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but the number of such minds was small, compared to the crowds, whose intellectual powers, superstition had impaired and degraded. If, then, national poetry has any influence on the formation of character, and that it has there can be no doubt, its power in the present instance could have no salutary tendency, at least, no very salutary tendency in a moral point of view. As it regarded the intellectual powers, though far inferior to the songs of other times, it was not useless. Whatever," says Dr. Johnson," withdraws us from the power of "our senses; whatever makes the past, the "distant, or the future, predominate over the "present, advances us in the dignity of think"ing beings."* The poetry and sceuldachs of even those degenerate times had this happy effect; and as has been shewn in the former chapter, they awakened the curiosity, and preserved it from sinking into that total inactivity of mind which naturally results from the melancholy stillness of despotism, and which, while it continues, renders amelioration, either in the savage of the wood,or in the vassal of the tyrant, hopeless. Viewed in this light, the quibbles of the schoolmen, and the trifling disputations

* Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides.

of a Thomas, and a Scotus, have not been without their use.

But there is another circumstance, besides those already mentioned, which must have contributed to produce a change in the character of the national poetry, as well as those injurious effects which this charge has occasioned. Under the reign of Elizabeth, laws were enacted against the order of the bards:* some of these it is thought fled to the Western Isles. Those that remained in their own country were of course still more indignant than their ancestors, against that government which made them the objects of persecution. And though the laws were not very strictly put in execution, yet their very existence tended to kindle into madness, the hatred of men whose order had for centuries been inveterate in their hostility to the English. This aversion was expressed by invectives on the meanness, and cruelty, and avarice of the Gall; on the inglorious conduct of their countrymen who had submitted to their enthralling yoke; and by celebrating the intrepidity and patriotism of those daring individuals, whose firm resistance to the power that overwhelmed them, as well as the fatal necessity by which that resistance was * See note C.

occasioned, seemed fully to sanction the sanguinary means by which this power was withstood.*

Hence we can easily account for the view which Spencer gives of the pernicious influence of the bards in raising rebellion against the English government, and in extolling the valiant deeds of outlaws and robbers. "These Irish "bards are for the most part so far from in"structing young men in moral discipline, that "they themselves do more deserve to be sharply "disciplined: for they seldom use to choose "unto themselves the doings of good men for "the arguments of their poems; but whomsoever "they found to be most licentious of life, most "bold and lawless in his doings, most dange

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rous and desperate in all parts of disobedience "and rebellious disposition: him they set up "and glorify in their rithms, him they praise "to the people, and to young men make an "example to follow."-Thus, "evil things "being decked and attired with the gay attire "of goodly words, may easily deceive and

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carry away the affection of a young mind that "is not well stayed, but desirous by some bold "adventures, to make proof of himself. For being (as they all be) brought up idly, withou

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* See note D.

"awe of parents, without precepts of masters, "and without fear of offence, not being directed "nor employed in any course of life which

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may carry them to virtue; will easily be "drawn to follow such as any shall set before' "them; for a young mind cannot rest: if he "be not still busied in some goodness, he will "find him such business, as shall soon busy "all about him. In which, if he shall find any "to praise him, and to give encouragement as "those bards and rithmers do for little reward,

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or a share of a stolen cow, then waxeth he "most insolent and half mad with the love of himself, and his own lewd deeds. And "as for words to set forth such lewdness, it is not hard for them to give a goodly and painted shew there unto, borrowed even from "the praises which are proper to virtue itself:

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as of a most notorious thief and outlaw, "which had lived all his life-time upon spoils "and robberies, one of their bards in his praise "will say, that he was not one of the idle "milk-sops that was brought up by the fire"side; and that most of his days he spent in "arms and valiant enterprises: that he did "never eat his meat, before he had won it "with the sword: that he lay not all night "slugging in a cabin under his mantle; but "used commonly to keep others waking to de

"fend their lives; and did light his candle at "the flames of their houses, to lead him in the "darkness: that the day was his night, and "the night his day: that he loved not to be

long wooing of wenches to yield to him; but "where he came he took by force the spoils of "other men's love, and left but lamentation to "their lovers: that his music was not the harp, "nor lays of love, but the cries of people and clashing of armour: and finally, that he died, "not bewailed of many, but made many "wail when he died, that dearly bought his "death."*

The persons whom Spencer here mentions as "desperate in all parts of disobedience and "rebellious disposition" were no doubt those who gloried in resisting the English government. It is highly probable, however, that in the progress of time the whole of his description may have been literally verified; and that the mere disturbers of the peace, the banditti of the woods and mountains, assumed that praise which is the legitimate reward of patriotism and virtue. This is the more probable since the plunderers of every description, while they confined their attacks to the Gall, or Saxons, were rather popular than otherwise with their country men, and re