will not be perfuaded, but that a Jewish colony once fettled in Ireland.

The Scythians were certainly the defcendants of Magog, not of Phaleg. They mixed with the Phoenicians of Beth-San, Tyre and Sidon. They conquered Affyria, and when they lost that crown, fome remained in Cælo-Syria, where they were again joined by the Phænicians. They paffed with them, from thence to Crete: And it has been the opinion of many learned men, that the Phænicians were originally from Crete. Fortunatus Scacchus, a very learned man, in his Arcanum, S. S. Myrothec. chap. 17. Corethos & Pheletheos non Ifraelitas, fed alienigenas fuiffe.-Phoenices Cretenfium colonos, eo nomine fignificari alii arbitrantur, cujus fententiæ eft Auenor in eadem radice Phænices ab Creta originem traxiffe, Cretenfiumve coloniam Phoeniciam extitiffe, dicunt aliqui fobodorari poffe, ex Phænico porto, quem infulæ Cretæ adfcripfiffe ferunt Ptolemæum in ora auftrali.

ךכרת

Facit etiam ad hoc probandum illud Sophon. 2 Veh. qui habitas funiculum maris gens perditorum, i. e.

ghui or ghoi Cerethim, i. e. gens Cerethim. Again in Ezech. ch. 25. Ecce ego extendam manum meam fuper Palæftinos, & interficiam interfectores, & perdam reliquias maritimæ regionis; the Hebrew text reads thus, Ecce ego extendam manum meam fuper Philifthüm, & fuccidere faciam Cerethos. And in this place Aquila, Theodotius and Symacchus, have retained the word Cerethem Kig, but fome Greek copies have Keras, Cretas. This probably led Tacitus into the mistake of deriving the Jews from Crete. Judæos Creta infula profugos,

profugos, noviffima Libyæ infediffe memorant. (L. 5. Hift.)

The Hebrew " ghoi, fignifies a detefted people. Homo gentilis. Sic Judæi quem vis vocant, qui non eft de populo Ifrael, maximè tamen Chriftianis hoc nomen dedere. Nam Turcas appellant lifmeelim, five Ifmaelitas. Etiam unum hominem nominant ghoi contra verum linguæ ufum, & naturam vocabuli; (Buxtorf Lex. Chald.) In like manner, the Irish call the Saxons Guith-ban; the white detefted people; and Guith-ban, became at length the name of England (Shaw's Irish Dict.) but their own people and fellow countrymen, the Scots of Britain, they named Eilbonnac, from Eile a tribe, bonn good, and aice race; and thus I believe Eilban foon became the name of England, instead of Guidhban, whence Albania. This I am induced to think the origin of the word, because I obferve in the Irifh MSS. the Scots feated in Britain are named Albanac, and in truth, it is the name the Highlanders or Erfe diftinguish themselves by at this day; whereas by Eiris, or Eirinn, and Eirinnach, they mean the owners of the foil.

Bishop Cumberland derives the word Palæstinus, from pelas or plas, which he obferves from Caftle's Heptaglot. fignifies to befmear with duft and ashes and therefore the proper origin of Peleus at the mouth of the Nile; but he allows, that in the Samaritan or Ethiopic, the fame word w imports peregrinatiò, migratio de loco in locum. So likewife Pleas, Phleas or Fleas, in the antient Pelafgian-Irish, fignifies to wander, to which add ghoi, a people or nation, it forms Pelafgoi, the wandering people; the

very

very idea by which the Greeks have expreffed that people, quafi Pelafgoi, cranes, wanderers. The Irish ftill retain the word in phleafgac or fleafgach, a wanderer, ftroller, having no fettled home, and with the modern Irish, it implies a piper, fidler, or harper, ftrolling from town to town, or from houfe to house.

It is of no great importance, if this be the proper etymology of the Pelafgi or not; certain it is, that the Irish do preserve the remembrance of Plafg or Pelafgus, in their genealogies. In the Reim-rioghhre, or royal calendars, in the fuppofed colony of the TuathDadananns, they make Pleft or Palest, the fifth generation from Noah, and Pelafg or Plafg, the fifteenth; and five generations from him, they place Breas, who, it is faid led the colony to Ireland.

