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SECT. IX.

IT

T may perhaps furprife thofe who have heard fo much of the antiquity of Scotland, and who are acquainted with the many excellent writers, in almost every branch of literature fhe has of late produced, to be here told, that this now learned, and therefore refpectable, nation, cannot produce any literary monument, in any line or fpecies of compofition that I have heard of, before the tenth, or rather the eleventh, century. But upon better information, and that I expect fhortly from the learned Mr. Pinkerton, I fhall change my opinion, with greater readiness than I formed it.

Now if this point be virtually admitted by Mr. Macpherson, at the very moment he is attempting to impofe his own fpurious compofitions on the world for antiques, it will be going a good length to establish our opinion, at least in refpect to hifto

ry.

And he does admit that "John Fordun was the "first who collected thofe fragments of Scotch hifcc tory, which had escaped the brutal policy of Ed"ward I. and reduced them into order. That def❝titute of annals in Scotland, he had recourfe to Ire66 land, which according to the vulgar errors of the times M 2

66 was

When Edward I. fummoned the States of Scotland to appear before him at Norham (in England) to decide the claims of the different competitors for the Crown, his firft ftep was to put in his own claim to the Sovereignty of Scotland,-when the

States

"was reckoned the firft habitation of the Scots. "He found, there, that the Irish bards had carried "their pretenfions to antiquity as high as any na"tion

States demurred in acknowledging his right, he gave them three weeks to examine their archives. Yet after the expiration of this fpace, fully fufficient for fuch a research, they, upon their next meeting, produced nothing to invalidate his claims. From whence it must be concluded, either that their literary documents were, at this period, extremely scarce, or that they were fo overawed that they durft not produce them. And it was not till after this event took place that Edward carried away those archives, to which M. M. makes pretenfion. But that hiftoric monuments, relating to Scotland, were very fcanty both in Scotland and England is evident from the following confideration: The grand authority, which Edward reforted to in fupport of his claims, was Marianus Scotus an IRISH hiftorian. And remarkable it is, that when Henry IV. renewed the claims of Edward, he appealed to the fame hiftorian; adding withal, that his authority was irrefragable, because he was a SCOTCHMAN. To invalidate which the States of Scotland replied, that Marianus was not an Albanien-Scot, but an Irish Scot, Ireland being the ancient Scotland. (See further on, when we come to the age in which Marianus flourished).

Monafteries were, in thofe times, the chief places where the literary monuments of all nations in Chriftendom were preserved: Now if the Scottish monafteries were then in poffeffion of historic documents, muit not many of these have efcaped the most diligent fearch of Edward? Could he at one bruth have swept away every annal from every monattery? This is more incredible than that fuch historic documents were not then in exiftence; especially, when we reflect upon the rude ftate in which the minds of the Scottish people mud then have been, when they confidered the ghfil, or fatal ftone, as the Palladium of their nation.

Ni fadai fatum Scnti quocumque locatum
Invenient spidon, regnare tenentur ibidem.

Or fate's deceived, and heaven's decrees are vain,
Or where they find this floue, the Scots fhall reign.

The traditional history of this flone of destiny, (which after the crown and regalia was, probably, the most precious monument which Edward carried with him), is alone fufficient to prove, that Ireland was then considered as the parental country of the Allanian Scots. For the Monarch of Ireland, (the ancient

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"tion in Europe. It was from them he took thofe improbable fictions, which form the first part of "his hiftory."

Thus we fee that Mr. Macpherson admits that Fordun is the oldest hiftorian of Scotland, and that when he wrote, Ireland was confidered as the parent country. But it may be faid that Scotland might have had writers at this time, who escaped the diligence of Fordun; and Hector Boetius, who lived fome centuries after Fordun, does fay this in effect, for he quotes as his authorities Veremundus, who is faid to have been Archdeacon of St. Andrew's about the time of William the Conqueror; John Campbel of the noble family of Argyle, who is faid to have lived in the days of Edward I.

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Scotia), being then firmly established on his throne, thought he did his brother more effectual fervice by yielding to him this ftone, for his inauguration as King of the Albanian Scots, than by fending an army of auxiliaries to his fupport. This fuperftitious opinion, that fovereignty attached itself to this ftone, was fo rooted among the Scots, that Edward, by plundering them of it, hoped, as it were, to break the fpell, and thereby crush the spirit of the nation.

