respecting it. Time, which is invaluable, is thus redeemed, both to the doer and those who must have stopped to read his communications. In few words, should the writer succeed in promoting a sense of individual responsibility, in awakening a deeper and more enlarged sympathy for this long-neglected people in the hearts of those who ought to be interested, the various and needful remedies will be applied, and his end is gained. But either mode, or both, can by no means supersede the necessity for the attention of others, and on this side of the channel, being drawn to the fulfilment of long-neglected duty towards such a numerous class of fellow-subjects.

The Irish language itself the writer cannot as yet speak, and perhaps never will. As a medium of communication, therefore, he cannot feel the enthusiastic attachment of a native, and, it is presumed, may therefore be admitted as a safer, if not an unprejudiced witness. But, regarding it as a medium of thought and feeling between the people themselves, having witnessed for himself the deep hold which it has of the heart, he hesitates not to add, that in all the measures here recommended and enforced, the language itself alone will be found to operate like the insertion of leaven, and will lend to each of these measures a corresponding,an irresistible energy. Meanwhile, if the reader desires to understand the actual condition of this people, the author has only to request that he will suspend his judgment till he has got to the conclusion, and then, taking it all in all, let him say if there is to be found within the limits of this kingdom a case of such urgency, where we are called to an application of the remedy by recollections of past_neglect and long delay, at once so numerous and so painful.

SECTION I.

LITERARY HISTORY;

Or Gleanings from the Early Ages to the Present Day, including some notice of the most eminent Men; references to Irish Typography, whether in Britain or on the Continent; and an Account of the translation and printing of the Sacred Volume in the vernacular tongue.

In this, as well as the following Section, the ultimate object of the writer is quite specific, though almost unprecedented. From whatever cause, there has long existed such a disposition to accumulate the mere assertions of successive authors, as so many independent proofs of the cultivated state of Ireland in past ages; such an inclination to exaggerate, or embellish, or theorize, that there has unhappily grown up, in many very intelligent minds, a strong aversion from all candid inquiry into certain parts of Irish history, and more especially into the past circumstances of the aborigines. Even the inquisitive have felt no inclination to turn their eye in this direction, and glancing on such a volume as this, make their escape immediately to those pages which describe the existing state of the country. In the present instance, however, should the reader have only perused the introduction, he is already aware that under this head there is no favourite theory to be intruded, no mere traditions about to be quoted, nor is he to find the slightest tendency to any reliance upon the vague assertions of fabulous narrative.

The object first in view is simply that of putting upon record, in brief and regular succession, what will ever prove, comparatively, a meagre statement of such particulars as cannot be controverted; and although the author is perfectly aware that, to certain individuals, the title of this and the following Section must wear somewhat of the air of burlesque, both have been preferred for several important

reasons.

Were these scanty materials, here confirmed by distinct reference to authorities, drawn out merely for the gratification of the curious in Irish antiquities, or to enlist the Irish reader through the medium of his prejudices; were no

practical and even important conclusions to be ultimately founded upon them, the present writer had certainly never submitted a single page of such matter to general readers. But if, on the other hand, there is here to be seen one class of our fellow-subjects, and now confessedly a very large one, among which there have been men, who, though labouring under peculiar disadvantages, were far from indifferent to the cultivation of letters; if in the very poverty of these two Sections, certain classes in this kingdom, more highly favoured, are furnished with a demonstrative proof of the injurious and mistaken policy of past times, as well as the consequent obligations of the present age; and if, at the same time, the account here given, presents in contrast, at once striking and painful, the activity of certain Native Irishmen chiefly abroad, and the indolence, nay, heartless coldness of their British fellow-subjects at home, who, during this long period, were bound by humanity and sound patriotism, to have fostered their improvement in useful knowledge, then, surely, the writer may rely on the patience of even general readers, for at least one candid perusal.

To the prejudiced, he is fully aware that all such detail must needs prove irksome, more especially when it becomes condemnatory of past neglect. Ages of long delay and mistaken policy are never likely to be calmly reviewed by them; but if any substantial benefit is thus likely to ensue to the present generation, the judicious and humane will not at once shut the book. They are fully aware how much the history of the past may, in certain cases, give additional emphasis to the claims and duties of the present day. Let this simple idea be borne in recollection, and then, whether the succeeding statements do not, in the end, bring every candid mind, with peculiar energy, to the far more important question of present obligation, let the reader judge.

