Chapter XIV: Part VI: They Sang (10)

Haunted by these recollections, I began to find my sittings in the studio painful and annoying, but I did not manifest my feelings. I had acquired some control over them, and felt it was not for my interest to revive, by a fresh display of jealousy, a remembrance that seemed to be dormant, or again excite a displeasure that appeared to be extinguished. Besides, the likeness that haunted me so persistently became in time more vague and uncertain, and seemed likely to disappear entirely. The current of gayety and pleasure that now surrounded me absorbed me more and more. The very light of the sun at Naples is a feast for the heart as well as the eyes. It is a region that has no sympathy with gloom, or even the serious side of life, and it must be confessed that the social ideal I have spoken of is not the most salutary and elevated in the world. It must also be acknowledged that if it is not absolutely true that this charming region is the classic land of the _far niente_, as it has been called (for the number of people everywhere who do nothing make me think all skies and all climes favorable to them), it is nevertheless indubitable that every one feels a mingled excitement and languor at Naples which oblige him to struggle continually against the double temptation to enjoy at all hours the beauty of the earth and sky, and afterwards to give himself up unresistingly to the repose he feels the need of. When weary of this struggle, when nothing stimulates his courage to continue it, he is soon intoxicated and overpowered by the very pleasure of living. One day follows another without thinking to ask how they have been spent. The interest taken in serious things grows less, the strength necessary for such things diminishes, all effort is burdensome; and as this joyous, futile life does not seem in any way wrong or dangerous, he no longer tries to resist it, but suffers the subtle poison which circulates in the air to infuse inactivity into the mind, indifference and effeminacy in the heart, and even to the depths of the soul itself.

Such were the influences to which I gave myself up, but not without some excuse, perhaps. At my age this reaction of gayety and love of pleasure was natural. After the experience I had passed through, I felt the need of something to divert me—the need of forgetting. How, then, could I possibly resist all there was around me to amuse and enable me to forget? Of course I had not forgotten Mme. de Kergy, or Diana, or the eloquence of Gilbert, but I had nearly lost all the pure, noble, and soul‐stirring sentiments my acquaintance with them had awakened; and if any unacknowledged danger lurked therein, it had so ephemeral an influence on me that all trace was effaced, as a deadly odor passes away that we only inhaled for a moment.

As for my charming Stella, she no more thought of giving me advice than of setting me an example. She shared with me her happiest hours in the day, but I could not follow her in the courageous course of her hidden daily life. I did not see her during the hours when, with a brow as serene, a face as tranquil, as that with which she welcomed me at a later hour, she immolated her tastes and wishes, and by the perpetual sacrifice of herself earned the means of rendering her daughter as happy as she pleased. I saw her, on the contrary, during my daily drive with her and Angiolina—one of the greatest pleasures of the day for us all. To see them together, the mother as merry as the child, one would have supposed the one as happy, as fully exempt from all care, as the other!... We often took long drives in this way, sometimes beyond the extreme point of Posilippo, sometimes to Portici, or even to Capo di Monte. There we would leave our carriage and forget ourselves in long conversations while Angiolina was running about, coming every now and then to throw herself into her mother’s arms or mine. I loved her passionately, and it often seemed to me, as I embraced her, that I felt for her something of that love which is the strongest on earth, and makes us endure the privation of all other affection. Angiolina was, it is true, one of those children better fitted than most to touch the maternal fibre that is hidden in every womanly heart. She had accents, looks, and moods of silence which seemed to indicate a soul attentive to voices that are not of this world, and sometimes, at the sight of her expressive childish face, one could not help wondering if she did not already hear those of heaven.

Lorenzo from time to time made a journey to the North of Italy, in order to see to his property. His absence, always short, and invariably explained, caused me neither pain nor offence. He seemed happy to see me again at his return, and appeared to enjoy much more than I, even, the gay life we both led. He devoted his mornings to work, but spent his evenings with me, either in society or at the theatre of San Carlo, where, according to the Italian custom in those days, we went much less to enjoy the play, or even the music, than to meet our friends. As for gaming, I had reason to believe he had entirely renounced it, for he never touched a card in my presence. The twofold danger, therefore, which had threatened my peace, seemed wholly averted, and I once more resumed my way with confidence and security, as a bird, beaten by the tempest, expands its wings at the return of the sun, and sings, as it flies heavenward, as if clouds and darkness were never to return!

But in the midst of this new dawn of happiness I was gliding almost imperceptibly but rapidly down, and suffering my days to pass in constantly‐increasing indolence. It is true my good Ottavia, who had been with me since Livia’s entrance at the convent, reminded me of the days and hours assigned for the practices of devotion she had taught me in my childhood, which, though not piety itself, serve to keep it alive. Without her I should probably have forgotten them all. I thought of nothing but how to be happy, and I was so because I seemed to have recovered absolute empire over Lorenzo’s heart.... My lofty aspirations for him had vanished like some fanciful dream no longer remembered. The charm of his mental qualities and his personal attractions gave him a kind of supremacy in the circle where he occupied the foremost rank, and had every desirable pretext for gratifying his taste for display; while, on the other hand, the aureola of genius that surrounded him prevented his life from appearing, and even from being, wholly vain.

It was vain, however, as every one’s life is that has no light from above. I was not yet wholly incapable of feeling this, but I was becoming more and more incapable of suffering from it.

