ance, as they enable the critical student of our
language to determine the meaning of many obscure or obsolete words or
phrases, by reference to the originals; nor are they of less value as
indicating the high state of literary culture which prevailed in Ireland
during the early Christian and the Middle Ages. Poetry, mythology,
history, and the classic literature of Greece and Rome, may be found
amongst these translations; so that, as O'Curry well remarks, "any one
well read in the comparatively few existing fragments of our Gaedhilic
literature, and whose education had been confined solely to this source,
would find that there are but very few, indeed, of the great events in
the history of the world with which he was not acquainted."[13] He then
mentions, by way of illustration of classical subjects, Celtic versions
of the Argonautic Expedition, the Siege of Troy, the Life of Alexander
the Great; and of such subjects as cannot be classed under this head,
the Destruction of Jerusalem; the Wars of Charlemagne, including the
History of Roland the Brave; the History of the Lombards, and the almost
contemporary translation of the Travels of Marco Polo.

There is also a large collection of MSS. in the British Museum, a few
volumes in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, besides the well-known,
though inaccessible, Stowe collection.[14]

The treasures of Celtic literature still preserved on the Continent, can
only be briefly mentioned here. It is probable that the active
researches of philologists will exhume many more of these long-hidden
volumes, and obtain for our race the place it has always deserved in the
history of nations.

The Louvain collection, formed chiefly by Fathers Hugh Ward, John
Colgan, and Michael O'Clery, between the years 1620 and 1640, was widely
scattered at the French Revolution. The most valuable portion is in the
College of St. Isidore in Rome. The Burgundian Library at Brussels also
possesses many of these treasures. A valuable resume of the MSS. which
are preserved there was given by Mr. Bindon, and printed in the
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy in the year 1847. There are also
many Latin MSS. with Irish glosses, which have been largely used by
Zeuss in his world-famed _Grammatica Celtica_. The date of one of
these--a codex containing some of Venerable Bede's works--is fixed by an
entry of the death of Aed, King of Ireland, in the year 817. This most
important work belonged to the Irish monaste