not because we are without the means of appreciating them. Translators must have the philosopher's stone if they can transmute fables into facts and legends into truth-legends propagated in an age of boundless credulity.

Dr. Keating had as little patience with sceptics in his time as the monks of the dark ages had in their day. In the preface to his History he gave hard knocks to some of their number:'Never,' he exclaims, 'was any nation under heaven so traduced by malice and ignorance as the ancient Irish.' For example, Strabo, without any knowledge of their annals, charged them with living on human flesh; whereas, no instance of the kind was on record, except the single case of a lady named Eithne, daughter of a King of Leinster, whose fosterers fed her with the flesh of children in order to make her the sooner ripe for matrimonial embraces.' But this was done to accomplish a prediction. I wonder how many babies did she consume. Pomponius Mela, again, with equal falsehood, described the ancient Irish as a people 'ignorant of all virtue.' But perhaps the most stinging remark of all those ancient criticisms was that of a waspish author named Solinus, who asserted that there were no bees in Ireland, that Irish children received their first food on the point of a sword, and that the fathers washed their faces in the blood of the enemies they had slain. As to the bees, they were so numerous, both in hives and trunks of trees, that the land might be said to flow with honey as well as with milk. Ex uno disce omnes.

From the classical calumniators, Father Keating turns to the English, 'who have never failed to exert their malice against the Irish, and to represent them as a base and servile people.' Foremost among those offenders was Cambrensis-' an inexhaustible fund of falsehood.' He had the hardihood to assert, among other fables, that there was a fountain in Munster which made the hair of the head grey when dipped in it, and another fountain in Ulster which at once restored it to its original colour. Worse still, he said that Irish enemies were reconciled by kissing the relics of the saints, and drinking each other's blood. This, Cambrensis boldly asserted, with his usual effrontery, without proof or foundation.' Of a piece with this, was his story about the inauguration of the O'Donel. In that fiction, compounded of

ignorance and malice,' he reported that the ceremony was performed in this manner :-All the inhabitants of the country were assembled on a high hill; here they killed a white mare, whose flesh was boiled in a great cauldron in the middle of a field; when it was sufficiently boiled the King was to sup the broth with his mouth (without a spoon) and eat the flesh out of his hands without the assistance of a knife or other instrument, but with his teeth only. Then he divided the rest of the flesh among the assembly, and afterwards bathed himself in the broth!' The real ceremony was the presentation of a white rod by one of the chiefs, who advancing, said, 'O King! receive the command of thy own country, and distribute justice impartially among thy subjects.' No wonder the historian denounces Cambrensis for introducing in the room of a laudable custom, a savage and abominable practice, with no foundation in truth or history; the effect of inveterate malice, which urged him on into absurd and monstrous relations.' The kings of the O'Donel race, we are assured, were princes of strict piety and exemplary virtue, who abhorred a ceremony so odious. This, therefore, he adds, was another falsehood of Cambrensis, which ought to destroy his credit for ever among lovers of truth, and brand on him an indelible mark of infamy to all posterity.'

Dr. Keating, coming down to his own times, says: There is one Spencer, a writer of a Chronicle,' who dared to assert that an English King, Edgar, had jurisdiction in Ireland. But what is most surprising in this audacious writer is, that he should undertake to fix the genealogies of many of the gentry of Ireland, and to pretend to derive them originally from an English extraction.' It is surprising to me,' says the Doctor, how Spencer could advance such falsehoods; he was a writer that was unable to make himself acquainted with Irish affairs, as being a stranger to the language; and, besides, being of a poetical genius, he allowed himself an unbounded license in his compositions. It may be the business of his profession to advance poetical fictions, and clothe them with fine insinuating language in order to amuse his readers,' &c.

Stanihurst, another of Mr. Froude's predecessors, was no better qualified than Spencer to write a history of Ireland. What right

