172 



passage in the Confession of Saint Patrick, it would appear as if the 

 tribes from other countries were still distinguished from the Scots, 

 and that the latter composed the dominant party ; for where the holy 

 author is endeavouring to shew that not only many of the lower order 

 in Ireland had become Christians, but likewise some persons of the 

 better class, he applies the term Hiberni, i. e. inhabitants of Hibernia, 

 to the bulk population, as Festus Avienus had done in the passage 

 before cited, [ante, p. 31,) but of the higher order he speaks as Scots, 

 petty kings, and nobles.* Moses Choronensis, an Armenian bishop, 

 and writer of the fifth-f- century, describes Ireland as having sixteen 

 principal rivers and many nations, while in Bertram's edition of the 

 works of Richard of Cirencester, there is preserved a highly interesting 

 engraving of a Roman map of Ireland, which Richard himself saysj 

 he discovered in his travels in Italy. It is not so accurate as Pto- 

 lemy's, but is most valuable as evidencing the Roman ideas of that 

 island in the fifth century, (of which age the map is supposed to be.) 

 It makes the Ibernii but a small nation in the south of the island, 

 while the Scoti are marked as extending over all the interior. It 

 also places Laberus, as before mentioned, § in the country of the 

 Voluntii.ll 



The natural history of Ireland in this period is noticed by 

 Orosius, who prefers its climate to that of Britain,** while Adamnan, 

 in his Life of Columba, mentions a species of apple tree as known in 



* " Filii Scotorum et filiaB regulorvm monachi et virgines Christi esse videntur, et etiam 

 una benedicta Scotta genitiva nobilis pulclierrima adulta erat, quam ego baptizavi." 



f Geog. sec. 19. % Itin. lib. 1. c. 7. 



§ Ante, p. 72. 



II See further as to this map in Mr. Hardiman's paper, in the fourteenth volume of the 

 Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. 



** " Coeli solisque temperie magis utilis."— Hist. lib. 1. c. 2. 



