nobilitie, but a great advancer of the poore and weake. To his own people he was rough and greevous, and hatefull to strangers; he would be against all men, and all men against him,'"

But the reader will be more interested by the earlier and more unmistakeably national costumes. Dr. Wilde has judiciously selected his specimens from the celebrated "Book of Kells," as probably supplying the oldest representations of strictly Irish costume now extant. In other early manuscripts, and, indeed, in most of the illustrations of this one, the subjects were almost exclusive ecclesiastical or monastic. But the figures which he has selected from the Book of Kells, are all lay figures, and are taken from among the purely ornamental illustrations of the MS; from subjects introduced evidently for the sole purpose of decoration or of filling the space at the end of a paragraph or line, or from the ornamental initials which occur throughout the book. In the latter case, the very necessities of space thus arising, have introduced a certain grotesqueness of attitude, but the costume appears to be in all respects the same. We submit a few specimens.

The subjoined figures are from two illuminated initials.

"Fig. 190, from folio 200, is evidently that of a soldier, armed with a spear and round target, and placed either in the act of receiving an enemy, or compressed by the artist to suit the space on the page unoccupied with writing. The head-dress is yellow, with a mitred edge along the brow, as occurs on many other human heads in that work. The coat is green; the breeches, which

come down below the knee, are light blue, picked out with red; and the beard and moustache brown. The legs and feet are naked. The shield is yellow; and the spear-head blue, exactly resembling some of those of iron in the Academy's Collection, in which the cross rivets project considerably beyond the socket. A line of red dots surrounds the outline of the figure-as is usual in the Book of Kells, and as may be seen in many of the initial letters, especially those used in this Catalogue, which are all copied from that work. At folio 201 there is a sitting figure, in the act of drinking from a circular goblet (Fig. 191), wearing a sort of turban, principally yellow, with a flesh-coloured border; the cloak is dark red, bound with yellow; the tunic blue, with a yellow border and green sleeve; the feet are naked, and partially concealed by the letters, which shows that the illumination was made after the text had been completed." -pp. 298 9.

Some of Dr. Wilde's specimens from the same source are equestrian. At first sight, from the singularly grotesque attitudes it might appear that they are purely fancy sketches; but, from the uniformity of the details which is traceable throughout, it is clear that in all substantial particulars the costume at least is meant to be represented in all seriousness.

Fig. 192.

Fig. 193.

Figure 192, from folio 89, shows the ancient short cloak remarkably well, and, from a careful examination of both figures, it would appear that the horses were also clothed or caparisoned. The cap is yellow, fitting tightly to the head, and hanging down behind-or this head-dress may represent the natural hair. The cloak is green, with a broad band of bright red, and a yellow border; the breeches green; the leg covered, but the foot naked. The cover of the horse is yellow, but the head, tail, and such portions of the right legs as appear, are green. The word over which it is placed is engraved, to show the position of the illumination. Fig. 193 occurs on folio 255; the parchment has been injured underneath the cloak, but a sufficiency of the colour remains to show that it was green; the cap is yellow."-pp. 299, 300.

From these and the similar specimens, which the MSS. contain, we gather, that in the Irish costume of this early date "the lower limbs were clad in tight-fitting garments, generally blue, that reached a little below the knee, like the modern breeches; the legs and feet were naked, -the braccæ or chequered pantaloons not being then the fashion, and the body was covered with a light tunic, with sleeves reaching as far as the wrist. The cloak, however, was the chief and most highly decorated garment. It is also manifest that the costume of the Irish was, at that period, both picturesque in shape and highly coloured."

Dr. Wilde, however, has drawn upon every other available source; on the annals and other ancient records, both in manuscript or print; comparative philology, or an examination of the roots, precise meaning, derivations, and affinities with other languages, of the Irish terms employed to express different articles of dress; the illuminations in ancient books; the figure carvings on our stone crosses and shrines; a few drawings, maps, frescoes, and engravings;-and some sepulchral monuments."

