royalty.' The colours which distinguished the bardic dress were blue, green, black, white, and red.

The time occupied by the education of the bards in the Druidic collegest was no less a period than twelve years. When this term of probation was completed, they were admitted to all the honours of their order. They had estates settled on them, and lived free from all pressing worldly cares in perfect independence. Their persons were considered sacred; the murder of a bard was esteemed a crime infinitely more heinous than that of any ordinary citizen, and was visited on the descendants of the guilty party through successive generations. In fact, the principle of "divine right" appears to have been more attached to the profession than to the crown itself; for, while we have recorded the violent deaths of many of our kings, we have few examples of the murder of a bard, though exposed to the vengeance of their enemies by exerting their influence on the field of battle. To seize the estates which they held from the crown, was deemed an act of sacrilege, which not even the necessities of the public service could justify, in times of the greatest emergency. At some unrecorded period, a division took place in the bardic office and duties. The order was ultimately divided into four classes, namely,

* Walker's Hist. Mem. p. 5.

"These institutions, intended for the quiet retreat of learning, were sunk in the bosom of deep woods of oak; 'the garish eye of day' was excluded from them, and their members studied by the light of tapers and lamps. Here the heart-corroding cares of life had no admission. Here genius was fostered and the soul sublimed."—Ibid. p. 6.

the FILEAS, or chief bards; the BREHONS, whose duties were legislative; the SEANACHIES, whose functions were antiquarian, historical, and genealogical (somewhat similar to the present office of king-at-arms); and the ORFTDIGH, or instrumental performers. The Brehons assisted in framing, or at least in administering and promulgating the laws, which, at certain times, seated upon some commanding eminence, they recited aloud for the public benefit, accompanied, as has been conjectured, by the sound of the harp.* These Brehon laws continued to be strictly observed long after the Anglo-Norman invasion, as recorded by contemporary English writers. The Fileas, or Ollam-re-dan, were the chief poets of the order. Of these, the provincial kings and chiefs had each one, and their retinue frequently consisted of as many as thirty inferior bards. The Filea ever attended the king or chief, both in public and private, in the capacity of counsellor, and, in his hours of ease, joined his retainers in cheering with his song, or lulling him to rest with a soothing tale. These tales, which were chanted to the sound of the harp, were generally eulogiums on the valorous exploits of the king, or chief; in order to detail which, the bard accompanied him to battle, animated the troops, and raised the martial song. We can conceive no sight more

*"The history of the nation, all the placets of their legislators, and all their systems-philosophical, metaphysical, and theological-were conveyed in the harmonious measures of sound and verse....... The interval between stretching on their couches and the time of rest was employed in attending to soft music, to which were sung the loves of their heroes and the virtues of their heroines."- O'Conor's Disserts. on Hist. of Irel, third edition, p. 55.

imposing than the bards, on such occasions, "marching at the head of their armies, arrayed in white flowing robes, harps glittering in their hands, and their persons surrounded with instrumental musicians. While the battle raged, they stood apart, and watched in security (for their persons were sacred) every action of the chief, in order to glean subjects for their lays.'

The reign of the great law-giver, Ollamh Fodhla (Ollav Folla), the Solon of Ireland, forms an important era as well in the civil as in the bardic annals of the kingdom. This monarch was an illustrious patron of letters and the arts. To him we must ascribe the institution of those seminaries at Tara, the residence of the supreme monarch, which were celebrated for so many ages. The most notable act of his reign, however, which has rendered it, indeed, one of the great landmarks of our pagan annals, was the institution of the famous Teamorian Fes, or National Convention, at Tara, which makes such a conspicuous figure in our early chronicles. In this celebrated palace, which has been the theme of poets, the pride of historians, and whose fame has been bequeathed to all future time in the imperishable melodies of Moore, the bards basked in the sunshine of royal favour. Indeed, we are told in a very old MS., that

* Walker's Bards, quarto edition, p. 10.

The date assigned to the reign of this monarch by Walker is B.C. 768, which nearly agrees with the chronology of O'Flaherty. According to the moderate scheme of chronology adopted, on the grounds previously stated, in this work, it would be about B. C. 350 or 400, this monarch being the twentieth of the Milesian line.

"Temur (Tarah) was so called from its celebrity for melody above the palaces of the world :—Tea, or Te, signifying melody, and mur, a wall-Temur, the wall of music." On the same authority, it is added, what, unfortunately, could be said of few subsequent periods of our history, that at this time "such peace and concord reigned among the people, that no music could delight them more than the sound of each other's voices.*

As we approach still more nearly the precincts of the Christian era, we find several bards, some of whose attributed remains have descended to our time. The first of these was ROYNE FILE, a poet of royal descent, who sung of the wanderings of the Scoti until their settlement in Ireland, of the division of the island among them, with the names of their leaders. FERCIERTNE was both a bard and herald, which offices, indeed, were frequently united. In a still extant poem, which is attributed to this bard, we have a panegyric on the great monarch, Ollamh Fodhla, who is represented as valiant in war, and illustrious in peace, as the founder of the Teamorian Fes and the Druidic College at Tara. After describing him as reigning gloriously for forty years as Ard-Riogh, or supreme monarch, the poet proceeds to give an account of six succeeding sovereigns of the same line, and concludes with the origin of the grand divisions of the island. This bard, according to a romantic story, which is too long for insertion here, "evinced, in the manner of his death, a strength of affection for his patron, and a sub

* Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy, vol, i. p. 6,

limity of soul unparalleled in the history of any nation."* The productions of these bards, from whatever cause, like the still earlier fragments already mentioned, have unfortunately not yet become accessible to the English reader by translation. It is hoped they may not long remain so. The originals have, however, survived, and been lately published by the zealous advocate of our ancient literature, already so frequently quoted. "These hitherto unpublished fragments," he adds, in reference to those under consideration, and the others previously alluded to, "are considered as decisive evidence of the early cultivation of letters and the poetic art in Ireland. . . .... The poems themselves are preserved in grave historical treatises, many centuries old. They are found preceded by the names and some short notices of the several fileas to whom they are attributed. Their language is obsolete, and their idioms antiquated. Both are evidently of the earliest ages. Certainly they are very different from any compositions of the last thousand years. According, therefore, to the strictest rules of historic evidence, their antiquity must be allowed.†"

We now come to the opening of the Christian era, about which time flourished the bards, LUGAR and CONGAL, whose remains, like those previously noticed, have not hitherto been translated. The age immediately preceding has been rendered illustrious not less in the annals of Ireland, than in song, as the bright period

* Walker's Hist. Mems. pp. 32, 33.

↑ Irish Minstrelsy, vol. ii. pp. 353, 355.