treatise ascribed to his pen, that "there is but one soul in all mankind," had clearly its origin in the emanative system of that mystic school of philosophy with which the translator of the pseudo-Dionysius had, for the first time, made the Western Church acquainted. CHAPTER XIV. STATE OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS IN IRELAND DURING THE SAME PERIOD. In a preceding chapter of this volume there has been submitted to the reader most of the evidence, as well incidental as direct, suggested by various writers, in support of the belief, that the use of letters was known to the pagan Irish. But, perhaps, one of the most convincing proofs, that they were at least acquainted with this gift before the time when St. Patrick introduced among them the Christian doctrine, is to be found in the immediate display of mind and talent which the impulse of that great event produced, in the rapidity with which they at once started forth as scholars and missionaries, and became, as we have seen, the instructors of all Europe, at a time when, according to some, they were but rude learners themselves. It is, indeed, far easier to believe-what there is besides such strong evidence to prove-that the elements of learning were already known to them when St. Patrick and his brother missionaries arrived, than that the seeds then for the first time sown should have burst forth in so rich and sudden a harvest. To the question,-Where, then, are any of the writings of those pagan times? where the tablets, the manuscripts, even pretending to be of so ancient a date?-it can only be answered, that the argument involved in this question would apply with equal force to the two or three centuries succeeding the time of St. Patrick, when, as all know, not merely letters, but the precious fruits of those elements, literature and the sciences, had begun to spring up in Ireland. And yet, of that long and comparatively shining period, when the schools of this country attracted the attention of all Europe; when the accomplished Cummian drew from thence his stores of erudition, and Columba's biographer acquired in them his Latin style; when Columbanus carried to Gaul, from the celebrated school of Banchor, that knowledge of Greek and Hebrew which he afterwards displayed in his writings, and the acute Virgilius went forth, enriched with the various science which led him to anticipate the discovery of the sphericity of the earth;-of all that period, in Ireland, abounding as it was in scholars and writers extraordinary for their time, not a single authentic manuscript now remains; not a single written relic, such as ought to convince that class of skeptics who look to direct proofs alone, that the art of writing even existed in those days. The very same causes-the constant ravages of invasion and the blind fury of internal dissension*-which occasioned the destruction and loss of manuscripts between the time of St. Patrick and the ninth or tenth century, account with still stronger force for the disappearance of all earlier vestiges of writing; and, in fact, the more recent and scanty at present are the remains of the acknowledged era of Irish literature, the more it weakens the argument drawn from the want of any such visible relics of the ages preceding it.† * "Nec mirum," says Ware, in the dedication prefixed to his account of Irish writers; "nam periisse liquet plurimorum notitiam, unà cum multo maxima operum eorum parte, cum Hibernia nostra seditionibus intestinis oppressa, quasi miseriarum diluvio inundata fuerit." Of the wanton destruction of Irish manuscripts which took place after the invasion of the English, I shall, in a subsequent part of this work, have occasion to speak. Many of these precious remains were, as the author of Cambrensis Eversus tells us, actually torn up by boys for covers of books, and by tailors for measures Inter pueros in ludis literariis ad librorum sittibas, et inter sartores ad lascinias pro vestium forma dimetiendi." It was till the time of James I.," says Mr. Webb," an object of government to discover and destroy every literary remain of the Irish, in order the more fully to eradicate from their minds every trace of their ancient independence."