bishopric in the year 767, and his final canonization, as a saint, by the Roman see. That his works have perished is more to be regretted than wondered at, inasmuch as they were written in support of what was then held to be an heretical and iniquitous system, and it was deemed the bounden duty of the pious to destroy such dangerous books. The following historic fact will prove that the Irish literari either recorded or calculated with scrupulous accuracy the time of remarkable eclipses. We have elsewhere stated that the Ulster anuals inform us, that in the years 664 and 665, the people of this island were afflicted with a most dreadful pestilence. They further state that there had been an eclipse of the sun on the ninth hour of the kalends of May, in the year 664. In the course of the summer, the whole heavens appeared on fire; and in August an awful mortality swept off multitudes of the people, insomuch that two-thirds of the inhabitants of Ireland perished during the pestilence. Now the accurate AngloSaxon historian, Bede, corroborates every part of this statement, except the time of the eclipse, which he says took place on the 3d of May, at the tenth hour. Bede, who was born in the year 672, only eight years after the event which he thus records, might, one would suppose, be relied on in a matter of such notoriety, particularly as he states that the pestilence which followed the eclipse, depopulated the southern parts of England and the province of Northumberland. Curious, however, to ascertain which of the two accounts is the more accurate, a note of the facts was transmitted by us to a very eminent mathematician, professor THOMSON, of the Belfast Academical Institution, who was so kind as to calculate the exact time at which the eclipse in question really happened; and it appeared that its greatest obscuration was at 40 minutes and 17 seconds past three o'clock, on the evening of the first of May, 664. Now as the Irish annalist, in assigning the period of the eclipse, had evidently spoken of Roman time, it became necessary to ascertain whether his ninth hour coincided on the first of May, 664, with any and what portion of our hours of two, three, or four o'clock; for the commencement of the eclipse

at London was at twenty minutes after two o'clock, and the termination at thirty-six mintues after four. The day having been accordingly divided into twelve parts, commencing with sunrise and terminating with sunset, it was found that the eclipse must have been perceptible at the ninth Roman hour on the first of May, and of course the Irishman's calculation was perfectly correct. Bed. Hist. Eccl. lib. 3, c. 27.

Primate Ussher, who has adverted to Bede's error, accounts for it in the following manner :-Some of his friends, he presumes, had recollected the eclipse, and informed him generally that it had happened in May, 664. Aware that it must have taken place on the day of the new moon, the historian had recourse to Dionysius's cycle, in which the golden number XIX. indicated the 3d of May as the day required-and here his research terminated.

As to grammar-some treatises are yet extant on this subject, written by Irish writers of the middle ages, and many others have perished. The most important of those which have escaped the ravages of time is the Glossary of Cormac Mc. Cullionan, who about the year 900, was King of Munster. In this work he explains the more difficult words of his native tongue, and collates them with the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. Mr. O'Reilly, the Irish lexicographer, has asserted that this glossary is singularly enriched with names of plants, and that Irish dictionaries contain a fuller nomenclature of herbs than the lexicons of any other tongue in the world. This is the more remarkable, from the circumstance that our country, though styled “The Green Island,” and though the term " Emerald Isle," originally given by PAUL RICAUD to ST. HELENA, has been furtively applied to Ireland, does not contain so many species of plants as our neighbouring country England; a fact which we lately learned from an eminent botanist, Dr. Drummond, of this town. We conclude from hence that the Irish must have paid particular attention to the qualities and habits of plants, which probably they connected with the medical art, a subject which, from the treatises yet extant upon it, they appear to have very copiously discussed.