It is not in this way the vigor of the soul is maintained or renewed. Livia alone had not lost her beneficent influence over me. A word from her had the same effect as the strong, correct tone of the diapason, which gives the ear warning when the notes begin to flatten. Every descent, however gradual, is difficult to climb again, and I did not at all perceive the ground I had lost till I found myself face to face with new trials and new dangers.

XXV.

Several months passed, however, without any change in my happy, untroubled life. Lando’s arrival, and shortly after that of Mario, were the chief incidents. Mario’s visits were short and rare, for he seldom left my father. He loved home, now he was alone there, better than he used to do; and my father, relieved of a heavy responsibility by the marriage of one daughter and the vocation of the other, enjoyed more than ever the company of a son who gave him no anxiety and prevented him from finding his solitude irksome. He only lived now in the recollections of the past and for his profession, and Mario fulfilled with cheerful devotedness the additional obligations our departure had imposed on him. He came from time to time to see his two sisters, and had not entirely lost the habit of favoring me with advice and remonstrances. Nevertheless, as my present position obliged me to make a certain display he was not sorry to have a part in, and as, on the whole, he did not find my house disagreeable, it was not as difficult as it once was to win his approbation, particularly as, notwithstanding the frivolous life I led, I was still (perhaps a strange thing) wholly devoid of coquetry and vanity, which, almost as much as my affection for Lorenzo, served as a safeguard in the world, and not only shielded me from its real dangers, but from all criticism. This point acknowledged, Mario, who did not consider himself dispensed by my marriage from watching over my reputation, was as kind to me now as he would have been implacable had it been otherwise. As I, on my side, by no means feared his oversight, and he brought news of my father and recalled the memories of the past, which I continued to cherish in my present life, I welcomed him with affection, and his visits always afforded me pleasure.

As to Lando, he had been forced to tear himself away from Paris, and devote to economy an entire year which he had come very reluctantly to spend in the bosom of his family. He at once observed with astonishment that I was happier at Naples than at Paris. As for him, he declared life in a small city was an impossibility, and he should pass the time of his exile in absolute exclusion. But he contented himself with carrying this Parisian nostalgia from one drawing‐room to another, exhaling his complaints sometimes in Italian (continually _grasseyant_), sometimes in French sprinkled with the most recent _argot_, only comprehensible to the initiated. But as, in spite of all this, his natural good‐humor was never at fault, everything else was overlooked, and he was welcomed everywhere; so existence gradually became endurable, and he resigned himself to it so completely that by the time the Carnival approached he was so thoroughly renaturalized that no one was more forward than he in preparing and organizing all the amusements with which it terminates at Naples—vehicles, costumes, _confetti_, and flowers for the Toledo;(51) suppers, dominos, and disguises for the Festini di San Carlo,(52) without reckoning the great fancy ball at the Accademia;(53) and, to crown all, private theatricals with a view to Lent. With all this, he had ample means of escaping all danger of dying of _ennui_ before Easter!...

I must acknowledge, however, that he found me as much disposed to aid him as any one. I was in one of those fits of exuberant gayety which at Naples, and even at Rome, sometimes seize even the most reasonable and sensible people during the follies of the Carnival. But it must be confessed these follies had not in Italy the gross, vulgar, and repulsive aspect which public gayety sometimes assumes at Paris on similar occasions. One would suppose everybody at Paris more or less wicked at Carnival time; whereas at Rome and Naples everybody seems to be more or less childlike. Is this more in appearance than reality? Must we believe the amount of evil the same everywhere during these days devoted to pleasure? I cannot say. At Rome, we know, no less than at Paris and Naples, while people on the Corso are pelting each other with _confetti_ and lighting the _moccoletti_, the churches are also illuminated, and a numerous crowd, prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altars, pray in order to expiate the follies of the merry crowd. But it seems to me no one who has made the comparison would hesitate to acknowledge a great difference in the gayety of these places, as well as the different amusements it inspires.

Stella was in as gay a mood as I. Angiolina (whose right it was) could not have prepared more enthusiastically than we to throw _confetti_ at every one we met, or pelt the vehicles in which most of the gentlemen of the place, arrayed in various disguises, drive up and down the Toledo. These vehicles are stormed with missiles from every balcony they pass, and they reply by handfuls of _confetti_ and flowers thrown to the highest stories, either by means of cornets, or by instruments expressly for this purpose, or by climbing the staging made on the carriages to bring the combatants nearer together.

Lorenzo, Lando, and even Mario were enrolled among the number to man a wonderful gondola of the XVth century, all clad in the costume of that period, and Lorenzo, by his taste and uncommon acquirements of all kinds, contributed to render this masquerade almost interesting from an artistic and historic point of view, and he was as zealous about it as any one.

We were in the very midst of these preparations when one morning he told me with an air of vexation he had just received a letter from his agent which would oblige him to be absent several days. But he was only to go to Bologna this time, and would be back without fail the eve of _Jeudi‐ Gras_,(54) the day fixed for the last exhibition of the gondola. But his departure afflicted me the more because he had not been absent for a long time, and I was no longer used to it. I did not, therefore, conceal my annoyance. But as his seemed to be equally great, I finally saw him depart, not without regret, but without the least shade of my former distrust.

