Ee 
as the * beft critics affure us, there are no Irifh MSS older 
than the tenth or eleventh century? But what eftablithes the 
veracity of Nennius, in declaring we had no hiftory, is, that 
Gildas, who flourifhed almoft three hundred years before him, 
affures } us, that if there were any national records, they were 
either burnt or carried away by enemies, for none appeared 
in the fixth century. Fordun makes the fame complaint in 
his Scotichronicon : he cannot determine the times of the reigns 
of the Scottifh kings between the two Ferguffes: Why? EBe- 
caufe there were | no authentic memorials of them. 
Ir was the uncertainty of tradition and the want of literary 
monuments that drove weak men to the § unreputable and 
difingenuous fhift of forging authorities. 
Sucu then feems to me the origin and grounds ef frifh 
romantic hiftory, a fubject of little curiofity and lefs value, yet 
neceflary to be thoroughly examined to be for ever exploded. In 
this enlightened age it can require no apology for expofing this 
wild chaos of abfurdity and fable; as it flands at prefent it 
reflects no honour on our native country, nor can its annihila- 
tion in the’ leaft injure it. But a ftrenuous fupport of bardie 
tales, the offspring of licentious fancies in rude and ignorant 
ages, 
* Aftle’s Origin of Writing, p. 116. Pinkerton’s Scotland, vol. I. 
+ Que fi qua fuerint, aut ignibus hoftium exufta, aut civium exilii claffe longius deportata, 
pon compareant. Gild. de excid. Brit. p. 69- 
+ Quia ad plenum fcripta non reperimus. Scotochron. |. 3. ¢- 2. 
§ See Stillingfleet’s Britith Churches on this fubject, pref. and 5th chapter. 
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