-Analysis of the Antiq. of Ireland. †The absurd reasoning of the opponents of Irish antiquities on this point has been well exposed by the English writer just cited:-" The more recent they can by any means make this date, the greater, in their opinion, is the objection to the authenticity of Irish history, and to the pretensions of the national antiqua. We have seen that a manuscript copy of the Four Gospels, still extant, is said to have been written by the hand of St. Columbkill; and to this copy Dr. O'Connor triumphantly refers, as affording an irrefragable answer to those who deny the existence of any Irish manuscript of an older date than the tenth century.* But the zeal of this amiable scholar in the cause of his country's antiquities, and the facility with which, on most points connected with that theme, he adopts as proved what has only been boldly asserted, render even him, with all his real candour and learning, not always a trust-worthy witness; and the result of the researches on this point, in Ireland, of one whose experience in the study of manuscripts, combined with his general learning, render him an authority of no ordinary weight, is that the oldest Irish manuscript which has been discovered in that country, is the Psalter of Cashel, written in the latter end of the ninth century. For any remains, therefore, of our vernacular literature before that period, which have reached us, we are indebted to Tigernach and the annalists preceding him, through whom a few short pieces of ancient poetry have been transmitted; and to those writers of the tenth century, who, luckily taking upon themselves the office of compilers, have made us acquainted with the contents of many curious works which, though extant in their times, have since been lost. Among the fragments transmitted through the annalists are some distichs by the arch-poet Dubtach, one of St. Patrick's earliest converts, the antiquated idiom of which is accounted, by Irish scholars, to be in itself a sufficient proof of their authenticity. A few other fragments from poets of that period have been preserved by the same trust-worthy chronicler; and it appears on the whole highly probable, that while abroad, as we have seen, such adventurous Irishmen as Pelagius and Celestius were entering into the lists with the great champions of orthodoxy,-while Sedulius was taking his place among the later Latin classics,-there were also, in Ireland itself, poets, or Filcas, employing their native language, and either then recently quickened into exertion by the growing intercourse of their country with the rest of Europe, or forming but links, perhaps, of a long bardic succession extending to remote times. According as we descend the stream of his Annals, the metrical fragments cited by Tigernach become more numerous; and a poet of the seventh century, Cenfaelad, furnishes a number of these homely ornaments of his course. The singular fate of the monarch, Murcertach, who, in the year 534, was drowned in a hogshead of wine, seems to have formed a favourite theme with the poets, as no less than three short pieces of verse on this subject have been preserved by the annalists, written respectively by the three poets, Cernach, Sin, and Cenfaelad. In these, as in all the other fragments assigned to that period, there is to be found, as the learned editor of the Irish Chronicles informs us, a peculiar idiom and structure of verse, which denotes them to be of the early date to which they are assigned. It would appear, indeed, that the modern contrivance of rhyme, which is generally supposed to have had a far other source, may be traced to its origin in the ancient rans or rins, as they termed their stanzas, of the Irish. The able historian of the Anglo-Saxons, in referring to some Latin verses of Aldhelm, which he appears to consider as the earliest specimen of rhyme now extant, professes himself at a loss to discover whence that form of verse could have been derived. But already, before the time of Aldhelm, the use of rhyme had been familiar among the Irish, as well in their vernacular verses as in those which they wrote in Latin. Not to dwell on such instances, in the latter language, as the Hymns of St. Columba, respecting whose authenticity there may be some question, an example of Latin verses interspersed with rhyme is to be found among the poems of St. Columbanus, which preceded those of rians to an early use of letters among their countrymen." He afterwards adds:-"If we possess so few Irish manuscripts, written before the twelfth century, it is plain that, by adducing this circumstance, they the more clearly ascertain the extent of those disturbances which destroyed every historical record prior to the tenth, and which must have been far more effectual in causing to perish every remain of the fifth age."