Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

THE POEMS OF OSSIAX. 25
. r t-.t' latter, to distinguish them from the Scots, who
i.r\. r iiad that art among them, and from the Bri-
ton-, who discontinued it after the Roman conquest.
iac Caledonians, most certainly, acquired a con-
siderable knowledge in navigation, by their living
on a coast intersected with many arms of the sea,
and in islands, divided, one from another, by wide
and dangerous firths. It is, therefore, highly pro-
bable, that they very early found their way to the
north of Ireland, which is within sight of their own
country. That Ireland was first peopled from Bri-
tain, is, at length, a matter that admits of no doubt.
The vicinity of the two islands; the exact corres-
pondence of the ancient inhabitants of both, in
point of manners and language, are sufficient proofs,
even if we had not the testimony of authors of un-
doubted veracity to confirm it. The abettors of the
most romantic systems of Irish antiquities allow
it; but they place the colony from Britain in an
improbable and remote aera. I shall easily admit
that the colony of the Firbolg, confessedly the Belgae
of Britain, settled in the south of Ireland, before
the Gael, or Caledonians, discovered the north;
but it is not at all likely, that the migration of the
Firbolg to Ireland happened many centuries before
the Christian jera.
Tlie poem of Temora throws considerable light
on tills subject. The accounts given in it agree so
well with what the ancients have delivered concern-
ing the first population and inhabitants of Ireland,
tliat every unbiassed person will confess them more
probable than the legends handed down, by tradi-
tion, in that country. It appears, that, in the days
of Trathal, grandfather to Fingal, Ireland was pos-
sessed by two nations ; the Firbolg or Belg3s of
Britain, who inhabited the south, and the Cael, who
passed over from Caledonia and the Hebrides to
Ulster. The two nations, as is usual among an un-
polished and lately settled people, were divided into
small dynasties, subject to petty kings, or chiefs,
independent of one another. In this situation, it is
probable, they continued long, without any material
revolution in the state of the island, until Crothar,
B