Page:A View of the State of Ireland - 1809.djvu/327

 held excused, if percase for advancement of their Citties, they straine a point of truth, and derive a first foundation from one or other, of their supposed Gods: wherefore though I can no lesse doe then reject a fable concerning the arrivall of Noes Neece into this Island, yet this kinde of forgery being somewhat universall, seeing every Chronicler paineth himselfe, to fetch his reckoning with the farthest let him hardly be pardoned, who led by relation of his elders, committed first to writing so dull a tale. As for the multitude of writers that agree thereon, they are in effect but one writer, seeing the latest ever borrowed of the former, and they all of Cambrensis, who afrirmeth it not, but onely alleadgeth the received opinion of Irish Histories, yea rather in the foote of that Chapter, he seemeth to mistrust it, and posteth it over to the credit of his authors: so then if the greatest weight hereof doe consist in Irish antiquitiss, which the learned here confesse to be stuffed with such implements, notoriously felt to be vaine and frivolous, I trust I shall not seeme contentious, nor singular in damning such a fable, not onely false, but also impossible. Thus they say, In the yeare of the world, 1536. The Patriarch Noe began to preach vengeance upon the people for their accursed lives, to builde his Arke, to enforme his kindred and speciall friends severally, that within few yeares the earth should be sunke in waters, if they amended not. This did he before the generall flood one hundred and twentie yeares, when every man foreslept the monition, onely a Neece