HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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times, infected with this folly. Even Cambden himself, who wrote so lateas the commencement of the seventeenth century, was not hardy enoughtotally to reject the then fashionable legend of Brute, but treated it with themost reverential awe and respect. The general opinion, however, of thelearned and best informed, appears to agree in one point, that Britain wasoriginally peopled by the Celtaj, or Celtes, who, passing from Asia into Europe,after spreading themselves over a considerable part of the latter continent,found themselves at length compelled, owing to the narrowness of their limits,to exchange the genial warmth of the southern climates, for those more nor-thern regions, where they were able to find a resting place. Peopled from thecontinent, the inhabitants of Britain boasted, from the earliest times, a kindof aboriginal right to nautical fame. But though it is manifest, from the un-disputed testimony of authors standing in the first class for credit, on accountof their veracity, that Britain, even in the most remote ages, when she wasconsidered as in a totally rude and uncivilised state, held no inconsiderabledegree of commercial intercourse with very distant nations, particularly thePhoenicians * : yet the inhabitants appear to have rested content with suffering

tain, that, in the declining age of the Roman empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, wereinhabited by the Scots ; and that the kindred tribes, who were often associated in military enterprise,were deeply affected by the various accidents of their mutual fortunes. They long cherished the livelytradition of their common name and origin ; and the missionaries of the Isle of Saints, who diffusedthe light of Christianity over North Britain, established the vain opinion, that their Irish countrymenwere the natural, as well as spiritual, fathers of the Scottish race. The loose and obscure traditionhas been preserved by the venerable Bede, who scattered some rays of light over the darkness of theeighth century. On this slight foundation, an huge superstructure of fable was gradually reared, bythe bards, and the monks : two orders of men, who equally abused the privilege of fiction. TheScottish nation, with mistaken pride, adopted their Irish genealogy ; and the annals of a long line of

imaginary kings have been adorned by the fancy of Boethius, and the classic elegance of Buchanan.-

Gibbon, chap. xxv.

* It is insisted upon by many, that the very name of the country is derived in consequence of thisintercourse. The learned Bochart, speaking of the colonies and language of the Phoenicians, offers aconjecture which most of our modem writers have adopted as the most natural. The Phoenicians,according to the author just quoted, called Britain, and other islands near it, Barat Anac, that is, theland or country of tin or lead, and more contractedly Bratanac; which name passing from the.Phaeni-cians to the Greeks, and from them to the Romans, might have been softened into that of Britannica,and Britannia. That the Phoenicians first discovered those isles, which were afterwards by the Greekscalled Cassiterides, and are proved by Cambden to be the present Stilly Islands, appears both fromStrabo and Pliny, of whom the former relates, that the Phoenicians first brought tin from the Cassi-terides, which they sold to the Greeks, but kept the trade to themselves, and the place private.