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

THE BRITONS ASSERTED. 239
diflln£l from them. The author is therefore to
be interpreted, not concerning the body of thd
Pifts in general, but of that particular army of
them which now ravaged the Province. And
this he afferts to have been levied from two
divifions of the country, from the long line of
the Dicaledonian tribes, which were fituated upon
the weflern fhore, and from the fingle nation of
the Vefluriones, which was placed upon the
eallern. Eo tempore Pi6li, in duas gentes di-
vifi, Dicalidonas et Vefturiones, itidemque Atta-
cotti, bellicofa hominum natio, et Scotti, per di-
verfa vagantes multa populabantur.
Thus unfortunate is Mr. Macpherfon in the
commencement of his conclufive reafonings.
And thus grofsly miftaken is he, equally in the
principal point and the fubordinate cirsumflances
of his fir 11 argument.
P. 129— 130.
" If the ViCis fpoke the—Ci-
*' ledonian language, they muil certainly have
'' called the territories of the Scots [in Caledo-
" nia], lar, Eire, Erin, — words, all of them,
" expreffive of the fituation of the country of
" the Scottilh tribes, in oppofition to the Pi^^iili
" divifion of Caledonia ; if they fpoke the antieiit
" Britifh, they would have diftinguiOied the
[' country of the Scots by the name of Yverdhon,