104 
Persians, the name Daire, or Darius, had the meaning and 
Hebrew root of Daroo. No name was more common than Daire, 
among the native Irish princes. In the Irish version of the Bible, 
the magi, or wise men of the east, are called Draozthe, Druids. 
Of what are denominated the Celtic dialects, the Irish, the Earse, 
the Welsh, the Manks, the Cornish, the Armoric, and the Canta- 
brian, none comes nearer to the Persic than the Irish. Between 
both there is an actual identity ; and that too in words peculiar 
to the wants of early Society. Language isa sure clue to the pa- 
rentage of nations ; and, where annals and language agree, histori- 
cal certainty is complete. ‘“ In explaining words of common use, 
we are allowed,” says Vossius, “ to look to their agreement with an- 
cient words; and, in this operation, to pass from the colony to the 
parent nation.”* The Irish annals are diffuse in recording, that 
Ireland had received an early colony from that part of Iran, or 
Persia, which borders on the Caspian. This tribe were Scythians, 
though generally called Caduceans or Caspians. They mixed with 
the Canaanites or Pheenicians ; shared in their maritime enterprises ; 
and with them settled successively in Lybia, Sicily, Spain, and the 
Britannic Isles, the Casseterides of the Phoenician merchants. So 
say our annalists, who are in exact accord with Trogus and Justin, 
in their accounts of the brilliant triumphs of the Scythians in upper 
Asia, as far as Syria, and to the confines of Egypt, which latter 
they put under contribution. The Scythic name is still preserved 
in that of the Scuwits, or Scots of Ireland and North Britain. 
Boxhorn properly observes, that the Persians were descended from 
the Scythians. 
I have been led from words to things—from language to the 
* Etymologicon, &c. 
