geographer, who first estabHshed a distinction of cUmate by the 

 difference of the days and nights, and who is supposed to have written 

 his yr]g TrepioSov or survey of the earth, 400 years before the days of 

 Strabo, places Ireland west of Britain, yet Strabo treats him on that 

 very account as a man of no sort of truth, (" homo mendacissimus.")* 

 Imperfect and conflicting as are these geographical illustrations, it 

 will be far more difficult to obtain such a regular continued view of 

 the history of this period, as shall rely exclusively on external evidence. 

 From the testimony of Eumenius, in the panegyric which he wrote to 

 Constantius Caesar, and which coincides with the Irish accounts, -f it 

 appears that the Irish, immediately previous to Caesar's conquest of 

 Britain, had, like the Picts, fitted out various expeditions for the 

 plunder of that country. " Besides," says the Rhetorician, speaking 

 of the people of England with an intricacy that savours of the decay 

 of elegant Latinity, and leaves the present assumption the only evident 

 member of the sentence, "Besides, this nation was then uncultivated, 

 and being only accustomed to contend with the Picts of the British 

 soil, and with half naked Irish enemies, easily yielded to the Roman 

 arms."."}: The usual objection of cavillers, that the Irish are not meant 

 by " Hibernis," is removed by the definition of the same author, who 

 in a few pages after says, " Not that by so many and such great 

 actions he merely deigned to possess himself of the woods and 

 marshes of the Caledonians and other Picts, nor of their neighbour 

 Hibernia, nor remote Thule, nor of the Fortunate Islands, (if there are 

 any such,) but, &c."§ And although Innes objects,l| that it does not 



* See CConor, Catal. Stow. vol. 1. pp. 65, 67. f Ogygia, vol. 2. p. 41. 



X " Adlioc natio etiam tunc rudis et soli Brittanni Pictis modo, et Hibernis assueta hosti- 

 bus adhuc seminudis, facile Romanis armis signisque cesserunt." — Paneg. Vet. Paris 1676. 



§ " Neque enim ille tot tantisque rebus gestis, non dico Caledonum aliorumque Pictorum 

 silvas et paludes, sed nee Hibemiam proximam, nee Thulen ultimam, nee ipsas (si qua; sunt) 

 Fortunatorum insulas dignabatur acquirere, sed," &c. — Paneg. Vet. p. 205. 



II Critical Essay, vol. 2. p. 519. 



VOL. XVI. G 



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