299 



he can scarcely be relied upon with any confidence, except where his 

 pi'aises of Ireland or its people may be more forcibly appealed to, as 

 the confessions of an adversary. 



His " Topographia Hibernica " is an attempt at a natural history 

 of Ireland, in which he furnishes a long detail of its zoology, and par- 

 ticularly of its birds. He censures,* perhaps with justice, the system of 

 agriculture pursued in Ireland, but praises the quality of the soil, and 

 is enthusiastic in his eulogy of the climate. -f In the Speculum Regale, 

 a work supposed to have been written about the middle of the twelfth 

 century, the climate of Ireland is noticed in much the same language 

 as by Giraldus, with an addition that " the domestic flocks of sheep 

 and oxen are continually fed out of doors, not but the inhabitants are 

 clothed as well in summer as in winter." This book, as it appears 

 partially extracted in the second volume of the Antiquarian Reper- 

 tory, details many curious traditions relative to Ireland, which Giral- 

 dus has also preserved, and particularly speaksj of one of its principal 

 cities as having been overwhelmed by a visitation of Providence, on 

 account of a wrongful judgment given there by a king, curiously coin- 

 ciding with the Irish account of the destructive inundation of Lough 

 Neagh.§ 



It may be permitted to add, that in the centuries immediately sub- 

 sequent to the English invasion, Richard of Cirencester will be found|| 

 nearly adopting the description given by Bede as referrible to his day ; 



* See post, section 6 of this Period. 



t " Terra terrarum hsec omnium temperatissima. Non Cancri calor aestuans compellit 

 ad umbras, non ad focos Capricomi rigor urgenter invitat. • * • * * Aeris quoque 

 dementia tanta est, ut nee nebula inficiens nee spiritus hie pestilens nee aura corrumpens. 

 Medicorum opera parvum indiget insula."— Top. Hib. Dist. 1. c. 25. 



I Antiq. Report, vol. ii. p. 336. § Ante, p. 46. 



II Lib. 1. c. 8. s. 6. 



Q Q 2 



K.v 



