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upon which S' Jo. Temple's Rebellion was grounded, was so falsifyed in most particulars thereof, as well by the witnesses, who were said to have thereunto deposed, as also by some of the persons then living, who in that booke were sworn to have been murthered, that it was for shame set by, as no evidence. It is also avowed the first massacres were committed on the Irish; and the several murthers in cold bloud committed on them did 20 times exceed what they acted. Besides the Irish nation in generall were soe much unconcerned in those murthers, that at their humble proposalls all murthers were excepted out of the Articles of Peace, A° 1648; and since his Maes Restauration, it was their request by their Agents, to except all murthers on both sids out of the Act of Indemnity.

"In the Introduction. The darke side of the cloud was still towards the author, as to the originall of the Irish and their chronicles, of which he could not participate, but what seemed fabulous and vaine. There is a more exact account of the chiefe Governours of Ireland for above 2000 [years] before, then that of the authors for this last 500 yeares. The first invasion of the Scots (not Goths) a thousand yeares before Christ, a Scythian nation out of Spaine, is more certainely knowen, then that of the English into England 400 years after Christ, of which time are severall different opinions, as also there is of K. Lucius his Christianity, whereunto 20 different yeares are assigned, whereas the time of the Gospell's preaching to us by the arrivall of S. Patrick, is without controversy, that of Grace 432. This I say, as to the exactnesse of time in answer to his taunting our chronicles. As for his virulent expressions of a nation meerely Pyrates, Barbarous and inhuman, with much more of the like through all his booke, I passe it by for a hereditary malice. Some body perhaps will hit him with it after his and my death.

"The title of our Sovereigne Lord King Charles the 2 to the Kingdome of Ireland, as well as to the rest of his Kingdomes and dominions, we with all respect, duty, and allegiance, acknowledge unquestionable, but for that of the first Invadours in favour of an Adulterer, the bulls of Adrian and Alexander popes, and the synod at Cassell, as also a nation meerely pyrats, barbarous, and inhuman, I refer such as desire satisfaction to Gratianus Lucius his Cambrensis Eversus, against Giraldus Cambrensis, capp. 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26. Mahony was no Jesuite, whose booke was deservedly condemned to fire, by order of the nationall assembly of the Irish Catholicks at Kilkenny. Of which booke and its author some poet then gave this censure:

'Dignus luce liber, modo flammis luceat ustus,

Et scriptor libro sit comes ipse suo

Seditionis erat nam fax authorque liberque,

Ambo perire pari sic meruere rogo.'

It is a strange paradox that such as in this, and all other their actions, continually professed their due allegiance to his Majesty (which the author, p. 276, interprets verbally), should be the onely rebells, and not those who openly professed by word and deed to deface all markes of sovereignty, and pluck up by the root Monarchy.

"A° 1171, the 3a yeare after the English invasion, and the 17 of K. Henry 2. (he landed in Ireland 17 October, vid. War. de Antiq. Hib. cap. 22, p. 112, c. 24, p. 149), and not Ao 1172, as others mistake, for S. Thomas of Canterbury suffered 29 Dec., being Tuesday, as Baker and Spondanus noted A° 1170, and Christmasse after King Henry kept at Dublin. Soe far I observe on the Introduction.

“Pag. 1, 1171, not 1172, ut supra; for 25 Oct. 1171 ended the 17th yeare of King Henry 2. Pag. 2, 1177, Earle Strongbow dyed.

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P. 20, Richard de Burgo, brother's son to Hubert Earle of Kent.

P. 37, Richard de Burgo, Earle of Ulster and Lord of Connaght, was son of Earle Walter, and grandchild of the above Richard, Hubert Earle of Kent's nephew; and Edmond de Burgo 2a son of Richard Earle of Ulster, was progenitoure of Castleconell and Brettas barons.

Idm. John, first baron of Leitrim, was son of Rickard Saxanagh, Earle of Clannrickard. His son Raymund last baron of Letrim.

Idm. William Burk custos Hib. was brother's son to Walter Earle of Ulster, and Cousin-german to Earle Richard; of which William descended Mayo Bourks.

P. 40, 1318, 14 of October was Dundalk battle.

P. 44, A: 1162, Claona (not Cleonard Synod).

P. 45, Jo. Birmingham Earle of Louth, younger brother to Richard, baron of Athenry, murthered, not by Macgoghegan, but by his owne English, as you may read in Camden's Irish Annales.