Whilft this traditional account pourtrays, in lively colours, the fentiments and opinions of that place and time, it clearly evinces, that few literary monuments could then exift, of which pofterity need much regret the lofs; for the compofitions of a people, fo immerfed in ignorance and fuperftition, could fcarce rife higher than a jejune and meagre annal, such as we find was produced in Ireland about the fame period; and could ferve no one purpose but to afcertain the date of fome fact, now of little importance.

But (fince this fheet went to the prefs and not before,) I am told, that it is now afferted, that the very box, in which Edward depofited the archives of Scotland, hath been discovered, and that the catalogue of the contents has been given to the public. When these contents are authenticated, they must prove a very interefting difcovery to the amateurs of antiquity and to literati in general; because they may afcertain points which remain difputed, and thereby fhed a light on the hiftory of Scotland. For it can fcarcely be believed, that the nation was fo careless of the treaties and alliances it had made, as not to have preserved fome records of them.

mius Hibernicus. But not a scrap of their re now extant; and thofe learned prelates, and Stillingfleet, give it as their opinion, that uch writers ever did exift, and that their names were only used by Boetius to give an appearance of teme authority to his book. At any rate, VereTundus was a Spaniard, and Cornelius, as his furrame fhews, was an Irishman. Yet Dempster claims him as an Albanian Scot," it being cuftomary, "fays he, in old times and to this day, to call those

born in the Highlands of Scotland Irishmen." Than which, by the by, he could have scarcely given a ftronger proof that the British Scots originated from the Irish.

"Were we fure, fays the author of the Scotch "library, that Turgot wrote any thing of the general "hiftory of Scotland, he is to be referred to the "twelfth century. But though Bale and Pitts (and "after them Voffius) affirm that he wrote de regibus "Scotorum, all their evidence centers in Hector "Boetius." "Of better confideration, fays the fame "writer, is the Chronicon S. Crucis Edinburgenfis, "which he fhews to be but an epitome of Bede as "far as he goes, with a continuance of Scotch affairs "to the year 1234." "The chronicle of Mailros, fays the fame Nicholson, in his English library, "though its title may feem to rank it among the "records of Scotland, may juftly challenge a place

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among our English hiftories, fince it chiefly infifts "on the affairs of this nation. And, in his Scotch Library, he fays, the first discovery of Scotch "affairs, in it, is when thofe of Malcolm Canmore came to be treated of in the year 1056. Yet a good while after this (A. D. 1148) the monastery

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felf feems to have been in English hands." Now the earliest of these productions are not dated higher than the eleventh century; whereas we have exhibited abundant fpecimens of Irifh writers

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from the fixth century downward: which is at least four hundred years earlier than any thing of the kind has been yet produced, as indifputably belonging to Scotland. •

I fay indifputably, for here, perhaps Offian's poems will be trumped up as the production of the third century. But, by way of anfwer to this, let us, in the first place, recollect what their supposed tranflato has faid relative to the Abbey of Hy, founded by an Irishman in the fixth century, viz. that " the "Monks belonging to this Seminary were the on

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ly perfons within the territories of the Scots who "could record events." Of course, these Poems must have been preferved, if preferved they were, from the third century to the fixth, by oral tradition. But these Poems, and pretty long ones they are, are faid to have been compofed by Highland bards; who could have little connection with the Monks of Hy. Let us then fee what the state of these Highlands was then, and down to the eleventh century.

Mr. Cordiner, minister of Bamf, that ingenious antiquary of the North of Scotland, candidly owns, that nothing is known of Caithnefs, Sutherland, and the ifles, but from Torfous and other writers of Norway; to the crown of which they had been fubject till the reign of Alexander III. His words are: "Previous to the year eight hundred, nothing seems "to be known of this country. But it is more "remarkable, that fo little fatisfactory can be gleaned from its hiftory fince the year one thou"fand two hundred. Soon as the fight of Torfous "fails,

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"It were endless (fays Nicholson in his Scotch library) to compute into how many Chronicles this of Forduns has been multiplied: for being in every monaftery of the kingdom, under the anonymous title of Scotochronicon, it commonly borrowed a furname from the place to which it belonged. This practice raised the value of the Black Book of SCONE, the Black Book of PAISLEY and the Liber Carthufianorum de PERTH, &c. &c.""

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