[1] Cormac Ulfada, grandson of “Con of the hundred battles.” He reigned
forty years, and was honoured as a wise statesman and a philosopher.
[2] The reader who feels an interest in this subject, and in the Ossianic
controversy, is referred to the essays by the Rev. Dr. Drummond and Mr
O’Reilly in the fifteenth volume of the Transactions of the Royal Irish
Academy. In the Transactions of the Hiberno-Celtic Society Mr O’Reilly
observes, that “many beautiful poems are extant that bear the name of
Oisin, but there are no good reasons to suppose that they are the genuine
compositions of that bard. If ever they were composed by Oisin, they
have since suffered a wonderful change in their language, and have been
interpolated so as to make the poet and St Patrick contemporaries, though
the latter did not commence his apostolic labours in Ireland until the
middle of the fifth century, when by the course of nature Oisin must have
lain in his grave about one hundred and fifty years.”
Since this paper was sent to the press, the author has been assured by a
most competent Irish scholar that there are manuscript poems attributed
to Oisin not less than a thousand years old in the Library of the Dublin
University. It is much to be wished, for the honour of ancient Irish
literature and for the light which these poems may throw on some dark and
disputed topics of Irish history, that they may before long be properly
analysed and presented to the public.
[3] Thus Horace exposes the arts of the parasites and fortune-hunters of
Rome in a dialogue between Tiresias and Ulysses.