champions, I have brought here expressly to the great confusion of our Christian dissolute great personages, that they may see how these rare virtues shined, and were embraced by Pagans, which they abhor to exercise, or have seen in themselves, frugality, humility, honest and discreet poverty, zeal to their country, contempt of wealth and honours, moderation in their pomps, shows, and feastings. These are the virtues and the weapons with which those ancient heroes kept their commonwealth in peace and concord, glory, wealth, and prosperity; with these, I say, they have eternized their fame to future ages, not with pride, ambition, extortion, emulation, deceits, vain assentations, gluttonies, and the like vices familiar to Christian personages. Certainly there is nothing procures in a commonwealth sooner, envy and discord betwixt person and person, than to see some very rich and others very poor (equality among fellow subjects is a precious pearl in a commonwealth), for commonly wealth puts men up to such a height of pride as to contemn and despise others beneath them, and they so despised cannot but bear envy and hatred to those despises them. Every apple has its own worm, the worm of wealth is pride. This age we live in is mounted to the height of ambition and pride; we are all going, or would fain go beyond our reach, pride in our eyes and pride in our thoughts, pride and ambition in all our actions; nowadays, forsooth, to set forth an ambassador we must have a whole legion of servants in their retinue, as if his embassy could bear no force otherwise unless the wealth of a commonwealth must be exhausted to support those extravagancies, retinues, and needless trains; whereas honest Cato the Consull (a greater man than they for dignity) contented himself with three servants. not preserved the monarchy of Brittaine, as Cochles and Mutius did that of Rome, and that his affection to king and country have been as great as theirs to the senate and commonwealth of Rome, occasion being only wanting: as for his affection to king and crown, I believe he had as much as another noble man (but to his country, where he hath his estate and lands, he had none at all). If affection to the king can draw rewards and remunerations, there be thousands loved the king and the interest of the crown of England as much as Ormond ever did, and appeared undoubtedly in all occasions against the king's enemies, nevertheless thousands of them never had an acre of ground, nor a cottage to shelter themselves in in frosty weather, in recompensation of such affection: therefore I do here conclude that Ormond was happily fortunate in his affections to the king and crown, and others were not, having obtained those extraordinary rewards from his royal majesty. SAGE COUNSELS. (FROM "THE BLEEDING IPHIGENIA.") A table of sage counsels, that hung by the bed of Ptolomeus Arsacides, king of Egypt (by him religiously observed all the time of his reign), was delivered by a priest of the idols to the wise Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who, dying, gave it to his son with this short speech:-My son, leaving you emperor of many kingdoms, I presume you will with that great power be feared of all, and if you will faithfully keep the godly counsels in this table you shall be infallibly beloved of all. THE TABLE OF COUNSELS. 1. I never denied (said the virtuous King Ptolomeus) justice to a poor man for being poor, nor pardoned a rich man for being rich. 2. I never loved a rich wicked man, nor hated a poor just man. Having spoken of the rewards given by Rome to Horatius Cochles, and to Mutius, for unparalleled services and attending upon the king in time of his exile, I dare say, in the first place, there is none of the adorers of Ormond's virtues (not one) will presume to say, that the greatest of all his services he did the king came, it could come near, those of the foresaid Romans; yet if we compare both their remunerations together, theirs will appear like a grain of sand, compared with Monsable. Olympus. But I hear somebody say, Ormond hath done the king great service, though he hath 3. I never granted favours to men for affection, nor destroyed men to satisfy my passion. 4. I never denied justice to any demanding justice, nor mercy to the afflicted and miser 5. I never passed by evil without punishing it, nor good without rewarding it. 6. I never did evil to any man out of malice, nor villany for avarice. 7. I was never without fear in prosperity, nor without courage in adversity. 8. My door was never open to a flatterer, nor my ear to a murmuring detractor. 