Author, once more begins to glow in the hearts of Irishmen : the nobility and gentry think their ancient annals worth exploring and preferving; and it is to be hoped in a little time that the hiftory and antiquities of Ireland will be established on a bafis too ftable for fuch adverfaries, and throw the fo much wanted light it is capable of, on the ancient ftate of the Celtic nations of Europe."

But our Author, though fometimes a little baby, is not, perhaps, guilty of fo much felf-contradiction as may, at first fight, appear to the view of a curfory reader. His countrymen might, poffibly, have been in a lethargy, when he begun to write this introduction to the ftudy of that hiftory and those antiquities which they had unhappily forgotten; but as he must have employed a confiderable time in the completion of fo elaborate a work, and many events and changes must have taken place in fo long an interval, fo Mr. Sylvefter O Halloran might have the agreeable furprize to find, at the conclufion of his performance, that something or other, the two malignant Macphersons, or the daring Dalrymple, had roufed them, and he had the hap pinefs of perceiving the AMOR PATRIA once more glow in the hearts of Irishmen. From which expreffion, by the way, we learn that the patriots of Ireland were not always in a lethargy; although we do not obferve that the exact times when they were feized with this disorder, and when they recovered from it, are fo carefully noted as they ought to have been, especially if the Author, as we imagine, belongs to a branch of the faculty t

In his preliminary difcourfe, our Author supposes the question "Why fhould English and Scottish writers be fo particularly indefatigable to mifreprefent and traduce the Irish nation, and its annals, if they were not convinced that they merited such treatment?" This, he apprehends to be a fubject worth difcuffing; and, accordingly, he enters upon it with zeal, but treats it with brevity, and, indeed, with perfpicuity. He obferves that the moft early British writers are diffufive in praife of the Irifh,-their humanity, their hofpitality, their love of letters, their noble endowments for the education of British youth, and the uncommon pains they took in converting and civilizing the Saxon race; but the moment a fatal connection arose between the two people, we find the tables turned, and every crime that human malice can invent, or human frailty imagine, imputed to them!'

+ We remember a treatife on the Glaucoma, and another, if we miftake not, on Gangrenes, by a Writer of the fame name; probably the-identical Author of the hillorical work before us.

In afferting the antiquity, illuftrating the hiftory, and defending the honour of his country, Mr. O Halloran has many notable remarks, and fhews that he has employed great application and affiduity in the investigation. Among other obfervations are the following:

The admirers of modern reveries tell us, it is abfurd to suppose, when navigation was in its infancy, that a colony of people should make fuch long and diftant voyages before the ufe of the needle was found out, whilst they admit that the Phoenicians, the Tyrians, and the Greeks, traverfed vaft oceans; yet furely there can be no more reafon for denying the fact in one, than the other inftance, fince they alike depend on the faith of hiftory. But in many particulars how are we affared of our fuperiority to the antients? the Chinese have been long poffeffed of those discoveries, we modern Europeans boast as our own; and we have more than bare prefumption for fuppofing that our Milefian ancestors were very early acquainted with navigation, aftronomy, and even the ufe of reflecting and refracting glaffes. Father Kegler, prefident of the Mathematical Tribunal in China, has informed the public of a map of the heavens made there long before the arrival of the miffionaries, in which not only the visible stars, but those discoverable by glasses only, were delineated; and our early writers inform us that the Irish coafts were first discovered with glaffes, by Ith, the son of Milefius. In the island of the Hyperboreans we are told, the people could bring the moon near to them, and discover in it hills and valleys; and yet till the modern use of glaffes was found out, the ftory was treated as a fiction. But to wave all this, let us afk, what motives could our fenachies have for impofing on the public an imaginary relation of the different migrations of their ancestors from Egypt to Greece; from thence to Spain, and fo to Ireland? We fee the fame unvarnished tale tranfmitted from age to age, from the remoteft antiquity, without the leaft alteration; and the collateral evidences, which I have produced from the hiftories of these different nations, are aftonishingly strong, confidering the very early times in which they paffed. This critical enquiry, which a defire to prove in the clearett manner the truth of our antient hittory made me undertake, I apprehend will throw a very great light on many obfcure parts of antient hiftory; at leaft the reader will judge for himself, when he reads the 6th and 7th chapters of the first part of this work. The Hyperborean ifland, defcribed by Diodorus Siculus, has been fuppofed by fome, like Sir Thomas More's Utopia, an imaginary one; but the many Greek writers who fpeak of this extraordinary island, leave no doubt as to its exiftence the only doubt that remains is, where to fix it. When the two laft chapters of the first part of this introduction are examined, the critical reader will be enabled to determine whether Ireland is not the country described in every line, and how far her hiftory is capable of reconciling many controverted parts of antient hiftory.