-Id. *After quoting Usher's account of the Kells manuscript, Dr. O'Connor says: "Habemus itaque, ex indubitatæ fidei scriptoribus ad nostra fere tempora extitisse antiquissimus codices, characteribus Hibernicis scriptos, qui longo ante seculum decimum exarati fuere; ita ut a veritate plurimum abesse consendi sunt qui nullum ante seculum X. codicem characteribus Hibernicis scriptum extare opinan. tur," Rer. Hib. Script. Ep. Nunc. † Astle, Origin and Progress of Writing. "Carminis antiquitatem indicant phrases jam obsoletæ, et a recentiorum idiomate aliena."-Ep. Nunc. cv. § "Here, then," says Mr. Turner," is an example of rhyme in an author who lived before the year 700, and he was an Anglo-Saxon. Whence did he derive it? Not from the Arabs: they had not yet reached Europe." | Beginning, "Mundus iste transit et quotidie decrescit: Nemo vivens manebit, nullus vivus remansit." Though the rhymes, or conincident sounds, occur thus, in general, on the final syllable, there are instances throughout the poem of complete double rhymes. As, for instance, Aldhelm by near half a century. So far back, indeed, as the fifth century, another Irish poet, Sedulius, had, in some of the verses of his well-known hymn on the Life of Christ, left a specimen of much the same sort of rhyme. As practised most generally, in their own language, by the Irish, this method consisted in rhyming at every hemistich, or, in other words, making the syllable in the middle of the line rhyme to that of the end; much in the manner of those verses called, in the twelfth century, Leonine, from the name of the writer who had best succeeded in them. According to this "art of the Irish," as it was styled, most of the distichs preserved by Tigernach from the old poets were constructed; and it is plain that Aldhelm, whose instructor, Maidulph, was a native of Ireland, must have derived his knowledge of this, as well as of all other literary accomplishments of that day, from the lips of his learned master. How nearly bordering on jealousy was his own admiration of the schools of the Irish has been seen in the sarcastic letter addressed by him to Eaghfrid, who had just returned from a course of six years' study in that country, overflowing, as it would appear, with gratitude and praise. In its infant state, poetry has been seldom separated from music; and it is probable that most of the stanzas cited by the annalist were meant originally to be associated with song. Of some of the juvenile works of St. Columbanus we are told, that they were "worthy of being sung ;" and a scene brought vividly, in a few words, before our eyes, by the Irish biographer of Columba, represents that holy man as sitting, along with his brethren, upon the banks of the beautiful lake Kee, while among them was a poet skilled, we are told, in modulating song to verse, "after the manner of his art." That it was to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument, called the Cruit, they performed these songs or chants, appears to be the most general opinion. In some distichs on the death of Columba, preserved in the Annals of the Four Masters, we find mention of this kind of harp** in rather a touching passage:-"Like a song of the cruit without joy, is the sound that follows our master to the tomb;" and its common use in the eighth century, as an accompaniment to the voice, may be implied from Bede's account of the religious poet Ceadmon, who, in order to avoid taking a part in the light songs of society, always rose, as he tells us, from table when the harp was sent round, and it came to his turn to sing and play. The Italians, who are known to have been in possession of the harp before the time of Dante, are, by a learned musician of their own country, Galilei, said to have derived it from Ireland; the instrument, according to his account, being no other than a cithara with many strings, and having, at the time when he wrote, four octaves and a tone in compass. How little music, though so powerful in its influence on the feelings, either springs "Dilexerunt tenebras tetras magis quam lucem; * The following lines from this hymn will afford a specimen of the Irish method of rhyming : "A solis ortus cardine, ad usque terræ limitem, Christum canamus principem-natum Maria virgine." But it is still more correctly exemplified in a hymn in honour of St. Brigid, written, as some say, by Columbkill; but, according to others, by St. Ultan of Ardbraccan. See Usher, Eccles. Primord. 