9. I endeavoured still to make myself beloved of the good, and feared of the evil. 10. I ever favoured the poor that were able to do little for themselves, and I was evermore favoured by the gods, that were able to do much for all. Those rare counsels should be exposed in the houses of kings and all public places to the view of men, to be known of all in their respective dignities and callings, and it would be a pious and noble action if our gracious sovereign1 would be pleased to consider seriously with himself how far these just and laudable counsels have been regarded during the time of his reign, especially in conferring of estates and lands from one part of his subjects to another part of them contrary to all due course of law, and without hearing of the parties oppressed, which hath been procured to be done by the undue information and persuasion of certain of his councillors and ministers of state, and chiefly of the chancellor, the Earl of Clarindon. If his majesty shall do this grace and justice to his Catholic subjects of Ireland, thousands of widows and orphans will be eased and relieved who now sit down in great poverty, lamenting extremely their lands, houses, and all they had wrongfully taken from them, and this day possessed and enjoyed by those invaders. God binds all kings and judges by this commandment: Thou shalt not do that which is unjust, nor judge unjustly; consider not the person of a poor man, neither honour thou the countenance of him that is mighty. Judge justly to thy neighbour (Lev. xix.). God also forbids to give away one subject's bread to another; reason, virtue, and the laws of God, nature, and nations, are the rules that ought to guide all princes and magistrates in the government of the people under them. Did not God himself complain of evil judges in this kind: How is the faithful city, full of judgment, become a harlot? Justice hath dwelled in it, but now man - killers. The princes are unfaithful, companions of thieves; all love gifts, follow rewards. They judge not for the pupil [fatherless]; and the widow's cause goeth not in to them (Is. i.). And again 1 Charles II. our Lord saith, They are made gross and fat, and have transgressed my words most wickedly. The cause of the widow they have not judged; the cause of the pupil [fatherless] they have not directed, and the judgment of the poor they have not judged. Shall I not visit upon these things, saith our Lord? or upon such a nation shall not my soul take revenge? (Jer. v.). Certainly it is against God's just judgment to omit such things and crimes unpunished. There are thousands of distrest Catholics' pupils [fatherless] and widows (his majesty cannot chuse but know it) that have not got justice, whose cause and complaint had no entrance into his courts; they cried out for justice, and were not heard; they cried for mercy, and found it not; and such as live of those oppressed souls are still crying to heaven and the king for remedy. Poor, desolate, and dejected, they are waiting at the door of the king's palace, and no regard is had of their tears, prayers, and petitions. We are indeed become the reproach of all nations round about us, by the craft and iniquity of statesmen, that have poisoned the fountain of justice. It is said of some of those that their vices have far exceeded their virtues, and that in all their proceedings against our nation there was found in them no truth, no integrity, no religion, no shame, but an insatiable covetousness, and a flaming ambition of making themselves great and powerful; and are not such men, say you, able to poison the fountain of justice (and of mercy too) in a kingdom? A REMONSTRANCE. (FROM THE SETTLEMENT AND SALE OF IRELAND.") To give some colour to this apparent partiality the first minister of state is forced to betake himself to his last refuge, telling, as for a final reason, that the Protestant English interest cannot be maintained in Ireland without extirpating the natives, and therefore, that the counties and corporations undisposed of by the Commonwealth must not be restored to the natives upon any account. The preservation of this interest is now become ultima ratio, and the non plus ultra to all political debates; and seeing the learned gownman will needs establish it for a first principle, not to be denied, it is not amiss to consider more attentively this idol that occasions so much impiety. As for the Protestant interest, I must confess his majesty is bound to maintain it in all his kingdoms and dominions, as far | late Commonwealth was incompatible with forth as the glory of God requires, and the monarchy, and Cromwell's protectorship was law of nations and the several constitutions inconsistent with the king's government. But of particular places will admit. Certainly no if by the English interest we understand (as man (though never so zealous) will say that we ought to do) the interest of the crown and his majesty was obliged, when he held the cavaliers of England, I see no reason why it town of Dunkirk in Flanders, to extirpate the might not be preserved in Ireland for 500 ancient inhabitants and place new English years to come, as well as it was preserved colonies in their room for the preservation of there for 500 years past, without extirpating a Protestant interest. True religion was ever the natives. Why could not the English inyet planted by preaching and good example, terest be maintained in Ireland without exnot by violence and oppression: an unjust tirpation as well as the Spanish interest is intrusion into the neighbour's estate is not the preserved in Naples and Flanders, the French way to convert the ancient proprietor, who interest in Rossilignion and Alsace, the Swewill hardly be induced to embrace a religion dish interest in Breme and Pomerland, the whose professors have done them so much Danish interest in Norway, the Austrian ininjustice: and as to the present settlement of terest in Hungary, the Venetian interest in Ireland, it is apparent to the world that