:

The early Greek and Roman writers have reprefented the Druids as the priests and philofophers of the Celtic nations of Europe; as a race of men, eminent for the most exalted virtues, and for their extenfive knowledge in arts and sciences. Yet if we credit most learned moderns,

O 2

moderns, thefe Druids borrowed their acts and myfteries from the very Greeks themselves; though these last tell us, that they were confined to the remote parts of Europe, and mention them as a people they were little acquainted with!

Finding in all periods of our Pagan hiftory, conftant mention of Druid priests, and having yet in our language no other word than Draithe whereby to exprefs a diviner, or teller of future events, I began to fufpect that this extraordinary body of men took their rife among us; and that with arts and letters, they spread their doctrine over the continent of Europe. I read with attention all that had been advanced by foreigners relative to them: I particularly confidered every paffage in Cæfar, who was an eye-witnefs. I compared thefe, with the accounts of our Druids as delivered by Colgan in the lives of our early Chriftians, and with many parts of our antient history; and in the whole have found a most astonishing co-incidence of facts. The mistakes of Scaliger, Selden, and other modern critics, with refpect to Cæfar's relation, I have hereby been enabled to correct; and hence every lover of truth may learn how dangerous and prefumptious it is in modern critics and commentators, merely because fome parts of a relation feem to them abftrufe, boldly to contradict what are advanced as pofitive facts by antient writers, and living witnefies. In a word, a perufal of the 3d, 4th, and 5th chapters of this first part, will convince the unprejudiced, that the Heathen Irish were the polishers and inftructors of the adjacent nations; and that the Irish history thould be diligently ftudied by every learned European; nay, that it is impoffible to become a profound antiquarian without a knowledge of it.

6

Cæfar tells us, that lettered men were in the highest estimation among the Gauls; he defcribes their governments, and affirms, that in all tranfactions, whether of a public or private nature, religious ones only excepted, they made ufe of letters. He is pofitive they had public colleges for the education of youth; and that these were inftructed not only in religion and difcipline, but in the fublimeft parts of metaphysical and philofophical knowledge. Yet modern writers, in oppofition to thefe affertions, affirm, that thefe and the circumjacent nations were rude, ignorant, and illiterate, without public records, without history, or any marks of a civilization. How is this confiftent with the veneration they exprefs for the Roman hiftorians? Muft it follow, becaufe through various revolutions thefe annals are long fince loft to us, that Cæfar intended to impofe on the Roman people? Our history will clearly fhew he never meant any fuch thing; and our History only can vindicate the learning and honour of the Celtic nations, from the afperfions of their very descendants. Cæfar tells us the Druids were great aftronomers, and the Irish word for a year literally fignifies the circle of Beal, or the Sun. He tells us, to them were committed the education of youth; and in every part of Ireland colleges were founded for the fame purpose. He fays, that fuch as chofe to become eminent in letters, repaired to the ifles of Britain, or rather to Ireland; and at the reception of Christianity, and for centuries after, was a man of letters of Britain, or of the continent miffing, it was a proverbial expreffion Amandatus eft ad difciplinam, in Hibernia. Thus, in the days of Druidism as in

fubfequent

fubfequent times, was Ireland the great fchool of Europe; and it will be found that our antient hiftory, like pure gold, the more feverely it is analyfed, the brighter it becomes.

Convinced that our ancestors came here a great and polished people, I expected from our records every proof of it, and was not deceived. Literary foundations, for the inftruction of foreign as well as their own youth, fhewed them indeed a learned nation; but their attention to every other useful object, proved them a great and wife ftate. Not even at this day in China, is agriculture carried to a higher pitch than it was formerly among the Irish, the traces of which are yet visible in our wildest and most uncultivated mountains. By this they promoted population, formed an hardened yeomanry, and gave rise to new wants and new induftry. It was from the countenance afforded by our princes to agriculture, that trades and manufactures early flourished amongst us; that the bowels of the earth were explored for new riches; that Ireland was renowned for her mines of gold, filver, copper, and tin; that our commerce was extenfive; and that, as Tacitus confeffes, our ports were more frequented by foreigners, that thofe of Britain. By this were our navies and armies fupplied with hardy warriors, who kept in fubjec tion the neighbouring ftates, and who even fought in foreign climes thofe tyrants of the world, the antient Romans. We may judge of the riches of Ireland formerly, from the early laws made in the little parliament of the pale, againit the ufe of gold bits, and ornaments of gold to bridles, except by perfons of a certain rank; and by the duty on pure filver exported. Such are the confequences that mult ever flow from a ftrict attention to agriculture.

