence of their readers, few would venture to quote a book so familiarly known, in direct contradiction to its uniform purport.

years, by the lake Salinarum, to the Aræ Philenorum, on the Greater Syrtis. Thence they passed between Rusicada and the mountains Azare, situated between Tunis and Algiers; and arriving at the river Malwa (the boundary of Algiers and Fez), proceeded by sea to the strait, and landed in Spain. After remaining there many years, and greatly multiplying, they came to Ireland 1002 years after the Exodus, or nearly 600 before the Christian era.

The first Scots (or Irish) who came from Spain to Ireland, were 1,000 of both sexes, conducted by Bartholomew: but these, after having increased to 4,000, were cut off by pestilence, in one week. A second party, conducted by Nimech, is said to have been a year and half at sea, before they arrived in Ireland, where their ships were wrecked. After remaining there many years, they returned to Spain.

Afterwards came three sons of a certain warrior of Spain, with thirty ships, with the same number of men, and as many women, in each; of which only one vessel reached Ireland, where it was wrecked, but all the crew were preserved, and peopled the whole country. The other ships were reported to have encountered at sea a glassy tower (seemingly an ice-island) on which were people with whom they could not converse; and all the crews landing upon it, to attack them, it sank with all of them together. Other parties successively arrived from Spain, and occupied various parts of Ireland. The latest was conducted by Clamhoctor (Clanna-Uachtar, the Uachtarich or Vecturiones*) and continued to reside there: Historeth, son of Istorinús, (the Horestii) took possession of Dalrieta in Britain, at the time when Brutus founded the Roman consulate. Builc and his followers occupied Eubonia (the Isle of Man); and the sons of Vethan obtained possession of the country of the Dimecti (Demetia, or South Wales), and spread to Guiber and Guely; but were expelled from all the British territories by Cuneda and his sons.

The last transaction is confirmed by British history, which dates the reign of Cuneda from 328 to 389 A.D. His eldest son died in the Isle of Man; the rest were rewarded with districts which they had recovered from the Irish in Wales. The Welsh Chronicles, written during the eleventh century, in Bretagne, relate that a British king, named Gwrgant, returning from Dassia, at the Orkney Islands met thirty ships full of men and women, conducted by Barthlome, or Partholan. They were Barclenses, who had been expelled from Spain,

. and had been at sea a year and half seeking a place of settlement. Gwrgant directed them to Ireland, which then lay waste and uninhabited; and they went thither, peopled the country, " and their descendants are to this day in Ireland.” (Roberts's Chronicle of the Kings of Britain, p. 61.)

Gwrgant was nephew of Brennus, or Brān, who is said to have joined in a Celtic invasion of Italy, when Porsanna reigned in Tuscany, about five centuries before our era. This is the same date assigned by the Irish traditions to the first settlement of the Scots in Britain, about a century later than their arrival in Ireland, if their date of the Exodus was nearly correct. It is, indeed, very improbable that the Irish knew any thing of the Jewish, or even of the Roman history, prior to their reception of Christianity; and such adjustments of dates