resigned it to his son, Carbry II. and spent the remainder of his life in honorable privacy, during which he is said to have written "A Book of Advice for Kings," for the use of his successor. He is also stated, by some of our writers, to have strenuously opposed the idolatrous superstitions of the Druids; and his example is supposed to have facilitated the subsequent propagation of Christianity. It was in the reign of Cormac that the Irish militia, under Finn Mac Comhall, acquired such celebrity, and formed the ground-work for many an heroic poem by the bards of aftertimes. Finn, who was married to a daughter of Cormac, had the command of the Irish standing army, consisting in time of peace of nine thousand men, and amounting, during war or insurrection, to twenty-one thousand.*

* The qualifications necessary to gain admittance into this band of heroes were, according to our native historians, quite in accordance with the marvellous exploits which have been attributed to the soldiers of Finn Mac Comhall. Every candidate should possess a poetical genius-he should defend himself unhurt against the javelins of nine soldiers he should run through a wood pursued by a company of the militia without being overtaken-leap over a tree as high as his forehead, and stoop easily under another as low as his knees. If thus qualified, he should take an oath of allegiance to the king and the commander-in-chief, and subscribe the following articles that he would never marry a woman for her portion -never offer violence to any woman-never turn his back to nine men of any other nation—and that he would be charitable to the poor! They had subsistence allowed them only in the winter half year. In the summer months they were en

Carbry II. reigned with great honour for seventeen years, and then lost his life in a battle with the King of Munster and Ossian, the son of Finn Mac Comhall. The reign of Fiadra II. and Muredach were marked by civil dissensions, which ended in the destruction of the King of Ulster and his celebrated palace of Eamania, which had subsisted almost seven hundred years. Muredach fell in battle by the hands of Colbach, and his death was avenged by Achy Moimedin, his son, who was the father of the celebrated Niall of the Nine Hostages, who ascended the throne A. D. 379. This prince, thirsting for military renown, went to Scotland with a numerous army, to assist his brethren the Dalriada, against the Picts; and after devastating the country of South Britain, and transporting his forces thence into Armorica, or Britanny, in France, he brought away much plunder and many prisoners, amongst whom is said to have been St. Patrick, then sixteen years of age. Encouraged by his first success, Niall undertook another expedition to France in conjunction with his Scottish allies. But his absence occasioned dissensions at home of the most serious nature, which ended in the death of the Monarch, who was treacherously shot with an arrow by a prince of Leinster, while reposing on the

camped in the fields, and supported themselves by hunting and fishing. The husbandman still pretends to discover marks of their fires, and when the plough turns up any black burnt earth, it is called Fulacht Finn.

banks of the Loire. Dathy, his successor, pursued the conquests of Niall, till he was killed by lightning at the foot of the Alps.

The succeeding reign of Logarry II. the son of Niall, may be considered truly memorable, as the period when, according to the generally received opinion, Christianity was established in Ireland, A. D. 430; though it is acknowledged, that efforts for that purpose had been previously made. But of this we shall speak more at large when we come to treat of the subject of religion. It does not, however, appear, that the reception of the peaceable religion of Christ abated the desire of military glory which actuated the Irish monarch and his subjects. Logarry having joined the Picts, with a powerful army, broke down the wall of Severus in various places, and laid the Britons under tribute. The reign of his successor, Oliol Molt, was only memorable for a fierce contest with the King of Leinster respectingt he Boromean tribute; and after governing twenty years, he fell in battle with Lugad II. grandson to Niall the Great, in whose family the crown continued from this period, with few interruptions, until the dissolution of the monarchy.

The annals of the sixth and seventh centuries present us, through nineteen reigns, with little else than a frightful picture of intestine war, intermixed with legendary tales of saints, the foundations of colleges, abbeys and monasteries, and the progress of learning, which is said to have been so rapid, that Hugh I.

was forced to adopt strong measures to diminish the number of the bards, who were now stated to include a third part of the male population. This monarch summoned a convention of his principal nobility and clergy at Dromore, in order to reform several abuses which had crept into the government. This assembly, we are told, continued its sittings for thirteen months, and enacted many salutary laws, particularly restricting the number, and regulating the duties of the bards or poets; and it was rendered particularly memorable by a serious dispute between the Irish Monarch and Colum-Cill, the Abbot of Iona, which evinced the authority which the clergy had already begun to assume in national affairs.— From the death of Hugh, who was slain in battle with the King of Leinster, our history furnishes, during the two next centuries, little variety to dispel the gloom occasioned by the perusal of predatory inroads by the English, the Welsh, and the Pictssanguinary intestine divisions, occasioned chiefly by that never-failing source of contention the Boromean tribute, and the rapid succession of twenty-three monarchs, twenty of whom perished by violent deaths.

But towards the close of the eighth century, a new era of suffering opened upon this unfortunate country, in comparison to which all its former calamities sink into insignificance. We allude to the invasion of the Danes, or Ostmen, who commenced their cruel inroads in the reign of Donogh. The

sovereign power of Ireland was, at this time, enjoyed in succession by two branches of what was called the Hy-Niall race, the northern house of Tirone, and the southern or Clan-Colman, settled in Meath. The power of the monarchy was now greatly enfeebled, and the subordinate dynasties factious and assuming. The first attempts of the northern barbarians seemed to have only plunder for their object, and they were repelled with little difficulty by the provincial chieftains. But these attacks being made on different points at once, while the natives were prevented from assisting each other by their mutual jealousies, succeeding efforts of the enemy proved more successful. The first formidable invasion of the Danes is said to have occurred in the second year of Hugh V. A. D. 799, when they arrived on the western coast of Munster with fifty sail of ships; but soon after they disembarked they were completely routed by the King of that province, with the loss of four hundred men. Another body landed at the same time in Ulster, where they destroyed the Abbey of Bangor, and put all the monks to death; but before they could escape with their rich booty, they were attacked by the King of Ulster, who killed twelve hundred of them. A third disembarkation was effected on the coast of Leinster, and, encouraged by the panic evinced by the inhabitants, they penetrated a considerable way into the country; but the people of Leinster and Munster uniting upon this occasion, assailed the invaders