and anxiously desired, and from whom liberal encouragement may, therefore, be expected." The histories of Ireland from the pens of Keatinge, MacGeoghegan, O'Halloran, and others, contain little of Irish church history beyond a few detached anecdotes, in great part fabulous, chronologically inaccurate, and often contradictory. Usher, no doubt, collected much valuable material for the very early history of our national Church, in which he was largely assisted by Dr. Rothe, Roman Catholic Bishop of Ossory; and in Ware's "Bishops" we have also much useful information. But the supplemental matter supplied by Harris is far from being trustworthy; and Dr. Lanigan frequently found it necessary to expose the errors and looseness of that writer, hitherto in the enjoyment of a high reputation. The Irish monasticons were useful in furnishing materials for ecclesiastical history; "but great caution," said Dr. Lanigan, "must be observed in using them, as they frequently abound in error, particularly Archdall, who converts into monasteries all the churches founded by St. Patrick and our earliest native saints, is often inaccurate in his chronologies, and frequently confounds persons and places with each other that are totally different." Ledwich he also convicted of numerous blunders. "The book, miscalled Antiquities of Ireland,'" wrote Dr. Lanigan, "would, from its title, lead one to suppose that some information on this subject might be obtained from it; but upon examination it will be found to contain a studied misrepresentation of our ancient history; that some of our earliest saints, of whose existence no doubt can be entertained, are by him attempted to be annihilated; that by the magical effects of his pen he laboured to transform St. Senan into a river, St. Kevin into a rock, and St. Patrick, the great Apostle of our nation, into a nonentity. The reputation this book has obtained with a particular class of readers and authors, who 6 8 wish to degrade the Irish below the level of the most barbarous nations, called for particular animadversion from me; and if, in the course of the observations made on the errors, misrepresentations, and ignorance of its writer, some asperity is indulged, the apology is more due to the reader than to the author of such palpably malevolent falsehoods." Ledwich he repeatedly proved to be a false witness against his fatherland, and specimens might be freely given of the manner in which he loved to hit him hard. It is to be hoped that the mortifying plight in which Lanigan left Ledwich did not accelerate his death, which followed within the next few months.* If Dr. Lanigan mortally stabbed with his iron pen the inflated errors of Archdall and Ledwich, he magnanimously spared the brilliant myths of Moore. He does not disturb the romance with which the names of St. Kevin and Kathleen are entwined; but the more malicious gossip of false guides receives no quarter. The lucubrations of Lanigan possessed one advantage on which he did not touch. His researches among dusty tomes and musty records had the effect of imparting an additional sparkle and charm to some of the most picturesque parts of the rural scenery of Ireland. For example, Mr. Frazer, in his guide to Wicklow, when giving an account of the religious cell belonging to St. Mogoroc, the brother of St. Canoc, who flourished about the year 492, writes: "The situation of this cell was unknown until the identity of Dergne, or Delgne, with Delgany was pointed out by * Amusing proofs of the errors and asperity of Dr. Ledwich may be found in Lanigan's history, vol. i., pp. 11, 14, 35, 48, 51, 53, 54, 57, 58, 65, 68, 70, 72, 74, 75, 77, 78, 186, 294, 368, 380, 456, 459; vol. ii., pp. 16, 46, 95, 109, 123, 151, 153, 202, 210, 250, 253, 257, 294, 295, 332, 368, 379, 386, 398. 