early popes, indeed, showed a jealous dislike of Ireland, and it was under papal authority that the country was subsequently invaded by the English. Along with Christianity, St Patrick, or some of his immediate followers, made the Irish acquainted with letters. An alphabet was framed, derived from the Roman, but rather ruder in form, and not quite in the same order, known as the Irish alphabet. In this alphabet, and in the Celtic tongue, there are Irish books of great antiquity. Many of these manuscripts show considerable acquaintance with the classic works of Rome, and even with those of Greece. Although the same Celtic language is spoken in the Highlands, yet no old manuscripts have been preserved in that part of the empire, and the reason probably is, that as Ireland was the principal habitation of the race, the learned men remained there, and did not emigrate to the colony formed in Scotland. Notwithstanding the many extravagant boasts on the subject, there is no doubt that among the Irish clergy there was much learning so early as the year 800, and for two centuries after it. The celebrated John Scotus, commonly called Erigena, who flourished in France in the middle of the ninth century, is believed, on good ground, to have been an Irishman; and there are still in existence chronicles of the early Irish history which were written about the eleventh and the twelfth centuries, and must have been collected from still older chronicles, probably written as early as the time of St Patrick. 4. It was about the year 800 that the Danes began to invade Ireland, and they appear to have made rapid progress towards a complete conquest of the island; for soon afterwards there occurs a period of thirty years during which Ireland was subjected to their ravages and oppressions. Mr Moore says: "There is not a single spot of renown in the ecclesiastical history of our country, not one of those numerous religious foundations, the seats and monuments of the early piety of her sons, that was not frequently during this period made the scene of flagrant and brutal excesses. The repeated destruction by fire of the same monasteries and churches, may naturally be accounted for by the material of these structures having been wood. But as few things of any value could have survived such conflagrations, the mere wantonness of barbarity alone could have tempted them so often to repeat the outrage." BRIAN BORU.-Like every other nation that has been thus invaded, the Irish preserve the name and deeds of a great liberator. About the middle of the tenth century, there arose a young hero of princely origin, since renowned as A. D. King Brian Boru, who, while still a youth, en969. countered the Danes in a battle in which 3000 of them were slaughtered. Another hero, Malachi of the Golden Collar, so named from a celebrated trophy which he gained from the Danes, had a long rivalry and many battles with Brian for the sovereignty of Ireland. In this A. D.? contest Brian was successful, and he was at last 1001. crowned at Tara as king of the whole island. It is thus that, at the close of a thousand years from the Christian era, Ireland saw herself an independent state under one ruler,-a position which the country had never previously enjoyed within the period of authentic records, and which it held for a short period only. While praying in his A.D. tent, Brian was assassinated by the leader of a 1014. defeated army of Danes. EXERCISES. 1. Why have people been induced to doubt the early history of Ireland? State the reasons why the inhabitants of that island had a better opportunity of being civilized than those of Britain. What is known about the heroes of Ossian's Poems ? 2. Who was the first successful missionary to Ireland? Give some incidents in the life of St Patrick. When did he begin to teach Christianity? Who were incensed at his proceedings? How did he obtain his great influence? 3. Describe some peculiarities about the early Irish Church which distinguished it from that of England. What is remarkable about Catholicism in Ireland? What did St Patrick introduce besides Christianity? What do we know about early Irish literature? Give the name of a celebrated Irishman. 4. What race invaded Ireland? What is said of the ravages of the Danes. What prince reigned as sole king of Ireland? When and how was he slain? 70 CHAPTER VIII. THE DIFFERENT RACES AND THEIR LANGUAGES. 1. Ir will now be proper to give a general account of the different tribes by which the British islands were peopled. The whole population may be considered as divided into two great races, the one Celtic and the other Gothic (Teutonic) or German. A Celtic race appears at one time to have inhabited every portion of the British isles, for even in places where there have been no Celts for more than a thousand years, the names of places are still in the Celtic tongue. The two tribes of people, though they have continued so long to reside in the same locality, subject to the same laws, are extremely unlike each other. The Gothic race are generally of large full make and fair complexions, while the Celts are thin, graceful, and swarthy. Thus, notwithstanding the mixture which the races have undergone by intermarriage, a traveller crossing the Highland line in Scotland may observe that the people become all at once changed in character, and that in the