Page:A View of the State of Ireland - 1809.djvu/77

 Eudox. I doe now well understand your distinguishing of the two sorts of Scots, and two Scotlands, how that this which now is called Ireland, was anciently called Erin, and afterwards of some written Scotland, and that which now is called Scotland, was formerly called Alhin, before the comming of the Scythes thither; but what other nation inhabited the other parts of Ireland?

Iren. After this people thus planted in the North, (or before,) for the certaintie of times in things so farre from all knowledge cannot be justly avouched, another nation comming out of Spaine, arrived in the West part of Ireland, and finding it waste, or weakely inhabited, possessed it: who whether they were native Spaniards, or Gaules, or Africans, or Gothes, or some other of those Northerne Nations which did over-spread all Christendome, it is impossible to affirme, only some naked conjectures may be gathered, but that out of Spaine certainely they came, that do all the Irish Chronicles agree.

Eudox. You doe very boldly Iren. adventure upon the histories of auncient times, and leane too confidently on those Irish Chronicles which are most fabulous and forged, in that out of them you dare take in hand to lay open the originall of such a nation so antique, as that no monument remaines of her beginning" and first inhabiting; especially having been in those times without letters, but only bare traditions of times