well as direct; a consistency not to be accounted for, on the supposition of their being fabricated in a subsequent age of darkness and ignorance; but, easily explained, if we admit them to have been drawn from the source of real family records and truth. So much of the Irish history as relates to the names and succession of their princes, will certainly stand against every reasonable objection to its credibility, whatever suspicion of errors, or even fiction, may lie against other circumstances contained in it.

"As to the high antiquity, and long duration of the Milesian dynasty in Ireland, I can discern nothing incredible in the account of it. It is natural to suppose, that at what time soever this Spanish, or Celtiberian colony took possession of Ireland, its leader became king; and when we consider the remoteness of this island from foreign invasion, we shall think it less wonderful, that its succession should have continued unchanged through such a long line of Milesian princes. The same circumstances, in the annals of China, do not shock our belief; and we account for it from the same cause, namely, its being separated from all connection with the rest. of the world, which preserved it, until the Tartan invasion, from those revolutions which have

SO

so frequently changed the government of other countries. And, to come nearer home for an example, the Scottish line, still happily reigning in Great Britain, tracing it no higher than to its unquestioned ancestor, Fergus II. is, at this day, no less ancient, than the line of the Milesians was at the period, down to which the written antiquities of that country still extant are carried.

"I shall not here enter into a discussion concerning the most ancient and authentic annals of Ireland, said to have been framed under the sanction of public authority, from time to time, till the invasion of the Danes; but, as I before observed, even in those more recent compilations which now remain, we find none of those palpable contradictions in different historians, none of those uncertainties and variations in the names and order of their kings, which appear in the histories of the darker ages of other nations, where fiction or tradition has supplied the want of authentic materials. A general agreement appears in the names and lineage of that long series of princes, that succeeded and descended from the first conquerors to the fifth century; and the descent of the collateral branches, is traced up to the royal stem, with

such

such precision and consistency as shews it to have been once a matter of public concern. The later bards and senacchies could not have fabricated tables that should have stood the test of critical examination, as these will do; from whence I infer, that they have been a true transcript from ancient records then extant, but since destroyed." *

This summing up of the evidence, as I may fairly call it, by bishop Barnard, sanctions me in the belief, that the cause I have been pleading is just. But, similar instances, from similar premises, occur in the annals of almost every country upon earth. The Norwegians, says Mallet, who discovered and colonized Greenland, Iceland, and probably a part of America; who conquered the Orcades, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, many provinces in England, in Scotland, and in Ireland; and particularly, that part of France which still bears their name; who were the terror of Europe; these very Norwegians, hold out an instructive warning to mankind. "Chretien II." says he, " gouverné par des maximes & des conseils sanguinaires, détruisit une grande partie des familles nobles. Les temps qui suivirent ne furent pas

Transact. Royal Ir. Acad. 1787.

moins

moins contraires à la noblesse, quoiqu'elle n'eût plus a souffrir ses grandes calamités. Le sénat de Danemarc, anéantit celui de Norvége; traita ce royaume comme une province conquise, & le gouverna avec un empire absolu. Sous un semblable régime la noblesse Norvégienne ne put éviter de tomber dans l'indigence: elle vendit d'abord pour subsister, une partie de ses terres, & n'eût bientôt plus d'autres ressources que d'en cultiver le reste de ses propres mains. Telle est aujourdhui la condition de presque tout ce qui reste des familles autrefois les plus illustres, & les plus puissantes. Leurs descendants conservent encore à coté des instruments du labourage qui les font vivre les armoiries, & les généalogies qui les consolent."

Was not this also the case on the establishment of the seven Saxon kingdoms in England? The unfortunate Britons having been exhausted by continual wars, and even worn out by their own victories, were reluctantly compelled to forsake the open, and more fertile parts of the country. All the vestiges of Roman luxury, were now almost totally destroyed by the conquerors. "The few natives, who were not either massacred, or expelled their habitations, were reduced to the most abject slavery, and

em

employed in cultivating those grounds for their new masters, which they once prided themselves in, as their own. Nay, the lower classes of people were bought and sold with the farms, and were reckoned of no more account than the herds of the field."*

Thus, which way soever we turn our footsteps, we meet with nothing but revolutions. The pages of all history, are little more than the chronicles of degradation on the one side, and of exaltation on the other.

• History of England.

LET