Thus we see that Ireland and Persia were both called _Iran_; that both equally admitted of the change of this name to _Eiran_; and that the _style_ of this variation was similarly characterised in both. How, then, will the _empyrics_ of etymology recover their confusion: they who would persuade us that Ireland was so denominated from _Iar_, the _West_--unless, indeed, they can substitute _East_ for _West_, and show that Persia was denominated from _Iar_ also.[139] Entangled in this dilemma, the amiable old General Vallancy, without intimating, however, that _it_ was what extorted his remark,--after rigidly maintaining through a series of volumes, that the word had its origin in the above exploded _Western_ Will o’ the Wisp,--exclaims, in a sentiment of unconscious self-conviction, that “nothing more can be said of this derivation than that the name was common to that part of the globe whence they (who imported it) originally came.”[140] Arrived, then, at length, at the _fountain-head_ of our inquiry, how shall we account for it in “that part of the globe whence we originally came”? I have seen but two efforts to develop the word, as applied to that quarter: one by Professor Heeren, of the Göttingen University; the other by “a learned priest of the Parsees,” as recorded by Sir John Malcolm, the late lamented author of a history of the place itself. And as the former of these is rather _humorous_, and as the latter contains in it a small _ingredient of truth_, it is worth while to parade them in the _tail_ of our inspection. “Anciently,” says the professor, “they were called by the Orientals themselves by the common term of _Iran_, and the inhabitants, inasmuch as they possessed _fixed_ habitations and laws, were styled _Iranians_, in opposition to the _Turanians_, or _wandering_ hordes of Central Asia.”[141] I wonder did the German _historian_ take his cue from the conjecture of the Irish _lexicographer_? It is literally marvellous if he did not; for, by a most unaccountable coincidence, while tracing the foundation of a name, descriptive of two localities at opposite points of this mundane ball, one boldly asserts, and the other more than insinuates, that its root is to be found in one and the same _English_ word!--and this, too, when those countries were blazing in glory, before three words of the English language were broken into train!