chance he strake it through Osseyn's foot, which suffered it patiently, and after service done a great deal of blood appeared on the ground. Saint Patrick asked Osseyn why he did not complain when he felt himself hurt. He said that he thought it was part of the baptism. He was of the age of 7 score and 8 years at this time." (p. 9.)

I have already trespassed too far upon the indulgence of my readers. But they will, I trust, forgive me for setting before them the following description of the great Earl of Kildare and his interview with Henry VII. Popular histories represent that king as never unbending from that grave, serious, and reserved deportment in which Lord Bacon loved to contemplate him. Popular estimation regards him as a very wise king but a very disagreeable man. The following narrative presents him in a more favourable and pleasing light, and is all the more valuable as such notices of his character are exceedingly rare. It shows, moreover, that the dissimilarity between the unpopular father and the popular son, who bowed the hearts of his subjects as one man, was not so great as is generally supposed. But, not to detain the reader any longer, here it is :—

1

"Then (i. e. at that time) the Bishop of Methe bare the stroke, which, upon a time, the Earl watched, so that he chased the Bishop into a church to take succour. The Earl followed him, and commanded him to come at him. The Bishop said he would not. "No?" said the Earl; "then, by Saint Bride! I shall fetch thee out;" and commanded his men to light and follow him. The Earl went into the church with a drawn sword, and came where as the Bishop was kneeling in the chancel, and his shorn head bare. "By Saint Bride! were it not that I know my Prince would be offended with me, I could find in my heart to lay my sword upon your shaven crown;" and so took the Bishop.

"After this, a Deputy was sent over from the King, which required the Earl that he would let the Bishop [go] at large; which [he] did. After the Earl had his pardon, and came to Doublinge where he was taken in the evening, and sent forthwith in a bark

that then was at Dublinge, in a readiness, and so sent to England, and brought to the King to answer to such things that was laid to his charge. Amongst all other, the Bishop of Methe being there, did charge the Earl with sundry matters of great importance, to which matters the Earl could not make answer, but stayed his tongue awhile, and said he was not learned to make answers in such weighty matters, nor at that time was he not well advised of them; for he said that the Bishop was learned, and so was not he, and those matters was long agone out of his mind, though he had done them, and so [were] forgotten.

"The King answered, and bade him choose a counsellor, whom he would have, in England, and he should have him, and and also a time to be advised. "If you will so do," said the Earl, "I shall make answer to-morrow, but I doubt I should not have that good fellow that I would choose." Said the King, "By my truth thou shalt." "Give me your hand," said the Earl. "Here is my hand," said the King.

"The truth was, this Earl was but half a[n] innocent man without great knowledge or learning, but rudely brought up according the usage of his country, and was a man of no great wit, which the King well perceived, and did but jest at his demeanour and doings at court; for oft in his talk he thou'd the King and the rest of his council, which they took in good part.

"Well," said the King, "when will you choose your counsellor?" Said the Bishop, "Never, if it be put to his choice." "Thou liest brallaghe, bald Bishop," said the Earl; "as soon as thou wouldest choose a fair wench, if thou hadst thy wish, and that should be within this hour." With that the King and the lords laughed, and made game thereat, and asked the Earl if he said true. "By your hand," said he to the King, and took the King by the hand, "there is not in London a better mutton master or butcher than yonder shorn priest is. I know him well enough," said the Earl. "Well," said the King, "we shall talk of these matters another time." "I am content," said the Earl, "for I have three tales to tell thee of him, and I dare say it will make you all laugh that is here. If you tarry a while I shall tell you a good tale of this vicious prelate." The King and the Lords could not hold their laughter, but the Earl never changed countenance, but told this tale as though he were among his fellows in his country.

"Well," said the King, "it is best for you to choose well your counsellor, and be well advised whom you will choose, for I perceive

that your counsellor shall have enough to do in your cause, for anything that I perceive you can do." "Shall I choose now ?" said the Earl." "If you so think good," said the King. "Well, I can see no better man than you, and by Saint Bride! I will choose none other."

Well," said the King, by Saint Bride! it was well requisite for you to choose so, for I thought your tale could not well excuse your doings unless you had well chosen." Do you think that I am a fool?" said the Earl; "No!" said he, “I am a man in deed both in the field and in the town."

The King laughed, and made sport, and said, “A wiser man might have chosen worse." "Well," said the Bishop, "he is as you see, for all Ireland cannot rule yonder gentleman." "No?" said the King, "then he is meet to rule all Ireland, seeing all Ireland cannot rule him," and so made the Earl Deputy of Ireland during his life, and so sent him to his country with great gifts, and so the Earl came to Ireland."

