52 ' 



interested information is quite satisfactory for the author of the 

 " Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland," and 

 what Tacitus does not for a moment insinuate, that either he or his 

 father-in-law even entertained as feasible suggestions, Mr. James 

 Mac-Pherson sets down as axioms, whereon to ground his attacks on 

 Irish antiquity,* and his assertions of the impotence of the Irish na- 

 tion : but to use the comment of Sir John Davis, "we make no doubt 

 thatif Agricola had attempted the conquest thereof with a far greater 

 army, he would have found himself deceived in his conjecture. "-j' Nor 

 should Mr. Mac-Pherson, even had Tacitus affixed his credit to the 

 depositions of the " regulus," have ventured to urge the opinion of a 

 Roman, as conclusive for vilifying what Rome considered a barbarous 

 nation ! The baffled expedition of that very Agricola against the 

 Caledonians might illustrate the miscalculating vanity of the Romans ; 

 and more than this, Strabo, a few lines before that passage relative 

 to the manners of the Irish, which Mr. James Mac-Pherson so often 

 cites without its neutralizing context, will be found estimating the 

 strength of Britain with like erroneous gasconade, as that it would 

 take a whole legion and a few horse to keep it tributary I".]: But 

 sounder considerations withheld these " terrarum dominos" from the 

 Irish shores, and though they continued to harass Britain for upwards 

 of three centuries after this event, yet, says William of Neuburg, 

 " Ireland never having been invaded by the Romans, even when they 

 held the dominion of the Orkney Islands, and rarely and that but 

 weakly assailed by any other, yielded to no foreign power up to the 

 yearll71."§ 



• Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, p. 82. 

 f Historic. Relat. p. 7. 



(*i T«{ itvTUf. — Geog. lib. 4. V. 1. p. 307. Casaub. edit. 



\ " Hibernia Romanis etiam Orcadiun insularum dominium tenentibus inaccessa, raro et 



