BRITAIN. 



at that time known, (with only one exception, which we 

 (hall hereafter notice,) except thofe which military horrors 

 hnd explored. He is nccurate about the tribes or nations 

 that fwarmeil round the weftcrn fliorcs of tlie Euxine from 

 the tnodern Conllantinople to the fca of Afoph, becaufe 

 Darius had profecutcd a wild expedition agaiiift the Scy- 

 thians who divclt there. But the hifloriar, fails where the 

 Perfi.m dcfpot was checked ; or, if he indulges fome hally 

 txcurfions beyond, it is only to repeat talei! fo abfurd, that 

 the credit of his whole hiftory has been impeached from 

 his Scythic reveries. In other parts of the world, wherever 

 the natians warred whofe traufac'tions he records, he feems 

 anxious to be minute and faithful ; but every other country 

 which the glitter of arms had not revealed, he did not con- 

 defcend, becaufe he was unable, to defcnbe. 



It is, perhaps, from this circumftance, that when we turn 

 from Greece, and the adjacent kingdoms, and extend with 

 national partiality our view weihvard over the regions, now 

 divided into Spain, France, Germany, the Northern empire, 

 and the liritiHi idands, we find the hiilorian lamenting, but 

 ingcnuonfly confcfTmg, the penury of his information. 



" I have nothing certain to relate concerning the weftern 

 boundaries of Europe. I know as little of the iflands 

 called CafTiteridcs, from the tin which is thence imported 

 among us ; and though I have diligently iwqiiirtd, yet have 

 I never feen any man who by his own experience could in- 

 form me of the nature of that fea which bounds the extre- 

 mities of Europe ; however, it is certain that amber and tin 

 come from its remoteft parts." 



The ignorance of Herodotus mud have been the ignorance 

 of his age ; for it feems to have by no means proceeded from 

 his negle£l of inquiry. " Europe has not been fully difco- 

 vered by any man ; and we have no account whether it be 

 bounded on the north and ead fide by the fea." 



About 120 years after Herodotus, the preceptor of 

 Alexander flourilhed, who reigned for fo many ages in Eu- 

 rope the monarch of metaphyfics. A treatife has been 

 preferved to us, which is ufually attributed to him ; but to 

 which his right has been difputed by men whofe erudition 

 is formidable enough to leave the queflion undecided, even 

 by thofe whom their arguments may not convince. If the 

 circumftance that afferts the claim of Ariftotle appeared un- 

 fatisfaftoryto the two Scaligers,to Cafaubon, Salinafius, Me- 

 nage, Voffius, and others, we cannot but be, at leaft, doubt- 

 ful on the fubjeft. By thefe gentlemen it has been given 

 to Theophrallus, or to Anaximenes of Lampfichus, or to 

 the ftoic Pofidonius. But vv'hether the book " De Mundo" 

 be the compofition of Ariftotle, or of fome of his contem- 

 poraries, or of his immediate fucceflbrs, or even of later 

 writers, it is, under every opinion, a proper fubjeft for our pre- 

 fent confideration. It feems to be a phyfiological account of 

 the univerfe ; but it alfo contains a very rapid and concife 

 furvey of the geography of the world. If it was written in 

 the age of Ariftotle, it will flievv how little the geographers 

 of thofe times knew. If it be of later date, it will prove 

 that lapfe of time gave no increafe of knowledge. 



After a fingular conjeflure, which Columbus has fince 

 happily demonftrated to be jnft, that beyond the Atlantic 

 there were other continents, fome larger, fome fmaller than 

 our own, he defcribes the coafts which the ocean, as he 

 thought, waflied ; a;id after condufling the fea from the 

 weftward through the ftrei^hts of Gibraltar to the Propon- 

 tis, he ftates its piogrefs from the eaftern regions. He tells 

 us, that it comes towards the Gallic gulph, and thence to 

 thtn known concerning the popuLtion of Europe, and of the columns of Hercules. 



the Britifii iflands. " In this fea are two iflands, called pislxvixsi, axSw y.xi 



But when we take up the hiftory of Herodotus, which I=pvr), larger than thofe we named above. They are di redly 

 gained the Olympic laurel, we perceive that no regions were above the Celts." 