the Dalmatia, and the Ottoman interest over all confiscation of estates, and not the conversion Greece, and so many other Christian provinces, of souls, is the only thing aimed at. If by the without dispossessing the ancient inhabitants English interest we understand the present of their patrimonies and birthrights? Forts, possession of the London adventurers and of citadels, armies, and garrisons, punishment Cromwell's soldiers, there is no doubt it is and reward, were hitherto held the only lawinconsistent with the restoration of the Irish; ful means for Christian princes to maintain neither can the new English title to land be their authority and secure their interest: such well maintained without destroying the old an extirpation was never yet practised by any title of the natives, even as the interest of the prince that followed the law of the gospel. MAURICE DUGAN. FLOURISHED ABOUT 1641-60. [All that we can discover of Maurice Dugan or O'Dugan is that he lived near Benburb, in county Tyrone, about the year 1641, and that he wrote the song here given to the air of the "Coolin," which was even in his time old, and which is, as Hardiman says, considered by many “the finest in the whole circle of Irish music." He was supposed to be descended from the O'Dugans, hereditary bards and historians, one of whom wrote the Topography of Ancient Ireland, which was extensively used by the "Four Masters" in their Annals. O'Reilly, in his Irish Writers, mentions four other poems the production of O'Dugan, namely, Set your Fleet in Motion, Owen was in a Rage, Erin has Lost her Lawful Spouse, Fodhla (Ireland) is a Woman in Decay. These productions are not to be found in English, and are supposed to be lost. We incline to the belief, however, that many bardic remains, in their original and almost unreadable Irish, may yet be discovered in unsuspected and out-of-the-way hiding-places.] She's smile, the fairest of the flowers of our green- In Belanagar dwells the bright blooming maid, Let me hasten far forward, my lov'd one to find, 1 Coolin means "the maiden of the fair flowing locks." Oh! dearest, thy love from thy childhood was mine, | For rich in affection, in constancy tried, Oh, sweetest, this heart from life's opening was We may look down on wealth in its pomp and its thine; pride. And though coldness by kindred or friends may be shown, Still! still, my sweet Coolin, that heart is thine own. Thou light of all beauty be true still to me, Remember the night, love! when safe in the shade Forsake not thy swain, love, though poor he Oh! think of the words, love, that fell from us may be; there. DUALD MACFIRBIS. BORN 1585- DIED 1670. [Of Duald MacFirbis (Dubhaltach Mac | ing and translating materials for that writer's Firbisigh) Magee says that "he was born antiquarian and historical works. In 1656 he about the close of the sixteenth or early in the completed a treatise on Irish authors, and, seventeenth century;" but, as we learn from most likely, about this time also, his transcript Professor O'Curry that he was present at the of the Chronicon Scotorum, as well as a list of school of the O'Davorens in Clare in 1595, we bishops arranged for Sir James Ware. On may well imagine him to have been born, as the death of Ware MacFirbis again became a is generally believed, in 1585. His birthplace wanderer, and in 1670 we find him travelling was Lackan, or Lecain, in the county of Sligo, near his old home and place of birth in Sligo. and he was the oldest son of a junior branch of "He must have been at this time past his the celebrated family of MacFirbis, hereditary eightieth year," says O'Curry, and he was, it historians or "ollambs" for several centuries. is believed, on his way to Dublin, probably to visit Robert, the son of Sir James Ware. "He took up his lodgings for the night at a small house in the little village of Dunflin, in his native county. While sitting and resting himself in a small room off the shop, a young gentleman, of the Crofton family, came in and began to take some liberties with a young woman who had the care of the shop. She, to check his freedom, told him that he would be seen by the old gentleman in the next room; upon which, in a sudden rage, he snatched up a knife from the counter, rushed furiously into the room, and plunged it into the heart of MacFirbis." Early in life Mac Firbis, who was intended for an antiquary and historian, was sent into Munster, to the school of law and history kept by the MacEgans of Lecan in Ormond, after having had already some training in the school of the O'Davorens in Clare. His studies extended not only to all that was to be learned in his own Irish tongue, but also to Latin and Greek, both of which he seems to have acquired thoroughly. For many years after leaving school MacFirbis seems to have lived a life of retired study, but in 1641 he left his ancestral home-a castle whose ruins may yet be seen--and took refuge in Galway from the storm then ravaging the island. While there he made the acquaintance of O'Flaherty the author of Ogygia, and John Lynch author of Cambrensis Eversus. There too, in the College of St. Nicholas in 1650, he completed his great historico-genealogical work, The Branches of Relationship, or Volume of Pedigrees. The autograph copy of this great compilation, generally