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

PREFACE. xvii
who perhaps deferved very ill at his hands,
but even his friends the Britons, and, above
all, he was enraged againft the Saxons. From
an expreffion in this author, fome Englifh *
and many Irifh antiquaries, to their great
joy, thought they found an unanswerable
proof that the Scots came originally from
Ireland ; and that in no earlier period than
the lixth century. Gildas, fpeaking of the
Scots and Pid:s, fays, Revertuntur ergo im^
pudentes grajfatores Hiberni domusy pofi non
multum temporis reverfuri.
The epithet impudentes applied to Hiber^
ni is not fufficient to eftablilh the juflnefs
of this reading, though it might have fome
weight with men of wit. Bede was far
from entertaining fuch an unfavourable opi-
nion of the inhabitants of the holy ijle. In
an edition of Gildas, given to the public
by Dr. Gale, the pafTage under confiderati-
on, is read in a more grammatical way,
and lefs to the difcredit of Ireland : rever^
tuntur ergo impudentes graJJ'atores Hibernas
domus ', fo that Gildas meant no more than
that the Scots returned home for the winter.
To juftify this reading, it is to be obferv-
ed, that the ancient Scots and their pofbe-
♦ Lhoyd and Stillinsfleet.
b rity