Page:A View of the State of Ireland - 1809.djvu/329

, it wilbe no hard matter to descry the falshood, wherin I would be more exquisite, were it worth my labour. We need not so ambitiously runne to Cesara, to begge a forged evidence, seeing without her helpe, Ireland must be confessed to have been knowne and peopled with the same kinred, even with the first Hands of the world. For within three hundred yeares after the generall Floud, immediately after the confusion of tongues, when Iapheth and his posterity, imboldened by the example of Noe, adventured by ship into divers West Hands, there was in his retinew one of his progeny, Basiolenus, who conceiving stomack and courage at the late successe of Nemrodus, Ninus his kinsman (then newly intruded upon the Monarch of Assyria) & wandred so fane West, intending to rule without compeeres, till Fortune cast him and his people upon the coast of Ireland. There he settled with his three sonnes, Languinus, Salanus, Ruthurgus, active and stout gentlemen, who searching the Land through & through, left their owne names by three notable places, Languini stagnum, mons Salangi, since named S. Dominicks hill, and Ruthurgi stagnum. Of Bastolenus is little remembred, save that in short space with many hands working at once, he plained a great part of the Country, then overgrown with woods and thickets. This posterity kept the Land under the