that time forward, all the islands became fubject to the crown of Norway, and continued fo, with little interrup tion, for many ages. The writer from whom I have taken this account, informs us further, that Haroid, often invaded the continent of Scotland, and fought feveral battles there with great fuccefs: and to corroborate the teftimony of the old Islandic historian from whom he had this relation, he appeals to the rhimes of two ancient poets of Scandinavia, who celebrated that monarch's actions in Scotland in heroic fongs. It is certain that a powerful army of Scandinavian pirates infefted the Eaftern coaft of Scotland about the time now affigned, and committed the most cruel devaftations, under the conduct of two famous brothers, Hinguar and Hubba. Conftantine the fecond, king of Scots, marched against them in perfon, and twice gave them battle. In the first action he obtained the victory, but in the fecond he was defeated, taken prifoner, and beheaded. This event happened, according to the Scottish hiftorians †, in the 879; and as Harold Harfager reigned at that time, the authority of the bards, to whom Torfæus appeals, feems to deserve credit. It is true, the enemies by whom Conftantine was killed are by our hiftorians called Danes: but that is an objection of no force: the pirates who infefted the different kingdoms of Europe in the ninth century are, by diffe-. rent writers, ftiled Norvegians, Danes, Getes, Goths, Jutes, Dacians, Swedes, Vandals, Livonians, and Frieflanders; their armies being compofed of all thofe nations. As the countries from which these inundations of plunderers came, lay either to the east or north of the European kingdoms which they infefted and harraffed, they went under the more general denominations of Eafterlings, Oftmans, or Normans. It appears evidently from the annals quoted by Sir James Ware ‡, that in the year 735, the Normans laid wafte a great part of Ireland, and the island of Richrine, which is reckoned by fome one of the Eubudes. Three years after this devaftation they infefted Ulfter and the Hebrides; and it is not proba ble that Orkney, which lay in their way, could have refifted their fury. In the year 807, continues Ware, the Danes and Norwegians, landing in the province of Connaught, deftroyed Rofcommon with fire and fword. At the fame time Cellach, abbot of I-collumcille, fled into Ireland for safety, after the enemy had murdered a confiderable number of his people. He did not return to Scotland for feven years: and from that circumftance we may take it for granted that these favages made themselves mafters of Iona, at leaft, and probably of all the other western isles. About the year 818, Turgefius, by fome called a Dane, and by others a Norwegian, invaded Ireland. This famous adventurer, after a long feries of piratical defcents and flying battles, ufurped at laft the fovereignty of the whole ifland, ruled the miferable inhabitants with a rod of iron, made dreadful maffacres of all the ecclefiaf tics he could feize, and committed their books to the flames. The Irish were revenged of this cruel tyrant, but had not ftrength enough to fhake off the yoke of flavery under which they groaned. New fupplies of hoftile troops came yearly from Scandinavia, which, with the adherents of Turgefius, maintained the war with fuc cefs against the divided natives. About the year 850, they poffeffed themfelves of Dublin, and the parts of Lienfter adjacent Fordun, Boece, and Buchan. in vita Conftant. II. adjacent to that capital ‡, from whence the Irish were never able to drive them. The greatest monarch that ever held the fcepter in Ireland, prevailed, in the year 1014, with the greateft part of the provincial kings to join their forces to his own, and to attempt a total expulfion of the common enemy. Si tricus, who was at that time king of the Dublinian Eafterlings and Normans ufed every poffible precaution to make head against this powerful confederacy. He entered into a league with the king of Lienfter, procured a body of auxiliaries from him, and received a great acceffion of ftrength from the Danes of Man and Inchegaul. After vaft preparations had been made on both fides, the contending nations met at last near Dublin, and fought the obftinate and bloody battle of Cluain-tarf. In that fatal conflict the Irish loft the illuftrious Brian Bore, their fovereign, together with his fon and grandfon, befides fome provincial kings, a vaft number of the nobility, and many thousands of the common people *. Sitricus retired, and maintained his poft in Dublin, with the fhattered remains of his army. The preparations made by that prince before the battle, and the fupplies he received from Man and Inchegaul, afford a clear demonftration that the Scandinavians were poffeffed of these ifles before the æra affigned by the Scottish hiftorians; and the Irish annals, from which Ware has taken the account he gives us of thefe things, are more to be depended upon, with regard to the time, at leaft, in which the Ebudes became subject to the crown of Norway, than the accounts followed by Buchanan, Boece, and Fordun. We know that the Normans made confiderable acquifitions in France, and the Danes in England, about the fame time that Turgefius became fo formidable in Ireland. We learn from Fordun, that the Danes infefted the east. ern coast of Scotland before the end of the ninth century. It is not probable, therefore, that the Hebrides, which lay in their way, could have been entirely overlooked by these free-booters, in the courfe of their ravages. These ifles, difcontiguous, and thinly inhabited, incapable of aflifting each other with powerful fuccours, and lying at a great diftance from the feat of the Scottish kingdom, could make little refiftance to a torrent which at that time carried almoft all Europe before it. The monarchs of Scotland could not have relieved their Hebridian fubjects, nor repoffefs themfelves of their, conquered iflands; they had fufficient employment elfewhere; the eastern provinces of their kingdom must be defended from the frequent invafions of the fame barbarous enemy, or from the infurrections of the lately conquered Picts. The most authentic hiftory of the revolutions which happened in the western ifles, is contained in the Chronical of Man, as far as it goes. This fmail piece has been preferved by Camden, in his Britannia. It was written by the monks of Ruffin, an abbey in Man, and is probably older, by a whole