age, and in which so complete and accurate an idea can be obtained of the element of a vanished poetry as in Congal, and, as has been said, it is like a restoration in shape and substance of a ruined castle. The opening lines give a specimen of the style of the verse and the vigorous spirit of the measure:-- The Hosting here of Congal Claen. 'T was loud lark-car oling May When Congal, as the lark elate and radiant as the day, Rode forth from steep Rath-Keltar gate. Of the felicity with which these double descriptive epithets are used there are a thousand specimens, such as The white-maned, proud-neck-arching tide; and they give the dominant characteristic of the style as in the original, with a grace and appropriateness which make them a natural part of the English language. In order to show how the Celtic narrative has been transformed into English poetry without losing its characteristic features, the two accounts of the episode in the battle in which Sweeny becomes smitten with a frenzy of fear by supernatural visitation may be compared. This is the original:-- "Fits of giddiness came over him at _the sight_ of the horrors, grimness, and rapidity of the Gaels; at the looks, brilliance, and irksomeness of the foreigners; at the rebounding, furious shouts and bellowings of the various embattled tribes on both sides, rushing against and coming into collision with one another. Huge, flickering, horrible, aerial phantoms rose up, so that they were in curved, commingled crowds tormenting him; and in dense, rustling, clamorous, life-tormenting hordes, without ceasing; and in dismal, regular, aerial, storm-shrieking, hovering, fiend-like hosts, constantly in motion, shrieking and howling as they hovered about them in every direction, to cow and dismay cowards and soft youths, but to invigorate and mightily rouse champions and warriors; so that from the uproar of the battle, the frantic pranks of the demons, and the clashing of arms, the sound of heavy blows reverberating on the points of heroic spears, and keen edges of swords, and the war-like borders of broad shields, the noble hero Suibne was filled and intoxicated with tremor, horror, panic, dismay, fickleness, unsteadiness, fear, flightiness, giddiness, terror, and imbecility; so that there was not a joint or member of him from foot to head which was not converted into a confused, shaking mass, from the effect of fear and the panic of dismay. His feet trembled as if incessantly shaken by the force of a stream; his arms and various-edged weapons fell from him, the power of his hands having been enfeebled and relaxed around them, and rendered incapable of holding them. The inlets of hearing were quickened and expanded by the horrors of lunacy; the vigor of his brain in the cavities of his head was destroyed by the clamors of the conflict; his heart shrunk within him with the panic of