e are remarkable. St. Sedulius (Siadal), A.D. 430, introduced from the
Irish the terminal sound-echo or rhyme into Latin verse. This innovation
was made in hymns, and as some of these, on account of their beauty and
style, were adopted and chanted in the Church (as some till this day are
sung), their influence in educating the ear and popularising rhyme over
Christendom was incalculable. Take this example of interwoven echoes:

"A solis =o=rtus car_dine_, =a=dusque terrae limi_tem_,
=C=hristum =c=anamus princi_pem_, natum Maria vir_gine_."[6]

Sedulius also produced a work of sustained power in hexameter verse,
consisting of five books of nearly 1,800 lines, entitled Carmen Paschale,
or The Paschal Song. It was the first great Christian Epic, and opened the
way for all which came after.

Now, in this great poem, characterised by so much originality and dramatic
power, Sedulius impresses certain marked Irish peculiarities upon the
classic hexameter. Thus, in the following passage, we find not only
examples of "concord" in the alliterated letters, but also of
"correspondence" in the terminal rhymes:

"Neve quis ignoret, speciem =c=rucis esse =c=_olendam_,
Quae Dominum =p=ortavit ovans, ratione, =p=_otenti_
=Q=uattuor inde plagas =q=uadrati colligit _orbis_.
Splendidus =a=uctoris de vertice fulget =E=_ous_,
Occiduo =s=acrae lambuntur =s=idere pl_antae_
=A=rcton dextra tenet, medium laeva =e=rigit =a=_xem_."

The influence of this remarkable epic, read as it was in all the Irish
(and all the Christian) schools on the Continent and in Britain, must have
been immense. The systematic adoption by its author of rhyme, assonant and
consonant, and of alliteration, must have moulded the forms of subsequent
literary production in all the nascent languages of Europe, north and
south, as it taught them the art of alliteration, of assonant, and of
consonant rhymes.

The influence of St. Brendan was not less vast. If the tale of his voyage
to the West, and his arrival in a land of fair birds and great rivers be
true, he discovered America a thousand years before Columbus. In any case,
this voyage to the Land of the Blessed stimulated the imagination of
generations. It has been termed a prelude to the "Divina Commedia," and,
taken with other mystical visions, which, starting from Ireland,
circulated over the Continent, it doubtless helped to direct the great
genius of Dante. In a similar manner an Irish visionary ta