century, than Fordun's Scotichronicon. Thofe who examine the transactions of thofe times with attention, will difcover fome chronological errors in the Chronical of Man; but these errors: are owing to the negligence of tranfcribers, as they are manifeftly inconfiftent with the truth of facts related, and with the æras affigned in other parts of the Chronical. This ancient record begins thus: "In the year 1065, died Edward king of England, of bleffed memory. He was Ware's Antiq. of Ireland, page 58. * Ware's Ant. &c. p. 63. Keating's Gen, Hift. of Ireland. Part 2, p. 64. : was fucceeded in the throne by Harold, the fon of Godwin; to whom Harold Harfager, king of Norway, gave battle at Stainford-bridge. The victory fell to the English, and the Norwegians fled. Among the fugitives was Godred, firnamed Chrovan, the fon of Harold the black from Iceland. This Godred coming to the court of Godred, the fon of Syrric, who reigned in Man at that time, was entertained by him in an honourable way. The fame William the Baftard conquered year England; and Godred, the fon of Syrric, dying, was fucceeded by his fon Fingal." Donald Bane mounted the throne of Scotland, and before Godred Chrovan took poffeffion of the dynafty of the ifles. Godred was a powerful prince. He fubdued a great part of Leinster, annexed Dublin to his empire, and reduced the Scots, according to the Chro nicle, to fuch a ftate of dependency, that he would not permit them to drive more than three nails into any boat or veffel they built. Ware quotes a letter of Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, wherein that prelate called Godred king of Ireland ‡. He died, after a reign of fixteen years, at Yle, or Ifla, and was fucceeded by his fon The king of England who died in the with which the Chronical be- Lagman. year gins, was Edward the Confeffer, a prince highly extolled by monks, who derived extraordinary advantages from his pious liberality. It is well known that Edward affifted Malcolm Canemore in recovering the throne of his ancestors, which had been ufurped by Macbeth, and that Malcolm, for years, carried on a war against the Norman conqueror and William Rufus, his immediate fucceffor. Malcolm died in the year 1093, about thirty years before Godred, the fon of Syrric, left the kingdom of the ifles to his fon Fingal, and confequently thirty years before Donald Bane made the pretended donation of the Ebudes to Magnus of NorThis donation never exifted; way. for it manifeftly appears from the Chronical of Man †, and other concurring records, that the Norwegians had occupied the western ifles long before Torfæus, following the annalifts of his country, labours hard to prove that Magnus the barefooted dethroned Godred, bound his fon Lagman with iron fetters, made an abfolute conquest of the western ifles, and bestowed them on his fon, Sigurd, with the title of king §. But the Chronicle of Man places the expedition of Magnus into the western parts of Scotland, and into England and Wales, in the year 1098, twenty years after the death of Godred, and eleven after the death of his fon and fucceffor, Lagman. Simon Dunelmenfis agrees with the Chroni cle in the æra here affigned; and if any regard is to be paid to the Scottish hiftorians, the acquifition made of the weftern ifles by king Magnus, must have happened foon after the death of Malcolm Canemore. Torfæus, + The authors of this Chronicle, and after them other writers, were mistaken in calling the Norwegian king flain in the battle of Stainford-bridge, Harold Harfager. We learn from Torfaus and others, that the true name of that prince was Harold the imperious. Harfager lived in a much earlier period. The fame Chronicle writers, or their copyift, must have committed a blunder likewife in making the year 1066, the year of Godred Chrovan's acceffion to the throne of Man. Antiq. of Ireland, p. 65, § Orcades, p. 71, 72, Torfæus, after a long difcuffion of the chronological difficulties arifing out of thefe contradictory accounts, rejects the authority of the Chronicle, confutes Buchanan, finds fault with fome of the writers of his own country, and prefers at last the teftimony of Ordericus vitalis to all others. But if we follow that author's fyftem, the first expedition of Magnus into the western feas of Britain took place in the fifth of William Rufus, that is, in the year year 1092. According to this calcu lation feized on the Ebudes before the the Norwegian monarch must have death of Malcolm Canemore, and confequently Donald Bane could not have been guilty of the infamous ceffion which has hitherto done fo much injury to his memory. (To be continued.) To the PUBLISHER of the PERTH MAGAZINE. SIR, The following are anfwers to the Algebriacal Queftions fent you by an Academician, as inferted in your Magazine VOL. III. P. 175. TH HE anfwer to Queftion firft is, the first payment is fixty one pounds, the fecond, fixty two, the third, fixty three, the fourth, fixty four pounds; which added together, makes the whole payment, viz. 250. The answer to Queftion fecond is, both Horfes coft fourty-pounds, which multiplied by four, and the product divided by eight, the quotient is twenty The beft horfe coft twenty-one pounds; which multiplied by three produces fixty-three pounds: the price of the worft horfe coft nineteen pounds, which multiplied by five, produces ninty-five If mind, as ancient fages taught, A never-dying flame, TRY, And tremble, left thy lucklefs hand Diflodge a kindred mind. Or, if this tranfient gleam of day So may thy hofpitable board So when unfeen deftruction lurks, Which men like mice may fhare, May fome kind angel clear thy path, And break the hidden fnare. EPITAPH On Mr THOMAS HAMMOND, ParishClerk of Afhford in Kent, who was a good Man, and an excellent Backgamman-player, and was fucceeded in Office by a Mr TRICE. B OY the chance of the die, On his back here doth lie Our most audible clerk, Mafter Ham mond; Tho' he bore many men Yet, at length, he by Death is back gammon'd. But hark! neighbours hark! Here again comes the clerk: By a hit very lucky and nice, With Death we're now even; He juft ftep'd up to heaven, And is with us again in a Trice. The Infenfible Lover. A new Song. Still shifts thro' matter's varying forms, To gain the callous Walter's heart In every form the fame, Beware, left in the worm you crush A brother's foul you find; T% Two ladies once contended; Each fair was bleft with matchlefs art, For beauty, both commended. The |