had he to pronounce sentence upon the arts and sciences, the laws and customs of the Irish, when he understood not a word in the language, could not read their books, nor converse with the learned professors?' Besides, he was overrun with prejudice, set to work by men who naturally abhorred an Irishman.' Though he had neither abilities, nor proper materials, to write a history of Ireland, he was 'big' with this production for some years, and by the help of spleen and ill nature, he was at last delivered of it, to the great joy of his English patrons, who had bribed him for breeding his litter of calumnies against the Irish. Stanihurst had spoken strongly against the Irish language, and expressed a wish that it had been extirpated—a sentiment which Father Keating justly denounced as pagan and barbarous. In the same spirit he reprobates Hanmer, Campion, Moryson, and other English writers on his native country. Even the learned Camden does not escape censure. He asserted that it was the custom of the country that the priests, with their wives and children, had their dwelling in the churches consecrated to divine use, where they feasted, rioted, and played music, by which means those holy places were desecrated.' In answer to this foul charge, Dr. Keating says, it must be observed that this irreligious custom had not been practised for many ages, except in the most uncivilised part of the kingdom, and by a sort of clergy who pretended to be exempt from ecclesiastical discipline; and he cites Gerald Cambrensis as bearing testimony to the piety of the clergy, who were pre-eminently distinguished by their chastity. Another slander against the clerical order put forth by Campion, our Irish-speaking historian repels with an indignation and simplicity which are rather comic. It was a device said to have been resorted to by a very covetous bishop, to excite the liberality of the faithful. He told his congregation that, some years before, St. Peter and St. Patrick had a very violent contest about an Irish Galloglach whom St. Patrick wanted to get into heaven; but St. Peter objected to the Hibernian soldier, and in his anger he struck the Irish saint with his key, and broke his head. They were therefore asked to contribute as a sort of testimonial or compensation to their outraged national patron. In reply to this story, Father Keating seriously asks, Can it be supposed that a Christian of the meanest capa

city would believe that St. Patrick, who died above a thousand years ago, and St. Peter should quarrel and come to blows; and that St. Patrick should have his head broken by St. Peter's key, as if the key had been made of iron, which everybody knows is nothing material, but implies the power of binding and loosing.'

Seeing, however, that his country was so grievously wronged by such misrepresentations, Dr. Keating, being a man of advanced age, with valuable experience, acquainted with the ancient authors in their original language, undertook to write a true history of Ireland, and thus vindicate the character of a noble nation. If it be objected that the chronicles of Ireland are liable to suspicion, he replies, that no people in the world took more care to preserve the authority of their public records, and to deliver them incorrupt to posterity. They were solemnly examined and purged every three years in the royal house of Tara, in the presence of the nobility and clergy, and in a full assembly of the most learned and eminent antiquaries in the country. The authority of these public records cannot be questioned, when it is considered that there were above 200 chroniclers and antiquaries whose business it was to preserve and record all actions and affairs of consequence relating to the public. They had revenues settled upon them for their maintenance and to support the dignity of their character. Their annals and histories were submitted to the examination and censure of the nobility, clergy, and gentry, who were most eminent for learning, which is evidence sufficient to evince their authority, and to procure them a superior esteem to the antiquities of any other nation, except the Jews, throughout the world.'

So much faith has the Irish author in the Celtic records that he sees no difficulty in their having kept such exact pedigrees that the genealogy of every genuine Irish chief could be traced back to Adam.—Both in heathen and Christian times the chronicles were composed in verse,- that their records might be the less subject to corruption and change, that the obscurity of the style might be a defence to them, and that the youths who were instructed in that profession might be the better able to commit them to memory.' Hence the term Psalter,' as applied to the collections of these historical Psalms or poems. This, indeed, was the custom of all barbarous nations, as Mr. Tylor has shown in his

'Primitive Culture'; and Mr. Buckle has stated truly that those records which were preserved by the professional Bards, and taught to their children from age to age (the office being hereditary), were far nearer to the truth than the written chronicles which the clergy of the dark ages founded upon them. In this way,' says Mr. Buckle, the Christian priests have obscured the annals of every European people they converted; and have destroyed or corrupted the traditions of the Gauls, the Welsh, the Irish, the Anglo-Saxons, the Sclavonic nations, and even of the Icelanders. Nothing came amiss to their greedy and credulous ears. Histories of omens, prodigies, apparitions, strange portents, monstrous appearances in the heavens, the wildest and most incoherent absurdities passed from mouth to mouth, and were preserved with as much care as if they were the choicest treasures of human wisdom. For 500 years human credulity reached a height unparalleled in the annals of ignorance. In the whole period from the sixth to the tenth century there were in all Europe not more than three or four men who dared to think for themselves.'1

It is gratifying to know that the most illustrious of these independent thinkers were Irishmen. The German historian Mosheim pays no small tribute to their merit in this respect. Writing of the eighth century he says: The Irish, or Hibernians, who in this century were known by the name of Scots, were the only divines who refused to dishonour their reason by submitting it implicitly to the dictates of authority. Naturally subtle and sagacious, they applied their philosophy, such as it was, to the illustration of the truth and doctrines of religion; a method which was almost generally abhorred and exploded in all other nations.' In a note, he adds:That the Hibernians were lovers of learning and distinguished themselves in those times of ignorance by the culture of the sciences, beyond all other European nations, travelling through the most distant lands, both with a view to improve and to communicate their knowledge, is a fact with which I have long been acquainted, as we see them in the most authentic records of antiquity, discharging with the highest reputation and applause the functions of Doctors in France, Germany

''History of Civilisation,' vol. i. pp. 247, 258, 269.