P. 48, S William Morris. Ufford's death, April the 10th ut p. 49.

P. 55, Lional, Duke of Clarence dyed at Albe in Piemont.

P. 63, Roger, Earle of March, declared heire to the crowne by K. Richard 2. in right of his mother, Philip, daughter of Lionell Duke of Clarence, was slaine, not by O'Brien, but by O'Birn of Wicklow county. His mother, Philip's mother, was Elizabeth, daughter of William Earle of Ulster, son of the Lord John, son of Richard Earle of Ulster, de quo supra.

P. 73, Prior of Kilmainam, not Earle.

P. 75, 142, 4 Ja. Bishop of Meath dyed.

P. 96, 1513, Kildare dying could not keepe Parliament, 7° Hen. 8, A: 1515.

P. 98, 1516, 13 Jun. after 25 Febr. 7° Hen. 8, 151. 3 K

IRISH ARCH. SOC. 15.

P. 98,

P. 98, 1519, S' Maurice (whose father Thomas, brother to Gerald, Earle of Kildare, A: 1513 deceased, was slaine in Stockfield, A: 1487) L. Justice was slaine A 1520, by O'Morra.

P. 100, Pierce Butler, sooner Earle of Ossory, then Earle of Ormond.

P. 102, 1528. Nugent taken by O'Conor.

P. 104, 123. 1° Ja. Leonard Lord Grey, Lord Deputy.

P. 105, 153. Febr. 3 Uncles hanged at Tiburn.

P. 126, Connaght reduced to countyes by Perrot, A 1585.

P. 127, 156. 17 Ja. the Parliament, 11° Elizab. which should be p. 130. A 1568. P. 131, Dublin castle built by Henry Loundres, Archbishop of Dublin, A° 1213. P. 196,16, ut pag. 195.

"When you send this away I desire you send a copy thereof, and not this that I write, as also that you cut of the above Letter under my hand, that it may not appeare, which you can cut of without prejudicing the rest. Soe commending myselfe kindly to you, I conclude y" ut supra."

II.

"Letter from Roderic O'Flaherty to William Molyneux, December 15, 1696, containing a Confutation of the Chinese Chronology. [From the MS. Library, Trin. Col. Dublin, I. 4. 17.]

“HONED SR,

"I lately lighted on a letter of yours. I guesse it is the first that ever I received from you, of the 5th of May, 83, wherein you most friendly put me in mind before you saw any of my writtings, of the objections raised by many against the credibility of our Irish antiquities, which your freedom was then most kindly and gratefully accepted, as the like will alwayes be upon all occasions, for my natural inclination is, as one said: cupio doceri; dedoceri non erubesco. As to those scruples I think I have then fully satisfyed you, onely one point, that I conceived I needed not then examin, untill upon examining my Lord Bishop of Worcester's Origines Brit, I found the same passage objected in print, som 2 years after your letter's date, wherein you have thus: It is the chiefe thing, and indeed the onely thing, that gives credibility to the very ancient history, that the Chinois pretend to, that they can give a rational account of the way and method they used for the account of their time, and that they are not out in it, but make it their chief buisiness in all their chronicles, first to settle and establish that; as may be seen in Martinus a Martiniis, and other authors: to which purpose I feare there is requisit much more learning than any man will say the Irish were masters of before their Christianity, if ever after.'

"Having, I say, accidentally of late hit on this passage in your letter, I thought

it

it would not be ungratefull to you, what I writ thereof in relation to the Bishop, as followeth:

"Dr. Stillingfleet makes it a matter of hyperbolical flourish, as a pretence to very great antiquity, that a late Irish writter (P. W. [Peter Walsh] in his Preface to the Prospect of Ireland), should compare the antiquities of Ireland with those of the Chineses for exactness of Chronology. Indeed whatever the opinion of a privat writter might be in such a case, is not of that moment as to extenuat the credit of our Antiquaries, who never knew what the Chineses were in the furthest part of the world from the climat. But since the learned Doctor so highly magnifyes the accuracy of the Chinesian calculation of time beyond the Irish, I hold it not impertinent to examin it.

