But this general reflection is not enough for our purpose, which is, to delineate and bring out the true character of the nation. It is, therefore, fitting to give an idea of the extent to which the monastic influence prevailed, and of the nature of the people who cherished, loved, and accepted it at all times. It may be said that the Christian Church, as established in the island by St. Patrick, rested mainly for its support on the religious orders. In many cases the abbots of monasteries were superior to bishops, and, as a general rule, the hierarchy of the Church was, as it were, subordinate to monastic establishments.1 (1 Vide Montalembert's "Monks of the West: Bollandists, Oct.," tome xii., p. 888.) At the time we speak of, indeed, such was no longer the case; but the previously-existing state of reciprocal subordination between abbots and bishops during several centuries, in Ireland,, had left deep traces in the nature of the institutions and of the people itself. It may be said that in the mind of an Irishman the existence of Christianity almost presupposed a numerous array of convents and religious houses. And this idea of theirs can scarcely be called a wrong one, nor did they exaggerate the value of religious orders, since their estimate of them was no higher than that of Christ himself and his Church. If with justice it was said that the French monarchy was established by bishops, with equal justice may it be said that the Irish people had been educated, nay, created by monks. The monks had taken the place left vacant by the Druids, and thus they became for the Christian what the others had been for the pagan Irish. For a long period the Irish monks formed a very considerable portion of the population. In their body were concentrated the gifts of science, art, holiness, even miracles without number, unless we are to suppose that the hagiography of the island was intrusted to the care of idiots incapable of ascertaining current facts. The vast literature of the island, greater indeed than that of any other Christian country at the time, was either the product of monastic intellect and learning, or at least had been translated and preserved by monks. The gifted Eugene O'Curry could fill numbers of the pages of his great work with the bare titles of the books which are known to have issued from the Irish monasteries, of which but a few fragments remain; and no sensible man who has read his book can affect to despise establishments which could produce so many proofs of fancy, intellect, and erudition. The scattered fragments of that rich literature, which had escaped the fury of the Scandinavian, the ignorance and rapacity of the early Anglo- Norman, the blind fanaticism of the Puritan, could still in the seventeenth century furnish materials enough for the immense compilations of the Four Masters, Ward, Wadding, Lynch, and Colgan.