pular tales, the story must have
been known in the Ark itself, as the sons of Noah separated soon after
leaving it, and yet all their descendants were acquainted with this
legend. But have these and other such simple tales not originated in
many different places, and among many different people, at different
times; and have they not an appearance of similarity, merely because, in
the course of their development, the earliest products of the human
fancy, as well as of the human hand, are always more or less similar
under similar circumstances?

Or perhaps, passing from more direct interrogatories, we might request
some of the deputation to leave with us a retranslation of that famous
letter preserved by Bede, which Abbot Ceolfrid addressed about A.D. 715
to Nectan III., King of the Picts, and which the venerable monk of
Jarrow tells us was, immediately after its receipt by the Pictish King
and court, carefully interpreted into their own language? or to be so
good as write down a specimen of the Celtic or Pictish songs that
happened to be most popular some twelve or fourteen centuries ago? or
describe to us the limits at different times of the kingdoms of the
Strathclyde Britons and Northumbrians, and of the Picts and Dalriadic
Scots? or fill up the sad gaps in Mr. Innes' map of Scotland in the
tenth century, containing, as it does, the names of one river only, and
some thirteen Scottish church establishments and towns; or tell us where
the "urbs Giudi" and the Pictish "Niduari" of Bede were placed, and why
AEngus the Culdee speaks (about A.D. 800) of Cuilenross, or Culross, as
placed in Strath-h-Irenn in the Comgalls, between Slieve-n-Ochil and the
Sea of Giudan? or identify for us the true sites of the numerous rivers,
tribes, divisions, and towns--or merely perhaps stockaded or rathed
villages--which Ptolemy in the second century enters in his geographical
description of North Britain? or particularise the precise bounds of the
Meatae and Attacotti, and of the two Pictish nations mentioned by
Ammianus Marcellinus, namely, the Dicaledonae and Vecturiones? or trace
out for us the course of Agricola's campaigns in Scotland, especially
marking the exact site of the great victory of the Mons Grampius, and
thus deciding at once and for ever whether the two enormous cairns
placed above the moor of Ardoch cover the remains of the 10,000 slain;
or whether the battle was fought at Dealgin Ross, or at Findochs, or at
Inverpeffery