Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

xvi PREFACE.
attention, and diverted his mind from a
(ludy more amuling than important,
The few fcraps of antiquity which is
contained in the firft book of his ecclefi-
aftical hilliory, the venerable prefbyter borr
rowed from Gildas, or from his own re^
ligious cotemporaries of Ireland. Before I
proceed to Gildas, it may not be impro-
per to give one instance of the great par-
tiality of Bedc to the Irifh. Egfrid, King
of Northumberland, had been, in the year
685, with the greatefi: part of his army,
cut off by the Pids, This, fays Bede,
was a judgment from God, -upon Egfrid
and his fubjecfls, for committing the year
before this fatal event, unheard of barbari-
ties and ravages among the Hibernians, a
nation very harmlefs and innocent ^ and of a
mojl friendly difpoftion towards the Engli/h.
Bede, however, muft be blamed for his
fervile copying after Gildas, a writer not
worthy of fuch attention. Gildas was one
of the mod: palTionate, peevifh, and queru-
lous of mankind. He not only was immo-
derately angry v/ith the Scots * and Pid:s,
* Exin Bfitanma, fo he calls that part of the ifland which had been fub-
jeft to the Romans, duahu: gentibus trarjmartms ■vehement er Ja-vn, Scotttrum
a Circio, PlBorum ab aquUor.e, calcahilh muUos fiupet, gemitque per anitts.^
Gild. cap. 1 5. Bede explains, that Gildas gave the epithet of tranfmarwi
to the Picis and Scots, becaufe they came from beyond the firths of Forth
and Clyde. Bed. Hift. Eccles. lib. 1. cap. 12.
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