m 



name of Scotia Minor took his offspring." Higden adopts the same 

 argument for the above colonization,* and even Mac-Pherson admits its 

 force. Ortelius says, "The Scots, originally o( Spaiiish descent, from 

 the province of Cantabria, thence migrating to Ireland, at length 

 made a settlement in Scotland." -^ Camden tiansmits the opinion, J 

 Spelman coincides, § Bishop Leslie, Chancellor Elphinstone, and 

 John Major, confess the truth of this origin of the Scots. So does 

 Kennedy in his Chronology of the Stuart Line, and Doctor Robertson 

 commences his History of Scotland with a full admission of the 

 event. v^auj 



Need we add that the name of Erse, or Irish, given by the low 

 country Scotch to the language of the Highlanders, is a certain proof 

 of the traditional opinion derived from father to son, that the latter 

 people came originally from Ireland.il The occurrence of Mac in 

 many of the family names of Scotland, is another evidence of the 

 same class, while the total absence of the O, as a titular cognomen, 

 shews that the heads of the emigrating families remained, and were 

 always recognised to be, (as is usual,) in the mother country — Ireland, 

 In a word, the poetical antiquarian, Mr. James Mac-Pherson, in a vain 

 display of authorities, which he thinks he can "level to the dust," fur- 

 nishes the climax of his own confutation. " Could ancient tradition, 

 the belief of ages, the positive assertions of English antiquaries and 

 Irish annalists, and the universal acquiescence of the historians of the 

 British Scots,** be sufficient to establish the credit of the Hiberniah 



• Cited in 3 O'Conor, Rer. Hib. Script, vol. 3. p. 79. 



t " Scoti, qui ex Hispania (Cantabria) oriundi, atque inde in Hiberniam migrantes, tan- 

 dem in Scotia sedem fixere." — Thesaurus, title Scoti. 



t Britannia, title Scotia, p. 707. § Glossary, title Oye. 



II See Hume's England, vol. 1. c. 1. 



** All the ancient Scotch poems, prefixed to Lhuid's Archaeologia, support the coloniza- 

 tion of Scotland from Ireland. 



I 2 



