is not
through the length and breadth of the country a conspicuous rath or
barrow of which we cannot find the traditional history preserved in
this ancient literature. The mounds of Tara, the great barrows along
the shores of the Boyne, the raths of Slieve Mish, and Rathcrogan, and
Teltown, the stone caiseals of Aran and Innishowen, and those that alone
or in smaller groups stud the country over, are all, or nearly all,
mentioned in this ancient literature, with the names and traditional
histories of those over whom they were raised.

There is one thing to be learned from all this, which is, that we, at
least, should not suffer these ancient monuments to be destroyed, whose
history has been thus so astonishingly preserved. The English farmer may
tear down the barrow which is unfortunate enough to be situated within
his bounds. Neither he nor his neighbours know or can tell anything
about its ancient history; the removed earth will help to make his
cattle fatter and improve his crops, the stones will be useful to pave
his roads and build his fences, and the savant can enjoy the rest; but
the Irish farmer and landlord should not do or suffer this.

The instinctive reverence of the peasantry has hitherto been a great
preservative; but the spread of education has to a considerable extent
impaired this kindly sentiment, and the progress of scientific farming,
and the anxiety of the Royal Irish Academy to collect antiquarian
trifles, have already led to the reckless destruction of too many. I
think that no one who reads the first two volumes of this history would
greatly care to bear a hand in the destruction of that tomb at Tara,
in which long since his people laid the bones of Cuculain; and I think,
too, that they would not like to destroy any other monument of the same
age, when they know that the history of its occupant and its own name
are preserved in the ancient literature, and that they may one day learn
all that is to be known concerning it. I am sure that if the case were
put fairly to the Irish landlords and country gentlemen, they would
neither inflict nor permit this outrage upon the antiquities of their
country. The Irish country gentleman prides himself on his love of
trees, and entertains a very wholesome contempt for the mercantile boor
who, on purchasing an old place, chops down the best timber for the
market. And yet a tree, though cut down, may be replaced. One elm tree
is as good as another, and the thin