Ossian Collection > Critical dissertation on the poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

A DISSERTATION. vii
The name of PiSls was, perhaps, given by the Romans to the
Caledonians, who pofTefled the call coaft of Scotland, from their
painting their bodies. This circumllance made fome imagine, that
the Pidls were of Britifh extradl, and a different race of men from the
Scots. That more of the Britons, who fled northward from the tyranny
of the Roman-, fettled in the low country of Scotland, than among the
Scots of the mountains, may be ealily imagined, from the very nature
of the country. It was they who introduced painting among the Pidts.
From this circumftance proceeded the name of the latter, to diflin-
§uilh them from the Scots, who never had that art among them, and
from the. Britons, who difcontinued it after the Roman conquefl.
The Caledonians, moft certainly, acquired a conliderable know-
ledge in navigation, by their living on a coafh interfe(fted with ma-
•ny arms of the fea, and, in illailds, divided, one from another, by
wide and dangerous firths. It is, therefore, highly probable, that
they, very early, found their way to the north of Ireland, which
is within fight of their own country. That Ireland was firft
peopled from Britain is certain. The vicinity of the two iflands ;
the exadt correfpondence of the antient inhabitants of both, in
point of manners and language, are fufficient proofs, even if we
had not the teftimony of authors of undoubted veracity to confirm Dio. Sic.l.5.
it. The abettors of the moft romantic fyftems of Irifli antiquities
allow it ; but they place the colony from Britain in an improbable
and remote sra. I fhall eafily admit, that the colony of the Fir— N
bolg, confefTedly the Bdgce of Britain, fettled in the fouth of Ire-
land, before the Caifl, or Caledonians, difcovered the north : but it
is not at all likely, that the migration of the Firbolg to Ireland .
happened many centuries before the incarnation.
OssiAN