while one party, the Welsh, were attended to, and furnished with every variety, both as to the type and size of volume, the Irish were not impartially considered. It certainly was not without its effect, though it only showed that nothing was to be done, without exhibiting our long and strange neglect in the most glaring points of view.

In 1794, Dr Stokes had published Luke and the Acts in Irish, with parallel columns in English, and in 1806 the four Gospels and the Acts. In 1811, the New Testament, and in 1817, the Bible, in Irish, were printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society; but all these were in the Roman letter, and in the two first even the orthography of the language was interfered with. The question as to the expediency, nay the necessity and importance of using the character in which the language had always been printed of old, began to be understood by all who had paid proper attention to the subject: several small tracts and portions of the Scriptures have been printed in it,—and now at last, in 1828, one edition of the Bible complete, in its appropriate character, has left the press.

Such then, and in such an important department, is nearly all that can be said with regard to the Native Irish ever since the revival of letters and the invention of printing! The benevolence of a few intelligent private individuals, assisted by natives at home, working against both wind and tide,—the struggles of some of the Native Irish themselves abroad, fill up the wide space of more than three hundred and fifty years since the art of printing, or of more than two hundred and fifty years since Irish types and a printing-press were sent across St George's Channel!

After so long a night,-in coming, as we hope, to the morning of a better day, amidst a few primary exertions in their favour for the last ten or fifteen years,—the propensity to self-complacency in the present age must indeed be very strong, if there is any hazard of it here.

Yet I have heard it already said, that much is now doing for this people, and in their own language, and I am mistaken if something like this has not, more than once, got into print; but let all such expressions be now brought into comparison with what ought to be done for a population so extensive, and they will certainly not be repeated for some time to come.

In this department of Books alone, to which the preceding pages have been chiefly devoted, very much indeed remains to be accomplished, and certain desiderata will be pointed out afterwards in conclusion. Meanwhile the previous section, and, above all, the existing state of this people, as still farther to be laid open, will, it is hoped, set all such measures as may be necessary in a light sufficiently strong; though even here there are certainly few men in the present day possessed of common humanity who will not be disposed to exclaim-" What a history of the past is this, compared with what it ought to have been !"

The best interests of the kingdom are interwoven with the moral condition of any substantial quota of its population; and it is only a strong conviction that the present state of the Native Irish embraces an object of far greater magnitude and importance than has ever yet been admitted, which has led to the publication of this volume.

"Every man is more speedily instructed by his own language, than by any other." "He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces; as to him that should extinguish the tapers of a light-house might justly be imputed the calamities of shipwreck."

"To obscure, upon motives merely political, the light of revelation, is a practice reserved for the reformed." JOHNSON.

SECTION II.

SCHOOLS OF LEARNING

Of early and modern date, including some account of the attempts to employ the Irish tongue as a branch of Education at home, and of the Schools either founded by the Native Irish, or at their instance, for their Education abroad.

“THE ages,” said Dr Johnson, “which deserve an exact inquiry are those times, for such there were, when Ireland was the school of the west, the quiet habitation of sanctity and learning." By learning, of course, such a man intended the learning of the day as far as it had gone, although how much he involved in the term he has not informed us. I am perfectly aware that this department of our national history is regarded by some only with a smile, as one would some puzzled skein of silk, which it requires great patience and fine fingers to rectify. It may be so; but from the length which even the writer has gone, at intervals snatched from other avocations, he cannot but believe, that so far as any man, possessed of learning and patient research, shall proceed in a candid examination of the Irish remains abroad and at home, if the times are considered, at least the ancient school of Armagh, if not one or two others, will rise in point of character. At present the generality say, and with some truth, “we have only heard the fame thereof with our ears." Precision, accuracy, and confirmation are required, and especially for those who seem disposed to question every affirmation; while certain Irishmen more deeply read, and naturally interested in their past history, cling with

fondness to these recollections of ancient times,-by some they are cherished, as one remembers the singing birds in spring, which now sing no more.

The foundation of the school of Armagh is to be traced to a very remote period, in the judgment of those who are partial to Irish antiquity, while this seems to be little more than conjecture in the estimation of others; but of its early existence there can be no question. Insignificant in its commencement, like every similar school of learning in Europe, even of more modern date, still such men as have been already glanced at, who came out of Ireland in those early ages, there can be little doubt, owed whatever learning they possessed mainly to this seminary. Referring, therefore, to what has been already said of them, I might add here, that, even so late as the end of the twelfth century, though many changes had taken place, and a long night of darkness had intervened, we know, as matter of history, that the last of the Irish kings, an encourager of learning, augmented the income of the superior of Armagh College; stipulating that this studium generale should be continued and kept open for all students, as well from any part of Ireland as from Albanian Scotia.* If the reader is curious on this subject, among others I might refer him, for one account of the ancient School or College of Armagh, to Stuart's Historical Memoirs of the City, Appendix, No V.,-an interesting volume in many respects.

In looking over Ireland after this period, we find no seminary of learning worth notice, until the close of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Passing over the abortive attempts of the fourteenth century,-for in the fifteenth there were none,-it was in the end of the sixteenth that the present University of Trinity College, Dublin, was

* Ware's Antiquities by Harris, p. 241. Tria Thaum. p. 310.

founded by the Queen's warrant, dated 29th December, 1591. During the following reign, the Native Irish are specially noticed, and in connexion with the College, in a letter from King James I., addressed to the Lord-deputy, and all others whom it shall concern, dated 26th February, 1620.-" Because," says his Majesty, our Colledge of Dublin was first founded by our late sister of happie memorie, Queen Elizabeth, and hath beene since plentifully endowed by us, principallie for breeding upp the natives of that kingdom in civility, learning, and religion; we have reason to expect that in all this long tyme of our peaceable government, some good numbers of the natives should have been trained upp in College, and might have been employed in teaching and reducing those which are ignorant among that people, and to think that the governors of that house have not performed that trust reposed in them, if the revenewes thereof have bene otherwise employed; and therefore wee doe require,—that henceforth special care be had, and that the visitors of that Universitie be required particulerlie to looke unto and take care of this point, and the supplying of the present want; that choise be made of some competent number of towardlie young men, alredie fitted with the knowledge of the Irishe tongue, and be placed in the Universitie, and maintained there for two or three years, till they have learned the ground of religion, and be able to catechise the simple natives, and deliver unto them so much as themselves have learned; and when any livings that are not of any very great value fall void among the meer Irish, these men to be thought upon before others, or to be placed with other able ministers that possess livings among the meere Irish, (where, for defect of the language, they are able to do little good,) to be interpreters to them, and to be maintained by them, after they are made fit for that employment," &c.

I am not aware of any approach to a conformity with