2Acht daoradh na scoit—
This expression should have been in the plural, acht daoradh na scot. Every reader is now aware that the ancient inhabitants of Ireland were called Scots, and the island Scotia. In succeeding ages, the term was exclusively applied to the Albanian Colonists from Ireland. Hence originated the name of Scotland.
3"Lofty spirits of Milesian line."
The ancient Milesian families of Ireland, after braving the storms of thousands of years, began to yield in the sixteenth century. The disastrous warfare of the succeeding age, and the perfidy of the Milesian Stuart, hastened their political downfall, which was finally completed by their ill-fated en- deavours to restore the second James. A Milesian of the present day looking back on his long line of ancestry and subdued country, may justly exclaim with the Trojan hero:—
———Fuimus Troes: fuit Ilium, et ingens
Gloria Teucrorum, ferus omnia Juppiter Argos
Transtulit: incensâ Danai dominantur in urbe.
But, though the inheritances of Ireland were seised by the adventurer and soldier, the Milesian families retained, even in their decline, a high sense of the dignity of their descent. On this subject, it seems, our English neighbours have been much amused by the following anecdote, which Dr. Johnson was fond of relating as a curious sample of Milesian pride:— "The few ancient Irish gentlemen yet remaining, have the highest pride of family; Mr. Sandford, a friend of the Doctor's, whose mother was Irish, told him, that O'Hara, who was true Irish both by father and mother, and he, and Mr. Ponsonby, son to the earl of Besborough, the greatest man of the three, but of an English family, went to see one of those ancient Irish, and that he distinguished them thus, O'Hara, you are welcome!
