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OF THE DRUIDS. 181or rather, as Siiidas asserts, Orpheus of Crotoiia,contemporary with the tyrant Pisistratus. Aiidif this be true, Archbishop Usher did not gascoiiiiade, when he said, that the Roman people cou dnot any where be found so antiently mention'd a,4lernis'^,Dionysius Periegetes, before cited, is ofthe same opinion in his I>es€ription of thetvorldf,that the Irish were Britons: as Stephanus Eyzantiusnames it Biitish Juvernia, the least of the twoiJandsX,Diodorus Siculus mentions the Britonsinhiibiting the iland calVd Iris%y a name better expressingEre (vulgarly Erinn) the right name ofIreland, than leiiie, Juverna^ Hihernia, or anyname that has been eitlier poetically or otherwiseus'd. Strabo stiles Ireland Brittish lerna\\, ashis antient abridger calls the Irish, the Britons inhabitinglei-na^: and, if we may intermix ludicrouswith serious things, where 'tisnow read inthe same Strabo, that the Irish ^y ere great eaters*'^,his said abridger reads it herb-eaiersjf, whichwou'd induce one to believe, that so long agoHhamrogs were in as great request there as atpresent.Pliny says in express words, that '' everyone of the Brittish Hands was calFd Britain j* Primord. Eccles, Britannicar. pag. 7^4.t At