simultaneously, was in the end accepted by all Erin as
its supreme law. It is contained in a volume called "the
Book of Rights," and in its printed form (the Dublin
bilingual edition of 1847), fills some 250 octavo pages.
This book may be said to contain the original institutes
of Erin under her Celtic Kings: "the Brehon laws," (which
have likewise been published), bear the same relation to
"the Book of Rights," as the Statutes at large of England,
or the United States, bear to the English Constitution
in the one case, or to the collective Federal and State
Constitutions in the other. Let us endeavour to comprehend
what this ancient Irish Constitution was like, and how
the Kings received it, at first.

There were, as we saw in the first chapter, beside the
existing four Provinces, whose names are familiar to
every one, a fifth principality of Meath. Each of the
Provinces was subdivided into chieftainries, of which
there were at least double or treble as many as there
are now counties. The connection between the chief and
his Prince, or the Prince and his monarch, was not of
the nature of feudal obedience; for the fee-simple of
the soil was never supposed to be vested in the sovereign,
nor was the King considered to be the fountain of all
honour. The Irish system blended the aristocratic and
democratic elements more largely than the monarchical.
Everything proceeded by election, but all the candidates
should be of noble blood. The Chiefs, Princes, and
Monarchs, so selected, were bound together by certain
customs and tributes, originally invented by the genius