Jands, which were not intended to be conveyed to them; who were to receive equivalents, if they compounded freely: else, to be deprived of their patents, as the king was deceived in his grant; and the possessions restored to the church.

"To provide for the inferiour clergy, the bishops were obliged to resign all their impropriations, and relinquish the tythes paid them out of parishes, to the respective incumbents, for which ample recompence was made out of the king's lands. Every proportion allotted to undertakers was made a parish, with a parochial church to each. The incumbents, besides their

I refer the herenachs; who therefore were so many in number in every diocese, and, for ought I can learn, were wont to be admitted ad primam tonsuram, et diaconatum, and not promoted ad presbyterium."

"A number of these Herenachs were again superintended by an officer of greater dignity, called Corbe, Corbah, or Comhurba; whom the author supposes to be the same with chorepiscopus or archipresbyter. The Irish clergy called him, in Latin, plebanus, quia plebi ecclesiasticæ matricis ecclesiæ præfuit. The name comhurba, he observes, occurs frequently in the early anuals of Ireland. But it is no impeachment of the learned prelate's accuracy to observe, that in these annals the word is taken evidently in another sense, and signifies the prelate himself, or successor of the first Irish saint who presided in his diocese. Thus the comhurba of Saint Patrick means the then archbishop of Armagh, the comhurba of Kiaran, the bishop of Clonmacnoise. And so the word is explained by Colgan in his Trias-Thaumaturga.

The herenachs, under the direction and care of the corbes, or chorepiscopi, resided on the termon lands, and distributed their profits to the bishop, the inferiour clergy, to the repairs of churches, and the maintenance of hospita lity, in the proportion established in each diocese.

tythes and duties, had glebe-lands assigned to them of sixty, ninety, or one hundred and twenty acres, according to the extent of their parishes. To provide for a succession of worthy pastors, free-schools were endowed in the principal towns, and considerable grants of lands conferred on the university of Dublin, together with the advowson of six parochial churches, three of the largest, and three of the middle proportion, in each county."*

Such was the general scheme of this iniquitous northern plantation, formed for the avowed purpose of excluding the old inhabitants, and introducing a new religion; in which not even a labourer would be allowed to dwell, unless he took the oath of supremacy.† Too sad, too dismal to dwell upon, is the reflection, of the multitude thus forcibly dipossessed, deprived of even the means of subsistence in the lowest employment of their new lords and masters, unless they abjured what their conscience required them to obey. Fatally true was the prophetic reply of O'Molloy, "Since you have come among us we will not fail of martyrs." At the moment when the crowns of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland, centered in James, instead of admitting Ireland to an equal participation of rights and privileges with England, he "dispeopled one-fourth of the kingdom, and doled out a large extent of the most ancient inheritances in Europe (or the universe) to strangers, adventurers, and oppres

* Leland. Hist. Ireland, B. IV. c. vi. p. 430, &c.
+ Cox.

sors."* Full of the fiery spirit of the Scottish reformers, these enthusiastic followers of Calvin viewed the natives, who remained firm to the faith of their forefathers, as the imps of Antichrist; while the Irish, who saw their progress marked with violence and rapine, considered them as the children of perdition, the blind ministers of Satan. During the three succeeding reigns, this colony took an active part in the tragic affairs which disfigure the Irish historic page. The small number of the Irish, who acquiesced in the religious innovations of James, tacitly or actually, may be estimated from the small portion of lands allotted to them, which is preserved by Sir Richard Cox, in the following statement of the general distribution.

To the Londoners and other Undertakers
The Bishops Mensall Lands ...

The Bishops Termon and Erenachs
The College of Dublin.

For Free Schools.

...

.209,800

3,413

72,780

5,600

2,700

18,000

1,208

1,473

.116,330

21,552

38,214

8,887

5,980

1,458

In the further progress of history, the Milesians no longer appear as principal figures, or leading characters, on the blood-stained theatre

* Plowden.

of this unfortunate island. Their inhuman enemies swept away millions, with fire, sword, famine and pestilence. Now they divide the spoils, and plant the thorn of religious difference in the heart of Ireland, as a lasting plague, to divide and waste the people. Now they demolish and lay waste the venerable institutions of antiquity, for civil and religious purposes; for education, and improvement of learning. Dreadful was the havock of books, especially in the Phenian and Gathelian languages. The destroyers were eager to abolish the language, and every yestige and memorial of antiquity, reflecting honour on this once renowned and esteemed people. They wished to substitute calumny, lies and defamation, for historical truth; conscious, that their abominable crimes here needed such palliation, however una vailing. Let us exterminate them, say they, and blot out their names from the face of the earth, that the contrast of the former and present state of Ireland may not confound us with shame and reproach. Let us extinguish their bards, lest they record, in plaintive notes, their mournful calamities, occasioned by our excessive cruelty, and long unabating inhumanity. Vain are all your endeavours. You must first destroy all the libraries of Europe, in which the bright fame of Inisfail is treasured among the illustrious ranks of the holy and learned, of the sages and heroes, who were eminent benefactors to mankind. You must do more: you have still to destroy innumerable monuments, in temples, altars, sacred offices, consecrated to their memory. Nay, if you

covered Europe with ruins, as you have Ireland, the very ruins, and names of places, would retain their memory. St. Gall, in Switzerland; Malmesbury, from Mailduphsburg, &c. Hosts of evidence could be brought from all Europe, and arrayed against your defamatory libels. Even from your own country, we could cite venerable Bede, the two Alfreds, Oswald, Nennius, of Briton, and the thousands of Anglo-Saxons, Franks, Germans, &c. who resorted to this island, as to a school of morality and religion, a mart of literature and the most civilizing arts.

If the Irish be what their defamers report, from their insolent libels, incessantly published on the fallen people of Ireland, and through their means circulated through Europe, their coming to the island of saints was a dreadful visitation indeed, worse than a flight of locusts, a troop of wolves; yea, worse than the plague itself. What was it, but the visitation of Satan to the garden of Eden, to corrupt the innocence, and destroy the happiness, of that blissful abode?

A Milesian might plead powerfully, on their own accounts of the actual state of Ireland, în favour of the antient institutions. Under them we were a very different people from what you describe us now. Our learning, religion, moral virtues, were extolled by the consenting voice of Europe. The comforts and substantial wealth of this island were attested by cotemporary writers; abundant proofs of which may be seen in the latter pages of the first volume.

The eulogy of Burke on English institutions;