ed from Irish sources,
and was probably "improved" and accommodated to fortify the Saxon claim,
by the addition of the pretended grant; but it is certainly evidence of
the early belief in the Milesian colonization of Ireland, and the name
of their leader.

The earliest references to Ireland by foreign writers are, as might be
expected, of a contradictory character. Plutarch affirms that Calypso
was "an island five days' sail to the west of Britain," which, at least,
indicates his knowledge of the existence of Erinn. Orpheus is the first
writer who definitely names Ireland. In the imaginary route which he
prescribes for Jason and the Argonauts, he names Ireland (Iernis), and
describes its woody surface and its misty atmosphere. All authorities
are agreed that this poem[52] was written five hundred years before
Christ; and all doubt as to whether Iernis meant the present island of
Ireland must be removed, at least to an unprejudiced inquirer, by a
careful examination of the route which is described, and the position of
the island in that route.

The early history of a country which has been so long and so cruelly
oppressed, both civilly and morally, has naturally fallen into
disrepute. We do not like to display the qualifications of one whom we
have deeply injured. It is, at least, less disgraceful to have forbidden
a literature to a people who had none, than to have banned and barred
the use of a most ancient language,--to have destroyed the annals of a
most ancient people. In self-defence, the conqueror who knows not how to
triumph nobly will triumph basely, and the victims may, in time, almost
forget what it has been the policy of centuries to conceal from them.
But ours is, in many respects, an age of historical justice, and truth
will triumph in the end. It is no longer necessary to England's present
greatness to deny the facts of history; and it is one of its most patent
facts that Albion was unknown, or, at least, that her existence was
unrecorded, at a time when Ireland is mentioned with respect as the
Sacred Isle, and the Ogygia[53] of the Greeks.

As might be expected, descriptions of the social state of ancient Erinn
are of the most contradictory character; but there is a remarkable
coincidence in all accounts of the physical geography of the island. The
moist climate, the fertile soil, the richly-wooded plains, the navigable
rivers, and the abundance of its fish,[54] are each and all mentioned by
the early