"operaintelligentes intelligibilia fenfibilibus operibus " & corporibus revelerunt." (page 481.) Quas "quidem catenas tantæ effecaciæ poteftatis effe "credebant, ut mox ac myitici eorum characteres, juxta legum facrarum præicriptionem, fimulachro "fuiffent infculpti, hoc ipfo virtutem acquirere admirandum contra omnes adverfarum poteftatum "machinationes putarent." (Kircher.)

This accounts for the multitudes of these chains being found in Ireland. I have in my poffeffion a filver ring for the finger; the device is one of these ring-chains it was found in a bog near Athlone,it contains also some Egyptian characters.

THIRD LETTER

From CHARLES O'CONOR, Efq; to COLONEL VALLANCEY.

SIR,

YOUR favourable reception of two letters of mine, on the Pagan ftate of Ireland, encourages me to offer you a third, and I offer it with fome confidence, as what I have written, and what I have now to add, will be found to receive no mean fupport from your own learned researches on the origin and literature of the antient inhabitants of this country. Your knowledge on this fubject, was drawn from various, but clear fources: mine must be more confined, as it has been extracted chiefly, from the documents ftill preferved in our antient language. In the darkness which enveloped our earliest domeftic accounts, I found fome objects visible, and indeed diftinct enough, to enhance expectation, that thofe on which time had caft a fuller light, would be worthy of attention. I have endeavoured to fhow, that many facts expofed in our more antient

reports,

reports, are not the inventions of our old Bards, but the remains of fome memorable transactions, over which poetic license had spread a garb of fable, in the times which preceded the more enlightened periods of civilization. In labouring to separate the true from the falfe, I had the example of many able antiquaries to justify me, as I had the example of others to guard against, who on the prefent fubject, published little elfe, befides their ignorance and confidence. In the most celebrated countries of Europe, as well as in this detached island, many important truths regarding the early ftate of mankind, have been obfcured in the fables of the poets, our first hiftorians. It was thus even in Greece, whofe old inhabitants borrowed the elements of their knowledge, from nations they afterwards ftyled Barbarians. Their earliest accounts are fhrouded in fiction and mythology, and to ftrip off that covering, has given employment to fome great names of the last and prefent century. They laboured with great advantage to literature, and added to the fum of our knowledge. They would ftill add more, had they undertaken the prefent fubject, and previously ftruck out for themselves, the lights you have ftruck out for others, who may hereafter employ their abilities upon it, to discover the antient courfe of government and manners in Ireland, through the feveral ftages of youth, maturity and decline. But this fubject fhould be undertaken in the prefent age, before the documents we have left are loft, or rather before the few who can read and explain them, drop into the grave.

Some

Some of those materials difperfed in England and France, cannot readily be confulted. Some that I have been collecting for many years are valuable;

my

and of fome equally valuable, put into hands by Col. Cunningham and yourself, I have (I think) made fome good ufe. I was far from being difcouraged by an idea induftriously propagated, that the old annals of this country, are unproductive of the instruction which history should afford, for rectifying civil legiflation, or fecuring the just rights of individuals in every degree of subordination. I was as little obstructed by another idea, which undoubtedly has plausibility to countenance it. Many fenfible men cannot conceive, how a nation of iflanders, cut off for many ages, from intellectual intercourses with Greece and Rome, could antecedently to the reception of Christianity, tranfmit any hiftorical memorials of themselves, while the other northern nations of Europe tranfmitted none, 'till inftructed by the example of their Roman conquerors. This negative argument, and the great pains taken of late, to fhew its fufficiency, might have weight with yourfelf, fir, on your revolving this uncommon circumftance first in your mind. But on reflection, you did not think it enough, to reft upon a bare negative, and you found no difficulty in fuppofing, that this nation undisturbed through many ages, by foreign invafion, might in their Pagan ftate, obtain the elements of arts and literature, from inftructors different from thofe of Greece and Rome. On examination, you difcovered ftrong marks of fuch an event, and they led you to conceive, that this fequeftered people, might in favourable conjunctures,

improve

improve the rudiments of fcience they fortunately received; and that once poffeffed of the means, they did not neglect the practice, of registering the operations of their own minds, on every fubject that occurred to them. Examples of fuch improvements in other countries, and in early times might be produced, and fatally, fome examples also, of a relapse to the favage state, through conquefts and extirpation. But fuch calamities, in the extreme, were never experienced in Ireland.

On this fubject you have been almost fingular in hitting on means of investigation, the most effectual for obtaining the certainty which removes doubts, and filences controverfy. They are means which no British Antiquarian, before you, the excellent Mr. Lluid excepted, had the patience to employ. To your knowledge of the Hebrew, Syro-Chaldaic, and other oriental tongues, from which the Phanician was derived, you have with great labour, added the knowledge of our own Iberno-Celtic, as preferved in our old books; and thus enabled to compare the latter with the former, you could on finding in the language of Ireland, a much greater number of Hebrew and Punic terms, than could fall in by mere accident, conclude that the tradition among the old natives, of early intercourfes between their Ancestors and the Orientals, is well-grounded. You made the trial, and, very probably, fucceeded beyond your expectation. This led you to examine whether the writings which contained the words, had retained any facts alfo, which might be quoted as additional proofs of thofe early intercourses. In this research likewise, you had fuccefs: Prepared by

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