the understanding, and improving the heart, is well known to those acquainted with the mouldering membranes which have survived to our times. The historical importance of our annals has been acknowledged by the most learned men of Europe for the last three centuries. They are written in the language of the first inhabitants of Europe; and, with a simplicity of detail which truth only can confer, they record the primæval state of this island, the origin of its early inhabitants, their history, religion, and laws, and the arts known amongst them for several generations. Former writers have brought discredit on our history by injudiciously blending with it the fictions of romance; and succeeding authors, unable or unwilling to separate the truth from the fable, became contented copyists, and thus encreased the evil which they pretended to remedy. Eager for temporary applause, which they mistook for permanent fame, they forced on the world their crude essays, which were remarkable only for distortion of fact and boldness of conjecture. The original documents, which would have guided them to truth, were wholly neglected, or but partially explored. Hence, the imperfect state of our early history, and the erroneous opinions entertained of it by many, even of the learned, at the present day. The difficulty of procuring the documents alluded to, and the still greater difficulty of deciphering them when procured, may be alleged as an excuse

for the indolence, or ignorance, of which our countrymen have reason to complain in the generality of their historical writers. But this is a plea that cannot be admitted. Those chroniclers of error ought to have rendered themselves competent, or have remained for ever silent. What is true of the past will apply equally to the future. Until the difficulties alluded to shall be overcome, all attempts to illustrate, with certainty or authority, the earlier parts of our history must prove abortive. ---Having judged it necessary to make the few foregoing observations on the most important use to be made of those neglected muniments, it now remains to ascertain what information they afford on the subject at present under consideration-the ancient poetry of Ireland.

That this country, from an early period, was famous for the cultivation of the kindred arts of poetry and music, stands universally admitted. The works of the prejudiced Cambrensis, and the annals of Wales and Scotland, might be adduced in evidence of the fact; but we require not the aid of foreign proof, our domestic records supply abundant information on the subject. Although most of the records of the days of paganism were destroyed by the zeal of the first Christian Missionaries, and much of what then escaped, with many of later times, met with a similar fate from the barbarity of the Danes, and the destructive policy of the English.

yet sufficient remains to enable us to trace those arts to a remote period in Ireland. The early settlers, afterwards distinguished by the name of Milesians, derived their origin from that part of the earth, where poetry and music appear coeval with the formation of society. Accordingly we find the poet and musician numbered in the train of these celebrated invaders. The bards AMERGIN, the son of their leader, and LUGAD, the son of ITH, are particularly named. The latter is called, in old writings, " The first poet of Ireland," Ced 18 h-Ep., and there still remain, after a lapse of nearly three thousand years, fragments of these ancient bards, some of which will be found included in the following pages, with proofs of their authenticity*. After these, but anterior to the Christian era, flourished ROYNE FILE, or the poetic,

* Vol. II. p. 347, et seq. These ancient fragments are preserved in the old historical Record, entitled Leabhar Ghabhaltus, or the "Book of Invasions;" a copy of which, transcribed in the twelfth century, and now in the Duke of Buckingham's library at Stowe, is particularly described in the late DOCTOR O'CONOR'S invaluable Catalogue of the MSS. there preserved. This learned man observes, " that we should refer this species of poetry to a very remote age, no one who has read Strabo will wonder. The HIBERNI derive their origin from the IBERI; and Strabo mentions a people of Iberia and Botica, who could produce poems nearly 6000 years old. (Lib. 3rd). Let, however, the specimens of Irish poetry still remaining speak for themselves. The oldest Saxon poetry extant is King Alfred's."- Cat. Stowe, 1. 23.—

and FERCEIRTNE, a bard and herald; some of whose remains will also be found with the foregoing. LUGAR and CONGAL lived about the birth of Our Redeemer, and many of their verses, particularly those of the latter, are still extant*. The subjects and language of these insular poems afford internal evidence of an antiquity transcending that of any literary monument in the modern languages of Europe.

In that remote period the cultivation of music kept pace with the progress of poetry. The Dinn Seanchast, compiled by AMERGIN MAC AMALGAID, A. D. 544, relates that in the time of GEIDE, monarch of Ireland, A. M. 3143, "the people deemed each others voices sweeter than the warblings of a melodious harp, such peace and concord reigned among them, that no music could delight them more than the sound of each others voice: Temur (Tarah)

In numerous old vellum MSS.-To these may be added ADHNA, and NEIDE his son, who flourished about the same time, fragments of whose writings, in the Bearla Feine, or Phoenician dialect of the Irish, are extant in the MSS. of Trinity College, Dublin.

† Or "History of noted places in Ireland." This curious. piece of ancient topography is preserved in the Books of Lecan and Ballimote; two celebrated MSS. volumes, in folio vellum, containing transcripts of numerous miscellaneous tracts and poems of antiquity. The former of these was carried to France by James II. and after his death, lodged in the Irish college at Paris, where it remained until the year 1787, when it was

was so called from its celebrity for melody, above the palaces of the world. Tea, or Te, signifying melody or sweet music, and mur, a wall. Te-mur, the wall of music*." In the same ancient tract, music is again alluded to, in the relation of a youthful dream or vision of CAHIREMORE, monarch of Ireland, which, amongst other things, describes, "a delightful hill, surpassing all others in height, whereon stood hosts; and there grew a most beautiful and stately tree, like gold, whose variegated and luxuriant foliage, when moved by the wind, yielded the most melodious music ever heard, and on it grew delicious fruit, pleasing to every one's taste."

restored to this country by Doctor O'Kelly, superior of that college, and deposited in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. The Book of Ballimote, also said to have been brought from Paris, was presented to the same library. By an entry at fo. 180, of the latter, it appears that it was purchased in 1522, by Hugh O'Donnell, from Mc Donogh of Corran, for 140 milch cows. None of the contents of these volumes have been published. The Dinn Seanchas contains poems of FININ MAC LUCHNA, a bard of the second century, FIONN MAC CUBHAIL and FERGUS FIONNBELL, who, with the celebrated OISIN, (OSSIAN,) lived in the third century, and others.

* Book of Ballimote.-Temur dín ol Amkirgen, &c.— See fo. 188, a. col. 1.

+ "Cnoc oebind osa cind diblindáibh Kirde gáe tulkig co slogaib And bili edroct Amáil or isin enue cosmád comulu Ara Kirdi gác ceol iná duillib brec táis Átoirti in calam in cón nó mben(S 56oc po56 Copi8 So 56c Ken.” Id. fo. 198, col. b.