name, life, colour, movement, from the bards, the ever-ready exponents of the dumb wishes and desires of the people. Political and military causes gave precedence to the Teamairian legends of the Christianization of the country, and the genius of its bard, or some other cause, made the Patrician to triumph over the other Teamairian legends. The commencement of Christianity was lost in those phases of Gædhilic life upon which the annalists did not shed light, it was hid in the extra-historic obscurity. The Christianization of Erin was complex and gradual, and approached from a thousand points, working slowly, feeling its way from the coast inland. In the mind of the bard whose tale was to be repeated in a single evening, and which was intended to gratify the imagination, not satisfy the critical faculty of learned and sceptical antiquariens, the long-drawn metamorphosis by which Paganism fell into desuetude and the worship of God arose, concentred itself in a sudden and spirit-stirring revolution, starting into life around the great words and great deeds of a mighty spiritual hero. Once the Patrician legend was formed and generally recognized, succesive bards would add to the achievements of its hero. Eventually the bardic tales would themselves grow old and perish, and their bones and dust collected in such cineraries as Jocelyn's Life and the Tripartite. Once more an attempt of later times might be made to exorcise into life the mouldering relics. A monk would, as a literary exercise, take a few facts from the Lives, and around these wind such discourses as, in his mind, the great apostle of Ireland would have composed. The "Epistle to Coroticus and the "Confession" have been written with such peculiar skill, and indicate such an exquisite, pure, and fervid type of antique Gædhilic piety, that the writer of the present article is as grieved as any person who may read his words, that he cannot believe them to have been composed by the chief of the first missionaries to Ireland. ARTHUR CLIVE. OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY. SECOND SERIES.-No. 26. DR. RICHARD ROBERT MADDEN, F.R.C.S.E., L.A. LOND., M.R.I.A., &c., &c. WE enrich our gallery this month with the portrait of a true “son of the soil," Dr. Madden, who, during an eventful public career, found intervals of leisure to wield a prolific and useful pen. The subject of our memoir bears a name inseparably linked with the remote annals of Ireland. Several Irish MSS. of antiquity furnish the pedigree of this family, under the denomination of the race of Madudan of Sil Anmchadha. This powerful Irish sept had large territorial possessions, their country, Sil Anmchadha, being co-extensive with the barony of Longford in the county of Galway, and the parish of Lusmagh in the King's county on the east side of the Shannon, formerly included within the county of the city of the tribes. The ancient records of the West are rich in praise of the virtues and bravery of different members of the Madden clan. Some of the O'Maddens seem, as in modern times, to have intermarried with natives of England. One hero of the family is in particular depicted in glowing colours by two of the Irish bards, who describe Dr. Madden's ancestor as a soldier with the courage of a true lion, the Lion of Birra (Birr), with the venom of the serpent, the Hawk of the Shannon, a Tower which defends the frontiers, a Chieftain of the race of Conn of the hundred battles, a large man of slender person with a skin like the blossom of the appletrees, with brown eyebrows, black curling hair, long fingers, and a cheek like the cherries. This ancient family, of which there appears likewise to be an English branch, formed alliances with some of the greatest names in ancient Ireland, such as the De Burgos, Clanricardes, O'Kellys, Fords, and Lyons, The two last ancestral names unite, through Dr. Madden's sister, Elizabeth, in the person of William Henry Ford Cogan, Esq., of Tinode, county of Wicklow, an English Privy Councillor, who has represented in Parliament the county of Kildare for many years. For three generations the name of Madden has been conspicuous in the county and city of Dublin. Dr. Madden's grandfather, a man of opulence at one period of his life, was the owner of extensive mills at |