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

xii PREFACE,
into the Southern Britain, rendered them
objeds of attention to the writers of other
countries. It does not appear that letters
were any part of the booty which they car-
ried home with them from the deferted Ro-
tnan province. The feminary of monks
eftablillied by Columba, an Iri{hman, in the
ifland of lona, in the fixth age, feem to
have been the only perfons, within the ter-
ritories of the Scots, that could record
events. If they kept any regifters of tranf-
a(5lions, they were deftroyed or lofl, in the
Norwegian conqueft of the Hebrides by
Harold Harfager, about the middle of the
ninth century.
The fubveriion of trie Pi^lifii kingdom
is the firft sera in which it can be fuppofed
-the Scots be^nn to have authentic records of
o
their own. Soon after the conqueil of Pic-
tavia, the Saxons found means to extend
their government to the frith of Edinburgh.
The Pi6ts and Saxons had alternately pof-
fiifftd, for (bme time before, the counties
between the Forth and the Tweed. The
moll; of the inhabitants of thofe counties
were of the Saxon race, and no doubt, in
a great meafure, they retained the language
of their anceftors. It was after the invafi-
uns of the Danes had totally broke the
power