proof of what great and noble deeds may be accomplished under the most
adverse circumstances, and one of the many, if not one of the most,
triumphant denials of the often-repeated charges of indolence made
against the mendicant orders, and of aversion to learning made against
religious orders in general. Nor is it a less brilliant proof that
intellectual gifts may be cultivated and are fostered in the cloister;
and that a patriot's heart may burn as ardently, and love of country
prove as powerful a motive, beneath the cowl or the veil, as beneath the
helmet or the coif.

Michael O'Clery, the chief of the Four Masters, was a friar of the order
of St. Francis. He was born at Kilbarron, near Ballyshannon, county
Donegal, in the year 1580, and was educated principally in the south of
Ireland, which was then more celebrated for its academies than the
north. The date of his entrance into the Franciscan order is not known,
neither is it known why he,

"Once the heir of bardic honours,"

became a simple lay-brother. In the year 1627 he travelled through
Ireland collecting materials for Father Hugh Ward, also a Franciscan
friar, and Guardian of the convent of St. Antony at Louvain, who was
preparing a series of Lives of Irish Saints. When Father Ward died, the
project was taken up and partially carried out by Father John Colgan.
His first work, the _Trias Thaumaturgus_, contains the lives of St.
Patrick, St. Brigid, and St. Columba. The second volume contains the
lives of Irish saints whose festivals occur from the 1st of January to
the 31st of March; and here, unfortunately, alike for the hagiographer
and the antiquarian, the work ceased. It is probable that the idea of
saving--