116 



unknown to their colony,* or that in another view, so great an integral 

 part of the Druidical system of education in Gaul and Britain, could 

 be unrevealed in Ireland, particularly after the devastation of Mona. . 



Of the medical knowledge of the day, Pliny attributes much to 

 the Druids of Gaul, which should be equally accessible to the inhabi- 

 tants of Ireland, and especially extols their acquaintance with sanative 

 herbs j-f- while the continuators of Tigernach, at A. D. 366, comme- 

 morate J the death of a king as by poison, and of a princess by a 

 poisoned draught. 



The Phoenicians are said to have been the first inventors, not only 

 of astronomy, but also of arithmetic ;§ and here also our parallel is 

 confirmed, by the existence of some extremely ancient Irish treatises 

 on that subject, especially a highly curious one preserved in the Liber 

 Niger, or Black Book of Christ Church, II exhibiting the state of the 

 science before the introduction of Arabic numerals. 



Of the learned men of this interval, few are capable of being illus- 

 trated by foreign testimony, notwithstanding that the native annals 

 speak of many, and particularly that Cormac, King of Ireland, in the 

 third century, wrote several works on politics and jurisprudence; while 

 Sir George M'Kenzie, in his Defence, expressly says, " I have seen a 

 very old MS. brought from Icolmkill, written by Carbre Liffeachair, 

 [the son of that Cormac,] wherein is given a full account of the Irish 



* Strabo admits, (Geog. lib. 16.) that it was from the Phoenicians astronomy came to 

 the Greeks. 



t See Nat. Hist. 1. 16. c. 4.— 1. 24. cs. 4 and 12.— 1. 25. c. 9.— 1. 29. c. 3. and 1. 26. 

 in proem. 



; 2 O'Conor, Rer. Ilib. Script, p. 77. 



§ Diog. Laert. in proem, seg. 11. p. 8. — Jamb, in Vit. Pythag. c. 29. p. 135. — Laughton's 

 Ancient Egypt, p. 68. 



II See Reports of Commissioners, 1810 to 1815, p. 307. 