⚫ I confidered our antient mode of legiflation with great attention; and I flatter myself that I have viewed its advantages through a clearer medium, than any preceding writer. It is a fact admitted by the most celebrated historians, &c. that the antient laws, inftitutions, and cuftoms of Europe were in no degree borrowed from the Greeks and Romans; and in Ireland I found their rife could be traced as well as the origin of the Celtic literature. Cafar, for example, divides the Gauls into different claffes thus were the Irith arranged. He fays, next to the literati, their knights were in the highest efteem, and that they were remarkable in his time;- exactly our cafe. Paufanias defcribes their manner of fighting; and every page of our hiftory is pregnant with proofs of their romantic bravery and humanity; yet most moderns are of opinion that orders of chivalry took their rife in Europe at a much later period. Hottoman in his Franco. Gallia judges that the crown of France was always hereditary in the three royal races; whilt Du Hailan, on the contrary, thinks, that under the two first races it was merely elective. To reconcile opinions fo oppofite, the learned Pere Daniel imagines, that the crown of France was hereditary under the first race, elective under the fecond, and again hereditary under the third. Vertot has with great folidity of argument proved, that in all initances it was both hereditary and elective. That is, that in point of blood, it could not depart from the reigning line; but that the fucceffion did not pafs directly to the next in blood, but was determined by the choice of the chiefs of the people. Such has been the Irish modus of facceflion, from

03

the

the remoteft antiquity even to the beginning of the last century. None but the male line could govern in France; and through our extended history, but one inftance occurs of a female regent. Among the Celtic nations we find all crimes, even murder, punished by fine, or fervitude; and the fine was fettled according to the dignity and quality of the deceased. In Ireland, from the days of Ollamh-Fodla, till the last century, all crimes, (violation offered to females, and infults offered to any of the eftates affembled at Tara excepted) were in like manner punished by mulct; and this has been by our lawyers called the law of Eiric, or retribution. Englith writers in particular have been wanton in their cenfures of this law, which they have accounted to the laft degree barbarous; and this apparently for no other reafon but to run down the Irish legiflation, fince it is certain that their ancestors ftrictly adhered to the fame. It has not appeared however that the more fanguinary and fiery ones that have fucceeded have been the leaft check upon vice and immorality; and fince the encrease of thofe laws, there has visibly been an increase of public executions and public crimes. If a reverence for strict and impartial justice, as well as for the diftributers of it, be a proof of falutary laws duly administered, it must be granted that those of Ireland were eminently fo, as thofe English lawyers, who first introduced the prefent form of legiflation into the Irish counties in the last century, moft fully acknowledge,

But befide the great lights which our history is capable of throwing on the antient laws and cuftoms of Europe in general, England is more particularly interested in this enquiry. I have wrote a particular chapter on this head; and if I fhall not have the thanks of British antiquarians for it, I can only fay, that I have taken no small trouble to deferve it. The learned Cambden was too great an antiquarian to be totally ignorant of the Irish language, as his Britannia proves. It was in confequence of this knowledge, and to be able to account for the many Irish words found in the British, that he fuppofes the Aborigines of Ireland came from thence. Mr. Lhuid, from the employment he engaged in, found himself under an indifpenfable neceflity of becoming matter of our tongue. It was from this acquifition that he was enabled to answer the expectations of his patrons, and to prove to the curious, how much the antiquities of Britain could be illuftrated by thofe of Ireland. He too fuppofes the first fettlers in Ireland to have come from England, and thereby accounts for the most antient names of places, &c. there, being radical Irish. The lately deceafed Dr. John O Brien, titular bithop of Cloyne, aftonished at the light which our language throws, not only on the British, but the other Celtic dialects, is forced to adopt, in his Irish Dictionary, the modern fyftem of population in direct oppofition to all antient history, and particularly to that of his native country. But, convinced of the filence of the venerable Bede on this head, and the pofitive affertions of our very antient writers, that the first inhabitants of Britain went from Ireland (and I do contend that their teftimonies fhould have the greater weight) I have clearly, I think, accounted for the affinity between the two languages, without attempting to fubvert antient history.'