Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/61

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 41 reduced to the state of civilized and peaceful sei'vitude : the rights of savage freedom were contracted to the narrow hmits of Caledonia. The inhabitants of that northern region were divid- ed, as early as the reign of Constantine, between the two great tribes of the Scots and of the Picts,^^"^ who have since experi- enced a very different fortune. The power, and almost the memory, of the Picts have been extinguished by their successful rivals ; and the Scots, after maintaining for ages the dignity of an independent kingdom, have multiplied, by an equal and voluntary union, the honours of the English name. The hand of nature had contributed to mark the ancient distinction of the Scots and Picts. The former were the men of the hills, and the latter those of the plain. The eastern coast of Caledonia may be con- sidered as a level and fertile country, which, even in a rude state of tillage, was capable of producing a considerable quantity of com ; and the epithet of cruitnich, or wheat-eaters, expressed the contempt, or envy, of the carnivorous highlander. The cultiva- tion of the earth might introduce a more accurate separation of property and the habits of a sedentary life ; but the love of arms and rapine was still the ruling passion of the Picts ; and their warriors, who stripped thenaselves for a day of battle, were dis- tinguished, in the eyes of the Romans, by the strange fashion of painting their naked bodies with gaudy colours and fantastic figures. The western part of Caledonia irregularly rises into wild and barren hills, which scarcely repay the toil of the husbandman and are most profitably used for the pasture of cattle. The highlanders were condemned to the occupations of shep- herds and hunters ; and, as they seldom were fixed to any permanent habitation, they acquired the expressive name of Scots, which, in the Celtic tongue, is said to be equivalent to that of wanderers or vagrants. The inhabitants of a barren land were urged to seek a fresh supply of food in the waters. The Agricol. c. xi.) " Caesar had observed their common rehgion (Comment, de Bello Gallico, vi. 13) ; and in his time the emigration from the Belgic Gaul was a recent, or at least an historical, event (v. 10). Cambden, the British Strabo, has modestly ascertained our genuine antiquities (Britannia, vol. i. Introduction, p. ii-xxxi.). 113 In the dark and doubtful paths of Caledonian antiquity, I hae chosen for my guides two learned and ingenious Highlanders, whom their birth and education had peculiarly qualified for that office. See Critical Dissertations on the Origin, Antiquities, &c., of the Caledonians, by Dr. John Macpherson, London, 1768, in 4I0; and Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, by James Macpherson, Esq., London, 1773, in 410, third edit. Dr. Macpherson was a minister in the Isle of Sky : and it is a circumstance honourable for the present age that a work, replete with erudition and criticism, should have been composed m the most remote of the Hebrides. [See .ppendix 2.]