The Carnival was late that year, and the coming of spring was already perceptible in the air. I had passed two hours with Stella in the park of Capo di Monte, while Angiolina was filling her basket with the violets that grew among the grass. Our enjoyment was increased by the freshness of the season and the enchanting sky of Naples. When the circumstances of a person’s life are not absolutely at variance with the beauty of nature, he feels a transport here not experienced in any other place. That day I was happier and merrier than usual, and yet, as we were about to leave the park, I all at once felt that vague kind of sadness which always throws its cloud over excessive joy.

“One moment longer, Stella,” said I, “it is so lovely here. I never saw the sea and sky so blue before! I cannot bear to go home.”

“Remain as long as you please, Ginevra. I am never tired, you know, of the beautiful prospect before us! Nature is to me a mother, a friend, and a support. She has so often enabled me to endure life.”

“Poor Stella!” said I with a slight remorse, for I felt I was too often unmindful of the difference in our lots.

But she continued with her charming smile:

“You see, Ginevra, they say I have _le sang joyeux!_ which means, I suppose, that I have a happy disposition. When all other means fail of gratifying my natural turn, I can do it by looking around me. The very radiance of the heavens suffices to fill me with torrents of joy.”

At that moment Angiolina ran up with a little bunch of violets she had tied together, and gave them to her mother. Stella took the child up in her arms.

“Look, Ginevra. See how blue my Angiolina’s eyes are. Their color is a thousand times lovelier than that of the sky or sea, is it not? Come, let us not talk of my troubles,” continued she, as her daughter threw her arms around her neck, and leaned her cheek against hers. “This treasure is sufficient; I ask no other.”

“Yes, Stella, you are right. To enjoy such a happiness I would give all I possess.”

“God will doubtless grant you this happiness some day,” replied she, smiling.

Our merriment, interrupted for a moment, now resumed its course. It was time to go home, and we returned without delay to the carriage, which awaited us at the gate of the park.

It was Tuesday, the day but one before _Jeudi‐Gras_; consequently I expected Lorenzo the following day. All the preparations for the masquerade were completed, and in passing by the door of my aunt, Donna Clelia, who lived on the Toledo, I proposed to Stella we should call to make sure she had attended to her part; for it was from her balcony the first great contest with _confetti_ was to take place the next day but one.

Donna Clelia, as I have remarked, felt a slight degree of ill‐humor at the time of my marriage. But she speedily concluded to regard the event with a favorable eye. It would doubtless have been more agreeable to be able to say: “The duke, my son‐in‐law”; but if she could not have this satisfaction, it was something to be able to say: “My niece, the duchess,” and my aunt did not deny herself this pleasure.

Besides, she anticipated another advantage of more importance—of obtaining an entrance by my means to high life, which hitherto she had only seen at an immeasurable distance; and she was still more anxious to introduce her daughters than to enter herself. From the day of my marriage, therefore, she resolved to establish herself at Naples, and this resolution had already had the most happy results. Teresina and Mariuccia were large girls, rather devoid of style, but not of beauty. Thanks to our relationship, they were invited almost everywhere, and the dream of their mother was almost realized. As I had indubitably contributed to this, and they had the good grace to acknowledge it, I was on the best terms with them as well as with Donna Clelia. The latter, it will be readily imagined, had enthusiastically acceded to my request to allow the cream of the _beau monde_ to occupy her balconies on _Jeudi‐Gras_, and we found her now in the full tide of the preparations she considered necessary for so great an event.

My aunt had apartments of good size on the first floor of one of the large palaces on the Strada di Toledo. They were dark and gloomy in the morning, like all in that locality, but in the evening, when her drawing‐rooms were lit up, they produced a very good effect. As to Donna Clelia herself, when her voluminous person was encased in a suit of black velvet, and her locks, boldly turned back, had the addition of a false _chignon_, a plume of red feathers, and superb diamonds, she sustained very creditably, as I can testify, the part of a dignified matron, and it was easy to see she had been in her day handsomer than either of her daughters. But when she received us on this occasion, enveloped in an enormous wrapper, which indicated that, in spite of the advanced hour, she had not even begun her toilet, and with her hair reduced to its simplest expression, she presented quite a different aspect. She was, however, by no means disconcerted when we made our appearance, but met us, on the contrary, with open arms; for she was very glad of an opportunity of explaining all the arrangements she was at that instant occupied in superintending, which likewise accounted for the _négligé_ in which we surprised her. She took us all through the drawing‐rooms, pointing out in the penumbra the places, here and there, where she intended to place a profusion of flowers. Here a large table would stand, loaded with everything that would aid us in repairing our strength during the contest; and there were genuine tubs for the _confetti_, where we should find an inexhaustible supply of ammunition. My aunt was rich. She spared nothing for her own amusement or to amuse others, and never had she found a better occasion for spending her money. She had already given two successful _soirées_, at which her large drawing‐rooms were filled, but this crowd did not include everybody, and those who were absent were precisely those she was most anxious to have, and the very ones who, on _Jeudi‐Gras_, were to give her the pleasure of making use of her rooms. She did not dream of fathoming their motives; it was enough to have their presence.

