, looming out of formless mist and chaos, and bestowing their
names as imperishable memorials?--Scotia, Scots, Gaelic,--the word
Gaelic in its true significance including Ireland and Scotland. Even
the name Fenian takes on a venerable dignity when we learn that Fenius,
the Scythian King, and father of Milesius, established the first
university--a sort of school of languages--for the study of the
seventy-two new varieties of human speech, appointing seventy-two wise
men to master this new and troublesome branch of human knowledge! We
are told that Heber and Heremon, the sons of Milesius, finally divided
the island between them, and then, after the fashion of Romulus, Heber
drove the factious Heremon over the sea into the land of the Picts, and
reigned alone over the Scots in Ireland.

The sober truth seems to be that Ireland, at a very early period, was
known to the Greeks as Ierne (from which comes Erin), and later to the
Romans as Hibernia. At a very remote time it seems to have been
colonized by Greek and other Eastern peoples, who left a deep impress
upon the Celtic race {201} already inhabiting the island; but an
impress upon the mind, not the life, of the Celts, for no vestige of
Greek or other civilization, except in language and in ideals, has ever
been found in Ireland. The only archaeological remains are cromlechs,
which tell of a Druidical worship, and the round towers, belonging to a
much later period, whose purpose is only conjectured.

Ireland's Aryan parentage is plainly indicated in its primitive social
organization and system of laws. The family was the social unit, and
the clan or _sept_ was only a larger family. Pre-Christian Ireland was
divided into five septs: Munster, Connaught, Ulster, Leinster, and
Meath. Each of these tribal divisions was governed by a chief or king,
who was the head of the clan (or family). Among these, the chief-king,
or _Ard Reagh_, resided at Tara in Meath, and received allegiance from
the other four, with no jurisdiction, however, over the internal
affairs of the other kingdoms. There was a perpetual strife between
the clans. Outside of one's own tribal limits was the enemy's country.
The business of life was marauding and plundering, and the greatest
hero {202} was he who could accomplish these things by deeds of the
greatest daring.

All alike lived under a simple code of laws administered by a
hereditary class of jurists called Brehons. All offences were
pun