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422 NOTES,oas; Thule TvaS warm with the blood of thePlcts; and icy Itrneuiourned the slaughtered heaps of Scots." Uofortunately -wehave many places bearing the name of Jerne, It is the most atucient Greek name of Ireland. It is the name of a lake (Erne)in that kingdom. It is the name of a mountain and river of theArtabri, in Spain. It is the name of a lake and river in Perthshire,and of a riter in Murrayshire, &c. Amidst this ambiguityand confusion, the real' scene of the Roman actions with theScots, must determine which is the lerne in question. We knowIhat the Romans did not fight with the Scots in Ireland or inSpain. Strath-Erne, in Scotland, is undoubtedly the lerne heremeant ;and the term glacialis (icy) is certainly more applicableto the river Erne^ than to the kingdom of Ireland.In Strath-Erne we have many superb Roman monuments, particularly aHoman camp, (see Gordon's Itiner. Septent. plate 5.) still re«taining the name of Galgachan, where the battlebetween Agri,cola and Galgacus is supposed to have been fought. But were•we even to grant that lerne was Ireland, and that (as ClaudianSays) it lamented the defeat of the Scots, still it does not followIhat Ireland was the native country of the Scots, otherwise itmust also follow, that Iceland (the real Thule) was the nativecountry of the Picts, and Orkney of the Saxons.Ireland mightlament the defeat of the Scots, who were endeavouring to setbounds to an enemy formidable to all the world, because the discomfitureof any intervening army brought the danger still nearerto themselves.I have already remarked, that the ambiguity of Tacitus mis.led his editor so far as to make Ireland (Hibernia) the chiefscene of Agricola's actions during the third, fourth, and fifthyears of his residence in Britain. The before cited passage ofClaudian is equally ambiguous, and has given full scope toMonkish fable and conjecture. What is still more to be regret,ted is, the affinity of Hibernia to the Roman adjective Hibernus,which signifies wintry or cold, and has led superficial writersjnto many errours. Calepine, in the word Hibernia, telis us,that it is supposed to be derived from Hii/€rnns, propter hiemif)