At last, after examining and approving everything, as disorder reigned in the drawing‐room, my aunt took us to her chamber. She gave Stella and myself two arm‐chairs that were there, placed on the floor a supply of biscuits, candied chestnuts, and mandarines for Angiolina’s benefit, and seated herself on the foot of her bedstead, taking for a seat the bare wood; the mattress, pillows, and coverings being rolled up during the day, according to the Neapolitan custom, like an enormous bale of goods, at the other end of the bedstead. Arming herself with an immense fan, which she vigorously waved to and fro, she set herself to work to entertain us. First, she replied to my questions:

“You ask where the _ragazze_(55) are.... I didn’t tell you, then, they are gone on a trip to Sorrento with the _baronessa_?”

“No, Zia Clelia, you did not tell me. When will they return?”

“Oh! in a short time. I expect them before night. It was such fine weather yesterday! They did not like to refuse to accompany the baroness, but it would not please them to lose two days of the Carnival, and the baroness wouldn’t, for anything in the world, miss her part at San Carlo. Teresina is to go there with her this evening.”

The baroness in question was a friend of my aunt’s whom she particularly liked to boast of before me. If she was indebted to me for some of the acquaintances she was so proud of, she lost no opportunity of reminding me that for this one she was solely indebted to herself.

“Ah! Ginevra mia!...” continued she, “you have a fine house, to be sure—I can certainly say nothing to the contrary; but if you could only see that of the baroness!... Such furniture! Such mirrors! Such gilding!... And then what a view!...”

Here my aunt kissed the ends of her five fingers, and then opened her whole hand wide, expressing by this pantomime a degree of admiration for which words did not suffice....

“How?” said Stella with an air of surprise. “I thought her house was near here, and that there was no view at all. It seems to me she can see nothing from her windows.”

“No view!” cried Donna Clelia. “No view from the baroness’ house!... See nothing from her windows!... What a strange mistake, Contessa Stella! You are in the greatest error. You can see everything from her windows—_everything_! Not a carriage, not a donkey, not a horse, not a man or woman on foot or horseback or in a carriage, can pass by without being seen; and as all the drawing‐rooms are _al primo piano_, you can see them as plainly as I see you, and distinguish the color of their cravats and the shape of the ladies’ cloaks.”

“Ah! yes, yes, Zia Clelia, you are right. It is Stella who is wrong. The baroness has an admirable view, and quite suited to her tastes.”

“And then,” continued Donna Clelia, waving her fan more deliberately to give greater emphasis to her words, “a situation unparalleled in the whole city of Naples!... A church on one side, and the new theatre on the other! And so near at the right and left that—imagine it!—there is a little gallery, which she has the key of, on one side, leading to the church; and on the other a passage, of which she also has the key, which leads straight to her box in the theatre! I ask if you can imagine anything more convenient?... But, apropos, Ginevra, have you seen Livia lately?”

“Yes, I see her every week.”

“Ah! _par exemple_,” said Donna Clelia, folding her hands, “there is a saint for you! But I have stopped going to see her since the Carnival began, because every time I go I feel I ought to become better, and the very next day off I go to confession.... It has precisely the same effect on the _ragazze_; so they have begged me not to take them to the convent again before Ash‐Wednesday.”

Stella, less accustomed than I to my aunt’s style of conversation, burst into laughter, and I did the same, though I thought she expressed very well in her way the effects of her visits at the convent. At that minute the doors opened with a bang, and Teresina and Mariuccia made their appearance, loaded with flowers. At the sight of us there were exclamations of joy:

“O Ginevra!... Contessa!... _E la bambina! Che piacere!_... How delightful to find you here!”

A general embrace all around. Then details of all kinds—a stream of words almost incomprehensible.

“_Che tempo! Che bellezza! Che paradiso!_ They had been amused _quanto mai_! And on the way back, moreover, they had met Don Landolfo, and Don Landolfo had invited Teresina to dance a cotillon with him at the ball to‐ morrow.... And Don Landolfo said Mariuccia’s toilet at the ball last Saturday was _un amore_!”

It should be observed here that everything Lando said was taken very seriously in this household. His opinion was law in everything relating to dress, and he himself did not disdain giving these girls advice which cultivated notions of good taste, from which they were too often tempted to deviate.

We were on the point of leaving when Mariuccia exclaimed:

“Oh! apropos, Ginevrina, Teresina thought she saw Duke Lorenzo at Sorrento at a distance.”

“Lorenzo?... At Sorrento? No, you are mistaken, Teresina. He went to Bologna a week ago, and will not be back till to‐morrow.”

“You hear?” said Mariuccia to her sister. “I told you you were mistaken—that it was not he.”

“It is strange,” said Teresina. “At all events, it was some one who resembled him very much. It is true, I barely saw him a second.”

“And where was it?” I asked with a slight tremor of the heart.

“At the window of a small villa away from the road at the end of a _masseria_(56) we happened to pass on the way.”

She was mistaken, it was evident; but when Lorenzo returned that evening, a day sooner than I expected, I felt a slight misgiving at seeing him. He perceived it, and smilingly asked if I was sorry because he had hastened his return. I was tempted to tell him what troubled me, but was ashamed of the new suspicion such an explanation would have revealed, and I reproached myself for it as an injustice to him. I checked myself, therefore, and forced myself to forget, or at least to pay no attention to, the gossip of my cousins.

To Be Continued.

Fac‐Similes Of Irish National Manuscripts. Concluded.