963. "Christum in nostra insula-quæ vocatur Hibernia, Ostensus est hominibus-maximis mirabilibus," &c. † From the following account of the metrical structure of Irish verse it will be seen that it was peculiarly such as a people of strong musical feeling (and with whom the music was the chief object) would be likely to invent and practise: "The rhymth consists in an equal distance of intervals, and similar terminations, each line being divisible into two, that it may be more easily accommodated to the voice and the music of the bards. It is not formed by the nice collocation of long and short syllables, but by a certain harmonic rhythm, adjusted to the voice of song by the position of words which touch the heart and assist the memory."-Essay by Dr. Drummond, Trans. of Royal Irish Acad. vol. xvi. "Ad canendum digna,"-so pronounced by his biographer Jonas. In the county of Roscommon. Alio in tempore S. Columba, cum juxta stagnum Cei, prope ostium fluminis quod Latine Bos dicitur (i. e. the Boyle river) die aliqua cum fratribus sederet, quidam ad eos Scoticus poeta devenit. Qui cum recessisset, Fratres ad Sanctum, cur, inquiunt, aliquod ex more suæ artis, canticum non postulasti modulabiliter decantari.-Adamnan. lib. i. c. 42. ¶ Ad ann. 593. Written by Dallan Feargall, and thus translated by Dr. O'Connor : Est medicina medici absque remedio-est Dei decretum timor cum mærore. Est carmen cum cythara sine gaudio-sonus sequens nostrum Ducem ad sepulchrum. **Of this instrument, the harp, the Irish are said to have had four different species; the clarseach, the keirnine, the cronar cruit, and the creamtheine cruit; for all of which see Walker, Hist. Mem. of Irish Bards, Beauford, ibid., Appendix, and Ledwich's Antiquities. What Montfaucon, however, says of the different names given to the lyre, among the ancients, may also, perhaps, be applicable here:-"Among this great diversity I cannot but think the same instrument must often be signified by different names." from, or is dependent upon, intellect, appears from the fact, that some of the most exquisite effusions of this art have had their origin among the simplest and most uncultivated people; nor can all that taste and science bring afterwards to the task do more, in general, than diversify, by new combinations, those first wild strains of gaiety or passion into which nature had infused her original inspiration. In Greece the sweetness of the ancient music had already been lost, when all the other arts were but on their way to perfection;* and from the account given by Giraldus Cambrensist of the Irish harpers of the twelfth century,‡ it may be inferred that the melodies of the country, at the earlier period of which we are speaking, was in some degree like the first music of the infant age of Greece, and partook of the freshness of that morning of mind and hope which was then awakening around them. With respect to the structure of the ancient Irish harp, there does not appear to have been any thing accurately ascertained; but, from that retentiveness of all belonging to the past which we have shown to have characterized this people, it appears most probable that their favourite instrument was kept sacredly unaltered; and remained the same perhaps in later times, when it charmed the ears of English poets and philosophers, as when it had been modulated by the bard Cronan, in the sixth century, upon the banks of the lake Kee. It would appear that the church music, likewise, of the Irish, enjoyed no inconsiderable repute in the seventh century, as we find Gertrude, the daughter of the potent Maire du Palais, Pepin, sending to Ireland for persons qualified to instruct the nuns of the Abbey of Nivelle in psalmody; and the great monastery of Bangor, or Benchoir, near Carrickfergus, is supposed, by Ware, to have derived its name from the White Choir which belonged to it. A certain sect of antiquarians, whose favourite object it is to prove that the Irish church was in no respect connected with Rome, have imagined some mode by which, through the medium of Asiatic missionaries, her Chant of Psalmody might have been derived to her directly from the Greeks. But their whole hypothesis is shown to be a train of mere gratuitous assumption; and it is little doubted that, before the introduction of the Latin, or Gregorian Chant, by St. Malachy, which took place in the twelfth century, the style of music followed by the Irish, in their church service, was that which had been introduced by St. Patrick and his companions from Gaul.