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

THE BRITONS ASSERTED. 51
as the multiplication continued, and all the for*
mer refources were exhaufted, they were obliged
at laft to recoil upon the more eaflerly colonies,
to explore an unpra^ifed way over the fnows
and mountains of the Alps, and to open to them-
felves a new receptacle among the inhabitants
ef Italy and Germany. A long time therefore
mufl have elapfed, before the fuperfluous num-
bers of Gaul could have filled up the greater
part of the ifland, and have any cccafion to pro-
hibit the entrance of more into it. And fome
time muft have intervened before the effeft of
this prohibition could have appeared upon the
continent, and ft ill more, before it could have
burft out in the great and neceflary migrations
into Germany and Italy. Four or five centuries
mufl have paffed betwixt the commencement of
population in the ifland, and the sera of thofe
migrations on the continent. And the pofitioii
is Urikingly confirmed to us by the parallel hifto*
ry of Ireland, this ifland in a later period ferv-
ing equally as a drain to Britain, and the popu-
J^tion of it not being compleated in lefs than
500 years '.
This reafoning fettles the firft Inhabitation of
Britain about 1000 years before Chrift. About
J 000 years before Chrift it is a