"And first of all, I find himself acknowledge a different account of the two best witnesses he produces to that purpose, vz. John Gonsales Mendoza and Martinius; as appeares, he sayes (p. xxxii. of his Preface), by comparing Gonsales Mendoza and Martinius together, which shewes their computation of time is not so plausible as the Doctor would have us believe. I adde another different witness, M. Paulus Venetus, 300 years precedent to Mendoza.

2357 1847

0093

0200

4497

4497

"The account that Mendoza, for certain years resident in China, gathers out of their own calculation and succession of kings, justly computed, extends itself 624 years beyond the gratt ffloud. Ffor from their first king Vitey, he finds 2357 years to the end of the 117th king of his posterity, by name Tzintzon; from Tzintzon, 1847 years during the reign of 142 kings, and 40 years interreign to the end of Tepy, conquered by Vzou, the Tartarian emperour: from Vzou 93 years of his and his 8 successours reigns, till Hombu, of the ancient race of China kings, recovered the kingdom from the Tartars; ffrom which time himself and II more of his posterity reigned for 6293 200 years to the year of Christ 1580, wherein Boneg the last of 'em reigned. At which time Mendoza was writing, being the year of the Julian period 1796 6293, out of which the 4 periods of this computation, amounting to 4497 624 years substracted, there remaines 1796, the year of the Julian Period wherein Vitey is said to have begun his reign: 624 added thereunto makes 2420, the year of the Julian period, in the latter end whereof the gratt ffloud begun, by Scaliger's account, 2293 years before the first year of our Christian computation. So 624 years from the beginning of Vitey to the floud: 2293 years from thence to Christ; and 1580 years of Christ added together, make up the same sum of 4497. But this is a manifest absurdity to us, that are enlightened by the rayes of divine faith, and instructed by sacred text, whereof the Chineses were ignorant; ffor there must be time allowed for the propagation of man3 K 2

2420

0624

2293

1580

4497

kind

kind from the breed of 3 couples after the floud: another allowance of time to the Babylonian confusion, and dispersion of nations: and another to the establishment of several kingdoms; among which it is known that China was not the first monarchy in the world. Neither is this absurdity excusable by a pretence, that even the Chineses had a dark and fabulous time, as well as the Greekes; as the Doctor would have, p. xxxii. ffor those dark and fabulous remote antiquities are so termed, inasmuch as they are a confused intermixtur of poetical fables and true history, and without any continued series and connection, remote from that part of history which begins with a certainty of perpetuated succession. But the Chinesian account is so particular and exact, in a formal series of time not interrupted, and succession of 280 kings from their first Vitey to Boneg, not so much as the interreign of 40 years unobserved, that there is nothing of . . . . . . therein wanting, but onely that incredible spacious length of time, reaching not onely beyond the foundation of established kingdoms, but also beyond the restauration of mankind. Which onely point argues all that tradition fabulous and vain: and leaves it uncertain where to fix the beginning of their more unquestionable series of succession, unless we fix it on their restauration after the Tartarian conquest som 300 years agoe: by reason of the dissonancy between Mendoza and Paulus Venetus, about the verie time that the Tartars reduced them under their own subjection; which Mendoza alleages out of their own publick records (trusted onely to persons of great reputation, as the Doctor tells us, p. xxxiii.), to haue fallen out in the year of our Christian account, 1287. But Paulus Venetus, an eye-witness, living that verie time in the Tartarian emperour's court, ascertaines it to haue been in the year of the same account 1268. That I may omitt how they both differ, in the names of the then conquering Tartar, and conquered Chinesse king.

"It remaines now that we enquire into the Chinesses their way of preserving antiquities peculiar to themselves, which cannot verie well (in the learned Dr, judicious opinion) be made parallel for the Scotish or Irish Antiquities. Which last are the same without difference, if you exempt the modern Scotish Romances. I have not seen the Information, which the world hath since (as the Dr sayes) in great measure received by Martinius; onely what I gather by the D' legend; and that is no les absurd and incredible than that of Mendoza's 4497 years. ffor Martinius, his very plausible account of the remote Antiquities of China, may well be termed a dark and fabulous time, as transcending the verie first ofspring of times: and his account of the Chineses, their use of letters after their remote antiquities, whereby the succession of their kings was delivered down to them with great fidelity, must haue begun in a time before the use of speaking. ffor after the invention, and great benefit of letters with them, the D tells us of their great accuracy in computing time by Cycles, saying they were verie earely given to the finding out the best methods for calculation, and they used a cycle

of

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