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

xxvi PREFACE.
Doctor Macpherson, in the courfe
of the following DifTertations, has fliewn
how ill-founded the fenachies of Ireland
have been, in their pretenfions to the Bri-
tifh Scots. Before we proceed to a further
difcuflion of that fuhjed, it may not be
improper to examine a new claim, from the
fame quarter, on another martial nation,
who polTefTed a part of Caledonia. — Mar-
cellinus relates, that the Attacotti, a war-
like race of men, in conjundion with the
Pids and Scots, laid wafle the Roman pro-
vince in Britain, in the reign of Valentin-
ian. St. Jerome gives a very extraordinary
character of the Attacotti : " In my youth,"
faith the faint, " I faw in Gaul, the Atta-
cotti, a British people, feeding upon human
bodies. When they found in the woods hogs
and flocks of {heep, or herds of cattle, they ufed
to cut off the buttocks of the herdfmen and
the breafts of the women, looking upon thofe
parts of the body as the greateftdanties*."
I T would be perhaps thought uncharita-
ble, if not impious, to call the holy Fa-
ther's veracity in queftion, efpecially as he
appeals to occular demonftration : but I mufl:
* Quid loquar de caeteris nationibus, cum ipfe adolefcentulus, in Gallia
viderim Scotos [Attacottoi, Catacottos, 'uaritt cr.tvi junt leBionet) pentem Bri-
tannicam, humanis vefci carnibus, & cum per fylvas porcorum greges & ar-
mentorum, pecudemque reperiant, paftorum nates & fcemmaruni papilias
folere abfcindere, et has folas ciborum delicias arbitrari. Hieronym. adv.
j«vm. Lib. u. obfervc