for in Scholasticism, as in a forge, the intellect of the Middle Ages was
fired, tempered, and made supple, keen, and trenchant. Hence, with all
its powers awakened and under alert control, it was rendered fit for the
production of the new sciences of modern times. Nor should it be forgotten
that Fearghal the Geometer had but recently died, whose daring scientific
speculations as to the Antipodes had shocked the stiff-minded Saxon
Boniface. Dicuil brought exact science to bear on a cognate subject, in
his work on the measurement of the earth--a work which has been
republished in several foreign countries, but never in his native land.

The multitudes of students who flocked to Paris to hear Erigena, contented
with couches of straw in the Rue de la Fouarre and old halls of the
University, were not the last who invaded it to hear an eloquent Irishman.
Four hundred years later, in the very beginning of the fourteenth century,
another, and perhaps a still more illustrious, representative of Irish
thought, in the person of Duns Scotus the Subtle Doctor, throned it over
the minds of men. So great was his renown that when in 1308 he came to
Cologne the city accorded him a triumphal entry, more splendid than a
king's.

Far, in every sense, from such ovations is that desolate island off the
Scotch coast, where, in the sixth century, "a grey eye turned ever in
vain" towards that Ireland "where the songs of the birds are so sweet,
where the clerks sing like birds, where the young are so gentle, the old
so wise, and the maidens so fair to wed." The exile charges his parting
pupil to bear his blessing, part to Alba, part to Ireland--"seven times
may she be blessed.... My heart is broken in my breast. If death comes to
me suddenly, it will be because of the great love I bear the Gael."

Columba is the first Irish poet of exile--of which our nation has such sad
experience since. His poetry, like his life, is instinct with the deepest
affection for his native land, whilst his work has been the most fruitful
in influence over the intellectual development of Scotland and England.
From the island of Iona, chiefly, went forth that persuasive power which
carried education over Britain. The majority of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms,
all the North of England, where English learning and literature took its
rise, were bathed in an Irish intellectual atmosphere. Caedmon began his
song in this environment, and when later, in the eight century, Engli