Page:Irish minstrelsy, vol 2 - Hardiman.djvu/138

126 sublimity of music, by infinite associations of idea; so in the pathetic; can it be otherwise where there is any soul."—Sketches, vol. ii. London, 1798.—That a similar opinion was entertained and acted upon by our bards, all their compositions afford abundant evidence.

$3$ "The virtue—the emprise—in days of yore That Banba nurtured."—

Banba—one of the early names of Ireland——Banba, isle of beauteous women.—The book of Drom-sneachta, followed by the or Chronicle of Invasions, two ancient historical works in Irish, give the particulars of these primitive names. These venerable volumes lie, however, unheeded among the mass of our unknown unpublished manuscripts.

$4$"Or Ceirnit————who—— ——bade the crystal current of the stream Heave into life the mill's mechanic frame."

Ceirnit, one of the mistresses of Cormac, monarch of Ireland, about the beginning of the third century, induced that prince to send to Scotland for a skilful mechanic, by whom she caused to be built the first mill erected in Ireland. The circumstance is fully detailed in Keating; and it calls to our recollection, that the old Irish manuscripts contain many creditable notices of the early state and history of Scotland, not elsewhere to be found. With one in particular, I shall take the liberty of troubling the reader. In the "sealed" MS. library of Trinity College, Dublin, there is a copy, (written on vellum, at least six hundred years,) of a yet more ancient tract, entitled —The Dialogue of the Two Sages, a correct transcript of which, (formerly the property of my lamented friend John Mac Namara, of the county of Clare, an excellent Irish antiquary and linguist,) is now in my possession. It is written in a language or dialect as old as that used in our Brehon laws, with an interlined gloss; and