nry VIII. He says:

"It is a great abuse and reproach that the laws and statutes made in
this land are not observed nor kept after the making of them eight days,
while diverse Irishmen cloth abuse and keep such laws and statutes which
they make upon hills in this country, firm and stable, without breaking
them for any favor or reward."

By a statute of Parliament enacted at Kilkenny, it was made high treason
to administer or observe these old Brehon laws. The two enactments
especially obnoxious to the English were Gahail Cinne, and Eiric. The
former of these enactments was that which in opposition to the English
law of primogeniture declared that the estate of a parent should descend
in equal proportion to all members of the family. There was another law,
or custom, among this people, which provided that the chief of the tribe
or people should be elected by general suffrage.

We have something more than a hint of the condition of ancient Ireland
and its people in a description given by the Greeks of one of its
inhabitants. Abarras, who visited Greece about six hundred years before
Christ, and who was called by the Greeks a Hyperborean, was a priest of
the Sun, who went abroad for the purpose of study and observation, and
to renew by his presence and his gifts the old friendship which had
long existed between the Celts and the Greeks. Strabo remarks concerning
Abarras that he was much admired by the learned men of Greece. Himerius
says of him that he came

"not clad in skins like a Scythian, but with a bow in his hand, and a
quiver on his shoulders and a plaid wrapped about his body, a gilded
belt encircled his loins, and trousers reaching from his waist downward
to the soles of his feet. He was easy in his address, agreeable in
conversation, active in dispatch and secret in the management of great
affairs; quick in judging of present occurrences, and ready to take his
part in any sudden emergency; provident, withal, in guarding against
futurity; diligent in quest of wisdom, fond of friendship; trusting
very little to fortune; yet having the entire confidence of others, and
trusted with everything for his prudence. He spoke Greek with so much
fluency that you would have thought that he had been bred or brought up
in the Lyceum and had conversed all his life with the Academy of Athens.
He had frequent intercourse with Pythagoras whom he astonished by the
variety and extent of his knowledge."

From the descriptions gi