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

XXX PREFACE.
Pi£is, It is true, were permitted to b? of ^
diiierent extradion : but the Fids, itfeernsy
were vaffals of Ireland, and unworthy of be-
ing defcended from their Heremonian Lords.
Usher, no doubt with fome degree of
pleafure, found that, in the printed copies of
Jerome, the Britiih canibals of the holy Fa-
ther were the Scots-f*. The Primate remarks,
at the fame time, that fome manufcripts cal-
led them Attifcotti, Catitti, Cattacotti, and
Attagotti : but Cambden ccnjedures, with
reafon, that thofe names ought to be read
Attacotti, according to the orthography fol-
lowed by Marcellinus. Should we give the
preference to the reading which Uflier found
in print, there arifes a proof that the Scots,
contrary to his own pofition, were fettled in
Britain in the fourth age. If we adopt the
opinion of Cambden, the Irifh cannot pcf-
fibly have any right to the Attacotti. — That
the Attacotti polielTcd the county of Gallo-
way, is highly probable : from a pafT^ige in
Marcellinus, we may naturally infer, that
they were more conneded with the Scots
than with the Pids ; confequently, that they
poflefled a part of the weftern coaft, rather
than that of the German oceanj.
t Bnt. Icclef. ant. p. 307, 308.
1 Pi<5tj, Saxoncfque, ct Scotti & Attacotti Srltannos acrumnis vexavtre
ccminuis. Ammian. MarceU. 1. 26.
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