Even the Scriptural subjects carved upon the ancient crosses, are skilfully turned to account for the purpose of illustrating the Irish costume of the several periods at which they were produced. It is not merely that by an anachronism such as those which, in the Dutch and Flemish artists, have afforded so much amusement, the Scriptural personages may sometimes be presumed to be represented according to the national associations of the sculptor; but it occasionally happens that on the crosses are figures, subjects, and scenes which clearly represent personal or historical incidents, perhaps connected with the occasion upon which they were erected. This is very remarkably the case with one of the magnificent crosses of Monasterboice, in the county of Louth. On the west side of this most interesting monument is a series of subjects plainly forming a regular sequence. "The history which these sculptures are intended to commemorate evidently commences in the lowest entablature, where an ecclesiastic in a long cloak, fastened with a brooch, and holding a staff in his hand, stands between two figures, either soldiers or robbers, each armed with a long Danish sword, and dressed in a tight jerkin and trunk hose, plaited round the thigh, and ending above the knee. Both have long moustaches, and their head-dresses consist of close caps

falling behind, not unlike the present Neapolitan cap. Some of these resemble, in a remarkable manner, the illuminations figured in the Book of Kells, previously described. In the compartment over this, the same personages are represented as students, each with a book, but the soldiers have assumed the ecclesiastical garb, although they retain the moustache. In the top compart ment, the figures are again repeated, all in long flowing dresses; the central one-then, perhaps, aged, or at the point of death-is represented giving his staff to one, and his book to the other of his former assailants."

Another very curious illustration of costume is derived by Dr. Wilde from a large book-cover formed of the bladebone of a whale, and elaborately carved with quaint devices. On the surface is displayed a shield with the device of the Geraldines, underneath which is represented the curious group engraved here.

Fig. 200.

The above group represents five figures engaged in some sort of game; each is clothed with a short jerkin or tunic, made full, and plaited below the waist, with slashed sleeves, which are also striped and parti-coloured. They also wear striped and plaited vests, and two of them have knee-breeches. All may have been intended to be so clad; but there are three not so highly finished as the two others. They have all long, flowing hair; two are bare-headed; two wear round hats with up-turned brims, and the fifth is crowned with a peculiar head-dress, possibly belonging to the game, and decorated with three feathers. The external figures are represented in the act of throwing rings or quoits, and the central one is armed with a short, straight sword."

A most curiously exact representation of the Irish costume of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has been put together, and is exhibited in one of the illustrations, from the various sources described in the following extract, which, although long, is too interesting to be abridged.

"In 1824, a male body, completely clad in woollen garments of antique fashion, was found in a box, six feet beneath the surface, in the parish of Killery, county of Sligo. In 1843 the dress of a female, also in the costume of some centuries back, was dug out of a bog in the county of Tipperary, and in 1847 a woollen cap was discovered in the county of Kerry. From these articles, all of which are in an astonishingly perfect state of preservation, and placed in the first compartment of the southern gallery of the Museum, we can form a very good idea of our ancient dress and manufactures of about the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. No weapon was discovered near the body in the county of Sligo, but a long staff lay under it; and attached to the hand by a leather thong was said to have been a small bag of untanned leather, containing a ball of worsted thread, and also a small silver coin, which was unfortunately lost. The head-dress, which soon fell to pieces, is said to have been a conical cap of sheep-skin, probably the ancient barread. So perfect was the body when first discovered, that a magistrate was called upon to hold an inquest on it. In the accompanying figure, drawn from a photograph of a person clad in this antique suit (except the shoes, which are too small for an adult of even medium size) we are enabled to present the reader with a fair representation of the costume of the native Irish of about the fifteenth century. The cloak or mantle, composed of brown soft cloth, closely woven with a twill (but not so fine as that in the coat), is straight on the upper edge, which is nine feet long, but cut into nearly a segment of a circle on the lower. In the centre, where it is almost four feet across, it consists of two breadths, and a small lower fragment; the upper breadth is fifteen, and the lower twenty inches wide. It is a particularly graceful garment, and is in a wonderfully good state of preservation.

"In texture, the coat consists of a coarse brown woollen cloth or flannel, with a diagonal twill, or diaper. In make it is a sort of frock or tunic, and has been much worn in the sleeves. The back is formed out of one piece, extending into the skirt, which latter is two feet long, and made very full all round, by a number of gussets, like the slashed doublets of Spanish fashion. It measures eight feet in circumference at the bottom. Gussets, broad at the top, are also inserted between the back and breast, below the armpits, and meet the gores of the skirt gussets at the waist. It is single breasted, and has fourteeen circular buttons ingeniously formed out of the same material as the coat itself, and worked with Woollen thread. The breadth of the back is eighteen inches,