[188] _Measure_.--The subject of Irish poetical composition would demand a considerable space if thoroughly entertained. Zeuss has done admirable justice to the subject in his _Grammatica Celtica_, where he shows that the word rhyme [_rimum_] is of Irish origin. The Very Rev. U. Burke has also devoted some pages to this interesting investigation, in his _College Irish Grammar_. He observes that the phonetic framework in which the poetry of a people is usually fashioned, differs in each of the great national families, even as their language and genius differ. He also shows that the earliest Latin ecclesiastical poets were Irish, and formed their hymns upon the rules of Irish versification; thus quite controverting the theory that rhyme was introduced by the Saracens in the ninth century. [189] _Order_.--This refers to the vision in which St. Patrick is said to have seen three orders of saints, who should succeed each other in Ireland. [190] _Discipline_.--Bede, lib. iii. cap. 3. We have used Bohn's translation, as above all suspicion. [191] _England_.--Camden says: "At that age the Anglo-Saxons repaired on all sides to Ireland as to a general mart of learning, whence we read, in our writers, of holy men, that they went to study in Ireland"--_Amandatus est ad disciplinam in Hiberniam_. CHAPTER XII. Christianity improves the Social State of Ireland--A Saxon Invasion of Ireland--Domestic Wars--The English come to Ireland for Instruction--A Famine and Tempests--The First Danish Invasion--Cruelty of the Danes--The Black and White Gentiles--King Cormac Mac Cullinan--Cashel--Amlaff the Dane--Plunder of the Towns--Arrival of Sitric--Death of Nial Glundubh--The Circuit of Ireland--Malachy the Second--Entries in the Annals. [A.D. 693-926.]