(Vol. v., p. 453.)
In reference to the communication of MR. RICHARDS, but I have not seen MR.
FRASER'S Query, I beg to observe, for the honour of "Old Ireland," that
upwards of thirty years since, the Royal Irish Academy awarded to me a
prize of 80l., with the Cunningham gold medal, for an _Essay on the Ancient
History, &c. of Ireland_. It was published in the sixteenth volume of their
_Transactions_ to an extent of 380 pages quarto; and Mr. Moore has done me
the honour to write to me, that it was his guide throughout the first two
volumes of his history of this country. In that Essay, I have written very
fully of the "Milesian" colonisation; so called, not directly from Milesius
himself, but from his two sons, Heber and Heremon, who led the expedition.
The native annalists represent the course of the emigrants through the
Mediterranean by such progressive stages as indicate the state and progress
of the Phoenicians after their exodus under the conduct of Cadmus; though
the ingenuity of the Bards occasionally introduced that colouring of
romance, which perhaps can alone make very remote objects distinguishable.
External testimonies of these oriental wanderers are traceable through
_Herodotus_, lib. iv. c. 42.; _Pliny_, c. 86.; Nennius, _Hist. Britt._, c.
9.; Thomas Walsingham, _Ypodigma Neustriæ_ ad ann. 1185. The venerable
WINTOUN adopts all the traditions of the Irish Chronicles on the subject
(_Cronyk. of Scotl._, lib. ii. c. 9.); and Macpherson declares
(_Dissertation_, p. 15.) that such of the ancient records of Scotland as
escaped the barbarous policy of Edward I. support this account. The writers
on Spanish history, the _Hispania Illustrata_, De Bellegarde's _Hist. Gen.
d'Espagne_, vol. i. c. i. p. 4., Emanuel de Faria y Sousa, &c., carry the
links through Spain; and such indeed has been the long and general faith in
the tradition, that it has been actually embodied, even to the names of
those alleged leaders Heber and Heremon, in an act of parliament (of
Ireland I must admit) in the eleventh year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
and through an occurrence therein engrafted upon it is expressly derived
one of Her Majesty's--
"Auntient and sundrie strong authentique tytles for the Kings of
England to this land of Ireland."