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"AN ample difcourfe upon the original of the Irish, and the antiquity of that people, whom in truth I think to be more ancient than most I know in this end of the world, fo as it were in the handling of fome man of found judgement and plentiful reading, would be moft pleafant and profitable.'

SPENCER.

"THERE is at this day no monument or real argument that, when the Irish were firft invaded, they had any ftone houfing at all, any money, any foreign trade, nor any learning but the legend of the faints, pfalter, miffals, rituals, &c. viz. nor geometry, aftronomy, anatomy, architecture, enginery, painting, carving, nor any kind of manufacture, nor the leaft ufe of navigation, or the art military."

SIR WILLIAM PETTY.

ON THE

ECCLESIASTICAL AND LITERARY

HISTORY OF IRELAND:

FROM THE

MOST ANCIENT TIMES

TILL THE

Introduction of the ROMAN RITUAL, and the Establishment
of PAPAL SUPREMACY, by HENRY II. King of England.

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FROM THE MOST EARLY AUTHENTICATED PERIOD DOWN TO
THE YEAR 1783.

By THOMAS CAMPBELL, L.L. D.
CHANCELLOR OF ST. MACARTIN'S, CLOGHER,

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR G. G. J. AND J. ROBINSON, PATER-NOSTER-Row,
LONDON.

M,DCC,XC.

BOD

"Non enim tam AUTORITATES in difputando quam RATIONIS MO÷ mento quærenda funt.”

CICERO:

"Duo funt inftrumenta ad res omnes aut confirmandas aut impugnandas RATIO & AUTORITAS. Verum in hoc ANTIQUITATUM ftudio plurimum poteft AUTORITAS; & rerum præteritarum fcientia non RATIONUM momento fed SCRIPTORUM AUTORITATE folidiffime cora roboratur."

CAMDEN.

N Edition of this Work having been nearly fold in Ireland, the Author has thought that it might not be improper to fubmit it to the curious inquirer in England. Sorry that it cannot appear more worthy of perufal, he expects indulgence for literal errors, which no precaution, at his distance from the prefs, could obviate. But in point of compofition, how can be hope to escape cenfure, who, upon review, condemns himself? For he now fpies out blemishes which at first he could not fee. "But, whilft he confeffes what he feels it too late to correct, he conceives that he has fomething to plead in extenuation,

Having long witnessed, with confiderable pain, the extravagance of certain modern writers, refpecting Irish Antiquities, and wishing to difentangle them from thofe fables, which are fo industricusly defended, he has only aimed at bringing forward genuine hiftoric arguments, plain and unadorned; the refult of a fanguine love of truth, and of fome years spent in no very indolent research, during his intervals from more important concerns.

Our Milesian Tales, which have been elevated to the rank of history, might, perhaps, have been liftened to in ages of ignorance; but they are now, like ghofts and goblins, fit only to be affociated with darkness. The most polished nations, having long fince rejected the fables of their bards and legends of their monks, can no longer be impofed upon by vain etymologies, and the arbitrary conftruction of certain paffages in old pfalters and annals, which are, after all, but the babbling echoes of vulgar and uncertain traditions.

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