212 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [ Vou. III. 
transferred into his Archzologia Britannica a large portion of O’Molloy’s 
Grammar, and especially that part of it which deals with Irish prosody. 
There is thus accessible to the Celtic student a somewhat full and cer- 
tainly a very interesting account of the laws that govern the formation of 
Irish poetry in its older forms. O’Donovan has appended to his valu- 
able Irish Grammar a chapter on versification, in which he apparently has 
expressed in more intelligible language the rules and explanations that 
are contained in O’Molloy’s Grammar. 
To understand the regulations by which Irish verse is affected, it is 
necessary to know the classification that the Irish poets were led to 
make of the consonants in their alphabet. 
I. S was called the queen of consonants. 
: Three soft consonants: p, c, t. 
pee uhnee hard -soroecds 
4. Three rough: 4; ch; th. 
5 
i) 
-ebive strone: lm, nn, ne, ir, 
6. Seven light: bh, dh, gh, mh, ]})n, r: 
There are three kinds of verse in Irish, Dan Dzreach, Oglachas and 
Bruilingeacht. That the Irish poets must have possessed a large measure 
of ingenuity and intelligence in the composition of their poems may be 
inferred from the remarks of O’ Molloy, who contends that the Dan Direach 
is the most difficult of all the metres that are found under the sun (quae 
sub sole reperiuntur.) 
O’Donovan thus expresses the seven requisites of the Dan Dereach. 
1. A certain number of syllables in each line. 
2. Four lines in each quatrain. 
Concord. 
Correspondence. 
Termination. 
OY So 
Union. 
Ge, lebertal 
Quartan is the term which O’Molloy uses to express one verse 2. é. 
one verse of the four verses that go to form a Quatrain, or Rann Iomlan 
as it is called by the Irish. 
The first couplet of the Rann Iomlan is called Seoladh or the leading. 
. The second is called Comhad or the closing. Concord or alliteration 
