ion of Irish independence, and
the transference to aliens of all the great sources of authority in the
island.

This great work when completed will be of that kind of which no other
European nation can supply an example. Every public library in the world
will find it necessary to procure a copy. The chronicles will then
cease to be so closely and exclusively studied. Every history of ancient
Ireland will consist of more or less intelligent comments upon and
theories formed in connection with this great series--theories which, in
general, will only be formed in order to be destroyed. What the present
age demands upon the subject of antique Irish history--an exact
and scientific treatment of the facts supplied by our native
authorities--will be demanded for ever. It will never be supplied. The
history of Ireland will be contained in this huge publication. In it the
poet will find endless themes of song, the philosopher strange workings
of the human mind, the archeologist a mass of information, marvellous in
amount and quality, with regard to primitive ideas and habits of life,
and the rationalist materials for framing a scientific history of
Ireland, which will be acceptable in proportion to the readableness
of his style, and the mode in which his views may harmonize with the
prevailing humour and complexion of his contemporaries.

Such a work it is evident could not be effected by a single individual.
It must be a public and national undertaking, carried out under the
supervision of the Royal Irish Academy, at the expense of the country.

The publication of the Irish bardic remains in the way that I have
mentioned, is the only true and valuable method of presenting the
history of Ireland to the notice of the world. The mode which I have
myself adopted, that other being out of the question, is open to many
obvious objections; but in the existing state of the Irish mind on the
subject, no other is possible to an individual writer. I desire to
make this heroic period once again a portion of the imagination of the
country, and its chief characters as familiar in the minds of our people
as they once were. As mere history, and treated in the method in which
history is generally written at the present day, a work dealing with
the early Irish kings and heroes would certainly not secure an audience.
Those who demand such a treatment forget that there is not in the
country an interest on the subject to which to appeal. A work tr