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OF THE DRUIDS. f)3s^'emiine, besides such as are forg d,numbers interpolated*and greaterseveral whereof are in Irelanditself, some here in England, and others inthe Irish monasteriesabvoad: but that, notwithstandingthe long state of barbarity in which thatnation hath lain, and after all the rebellionsandwars with which the kingdom has been harass'd;they have incomparably more antient materials oftliat kind for their history (to whicli even their mythologyis not unserviceable) than either the Englishor the French, or any other European nation,with whose manuscripts 1 have any accjuainta?ice.Of these I shall one day give a catalogue, markingthe places w here they now ly, as many as I know ofthem; but not meaning every transcript of the samemanuscript, which wou'd be endless, if not impossible.In all conditions the Irish have been strangelysolicitous, if not to some degree supersitious,about preserving their books and parchments;even those of them which are so old, as to be nowpartly or wholly unintelligible.Abundance, thro'over care, have perished under ground, theconcealernot having skill, or wanting searcloth andother proper materials for preserving them. Themost valuable pieces, both in verse and prose, werewritten by their heathen ancestors;whereof some* As the Urakeacht na nelgios^ L e. the accidence of the art.i3ts, or the poets ; which being the work of Forchern beforrnam'd,was interpolated, and fitted to his own time, by CcanaFaoladh. the son of OilioU, ia the, vcbv of Thr^s^ 628.