4& 



for Irishmen ! They welcomed and cherished the stranger, for they 

 too " were strangers in the land of Egypt !" 



Their protectors, it would appear, were powerfully excited by the 

 misfortunes of these refugees, and in thorough consistence with the 

 pelican sympathy, which ever led Ireland to shed her blood for those 

 who sought shelter in her bosom, on this occasion too, her king, 

 Crimthan, who, on the death of the before-mentioned Lugad, had 

 become monarch of Ireland, crossed the seas to stay the march of 

 Roman oppression, and vindicate the rights of these expatriated wan- 

 derers. 



Tacitus is perhaps the only external source from which light could 

 be thrown on this interesting subject ; but Tacitus, (says Mr. James 

 Mac-Pherson,*) is silent as to the name of Crimthan, and in his usual 

 short-sighted criticism, the aforesaid antiquarian relies upon this infe- 

 rence, as a positive refutation of an expedition so expressly detailed by 

 the Irish writers ; but the fallacy of this subterfuge, for it must not be 

 called argument, needs no reply. Has Tacitus emblazoned the names 

 not to say of the generals, but of the nations who composed the army 

 of Boadicea against Paulinus .'' Has he particularised who was that 

 prince of the Ordovices that assisted the gallant Caractacus ? — No, 

 he was too judicious an historian to waste his valuable pages in an idle 

 gazette of names ; but so far from being silent as to the broad fact of 

 there being such auxiliaries of the Britons, he does furnish ample 

 testimony of their active interference. 



How unanswerable would be the appeal to his not more elegant 

 than faithful and instructive history, if it could be discovered there 

 that Ireland, in the zenith of Roman power, and even by Agricola 

 himself, was regarded with a deep and cautious policy, as the depot, 



C > .. * Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, p, 101. 



VOL. XVI. u 



