TO THE MEMORY
OF
WORDSWORTH.



AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO "THE LEGENDS OF SAINT PATRICK."

The ancient records of Ireland abound in legends respecting the
greatest man and the greatest benefactor that ever trod her soil;
and of these the earlier are at once the more authentic and the
nobler. Not a few have a character of the sublime; many are
pathetic; some have a profound meaning under a strange disguise; but
their predominant character is their brightness and gladsomeness. A
large tract of Irish history is dark: but the time of Saint
Patrick, and the three centuries which succeeded it, were her time
of joy. That chronicle is a song of gratitude and hope, as befits
the story of a nation's conversion to Christianity, and in it the
bird and the brook blend their carols with those of angels and of
men. It was otherwise with the later legends connecting Ossian with
Saint Patrick. A poet once remarked, while studying the frescoes of
Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel, that the Sibyls are always
sad, while the Prophets alternated with them are joyous. In the
legends of the Patrician Cycle the chief-loving old Bard is ever
mournful, for his face is turned to the past glories of his country;
while the Saint is always bright, because his eyes are set on to the