Joseph Scaliger (de Europæorum linguis) classes the Irish amongst the original or mother languages. Camden intimates that the Anglo-Saxon letters were borrowed from the Irishand Dr. Johnson, in his English Dictionary, alleges the probability of the Saxons having no alphabet on their arrival in Great Britain. It seems clear indeed that they had not, because in the country from which they came, no such alphabet as the one which they used subsequently to their landing, can be found in any document or manuscript whatever. The circumstance of the Anglo-Saxons sending their children to Ireland for education, connected with the coincidence of their adopted alphabet with that of the Irish, sufficiently points out the source from which it was derived. The Irish themselves must have possessed this alphabet from some indefinite period of time-for they continued its use in many of their most important manuscripts-even when they were well acquainted with the Roman and the Greek characters. Now the Irish letters are very few in numberoriginally they were but seventeen-and it sometimes required a combination of several consonants to produce a sound which could have been better effected by one. Nothing could have induced a body of learned men, acquainted with a better alphabet, to persist in the use of so very imperfect a one as this, except the force of early habit and that natural affection, which the mind retains for such things as have been transmitted to us from our ancestors, and are associated in idea with our native land. But the Irish tongue, though deficient, with respect to the number of its letters, was copious in words. It abounded in terms of law, as is evinced in the writings of Judge Moran on legal subjects, a fine copy of which, with an interlined gloss, is extant in the hands of the assistant secretary of the Iberno-Celtic Society. Moran wrote in the year 90. The same observations may be made with respect to the writings of Cormac Mac Art (A.D. 250,) and Cearnnadhe (A.D. 742) which, with many other treatises on law, are, we believe, extant in the Sebright Collection, Trinity College Dublin Library, Class. H. No. 54. The Irish language has also been found pe

culiarly well adapted to poetry, both of the humorous and the pathetic kind; and numberless unpublished manuscript poems, written in that tongue, are yet in existence.

It has been asserted by some modern writers, that many learned men were compelled, in the middle ages, to seek refuge in Ireland, from the persecutions excited against them by the barbarous hordes which then wasted the continent of Europe; and that from these banished sages, the Irish acquired their knowledge of the alphabet, and such information in the arts and sciences as they really possessed. Of the truth, however, of such an assertion we do not recollect to have seen any proof in the pages of ancient history. Is it credible that philosophers, conversant with the Greek and Latin languages, would have invented or communicated to the Irish, an imperfect alphabet comprising, only seventeen letters, when they had it in their power to make them thoroughly acquainted with those more copious and complete alphabets used by the Greeks and the Romans? The supposition is eminently absurd.

We have elsewhere shown that Christianity was planted in Ireland by some of the apostles themselves. From this pure source of theologic knowledge the first Irish proselytes imbibed the doctrines which their successors so strenuously advocated, both in this island and on the European continent. Hence in the very midst of those scenes of confusion and bloodshed which agitated and distracted Christendom, and which, it is pretended, compelled the foreign literati to seek shelter in Ireland, many of the Hibernian divines had the boldness to pass over to the Continent, and preach the gospel there, with matchless zeal and intrepidity. Truly it seems to us evident that, in the middle ages, the foreigners who visited our island came here to learn-not to teach the arts and sciences.

Connected with poetry was music, which was scientifically taught in Irish academies. Ranulph Higden, who wrote in the 13th century, styles the Irish "musica peritissimi." GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS, in the twelfth century, was quite enraptured with their harmony, and affirmed that in this respect

they excelled all other nations. "Their modulations," said he, "are not slow and tedious as in the instruments of Britain to which we are habituated; but the sounds are rapid and precipitate, yet sweet and delightful. It is wonderful that the musical proportion is preserved, amidst such precipitate velocity of the fingers, and that the melody is rendered full and perfect, by an undeviating art, amidst such trembling modulations, such organic tones, so infinitely intricate, possessed of such agreeable swiftness, such unequal parity, such discordant concord. Whether the chords of the diatesseron or diapente be struck together, they begin and terminate in dulce, that all may be perfectly completed in charming sonorous melody. They commence and close their modulations with so much subtilty, and the tinklings of the slender strings sport so freely with the deep tones of the bass chords-so delicately pleasing, so softly soothing-that it is manifest the perfection of their art lies in concealing art," &c. &c.