425; vol. iii., pp. 89, 94, 160, 161, 249, 272, 346, 353, 357, 358, 359, 360, 379, 405, 472, 480, 481; vol. iv., pp. 31, 32, 34, 65, 66, 72, 103, 113, 114, 119, 147, 149, 150, 177, 180, 203, 240, 291, 293, 299, 316, 324, 354, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 366, 388, 395, 398, 401, 405, and 408-one of the best of them. invested with an additional halo of fascination after a perusal of his researchful notes ? Clonmacnoise assumes new attraction under his learned and gossipping guidance; bright Innisfallen peeps from its nest in the dark waters of Killarney with more "tempting ray;" to the Rock of Cashel nobody could have a more instructive cicerone than the old Tipperary priest; and he treats of Kells with such fulness and distinctness, that one almost fancies he hears the toll of its bell summoning to synod, under the auspices of Paparo, the Papal Legate, prelates and mitred abbots, vicars and chancellors, priors and priests. Dr. Petrie, describing Mellifont Abbey in the Dublin Penny Journal of 24th November, 1832, observes: "It was supposed by some, but erroneously, as Dr. Lanigan satisfactorily shows, that here was held the synod of 1152, at which Cardinal Paparo, as the Legate of Pope Eugene III., distributed four palliums for the Sees of Dublin, Tuam, Armagh, and Cashel. It, however, was really held at Kells, in Meath." Lanigan corrected, with a fluent pen, some curious mistakes into which Colgan, Usher, and Ware fell; but as the passages to which he took exception were the result of oversight rather than of design, he employed in the exposure a more temperate phraseology than that which had so successfully smashed Ledwich. The easy conclusiveness with which our historian disposed of a controversy which had long vexed the pens of Gabrial, Colgan, Pennotus, and others, was highly characteristic. In reply to the much-disputed question as to whether St. Patrick belonged to the order of Augustinian Hermits, Dr. Lanigan clearly showed, on the authority of Papal bulls, that inasmuch as the Augustinian Hermits did not exist until the beginning of the thirteenth century, St. Patrick, who flourished in the fifth, could not well have been one of them. Another historian left in no enviable plight by Lanigan was Giraldus Cambrensis, whom he pronounces in his preface to be "false and flimsy." The inaccuracies of this author and his followers Dr. Lanigan fully exposed and refuted by proofs drawn from the most unquestionable sources, foreign and domestic. By long study and much reading on the subject of Irish ecclesiastical history, Dr. Lanigan was peculiarly qualified to detect the untruths and malicious aspersions thrown out against the Irish Church and people. The huge misrepresentation respecting the Culdees to which Toland, amongst our native writers, and Jamieson, Smith, and others, amongst the Scotch, gave expression, rendered indispensable a particular inquiry into the office and duties of that religious order. Having consulted a mass of authentic documents, Dr. Lanigan placed the subject in a most lucid point of view. Among the minor authors whom Dr. Lanigan pilloried for their blunders, may be named Hanmer, Campbell, Cressy, Campion, Dempster, and Dachery. In administering chastisement-and few knew how to deal it better-Dr. Lanigan was singularly impartial. It may be said that some of the writers he assailed were dead, and that the courage displayed in his analysis was not commensurate with its sting and vigilance. This remark does not apply to that most formidable of literary antagonists, Dr. Milner, then in the zenith of his literary power, whom Dr. Lanigan brings repeatedly to task for the strange mistakes pervading his Letters on Ireland. However expert Milner may have been in polemically pummelling the Bishop of St. David's, he was constantly tripping on Irish ground. "Dr. Milner," writes Dr. Lanigan, "would do well not to meddle again with Irish history until he shall have learned something more about it." It must be admitted that Dr. Milner, in his otherwise valuable work, rather provoked these retorts, for in his "Inquiry into certain Vulgar Opinions regarding the Antiquities of Ireland," he says: "Most of the writers who enlighten Ireland at the present day, in religious as well as in profane literature, are Englishmen." Although the great Milner was never more at home than when describing the antiquities of Winchester, addressing the clergy of the Midland District, or handling points of religious controversy, it was evident that the classic apothegm, Ne sutor ultra crepidam, applied to him when he failed to leave Ireland to the Irish. Dr. Lanigan handled Milner, and the other authors with whom he differed, roughly. Indeed it seems to us that an adherence to the style of "under-statement” would have made some of his corrections more effective and striking. But it was a blemish of the day to call things by their right names, and Dr. Lanigan followed the example of O'Connell and Cobbett. It is right to |