[ 32 ] 



by cotemporary writers, as well as all the Scottifh hiftorlans 'till 

 the prefent century. The firft paffage that I fhall quote in fupport 

 of this fyftem is from Buchanan ; not that the antiquity of this 

 elegant writer, gives him any right to p-^iority, but chiefly be- 

 caufe the paffage I refer to reaches ftill farther back than the 

 prefent qucftion, and expreffes his opinion of the veracity of the 

 Irifh accounts of their own origin in better terms than I can 

 fubftitute in their place. 



After declaring his belief of a colony from Spain having 

 fought and eftabliflied a fettlement in Ireland, as being the 

 only country near them where they could effed it, and the 

 moft favourable to their idle difpofition from the rlchnefs of 

 its foil, where they might indulge a paftoral life without the 

 toils of agriculture, he proceeds " Sed nee gentis cujufque de 

 " fuis majoribus oplnionem quEe verifimilibus conjedluris inni- 

 " titur, & teftimonio vetufto confirmatur, repudiandum ex- 

 " iftlmo. Nam C. Tacitus occidentale latus Britanniae, Sive 

 " Albii, a pofteris Hifpanorum coli, certa, ut ipfi videtur, 

 " conjedura affirmat : Verifimile autem non eft, Hifpanos, re- 

 " li£la a Tergo Hibernla, Terra propiore, et Cash & Soli mitio- 

 " ris, in Albium primum defccndiffe ; fed in Hiberniam ap- 

 " puliffe, atque Inde, in Britanniam colonos miffos ; quod et 

 " Scot is contigijfe, otnnes eoruni annales affirmant^ et Beda Libro 

 " primo teftatur. Scoti enim, omnes Hiberniae habitatores initio 

 " vocabantur ; ut indicat Orofius ; nee Semel Scotorum ex Hi- 

 " bernia tranfitum in Albium fadum Nojiri Annales referunt, 

 " fed primum duce Fergufio Ferchardi filio, deinde, poft 



aliquot 



