th
bands.--_State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 13.

[288] "Harpers, rhymers, Irish chroniclers, bards, and ishallyn (ballad
singers) commonly go with praises to gentlemen in the English pale,
praising in rhymes, otherwise called 'danes,' their extortions,
robberies, and abuses as valiantness; which rejoiceth them in their evil
doings, and procures a talent of Irish disposition and conversation in
them."--Cowley to Cromwell: Ibid. Vol. II. p. 450. There is a remarkable
passage to the same effect in Spenser's _View of the State of Ireland_.

[289] State of Ireland, and plan for its reformation: _State Papers_,
Vol. II. p. 28.

[290] Report on the State of Ireland: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 22.

[291] Baron Finglas, in his suggestions for a reformation, urges that
"no black rent be given ne paid to any Irishman upon any of the four
shires from henceforward."--Harris, p. 101. "Many an Irish captain
keepeth and preserveth the king's subjects in peace without hurt of
their enemies; inasmuch as some of those hath tribute yearly of English
men ... not to the intent that they should escape harmless; but to the
intent to devour them, as the greedy hound delivereth the sheep from the
wolf."--_State Papers_, Vol. II. pp. 16, 17.

[292] _Eudoxus_--What is that which you call the Brehon Law? It is a
word unto us altogether unknown.

_Irenaeus_--It is a rule of right, unwritten, but delivered by tradition
from one to another, in which oftentimes there appeareth great show of
equity in determining the right between parties, but in many things
repugning quite both to God's law and man's. As, for example, in the
case of murder, the Brehon, that is, their judge, will compound between
the murderer and the friends of the party murdered, which prosecute the
action, that the malefactor shall give unto them or unto the child or
wife of him that is slain, a recompence which they call an Eriarch. By
which vile law of theirs many murders are made up and smothered. And
this judge being, as he is called, the Lord's Brehon, adjudgeth, for the
most part, a better share unto his Lord, that is the Lord of the soil,
or the head of that sept, and also unto himself for his judgment, a
greater portion than unto the plaintiffs or parties grieved.--Spenser's
_View of the State of Ireland_. Spenser describes the system as he
experienced it in active operation. Ancient written collections of the
Brehon laws, however, existed and still exist.

[293] By relati