Ossian Collection > Thoughts on the origin and descent of the Gael

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" colonies from Phoenicia and Egypt, seems not
"doubtful."*
One great and important fact may be relied
on as certain, that in that quarter of the globe
known by the name of Asia, a great portion of
the inhabitants lived for ages in a state of high
civilization, cultivation, and opulence, were col-
lected into great and populous cities, and govern-
ed by the polity of extensive empires, which be-
came the seats of arts, of luxury, and despotism,
before Athens or Rome, so illustrious in the wes-
tern world, had any existence, or even Greece
and Italy were known by these names to the re-
fined, nations of the East, as parts of the habi-
table world.
That the Pelasgi were the first or earliest inha-
bitants of Greece, is a fact which we do not recol-
lect to be affirmed by any author; that, however^
they were very early inhabitants of that country,
is admitted; and that they introduced civilization
and arts into Greece, is vouched by the revered
authority of Homer. The Pelasgians are by him
enumerated among the Trojan auxiliaries : he
bestows on them a highly honourable epithet,
2m n£A«5ye'> intimating some very estimable quali-
ties in their character by which they were su-
pereminently distinguished. The commentator
Eustathius explains the reason of the application
of so dignified an epithet, from the circumstance
* Mitford's History of Greece, vol. i. p. 19.