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

0/ Sl Colmnha. 343
Jified for the execution of arduous undertakings.
That pertinacity which is necellary to complcat
difficult defigns, is often the fruit of an iralcible
and choleric difpofuion of the mind. Hence it
may be inferred that Columba's paiiions were keen
and violent, though perhaps not fo peculiarly vin-
di(5tive and hot, as bards and annaiilis have re-
prefented.
Keating relates, on the faith of Irilh manu-
fcripts, that Columba, to gratify his private re-
venge, frequently embroiled the whole kingdom
of Ireland. His rage produced three long civil
wars, fo often and fo fuccefsfully did the irafcible
faint blow the trumpet of fedition. If it be true
that the firft of thefe wars was occafioned by the
refentment of Columba, for lofing a copy of the
New Tellament, wliich he c'aimed, and which
the Irifh monarch adjudged to another faint, the
old tutelar demi-god of our country was certainly
a mofl unreafonable man.
The fecond war was founded on fome kind of
affront which Columba had received from a pro-
vincial King ; and the third v/as carried on at his
infligation, without any tolerable pretext at all.
If thefe ftories are authentic, the heathen may in-
deed afk, canfuch violent tranf -ports of pajjlon dindl
in cekjiial ininds'^? But it cannot well be fuppof-
ed that any confiderable numiber of the Irilh, how-
ever monk ridden, would have fought battles in
compliance with the humour of a man fo impo-
tently wrathful : much lefs can we believe that
heaven interpofed, on all diefe di(Terent occafions,
*^ Tanrxne animis celeftibus irse. Virg. .^d. i. v. 1 1.
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