Page:Foras feasa ar Éirinn - Keating; Comyn, Dinneen.djvu/22

xii what it knew not of, and condemned accounts which it had never examined. Hence Keating's name has grown to be almost synonymous with credulity. He may have been to blame for giving us the statements and traditions which he found in their old age dwelling in the hearts of the people, but we must remember that the philosophic or sceptic era in history had not then set in. The school of Machiavelli had not yet superseded that of Herodotus."

Hardiman, who was a first-rate Irish scholar, and familiar with the original, writes thus of Keating's work:—"Our Irish Herodotus was both a poet and an historian. Indeed the flowery style of his, or 'History of Ireland,' shows that he must have paid early and sedulous court to the muses; and, that he was rewarded for his attentions, appears from the pleasing poems which he has left behind. ... As an historian and antiquary, he has acquired much celebrity for profound knowledge of the antiquities of his country, 'vir multiplicis lectionis in patriis antiquitatibus.' ... It is an irreparable loss to Irish history that he did not continue his work. ... Of all men, he was best qualified to give a true domestic picture of this country, from a knowledge of its civil affairs, manners, customs, poetry, music, architecture, &c, seldom equalled and never surpassed; besides his intimate acquaintance with many ancient MSS. extant in his time, but since dispersed or destroyed. The English edition by which his history, so far as it extends, is known to the world, is a burlesque on translation. In innumerable passages it is as much a version of Geoffrey of Monmouth as of Geoffrey Keating."

Dr. Todd says:—"O'Mahony's translation," before referred to, "is a great improvement upon the ignorant and dishonest one published by Mr. Dermod O'Connor . . . which has so unjustly lowered in public estimation the character of Keating as a historian; but O'Mahony's translation has been taken from a very imperfect text, and has evidently been