crossed the solitary waste, I never was in
loneliness. My sight begins to fail, for I
have seen thy grave, my Naoise! soon shall
my spirit fly away, for the people of my
lamentation live not."

We have shortened that last dirge from
a little book—Poems of Oisin, Bard of Erin,
&c.—in which Mr. J. H. Simpson, the Irish
antiquary, has lately published translations of
some of the ancient poems of his country.
A Welsh scholar, Mr. D. W. Nash, has also
published under the name of "Taliesin, or
the Bards and Druids of Britain" a larger
critical work, including valuable translation
of choice remains of the earliest Welsh
bards. These volumes will enable us to sound
again a steady note from the Bronze Horn.

To this day, in Irish cabins, women croon
songs of the Fenii (ancient militia) of Erin who
have been, from almost the earliest days of
our era, the theme of Irish song. The Fenii's
day of greatest glory was in the reign of
Cormac Mac Art, about the middle of the
third century, when Fionn Mac Cumhal of
the tribe of Baoisgne was their leader. This
army of Ireland was in the pay of the Irish
kings, billeted during the winter season on
the people, and receiving its hire from the
kings, but obliged in summer to depend for
food upon fishing and hunting, and for pay
upon the value of the skins of beasts they
hunted. They were sworn to defend the
country and the coast, to uphold the rights of
the crown, and to secure the lives and
property of the people. They ate one meal
a-day, and cooked the meat for a whole
company with hot stones in a single pit. Deep
marks of these fires are still found upon Irish
soil, and are called by the country people
Fulacht Fian. After dinner they made beds
with care; branches of trees next the ground,
moss over them, and rushes over all, formed
the three beds of the Fenii. In time of peace
their force was of three battalions with three
thousand men in each. In time of war these
numbers were more than double. There
were set over them and under each chief of
battalion rulers of ten, rulers of fifty, rulers
of a hundred. The man called in old chronicles
Fear Comhlan, a man able to fight a
hundred, is the man who led a hundred into
battle. Every soldier of the force was
required by Fionn to swear that when he
married it would not be for a woman's wealth,
but for her virtue and her courtesy—that he
would wrong no woman—never deny meat
or drink, when he could give it to the poor, and
that he would never refuse to fight nine men
of any other nation.

Also Fionn closed his ranks against
those whose relatives did not formally
abandon their own right of blood revenge in
case a soldier should be slain, and leave the
matter wholly to his comrades. That was the
first of the ten qualifications for admittance
into the army of the Fenii. The second was
that the youth should be well acquainted
with the twelve books of poetry, and should
be able to compose verses. Thirdly, he was to
be perfect master of defence. To prove this,
he was set up to his knees in a field of sedge,
having in his hands a target and a hazel stake
as long as a man's arm. Nine experienced
soldiers, from a distance of nine ridges of
land, then hurled their spears at him in the
same moment, and if one spear wounded him
he was dismissed with a reproach. Fourthly,
he was to run well, and know how to defend
himself while flying. He was made to run
through a wood, with a start of a tree's
breath, pursued by the whole host of the
Fenii; if he was overtaken or wounded
he was sent away as being too sluggish a
recruit. Fifthly, he was to prove strength of
arm. Sixthly, he was to run through a wood
in chase with his hair tied up, and be
discarded if the hair broke loose and fell about
his shoulders. Seventhly, he was to be so
swift and light of foot as not to break a rotten
stick by treading over it. Eighthly, he was
to be able to leap over a tree as high as his
forehead, and to stoop under a tree that was
lower than his knees. Ninthly, he was to
be able while running, without lessening his
speed, to draw a thorn out of his foot. Tenthly,
he was to take an oath of fidelity to the
commander of the Fenii. Of all which conditions,
gravely says an Irish antiquary, "So
long as these terms of admission were
exactly insisted upon, the militia of Ireland
were an invincible defence to their country,
and a terror to rebels at home and enemies
abroad."

Oisin the greatest of the ancient Irish bards
(transformed by Mac Pherson into the Scotch
Ossian) was Fionn's son, and Fergus Fibheoil
(sweet lips) was the chief bard of Fionn, the
heroic favourite of Cormac O'Conn, king of
Ireland.

In the days of Oisin the Fenii were
suppressed by force. The national army had, by
dissentions within its own body, split into
two clans, the Clanna Boisgue, commanded
by Oisin, and the Clanna Morna, then
protected by the king of Monster. The two clans
fought for precedence, and at last, defying the
power even of the king, were suppressed by
royal troops in a great battle, during which
Osgar, the son of Oisin, was slain by the
king's own hand. One Irish chronicle says
that in this battle all perished except Oisin
himself, who lived on until he was old enough
to have that dialogue with Saint Patrick, of
which many passages are slill repeated by
the peasantry of Mayo. The whole of it has
been preserved in sundry manuscripts by
antiquarians of past years.

Saint Patrick bids Oisin awake and attend
to the psalm, but Oisin replies, My swiftness
and my strength have deserted me, since the
Fenii, with Fionn their chief, are no longer
alive: for clerks I have no attachment, and
their melodies are not sweet to me. Patrick,
I have heard melody better than your music,