119 



Armagh, which rose by the downfal of this northern Mantua, "nimium 

 vicina Cremonje," Camden and Speed attest, that its ruins were 

 visible in their days ; the former writes, " Juxta Ardmacham in colle 

 intumescenti supersunt rehquiae antiqui castri, ' Owen Maugh vo- 

 cant,' quod antiquam Regum Ultoniae habitationem fuisse ferunt ;"* 

 and Colgan, even in the beginning of the seventeenth century, bears 

 witness to the ruins of Eamania as then evidencing ancient splendor.-f- 

 Dr. Campbell, in modern times has visited it, and he says its site is 

 still traceable, all of it that could not moulder, in " a very large but 

 single circular entrenchment.".]: 



Tara, already alluded to,§ was a place of yet greater and more 

 modern celebrity. Colgan says, that it was situated in the plain of 

 Bregia, (" sitam fuisse in campo Bregiensium ;") and while this plain 

 of Bregia, extending between the Boyne, the LifFey, and the sea, 

 was honoured with other edifices besides those at Tara, the latter were 

 at least pre-eminent, by having been the residence of successive Irish 

 kings, for an alleged period of upwards of one thousand years. All 

 the foreign testimony that could establish such a fact, has been 

 already§ adduced, and the author of this Essay can here but take 

 leave in a short digression to describe the state of Tara as it appeared 

 to him on a recent visit. 



Approaching this celebrated scene from the metropolis, the tra- 

 veller, after pursuing his journey for miles over an extensive and 

 gently elevated plain, is surprised at not obtaining an earlier glimpse 

 of its eminence, nor is it till he finds himself at its base, that this 

 venerable mountain presents itself in an attitude of much interest but 



* Camden's Britannia, p. 766. 



t " Regia sedes Ultoniorum erat Eamania prope Ardmacham, nunc fossis latis vestigiis 

 murorum eminentibus et ruderibus pristinum redolens splendorem, Sic."— Trias Thaum. p. 6. 

 t Strictures, p. 18. n. § ^nu, pp. 71 gt seq. 



