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

86 THE GENUINE HISTORY OF
" Ord-tuavich, northern mountaineers, the in-
*^ habitants of North-Wales."
Before I perufed Mr. Macpherfon's DiiTerta-
tion, I was fall of expeftation to fee the taf]^ of
BritiHi etymology wrefted out of the clumfy
hands » in which a general ignorance of the Celtic
had hitherto placed it. But fanguine expe(5i:ations
are feldom gratified. And perhaps I expecled
more than knowledge could fupply. Mr. Mac-
pherfon however appears plainly, I think, to
have derived all his knowledge of the Celtic from
the view merely of one of its dialecls. And he
k frequently unhappy, I apprehend, in his ap-
plication of that. This I havt already fhevvn in
the names of Celt, Clmbri, and Brigantes. And
I hope to fhew it again in the names before
ps.
Cantium, here reiolved into C^int-i, tlie end
of the iflandj mud be formed upon the fame
principle, as the appellation of the Cantas in Cale-
donia, who refided not at the end of the ifland,
but lived along the eaflern coafl of it, and to
the South of the Frith of Dornoch ' ; and as the
prefent name of Cantire in Scotland, which is
ftill farther from the end of the ifland, and lies
along the weftern coafl-. And the word is clearly
Cand or Cant, an Head or Prominence of land,
' See Hiftory of Manoheller, p. 411.
and