fwords of fteel among the Romans, Carthaginians, CHAP. and other civilized nations. II. The romantic hiftorians of our country have given Stories. us a lift of a hundred and eighteen fucceflive monarchs of Ireland, from Heremon, a fon of the imaginary Milefius, to Laogaire in whofe reign chriftianity here acquired an establishment. These are all, with very little exception, reprefented as having fallen by homicide hands, each by thofe of his immediate fucceffor; whence may be inferred a tumultuary ftate of fociety and government in the times when the authors of thefe accounts lived, who might by natural confequence have no idea of any other. In the writings of these, and the fongs of the bards, are fome ftories which appear to have allufions to facts, or fome foundation in truth. Thus, in the first or second century of the chriftian era, when we have reason to believe that bands of Scandinavians had formed fettlements in Ireland, we are told that Cairbre-Caitcan of the Damnonian race ufurped the chief power by the flaughter of the ancient royal family; but after an interval of a few years the na tive princes are faid to have recovered their former eminence of rank. A domeftic misfortune is faid to have befallen Tuathal Teachtmar, a monarch the second in fuceffion from Cairbre Caitcan, which entailed a punishment on a large portion of the iland. Eochaid, king of Leinster married to a daughter of this monarch, contrived by perfidy to gain a fifter of his queen to the indulgence of his criminal paffion, which ocçafoned by grief the death of both thefe ladies. Their incenfed CHAP. incenfed father had recourfe to arms, and impofed II. on the country of Leinster, for the crime of its chief, a perpetual fine, called the Baromean tribute, which was ordered to be paid every fecond year, and to confift of a certain number of cows, hogs, sheep, copper cauldrons, mantles, and ounces of filver, fome fay fix, others only three thoufand. Whether Con of the hundred battles, a monarch fo ftiled from his numerous conflicts in civil warfare, had existence or not feems a doubtful point; but Fin Mac Comhal, the hero of Offian's poems, appears to have been a formidable chieftain of Scandina vian ancestry, to have married a daughter of Cormac Longbeard, the king of Ireland, to have commanded a body of troops called Fiona-Erion, in the latter part of the third century, and to have raised fortreffes for the defence or fubjection of the natives. The tribes in Ireland of Scandinavian descent appear to have fplit into two factions, the Clan-aMorné and the Clan a Boifkene, the former thus denominated from a chief of that name, the latter from Boifkene one of the ancestors of the hero Fin. This hero is fuppofed to have prevailed on the two factions to fufpend their mutual animofities, and to unite with the aboriginals for the protection of the country against new invaders. After his decease the colonists, under the conduct of his fon Ofhin, aided by fresh bands of adventurers from Scythia, which then comprehended the Scandinavian regions and Germany, appear to have renewed their hoftilities against the aboriginals, in the reign of Cairbre II. Cairbre Liffeachair, fon of Cormac Longbeard. In CHAP. these contests the ancient Irish are fuppofed to have in fome degree balanced the fuperior arms and difcipline of their enemies by their numbers, their extraordinary swiftnefs, and the faftneffes of their bogs and woods. Perhaps alfo the difunion and distractions of the aboriginals were balanced by the factions of their opponents under various leaders from various parts of the continent. The main forces of the two parties, the Scandinavians under Oscar, fon of Ofhin and grandson of the great Fin, the Irish under a prince of Leinster, are faid to have at length, in the fourth century, come to a pitched battle in the plains of Ardratho, where victory declared in favour of the latter, which at that time prevented the fubjugation of Ireland. Though the colonists continued mafters of the ports and coafts, the Irish princes appear to have regained confiderable power in the interior parts, especially if we believe the story of one, who, in the latter part of the fourth century, is reported to have been so fucfefsful in the fubduing of chieftains, and in the reception of pledges of obedience, that he had the title conferred on him of Nial of the Nine Hoftages. CHAP. III. CHAP III. Religion of the ancient Irish-Druidifm-Letters- Fofterage Bards-Food-Habits-Hiftory-Lao- CHAP. WHAT fpecies of paganifm prevailed among the ancient Irifh is uncertain. Druidifm, the religion Religion of the Gauls and Britons, more especially the latter, before the conqueft of thefe nations by the Romans, is reported in our traditional hiftories to have had place in Ireland, which appears not improbable. Of the druidic fyftem, which may have been imported by the Phoenicians from the Eaft, and of which accounts are given by fome writers of more learning and vanity than judgment or love of truth, very little is actually known, and that little can be collected only from Greek and Roman writers. It was doubtlefs a fyftem of profound mystery. Its priefts defignated by the name of druids, were forbidden by the inviolable rules of their inftitution to divulge to the laity any of their dogmas, or to commit to writing any part of their doctrines, which were compofed in verfes merely oral, and treasured in the memory by a tedious course of study. Their places of worship, were lonely groves, awful to the vulgar by gloomy fhades and religious confecration. For the oak tree they III. they enjoined a peculiar veneration. Over the laity, CHAP. configned to intellectual darkness, they exercised a formidable fway by the power of excommunication and other modes of punishment. On their altars they offered bloody facrifices, and among the victims were frequently men commonly fuch as were condemned for fuppofed or real crimes. Among them was faid to be maintained a regular gradation of ranks, or kind of hierarchy, terminating in an archdruid, the prefident of all. To the vulgar they communicated fome inftructions of a moral nature; and, to infpire them with courage in battle, are faid to have given them, in the doctrine of the metempsychofis, fome idea of the foul's immortality. Inclosures of upright ftones ranged in circles, which are found in Ireland, as in the neighbouring countries, are conjectured, without grounds, to have been made for the purpose of druidic worship, and to have furvived the deftruction of the facred groves, in the centres of which they had originally stood. Others with more feeming probability imagine thefe works to have been erected, at once for facred and civil ceremonies, by Gothic tribes, whofe rites became intermixed with. thofe of the Celts. That letters were not unknown to the Gallic dru- Letters. ids, though their ufe was prohibited, in fubjects of religion, we are informed by a text in the commentaries of Cæfar, but a text long fufpected of being fpurious, the interpolation of Julius Celfus. If the Irish druids were acquainted with letters, the knowledge of them probably, like that of their facred myfteries, was confined entirely to druidical minds, fince |