Lectures on the Early History of Institutions | Page 5

the Continent in the first
century before Christ; but, even if we could do so, Caesar expressly
states of the Gauls that, though they were acquainted with writing, they
had superstitious scruples about using written characters to preserve
any part of their sacred literature, in which their law would then be
included. Such objections would, however, necessarily disappear with
the conversion of the Irish people to Christianity. On the whole there is
no antecedent improbability in the tradition that, soon after this
conversion, the usages of the Irish began to be stated in writing, and
Celtic scholars have detected not a little evidence that parts of these
more venerable writings are imbedded in the text of the Book of Aicill
and of the Senchus Mor.
It is extremely likely that the most ancient law was preserved in rude
verse or rhythmical prose. In the oldest Irish traditions the lawyer is
distinguished with difficulty from the poet, poetry from literature. Both
in the Senchus Mor and in the Book of Aicill the express statement of
the law is described as 'casting a thread of poetry' about it, and the
traditional authors of the Senchus Mor are said to have exhibited 'all the
judgements and poetry of the men of Erin.' Modern Irish scholarship
has, in fact, discovered that portions of the Senchus Mor are really in
verse. The phenomenon is not unfamiliar. Mr Grote, speaking of the
Elegiacs of Solon, and of the natural priority of verse to prose, says
(History of Greece, iii. 119), 'the acquisitions as well as the effusions of
an intellectual man, even in the simplest form, (then) adjusted

themselves not to the limitations of the period and semicolon, but to
those of the hexameter and pentameter.' There is no question, I
conceive, that this ancient written verse is what is now called a survival,
descending to the first ages of written composition from the ages when
measured rhythm was absolutely essential, in order that the memory
might bear the vast burdens placed upon it. It is now generally agreed
that the voluminous versified Sanscrit literature, which embraces not
only the poetry of the Hindoos, but most of their religion, much of what
stands to them in place of history, and something even of their law, was
originally preserved by recollection and published by recitation; and
even now, in the Sanscrit schools which remain, the pupil is trained to
exercises of memory which are little short of the miraculous to an
Englishman.
The tracts are of very unequal size, and the subjects they embrace are
of very unequal importance. But all alike consist of an original text,
divided into paragraphs. Above or over against the principal words of
the text glosses or interpretations are written in a smaller hand, and a
paragraph is constantly followed by an explanatory commentary, also
in a smaller hand, written in the space which separates the paragraph
from the next. The scarcity of material for writing may perhaps
sufficiently account for the form taken by the manuscripts; but the
Celts seem to have had a special habit of glossing, and you may have
heard that the glosses written by early Irish monks between the lines or
on the margin of manuscripts belonging to religious houses on the
Continent had much to do with the wonderful discoveries of Zeuss in
Celtic philology. A facsimile of part of two Brehon manuscripts, one in
the British Museum, and the other in the Library of Trinity College,
Dublin, may be seen at the beginning of the second published volume
of the translations. It seems probable that each tract was the property,
and that it sets forth the special legal doctrines, of some body of
persons who, in modern legal phrase, had perpetual succession, a
Family or Law School; there is ample evidence of the existence of such
law schools in ancient Ireland, and they are another feature of
resemblance to the India of the past and in some degree to the India of
the present.

The text of each of the published tracts appears to have been put
together by one effort, no doubt from pre-existing materials, and it may
have been written continuously by some one person; but the additions
to it must be an accumulation of explanations and expositions of
various dates by subsequent possessors of the document. I quite agree
with the observation of the Editors, that, while the text is for the most
part comparatively consistent and clear, the commentary is often
obscure and contradictory. Precisely the same remark is frequently
made by Anglo-Indian Judges on the Brahminical legal treatises, some
of which are similarly divided into at text and a commentary. As
regards the ancient Irish law, the result of the whole process is anything
but satisfactory to the modern reader. I do