SECT. T IMES have, with great propriety, been divided into the unknown, the fabulous and historical; yet it may be doubted whether that arrangement would exactly apply the to cafe of Ireland; for that obfcure period, we have undertaken to illuftrate, is in fome refpects evidently fabulous, and in others strictly hiftorical. We fhall therefore, by way of compounding the matter, call it the legendary period; referving the title of historical for the times connected with the English revolution. And, ↓ unless the foregoing fections have been written in vain, the reader will agree with me in calling the times before our vulgar æra utterly unknown : From thence, to the planting of Christianity in the fifth century, I would limit the fabulous period, during which Conal, Cuculand, Morni, Boifkene, Finn, Offian, Ocfar, &c. are the redoubted heroes of the poet's fong. In this procedure, fo repugnant to that of those modern writers, who are moft copious on those times which I confider as either unknown or fabulous, it affords me fome confolation that Primate Ufher and Sir James Ware went into the fame opinion: F * Perexiguam fupereffe notitiam rerum in Hibernia geflarum ante exortam ibi Evangelii auroram liquido conftat. Ware de Ant. Hib. And that this was Ufher's opinion is evident from his reccommending Ware's book as a fupplement to what he himself had written. His words are : "Interim dum nos, perfoluto hoc, quod opinion: Because a coincidence with fuch authorities may ftand in place of argument with some, who have neither leifure nor inclination to examine facts and weigh the momentum of probability. That the religion of the ancient Irish, till near the middle of the fifth century, was Druidical, we have traditional teftimonies; and prefumptive arguments are not wanting to perfuade us, that Cæfar's account of the Druidifm of Gaul may be fafely applied to that of Ireland. This polite writer reports, from tradition, that the discipline of the Druids originated in Britain. In confirmation of which opinion he obferves, that fuch as afpired to the most intimate acqaintance with its myfteries repaired to Britain for inftruction. That this was the cafe feems more probable, than that Britain was peopled from Gaul; for it is not in the ordinary courfe of nature that the mother thould go fcholar to the daughter. The alinity of cuftoms, manners, and language, was probably, what led Cæfar and other great names But allege, that Britain was first peopled from from Gaul, and then Ireland from Britain. Convert thele propofitions, and thofe affinities will atlord arguments full as conclufive, that Gaul was peopled from Britain, and Britain from Ireland. This much is certain, if any thing on the fubject can be certain, that, difpofe of the question of primogeniture as you pleate (which after all is but a nugatory quod patcræ & civibus noftris deberi a nobis exiftimabamus officio, Hebrorum, Giacorum Romanorumque aliorumque gentium morbus antiquioribus digerendis cogitationem fufcipimus; a D. Jacobo Wareo Dublinienti, equite aurato & regii apud nos avarii Nationali dignitlimo, Hiberniæ noftræ annales, una cum parriorum feriptorum catalogo, e quibus eorum que hac in parte player and extenum pete poterit supplementum, benevolus lector expectabut. Brit. Ecclef. Ant. 503. Difciplina in Britannia reperta atque inde in Galliam translata efle existimatur, & nunc, qui diligentius eam rem cognofcee volunt, plerumque illo difcendi caufa proficifcuntur. Cæfar. nugatory question) the conceffions of British writers afford a ftronger prefumption than even the pretenfions of the Irish, that Ireland was not only the more ancient nation, but that Druidifm, if Stonhenge be a Drudical remain, was more early in Ireland than Britain, and that Britain imported it from Ireland. We must either fay nothing on this fubject (pro or con) or we must give fome credit to fable. Fable preferves tradition, and without tradition we could know nothing of the most early times. In the cafe before us we have as ftrong evidence, as the nature of the thing will afford, from British conceffion. What I allude to is the voice of tradition from the fifth century, when Merlin came into Ireland, down to Geoffry of Monmouth in the twelfth ; after whom Necham wrote the following poem upon the origin of STONEHENGE: Nobilis eft lapidum ftructura, Chorea