3t2 



rfbrated their value ; the records are now before the public eye, and 

 they speak their own powerful appeal. They are the unadorned state- 

 ments of naked facts, dates, names, and places, faithfully and honestly 

 delivered, like those of ancient Rome, whose kindred simplicity 

 Cicero records.* 



'' In the most remote era of these annals, they singularly mingle and 

 coincide with Rabbinical traditions, which only modern centuries 

 have made known in Europe ; their narratives of Pagan days abound 

 with such unqualified praises of the Heathen priesthood and their 

 actions,"!" as at once evince an origin too deeply rooted in the memo- 

 ries of the people, for even the jealous vigilance of Christianity to era- 

 dicate. They present those antiquated expressions and phrases,;}; 

 which, like the inscriptions on coins and medals, determine their own 

 era ; yet, strange to say, in many instances, where the frequent recur- 

 rence of this self evidencing antiquity has rendered some MSS. diffi- 

 cult to be understood, less pains-taking inquirers than Doctor O'Conor, 

 have at once pronounced the memorials worthless or wholly unintelli- 

 gible ; like the Princess Micomicona in Don Quixote, who confidently 

 inferred that her father's MSS. were either Greek or Chaldean, be- 

 cause she could not understand them. 



These are not the only testimonies to the histories under conside- 

 ration ; their chronology is marked by the most accurate calculations 

 of eclipses and astronomical observations, and confirmed by the testi- 

 mony of Sir Isaac Newton in his accounts of contemporary nations 



' '. • " Ab initio rerum Romanarum usque ad Publium Mutium pontificem maximum, his- 

 toria nihil aliud fuit nisi annalium confectio. • ♦ • • » Hanc similitudinem scribendi 

 multi secuti sunt sine ullis ornamentis, monumenta solum temporum, hominum, locorum, ges- 

 tarumque rerum reliquerunt." — Cicero de Orator, lib. ii. c. 12. 



t See Warner, vol. i, pp. 280, 287 and 298, and Smith's Cork, vol. i. p. 45. 



J See 1 O'Conor, Rer. Hib. Script. Prol. Part i. p. Ixxxix. 