Whatever may be presumed as to the character and attainments of any race of men, it is only by the examination of their own written compositions, if they have such in possession, that we can arrive at any precision respecting the extent of their attainments in literature. With regard to the native Irish, however, such has been the singular fate of their manuscripts, and even such is their present condition, that difficulties almost insuperable present themselves at the threshold of inquiry. Many of these, unquestionably, perished in the Danish invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries, and that singular species of policy which obtained

for centuries after the Anglo-Norman invasion, must account for the loss of many others.* Collections of others are, it is true, happily still in existence; but whether those of greatest value are to be found in this kingdom, or on the continent, it is impossible for any one to affirm. The probability is, that they are abroad.

I am aware of the valuable collection in Trinity College, Dublin, of that in the Bodleian Library, and the Cottonian manuscripts, as well as the treasure contained in the Chandos collection at Stowe; part of which, in four volumes quarto, with a Latin translation, has been recently printed at the charge of the proprietor, his Grace the Duke of Buckingham. Besides these, there are various manuscripts in the possession of Irish gentlemen, members of the IbernoCeltic Society, and others, some of which are of considerable antiquity. Of the more modern compositions of the two last centuries the titular Bishop of Cork has at least ten thousand quarto pages transcribed. Were, however, the more ancient Irish manuscripts, now in the King's Library at Copenhagen, or the still larger collection in the Royal Library at Paris, examined; were the Spanish manuscripts deciphered, or the stores which are believed to be deposited in the Vatican, it is almost certain that the claims of the Irish, to a very early cultivation of letters, would be admitted.

Ancient records, the very deciphering of which was strangely regarded in former times, as tending to endanger the tranquillity of the kingdom, were not likely to remain long in it, and hence we fully account for the foreign collections; but that, under the influence of the same fear, the laudable and natural desire of translating any part of these by a foreign power, should not have been met and gratified, proves the extent to which the dread of Irish composition had gone. At such a period, prejudice would consign to

* According to Ussher, in 848, the Bishop of Armagh and all the students were expelled by Turgesius. Armagh, however, was pillaged four times in succession from 890 to 913.-Tria Thaum. 296. In 1016 the library again sustained material injury from the Normans and Ostmen.-Ann. Innisfal. and Tria Thaum. 298. Injured by fire in 1074, the city was rebuilt by the year 1091, but in the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1178 various literary works, which had escaped the Danes, were destroyed in the libraries of the monks, so that the native Irish, in order to harass and disappoint the invaders, began to burn the religious edifices with their own hands. See Annal, quoted by Leland, i. 123.

† In the reign of Elizabeth, the King of Denmark applied to England for proper persons, who might translate the ancient Irish books in his possession; and an Irishman in London, then in prison, being applied to on the subject, was ready to engage in the work; but upon a council being called, a certain member, it is said, who may be nameless, opposed the scheme, lest it should be prejudicial to the English interest.

oblivion whatever came within its power. Indeed, until the reign of James I., if not later, it seems to have been an object to discover every literary remain of the Old Irish, with a view to its being either destroyed or concealed.* At the same time, no individual can, even at present, distinctly inform us, whether what we have in our possession be of real value or not, or whether these manuscripts are not nearly the only remaining source from which light might be thrown on the ancient history of Ireland, and perhaps discover to us some of their ideas respecting other countries as well as their own. The stores even in Dublin have never been impartially and thoroughly canvassed, nor does even a complete Catalogue Raisonné of the collection in Trinity College exist.

I may repeat it, therefore, that the actual state of Irish manuscript, for these last two hundred years, is one of the most striking illustrations of the power of prejudice, as to one branch of our national history, to which any historian can point. In the most ancient and curious, which, I presume, must be abroad, historical narration there must be, of whatever value; assertions also, many, in which the author had no motive to falsify, though in various instances he might prove to be mistaken. That the Irish language is the repository of either much literary excellence, or valuable historic information, no one is less disposed to assert than the present writer. All that he means to affirm is, that the amount of information in these numerous written compositions, no man can tell; they have never been thoroughly examined-weighed in the balance with contemporary manuscripts, and found inferior. We have been printing, very properly, ancient and modern Greek in parallel columns,-Turkish for the Turk, and struggling hard to decipher the hieroglyphics of Egypt; but the records of one branch of the British population are still to be explored. Of the manuscripts said to be in Spain, no one informs us whether they are in the Escurial, or at Salamanca, Alcala, or elsewhere. Of the King's Library at Copenhagen, as there has never yet been a printed catalogue, nor the written one completed, what those manuscripts were, which a former monarch wished to have translated, we are yet to be told. In Paris, by a few these manuscripts may be known to exist;-in the Vatican they have slum

*Webb's Analysis, p. 121. Dub. 1791.