J. F. Campbell Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

AUTHEXTICITY OF OSSIAN's rOEMS. 381
Celts of Gaul is supposed to have happened ; yet
there are inore than conjectural arguments to prove,
that the appellation o? Albins, or Albìons, given to
the natives, was of the remotcst antiquity, and is
derived from thc Celtic root Alp'w, or Albin; and, as
observed by Dr. Macpherson and La Martiniere, the
terni is now retained and pronounced in the Gaelic
language Albauich, signifying natives of the High
lands. The appellation of Albion appears to have
been given to Britain by Strabo, and other Grcek
as well as Ronian writers;* but Buchanan men-
tions, that several Greek and Latin authors called
the Avhole island Britannia, and all its inhabitants
Britons, without making any distinction. Htrabo has
remarked (lib. iv.), that no one can douht that the
nanie o'i Albion, which is given to Britain, comes from
the sanie source as that indiscrihiinately given to
the Alps, namely, Alpia, and Albia. Martinicre, in his
Geographical Dictionary (before referred to), under
the article Celts, tells us, on the authority of Strabo,
that the word Alps is of Celtic origin, borrowed by
the Romans and Greeks.'l' Stepìianus of Byzantium,
* Pliny says, in speakiiig ot' our island, " Albion i|jsi nonien fuit, Cuni
Britannise vocarentur omnes insulaj. Lib. IV. c. 16".
•(■ " J'ai remarc[ue, au mot Alpes, que, de i'aveu mème dc Strabon,
c'ètoit un mol Celtique empruiilè par ies Liitins et par lcs Grecs." Dic-
tionnaire Geographique par Bruzen La Martiniere.
Innes has given in his Critical Essay, two ancient fragments of Scot-
tish history, which throw some iight on ihe extensive boundaries of
Fingal's liiiigdom. " Fergus the son of Erc reigned over Albany froni
Drumalbin to the sea of Ireland and Innsegall (or Hebridcs)." Ltiuyd,
in his Archa?iogia Britannica, when giving a cataloguc of Irish manu-
tcripts in Trinity Coliege, Dublin, mentions one called the Book of