Legendary fictions of the Irish Celts

OSSIANIC AND OTHER EARLY LEGENDS.
It never entered the head of the glorious author of the
Ihad, or its separate rhapsodies, to publish his work by
subscription, or sell his copyright to the Longman, or
the Murray, or the Macmillan of Ephesus or Athens
such literary patrons did not exist in his day. He recited
it in the Theatre or the Agora, and was well or ill re-
quited. So no Irish Bolg an Dana (wallet of poems) in
the good old times, with a new work ready for issue,
would walk into Luimneach, or Portlairge, or Baile-atha-
cliath,* with his manuscript in his scrip, and make
arrangement for its publication. He betook himself to
the hall of king or chief, or to tlie fair of Tailtean, and
recited his production to an excitable crowd. If the
subject was a fine-spun treatise in narrative, a la Balzac,
on the physiology of marriage, or the long-enduring woes
of a lady not appreciated by her coarsely-moulded
husband, or the tortures of a man of fashion who longs
* Limerick, Waterford, or Dublin.
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