Bland, which is of Scandinavian origin, is made by pouring boiling water into new-churned buttermilk, when the curds sink to the bottom, and the liquid, after standing a little time, undergoes a slight fermentation: in a few months it becomes as clear as water, possessing a very agreeable portion of acidity. The Icelanders use a similar beverage under the same denomination. The Shetlanders are remarkable for hospitality, and a stranger finds no difficulty in procuring accommodation at a moderate charge, where inns are not convenient. The law enacted in the reign of James the I. did not extend to the Shetland islands, otherwise the individual might be without lodgings, since that act prohibited persons putting up at any places but inns, or, as they were termed, hostelries. The resident gentlemen have not only comfortable dwellings, but plenty of the necessaries and most of the luxuries of life. In ancient times, wine was so abundant, that at marriages it was customary to wash the feet of the bridegroom in a tab of wine. The Shetland and Orkney islands are supplied with spirits and other liquors, partly from their own distillation and partly from Holland, England, Scotland, and even, during the fishery season, from the northern parts of Ireland.

In Ireland, where distillation is carried on to greater extent than in any other portion of the world of equal magnitude, and where it forms a branch of such great commercial importance and enterprise, the speculative mind is naturally led to enquire into the causes which have produced such wonderful efforts in this branch of trade. At what time, therefore, this art was introduced into Ireland is a subject equally interesting to the artisan and the philosopher. The better to come to a correct conclusion on the point, it will be necessary to take a view of the state and progress of the arts and of agriculture in this country from a remote period. Ireland, it is admitted, was the seat of learning and the sciences, when all the other parts of Europe were involved in darkness. From the early settlement of eastern emigrants and the frequent intercourse with foreign nations, it might be thought that the knowledge of distillation, if such an art were then known, must have been coeval with the first settlers.

Vallancey asserts on good authority, that the Bramins, or as some will have it, the Druids, came into Ireland along with the Scythians, and, according to Gebelin, brought with them numerous improvements in philosophy and the arts.

On comparing the customs of the Phoenicians and Irish, a great similarity appears. Both worshipped Bel, or the sun, the moon, and stars, and many of the practices of that intelligent commercial people were prevalent in Ireland, because a constant intercourse was kept up

between our ancestors and that nation. Vallancey shews that every thing we owe to the Milesians had an Oriental origin, and Sir William Jones is of opinion that the Goths and Hindoos had originally the the same language, gave the same appellations to the stars and planets, and had the same religious rites and opinions, as also that the Greeks took their pagan deities, with the fables and the whole machinery of their mythology, directly or indirectly, from India, where all are still found in the Sanscrit books and Indian temples. Cæsar tells us that the Druids were great astronomers, and it is curious that the Irish word for a year, literally signifies the circle of Bel, or the sun. The ancient customs of the country proclaim, in a great number of other instances, their Eastern descent. The practice of employing mourners to lament the loss and sing the praises of the deceased, is manifestly derived from the Jews, as well as that of drinking at wakes, which, it is to be lamented, has been too often abused. This excess was carried to such a height by the Israelites, that the Sanhedrim made a decree that ten cups only should be drunk on such occasions.* Homer's account of the dirges sung by the women at the funeral of Hector, proves the antiquity of the cry or dirge, as used by the ancient and modern Irish. In Russia, a similar practice prevails, when mead is carried to the grave to be drunk as a parting offering to the deceased.

Pearce, during his residence in Abyssinia, observed that a cry similar to that in use in Ireland, was common amongst the Abyssinians at their funerals, particularly at the burial of persons of distinction. There are numbers of men and women in that country, who gain a living by making rhymes and attending at cries; and if they are superior poets, they receive high wages in corn, cattle, and cloth. He was acquainted with a very handsome middle-aged woman, who, though she had a large estate to live on, had studied poetry from her infancy, and attended gratuitously at all cries, in order to distinguish herself. The same description of women are employed to conduct the cry, even at the present day in Ireland; and many of them are very happy in their recitations on those occasions. To such effusions the celebrated Curran attributed his early predilection for poetry and oratory.

Christianity, which carries with it civilisation in all its bearings, was first introduced into this island from Asia, and not directly from Rome, all concurring to prove the extent of our intercourse and com

* Vide Mathew ix. 23., also 2 Chron. xxxv. 25.

munications with other nations. If the Phoenicians, Egyptians, or any of the Asiatics, were, at an early period, acquainted with distillation, it is likely that they would have introduced it into Ireland, where they came in great numbers to traffic and to settle. These colonists would also diffuse a spirit of commercial enterprise through the country, which would render its harbours better known than those of the adjacent isles.

Accordingly, we learn from Tacitus, that "the ports and landingplaces of Hibernia were better known than those of Britain, through the intercourse of merchants ;"* and it appears that in the time of Ptolemy the town of Wexford was familiar to that geographer.† The Leabhar Lecan, or Liber Lucanus, distinctly mentions, that, at a very early period, the Irish had made great progress in the arts, in the dyeing of purple, blue, and green, and in the separation and refining of gold.‡ On the river Liffey in particular, A. M. 2815, in the reign of Tighernmas, there was a great smelting house where orban and orbuid, white and yellow gold were refined; and a famous artist called Juachadan or Uachadan of Cualane, in the county of Wicklow, brought the manufacture of cups and goblets from this metal to great perfection.

