blood, but as often enlivened by love--for to verse and music they were particularly addicted. Hence arose that peculiar turn of character by which those who are possessed of any superior degree of knowledge, they who operate on their fancies and passions by the liveliest strains of poetry, have long been held in extraordinary veneration; and hence, even at the present day, the ministers of their religion are accounted more than human. The effects of those early events may indeed still be traced by the modern tourist; and even the historian of cotemporary transactions is obliged to coincide with the elegant Littleton when he observes, that the songs of the bard had usually more power to incite and inflame, than the music of the harp to soften or mitigate the ferocity of the chief; so that even this recreation, which seems to indicate something gentle and approaching to politeness in the temper of the Irish, contributed to keep up that turbulent spirit, averse to order and peace, which no prince or legislator that their country ever produced, had sufficient skill to control. But still, from the remnants of these ancient customs will the modern tourist derive considerable advantages, and from none more than their proverbial hospitality, if he himself has sense enough to keep it within bounds of propriety. Of this hospitality much arises from the natural temper of the people; much from the natural curiosity connected with the arrival of a stranger in a district where intercourse is unfrequent; and some portion perhaps derivable from ancient custom; for, as Leland observes, hospitality was not only a principal virtue amongst these rude people, but was even enjoined by law; and as neither lords nor tenants were bound to each other, as the whole tribe might migrate to some more favourable district, the ancient _Brehon_ laws expressly stipulate that no rath shall break up suddenly, lest the traveller should be disappointed of his expected reception. But neither the duties to be received by the lord, nor the entertainment he was to expect from his inferiors, were determined by his arbitrary will and pleasure. They were proportioned to the benefits received from him--nay, even the lowest of the people claimed reception and refreshment by an almost perfect right; and so ineffectual is the flux of many centuries to efface the ancient manners of a people, that at this day the wandering beggar enters the house of a farmer or gentleman with as much ease and freedom as an inmate. From this strict adherence to old customs, it arose that even on the introduction of Christianity, many of the Pagan and Druidical ceremonies of religion, interwoven with secular ordinances, were preserved throughout the island. Indeed, as the author already quoted very justly affirms, the first Christian missionaries seem to have industriously avoided all unnecessary violence to the ancient manners of their converts: favouring and protecting their poets; avoiding