Coincidence

of the ante

nals, with

Genesis, their veracity will not be questioned, whether the annals were the fabrication of the Monkish impostors of the ninth century, according to the disciples of modern Pyrrhonism, or the genuine documents of the old phylleas or seneachies. Their account of the first adventurers of the Milesian colonies and the native settlers destroys not itself by any inconsistency or intrinsic evidence, if there be a probability of a colony of the same race of men with the Milesian, having settled before them in that island. Looking to the general substance of truth, we pretend not fastidiously to adhere to particular dates, names, places, or cir

cumstances.

We have observed that the annalists say, that about milesian an- an hundred and forty years after the deluge, Adhua Josephus. landed in Ireland, and returned to the person who sent him, who was a grandson of Belus: and that afterwards different adventurers sailed to, and occupied the island. We believe from the sacred text, that about an hundred and forty years after the deluge, the common language of man was confused on the plains of Shinar, that the isles of the Gentiles were divided by or amongst the sons of Japhet, and that the Lord scattered them from that place, (viz. the Vale Shinar in Usia, where Babylon stood,) abroad upon the face of all the earth; that the beginning of Nemrod's kingdom was Babylon. In confirmation of the consistency of the Irish ante-milesian annals, comes in the authority of Joseph, the Jew, who has left us a more explicit

* Ant. c. vi. However this author may, in compliment to the Roman emperor, have endeavoured to loosen the credit of some

account of this very early age of man, than that of
Moses. "From that time forward (by reason of
the diversity of tongues) they dispersed themselves
into divers countries, and planted colonies in all places;
and occupied those places, whither either God, or
their good fortune, had conducted them; so that, both
the sea coasts, and the middle land, were replenished
with inhabitants.
the sea in ships and vessels, first peopled the islands."
If Ireland then, one of the largest islands of Europe,
were peopled soon after the diversity of tongues, there
can be no inconsistency or repugnance in their anna-
lists reporting, at the distance of some centuries, the
intercourse, which the latter had with the descendants
of the former adventurers to that island. Having, as
it is hoped, cleared the Milesian story of this prelimi-
nary charge of inconsistency, by reason of its reference
to an earlier population, we proceed to examine the
authenticity of the general substance of the annals

Some there were also who, passing

themselves.

of the Pyrr

It would exceed the intent of this Dissertation, to Objections pass in review the several judgments of the historical honites. critics, who have entered the lists with strong pretensions to the palm. Of the whole sceptic tribe, Dr.

of some of the miracles of the Old Testament, we must consider whatever additional circumstances he recounts of the early founders of nations, which illustrate rather than contradict the sacred text, to have been the genuine tradition of the Jewish nation at that time; and which he would not have published, unless he had given credit to them himself. He was a man of erudition, criticisma eloquence and policy.

Ledwich appears prominently conspicuous for his assurance, great contempt and coarse abuse of his antagonists. His opposition, like that of his leaders and followers, rests upon general declamation. Such claims of antiquity and pretensions to authenticity are but specious delusions and vagaries of the human mind; and "wherever they are retained, that people 66 may be pronounced credulous and ignorant." General assertion is to be denied, not answered. The more especially, when the whole system of this pyrrhonism is founded upon a general dictum of a stranger both to their language and country t. "Nennius' judgment of this fiction," say the sceptics, "is decisive, when he declares, that "there was no sure history of the origin of the Irish." "Nulla tamen certa historia originis Scotorum reperitur." This is a mere declaration, that he knew of no authentic written history, which gave

*Led. Ant. p. 2.

† Nen. p. 102. Ed. Bert. It could hardly be unknown to Dr. Ledwich, that this insertion is supposed to be an interpolation, and as such is comprised in brackets by Mr. Bertram, the learned editor of Nennius. The impartial reader will consider that Nennius, who was no Irishman, and wrote about the year 858; i. e. 950 years ago, must have had better grounds than the fictions of monks, and such idle dreamers, to repeat three several times in his work the positive fact, that Ireland was peopled by a colony from Spain, c. 6. Novissimè venerunt Scoti a partibus Hispaniæ ad Hyberniam. Et postea venerunt tres filii cujusdam militis Hispanic cum Chiulis. Venerunt paulatim a partibus Hispanice et tenuerunt regiones plurimas. He wrote some hundred years before Gerald Barry had traduced the Irish nation, and when Ireland, being an independent kingdom, held out no temptation to a British writer to suppress or disguise the truth of his history.

an account of their origin; it is no denial that proofs or documents of it existed. Supposing, however, that Nennius, in the year 858, when he was supposed to have completed his work, which he brings no lower than Vortigern, A.D. 473, knew of no history of Ireland then written, does it follow that none could, or ever would be written? More plausibly might it be inferred, that every thing which Nennius wrote about the Britons was mere fiction, because in the same work he says, that in his time the Britons had not one writer of their history, because they were then illiterate, and even the learned men of their island committed not the remembrance of events to books*. Ere, however, we enter upon the immediate defence of the antient history of the Irish, it will not be foreign from the purpose to remark, that Dr. Ledwich has not scrupled to admit that "Ireland, in the 6th and succeeding centuries, possessed a literary reputation, which is proved by indisputable evidence."

ants of Ja

mentioned

The first substantial fact to be proved in this con- Descendtroversy is, that the Milesian colonists were descended phet not from Magog, one of the seven sons of Japhet, men- inScripture. tioned by Moses, although the sacred annalist have not given us the name of any one of his sons, as he did the sons of some of his brothers; and that Magog

* Quia nullam peritiam habuerunt, neque ullam commemorationem posuerunt in libris doctores illius insula Britannia. Nen. Hist. apud Bertram, Haunea 1757. He being our first British historian, might thus have as effectually overset the whole substance of Eng lish history.

+ Led. Ant. 2.

Phoenicians

originally

and his sons were the founders of the Scythian nation*. This position of the Irish annalists is most pointedly confirmed by the words of the Jewish historian, which place so much of it out of the imputation of fiction, as brings the Scythians from Magogt. In speaking of the peopling of the world after the diversity of tongues and the consequent apportionment of the earth amongst the grand-children and great-grandchildren of Noah, he says that Magog established a colony, and that the people were from him called Magogians, and by themselves Scythians.

The chronologers, bards, or minstrels of Ireland have of Scythian Sometimes called their ancestors Poni, Phoeni, or Phoe Phoenius or nicians, which may, at the first blush, import a contraFarsa. diction. Some authors have enumerated fifty differ

origin.

Feniusa

ent settlements, or subdivisions, or colonies of the

*From the rapid encrease of population in the first ages after the deluge, it is evident, that Moses in his account of the genealogy of some of Noah's descendants has omitted to mention. far the greater number of them in the third and fourth degrees. More circumstances are evidently omitted, than recorded by the sacred penman. It follows not, that facts omitted by Moses could not be preserved and handed down to posterity by other means. The Irish annalist gives the names of three sons of Magog, viz. Baath, Jobbath, and Fathoeta; and Keating, p. 29, gives these names from the book of Invasious, "upon whose authority," says he, "we may depend; for the whole account is faithfully collected and transcribed from the most valuable and authentic chronicles of the Irish affairs, particularly from that choice volume, called the book of Dhroma Sneachta, or the White book, that was written before St. Patrick first arrived in Ireland to propagate christianity in that country."

Jos. L. i. c. vii.