That the art of making glass was early known in Ireland, is certain from the specimens of that and crystal found in the cairns raised in honour of the dead; and this is further confirmed by what has been dug up from the ruins of old buildings, particularly from those of Down, which were rudely painted and scarcely transparent, as if done in the infancy of the invention. We are informed that St. Patrick shewed to Ailbeus, one of his disciples, an altar of beautiful workmanship having a glass chalice at each of its four corners.

The familiarity of any art often prevents an account of it, and hence the paucity of information, which some of the most enlightened writers have in their records, respecting inventions and other matters, a knowledge of the origin of which would be, at the present day, of the highest interest.

If we are to credit our early annalists, magnifying glasses and the use of the telescope were known to the Irish Druids; and that even the polarity of the loadstone was not to them a secret; nor the effects of gunpowder among the arcana of philosophy and the other phenomena of physical science. Hence it is inferred, that the shaking of the Druidical grove near Marseilles, as described by Lucan, and the strange

Vita Agricolæ, c. 24. For the materials used in the art of dyeing, among the ancient Irish, see Walker's Historical Essay on the dress of the ancient Irish, p. 261. 2d Ed. 8vo.

† O'Halloran's Ireland, vol. ii. pp. 246, 434.

sounds echoing from it, with the flickering blaze issuing therefrom, arose from a preparation of materials similar to gunpowder.

The skill of the Irish in other respects is confirmed by the variety, richness, and splendour of the various articles discovered from time to time in different parts of the kingdom, such as swords, with gold handles, shields of pure silver, helmets and corslets cased with gold, horse-trappings, and even bridle-bits of the same precious metal. The crowns of the ancient monarchs were of pure gold. O'Halloran mentions two he had seen, neither of which had the cross on it, which renders it probable that they were made before the introduction of Christianity. One of these crowns, Walker, in his Irish Bards, says, was dug up in 1692 in the county of Tipperary, and which is thought to be still preserved in France.†

Our annals relate that at a very early period of the world, A. M. 3355, at Arigiod-Ross, on the banks of the Suir, there was a mint for the coinage of money, where, even before that time, shields and targets of pure silver were fabricated, and a mint was erected at Clanmacnois for the coinage of silver. So rich was the country in the precious metals, and affording so many opportunities to exercise the ingenuity of the artisan, that the tax on Leinster paid annually to the monarch, for a series of 400 years, was in part 6000 ounces of pure silver, 3000 copper cauldrons, 3000 mantles richly embroidered ; while Cormac Cas, in A. D. 222, was enabled to bestow 300 ounces of silver in a day as rewards to the bards and literati. Music and poetry were particularly cherished, and had arrived to a degree of perfection unequalled in other countries. To this some of the earliest writers bear testimony: Cambrensis says, “that of all the nations within our knowledge, the Irish is beyond comparison the chief in musical compositions ;" and Geminiani, the celebrated Italian Composer, who was struck with the harmony of our airs, declared that “he found none of so original a turn on this side of the Alps." Handel himself confessed he would rather have been the author of Aileen Aroon than of all the music he had ever composed.

Neither were the Irish less attentive to commerce than to the encouragement of the arts, for in the reign of Ollamh-Fodhla, A.M. 3082, amongst other wise regulations of that monarch, were enacted laws for the extension of trade and the improvement of manufactures; and to prevent imposition or breaches of these regulations, sixty persons conversant in those affairs were usually despatched into the different great cities and manufacturing towns to discover abuses, and prevent persons not properly qualified to carry on trade or manufactures to the injury of the country. As a proof of the very • Hist. vol. ii. p. 92. † Hist. of the Irish Bards, vol. ii. 32.

early intercourse we had with other nations, and with the Carthaginians in particular, it is affirmed, that the victory obtained at Cannæ is much to be attributed to the valour of Irishmen, since the swords found on the field of battle as well as the shields dug up there, were the same as those used by the ancient Irish; and when the Carthaginian and Irish swords were examined by the assay-master of the mint, he pronounced that they were cast in the same mould.* It was even asserted by early writers, and credited by Usher, that Connal Cearnach, master of the Ulster Knights, was actually at Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion of our Saviour, and that he related the whole story to Cormac, king of Ulster, on his return to Ireland.

From all these circumstances, it is quite evident, that whatever may have been the extent of the knowledge of the arts at those early times, the Irish were familiar with it, whether serviceable or ornamental; and that the use of liquors must have been well known among a people so conversant with the manners and habits of other nations. This opinion is further corroborated by the accounts we have of an order of people during the time of the Druids, called beatachs, brughnibhs, or keepers of open houses, established for the express purpose of hospitality. No man could presume to assume the title of Beatach, who had not seven town-lands comprising seven ploughed lands, he was also to have seven ploughs going, and to be master of seven herds of cattle, each herd containing one hundred and twenty cows; his house was to be accessible by four different roads, and a hog, a beef, and a mutton, were always to be ready for the entertainment of the traveller, and of such houses not less than eighteen hundred belonged to the two Munsters. The keepers of these open houses were distinguished by a garment of four colours, which was a high mark of respect, when it is known that they ranked next to the nobility, who were privileged to wear only five colours. This laudable spirit of hospitality derived from our Scythian ancestors, is, to this day, kept up amongst the various hordes of Asiatics, who are confessedly descended from the same stock. Burckhardt speaks of these houses of hospitality in Syria, and says, that taverns are open in each district for the accommodation of travellers, at the public expense, in which all sojourners are maintained as long as they choose, provided they do not unnecessarily prolong their stay. Hence few of the natives, when travelling, think of putting money into their pockets, because they are sure of being everywhere well received, and of living as comfortably, and perhaps better than

* O'Halloran, vol. ii. Prel. Disc. p. 54.