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

194
THE GENUINE HISTORY OF
and all the court and all the Empire have beeis
equal wknelTes of his falfehood.
P. 114— 115. " We may fafcly affirm, thae
" the Tethys of Claudian was rather agitated
•* into a foam by Saxon than by Hibernian oars-
" Th6 Saxons, in the days of Honorius, were
•* in fome meafure a maritime people : Tethys^
** fignifies the Ocean : the fea between Germany
** and England has fome right to that title, but
** the channel between Ireland and Caledonia
" was never dignified with fo high a name. This
•* criticifm is fufficient to deftroy the whole force
*' of the argument drav/n from Claudian."
This formidable argument is furely a mere
accumulation of impertinences.— The Saxons,,
even more than a century before the days of
Honorius, were not only " in fome meafure a
** maritime people," but were remarkably ex-
pert in the arts of navigation. Such they are
well known to have been in the days of Carau-
fms. And fuch they continued as late as the
days of Sidonius
Saxona,—cui pelle falum fulcare Britannum
Ludus.
—But the verbal criticifm here is more obfer-
vable. Mr. Macpherfon has repeatedly fup-
pofed before, that Claudian, even in a retro-
fpe^livf