E 62 ] 



" have been thought but fimple, confidering that this navigation: 

 " was written fo many years paft,; in fo barbarous a tongue, by 

 " one only obfcure author;: and yet, in thefe our days, we find' 

 *f by our own experience, his reports to be true." 



As for the Thule of the ancients,, about which fo many conjectures; 

 have been made, it feems to have moft clearly been Ireland, from the 

 manner in which Statius addrelfes a poem to Crifpinus, whofe father had 

 carried the Emperor's commands to Thule :. 



tu difce patrem, quantufque nigrantem 



Fluctibus oecidnis, feffbq. Hyperione Thulen 

 Intravit mandata gerens- 



It mould alfo feem, from other parts of the fame poem, that this- 

 General had croffed from Scotland to the North of Ireland, or Thule. : 

 Quod fi te magno tellus franata parenti 

 Accipiat, quantum ferus exultabit Araxes ? : 

 Quanta Caledonios attollet gloria campos ? 

 Cum tibi longaevus referet trucis incola terras 

 Hie fuetus dare jura parens, hoc cefpite turmas 

 Affari ; nitidas fpeculas, caftellaque longe. 

 Afpicis ? ille dedit cinxitque hsec moenia fofla. 



Statius, v. 14. 



Crifpinus's father, therefore, muft have refided fome time in Scot- 

 land, from whence he went to Thule or Ireland, for the Hebrides (the 

 only land to the We)t except Ireland) could not have been of fufHcient 

 confequence for the Emperor's commiffion, or the fortifications alluded 

 to; befides, that the expreffion of fejfoqus Hyperions implies, that the. 

 land lay confiderably to the Weitward. 



THOUGHTS 