** The religious zeal which, at this period, covered the whole island with monasteries and churches, had not, in the materials at least of architecture, introduced any change or improvement. Stone structures were still unknown; and the forest of oak which, from *See Anacharsis, chap. 27. notes v. vii "It is remarkable," says Wood, "that the old chaste Greek melody was lost in refinement before their other arts had acquired perfection."-Essay on Homer. t Topograph. Dist. 3. c. 11. This curious passage, which appears, though confusedly, even to imply that the Irish were acquainted with counterpoint, is prefaced by a declaration that in their music alone does he find any thing to commend in that people:-"In musicis solum instrumentis commendabilem invenio gentis istæ diligentiam." The passage in question is thus translated in Mr. Walker's Hist. Mem. of the Irish Bards:"It is wonderful how, in such precipitate rapidity of the fingers, the musical proportions are preserved; and by their art, faultless throughout, in the midst of their complicated modulations, and most intricate arrangement of notes, by a rapidity so sweet, a regularity so irregular, a concord so discordant, the melody is ren. dered harmonious and perfect, whether the chords of the diatesseron or diapente are struck together; yet they always begin in a soft mood, and end in the same, that all may be perfect in the sweetness of delicious sounds. They enter on, and again leave, their modulations with so much subtility, and the tinglings of the small strings sport with so much freedom, under the deep notes of the bass," &c. &c. "Mirum quod in tanta tam præcipiti digitorum capacitate musica servatur proportio: et arte per omnia indemni inter crispatos modulos, organaque multipliciter intricata, tam suavi velocitate, tam dispari paritate, tam discordi concordia consona redditur et completur melodia, seu diatesseron seu diapente chordæ concrepent. Semper tamen ab molli incipiunt et in idem redeunt, ut cuncta sub jucundæ sonoritatis dulcedine compleantur. Tam subtiliter modulos intrant et exeunt; sicque sub obtuso grossioris chorda sonitu, gracilium tinnitus licentius ludunt," &c. &c.-Topograph. Hibern. dist. 3. cap. 11. "Even so late as the eleventh century," says Warton, "the practice continued among the Welsh bards of receiving instructions in the Bardic profession from Ireland."-Hist. of English Poetry. § Alluding to such tributes as the following: "The Irish I admire And stili cleave to that lyre, As our inuse's mother; And think, till I expire, Apollo's such another,"-Drayton. "The harp," says Bacon, "hath the concave not along the strings, but across the strings; and no harp hath the sound so melting and prolonged as the Irish harp."-Sylv. Sylvar. See also Selden's Notes on Drayton's Polyolbion. The following is from Evelyn's Journal:-" Came to see my old acquaintance, and the most incomparable player on the Irish harp, Mr. Clarke, after his travels..... Šuch music before or since did I never hear, that instrument being neglected for its extraordinary difficulty; but in my judgment far superior to the lute itself, or whatever speaks with strings." "Poor instruire la communauté dans la chant des Pseaumes et la méditation des choses saintes."— Quoted from Fleury by D'Alton, Essay, 216. According to O'Halloran and Dr. O'Connor, the name Benn-Choir signifies Sweet Choir. ** See, on this subject, Lanigan, chap. xxvi. note 46. old heathen associations, had suggested the site of the church, furnished also the rude material of which it was constructed. In some few instances these wooden edifices were encircled by an enclosure of stone, called a casiol, like that which Bede describes as surrounding a chapel erected on Holy Island by St. Cuthbert. The first churches, indeed, of Northumbria were all constructed of wood; and that of St. Finan, the Irish bishop, at Lindisfarn, was, as we are told, built after “the fashion of his country, not of stone, but of split oak, and covered with reeds."* When such was the rude simplicity of their ecclesiastical architecture, it may be concluded that their dwellings were still more homely and frail; and in this, as in most of the other arts of life, their slow progress may be ascribed mainly to their civil institutions. Where possessions were all temporary, the natural motive to build durably was wanting. Instead of being brought together, too, in cities, where emulation and mutual interchange of mind would have been sure to lead to improvement, the separate clans of the Irish sat down, each in its hereditary canton, seldom meeting but in the field, as fellow-combatants, or as foes. In this respect, the religious zeal which now universally prevailed supplied, in