5

I
•shire.
•NOTES. 405
From llie extent of their territories, they must have been
the most uumerous, as well as the most powerful, of the Scottish
tribes. But what is most to our present purpose ii, that
they occupied that very part of Scotland which approaches nearest
to Ireland. An island cannot foe inhabited or sought after
tillit is known, and who could know it sooner than the Damnii,
who lived within sight of it. The Irish, indeed, place the Firbolg
(Belgae) in Ireland 250 years before the Damnii, but this
i^s contrary to all probability; and it is well known, that in
events of remote antiquity, nations do not err so much in matter
fff fact, as in point of chronological accuracy. The Irish them,
selves expressly say that the Tuath de Dannan came from Scot,
hand to Ireland. In this case we have— Imo, The testimony of
Ptolemy, who places the Damnii in that very point of Scotland
which approaches nearest to Ireland—2do, The direct and posi.
tive testimony of the Irish themselves, that the Damnii came
from Scotland. Till, therefore, Whitaker, Pinkarton, &c. can
place their respective hypotheses respecting the early population
of Ireland, on a basis equally sure and stable (which is impossi.
ble), Scotland is well entitled to reckon itself the parent of Ireland.
The circumstance of an Irish colony having settled in
Argyleshire about the middle of the third century, can by no
means invalidate this claim, but greatly confirms it ; for in the
hour of danger or difficulty, where does a child more naturally
take shelter than in the arms of its mother? That Scotland afforded
Ireland the bulk of its early population, we have already
seen. Hence the intimacy betwixt them must have been great,
and the intercourse frequent; and the migration of a colony from
the one country to the other, was merely a matter of course.
But though the publication of the Irish manuscripts could not
fail to throw light on the whole early history of Scotland, there
is another point which itmight perhaps absolutely determine—
mean the authenticity of Ossian's Poems. Here, as in most
other matters, we have the same perplexity and confusion. Both
nations claim Fingal and his jieroes. The Irish have, however,
laid only a faint and feeble claim to the poems of Ossian. The