114 
Historical and Geographical Dictionary, headed Hipernia. If this 
Rabinic prediction be supposed to embrace the British Isles, gener- 
ally, it is happily verified in the present powerful sway of the 
British empire. On the map of the Globe, that region appears as 
a little dot, yet, it is the seat of universal maritime power—the im- 
pregnable fortress in the west—imperium universi in angulo fortis- 
simo qui est ad Caurum. That Syrians and Tyrians, whom we 
cannot separate from the Phoenicians, had not only visited, but also 
colonized, these Isles, as the quotation from Posellus and his Jewish 
authorities affirms, is a fact established by history, and by the affini- 
ties of language, religion, and laws. But, that Erin or Irin means 
Hebreorum terra,—and that it had, at one time, been colonized 
by Israelites, are points, which I am incompetent to discuss. Cer- 
tainly, it is far from improbable, that, at no distant period after the 
victories of Joshua, some of the vanquished and proscribed Jews 
had accompanied their Pheenician guides not only to Africa and 
Spain, but also to Ireland. 
* Tf,” say the authors of the Universal History, “ we admit what 
the generality of Spanish writers affirm, after Berosus, that Tubal, 
the fifth son of Japhet, came and peopled Spain, so soon as 143 
years after the flood, Gomer, the eldest brother, and father of the 
Celts, must have been as soon in the possession of Gaul; and both 
must, of course, be supposed to have brought the same religion, 
laws, government, &c. namely, that which they received from their 
grandfather Noe; and how tenacious both these and other na- 
tions of the same Celtic descent were of their own religion and laws, 
will be easily seen in the histories of the Gaulsand Germans. All 
that we shall say further of their religion here is, that it was, tn all 
these countries, the same as that of the old patriarchs. ‘They 
rshipped one Supreme Being, not in temples, as the Greeks and 
