anguish was augmented at the thoughts of what the princefs must feel. When returned to Cornwall, he fo commended the virtues of the lovely fod, that the king foon fent an embaffy, to the king of Leinfter, to ask her in marriage. The fuccefs of which answered the ardour of his expectations. They were espoused in all the pomp and festivity of magnificence and joy.

The knight, who had fought the battles of the king, and had pointed out the partner of his bed, now became a welcome and a frequent visitor in the royal palace. But that flame, which could not be concealed and was not quenched, now rekindled with unabating violence. The queen of Cornwall gave the knight pledges of her efteem fuited to the fummit of his affection. The preference was too visible to escape notice: It was foon fpied out by the watchful eyes of a tender husband. Distracted with jealoufy, he flew to the chamber where Sir Triftram was regaling with his harp the charming and the charmed fod, and, regardless of the facred laws of hofpitality, he ftabbed to the heart the fufpected author of his wrongs and of his fhame. And thus, as the loves of Triftram and Ifod began, so they ended, with the harp!

Unhappy ISOD flew to the grave of her unfortunate paramour; and there bewailing her fad fate in being thus bereaved of him, for whom alone fhe would wish to live, fhe relinquished that light of the fun, which to her ferved but as a fepulchral lamp, to fhew nothing but fights of forrow, now that her first and only love was removed to darkness. Though her memory be forgotten, her name is ftill preferved in a village near Dublin, where a chapel was built to her manes, by the difconfolate king her father, for holy churchmen to pray forgiveness, and chaunt eternal requiem to her departed foul.

Whatever

Whatever fympathy a heart of fenfibility may feel for this fad catastrophe, of which there can be but little doubt, it cannot redeem the times from the imputation of fabulous. But the circumstance of an Irish prince claiming tribute of a Cornish king, may perhaps difcover what that tribute was which the renowned Arthur, according to Hardinge, obtained of Geal-more, who had affifted the Picts in their invafions of Britain.

The Somner next ARTHUR went to Ireland,
With battaile fore forefoughten y conquered,
And of the king had homage of that land
To hold of him, fo was he of him feared.

SECT.

SE CT. X

HE narrative of our ecclesiastical state, which

TH

has perhaps too long ftood still, we now refume; not without hope, that what may have appeared difcurfive upon the fabulous ages, may tend to illuftrate the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries; in which political and ecclefiaftical affairs are so mixed, that it is found impoffible to separate and difentangle them entirely from each other.

The state of the church is reprefented to have been in the most flourishing condition, before the Danish domination threw all things into disorder and confufion. In the eighth century, monafteries are faid to have been fo numerous, and universities fo crowded, that we must make large deductions. Armagh alone is faid to have contained seven thoufand ftudents; Lifmore vied with Armagh; and others vied with Lifmore. But a fad reverse, we are all told, took place under the infidel Danes and Norwegians, who fpared neither church nor monaftery, age nor sex, sacred nor civilized: houses and cities fpoiled and plundered, palaces and holy temples rifled and pillaged; maids and wives difhonoured in the face of day, and priefts butchered at their violated altars. All the venerable archives of antiquity perished, and the polished works of ages buried in the capacious tomb of barbarifm.

Keating very gravely tells us that, about the beginning of the tenth century, the Danes, after having reduced Ireland to these horrible extremities, became

fuch

fuch a terror to the Welsh and Scotch, that Roger king of Wales, fled for refuge into Ireland; and that the reliques of St. Columb-cill, which had hitherto flept quietly in his own Abbey at Hy, were removed from thence, to preferve them from injury, and the facrilegious hands of those impious plunderers; who broke open churches and fhrines, and ftripped the dead as well as the living.

But if Ireland was, at this time, fo forely afflicted, as he represents it to have been, how could it afford either the living Prince or the dead Saint a fafer afylum than either Wales or Scotland? We must then make large allowances for the exaggerations and ignorance of those writers, whom he fo injudiciously copies.

The truth of the matter seems to be, that the power of the Oftmen was, at no time, firmly established in the interior parts of the kingdom, except in Ulfter, where Armagh appears to have been their head-quarters. The hiftory of Munster is fo detailed, as if it had heard of, but not felt, the ravages of the Danes and Norwegians.

But, from a cool comparison and investigation of facts, there is argument fufficient to perfuade us, that, however hostile to the interests of christianity and literature the Oftmen are faid to have been, the power of the clergy, at leaft in Munfter, muft have been prodigious, when they obtained fuch an afcendant, that feveral ecclefiaftics had exalted themselves to the throne of that province, and one of them was fo ambitious as to claim the Boiromean tribute from the King of Leinster, which was only due to the monarch.

These facts are noted, but not traced to their fource. Now we find that, during this very period, the patrimony of St. Patrick had been settled both in Munster and Connaught: From whence, and other. collateral circumstances, we prefume, that it had been fettled in the other provinces before. What

the