The _Liber Hymnorum_ is the next selected. It is believed to be more than one thousand years old, and one of the most remarkable of the sacred tracts among the MSS. in Trinity College, Dublin. It is a collection of hymns on S. Patrick and other Irish saints, which has been published by the Irish Archæological and Celtic Society, under the superintendence of Dr. Todd. The three pages selected contain the hymn written by S. Fiach of Stetty, between the years 538 and 558, in honor of S. Patrick. The hymn is furnished with an interlinear gloss.

The tenth of these MSS. is _The Saltair of S. Ricemarch_, Bishop of St. David’s between the years 1085 and 1096, a small copy of the Psalter containing also a copy of the Roman Martyrology.

Of the four pages of this volume which have been selected for copying, two are a portion of the Martyrology and two of the Psalter. The first of these last contains the first two verses of the 101st Psalm, surrounded by an elaborate border formed by the intertwinings of four serpentine monsters. The initial D of Domine is also expressed by a coiled snake, with its head in an attitude to strike; the object of its attack being a creature which it is impossible to designate, but which bears some resemblance to the hippocampus, or sea‐horse. The second page of the Psalter contains the 115th, 116th, and 117th Psalms, in which the same serpentine form is woven into shapes to represent the initial letters. The version of the Psalms given in this volume differs from that used in England in Bishop Ricemarch’s time. It is written in Latin in Gaelic characters. The volume belongs to Trinity College, Dublin.

Next in order appears the _Leabhar na h‐Uidhré_, or _Book of the Dark Gray Cow_, a fragment of one hundred and thirty‐eight folio pages, which is thought to be a copy made about the year 1100 of a more ancient MS. of the same name written in S. Ciaran’s time. It derived its name from the following curious legend, taken from the _Book of Leinster_, and the ancient tale called _Im thecht na trom daimhé_, or _Adventures of the Great Company_, told in the _Book of Lismore_. About the year 598, soon after the election of Senchan Torpeist to the post of chief filé (professor of philosophy and literature) in Erinn, he paid a visit to Guairè, the Hospitable, King of Connaught, accompanied by such a tremendous retinue, including a hundred and fifty professors, a hundred and fifty students, a hundred and fifty hounds, a hundred and fifty male attendants, and a hundred and fifty female relatives, that even King Guairè’s hospitality was grievously taxed; for he not only had to provide a separate meal and separate bed for each, but to minister to their daily craving for things that were extraordinary, wonderful, rare, and difficult of procurement. The mansion which contained the learned association was a special source of annoyance to King Guairè, and at last the “longing desires” for unattainable things of Muireann, daughter of Cun Culli and wife of Dallan, the foster‐mother of the literati, became so unendurable that Guairè, tired of life, proposed to pay a visit to Fulachtach Mac Owen, a person whom he thought especially likely to rid him of that burden, as he had killed his father, his six sons, and his three brothers. Happily for him, however, he falls in with his brother Marbhan, “the prime prophet of heaven and earth,” who had adopted the position of royal swineherd in order that he might the more advantageously indulge his passion for religion and devotion among the woods and desert places; and Marbhan eventually revenges the trouble and ingratitude shown to his brother by imposing upon Senchan and the great Bardic Association the task of recovering the lost tale of the _Táin Bó Chuailgné_, or _Great Cattle Spoil of Cuailgne_. After a vain search for it in Scotland, Senchan returned home and invited the following distinguished saints, S. Colum Cille, S. Caillin of Fiodhnacha, S. Ciaran, S. Brendan of Birra, and S. Brendan the son of Finnlogha, to meet him at the grave of the great Ulster chief, Feargus Mac Roigh—who had led the Connaught men against the Ulster men during the spoil, of which also he appears to have been the historian—to try by prayer and fasting to induce his spirit to relate the tale. After they had fasted three days and three nights, the apparition of Feargus rose before them, clad in a green cloak with a collared, gold‐ ribbed shirt and bronze sandals, and carrying a golden hilted sword, and recited the whole from beginning to end. And S. Ciaran then and there wrote it down on the hide of his pet cow, which he had had made for the purpose into a book, which has ever since borne this name.

The volume contains matter of a very miscellaneous character: A fragment of Genesis; a fragment of Nennius’ _History of the Britons_, done into Gaelic by Gilla Caomhain, who died before 1072; an _amhra_ or elegy on S. Colum Cille, written by Dallan Forgail, the poet, in 592; fragments of the historic tale of the _Mesca Uladh_, or _Inebriety of the Ulstermen_; fragments of the cattle‐spoils _Táin Bo Dartadha_ and _Táin Bo Flidais_; the navigation of Madduin about the Atlantic for three years and seven months; imperfect copies of the _Táin Bó Chuailgné_, the destruction of the _Bruighean da Dearga_, or _Court of Da Dearga_, and murder of King Conairé Mór; a history of the great pagan cemeteries of Erinn and of the various old books from which this and other pieces were compiled; poems by Flann of Monasterboice and others; together with various other pieces of history and historic romance chiefly referring to the ante‐Christian period, and especially that of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Three pages, containing curious prayers and the legend of _The Withering of Cuchulain and the Birds of Emer_, extracted from the _Leabhar buidh Slaine_, or _Yellow Book of Slane_, one of the ancient lost books of Ireland from which the _Leabhar na h‐Uidhré_ was compiled, have been selected.

