Note 40 — PREFACE.

“Oh wretched condition of our loved compatriots, the remains of a once happy people, steeped in blood and drenched in slaughter! Vain is your struggle for liberty, hapless crew of a bark long tempest-tossed, and now cast away forever. What! are we not wrecked on our own shores, and prisoners to the Saxons? Is not the sentence passed and our excision foredoomed? How are ye fallen from the ancient glories of your native land! Power degraded into weakness, beauty to deformity, freedom into slavery, and the song of triumph into elegies of despair. Nial, of the nine hostages, look not down upon us, lest thou blush for thy captive Gadhelians. Conn, of the hundred battles, sleep in thy grass-grown tomb, nor upbraid our defeats with thy victories.”—Oran (or song) of Ognive, the family bard of the last of the O’Neils.