267 



And, as he was the friend and pupil of the family of Mac Firbis, the 

 most learned and intelligent of the professed Antiquarians of Ireland, 

 there is reason to. believe that the Exposition in question was not 

 only written but coniposed in Scotland, and that it was either un- 

 known to the Irish Antiquaries, or overlooked by them." This con- 

 clusion is not justified by the facts. We do not know that the Mac 

 Firbises ever wrote any thing on the Tain bo Cuailgne, and O' Fla- 

 herty might have mentioned it without thinking the " Critical Expo- 

 sition" worth notice. There are different tales both in verse and 

 prose which treat of this plunder of the cows of Cuailgne, an ancient 

 district, the principality of the hero Cuchullin, which is included in 

 the present County of Louth. Three or four of those tales are in the 

 possession of the writer of these sheets, two of which have the name 

 of Tain bo Cuailgne, both agreeing in the subject, but widely differ- 

 ing from each other in composition and age. One of these is doubt- 

 less, a copy of the same original as the copy in the possession of the 

 Highland Society, which original, notwithstanding the judgment of 

 Doctor Smith, cannot be of an earlier-date than the fifteenth century. 

 The other is of greater antiquity by some centuries, and may be one 

 of the tales to which O' Flaherty alluded when he speaks qi J \multis 

 pofiticis Jigmentis." 



fi It is really astonishing that Doctor Smith could be silly enough 

 to suppose that the omission of O'Flaherty in not noticing this " Cri- 

 tical Exposition," is a proof that the 7am was composed in Scotland, 

 when that very Exposition declares that it was written in Ireland, 

 by an Irishman, and at the instigation of the king of Connaught. If 

 Doctor Smith had sufficient candour to state facts, he would have 

 told, for he must have known it, that the tale itself gives positive 

 proof, besides these in the " Critical Exposition," that it was not 

 written in Scotland. The story is extremely ridiculous, and would 



VOL. XVI. N N 



