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

THE BRITONS ASSERTED. i^y
The author's infmuated hypothefis here, for he
has not ventured to affirm it, is this, That the
Scots were originally natives of Caledonia, that
they firfl peopled Ireland, that they there re-
tained their original appellation of Scots, and
that they appear bearing the name fome centu-
ries before the Caledonians ^ This hypothefis
indeed is very wild, as it fuppofes the colonics
to retain a name which their anceftors never ap-
pear to have borne, and as it makes the children
to have been known by their parental appella-
tion fome centuries before the parent herfelf.
And the parallel is to be adapted to this. But
it is very different. The natives of Attica were
denominated lones, before they fettled a colony in
the Leifer Afia : but Mr. Macpherfon has not
Hiewn, or attempted to (hew, the Caledonians to
have been called Scots, before their fuppofed mi-
gration into Ireland. The Attic colonifts natu-
' So Sir George TJ jckenzie in p. 387 intimates, that the
name of Scot belonged to the Caledonians before the Irifh,
and u'as probably communicated by the former to the
latter. Dr. Mackenzie alio, In the preface to his Lives of
Scots Writers, p. 2— 8, attempts to prove Ireland to have
been originally peopled by the Caledonians under the name of
Scots. And Abercromby fays, p. 2. vol. i, that Dr. Macken-
zie bids very fair to prove, that there are greater prefumptions
for believing thofe of Ireland to have come from the Scots
in North-Britain, than that the Scots in North-Britain were
derived from thofe in Ireland.
xally