dark green spear, together with a short, sharp
spear, with a rich band and carved silver rivets in his hand."--O'Curry,
p. 38. We give an illustration on previous page of a flint weapon of a
ruder kind.

[87] _Brains_.--My friend, Denis Florence MacCarthy, _Esq_., M.R.I.A.,
our poet _par excellence_, is occupied at this moment in versifying some
portions of this romantic story. I believe he has some intention of
publishing the work in America, as American publishers are urgent in
their applications to him for a complete and uniform edition of his
poems, including his exquisite translations from the dramatic and ballad
literature of Spain. We hope Irish publishers and the Irish people will
not disgrace their country by allowing such a work to be published
abroad. We are too often and too justly accused of deficiency in
cultivated taste, which unfortunately makes trashy poems, and verbose
and weakly-written prose, more acceptable to the majority than works
produced by highly-educated minds. Irishmen are by no means inferior to
Englishmen in natural gifts, yet, in many instances, unquestionably they
have not or do not cultivate the same taste for reading, and have not
the same appreciation of works of a higher class than the lightest
literature. Much of the fault, no doubt, lies in the present system of
education: however, as some of the professors in our schools and
colleges appear to be aware of the deficiency, we may hope for better
things.

[88] _Lands_.--Lhuid asserts that the names of the principal commanders
in Gaul and Britain who opposed Caesar, are Irish Latinized.

[89] _Received_.--"They are said to have fled into Ireland, some for the
sake of ease and quietness, others to keep their eyes untainted by Roman
insolence."--See Harris' Ware. The Brigantes of Waterford, Tipperary,
and Kilkenny, are supposed to have been emigrants, and to have come from
the colony of that name in Yorkshire.

[90] _Fear_.--"In spem magis quam ob formidinem."

[91] _Merchants_.--"Melius aditus portusque per commercia et
negotiatores cognitis."

[92] _Island.--Vita Julii Agric. c._ 24.

[93] _Year.--Hist. Rer. Angl_. lib. ii. c. 26.

[94] _Aitheach Tuatha_.--The word means rentpayers, or rentpaying tribes
or people. It is probably used as a term of reproach, and in
contradiction to the free men. It has been said that this people were
the remnants of the inhabitants of Ireland before the Milesians
colonized it. Mr. O'Curry den