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

THE BRITONS ASSERTED. 159
lefpondency of language, manners, and cuftoms,
betwixt the Irifli and Caledonians, is juft as good
an argument as the community of names before.
The language, manners, and cufloms, of almofl
all the interior Iflanders, have been fliewn to be
exactly the fame.—But the author's management
of his argument, with regard to the correfpon-
dency of manners and cuftoms, is a little obferv-
able. " We muft have recourfe," fays he, " to
*' the Caledonian Britons for the genuine origin
** of the Irifli." And one reafon is, "the con-
" formity of their [the Irifli] manners and cuf-
" toms with thofe"—not of the Caledonian Bri-
tons, asitfliouldobvioufly have been, in contra-
diftin£lion to all the others, but of " the Old
** Britons" in general. To prove the Caledonian
defcent of the Irifh, Mr. Macpherfon alledges the
famenefs of manners in the Irifli and Old Britons.
—Thefe arguments therefore, which '' all con-
** cur in proving beyond any pollibility of reply,'*
that the Irilh are the pofterity of the Caledonians,
are all really befide the mark, and prove fome-
thing very different from the point intended.
So far I have confidered this pafiage, as it con-
tains a repetition of former arguments. I will
now confider it, as an inference from the reply
to Father Innes. And, as fuch, it is in the
fame flrain precifely with the quotation before.
Like that, it forgets an intermediate link in the
cha'in