The hymn, _A solis ortis
cardine_, and many others, are attributed to him.

[187] _Culdee_.--There was much dispute at one time as to the origin and
true character of the Culdees. The question, however, has been quite set
at rest by the researches of recent Irish scholars. Professor O'Curry
traces them up to the time of St. Patrick. He thinks they were
originally mendicant monks, and that they had no communities until the
end of the eighth century, when St. Maelruain of Tallaght drew up a rule
for them. This rule is still extant. Mr. Haverty (_Irish History_, p.
110) has well observed, they probably resembled the Tertiaries, or Third
Orders, which belong to the Orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis at the
present day. See also Dr. Reeves' _Life of St. Columba,_ for some clear
and valuable remarks on this subject.

[188] _Measure_.--The subject of Irish poetical composition would demand
a considerable space if thoroughly entertained. Zeuss has done admirable
justice to the subject in his _Grammatica Celtica_, where he shows that
the word rhyme [_rimum_] is of Irish origin. The Very Rev. U. Burke has
also devoted some pages to this interesting investigation, in his
_College Irish Grammar_. He observes that the phonetic framework in
which the poetry of a people is usually fashioned, differs in each of
the great national families, even as their language and genius differ.
He also shows that the earliest Latin ecclesiastical poets were Irish,
and formed their hymns upon the rules of Irish versification; thus quite
controverting the theory that rhyme was introduced by the Saracens in
the ninth century.

[189] _Order_.--This refers to the vision in which St. Patrick is said
to have seen three orders of saints, who should succeed each other in
Ireland.

[190] _Discipline_.--Bede, lib. iii. cap. 3. We have used Bohn's
translation, as above all suspicion.

[191] _England_.--Camden says: "At that age the Anglo-Saxons repaired on
all sides to Ireland as to a general mart of learning, whence we read,
in our writers, of holy men, that they went to study in
Ireland"--_Amandatus est ad disciplinam in Hiberniam_.

CHAPTER XII.

Christianity improves the Social State of Ireland--A Saxon Invasion of
Ireland--Domestic Wars--The English come to Ireland for Instruction--A
Famine and Tempests--The First Danish Invasion--Cruelty of the
Danes--The Black and White Gentiles--King Cormac Mac
Cullinan--Cashel--Amlaff the Dane--Plunde