This might be deemed a purely imaginary description, if the collection of antiquities in the Royal Irish Academy did not prove beyond doubt that golden ornaments similar to those referred to in this passage were of frequent use in Ireland. In the year 1810 two neck torques of purest gold, the same as those described above, were found on the Hill of Tara itself, and are now to be seen in the Academy's collection. "Alas," says an old writer, "Tara to-day is desolate; it is a green grassy land; but it was once a noble hill to view, the mansion of warlike heroes, in the days of Cormac O'Cuinn--when Cormac was in his glory." Everything at Tara, even its present desolation, is full of interest, and reminds us of the days "when Cormac was in his glory." His house is there within the circle of the great _Rath na Riogh_. The mound where he kept his hostages may still be seen beside his Rath. The stream issuing from the well _Neamhnach_, on which he built the first mill in Ireland for his handmaiden, Ciarnaid, to spare her the labour of grinding with the quern, still flows down the eastern slope of Tara Hill, and still, says Petrie, turns a mill. Even the well on the western slope, beside which Cormac's _cuchtair_, or kitchen, was built, has been discovered. The north-western _claenfert_, or declivity, where he corrected the false judgment of King Mac Con about the trespass of the widow's sheep may still be traced. The Rath of his step-mother, Maeve, can be seen not far from Tara; and to the west of the _Teach Miodhchuarta_ may be noticed _Rath Graine_, the sunny palace of his daughter, the faithless spouse of Finn Mac Cumhail. O'Flaherty tells us on the authority of an old poem found in the _Book of Shane Mor O'Dugan_, who flourished about A.D. 1390, that Cormac founded three schools at Tara--one for teaching the art of war, the second for the study of history, and the third was a school of jurisprudence. It was, doubtless, the first regular college founded in ancient Erin, and like the school of Charlemagne, was within the royal palace. The fact is extremely probable, especially as Cormac himself was an accomplished scholar in all these sciences. This brings us to the literary works attributed to Cormac Mac Art by all our ancient Irish scholars. The first of these is a treatise still extant in manuscript entitled _Teagusc na Riogh_, or _Institutio Principum_. It is ascribed to King Cormac in the _Book of Leinster_ written before the Anglo-Norman Invasion of Ireland. It takes the form of a dialogue between Cormac and his son and successor, Cairbre Lifeachair; "and," says the quaint old Mac Geoghegan, "this book contains as goodly precepts and moral documents as Cato or Aristotle did ever write." The language is of the most archaic type; some extracts have been translated and published in the _Dublin Penny Journal_.