The _Book of Leinster_, a folio of over four hundred pages, appears as the next. It was compiled in the first half of the XIIth century by Finn Mac Gorman, Bishop of Kildare, by order of Aedh Mac Crimhthainn, the tutor of Dermot, King of Leinster. Among other pieces of internal evidence pointing to this conclusion are the following entries, the first in the original hand, the second by one strange but ancient, translated and quoted by O’Curry:

“Benedictions and health from Finn, the Bishop of Kildare, to Aedh Mac Crimhtain, the tutor of the chief King of Leth Mogha Nuadut (or of Leinster and Munster), successor of Colaim Mic Crumtaind of, and chief historian of, Leinster, in wisdom, intelligence, and the cultivation of books, knowledge, and learning. And I write the conclusion of this little tale for thee, O acute Aedh! thou possessor of the sparkling intellect. May it be long before we are without thee! It is my desire that thou shouldst always be with us. Let Mac Loran’s book of poems be given to me, that I may understand the sense of the poems that are in it; and farewell in Christ.

“O Mary! it is a great deed that has been done in Erinn this day, the Kalends of August—Diarmait Mac Donnchadda Mic Murchada, King of Leinster and of the Danes (of Dublin), to have been banished over the sea eastwards by the men of Erinn! Uch, uch, O Lord! what shall I do?”

The more important of the vast number of subjects treated of in this MS. are mentioned as being: The usual book of invasions; ancient poems; a plan and explanation of the banqueting‐hall of Tara; a copy of _The Battle of Ross na Righ_ in the beginning of the Christian era; a copy of the _Mesca Uladh_, and one of the origin of the Borromean Tribute, and the battle that ensued; a fragment of the battle of Ceannabrat, with the defeat of Mac Con by Oilioll Olium, his flight into, and return from, Scotland with Scottish and British adventurers, his landing in Galway Bay, and the defeat of Art, monarch of Erinn, and slaughter of Olium’s seven sons at the battle of Magh Mucruimhé; a fragment of _Cormac’s Glossary_; another of the wars between the Danes and Irish; a copy of the _Dinnsenchus_; genealogies of Milesian families; and an ample list of the early saints of Erinn, with their pedigrees and affinities, and with copious references to the situation of their churches. The volume belongs to Trinity College, Dublin.

Three pages have been selected. The first contains a copy of the poem on the Teach Miodhchuarta of Tara—a poem so ancient that of its date and author no record remains—and of the ground‐plan of the banqueting‐hall by which the poem was illustrated, published by Dr. Petrie in his _History and Antiquities of Tara Hill_. The ground‐plan, which in this copy is nearly square, is divided into five compartments lengthwise, the centre and broadest of which contains the door, a rudely‐drawn figure of a _daul_ or waiter turning a gigantic spit, furnished with a joint of meat, before a fire, the lamps, and a huge double‐handed vase or amphora for the cup‐ bearer to distribute. This great spit, called _Bir Nechin_, or the spit of Nechin, the chief smith of Tara, which in the drawing is half the length of the hall, appears to have been so mechanically contrived as to be able to be coiled up after use; and the instrument is thus described in another MS. belonging to Trinity College, Dublin, quoted by Dr. Petrie: “A stick at each end of it, and its axle was wood, and its wheel was wood, and its body was iron; and there were twice nine wheels on its axle, that it might turn the faster; and there were thirty spits out of it, and thirty hooks and thirty spindles, and it was as rapid as the rapidity of a stream in turning; and thrice nine spits and thrice nine cavities (or pots) and one spit for roasting, and one wing used to set it in motion.”

In the two compartments on either side are enumerated in order of precedence the various officers and retainers of the king’s household, together with their tables and the particular portions of meat served out to each, forming a very curious and instructive illustration of the social condition and habits of the early Irish. The description of the rations that were considered specially adapted to the several ranks of consumers is very amusing. For the distinguished men of literature, “the soft, clean, smooth entrails,” and a steak cut from the choicest part of the animal, were set aside; the poet had a “good smooth” piece of the leg; the historian, “a crooked bone,” probably a rib; the artificers, “a pig’s shoulder”; the Druids and _aire dessa_, a “fair foot.” These last are said to decline to drink; not so the trumpeters and cooks, who are to be allowed “cheering mead in abundance, not of a flatulent kind.” The doorkeeper, “the noisy, humorous fool and the fierce, active kerne” had the chine; while to the satirists and the _braigitore_, a class of buffoons whose peculiar function was to amuse the company after a fashion which will not only not bear description, but almost defies belief—licensed and paid _Aethons_ of the court—“the fat of the shoulder was divided to them pleasantly.”

The selection is continued by the _Leabhar Breac_, or _Speckled Book_, probably named from the color of its cover, or, as it was formerly called, _Leabhar Mór Duna Doighré_, the _Great Book of Dun Doighré_, a place on the Galway side of the Shannon not far from Athlone. It is a compilation from various ancient books belonging chiefly to churches and monasteries in Conaught, Munster, and Leinster, beautifully written on vellum, as is supposed about the close of the XIVth century, by one of the Mac Ogans, a literary family of great repute belonging to Dun Doighré.

