proportion to the readableness of his style, and the mode in which
his views may harmonize with the prevailing humour and complexion
of his contemporaries.

Such a work it is evident could not be effected by a single
individual. It must be a public and national undertaking, carried
out under the supervision of the Royal Irish Academy, at the
expense of the country.

The publication of the Irish bardic remains in the way that I have
mentioned, is the only true and valuable method of presenting the
history of Ireland to the notice of the world. The mode which I
have myself adopted, that other being out of the question, is open
to many obvious objections; but in the existing state of the Irish
mind on the subject, no other is possible to an individual writer.
I desire to make this heroic period once again a portion of the
imagination of the country, and its chief characters as familiar in
the minds of our people as they once were. As mere history, and
treated in the method in which history is generally written at the
present day, a work dealing with the early Irish kings and heroes
would certainly not secure an audience. Those who demand such a
treatment forget that there is not in the country an interest on
the subject to which to appeal. A work treating of early Irish
kings, in the same way in which the historians of neighbouring
countries treat of their own early kings, would be, to the Irish
public generally, unreadable. It might enjoy the reputation of
being well written, and as such receive an honourable place in
half-a-dozen public libraries, but it would be otherwise left
severely alone. It would never make its way through that frozen
zone which, on this subject, surrounds the Irish mind.