recorded stands. Where the veracity of an important point of history depends upon the belief of a whole nation for a score of centuries, founded upon their national traditions, preserved and transmitted in the best manner the nature of preservation and transmission will admit of, it requires a great weight of undeniable contrary evidence to overset an hypothesis built upon the uninterrupted belief of ages, minutely expressed in a vernacular tongue now understood by the existing natives, as it was by all their intermediate ancestors, up to the several epochs, at which the events are recorded respectively to have taken place.

commands

out some

evidence.

The British Pyrrhonites in matter of Irish history Nothing pretend not to deny, that the island was inhabited 1300 credit with years before the christian æra*; neither do they af-external fect to insinuate, that the population ever ceased or was suspended from that time downwards. None of them have denied to these early inhabitants of the island some language, in which they conversed with each other, and some form of government, by which they were ruled; but they think it sufficient to raise a general system of Pyrrhonism, upon the authority of Cambden and Waret, who shelter their own ignorance upon these matters under a general observationof Livy, that things, which at a great distance are scarce discernible, are obscured by their great anti

*This was at the time, about which the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and were delivered into the hands of Jabin, king of Canaan. (Jud. iv.)

+ Ware, Ant. 5,

VOL. I.

Facility of

quity. Only one deduction can be fairly drawn from such generalities, and from the assertions of those, who profess themselves strangers to the country, language, and history: nothing is to be credited without the most guarded caution to corroborate the narrative with external evidence. This act of historical justice to the Irish nation is the object of the present investigation.

A Jove principium was the allegorical and religious tradition. principle of bards and philosophers of old. To scrutinize, argue, and conclude upon matters of great antiquity, it becomes necessary to look into the earliest times, and the oldest records of historical information. From these are to be deduced principles, rather than the evidence of particular facts. Assuming the superior antiquity of the Mosaic narrative of the first days of man, without resting, for the present purpose, on its divine inspiration, which Jews and Christians equally admit, it is a general concession, that Adam came out of the hands of his Maker in a more perfect state of mind and body, than any of his descendants ever attained. It is clear he was gifted with the faculty of speech; and that a language was infused into him, in which he conversed with Eve and his children; and that this was the original medium, through which he communicated his ideas, perceptions, and recollections to his descendants, as they did to their successive posterity. Tradition, consequently, was the original mode of transmitting to future generations the knowledge of past events. Waving the question, whether writing were of ante-diluvian insti

tution*, the credit of tradition will be greatly enhanced by reflecting on the paucity of the links, by which the chain is carried through a vast expanse of time. By the generally received chronology, there intervened 1656 years between the creation of man and the deluge: thence to the vocation of Abraham about 451 years, making altogether 2107 years. According to the scriptural accounts, Abraham was threescore years of age when Noah died; Noah was 500 years cotemporary with Methusalem, and Methusalem lived 241 years with Adam. Supposing, then, that the invention of letters should be allowed so early a date even as the time of Abraham, yet, by the duration of these patriarchs' lives, there are but two intermediate links, viz. Methusalem and Noah, between Abraham and our first parent. Thus, through the medium of two individuals, was all that portion of the inspired knowledge and improved experience of Adam during a life of 930 years, which he chose or intended to transmit to his descendants, brought down by tradition to Abraham, comprising a space of above 2000 years.

not confin

It is not to be imagined, that the tradition of these Tradition early periods was confined to this line of patriarchs. ed to one Mankind was soon multiplied; and in the course of patriarchs.

Mr. Astle, who has discussed the subject of ancient letters with consummate ability, in the judgment of a very learned adept of the old Celtic language and dialects, (Davies, 240.) says, after having diligently weighed the opinions and authorities of his predecessors, it might be improper to assert, that letters were unknown before the deluge recorded by Moses. (p. 46.) There will be future occasion of referring to the origin of writing.

line of the

three centuries, which was not a third of Adam's life, is supposed to have nearly covered the face of the earth. All the cotemporary inhabitants of the globe probably received the same traditions, were gifted with the like physical powers, and enjoyed upon the average an equal degree of longevity. There is no other written record of these early times, to which we can look up with full confidence, except the books of Moses, His history both ante-diluvian and post-diluvian, is a mere epitome confined, as it were, to the stock of Noah's son Shem, from which Abraham sprang; and thence extending to that chain of persons and transactions, which terminated in the birth of the promised Messiah. It was not the object of the sacred penman to record, in his post-diluvian account, the particular histories of the other generations of mankind, which, after the miraculous confusion of the human tongue at Babel, unquestionably had their respective national languages, establishments, institutions, laws, traditions, and histories, all varying in quality, duration, and authenticity, according to the progress of innovation and depravity amongst them. The sacred text has merely enumerated the generations of the three sons of Noah, unto whom sons were born, after the flood, and who became the fathers and founders of the different nations wherein they settled, without giving the chronology or topography of any of them. The Irish make their descent from Japhet*.

Gen. x. These words give great plausibility to the comments of St. Augustine, Origen, and some modern commentators, particularly Tirinus, 105, that the common language of man was

"The sons of Japheth, Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer, Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. And the sons of Javan; Elisha and Tarshesh, Kittim and Dodamim, By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands: every one after his tongue, after their families in their nations."

the earth

amongst Noah's pro

geny.

This division or allotment of the isles of the Gen-Division of tiles could not mean the gradual progress of the families according to their increase, which would have been a work of time, and could not be termed a division; but it must have been a general settlement and distribution amongst the co-existing grand and great-grand children of Noah, by the sanction of these post-diluvian fathers of the human race; for Noah lived 350 years after the flood: and that this division of the earth took place after the erection of the tower at Babel, is evident from the words, every one after hisown tongue.

tion of the

man.

In order to open the facility of proof on one hand, Abbreviaand meet some scrupulous objections on the other, it days of may not be improper to remark, that the abbreviation of the days of man was not in any manner immediately connected with the deluge. For the sacred penman,

split into fifty-five different tongues, there being, according to Cornelius a Lapide, so many descendants of Noah, mentioned in the 10th chapter of Genesis, who are there called the families of Noah, according to their people and nations; and by these were the nations divided on the earth after the flood. But that Heber, the progenitor of Abraham, retained the original or primitive. language of man, whence it was afterwards called Hebrew.