received in a bloody struggle of two hundred years, against the Northern invaders; the English, under Henry II. made their successful inroad, and established themselves in an exhausted and distracted country.

The people, from whom extraordinary blessings, or extraordinary miseries have been derived, are certain at all times to be remembered in the histories of the world. The Phoenicians, and the people of Palestine, thus, are for ever to live in the memory of mankind. The one gave us letters, and the other gave us religion. But, the inhabitants of such an insulated spot as Ireland, have little better to expect, than sullen neglect, or proud forgetfulness. Their little game, has been like the little game of others; and therefore they are to blame to look to a higher scale of importance than is commonly, though reluctantly, given to the reduced and wretched remains of former consideration,

The periods before the introduction of Christianity into Ireland, are those, however, which are held to be peculiarly fabulous. The natives, say Anti-Hibernians, were too barbarous to have the use of letters. But, let me ask, what

The Irish language abounds with Eastern terms. Most of the Persian names of the Supreme God, of the demons, the peri, the angels, &c. are still preserved in the Irish. Even the Persian names of the priests of the Ghebres, are Irish. These, surely, were not derived from the Romans; neither can they, without much violence to common sense, be supposed the fabrication of monks of the sixth, seventh, or eighth centuries. Attend to the following words, which are a few, out of hundreds of radicals and derivatives, which are to be adduced on the subject. They are indiscriminately picked out, and are all taken from the Sanskreet, Arabic and Persian.

IMSK.

as the Irish do not, it is certainly as strong a proof on their side, to the contrary.*

St. Patrick, it is said, introduced the Roman character among the Irish. And this, I confess, is very probable, as his wish, most consistently, might have been, to have diffused Christian knowledge, and to have celebrated the rites of the church in the Latin tongue. This was the custom of all missionaries. But, it may certainly with as much propriety be inferred, that because the Jesuits in China, St. Francis Xavier, for instance, made his converts, and especially his Chinese clergy, acquainted with the Roman alphabet, that the Chinese were totally illiterate before the period of his arrival, a few years ago. But, have we not historical evidence, that St. Patrick had influence enough, to get above two hundred volumes of Druidical theology and philosophy burnt? St. Patrick, on Pagan ground, like the rest of the elect of his corps, waged war, as the Danes, Saxons, and Normans did, against arts, sciences, and letters, We read of the destruction of the records, and even of the murder of the poets and antiquaries of Wales, by an English king. We read of similar devastation in Scotland. We read,

Antiq. of Brit. and Ireland,

even so late as our Elizabeth's time, of an order to Sir George Carew, president of Munster, and to all the officers in Ireland, " to collect all the manuscripts they could, that they might effectually destroy every vestige of antiquity and letters throughout the kingdom." What, after this, may we not conceive to have happened during the mission of St. Patrick?

The first Irish converts never admitted any of the Roman characters, which were not found provided for in their own national method of literary communication, even when they wrote Latin words in which such characters were authoritatively used. Now, if the Irish had no letters before the introduction of the Latin alphabet, how could they have contrived constantly to reject some simple characters, and obstinately to substitute compound letters in their stead; and especially in writing a foreign tongue, to which all such characters were equally fitting? Or, if all letters were equally new and exotic to them, why had not all an equal right to be preserved by them?*

however, in the Irish language, for

• Collect. de Reb. Hib.

The terms,

those ab

stract