some degree, the place of industry and commerce; and, among the many civilizing effects of the monastic institutions, it was not the least useful that, whereever established, they were the means of attracting multitudes around them, and, by examples of charity and self-denial, inspiring them with better motives than those of clanship for mutual dependence and concert. The community collected, by degrees, around the Oak of St. Brigid, at Kildare, grew at length into a large and flourishing town; and even the solitary cell of St. Kevin, among the mountains, drew around it, by degrees, such a multitude of dwellings as, in the course of time, to form a holy city in the wilderness.t With regard to our evidence of the state of agriculture, at this period, the language employed, on such subjects, in the Lives of the Saints, our only sources of information, is too vague and general to afford any certain knowledge. The tending of sheep was, as we have seen, the task assigned to St. Patrick during his servitude; and it is, indeed, most probable that pasturage was then, as it continued for many centuries after, the chief employment of the people. The memorable "Earn," however, of the apostle's friend Dicho, implies obviously the practice of hoarding grain; and from an account given, in the annals for the year 650, of a murder which took place in "the bake-house of a mill," it would appear that water-mills had already been brought into use at that time. There is, indeed, mention made, in one of the Brehon Laws, T though of what period seems uncertain, both of carpenters and millwrights. Another of these Irish Laws, said to be of great antiquity, shows that the practice of irrigating lands must have been in use when it was enacted: as it thus regulates the common right in the water:-" According to the Fenechas, the common right of drawn water belongs to the land from which it is drawn. It is therefore that all require that it shall run freely the first day over the entire land. For right in the water belongs to none but in the land from which it is drawn.”** The biographer of St. Columba, besides employing the terms ploughing and sowing, mentions as the result, on one occasion, of the abbot's prayers and intercessions, that they had an abundant harvest. The discipline of the monks, enjoining herbs and pulsett as their chief food, would lead to the culture of such productions in their gardens. The mention of honey-comb, too, as part of the monastic diet, concurs, with some curious early laws on the subject,‡‡ to prove their careful attention to the rearing of bees; and * In insula Lindisfarnensi fecit ecclesiam episcopali sede congruam, quam tamen more Scotorum non de lapide sed de robore secto totam composuit atque arundine texit.-Bede, lib. 3. cap. 25. " In ipso loco clara et religiosa civitas in honore S. Coemgeni (Kevin) crevit quæ nomine prædictæ vallis in quâ ipsa est Gleandaloch vocatur."-Quoted by Usher, from a life of St. Kebin, Eccles. Primord. 956. It was for this reason that they appeared to Giraldus as not yet in his time emerged from the pastoral life:-"Gens agriculturæ labores aspernans, a primo pastoralis vitæ vivendi modo non recedens." That Spenser held it to be no less a cause than a sign of the want of civilization, appears from the following strong sentence:-" To say truth, though Ireland be by nature accounted a great soil of pasture, yet had I rather have fewer cows kept, and men better mannered, than to have such huge increase of cattle, and no increase of good conditions. I would, therefore, wish that there were some ordinances made amongst them, that who soever keepeth twenty kine should keep a plough going; for, otherwise, all men would fail to pasturage, and none to husbandry."-View of the State of Ireland. § Annal. iv. Mag. ad ann. 647.-See Dr. O'Connor's note on the passage. The introduction of water-mills into the British Isles is attributed, by Whitaker, to the Romans; and from hence, he says, this sort of mill is called Melin in the British, and Muilan or Muiland in the Irish. Collectan. Hibern. No. 1. ** O'Reilly on the Brehon Laws, Trans. Royal Irish Academy, vol. xiv. tt "Cibus sit villis et vespertinus monachorum, satietatem fugiens et potus ebrietatem, ut et sustineat et non noceat. Olera, legumina, farinæ aquis mixtæ," &c.-Columban. Reg. cap. 3. "Whoever plunders or steals bees from out a garden or fort is subject to a like penalty as if he steal them out of a habitation, for these are ordained of equal penalty by law." Again," Bees in an enclosure, or |