158 



mals; for after all it does not appear but "the slain," ("interempto- 

 rum,") might refer to animals perhaps sacrificed after victory ; at 

 least Dioscorides, a medical writer of the days of Nero, permits them 

 the use of a more humane and palatable liquor, which he calls "Kovpfit 

 (TKBva^onsvov EK Tr}Q KpiOr]£,"* and which he says was preferred to wine, 

 though injurious to the head, the secretions and the nerves, and adds, 

 as to the process of making it, (" o-Kev^erai de ck Kvpcov rot. avra 

 TTOf^iaTa <i)£ ev tt] Tvpog scnrepnv lt:j]pia kui BpETTavia.*')* Camden 

 conjectures-f- that this drink was no other than the well known 

 " cwrw" of the Welsh, while it is worthy of observation, that accord- 

 ing to Herodotus,:J: beer was the common drink of the Egyptians. 



As to the rest of the charge, and the giving the male children 

 their first food on the point of the sword, will the scholar shudder at 

 it, who has read with enthusiam of Amilcar swearing his infant son at 

 the altar to eternal enmity with Rome, who has admired the Spar- 

 tan matron, that handing the shield to her warrior youth, exclaimed 

 (" H Tt] t) em rrj.") Are these classical, and is that barbarous ? 

 But why dwell on Solinus, who has described the inhabitants of 

 Thule as eating grass and straw,§ and who actually writes of men 

 and women, whose feet were contrived like those of horses, and whose 

 ears were long enough to cover their whole bodies. II 



It is true that Saint Jerome, in the out-pouring of his zeal 

 against the Irish nation, whom he represents as Pagans, or heretics, 

 professing the Pelagian heresy, seems to lend his name and authority 

 to the cannibalism of that people, as well as to their promiscuous concu- 



* Dioscorides, lib. 2. c. 110. f See Britanoia. 



t Lib. 2. cited in Laughton's History of Ancient Egypt, p. 55. 



§ Polyhist, c. 35. 



U As cited by Dr. Mac-Pherson, Crit. Diss. p. 208. 



