it was told to him, it is easy enough to subtract a large portion of the adulation he lavishes on his relatives, and to transfer it to the share of those outside the favoured circle, and this done, I believe that the Expugnatio Hibernica is a valuable, a reliable, and an honest piece of workmanship. This is the opinion of Mr. Brewer * whose fascinating history of Giraldus' life is prefixed to the first Volume of the Rolls Series Edition of Giraldus' Works, but it is not the opinion of Mr. Dimock, who edited some subsequent volumes. I, therefore, cannot omit to notice that Mr. Dimock himself has formed a high estimate of Giraldus' powers of obser vation giving as an instance that Giraldus had pointed out that the Irish hare is a distinct species from the English, a fact which has only been recognised by naturalists within the last 50 years His observation also that strangers dwelling in Ireland soon became infected with what he considers the national vice of treachery, shows at least, that he had already discovered the power of absorbing and assimilating other races which the Irish possess in so remarkable a degree.§ Opinions must of course differ as to the fairness of Giraldus toward the Irish, I must confess that his criticisms seem to me unusually moderate, and even sympathetic, while his strong common sense and keen faculty of observation are often apparent. Take for instance his chapter on the Irish clergy he represents them as remarkable for the purity of their lives,

+

See p. xlvi. of his preface to the Works of Cambrensis, where he says: "Events have been carefully gathered, examined, and arranged, battle-fields, sieges, and marches verified by ocular inspection of routes and localities, accounts on both sides tested. No personal labour has been spared by the historian in collecting, sifting, or placing his materials in their most lucid order; no efforts have been wanting which the most rigid historical fidelity could demand."

See p. lxxii. of his Preface to Vol. V.

Giraldus' own view as to his position, may be gathered from the following sentence (see p. xlv. of Preface to Vol. I) :-I do not desire credence should be given to all that has been advanced in my work, as I do not myself give credence to those things except they have actually fallen within my own observation or might have so fallen. As for the rest I forbear to pronounce upon them affirmatively or negatively. I leave them to the reader's judgment. § Top. Hib., cap 24.

Ibid, cap. 27.

for devotion to their religious duties, and for their temperate eating, but qualifies his praise by asserting that they drink deeply at night; then with the utmost impartiality he points out that this deep drinking has no injurious effect upon their morals. It seems to me that even Charles Lever has not drawn the typical Irish Priest with a more charitable pencil.

Again, what a masterly description have we in the following sentence:-For these people are unrestrained in most of their doings and in all matters of feeling most excitable; and for this reason, while their bad are as bad as possible, and nowhere are worse, yet it were vain to seek for more admirable characters than their good

On the whole I am almost content to accept Mr. Dimock's somewhat disparaging estimate of Giraldus' position. He says, "Recent Irish Scholars have quietly accepted Giraldus for what he is worth as an impetuous strongly biased writer, whose statements have generally more or less of truth in them, but with much unfair one-sidedness. They have seen that his abuse is not confined to Ireland and the Irish, but is almost equally as fully lavished upon his own Wales and the Welsh, that in fact he has praise for scarcely any thing or body except himself, and his near friends and relations."

One word more as to the Expugnatio Hibernica. Its literary value is lowered, and its narrative constantly interrupted by elaborate descriptions and ingenious parallels drawn between the principal characters, into whose mouths inflated classical orations are frequently put its Latinity is flowery and bombastic, but not being fettered by strict Ciceronian rules, it is effective and usually graphic. To understand this deliberate adoption of the pompous method, we must remember that the writer regarded himself as the writer of an Epic as well as of a History; and of this Epic-History his relations, the Fitz-Geralds, the Fitz-Stephens, and the De Barris, were the conspicuous heroes. Giraldus glorified his kinsmen as merely the conquerors of Ireland; how deeply would he have been

* Ibid.

stirred, how fully would it have rejoiced his heart, could he kave gazed down the vista of seven centuries and counted the long roll of illustrious men, of Dukes and Earls, of Barons and Knights, who have sprung from the loins of those few Fitz-Geralds and De Barris.

I have dwelt at such length upon the credibility and position of Giraldus Cambrensis, not merely because the man himself with all his blatant vanity, is such a fine and interesting character; but because his is practically the only contemporary history of the Conquest. Moreover it is most desirable to know something of what has been one of the principal moot points of Irish historical literature, from 1597, when John Hooker published an English translation of the Erpugnatio Hibernica, and from 1662, when Lynch's "Cambrensis Eversus" appeared, down to the present day. THE ANNALS OF THE FOUR MASTERS.

