“Yes,” replied the priest, “by those who _never saw them_, and if _they did_, were too ignorant of the Irish language to judge of their authenticity by the internal evidences they contain.” “And if they were the works of monks,” said the priest, “Ireland was always allowed to possess at that era the most devout and learned ecclesiastics in Europe, from which circumstance it received its title of _Island of Saints_. By them, indeed, many histories of the ancient Irish were composed in the early ages of Christianity, but it was certainly from Pagan records and traditions they received their information; besides, I do not think any arguments can be advanced more favourable to the histories, than that the fiction of those histories simply consists in ascribing natural phenomena to supernatural agency.” “But,” returned I, “granting that your island was the _Athens_ of a certain age, how is the barbarity of the present day to be reconciled with the civilization of the enlightened past?” “When you talk of our _barbarity_,” said the priest, “you do not speak as you _feel_, but as you _hear_.” I blushed at this mild reproof, and said, “what I _now_ feel for this country, it would not be easy to express, but l have always been taught to look upon the _inferior_ Irish as beings forming an humbler link than humanity in the chain of nature.” “Yes,” said the priest, “in your country it is usual to attach to that class of society in ours a ferocious disposition amounting to barbarity; but this, with other calumnies, of national indolence, and obstinate ignorance, of want of principle, and want of faith, is unfounded and illiberal; * ‘cruelty,’ says Lord Sheffield, ‘is not in the nature of these people more than of other men, for they have many customs among them which disprove of unnatural indolence, that they are constitutionally of an active nature, and capable of the greatest exertions; and of as good dispositions as any nation in the same state of improvement; their generosity, hospitality, and bravery are proverbial; intelligence and zeal in whatever they undertake will never be wanting:--? _It has been the fashion to judge of them by their outcasts_.’”