THE TERM "MILESIAN."
(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 Phœnicians 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."
John D'Alton.
48. Summer Hill, Dublin.