I have said already, that the Expugnatio Hibernica is the only contemporary History of the Invasion of Ireland, and this is true, but it must not be forgotten, that from the earliest dawn of an historical era, the Irish appear to have been assiduous chroniclers of national and tribal events. To the courts of the various princes and chiefs, bards and chroniclers, whose office was often hereditary* appear in many cases to have been attached, but I have not discovered any evidence to show whether their histories and genealogies were usually committed to writing at this date. However this may be, there can be no doubt that in many of the Irish monasteries, chronicles of contemporary events, such as the Annals of Lough Ké, and the Annals of Clonmacnoise, were committed to writing, of which some are extant to the present day, and have been edited in the invaluable Rolls Series. But by far the most important survival of these Irish medieval chronicles, is the great work of which I have now to speak, which was a compilation from

For example, the O'Clerys, the, principal authors of the Annals of the Four Masters were hereditary bards and historians to the O'Donnells, as were the O'Duigenans of Kilronan, to the Macdermotts of Roscommon, the O'Mulconry's to the O'Connors, kings of Connaught, and the MacKeoghs with others to the MacMurroughs, kings of Leinster.

or rather an attempted harmony of several secular and ecclesiastical chronicles, it is known as "The Annals of the Four Masters." This compilation has been nobly edited in six quarto volumes, by Dr. O'Donovan, and it is, therefore, unnecessary for me to speak at length upon the interesting history of the precious manuscript, one copy of which is now in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin + or to give an account of the romantic circumstances which attended the execution of this laborious work. Suffice it to say that it was compiled between the years 1632 and 1636, at the request of an Irish chief, named Ferall O'Gara, by a Franciscan named Michael O'Clery, assisted by his brother Conary and his cousin Cucogry O'Clery, the fourth Master being Ferfeasa O'Mulconry, of whom nothing is known but that he was a native of County Roscommon, and an hereditary antiquary. Michael O'Clery was an author of some reputation, and in 1643, an Irish Glossary, compiled by him, was printed at the well known Catholic printing press of Louvain, and his cousin Cucogry, who had been ousted from his lands in 1632, as "beinge a meere Irishman, and not of English or British descent or surname," was also an author, having written a life of Hugh Roe O'Donnell. The Four Masters compiled their Annals in the neighbourhood of the Franciscan Monastery of Donegal, for which reason they have been sometimes called Annales Dungallenses. There is no need to discuss here the historical value of the early part of these Annals, from the arrival of Noah's grand daughter, Casair, in Ireland, forty days before the Flood, down to the landing of Robert Fitz-Stephen in 1169; and with regard to their value for my immediate purpose, it will be almost enough to call attention to the following points con

*

Namely, "The Annals of Clonmacnoise," "The Annals of Lacan," "The Annals of the Island of Saints,' The Annals of the O'Maolconarys," The Annals of Kilronan," and "The Annals of Senat Mac Magnus" (now known as "The Ulster Annals ").

There appear to have been at least two contemporary and original copies of this compilation, one being now (1883) among the Ashburnham M.S.S.

One is irresistibly reminded of "ta faliant Fhairshon," slain by "Mhic Mac Methusaleh," whose son "married Noah's daughter, and nearly spoilt ta flood by trinking up ta water."

cerning the authorities from which the Annals of the Four Masters were compiled.

(1st) They were contemporary records.

(2nd) They were written by Irishmen for Irishmen; and therefore, in the reflections they pass upon the English, and in their estimate of the relative importance of English and Irish achievements, they must be considered to be somewhat biased.

(3rd) They were written either by clergy, who looked at things from the Church point of view, or by hereditary

chroniclers, who would naturally magnify the doings of their chief and tribe.

(4th) They are "Chronicles" in the strict sense of the word, and in no way approaching to a connected and constructed history like Giraldus' Expugnatio, though of course they are thickly interspersed with religious, moral, and patriotic sentiments.

By remembering these facts, and by the aid of an extract which I shall give hereafter, it will be possible to form a very tolerable notion of the nature and value of the Annals of the Four Masters, and I now pass on to mention another authority which is of considerable importance as a check upon Giraldus' facts and estimates of the comparative virtues of the Anglo-Norman Conquerors.

THE FRAGMENT OF A POEM ATTRIBUTED TO MAURICE REGAN.

Dermot MacMorrough the king of Leinster, who invited the English to Ireland, had for his Latimer or Latinier, that is, interpreter, a certain Morice Regan, who was no doubt an eye witness of many important events in the Invasion of Ireland, and these he communicated to the unknown author of this poem, who seems also to refer to a written work by Regan, and to the testimony of old men still living. The poem which is in Norman-French, ends abruptly with the storming of Limerick, three years after FitzStephen's landing, and has, I believe, never been fully edited.