of his own servants. Though no former princes had ever
encountered dangers equal to these--yet in no previous
century was the person of the ruler so religiously
respected. If this was evident in one or two instances
only, it would be idle to lay much stress upon it; but
when we find the same truth holding good of several
successive reigns, it is not too much to attribute it to
that wide diffusion of Christian morals, which we have
pointed out as the characteristic of the two preceding
centuries. The kings of this age owed their best protection
to the purer ethics which overflowed from Armagh and
Bangor and Lismore; and if we find hereafter the regicide
habits of former times partially revived, it will only
be after the new Paganism--the Paganism of interminable
anti-Christian invasions--had recovered the land, and
extinguished the beacon lights of the three first Christian
centuries.

The enemy, who were now to assault the religious and
civil institutions of the Irish, must be admitted to
possess many great military qualities. They certainly
exhibit, in the very highest degree, the first of all
military virtues--unconquerable courage. Let us say
cheerfully, that history does not present in all its
volumes a braver race of men than the Scandinavians of
the ninth century. In most respects they closely resembled
the Gothic tribes, who, whether starting into historic
life on the Euxine or the Danube, or faintly heard of by
the Latins from the far off Baltic, filled with constant
alarm the Roman statesmen of the fourth century; nor can