gh the evidence to it is questionable. The annals
anterior to A.D. 340 will still stand over. They fall into two
divisions; the impossible, or self-confuting, and the possible. The
latter extend over seven centuries from about B.C. 308 to A.D. 430. The
former go back to the Creation, and are given up as untrustworthy by the
native annalists themselves.

The early annals of the class in question which give us possible events,
if they existed at all, must have been in Irish. They must also have
been more or less known to King Cormac McArthur. They imply, too, the
use of an alphabet. St. Patrick, too, must have known them; as is
implied by the following extract:--

[Sidenote: A.D. 438.]

"The tenth year of Laogar. The history and laws of Ireland purified and
written out from old collections, and from the old books of Ireland
which were brought together to one place at the asking of St. Patrick.
These are the nine wise authors who did this. Laogar, King of Ireland,
Corcc, and Daire, three kings; Patrick, Benin, Benignus (Benin), and
Carnech, three Saints; Ros, Dubthach, and Fergus, three historians, as
the old distich--

"Laogar, Corccus, Daire the Hard,
Patrick, Benignus, Carnech the Mild,
Ros, Dubthach, Fergus, a thing known,
Are the nine Authors of the Great History."

The Welsh antiquarian may, perhaps, observe that this likeness to the
Triads is suspicious, a view to which he may find plenty of confirmation
elsewhere.

Neither is it too much to say that such old poems as are quoted in
respect to the events of the second and third centuries, are apparently
quoted as Virgil's description of Italy under Evander might be quoted by
a writer of the Middle Ages.

The events recorded are, as a general rule, probable; but they cannot be
considered real until we see our way to the evidence by which they
could be transmitted. The probable is as often untrue, as the true is
improbable. The question in all these points is one of testimony.

The most satisfactory view of that period of Irish antiquity, which is,
at one and the same time, anterior to the introduction of Christianity,
and subsequent to the earliest mention of Ireland by Greek, Latin, and
British writers, is that the sources of its history were compositions
composed out of Ireland, but containing notices of Irish events; in
which case the Britons and Romans have written more about Ireland than
the Irish themselves. This is an inference partly