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monarchs came; which though difgufting in many inftances to readers, yet we fee was obferved for the wife purpose, of preferving both the conftitution and the hiftory of the kingdom pure. In every particular, except the right of governing, they were in perfect accord. The line of Heber or house of Munfter, being defcended from the eldest fon of Milefius, claimed a kind of prescriptive right to the monarchy, yet the Heremonians, though the youngest branch, gave infinitely more monarchs to Ireland. The Heberians deemed this a kind of ufurpation, and the Heremonians contended, that in a country were the sword determined the dispute, power and intrepidity, not feniority, fanctified the claim. We have yet preserved a poem, wrote by Torna-Eigeas, chief bard to Niall the Grand, in the fourth century, reciting the bloody contefts between him and Core, king of Munfter, for the monarchy. In this, he with great elegance and delicacy, lays before his reader, the pretences of both houses, and the arguments used by their dif ferent advocates, and recapitulates the bloody wars carried on from the days of Heber to his own time, for this object an irrefragable proof furely, even then, of the authenticity of our earlier annals. St. Patrick in the next age prefided over the literati in feveral conventions; and our annals, fuch as we now find them, were then, and in every fucceeding age to the last century, never

called

called in question by those who had the best right to judge of them. The uncommon care taken to preserve them pure and uncorrupt, when attended to, muft fatisfy the moft incredulous.

The

Every province had its hiftory; every powerful chief, his poet and antiquarian. Their perfons were declared. facred, and their ample poffeffions unmolefted. different provincial records and hiftories were every third year examined by a committee of the national assembly; and nothing was admitted into the Seanachas-more, or Great Antiquity-fo called as being the national history —but what was strictly true. The greatest punishments awaited on fuch antiquarians as attempted to disguise truth, or impofe falfhoods; and no instance is recorded of any one's being convicted of thefe crimes ! These hereditary bards and hiftorians flourished through every period of our hiftory. They exifted in Thomond, in Conaught, and in Ulfter in fome degree, even to the Revolution.

We are yet poffeffed of copies of the Book of Munster. It recites the travels of the Gadelians, from their dereliction of Egypt, to the conqueft of Ireland; and notes down, with great precifion, the different generations that intervened. From this period the history is confined to the exploits of this house only, as kings of Leath-Mogha, or monarchs of Ireland, juft as it happened. The line

of

of Ith, or Brigantes of Munster, had their hereditary antiquarians alfo; and Forchern, one of our most celebrated fenachies, was poet to Conrigh, the son of Darius, of the Degaids of Munfter, who was contemporary with Julius Cæfar.

The Book of Leinfter begins with Jughaine the Great, (from whom Jiggin's-Town, near the Naas), monarch of Ireland, A. M. 3587; and through his fon LoagaireLorc, pursues the exploits and actions of his fucceffors as kings of Leinster. The Book of Leth-Cuin, traces the Heremonian line from the conqueft of Ireland to the reign of Jughaine, and then, through his fon Cobthaig, continues the fame fubject to the twelfth century. This pfalter got the title of Leth-Cuin, as it treated of all the ftock of the Heremonians, in the northern divifion of Ireland, according to the famous partition treaty in the fecond century. Keating and other writers of the laft century, mention a noble copy of this work on vellum, with the coats of arms of the principal chiefs of Ulfter and Conaught, elegantly blazoned on its margins. Conaught book is quoted by Usher and others, and feveral extracts from it may be found in the Leabhar-Lecan. The house of Emania, or line of Ir, which cut fo confpicuous a figure in our annals, thefe great protectors of the literati of Ireland on feveral occafions, could not be without their bards and antiquarians; and to their

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care

care it is owning, that their exploits and those of the Craobh-Ruadh, have been fo well preserved. As soon as a new government was established in a part of Ulfter, in the fourth century, on the ruins of that great house, we find alfo a new chronicle to commence, under the title of the Book of Orgial, fo called from the new name given to that territory, in which the exploits of these conquerors and their fucceffors, with their pedigrees, are accurately noted down.

Befides these are the Book of Synchronisms, in which the provincial kings are fynchronised with the monarchs of Ireland, and the Reim-Riogra, or Book of Reigns, which exactly notes down the number of years each of these monarchs governed. From thefe records principally, are almost all the other books and annals of the kingdom taken, with the genealogies of families. It is by their means that the Irish are enabled to trace their pedigrees, fo much higher than other nations, and that, as Camden himself acknowleges, "The antiquities of every "other nation compared to that of Ireland, is but as if " of yesterday!" This unexampled protection afforded to letters, and care of their history and antiquities, made the Irish deem all the neighbouring ftates barbarous. In the life of St. Fiacre in the feventh century, on meeting his countryman St. Chilian in France, he thus addresses him. "Quid te chariffime frater, ad has barbaras

"gentes

gentes deduxit?" No wonder then if a people who traced their pedigrees from the Scythians and the Egyp tians, the nobleft races of antiquity, fhould glory in their ancestry, and look down with condefcenfion and pity on the pretenfions of other nations! If the hiftories of Britain, Gaul, and Germany cannot be traced higher than the fifth century, and that, beyond this æra, no traces, even of their princes, can be found, how abfurd then attempting to carry the pedigrees of private families higher? But, in Ireland, not only the blood royal, but the genealogies of the entire Milesian race, have been carefully preferved, with the numbers of faints and illuftrious men their principal families produced. It could not, from the nature of the conftitution, be poffibly otherwife, fince rank and fubordination depended on it. This reminds me of an anecdote that happened foon after the late war in Germany. The prince of Saxe Hilburghaufen, being one day, in a large circle, defcanting on the high antiquity of his house, and that his ancestors were dukes in the reign of Charlemagne, general O'Donnel (defcended from Niall the Grand, monarch of Ireland in the fourth century) fatigued with his vanity, cooly anfwered, "Mon prince, "vous etez bien heureux d'avoir etre né en Allemagne "-fi vous etiez chez moi, a peine auriez vous, le droit "de burgcois!"

VOL. I.

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