| In the previous chapter we traced the
progress of the Scots from Scythia, that "workshop of nations," to Ireland.
There can be no doubt regarding their starting point; but there is some variety of opinion
touching the route by which they travelled. They may have crossed from the Cymric
Chersonesus, and passing betwixt the mainland of Scotland and the Orkneys, entering
Ireland on the north. Or they may have taken the longer and more circuitous road by Gaul
and Spain. There is a concurrence of early Irish tradition in favour of the latter route,
and in deference to that tradition we have adopted it as that by which these Scythic
emigrants travelled. But it is of more importance to inquire, at what time did the Scots
arrive in Ireland? Some have
placed their advent so early as the tenth or twelfth century before Christ. This opinion
has neither proof nor probability to support it. If the Scots were in Ireland ten
centuries or even five centuries before the Christian era, how comes it that of the
historians and geographers that speak of Ireland, not one mentions the name of the Scots
till the third or fourth century? Ptolemy, the geographer, in the second century,
enumerates some score of different races as inhabiting Ireland, but the Scot is not of the
number. Caesar, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Mela, Tacitus, Pliny, though they mention
Ireland, know nothing of the Scots. The name by which the country was then known among the
writers who speak of it, was Hibernia, Ierne, or Britannia Minor; and they
had no name for its inhabitants save Hyberni and Hyberionoe. The first
writer in whose pages the term Scoti appears is Ammianus Marcellinus in the end of
the fourth century, and he speaks of them as a people who had been wanderers through
diverse countries, and who even yet were hardly settled down in their new homes.1
Having made their appearance, the Scots do not again pass out of view. On the contrary,
they continue to make their presence in Ireland felt, as they do also in the country on
the higher side of the Irish Channel; and hardly is there a writer of any eminence in the
ages that follow who has not occasion to speak of them. Claudian, Jerome, Orosius, Gildas,
all make mention of the Scots. This is wholly unaccountable on the supposition that this
people had been resident in Ireland for twelve or thirteen centuries, but it perfectly
accords with the theory that makes their arrival to fall at the beginning of the Christian
era, or soon thereafter. As spoken of by their first historians, the Scots have about them
the air of a new people. They are of hardier fiber that the soft and peace-loving
aborigines among whom they have come to dwell, but with whom they do not mix. Ammianus
hints that the disposition to roam was still strong in them, and already, before they have
well established themselves in their new abodes, they are on the outlook for larger
territories, and have their curraghs ready to pass over and explore the land, whose blue
mountain-tops they can descry on the other side of the narrow sea.
The world was then on the eve of one of its
greatest revolutions. The north was about to open its gates and send forth its numerous
hardy races to overflow and occupy the fertile lands of the south. The manhood of the
Greeks and Romans was extinct. There was neither piety in their temples, nor virtue in
their homes. The Senate was without patriotism, and the camp without courage. A universal
dissolution of moral principle had set in, and society lay overwhelmed. Unless the world
was to stand still or perish, new races must be brought upon the stage. The Frank was to
be planted in Gaul, the both was to inherit Spain, the Vandal was to have possessions in
Africa, and the Ostrogoth and Lombard were to pitch their tents in Italy. Of all this
offspring of the fruitful north, it is a historic fact that the Scot was the first born.
He occupied the van in this great procession of nations which we see about to begin their
march to the south: for he was the first to leave his northern home and set out in quest
of a new country. He arrived too early on the scene to fare well in this new partition of
Europe, for Rome was still strong, and kept the gates of her fairest provinces closed
against the northern hordes. Had he come later, when the empire was more enfeebled, the
Scot might have been able to choose his lot amid the corn-lands of Spain, or the vineyards
of Italy, like the Goths, the Huns, and other swarms who follow him. As it was, he was
constrained to turn northwards, and fix his abode under the humid skies of Ierne, and amid
the heath-clad mountains of Caledonia. Nevertheless his was the better part. If the
inheritance assigned him lay at the extremity of Europe, and looked rugged and barren,
compared with the happier allotments of others, it brought with it a countervailing
advantage, which was worth, ten times over, all possible attractions of soil and climate.