Celtic Highlanders he finds himself among a people as distinct from the Lowlanders in appearance, language, and customs, as if they lived ten thousand miles away from them. We do not know very well what race predominated at the time of the Roman invasion. Tacitus tells us that the Caledonians, meaning in general the inhabitants of the northern part of the island, were men of large limbs, light complexions, and reddish hair, while those nearest to the coast of Gaul were small and swarthy. There is every reason to believe that nearly all Scotland was at that time inhabited by races of Gothic origin, who had come over from Scandinavia, while, at all events, the southern parts of England were inhabited by Gallic Celts, and the whole of Ireland was peopled by a Celtic race. Subsequently, the Saxons and other Gothic tribes immigrated into England, and became so far preponderant over the Celts, that their language was superseded by the Anglo-Saxon, except in the principality of Wales and some other parts of the west, where the At the same time an Celtic continued to preponderate. infusion of the Celtic tribes was in progress in another part of the island. There were probably some people of this race in Scotland at the time of the Roman invasions; but afterwards large bodies came over from Ireland, and occupied the west coast. This happened to be the most sterile and mountainous portion of the country. On the plains the people of Gothic race, who were more industrious than their neighbours, naturally pressed them from the more valuable lands towards the mountains, and thus the Celtic people of Scotland, whether original inhabitants of the country, or exported from Ireland, came to be concentrated in what is called "The Highlands" of Scotland. 2. The dispute whether the Picts were of Gothic or Celtic origin has already been referred to. Whatever they were, it is certain that the Lowlanders of Scotland spoke a Gothic dialect from a very early period, and that their language was indeed almost the same as that of the English-at least the distinction was not greater than between York and Somerset, or between Peebles and Forfar. The great difference between the English and the Scottish tongue did not arise until after the nations were set at enmity, as we shall find, by the tyranny of Edward I. Indeed, there was a time when the Scots may be said to have spoken better English than the English themselves. This was after the Norman conquest, when a mixture of French was infused into the conversation and literature of the higher orders of England, while the Scots pre served a purer Gothic speech. A ballad made in Scotland about the year 1290, when the wars with England had begun, is very good English, and is perhaps the oldest specimen of that kind of composition in our language. It represents the misery of the country at the time of the death of Alexander the Third; and if the spelling be slightly altered from what it is in the work of the old annalist Andrew Wyntoun, it will be very easily understood at the present day. When Alexander our king was dead, That Scotland led in love and lee, Away was sons of ale and bread, Of wine and wax, of gaming and glee : Our gold was changed into lead. The various adventurers who came from the north, some of them through the Orkneys and Sutherlandshire, others arriving at various points southward along the east coast, would thus find a people of a kindred tongue, with whom they could easily converse and associate. They have left, however, some traces in the dialects of different districts, and there are many words to this day used in parts of Scotland, which are not used in England, but may be heard in Germany or Denmark. Thus, in the north of Scotland, the plural of eye is eene, and so it is in Denmark. Schwer, which is the German for heavy or ponderous, is pronounced sweer in Scotland, and has a like meaning. Luft is German for the sky, and in Scotland it is called the lift. The Germans use jammern, pronounced yammern, meaning to bewail, and in Scotland they say that a person discontented by weeping is yammerin. Thus with some variations the same Gothic tongue was spoken throughout the whole island, except in Cornwall, Wales, part of Cumberland and Northumberland, and a small district in Scotland, where the ancient British continued to be the language, and the Highlands of Scotland, where the Irish Gaelic was spoken. 3. In Ireland there appears to have been a purely Celtic population until the incursions of the Danes, who must have infused a considerable quantity of Gothic blood throughout a portion of Ireland, especially in the neighbourhood of Dublin, which was the Danish capital of the country. With the English conquest a number of Saxons and a few Normans were brought into the island. • In the forfeitures in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and at subsequent periods down to the reign of Queen Anne, a large number of English and Scottish settlers were established in Ireland; so that the people of Gothic descent are now dispersed over a considerable part of the country, and the Celtic tongue is now the language of a portion only of the uneducated peasantry. Irish antiquarians, however, study this language, and they have naturally a respect for it, from its great antiquity, and the number of ancient annals which have been written in it. |