_The Term "Milesian"_ (Vol. iv., p. 175.).--I beg to direct your
attention to the accompanying extract, which furnishes a reply to MR.
FRASER'S Query:--
"Whoever is acquainted with Irish history, or whoever has had
opportunities of mixing with the natives of that country, cannot
be ignorant that they claim a descent from a long race of Milesian
kings, who reigned over them for thirteen centuries before the
Christian æra. The stock from which this long line of monarchs
emanated is traced to a pretended Milesian colony, supposed to
have emigrated from Spain into Ireland under the conduct of
Heremon and Heber. The most rational inquirers, however, into the
subject consider it as nothing more than a tissue of imaginary
events, originating in the fertile fancies of their bards. A very
brief and general abstract of this contested part of Irish history
shall be given in the words of Mr. Plowden:
"'About 140 years after the Deluge, Ireland was discovered by one
Adhua, who had been sent from Asia to explore new countries by a
grandson of Belus: he plucked some of the luxuriant grass as a
specimen of the fertility of the soil, and returned to his master.
After that the island remained unoccupied for 140 years; and about
300 years after the Flood, one Partholan, originally a Scythian,
and a descendant from Japhet in the sixth generation, sailed from
Greece with his family and 1000 soldiers, and took possession of
the island. They all died off, and left the island desolate of
human beings for the space of thirty years. Afterwards different
sets of emigrant adventurers occupied and peopled the island at
different periods. About 1080 years after the Deluge, and 1300
B.C., Niul (the son of Phenius, a wise Scythian prince), who had
married a daughter of Pharaoh, inhabited with his people a
district given to him by his father-in-law on the Red Sea, when
Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. The descendants of that
Phenius (called more generally Feniusa Farsa) were afterwards
expelled by Pharaoh's successors on account of their ancestors
having favoured the escape of the Israelites through the Red Sea.
They then emigrated and settled in Spain, whence, under the
command of Milesius, a colony of them sailed from Brigantia in
Galicia to Ireland, gained the ascendancy over the inhabitants,
and gave laws and a race of monarchs to the island. The Milesian
dynasty continued to govern Ireland without interruption till
about the year 1168, when it ceased in the person of Roger
O'Connor, and the sovereignty was assumed by our Henry II. Of this
race of kings the first 110 were Pagan, the rest Christian.'"
Barlow's _Hist. of Ireland_, vol. i. pp. 22-4.