It is mentioned byJeremy Taylor ("Dissuasives from Popery," 1667), and the present narrativeis founded partly on an imaginary one, printed in a pamphlet in London,1675, and reprinted in Hardiman's "Irish Minstrelsy" (1831), II. p. 369.The French Geographer Royal, M. Tassin, thinks that the island may havebeen identical with Porcupine Bank, once above water. In Jeffrey's atlas(1776) it appears as "the imaginary island of O'Brasil." "Brazil Rock"appears on a chart of Purdy, 1834 (Humboldt's "Examen Critique," II. p.163). Two rocks always associated with it, Mayda and Green Rock, appear onan atlas issued in 1866. See bibliography in Winsor's "Narrative andCritical History," I. p. 49, where there are a number of maps depicting it(I. pp. 54-57). The name of the island is derived by Celtic scholars from_breas_, large, and _i_, island; or, according to O'Brien's"Irish Dictionary," its other form of O'Brasile means a large imaginaryisland (Hardiman's "Irish Minstrelsy," I. p. 369). There are severalfamilies named Brazil in County Waterford, Ireland ("Transactions of theOssianic Society, Dublin," 1854, I. p. 81). The following poem about theisland, by Gerald Griffin, will be found in Sparling's "Irish Minstrelsy"(1888), p. 427:--HY-BRASAIL, THE ISLE OF THE BLEST On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell; Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest, And they called it Hy-Brasail, the isle of the blest.
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