doga and Onega are connected by large rivers, or rather outlets: and between the lake Onega and the White Sea, being the only part where there is a pallage into Scandinavia by land, there is another lake and river rendering that fingle paffage not above two miles broad. The circumference of Scandinavia is about two thousand two hundred miles; aud of that whole circumference only two miles being land, it feems rather an impropriety to call it a peninfula, than objectionable to term it an iland. Tacitus ranks the Sitones, a people of Scandinavia, among the Germans; and the other ancients account it an iland of Germany, and it's inhabitants Germans.

This vaft iland feems to have been first peopled by Fins and Laplanders, whom Ihre thinks the firit inhabitants of the whole. But there is great reafon to fuppofe, that thefe people, being from the east, had not extended further weft than their prefent bounds, when they were ftopt by the Scythians, or Goths, from the fouth. For there are no Finnish or Laplandic names in Sweden, or in Norway, tho, had fuch been given to rivers of mountains, they must have in fome cafes remained. The Finnifh and Laplandic names are very peculiar, and distinct from the Gothic: almost all end in vi or o; and they are generally foft as the Italian. Nor in the Eddas, or ancient Sigas, is there a hint of any conflicts with the Fins, or Laplanders, though they inform that Odin conquered the Cimbri.

That the flock which drove the Cimbri and Teutones out of the North of Germany must have come from the north of their poffeffions is clear; for, had it proceeded from the fouth, they must have been driven into Scandinavia. In other words, the Scandinavians must have expelled the Cimbri and Teutones; and it is reasonable to infer of courfe that they feized their feats. Hence it appears to me, that Jutland, and the Danish iles, were peopled with Goths from Scandinavia, and not from Germany. This opinion feems confirmed by that fureft mark, the fpeech of thefe parts; which is not the German dialect of the Gothic, but the Scandinavian dialect of that tongue; and this diftinction between Germany and the Danish dominion has always been marked and precife. The nations which Tacitus finds in prefent Jutland, namely the Angli, Varini, Eudofes, Suardones, and Nuithones, and the Suiones of Zeeland, will of course be originally Scandinavians. Ptolemy names the nations in prefent Jutland, Sigulones, Sabelengii, Cobandi, Chali, Phundufii, Charudes; but his authority, compared to that of Tacitus, who lived near the fpot, is as night to day; and not one name of his nations is to be found, fave in his book, while the real names, as given by Tacitus, occur in many authors.'

The whole of the country to the fouth of Norway, which furrounds the bay of Chriftiana, was, it feems, called Vika, its islands the Vikr islands, from whence came Vika or Vic

hia, the name of their country in Torfeus; Vihtar and Pihtar, the names of the inhabitants, and Vecturiones, the name of the colony of Picts, or more correctly Piks, in Ammianus. This fyftem is expanded, elucidated, and confirmed with great perfpicuity and fuccefs.

The Belge, the real ancestors of three quarters of the prefent English,' were, as our author contends, fettled in the fouth and eaft coafts, two hundred years before Chrift, and began these fettlements at least a century before. The arrival of the Piks was nearly coeval with that of the Belgæ, though fome authors have contended for a much greater antiquity, and place them in Scotland at least one thousand years before Christ. They held Scotland with a fhort interregnum only of the Romans, viz. from A. D. 140 to 170, for Mr. Pinkerton admits, with Richard of Cirencefter, the existence of the province of Vefpafiana, from the evidence of a Roman road. through Stirlingshire to Stratherne.

Our author next enumerates the Pikifh tribes, in which we need not follow him. Kelydhon is the Cumraig for woods, and from hence he thinks the name Caledonians are derived, which the Romans, as ufual, not understanding, gave the name of Sylva Caledonia to the vaft foreft which covered the internal parts of Scotland. When speaking of the Cornavii our author again engages in etymological difquifitions; and though caer is the prefent Cumraig for city, he thinks that kior, the Gothic word for grove, as all the Belgic fortified towns were in groves, may have been the proper etymon, for how else can we account for the numerous initial cars which in part compofe the names of many decidedly Scythian towns and provinces on the continent?

