nvocation follows a preface, the second part of this
remarkable poem. In this there is a glowing account of the tortures and
sufferings of the early Christian martyrs; it tells "how the names of
the persecutors are forgotten, while the names of their victims are
remembered with honour, veneration, and affection; how Pilate's wife is
forgotten, while the Blessed Virgin Mary is remembered and honoured from
the uttermost bounds of the earth to its centre." The martyrology
proper, or festology, comes next, and consists of 365 quatrains, or a
stanza for each day in the year.

It commences with the feast of the Circumcision:--

"At the head of the congregated saints
Let the King take the front place;
Unto the noble dispensation did submit
Christ--on the kalends of January."

St. Patrick is commemorated thus, on the 17th of March:--

"The blaze of a splendid sun,
The apostle of stainless Erinn,
Patrick, with his countless thousands,
May he shelter our wretchedness."

On the 13th of April, Bishop Tussach, one of the favourite companions of
the great saint, is also mentioned as--

"The kingly bishop Tussach,
Who administered, on his arrival,
The Body of Christ, the truly powerful King,
And the Communion to Patrick."

It will be remembered it was from this saint that the great apostle
received the holy viaticum. In the third division of his great work,
Aengus explains its use, and directs the people how to read it.

It will be manifest from these poems that the religious principles of
the Culdees and of the Irish ecclesiastics generally, were those of the
Universal Church at this period. We find the rights of the Church
respected and advocated; the monarchs submitting to the decision of the
clergy; invocation of the saints; the practice of administering the holy
viaticum; and the commemoration of the saints on the days devoted to
their honour.

Usher observes, that the saints of this period might be grouped into a
fourth order.[189] Bede says: "That many of the Scots [Irish] came daily
into Britain, and with great devotion preached the word and administered
baptism.... The English, great and small, were by their Scottish [Irish]
masters instructed in the rules and observances of regular
discipline."[190] Eric of Auxerre writes thus to Charles the Bald: "What
shall I say of Ireland, which, despising the dangers of the deep, is
migrating with her whole train of philosoph