From these extracts the reader may easily infer the general character of this chronicle. It would not be difficult to multiply passages not less pungent or less expressive of Irish life, feeling, and manners. It is the strong impress of their nationality which makes these early histories of Ireland the most amusing and in some respects the most explicit of any, if the reader will only remember that he is reading Irish history, and will not insist upon testing it by the stern rule of rigid and literal accuracy which he is accustomed to apply to history and its growth on this side of the Channel.

The Book of Howth is followed by another short chronicle of the Conquest of Ireland, written by Thomas Bray, or, at least, attributed to him by Carew. In Tanner's Bibliotheca the following brief notice is to be found of this author: "Thomas Bray, scripsit Anglice, cap. 62. Of The Con"quest of Ireland, Pr. "In the time that King Henry -." These are the opening words of the chronicle here printed (see p. 261). Tanner refers to the existence of the MS. among the Lambeth collections, and adds that

the writer apparently flourished three hundred years ago. I, am, however, inclined to think that this chronicle is the same as that which Dowdall is said to have translated from the Latin original (see ante, p. xv), and that Bray's work is only one of several versions. In The Book of Howth there is a more modern translation or rather an abridgment of the same work, which is there said to have been written in Latin and to have belonged to O'Nell, (p. 36); and in the fifth volume of the works of Giraldus Cambrensis, edited by Mr. Dimock, a long extract will be found of a still earlier version than either that of The Book of Howth or this of Thomas Bray; though, so far as I can judge from the specimen given by Mr. Dimock, less accurate than Bray's, or else printed from an inaccurate manuscript.* Both are identical in substance, and Bray follows closely this earlier version, only modernizing an expression here and there, as "calid" for "het" or hight," "befell" for "bettidd." "A Kynge whos name was Roury," appears in Mr. Dimock's copy "A Kynge that heyth Roure." "McMorgh name power with hym;" is in Bray, "McMorghewe toke with him many mene." "They bethoghten ham of the tene and the trayson;" is in Bray, thay bethoztene hame of cruelte and the treasone." "And so mych the blethcher (blither);" is in Bray "and miche radir." And so of many other passages.

66

* It would be easy to correct Mr. Dimock's readings by Bray. Thus, the unintelligible word "onenth" (p. xcv.) is in Bray "one euche halff." "Hell" in Mr. Dimock's transcript is "help" in Bray. "The forward inuved (the MS. seems to be "menced," says Mr. Dimock) bethwen ham, and othes swore," is evidently in MS. or transcript an error, owing to the omission of the word "covenants," and the true reading is preserved by Bray: "the forsayd covenantis rehersid and ineued (renewed) betwen thame." The handwriting of Bray's Chronicle is at times very puzzling, and the word "meved" misread or misprinted in the text (p. 264), has been corrected among the errata at the end of the volume.

Mr. Dimock has given this specimen from a MS. preserved in Trinity College, Dublin, under the notion that it was an "early English translation of the Expugnatio" of Giraldus Cambrensis; and such was the general opinion. But a very slight comparison of this English version with the Latin text of Giraldus will at once convince the reader that this is an error, and that what Mr. Dimock and others have supposed to be an early English translation of Giraldus is nothing more than a translation of the Latin chronicle once in O'Nell's possession which Carew calls the "Conquest of Ireland, written by Thomas Bray." Bray, like all other Irish writers of this period of Irish history, follows closely the footsteps of Giraldus; and though his work contains very little else than what is found in Giraldus, he evidently regarded himself in the light of an original compiler. This will be seen not only in the liberties he takes with the text of Giraldus, but also in his various references to Giraldus in the third person, and his criticisms on the works of the Welsh antiquary. Thus in Chapter LI., corresponding with the Expugnatio Hiberniæ of the latter, Bk. II., 20, p. 351 (ed. Dimock), we find the following notice of Giraldus, which is not in the Expugnatio, and was not likely to be, however exaggerated might have been the general notion of this author of his own merits

"And yn the same flytte came Maystyr Geraud, that Phylype ys brothyr and Robertes came, full goode "clerke, and a mane that al the conqueste and the state "of and the wondrys of Irlande and the kynde of pepylle "frome the bgynnyng ful ynwardly soght, and thre "boks therof makyd, withe grett travayle V. yer that he was ther about." And again, in chap. LIX. towards the close of his work, the author observes: "Mayster Geraud ne tellith no ferdir of the Conquest." And at

с