It made him all the more able to maintain his liberty and his faith. A new and deeper
slavery was preparing for the nations. The Scot, standing afar off, was the last to come
under the yoke of the second Rome, and among the first to escape from it.
As we dimly descry him on his first
appearance in Ireland, the Scot has about him a marked individuality. He is seen moving
about, a man of iron among figures of clay. His arrival brings the country into historic
light. He takes upon himself the burden of ruling the land, and he infuses something of
his own spirit into the natives. The aborigines appear to have been a submissive and
unwarlike people, who occupied themselves in tending their herds of cattle and swine amid
their woods and bogs. Such at least would seem to have been the report brought of them to
Agricola. The Roman general had been able to do little more than stand his ground before
the Caledonians at the foot of the Grampians, with the Roman army in force, and yet he
undertook, with a single legion and a few bodies of auxiliaries, to subdue and occupy
Ireland.2 Plainly Agricola recognised a vast difference betwixt the spirit of
the men on this side of the Irish Channel and on that. And such do the aborigines of Ierne
appear, as seen in the earliest Irish writings which we possess. We refer to the
"Confessions of Patrick."3 Being the autobiography of Patrick, and
not the history of Ireland, it is only side-glimpses which it gives us of the inhabitants
of the country; but these are full of interest, and amply bear out all that we have said
regarding the character and relative position of the two races then inhabiting Ireland,
the Hiberni and the Scoti. There is seen to be a marked distinction between
the two. The Scots are the military class; they are the nobles. So does Patrick style them
when he has occasion to speak of them in his "Confession," and also in his
letter to the Irish Chieftain, Coroticus. But his language is different when he has
occasion to refer to the aboriginal inhabitants. The latter are spoken of as the
commonalty, the sons of the soil, a quiet, yielding, and inoffensive people, dwelling
carelessly in their pleasant insular abode, plowing their fields, reaping their harvests,
skilled in the rearing of cattle and swine, but inexperienced in the art of war, from the
sight of which their situation happily removed them; yet destined, a few centuries later,
to attain the fame of learning, and then Ireland would shine in a glory which would
attract to its shore the youth of Europe, to drink in the wisdom of its schools.
Very different is that other people who now
make their appearance, and whose career is destined to be so eventful. It is in Ireland
that we first meet them. But Ierne is not their native soil. They have arrived in it,
Ammianus Marcellinus tells us, after long wandering through many countries, and, doubtless
drivers perils. They give kings to their adopted land. They send an armed expedition
across the Channel, to aid the Picts in overrunning the Provincials, and driving back the
Romans. They are constantly finding work for the legions which guard the frontiers of the
now tottering empire. Now it is the Scots that conquer, and now it is the Romans, and the
belt of country between the two walls becomes the scene of many a bloody fray. They go
back again to Ireland, but soon they return in strength to Scotland, and settle down in it
as if they felt that for better for worse this must be the future land of the Scots. They
still cherish their warlike spirit, and are on the outlook for a foe. The Roman has
vanished from Britain, but the SAXON has come in. The Scots unite their arms with the
Picts, and push back the new intruder. At length the two form one people. The northern
rover now appears on their shore, but it only to find a grave. The barrows on the northern
and western coasts of our island, where sleep the Viking and his followers, "slain
with the sword of the Scot," show that their prowess had not suffered decay. The Dane
had conquered the SAXON, but he cannot prevail against the Scot. For ages the nation
maintains its independence in a country which some would have deemed not worth invading,
but which nevertheless was the object of repeated attack on the part of its powerful
neighbours, but with no other result than to renew from age to age, and to work into the
soul of its people, the love of country, and the passion of liberty. In this summary of
the Scottish people we have gone a few centuries forward, and must now retrace our steps.
FOOTNOTES
1. Amian. Marcel., lib 27. Scoti
per diversa vagantes.
2. Tacitus, Vit. Agric., c. 24.
3. Confessio S. Patricii. We shall
have frequent occasion to refer to this work at a subsequent stage of our history. All
that we deem it needful to say of it here is, that it was written by himself in the fifth
century, and first published by Ware from very ancient MS., and its authenticity is
acknowledge by all the learned. |
