66 



medium the names of those chiefs have been handed down from 

 father to son, and are as tamihar to the most uncultivated Irish 

 ear as the commonest Christian names. 



OF LETTERS IN IRELAND. 



Bishop Stillingfleet informs us, through Gildas, who is reckoned 

 the most ancient and authentic British writer, that the gosjjel was 

 received in Britain before the defeat of its inhabitants by Suetonius 



Pauhnus,"^- wliich occurred A. D. 61. and he supposes that 



Lucius, King of part of Britain, had been baptized by Elvanus, 

 Medwinus, Foganus, or Duvianus, about the year 187. '">• It ap- 

 pears from Tacitus,'"- tliat, about the former year, Agricola in- 

 duced the sons of the principal British chiefs to apply themselves 

 to literature. 



Tertullian, Avho is supposed to be the most ancient Latin father, 

 speaking, about the beginning of the 3d centrury, against the Jews, 

 says, ' that territories of the Britons, inaccessible to the Roman arms, 

 had embraced Christianity.''''^- By this assertion, Ireland is imagined 

 to be meant, and this supposition is confirmed by other wri- 

 ters. Archbishop Usher informs us, that, in the time of the em- 

 peror Constantine, about the year 329, there were four bishops in 

 Ireland, Ailbeus, Declanus, Ibarus, and Kiaranus, who drew 

 many into the evangelical net.'^^- On the other hand. Prosper 



175. Histor. Collect, up to the Norman conquest, p. 110. 176. Eaedem, p. 198_ 



177. J. Agric. vita, 21. 178. Tohan. Lomeieri de bibliothecis, p. 149. and Archb. 



Parker, p. 1. Lloyd's Br. and Ir. p. 57. 179. Hist. Collect, p. 170. 



