Eudox.[o 1] This ripping of auncestors, is very pleasing unto me, and indeede favoureth of good conceipt, and some reading withall. I see hereby how profitable travaile, and experience of forraine nations, is to him that will apply them to good purpose. Neither indeede would I have thought, that any such antiquities could have beene avouched for the Irish, that maketh me the more to long to see some other of your observations, which you have gathered out of that country, and have earst half promised to put forth: and sure in this mingling of nations appeareth (as you earst well noted) a wonderfull providence and purpose of Almighty God, that stirred up the people in the furthest parts of the world, to seeke out their regions so remote from them, and by that meanes both to restore their decayed habitations, and to make himselfe knowne to the Heathen. But was there I pray you no more generall employing of that iland, then first by the Scythians, which you say were the Scottes, and afterwards by the Spaniards, besides the Gaules, Brittaines, and Saxons?
Iren. Yes, there was another, and that last and greatest, which was by the English, when the Earle Strangbowe, having conquered that land, delivered up the same into the hands of Henry the Second, then King, who sent over thither great store of gen-
- ↑ This ripping of auncestors,] This discovery of ancestors &c. Ripping is metaphorically used. To rip, is to break open stitched things. Todd.