The chapter entitled the Pikifh kingdom, is, therefore, the ancient history of Scotland. The fucceffion of kings from Fergus I. to Fergus II. has been fhown to be fallacious by he most judicious antiquaries; and

It will, fays our author, afterwards be demonflrated, as far as hiftoric demonftration can go, that the Old Scots, or Dalriads, far from being conquerors of the Piks in 843, were themselves fubdued by the Piks in 739, according to the annals of Tighernac and Ulfter, the most authentic Irifh documents; and which certainly favour the Dalraids more than the Piks, as the forimer were from Ireland. That the kingdom of Dalriada, upon it's conqueft by the Piks, in 739, vanifhes from history, and dwindles into nullity; which could never have been the cafe, had it grown in power, fo as in 843 to vanquish the l'iks. That Kenneth, noted in our fables, as conqueror of the Piks, was real and immediate king of thofe very Piks, whom we dream that he conquered. That the modern names of Scots and Scotland,

5

land, unknown for the people and country of North Britain, till the year 1010 or 1020, did not arife at all from the Dalriads, or Old British Scots of Beda; who, on the contrary, had loft the name of Scots, for fome centuries before; and were called Gatheli, and Hibernenfes, as terms of special distinction, from the modern Scori, a name given to the Piks by later Celtic writers, as being Scythæ, or Goths, as were also the Old Scoti of Ireland. That the caufe of all this confusion in our history arifes from Irish churchmen, being our only literati, and hiftorians, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when this confufion begins to appear; and from other reafons after exp'ained. That till Kenneth mounted the Pikifh throne, the Dalriads were confined to Argylefhire; and did not reach over the other Highlands of vernefs and Rofs-fhires till centuries after; nor into Sutherland, till the Norwegians left that country. That they never, from their arrival, till this hour, exceeded 300,000; while the Piks, the real people of present Scotland, now amount to 1,000,000, and always were to the Dalriads as three to one. And that the line of Dalriadic princes, or Scotish kings, as we dream, even from 503, to the time Kenneth came to the Pikish crown, in S43, is totally vague, and unfatisfactory, as might be expected in fuch a petty monarchy, or rather dukedom.'

The reafon of the prevalence of Scottish fables' is faid to be the fiction of the bards, for the Pikish language is little polished and unwritten; fo that when the fenachies or bards first gained admiffion to the tables of princes, they magniñed the Dalriads, fung of their conquefts over the Piks, and of having devoured them at an entertainment afterwards. Thefe bards continued for a time to repeat the fucceffion of Pikish kings, or at least to mention flightly that fo many had reigned; but at the coronation of Alexander III. 1249, all mention of Piks was dropped, and he was traced through a feries of Dalriadic kings. After the year 1010, when the name of Scotland was given to the country, the Piks were confined to Galloway, and for a time remained independent under their, native princes; but after the war of the Standard, in 1138, the name was wholly loft.

It feems as if the Scottish kings came to the fucceffion according to the established laws in 843; but that the fucceflion of a Dalriad at this time was confined to the Piks on the western coafts. Previous, however, to 843, five catalogues of Pikish kings are found, which differ fo much, as to prevent any fufpicion of their being copies of each other, and agree fo nearly as to fupport each other. The firft is given by For dun, who wrote about 1385, and it agrees with the accounts of Adomnan and Beda: the fecond is by Winton, woven into

his

his Chronicle, written about 1410: the third catalogue commences at the reign of Brudi in 557 A. C. taken from an ancient Irish tranflation of Nennius, and published by Lynch in his Cambrenfis Everfus: the fourth published by Innes from the Register of St. Andrew's, written in 1251; and the fifth, the most complete and authentic, is the Chronicon Regum Pictorum in the king of France's library, written in the fourteenth, though our author fufpects this part to be transcribed from one of the ninth, century. The fecond is a very authentic lift, and agrees with the best authorities; and from a comparison of what Beda has obferved, it feems that Brudi began his reign in 557, an important point to calculate from, either to the more ancient or the more modern periods. The name of Piks was changed for that of Scots in the eleventh century, and no Pik or Lowlander was a writer for two centuries after, when even the name was forgotten; but various circumstances contribute, as we have already remarked, to establish the fettlement of the Piks, their Gothic origin, and the authenticity of the lifts; to this mult now be added, that the names in the lifts are generally Gothic, and not very diftant from the Perfian, the original language of the Goths in their native feats.