As I think it is evident, that Phoenician, Pelafgian and Etrufcan colonies, did fettle in Britannia magna and Britannia parva, or England and Ireland, I am naturally led to feek the etymology of the name Britannia, in the Irish language. Setting afide Geoffry's idle story of the Trojan Brutus, we will fhew what others have faid of this name. And firft, that great etymological luminary, Bochart; he derives it from the Phoenician barat ager, and anak stannum, i. e. the field of tin; brot in the Irish, means the borders of a country, from whence by tranfpofition of letters, the French border, and English border. I think Bochart was mifled by Strabo and Ptolemy, who write it gravi (Brettanica) which is certainly an adjective, and is defective in fense without vos (an ifland) joined to it.

Secondly, Camden, he is certainly right in the termination Tava (tania) which in Hebrew, Syriac,

Irifh,

Irish, and all Oriental languages, fignifies a country or region; but he is as much at a lofs what to make of the first part of the word brit, as I am of the latter part tannike, unlefs I derive it from tinam, to fufe, to melt, which is certainly the root of the English word tin.

England was called Luigria by the Irish, and by the Welsh corrupted into Lloyger; it was fo called, fays Lewis, before the year of Chrift 586; fhortly after which time, Lecefter, the chief city of the Mercians, was called Leogera; and when they became Christians, their bishops were called Præfules Leogerenfes. (Antient Hift. of Britain, p. 29.)

It is allowed by all hiftorians that these two iflands were vifited by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, for the lead, tin and copper, with which they abounded. In Irifh brut and luig fignify lead; aon and tan, and ria a country, hence Brutaon, Bruttan and Luigria, do all imply the country of lead and tin; and fo much for Geoffry's Laegrus the fon of Brutus. Brut in Irifh, fignifics alfo pitch, tar, or whatever is readily fufed, or acted on by brot, i. e. fire; whence I believe the Hebrew by prut, lead, or any bafe metal.

But say the opponents of Irish history, there is no foundation in the annals of the Phoenicians or Carthaginians, that they did fail to Ireland or England; that remark is eafily anfwered. Nor are we without authority that they did come here. Gorijonides in his book de Hannibale, 1. 3. ch. 15, fays, that Hannibal conquered the Britains, who dwell in the ocean

We have no fuch בריטניה היושכים באוקיינוס,fca

conqueft recorded in the hiftory of Magna Britannia,

but

but as I have shewn, more than once, the hiftory of Ireland or Parva Brittannia, declares they did conquer this country, impofed grievous taxes on the inhabitants, who were relieved by their old friends and allies the Pelafgians or Etrufcans, from Croton.

These islands were known to the Carthaginians, Greeks and Arabs, by the name of the fortunate iflands. They were the Elyfian fields of the Arabs and of the Greeks. Selden has written much to the purpose on this fubject, in his X. Scriptor. Anglic. And Ifaac Tzetzes pofitively declares, "in oceano infula illa Brittania, inter Brittaniam illam quæ fita eft in occidente & Thylen quæ ad orientem magis vergit."" Id eft," fays Selden, "Britannia magna feu Albion quam fic collocat ille inter Britanniam alteram feu parvam, quæ Hibernia eft & Thulen, de cujus fitu haud parum difcrepant chorographi tum veteres tum recentiores; Illuc aiunt (adds Tzetzes) etiam mortuorum animas tranfvchi, ad bunc modum fcribentes;" to which Selden replies, " et fane Tzetes hofce intelligo, in litore Britanniæ magnæ volunt reperiri navigia illa animabus onufta, indeque illa cum remigibus, impetu unico, ad HIBERNIAM adpelli, tunc SCOTIAM itidem vocitatam.

Juftus Lipfius is another authority. He quotes the following paffage from Aristotle. “In mari extra Herculis columnas, infulam defertam inventam fuiffe, filva nemorofam, fluviis navigabilem, fructibus uberem, multorum dierum navigatione diftantem, in quam crebrò Carthaginienfes commearint, & multi fedes etiam fixerunt; fed veritos primorcs, ne nimis loci illius opes convalefcerent, & Carthaginis laberentur, edicto caviffe & poena capitis fanxiffe, nequis

eò