Its contents are of an extremely miscellaneous character, and they are all, with the exception of a copy of _The Life of Alexander the Great_ from the VIIth century, MS. of S. Berchan of Clonsost, of a religious nature, comprising Biblical narratives, homilies, hymns; pedigrees of saints, litanies and liturgies, monastic rules, the _Martyrology_ of Aengus Céulé Dé, or the Culdee, the ancient rules of discipline of the order of the Culdees, etc., etc. When the Abbé Mac Geoghegan wrote his _History of Ancient Erinn_ in Paris, in the year 1758, this volume, his principal MS. of reference, was in Paris. It is now in the Royal Irish Academy.

Three pages have been selected for fac‐similes, giving a description of the nature and arrangement of the _Féliré_, or _Festology_ of Aengus the Culdee, and the date and object of its composition, which was made between the years 793 and 817, when Aedh Oirdnidhe was monarch of Erinn.

Then comes the _Leabhar Buidhe Lecain_, or _Yellow Book of Lecain_, a large quarto volume of about five hundred pages, which was written by Donnoch and Gilla Isa Mac Firbis in the year 1390, with the exception of a few tracts of a somewhat later date. O’Curry, in his ninth lecture, supposes it to have been originally a collection of ancient historical pieces, civil and ecclesiastical, in prose and verse. In its present imperfect state it contains a number of family and political poems; some monastic rules; a description of Tara and its banqueting‐hall; a translation of part of the Book of Genesis; the Feast of Dun‐na‐n Gedh and the battle of Magh Rath; an account of the reign of Muirchertach Mac Erca, and his death at the palace of Cleitech in the year 527; copies of cattle‐ spoils, of the Bruighean Da Dearga, and death of the king; the tale of Maelduin’s three years’ wanderings in the Atlantic; tracts concerning the banishment of an ancient tribe from East Meath, and their discovery in the Northern Ocean by some Irish ecclesiastics; accounts of battles in the years 594, 634, and 718, and many other curious and valuable pieces and tracts. It is preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.

Two pages have been selected. The first contains the plan of the Teach Miodchuarta of ancient Tara, with a portion of the prose preface to the poem, which the plan is intended to illustrate. This ground‐plan differs somewhat in the shape of the hall and the arrangement of the tables from that given in the _Book of Leinster_, an earlier copy of a different original. It is also very much superior to it, both as regards the drawing and writing. The _daul_ and his spit are unrepresented here, but there is the door, the common hall, the swinging lamp and candles, the great double‐handed vase, called the _dabhach_ or vat, and three places marked out for the fires. The arrangement of the hall appears to have been this: Each of the two outside compartments contained twelve seats, and each seat three sitters; the two _airidins_ or divisions on either side of the centre of the hall held each eight seats and sixteen sitters. There were eight distributors, cup‐bearers, and herdsmen at the upper end of the hall, and two sat in each of the two seats on either side of the door, being the two door‐keepers and two of the royal fools. The daily allowance for dinner was two cows, two salted hogs, and two pigs. The quantity of liquor consumed is not specified, but the poem states that there were one hundred drinkings in the vat, and that the vat was supplied with fifty grooved golden horns and fifty pewter vessels. The order of precedence seems to have ranged from the top of the external division to the left on entering the hall; then to the top of the external division to the right; then the two internal divisions beginning with the left; then the _iarthar_ or back part of the hall, the upper end opposite the door; and last the seats on either side of the door itself. There is no seat marked for the king, but it is stated in the poem that a fourth part of the hall was at his back and three‐fourths before him, and he is supposed to have sat about a quarter of the way down the centre of the hall with his face toward the door, which would place him between two of the great fires, with the artisans on his right and the braziers and fools on his left hand. It is probable, however, from no mention being made of the king’s seat, and no provision being made for him in the appropriation of the daily allowance of food, which is specified in as many rations as there are persons mentioned in the plan, that this is not the plan of the royal banqueting‐hall, but of a portion of it only—the common dining‐hall for the officers and retainers of the palace; the monarch himself and his princes and nobles, none of whom are even alluded to in the plan, dining in another and superior apartment.

The second page contains a portion of the sorrowful tale of the loves of fair Deirdré and Naoisi, the son of Uisneach, one of the class of Irish legends called _Aithidhé_, or elopements. An outline of this story, in the commencement of which the reader will recognize that of one of his early nursery favorites, “Little Snow White,” is given by Keating in his _General History of Ireland_.

_The Book of Lecain Mac Firbisigh_, a folio of more than six hundred pages, was compiled in the year 1418 by Gilla Isa Môr Mac Firbis, Adam O’Cuirnin, and Morogh Riabhac O’Cuindlis. Its contents are nearly the same as those of _The Book of Ballymote_, to some of which it furnishes valuable additions, among the most important of which is a tract on the families and subdivisions of the territory of Tir Fiachrach in the present county of Sligo. The volume is preserved in the Royal Irish Academy.

Four pages have been selected, being a portion of a copy of the _Leabhar na g‐Ceart_, or _Book of Rights_, a metrical work attributed in the work itself to S. Benean or Benignus, S. Patrick’s earliest convert, and his successor in the Archbishopric of Armagh in the middle of the Vth century. These four pages, which are written in columnar form, contain the concluding ten verses of the stipends due to the chieftainries of Connacht from the supreme King of Cruachain; the metrical accounts, with their preceding prose abstracts, of the privileges of the King of Aileach; the payment and stipends of the same king to his chieftainries and tribes for refection and escort; the privileges of the King of the Oirghialla with the stipends due to him from the King of Erinn, and by him to his chieftainries; the rights, wages, stipends, refections, and tributes of the King of Eamhain and Uladh; and almost all the prose abstract of the rights of the King of Tara.

