Sages,” written probably before 850, “every art will be buffoonery, and every falsehood will be chosen.” Poems would be dark, music would be given over to boors, and embroidery to fools and base women so that no more beauty of colour could be expected; everyone will turn his art into false teaching and false intelligence, to seek to surpass his teacher. Instruction and skill would end, they lamented, with lawful princes and sages, belief and offerings, the respect of ranks and families, due honour of the young to the old, the ordered hospitality of the wealthy, and the high justice on the hilltop: “On every hill-top treachery will adventure.” The great expression of Gaelic life was the assembly of the people, those “parles upon hills” that seemed so grievous to Elizabethan rulers. In every Federal State, such as Leinster or Munster, and in every petty State, they were the ever-recurring guarantee of the national civilization. The feeling of the people is shown by the constant references to “frequent assemblies,” “an assembly according to rules,” “a lawful synod.” The serious organization of these gatherings in stately form had been brought to a fine art. The business and science of the country was there open to the whole democracy. Many were the directions for the right conduct of those who took part in the assemblies—against stiffness of delivery, a muttering speech, hair-splitting, uncertain proofs, despising books, inciting the multitude, very violent urging, playing a dangerous game to disconcert the meeting, above all against ignorant or false pleading. The authority of the assembly in its exposition of the law was never questioned by the people. “Irishmen,” wrote an English judge to Henry VIII., “doth observe and keep such laws and statutes which they make upon hills in their country firm and stable, without breaking them for any favour or reward.” “As touching their government in their corporations where they bear rule,” wrote an Englishman, Payne, from Connacht in 1589, “is done with such wisdom, equity, and justice, as demerits worthy commendations. For I myself divers times have seen in several places within their jurisdictions well near twenty causes decided at one sitting, with such indifference that, for the most part, both plaintiff and defendant hath departed contented; yet many that make show of peace and desireth to live by blood do utterly mislike this or any good thing that the poor Irishman doth.”