burial-place of Colom. Garbhi, rugged island, the name of the small rocky island in the Frith of Forth situated near Queensferry. Several islands in the Hebrides terminate in i. The name Hebrides is derived from the ancient name I Bhrid, the islands of Brid, from whom the Macdonalds are said to be descended. Inniscolm and Innisceith in the Frith of Forth are of larger extent. Innisgaoll denoted the islands on the west of Scotland, subject to the Danes, as shall be more particularly noticed in another place. Inn was an appellation which was applied to an island of great magnitude, as Bretinn, Albinn, Erinn.

"Albion insula sic dicta ab albis rupibus, quas "mare alluit, vel ob rosas albas quibus abundat."* The derivation of the appellation of Albion, which applied to the largest of the Britannic Islands, rested upon the fanciful conjectures of ancient authors. It was said to have got its name from its white rocks washed by the sea; from the abundance of white roses it produced; from the Greek "oxßov, as being highly happy and fertile; from the giant Albion, the son of Neptune, who was said to have reigned there. It cannot admit of doubt that the term Albion is a compound; for although it was written Albion by the Greeks and Latins, the just orthography, according to the pronunciation of the original Gaelic inhabitants, is Albinn, which signifies

* Vide PLIN. 4. 16.

white or fair island. This denomination is expressive of its appearance from the Gallic coast; and the quantity of soil impregnated with chalk, which it presented to the eye in many of the southern parts of the island nearest the conti-, nent of Gaul, rendered the term an appropriate one in the Gaelic language. And although the word alb is not now in use among the Gael, the Latin language has preserved the word in the term albus; which proves, that, deprived of the Latin termination us, alb was a radical word in the language of the most ancient inhabitants. If these were Gael, then the word alb may be fairly admitted as a Gaelic word of the same signification with the Latin albus: Hence the name Albion would literally signify fair or white island. In confirmation of this etymon we have the Alpes Montes, which are said to have been so denominated from their snowy tops. The Appenines Montes, so called from the same appearance. The I being dropped in the pronunciation is no good reason for rejecting this etymon of the appellation Appenines, (the labials b and p are commutable letters); and in pronunciation it is not uncommon, in other languages, to drop the letter / where it immediately precedes a consonant; many instances of which occur in the English language, as pronounced in different parts of the island of Great Britain. Bennin is the Gaelic word for mountains of the greatest magnitude and eleva

PICTS, CALEDONIANS, SCOTS.

THESE appellations, which were applied to different portions of the ancient inhabitants of those northern parts of Britain which have for many ages back been distinguished by the name of Scotland, were at all times unknown to the original inhabitants as national appellations; and their descendants remain ignorant of them to this day. Their country they denominate Albinn; their national appellation is Albinnach, in the plural number Albinnich; and the generic appellation of their race of people is Gael. Whence then was derived those names which we find in ancient authors? We have no hesitation in affirming, that they were applied to the inhabitants of the unconquered portion of the island of Great Britain by the Roman writers, and by the provincial Britons.

It is an unquestionable fact, that the ancient Britons made use of the juice of an herb, which communicated to the skin a blue colour. Julius Cæsar was of opinion, that this mode of colouring was intended to render them more terrible to their enemies in battle.* Pliny informs us,

* CÆSAR,-killed 44 years before Christ.

that there was an herb like plantain, which in Gaul was called glastum, with which the Britons dyed themselves; and in the times of Solinus, the custom of staining and pricking the skin was practised by the Britons of the northern parts of the island.

It is a curious trait in human nature, that barbarous usages of the same kind please mankind in the rude stages of society, in all quarters of the world. Such strange practices are never relished by a civilized people; and accordingly we find, that those Britons who became subject to the Roman government soon imitated customs inconsistent with a taste for those colourings, punctures, and incisions, which could not but shock the feelings of every people, who could claim any pretension to even a small degree of civilization or refinement of manners. Hence a marked distinction necessarily took place between the provincial Britons, who, remaining unconquered, continued to practise their own usages. The Romans called them Picti, and the provincial Britons, who had made considerable

progress in the acquisition of the Roman language, adopted the appellation given by their masters to those barbarians who remained unsubdued, and still resisted Roman polity and arms. The writers of the latter ages of Roman greatness continued to use the same appellation, and apply it to all the Britons in the island, without the pale of Roman authority, until dis

tinctive appellations of a local nature arose from circumstances and manners, which exhibited a characteristic and well marked difference in the modes of life observed to prevail between certain portions of the inhabitants of the northern unsubdued part of the island.

4

Agricola was the first Roman general who had penetrated into that part of the island of Britain, the inhabitants of which were called by the Romans, Caledonii. The people of that portion of the island lying on the south, in a line of direction running between the river Tyne and the Solway Frith, northward to the Friths of Clyde and Forth, were called by the Romans, Maati, and began to feel the weight of Roman power about the year 82 of the Christian era. The Caledonii, though defeated in a pitched battle at the foot of the Grampian hills, were not subdued: Agricola, however, had settled the limits of the empire to the north, by those two Friths.

The subjection of the Mæati lasted no longer than Agricola's continuance in the island. The Mæati recovered their liberty, which they enjoyed, according to their ancient usages, until Lollius Urbicus, under the emperor Antoninus, brought them again under a temporary subjection. In the time of the emperor Commodus, both the Mæati and Caledonii broke in upon the empire, harassed the Roman provinces, killed a