_The Book of Ballymote_, a large folio volume of five hundred and two pages of vellum, was written, as stated on the dorse of folio 62, at Ballymote, in the house of Tomaltach oig Mac Donogh, Lord of Corann, during the reign of Torlogh oig, the son of Hugh O’Conor, King of Connaught. It appears to be the work of different hands, but the principal scribes employed in writing it were Solomon O’Droma and Manus O’Duigenann, and it was written at the end of the XIVth century.

It contains an imperfect copy of the _Leabhar Gabhala_, or _Book of Invasions_, a series of ancient chronological, historical, and genealogical pieces in prose and verse; the pedigrees of Irish saints, and the histories and pedigrees of all the great families of the Milesian race, with their collateral branches, so that, as O’Curry remarks, there is scarcely any one whose name begins with “O’” or “Mac” who could not find out all about his origin and family in this book; then follow stories and adventures, lists of famous Irish names, a Gaelic translation of Nennius’ _History of the Britons_, an ancient grammar and prosody, and various other tracts.

Six pages have been selected. The first four contain the dissertation on the Ogham characters, and the last two the genealogy of the Hy Nialls, showing their descent from Eremon, one of the sons of Milesius. The volume belongs to the Irish Academy.

The last in Mr. Sanders’ list of the great volumes of Irish History is the _Book of M’Carthy Riabhac_, a compilation of the XIVth century—in language of a much earlier date—now also known as the _Book of Lismore_, to which a very curious story attaches. It was first discovered in the year 1814, enclosed in a wooden box together with a fine old crosier, built into the masonry of a closed‐up doorway which was reopened during some repairs that were being made in the old Castle of Lismore. Of course the account of its discovery soon got abroad and became a matter of great interest, especially to the antiquarian class of scholars. Among these there happened to be then living in Shandon Street, Cork, one Mr. Dennis O’Flinn, a professed Irish scholar. O’Curry says that he was a “professed but a very indifferent” one; but at any rate his reputation was sufficiently well grounded to induce Colonel Curry, the Duke of Devonshire’s agent, to send him the MS. According to O’Flinn’s own account, the book remained in his hands for one year, during which time it was copied by Michael O’Longan, of Carrignavan, near Cork; after which O’Flinn bound it in boards, and returned it to Colonel Curry. From that time it remained locked up and unexamined until 1839, when the duke lent it to the Royal Irish Academy to be copied by O’Curry, and O’Curry’s practised eye and acumen soon discovered that much harm had come to the volume during its sojourn in Shandon Street. The book had been mutilated, and, what was worse, mutilated in so cunning a way that what remained was rendered valueless by the abstraction, no doubt with the view of enhancing the value of the stolen portions as soon as it should become safe to pretend a discovery of them. Every search was made, especially by O’Curry, about Cork, to see if any of the missing pages could be found; but it was not till seven or eight years afterwards that a communication was made that a large portion of the original MS. was actually in the possession of some person in Cork, but who the person was, or how he became possessed of it, the informant could not tell. This clue seems to have failed; but soon afterwards the late Sir William Betham’s collection of MSS. passed into the library of the Royal Irish Academy by sale, and among these were copies of the lost portions, and all made, as the scribe himself states at the end of one of them, by himself, Michael O’Longan, at the house of Dennis Ban O’Flinn, in Cork, in 1816, from the _Book of Lismore_. The missing portions of the MS. were at length traced, and the £50 asked for them was offered by the Royal Irish Academy; but the negotiation ultimately broke down, and they were purchased by Mr. Hewitt, of Summerhill, near Cork. Since that time, however, they have been restored, and the whole volume excellently repaired and handsomely bound by the Duke of Devonshire, who has most liberally allowed it to remain in Mr. Sanders’ possession for the purpose of copying. Whether O’Flinn actually mutilated the volume or not, there can be no doubt that pages and pages of it have been ruined and will eventually be rendered illegible by the most reckless use of that pernicious chemical agent, infusion of galls. Besides this, Mr. O’Flinn has written his name in several places of the book, among others all over the colored initial letter of one of the tracts, which he has entirely spoiled by filling in the open spaces with the letters of his name and the date of the outrage. But perhaps the most characteristic act performed by him is the interpolation of an eulogistic ode upon himself in Gaelic, of which the following is a literal translation:

“Upon the dressing of this book by D. O’F., he said (or sang) as follows:

“’O old chart! forget not, wheresoever you are taken, To relate that you met with the Doctor of Books; That helped you, out of compassion, from severe bondage, After finding you in forlorn state without a tatter about you, as it should be. Under the disparagement of the ignorant who liked not to know you, Till you met by chance with learned good‐nature from the person(57) Who put healing herbs with zeal to thy old wounds, And liberally put bloom on you at your old age, And baptized you the _Book of Lismore_. Forget not this friend that esteemed your figure, Distinguishing you, (though) of unseemly appearance, in humble words. I doubt not that truly you will declare to them there That you met with your fond friend ere you went to dust.”