Que de cris douloureux font retentir les airs! Dans l'affreufe barbarie Loil brûlant de fureur, la difcorde infernale Eft tout prêt à reculer." Of the Epiftles we fhall felect fome lines from that addreffed to his fifter Amelia, on chance: it will be easy to see the reafon of our choice: Mais quelle, direz-vous, eft la fource féconde Des deflins differens que l'homme a dans le monde ? De fuccès, de revers, de grandeurs, de traverses, 'N'appercevez-vous pas la foule d'inconnus Le monde est donc, ma four, l'empire du hafard; Il ufurpe, les droits de notre prévoyance.' Among the inftances we meet with the misfortunes of the Stuarts: Aux tranfports turbulens d'un peuple fanatique Il trouve un ennemi cruel & factieux, Profond, entreprenant, fage, artificieux, Qu'aucun Qu'aucun travail n'abat, qu'aucun danger n'étonne, Et couvre fes forfaits du nom du Dieu vivant. Bientôt Jacques fecond, plus foible & moins prudent, We perceive in the English edition fome mifcellaneous poems are added, and two mock heroics: the first is ftyled the Palladion, and we shall tranfcribe the argument. The marquis de Valory is the hinge on which the poem turns it is fuppofed that he poffeffes from heaven the rare gift of rendering the Pruffian army invincible while he is prefent. The faints, who creep every where, reveal this fecret to prince Charles of Lorraine; and he endeavours to carry off the marquis. After fome unfuccefsful attempts, Franquini, instead of the marquis, carries off his fecretary Dargot, a perfon who plays his part like any other in the poem. The Pruffians, irritated by Valory and Difcord to be avenged of this affront, fight a bloody battle with the Auftrians, in which the faints, as was their duty, engage. The Pruffians are victorious, and the advantage they gain from the victory is the exchange of Dargot for an Auftrian general, made a prifoner in the battle. Prince Charles gives up the plan of feizing Valory, the disturbance ends, and harmony is restored. • If any ill-natured reader does not find this subject fufficiently heroic for an epic, we refer him to the famous poem of the War of the Mice, the Lutrin, and even Vert-vert: if these poems cannot convince him, the author will confole himfelf with reflecting that pofterity will always admire a work, in which the merits of all the epics, written from the time of Noah to this day are united. To give it more weight, the author will print in the beginning, all the letters of the most exaggerated flattery which he has received, and M. Euler, who has loft one eye in calculations, will lofe the other in refolving the important pro blem blem of the innumerable number of burfts of laughter, which will be excited by reading this grave work.' The fubject of the fecond poem is the War of the Confederates in Poland; but this is fufficiently understood. The Correfpondence of Frederick we must referve for another Article. (To be continued.) An Enquiry into the Hiftory of Scotland preceding the Reign of Malcolm III. or the Year 1056. By John Pinkerton. (Continued from Vol. LXIX. p. 371.) THE inhabitants of this ifland, at the time when history be gins its lefs difputed and lefs fabulous narrative, were the Goths from Belgic Gaul, the Cumri in the middle and on the western coafts, the Caledonians on the east of the northern parts of the island, and the Scoti on the west, beyond the hills. The Gothic origin of the Belge is fufficiently eftablished; and we have differed only from Mr. Pinkerton in fuppofing the Cumri an originally Celtic nation, to have been so much changed by their connection with the Goths, as to have loft their peculiarities, and to be distinguished only by the name. The Caledonians were, from their fituation, divided into two claffes, the Dicaledones and Vecturiones, each of which is not to be confounded with the inhabitants of the western islands. Their origin has been difputed; but we think, with Mr. Pinkerton, that the vague language of historians, at a diftance, unacquainted with the country or the dialect, cannot be confidered as arguments. It was fufficient, that the Britons painted their bodies, and the Picts did the fame. In reality, the Picts and Britons, derived from a common stock, learned the custom from the fame fource; and Cæfar's ac count of all the Britons (omnes Britanni) ftaining themfelves with woad, can scarcely be brought as an argument against the existence of a race of Celts, among whom this cuftom was not known. The first notice of a diftinct race, different from Britons, is in Eumenius' Panegyric on Conftantius; and this race is fixed in Scotland. The authorities for eftablishing the Picts in Caledonia, independent of Eumenius, who muft necefarily have been well informed, when we confider the connection of Conftantius with Britain, are numerous and of importance: yet we think the force of the argument depends greatly on reading in the difputed paffage, Dicaledonum, inftead of Dico Caledonum. The Dicaledones were established in the north, and the Vecturiones probably in the fouth and the south-weft; we have no reason to fuppofe that they advanced on the weftern coaft farther north than the prefent Inverary. Tacitus tells tells us of an action at the foot of the Grampian hills with the Britons under Galgacus; but these must have been the Cumri; and the Atacotti were probably, as our author