A black-letter duodecimo, printed in London in 1584, under the anomalous
title of _Beware the Cat_, was advertised for sale in one of Thorpe's
Catalogues a few years back, at a price of seven guineas. The copy was
believed to be unique; it had been in the libraries of several book
collectors, and among others of Mr. Heber, who considered it the most
curious volume illustrative of the times, in all his vast collection. It
appears, by the short abstract of contents, that the book contains some
curious notices of Ireland and Irishmen; an "account" is given "of the
civil wars in Ireland, by Mackmorro, and all the rest of the wild Irish
lords." This hero was probably Art Kavanagh, "the Mac-Morrogh" (the
hereditary title of the chief of the Leinster septs) whose rebellions
were, on two occasions, the cause of Richard II.'s two great expeditions
to Ireland. Then follows the tale of "Fitz-Harris and the Prior of
Tintern Abbey." Fitz-Harris, or Fitz-Henry, was an Anglo-Irish baron,
who resided in the south of the county of Wexford, in the neighbourhood
of a convent, which having been founded by Marshal, Earl of Pembroke,
and supplied with monks from Tintern in Monmouthshire, was named after
the parent monastery. The Fitz-Harris's are said to have descended from
Meyler Fitz-Henry, the "indomitor totius gentis Hiberniæ," but they
became, to quote Spenser's adage current of the Anglo-Irish of his day,
"As Irish as O'Hanlan's breech;"
they "matched with the Kavanaghs of Carlow, and held with them," and
thus became involved in the interminable feuds of the native tribes,
and, like them, they left their estates to their bastards.
"The fashion of the Irish wars at that time" is there described, but
probably not more graphically than in Derrick's quaint doggrel verses.
"The Irish Churle's Tale" is next told; the churl was the husbandman,
the "Protectionist" of the day, who doubtless could tell many piteous
tales of oppression, rapine, and ravishment, whose only hope of
protection lay in acting as a sort of sponge to some "wild lord" (who
would guard him from being plundered by others, that he might himself
devour his substance), and whose "tenant-right" cry of that day was
"spend me, but defend me."
The volume affirms that "the wild Irishmen were better than we in
reverencing their religion:" the verb is used in the preterimperfect
tense. "The old Irish diet was to dine at night;" this is even a
stranger assertion. Higden, in his _Polychronicon_, declares of the
Irish clergy,
"They ben chaste, and sayen many prayers, and done great
abstinence a-day, and drinketh all night."