it did not enjoy the light of the true religion), yet very superior
to it in point of material well-being. Not a race of cannibals, as
the credulous Diodorus Siculus, on the strength of some vague
tradition, was pleased to delineate; but a people acquainted with
the use of the precious metals, with the manufacture of fine tissues,
fond of music and of song, enjoying its literature and its books;
often disturbed, it is true, by feuds and contentions, but, on the
whole, living happily under the patriarchal rule of the clan system.

The ruins which are now explored, the relics of antiquity which
are often exhumed, the very implements and utensils preserved by
the careful hand of the antiquarian--every thing, so different
from the rude flint arrows and barbarous weapons of our North
American Indians and of the European savages of the Stone period,
denotes a state of civilization, astonishing indeed, when we reflect
that real objects of art embellished the dwellings of Irishmen
probably before the foundation of Rome, and perhaps when Greece
was as yet in a state of heroic barbarism.

And this high antiquity is proved by literature as well as by art.
"The ancient Irish," says one of their latest historians, M.
Haverty, "attributed the utmost importance to the accuracy of their
Historic compositions for social reasons. Their whole system of
society--every question as to right of property--turned upon the
descent of families and the principle of clanship; so that it cannot
be supposed that mere fables would be tolerated instead of facts,
where every social claim was to be decided on their authority. A
man's name is scarcely mentioned in our annals without the addition
of his forefathers for several generations--a thing which rarely
occurs in those of other countries.