the desert, they had filled the long gallery of a glorious past with
an array of portraits, the most superb presented by antiquity. Before
the Vocal Memnon poured forth his hidden melody at sunrise, or "The
City of a Hundred Gates" had sent forth her chariots to battle, they
had a local habitation and a name, and had stamped their impress
upon many a shore. No people in existence, to-day, can look back to
an origin more remote or clearly traceable through a countless lapse
of ages than the Irish: and hence it was, that at the period of the
Anglo-Norman descent upon their borders, the chivalry of a stupendous
past was upon them: and having its traditions and its glories to
maintain and emulate, and being, besides, inspired by the pure and
unadulterated crimson tide that had flowed in one uninterrupted
stream through their fiery veins for the space of two thousand years
previously, they shrank from the treacherous and dastardly system of
assassination introduced by the ignoble and cowardly Saxon, and
struck only to the dread music of their own war cry.

Still, although in detail hostile to the invader, no great, united
effort appears to have been made to rout him out root and branch,
until he had become so powerful as to make any attack upon him a
matter of the most serious moment, and had, in addition, enlarged
his borders through sundry reinforcements from his own shores. The
few more purely Norman leaders that were inspired with some desire
at least for a more honorable mode of warfare, were utterly powerless
among the overwhelming throng of their followers who had been long
brutalized on the other side of the channel. In this connection
the proud, revengeful and chivalrous natives were had at a sad
disadvantage; for then, as to-day, they were characterized by a spirit
of knight-errantry, which disdained to take an enemy unawares.