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

apS THE GENUINE HISTORY OF
right to triumph over Mr. Macpherfon, who are
placed in fome Iphere removed at once from the
frailties and the virtues of humanity, who live out
of the reach of prejudice and the power of paf-
fion,whohave neverfelt their minds feduced by the
enchantments of a new hypothefis, and have never
fufFcred their imaginations to be fired, and their
underftandings contracted, by the calenture of a
patriot fpirit.
Mr. Macplierfon has afferted the exigence of
three colonies in Britain. But he has proved
only one of chera to have had any being in it.
His Gael, as a diftincl colony from his Clmbri
and his Beigce, he has no where argumentatively
deduced into the ifland. And that body of the
Britons which is peculiarly the obje£l of the au-
thor's attention, and made by him the inhabitants
of Caledonia and Ireland, has no real exillence
in his hiftory at all. The exiflence of his Cimbri,
alfo, is founded wholly on the flight bafis of a
verbal criticifm, the groundwork of the name of
Cymri. And, if this would be fufficient authority
for fuch a capital point in his hiftory, then might
" the pillars of the world be rottennefs, and
*' earth's bafe be built on ftubble ^" But, what
is ftill more remarkable, the whole even of this
argument is itfeif eftabliihed upon a fuppofition,
' Shakefpeai".
and