known as the Book of MacFirbis, is at present to be found in the library of the Earl of Roden. On the surrender of Galway MacFirbis most likely became a wanderer for a time. In 1655, however, we find him in the employ of Sir James Ware, collect | "Thus," to quote again, "at the hand of a wanton assassin this great scholar closed his long career-the last of the regularly educated and most accomplished masters of the history, antiquities, and laws and languages of ancient Erinn." Besides the works we have mentioned MacFirbis wrote and compiled many others both in English and Irish, some of which are lost. His Collection of Glossaries has been published by Mr. Whitley Stokes; his Martyrology, or Litany of the Saints in Verse, in his own autograph, is preserved in the British Museum; in the Royal Irish Academy is to be found what is left of his Treatise on Irish Authors. | from that till judgment; and though FinHis transcript of the Chronicon Scotorum has nachta was sorry for it, he was not able to been edited by W. M. Hennesy, and published levy it, for it was for the sake of heaven he in 1867; and his Annals of Ireland has been had remitted it. Et hoc est verius. translated and edited by Professor O'Donovan and published by the Irish Archæological Society. A transcript of his Catalogue of Extinct Irish Bishoprics has also been made by Mr. Hennesy and placed in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy. Finally, in the Transactions of the Kilkenny Archæological Society may be found his English version of the "Registry of Clonmacnoise," a curious tract, first compiled in the year 1216.] FINNACHTA AND THE CLERICS.1 It was this Finnachta that remitted the Borumha to Moling after it had been levied during the reigns of forty kings previously, namely, from Tuathal Teachtmar to Finnachta. Moling came (as an ambassador) from all Leinster to request a remission of the Borumha from Finnachta. Moling asked of Finnachta to forgive the Borumha for a day and a night. This to Moling was the same as to forgive it for ever, for there is not in time but day and night. But Finnachta thought it was one (natural) day and night. Moling came forth before him, and said: "Thou hast given a respite respecting it for ever and yesterday." Moling promised heaven to Finnachta. Finnachta conceived that Moling had deceived him, and he said to his people, "Go," said he, "in pursuit of this holy man, who has gone away from me, and say unto him that I have not given respite for the Borumha to him but for one day and for one night, for methinks the holy man has deceived me, for there is but one day and one night in the whole world." But when Moling knew that they were coming in pursuit of him, he ran actively and hastily till he reached his house, and the people of the king did not come up with him at all. But Others say that Moling brought a poem with him to Finnachta .. (and this poem is written in the book called the Borumha). However, the Borumha was forgiven to Moling In the fifteenth year from the year in which Finnachta had forgiven the Borumha, Adamnau came to Finnachta after Moling, and he sent a cleric of his people to Finnachta that he might come to converse with him. Finnachta was then playing chess. "Come to converse with Adamnau," said the cleric. "I will not till this game is finished," said Finnachta. The cleric returned to Adamnau and told him the answer of Finnachta. "Go thou to him, and say to him that I shall sing fifty psalms during that time, and that there is a psalm among that fifty in which I shall pray the Lord that a son or grandson of his, or a man of his name, may never assume the sovereignty of Erin." The cleric accordingly went and told that to Finnachta, but Finnachta took no notice, but played at his chess till the game was finished. "Come to converse with Adamnau, oh Finnachta," said the cleric. "I will not go," said Finnachta, "till this game is finished." The cleric told this to Adamnau. "Say unto him," said Adamnau, "that I will sing fifty psalms during that time, and that there is a psalm among the fifty in which I will ask and beseech the Lord to shorten his life for him." The cleric told this to Finnachta, but Finnachta took no notice of it, but played away at his chess till the game was finished. "Come to converse with Adamnau," said the cleric. "I will not," said Finnachta, "till this game is finished." The cleric told to Adamnau the answer of Finnachta. "Go to him," said Adamnau, "and tell him that I will sing the third fifty psalms, and that there is a psalm in that fifty in which I will beseech the Lord that he may not obtain the kingdom of heaven." The cleric came to Finnachta and told him this. When Finnachta heard this, he suddenly put away the chess from him, and he came to Adamnau. "What has brought thee to me now, and why didst thou not come at the other messages?" "What induced me to come," said Finnachta, "was the threats which thou didst hold forth to me, viz., that no son or grandson of mine should ever reign, and that no man of my name should ever assume the sovereignty of Erin, or that I should have shortness of life. I deemed these light; but when thou didst promise me to take away heaven from me, I then came suddenly, because I cannot endure this." "Is it true," said Adamnau, "that the 4 |