contends, the hither Scots, or the firit colony from Ireland, which fet tled in Argylefhire. The origin of the Pics has been greatly mifṛeprefented by different hiftorians. Mr. Pinkerton examines various opinions on this fubje&, and dispatches them in his ufual decifive manner. In what relates to the arguments from the language he is not very confiflent. When he confiders that, derived from names, in fupport of the opinion that the Picts were Welth, he allows that the names are Cumraig, because the Cumri had been only a fhort time expelled, and he after wards contends (p. 137.) that the Celtic language is fo poor, that in any European tongue hardly one word of Celtic is found. The Celtic occurs in the proper names, which in our former article we confidered as a very important point, ince they are confeffedly not Gothic. Again, the Cumri of Wales, the most fequestered retreat of the Celts, he admits to have been fo much changed, that in the laws of Howel Dha, while the grammar is Cumraig, the words are as much Gothic and low Latin as Celtic (p. 134.). The arguments alfo from the Celtic etymology are treated with contempt, while thofe from the Gothic are allowed to be good. If the language from which a word is taken be not decidedly Gothic, it most probably is either Cumraig or Gaelic, two dialects of 'the Celtic, for predeceffors cannot borrow from fucceffors, and it is very improbable that the Cumri should borrow terms from the Goths, and retain thefe foreign words, while fimilar ones are loft from their native tongue. The real origin of the Picts is from Germany, or rather the northern parts of that valt continent, which have now loft the name. In reality, they were Scythians, who in the northerly emigration which we have formerly mentioned, reached Scandinavia, and fpreading over Denmark, Norway, and Holftein, retained fome characteristic peculiarities which di ftinguished them from the tribe which occupied the present Germany: yet Tacitus finds the fame traits which he has defcribed in the Germans, and makes them one family. Let us felect our author's account. 'Scandinavia was by the Romans, who only knew a small part of it's fouthern coafts, esteemed not improperly a German iland. It is indeed more properly a vast iland, than a penin fula; as its extent is fo great, and the part that connects it with the continent fo narrow. For all the fouth, weft, and north quarters are furrounded with fea; and on the eaft the lakes La doga Joga and Onega are connected by large rivers, or rather outlets: and between the lake Onega and the White Sea, being the only part where there is a pallage into Scandinavia by land, there is another lake and river rendering that fingle paffige not above two miles broad. The circumference of Scandinavia is about two thousand two hundred miles; and of that whole citcumference only two miles being land, it seems rather an impropriety to call it a peninfula, than objectionable to term it an iland. Tacitus ranks the Sitones, a people of Scandinavia, among the Germans; and the other ancients account it an iland of Germany, and it's inhabitants Germans. This vaft iland feems to have been first peopled by Fins and Laplanders, whom Ihre thinks the first inhabitants of the whole. But there is great reason to suppose, that thele people, being from the east, had not extended further weft than their prefent bounds, when they were stopt by the Scythians, or Goths, from the fouth. For there are no Finnish or Laplandic names in Sweden, or in Norway, tho, had fuch been given to rivers or mountains, they must have in fone cafes remained. The Finnifh and Laplandic names are very peculiar, and distinct from the Gothic: almost all end in vi or o; and they are generally soft as the Italian. Nor in the Eddas, or ancient Siga-, is there a hint of any conflicts with the Fins, or Laplanders, though they inform that Odin conquered the Cimbri.' That the fhock which drove the Cimbri and Teutones out of the North of Germany must have come from the north of their poffeffions is clear; for, had it proceeded from the fouth, they must have been driven into Scandinavia. In other words, the Scandinavians must have expelled the Cimbri and Teutones; and it is reasonable to infer of courfe that they feized their feats. Hence it appears to me, that Jutland, and the Danish iles, were peopled with Goths from Scandinavia, and not from Germany. This opinion feems confirmed by that furest mark, the fpeech of thefe parts; which is not the German dialect of the Gothic, but the Scandinavian dialect of that tongue; and this diftinction between Germany and the Danifh dominion has always been marked and precife. The nations which Tacitus finds in prefent Jutland, namely the Angli, Varini, Eudofes, Suardones, and Nuithones, and the Suiones of Zeeland, will of course be originally Scandinavians. Ptolemy names the nations in prefent Jutland, Sigulones, Sabelengii, Cobandi, Chali, Phundufii, Charudes; but his authority, compared to that of Tacitus, who lived near the fpot, is as night to day; and not one name of his nations is to be found, fave in his book, while the real names, as given by Tacitus, occur in many authors.' The whole of the country to the fouth of Norway, which furrounds the bay of Chriftiana, was, it seems, called Vika, its islands the Vikr islands, from whence came Vika or Vic. |