gigantum, Tellus quæ mittit tot Palamedis aves, Hinc tantum munus fufcepit Hibernia gaudens, Such is the fable of the origin of that marvellous work! But, as this is a fable, it fhould, like other fables, have its moral; at which we fhall, by and by, offer a conjecture. But firft let us hear the motives affigned for erecting this fabrick, where its ruin now stands. F 2 www ftands. It is faid by Geoffry of Monmouth (an author not more refpectable than our Geoffry Keating) that, at a council held, by Ambrofius king of the Britons, how they fhould perpetuate the memory of those British nobles, who were treacheroufly murdered by the Saxons, at a conference held in Salisbury plain, it was fuggefted by Merlin the prophet, that, when in Ireland, he had feen the rarest fight that could be seen in fo rude a country, round rows of huge stones; particularly, in the plains of Kildare, he had feen one fo framed as furpaffed all human skill: fend for this, fays he, and fet it up as it now ftands, and it will be a monument whilft the world ftandeth. To repeat is to confute the abfurdity of this ridiculous tale. There can be little doubt, that this ftructure must have ftood there, not only long before Merlin, but before the introduction of Chrif tianity into Britain; nay, before the Romans fet foot in the land. However, innumerable circles of upright ftones (which may be confidered as Stonehenges in miniature) ftill remain in Ireland, though much industry (more than is customary for better purposes) has been employed, even in my own memory, to remove every veftige of them, in those parts with which I am beft acquainted. This being premifed, the explication of our fables moral, may be fimply this: Merlin, who was a very learned man for his time (a time when the ancient heathen religion of both islands was lefs altered in Ireland than in Britain), had related to his countrymen,-whofe very Paganifm had been refined by their Roman conquerors, and whose religion then partook more of Christianity than that of the Irish, among Yet according to Giraldus, in his topography, fuit antiquis temporibus in Hibernia lapidum congeries admiranda, quæ & chorea gigantum dicta fuit. among whom the Gofpel had been but recently preached, this Merlin, I fay, related to the Britons, what he had feen, and what he had heard, in Ireland. In Ireland, he had feen circles of upright ftones, like thofe of STONEHENGE: and in Ireland he had learned that the fafhion of these erections, and the rites and ceremonies of the worship belonging to them, as open temples of their Gods, had originated in Scythia, from whence the Irish derive their defeent, and that the Britons had borrowed this mode of religion, whatever it was, from them. Now, the five colonies, the Partholan, the Nemedian, the Firbolgian, the Danan and the Milefian, which are faid to have fucceffively poffeffed themfelves of Ireland, were all Scythian, and the Aboriginals are faid to have been Celts. So that, confidering the nation as a mixed breed, of both Celts and Scyths, it is more than probable that Druidifm was the religion of Ireland before Chriftianity as tradition fays it was. It does not follow, because Cæfar's authority oppofes the opinion that one Scythian tribe, the German, had Druids, that therefore all the reft fhould want them; efpecially as Tacitus, though he does not exprefsly mention them as belonging to the Germans, yet defcribes them in fuch a manner, that it must be left to the reader *Cafar, after defcribing the cuftoms of the Gauls, thus expreffes himself." Germani multum ab hac confuetudine differunt nam neque Druides habent qui rebus divinis prefint neque facrificus student: Deorum numero eos folos dueunt, quos cernunt & quorum opibus aperte juvantur, Solem & Vulcanum & Lunam: reliquos ne fama quidem acceperunt." Which is in all refpects oppofite to what Tacitus reports: "Deum maxime Mercurium colunt, cui certis diebus litare fas habent & Herculem & Martem conceffis hoftiis placant." So that from hence, and what we have set down above, it must appear that the religion of the Gaulsand Germans was pretty much the fame, and Druidical. And here Tacitus is far better authority, as he wrote profeffedly on the manners of the Germans, and Cafar only incidentally, from fome reports haftily credited after a few days on the German borders. |