Ireland, by James
Macpherson, Esq., London 1773, in 4to., third edit. Dr. Macpherson was a
minister in the Isle of Sky: and it is a circumstance honorable for the
present age, that a work, replete with erudition and criticism, should
have been composed in the most remote of the Hebrides.]

[Footnote 111: The Irish descent of the Scots has been revived in the
last moments of its decay, and strenuously supported, by the Rev. Mr.
Whitaker, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. i. p. 430, 431; and Genuine History
of the Britons asserted, &c., p. 154-293) Yet he acknowledges, 1. That
the Scots of Ammianus Marcellinus (A.D. 340) were already settled in
Caledonia; and that the Roman authors do not afford any hints of their
emigration from another country. 2. That all the accounts of such
emigrations, which have been asserted or received, by Irish bards,
Scotch historians, or English antiquaries, (Buchanan, Camden, Usher,
Stillingfleet, &c.,) are totally fabulous. 3. That three of the Irish
tribes, which are mentioned by Ptolemy, (A.D. 150,) were of Caledonian
extraction. 4. That a younger branch of Caledonian princes, of the house
of Fingal, acquired and possessed the monarchy of Ireland. After these
concessions, the remaining difference between Mr. Whitaker and his
adversaries is minute and obscure. The genuine history, which he
produces, of a Fergus, the cousin of Ossian, who was transplanted (A.D.
320) from Ireland to Caledonia, is built on a conjectural supplement to
the Erse poetry, and the feeble evidence of Richard of Cirencester, a
monk of the fourteenth century. The lively spirit of the learned
and ingenious antiquarian has tempted him to forget the nature of a
question, which he so vehemently debates, and so absolutely decides. *
Note: This controversy has not slumbered since the days of Gibbon. We
have strenuous advocates of the Phoenician origin of the Irish, and each
of the old theories, with several new ones, maintains its partisans. It
would require several pages fairly to bring down the dispute to our own
days, and perhaps we should be no nearer to any satisfactory theory than
Gibbon was.]

Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.--Part V.

Six years after the death of Constantine, the destructive inroads of the
Scots and Picts required the presence of his youngest son, who reigned
in the Western empire. Constans visited his British dominions: but we
may form some estimate of the imp