PREFACE.

Χρόνος άδηλος.

SECTION I

“THE beginning of nations, (fays our prince of poets, John Milton) thofe excepted of whom facred books have spoken, is to this day unknown. Nor only the beginning, but the deeds alfo of many fucceeding ages; yea, periods of ages, either wholly unknown, or obfcured and blemished with fables. That any law or fuperftition of the Druids forbad the Britons to write their memorable deeds, I know not why any, out of Cæfar, fhould alledge. He indeed faith, that their doctrine they thought not lawful to commit to letters; but in moft matters elfe, both in private and publick, among which well may history be reckoned, they used the Greek tongue. And that the British Druids, who taught those in Gaul, would be ignorant of any language known and used by their difciples, or fo frequently writing other things, and fo inquifitive into higheft, VOL. IV. No. XIII.

B

would

would for want of recording, be ever children in the knowledge of times and ages, is not likely. Whatever might be the reason, this we find, that of British affairs, from the first peopling of the island, to the coming of Julius Cæfar, nothing certain, either by tradition, history, or antient fame, hath hitherto been left us. That which we have of oldeft feeming, hath by the greater part of judicious antiquaries, been long rejected as a modern fable *."

Scripture, is certainly the only standard of all antient hiftory, and the touchftone by which the truth of it may be tried. Heathen writers, who, unaffifted by this, attempt to fearch into antiquity, have no stay whereon to reft. Herodotus on all occafions talks familiarly of a myriad of years before his time. The Greeks, fpeaking of their own country and its inhabitants, thought it enough to fay that they ever were Auroxoves, or Aborogines, and the antient Irish denominated themselves Atach-tuath t In Egypt, the priests were the poffeffors of learning, and intrusted with the public records. Heredotus, Plato and Diodorus went thither for information; when they talked of the duration of their monarchy, the round number, the priests generally affected to speak in, was ten thousand years ago. But they who pretended to be more exact, told Diodorus, that from their first king Ofiris to Alexander the great, were precifely 23,000 years.

The Greeks ftill knew lefs: they were totally ignorant of the hiftory of the elder ages and remote

*Milton's Hiftory of England.

+O Conor's State of Heathen Irish, No. XII.

countries;

countries; therefore they made their invention supply the want of the knowledge of facts,

quicquid Græcia mendax

Audet in hiftoriis

Yet this is the foundation of history impreffed on our minds at school; and with great difficulty can we unfhackle ourselves from our school education, when we come to more mature age. It is not furprizing that the Irish bards and hiftorians fhould follow the examples of the Greeks, whofe fables are extolled to the skies by our tutors: and so wanton have been our own countrymen to mislead the world in our own hiftory, that Jofeph of Exeter, afterwards archbishop of Bourdeaux, famous in poetry and good learning, under Henry II. and Richard I. compofed a poem under the name of Cornelius Nepos, where he makes the Britons aid Hercules at the rape of Hefione, and Apollo to aid them in the Trojan war." And indeed this critick age, (fays Selden, fpeaking of the Welsh Brutus) can scarce any longer endure any nation, their first supposed authors name, not Italus to the Italian, not Hifpalus to the Spaniard, Scota to the Scot, nor Romulus to his Rome, especially this of Brutus *."

And the very learned Gebelin expreffes himself thus, "on eft tojours etonnè quand on voit des favans auteurs s'egarer à ce point: il eft vrai que les Grecs eux-mêmes font de mauvais guides fur l'origin †.”

Selden's Notes on Drayton's Polyalbion. + Hiftoria Civile du Calendrier.

How then are we to trace the origin of Western nations? Are we to follow the fabulous Greeks, Græci profectò, levis, inconftans, mendax, fuperftitiofa gens femper habiti; qui aτgogado, veritatem novis fubinde figmentis ita immutarunt & penè obliterarunt, ut &c. &c. * Or fhall we depend on dubious etymology, and adopt the fyftems of Bochart, Heydegger, Berofus Annius Viterbenfis, &c. Can it be proved that countries have always been named from chiefs, princes and dukes, in preference to the fituation, features, or produce of the foil? No-the contrary appears in ten thousand inftances. What then is to be our guide? The fureft, is the language, laws, religion and cuftoms of the people, compared with thofe of other nations; "le langue d'une nation," fays Fourmont, "eft tojours le plus reconnoiffable de fes monumens; par elle on apprend fes antiquitez, on découvre fon origine."

It is by this never failing touchftone, that our great and impartial antiquary Lhwyd, takes upon him to declare, that the antient Scots of Ireland, were diftinct from the Britons of the fame kingdom; and that one may obferve in Cornwall, from the names of places, that another people once poffeffed that country; as one may from the names of places in fome parts of Wales, gather, that the Irish nation once inhabited there, particularly in Brecknockshire and Caermarthenshire +.

By the fame guide, I judge that the antient history of Ireland, is grounded on fact, that they are the

*Delphi Phæniciffantes.

+ Letter to Mr. Rowland, Mona Antiq. p. 342, 337.

immediate

1

immediate defcendants of the Pelafgi, and of the Tyrrheni, the defcendants of Atys or Atac, fon of Cotys, fon of Meon, the first king of Lydia and Phrygia; but whence the name of Atac? from whom do the Irish call themselves Atach-tuath? it bears the fame meaning as Peni, and both Atac and Peni in the Chaldæan language imply exiles, wanderers, Phoenicians.-Aiteac in Irifh alfo means a giant, a ruftick perfon, agriculture, (whence Attica) and likewise a first born fon. Diodorus tells us from Sanchon. that Ofiris left the care of tillage in Attica to Triptolemus, which in the Irish means no more than a tiller of the ground, i. e. Treabh-talamh; and Tarcon who headed the Pelafgi when driven by the Helenifts from Mæonia, I apprehend was fo called from Tarcon, a Hebrew word, fignifying an exile. See Plantavit's Lexicon Synon. Heb. and Chald.—In like manner Diodorus, after he has given a long detail of the genealogy of Ceres, fays it is only an allegory or figurative narration, for that it only alludes to the times, when bread corn and thofe > fruits of the earth that are called by the fame name with the goddess, were imported into Athens. Now this is the deity the Phoenicians worshipped at BethCar, and is the Irish Ceara or Kara, of which hereafter.

SECTION II.

The Oriental writers that have mentioned the Britannic islands, are many. Rab. Ab. Chaija, in his Sphæra mundi. Abarbanel, not only calls Ire