The genuine history of the Britons asserted against Mr. Macpherson ...

|25 THE GENUINE HISTORY OF
and whom he knows only from Ptolemy. Iri
p. 82 alfo he exprefsly quotes the authority of
Ptolemy for the Brigantes, the Velaborii, the
Cauci, and the Menapii, in Ireland ; though the
Romans never had any opportunity at all, in Mr.
Macphcrfon's acceptation of the word, to know
the interior divifion of the country. And in
p. 63 he argues, that even the manners of the
Irifti muil have been perfectly known to the Romans,
though here he denies them to have known
even the names and pofitions of the Caledonian
tribes, and though he allows them to have
had continual wars with the one, and none at all
with the other. So in confident is Mr. Macpher-
fon with himfelf ! So much does he warp with
the variations and bearings of his favourite hy-
pothefis 1
The defigri of Tacitus and Ptolemy was very
different. That was compofmg an hiftorical nar-
ration of national tranfaftions ;
this was writing
a geographical account of the nations. The one
was obliged to detail to us the names, the fites,
and the towns, of the various tribes that crouded
the face of the ifiand. But the other was required
only to give us general defcriptions and general
appellations, fuch notices only as were jufl fuf-
ficient to lend propriety and meaning to the ac-
tions, and to exhibit the aftors and their princi-
ples in a ftrong point of view. Tacitus there-
fore does not enumerate the tribes of Caledonia ;
and