This is a description indicating the most consummate skill and execution in the performers. To prepare some passing discords (such as a ninth) in order to render, by their resolution into harmony, the succeeding concords more strikingly delightful, is a proof of

Belfast.

masterly talent and invention, and on such points the evidence of Giraldus is decisively in favour of the Irish musicians. We learn from the poet DANTE that the improved harp and cithara had been introduced into Italy by the Irish; and Fuller says, that at the Holy War, all the concert of Christendom would have made but imperfect music, if the Irish harp had been absent.

Cambrensis also bears honorable testimony as to the skill of the Irish in painting. In alluding to a coneordance of the four gospels which he saw in the church of Kildare, he speaks of the drawings with which it was ornamented, in terms of high eulogium, alleging, if we rightly recollect, that they could not have been equalled by the pencil of Appelles.

We hope, at an early opportunity, to resume and discuss the remaining branches of this subject, which we trust shall not be found devoid of interest, for those to whom an count of our national literature may be acceptable.

ac

[The above essay was read in manuscript, by its author, to the BELFAST LITERARY SOCIETY, about eleven years ago, but remained unpublished till the present time.]

J. S.

TO

I beg to assure my readers that I am neither superstitious nor visionary on the subject of dreams or apparitions, but on the contrary, little disposed to place reliance on them, if not well authenticated. The difficulty certainly rests in the means of proof; but I would no more reject one history of a genuine apparition, because ninety-nine tales of deliberate imposture have been foisted upon human credulity, than I would refuse to give charity, upon the heartless principle that out of one hundred miserable mendicants, ninetynine of them may be impostors. I would look with scorn upon the man who could refuse to assist even an impostor, when in a state of destitution and distress. With nearly a similar feeling would I contemplate your pompous philosophical rascals, who have neither the grace nor imagination to put faith in a good ghost story, whether it be authenticated or not. Such men, be assured of it, are infidels in more points than ghostship. I myself, as I have already said, am not superstitious, except where I have good grounds for being so; but, nevertheless, I never will be the man who would keep faith with such heretics on any subject. They are for reducing every kind of spirits to proof, and if you offer them a glass of weak whiskey punch, the fellows refuse to swallow it, until it be rendered perfectly philosophical by the addition of another glass, to give it, what they have not-consistency. They will hear of apparition after apparition, and drink tumbler after tumbler; but I could never observe that a round dozen of either one or t'other made any impression on their brain. In these cases they usually have the assurance to walk home sober and unconvinced. Such fellows are great sticklers for mechanics, and love all kinds of machinery but the supernatural. They never read poetry or if they do, it is only to see where the

logic lies, like the worthy man who, after perusing Virgil with great attention, sapiently closed the book and exclaimed-"All very well, language grammatical and accurate enough; but what does it prove?" These men make excellent Fellows of Colleges, and are remarkable for bearing especially choice matter-of-fact faces. Let one of them hear of a patent invention for opening oysters or darning stockings, and he immediately boasts the advantages of mechanical science. They have excellent appetites, too, for every thing but that which is supernatural; love Mounsieur Ude, and the transcendental philosophy, and are deeply devoted to

more

tables than the logarithmal. Some of them will undertake to resolve you the miracles of the Bible by the aid of German philosophy, concluding that because they cannot understand the philosophy, they ought not to believe the miracles. You might as well pull one of them by the nose as mention witchcraft seriously in his presence

indeed, better; for they bear the pull with much more patience than they do the witchcraft. They conclude, too, that because they are no conjurers themselves, there never must have been such persons in the world. In fact, they have usually a great deal of the sheep in them, especially after dinner; and any man who has had an opportunity of seeing them grapple with a leg of mutton, will easily believe me. One of this class reminds me of a turtle; being slow, fat, heavy, and contented under the shell of ignorance and unbelief which covers him; and, truly, I have seen them, when dressed and cut up, afford a very rich repast at several tables of my acquaintances. In Bracebridge-hall, the fat-headed gentleman who, like a slow-hound, eternally pursued the same joke against Master Simon, was one of these ungodly Sadducees, differing widely from the thinfaced, lively little gentleman so fond