The fouthern Piks were converted to Chriftianity in 412 by St. Ninian; and the northern Piks in 565; but the enthusiasm of the Piks was not confiderable, fince not one faint of this race is found. The church of Abernethy, the firft Chriftian inftitution among them, was founded about the year 600, Lochleven in 700, Dunkeld about 800, and St. Andrew's in 825. Our author goes on to explain the nature of the Pikish fucceffion, and the manner in which the historic lifts of kings have been preferved by tradition.

The fucceffion of the Piks was in the female line, as at least the moft fecure; but our author remarks, that the treatment of women formed one great and important diftinction between the Celtic and Gothic races. Among the latter they were treated with respect, attention, and almost adoration: among the former they were flaves, and employed in the meanest and most laborious offices. Yet this is not an exact criterion, for even fome of the boasted lowlanders of the prefent time bear this mark of a Celtic race; but perhaps they have been contaminated by bad examples: we allude to the manners of the common inhabitants of Caithnefs and Aberdeenshire, places, we believe, not included in the Highlands. But to return: the Pikish fucceffion was not confined to the immediate heirs of the female line, but the kings were elected out of the royal family, or, in the language of the prefent times, from the royal blood; and

if in this election two candidates were found with equal pretenfions from their spirit or their perfonal qualifications, he was preferred who descended from the female line. In every instance, the fon feems to be ineligible, chiefly that no king might be led to ambitious attempts, for the fake of aggrandifing his own family.

The lifts were preferved chiefly by the Scalds and Senachies; and their more important hiftoric fongs and genealogies are faid to have been recited without ornament, and to deferve attention from their accuracy alone. The chronology of the Pikish monarchs is adjusted by different events with fufficient clearness; but the first period is in fome degree fabulous. It is extended too far by a marvellous length of different reigns; and it is only after the reign of Druft, subsequent to the introduction of Chriftianity and letters, that real hikory may be expected. The names, as they occur with little variation in the different chronicles, are probably very nearly exact; and if eleven years be allowed for each reign, a period, from various confiderations, feemingly well founded, the commencement of the Pikish monarchy will be reduced to the twenty-eighth year after the birth of Chrift. But, till about the reign of Druft, the Pikish kingdom was confined to the Hebuda, the other Piks living in a ftate of democracy, or in fmall independent tribes: the latter we think most probable. The catalogue of the Pikish kings follows, which it would be ufelefs, if not impoffible, to abridge.

The extent of the Pikish dominions was various at different æras. On the north of the Firths they poffeffed the whole country west and eaft; and the Dalriads, it is faid, on the authority of Bede, the north-ftar of this early period, were received in the territories of the Piks (in parte Pictorum): their fituation, as described by the belt geographers, was in the peninfula to the weft and fouth of the Clyde, the lower parts of Argylefhire. All the northern islands and the Hebuda were alfo a part of their dominions, fince they gave Hyona, or Icolmkill, to Columba. The fouthern extent of the Pikish dominions is more uncertain, and an object in an hiftorical view of more importance, as it involves the question of the origin of the people between the walls; or, as our author properly obferves, in other words, was the fouth of Scotland peopled with Goths from the north or the fouth?-perhaps more correctly, with Scandinavian or German Goths. In different epochs the extent of their dominion feems to have varied; their original domains did not go farther fouth than Loch Fyn and Tay; but in 170, when the province of Vespafiana was broken, they reached to the wall of Antoninus, VOL. LXX. July, 1790. admitting

C