5

I9i
THE HISTORY
Britain." In tlie second book be says*, " the utmost
place of navigation in our time, from Gaule
towards the north, is said to be Ireland, which
being situated beyond Britain, is, by reason of the
cold, with difficulty inhabited; so that all beyond
it," continues he *' is reckon 'd uninhabitable." This
of Ireland, namely, that it is
the north of Britain,
and scarce habitable for cold, he repeats again in
two or three places; from which he draws this
conclusion, that there is no Thule at all, since nothing
is
habitable beyond Ireland; which, there
fore, according to him, is the most northerly part
You see here how much
of the habitable earth.
more in the right Pytheas was, who liv'd in the
time of Alexander, than Strabo who livd in the
time of Augustus and Tiberius; and that it is a
proceeding no less impertinent than unjust, to
have any man contradicted who was upon the
spot, but by such others as were also there, unless
the things related be manifestly impossible,
or that the relator is no competent judge ;
as if a
traveller, who understands no mathematics, should
affirm the Malabrians to be the best mathematicians
in the world. But Strabo, who, notwithstanding
all these gross mistakes in the extremities
of Europe, is one of the foremost authors in
my esteem: Slrabo, I say, a little lower in the
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