' Thefe 



rior to Homer ; but the poem5 that pafs under his name, 

 lire by Snidas and Stobma attnbutcd to a man whom they 

 call Orpheus the younger, and whom others name Onoma- 

 critus. He has been referred to tiie times of Piliftratus, or 

 about 5<5o years before Chrift. 



This poem is curious as a fpecimen of the geographical 

 opinion; which tlic author and his cotemporaries entertained 

 of the wcllcrn part of Europe. It was a voyage from Thcf- 

 {a\y to Cnlchis on the eaftern part of the Euxine. But the 

 part nioft intcrefting to us, is the manner in which thefe ad- 

 venturers are ftated to have returned home; for, inftead of 

 tracing; back their courfe to Colchis, the difference of which 

 was co[r.p:irativtly fmall, they fa;l to the P.ilus Meotis, or 

 Sta of Afoph, thence up the lands to the northern occaii, 

 and, after circumna%-igatmg Europe, arrived at laft at their 

 dcftined port. So little was Europe known at this early 

 period, that it was fancied to have been polhble to have 

 failed from the Euxine fea into tlie Hyperborean ocean. 



Whoever reads this compolition, from verfe ICJ3 to 

 129^, though he maybe entertained with the romantic table 

 of the Macrobians, who are fcated in the icy ocean, and 

 who, after living 1000 years in the moft aftivc exertions of 

 wifdom and juftice, void of labour and law, fink from unin- 

 terrupted felicity, into a gentle, but perpetual flecp ; yet he 

 will need no further evidence to convince him, that the 

 author was wholly igr.orant of the continent of Europe. 

 It is indeed fingular, that he mentions the ifland lernida, 

 which is prefumed to be Ireland, and which the Argonauts 

 pafs with apprchenfion in their voyage from the North fea. 

 But this is not mentioned with the accuracy of a man who 

 knew what he was writing about, or elfe Britain, and not 

 Ireland, would have been commemorated; for though Camden 

 thinks that the ifland next mentioned under the name of 

 rftvoiis-r^iv, or Piceis Obfitam, was Britain, this cannot be 

 the fact, becaufe, after they had left lernida, they v\'ere tofled 

 by a furious tempeft for twelve days before Lynceus dif- 

 ccrned the illand nvjKWTs-av ■ It is remarkable, that in oppo- 

 fition to all the mythologifts, the author makes this iiland 

 in the Atlantic to have been the n.lldence of Ceres, and the 

 place from which Proferpine was carried off by Pluto. With 

 equal peculiarity he makes another ifland in thefame fea, which 

 he calls >.iy.y.iOf x^f"" '> ^'''^ which Camden, by a ftrange error, 

 thought to be the fame as the former, though three days fail 

 from^the habitation of Circe. The geographical miltakes 

 of this author are worthy of notice, becaufe the man who 

 afpircd to write in the celebrated name of Orpheus, is not 

 likely to have been the moft ignorant of his contempora- 

 ries. 



About 450 years before Chrift, Herodotus, the father of 

 hiftory, flouriflied. Greece was then fo deftitute of know- 

 ledf^e, that, like many of his countrymen who pofTclTed afti- 

 vity and energy of iutelleft, he travelled to Tyre, Egypt, 

 and AfTyria, in fcarch of the information which thefe coun- 

 tries in his days almoft cxclufivcly pofleffcd. His compo- 

 fition feems to indicate that he made geographical fubjefts 

 a principal object of inqniiy ; and he fought for it at thole 

 places where it was molt likely to be obtained. The fitua- 

 tion of Greece, which on its eaftern fide lies parallel with 

 Afia Minor, and had frequent intercourfe with Egypt, Phos- 

 nicia, .Slcilv, and that part of the Italian peninfula which 

 now compofcs the kingdom of Naples, introduced him to 

 an acquaintance with the three continents. It is therefore, 

 if anv where, in his works, that we may reafonably expeft 

 to find the moft accurate coUeftion of the facts which were 



