able among them to have that faculty. Besides, the people of the isles are not so credulous as to believe implicitly before the thing predicted is accomplished; but when it is actually accomplished afterwards, it is not in their power to deny it, without offering violence to their own sense and reason. Besides, if the seers were deceivers, can it be reasonable to imagine that all the islanders who have not the second sight should combine together, and offer violence to their understandings and senses, to enforce themselves to believe a lie from age to age. There are several persons among them whose title and education raise them above the suspicion of concurring with an impostor, merely to gratify an illiterate, contemptible set of persons; nor can rea

sonable persons believe that children, horses, and

cows, should be pre-engaged in a combination in favour of the second sight."-MARTIN's description of the Western Islands of Scotland, p. 3, 11.

NOTES TO O'CONNOR'S CHILD.

Verse 1. 1. 1.

Innisfail, the ancient name of Ireland.

Verse 2. 1. 9.

Kerne, the plural of Kern, an Irish foot soldier.

In this sense the word is used by Shakspeare.

Gainsford in his Glory's of England, says, "They

F5

(the Irish) are desperate in revenge, and their kerne

think no man dead until his head be off"

Verse 3. 1. 12.

Shieling, a rude cabin or hut.

Verse 4. 1. 3.

In Erin's yellow vesture clad.

Yellow, dyed from saffron, was the favourite co

lour of the ancient Irish. When the Irish chieftains

came to make terms with queen Elizabeth's lord lieutenant, we are told by sir John Davis, that they

came to court in saffron-coloured uniforms.

Verse 4. 1. 16.

Morat, a drink made of the juice of mulberry

mixed with honey.

Verse 6. 1. 13 and 14.

Their tribe, they said, their high degree,

Was sung in Tara's psaltery.

The pride of the Irish in ancestry was so great, that one of the O'Neals being told that Barrett of Castlemone had been there only 400 years, he replied, that he hated the clown as if he had come there but yesterday.

Tara was the place of assemblage and feasting of the petty princes of Ireland. Very splendid and fabulous descriptions are given by the Irish historians of the pomp and luxury of those meetings. The psaltery of Tara was the grand national register of Ireland. The grand epoch of political eminence in the early history of the Irish is the reign of their