Transcribed from the 1912 J. M. Dent edition ,
I, who, at the expense of threeyears’ labour, arranged, a short time ago, in three parts,the Topography of Ireland, with a description of its naturalcuriosities, and who afterwards, by two years’ study,completed in two parts the Vaticinal History of its Conquest; andwho, by publishing the Itinerary of the Holy Man (Baldwin)through Cambria, prevented his laborious mission from perishingin obscurity, do now propose, in the present little work, to givesome account of this my native country, and to describe thegenius of its inhabitants, so entirely distinct from that ofother nations. And this production of my industry I havedetermined to dedicate to you, illustrious Stephen, archbishop ofCanterbury, as I before ascribed to you my Itinerary; consideringyou as a man no less distinguished by your piety, thanconspicuous for your learning; though so humble an offering maypossibly be unworthy the acceptance of a personage who, from hiseminence, deserves to be presented with works of the greatestmerit.
Some, indeed, object to this my undertaking, and, apparentlyfrom motives of affection, compare me to a painter, who, rich incolours, and like another Zeuxis, eminent in his art, isendeavouring with all his skill and industry to give celebrity toa cottage, or to some other contemptible object, whilst the worldis anxiously expecting from his hand a temple or a palace. Thus they wonder that I, amidst the many great and strikingsubjects p.146which the world presents, should choose to describe andto adorn, with all the graces of composition, such remote cornersof the earth as Ireland and Wales.
Others again, reproaching me with greater severity, say, thatthe gifts which have been bestowed upon me from above, ought notto be wasted upon these insignificant objects, nor lavished in avain display of learning on the commendation of princes, who,from their ignorance and want of liberality, have neither tasteto appreciate, nor hearts to remunerate literaryexcellence. And they further add, that every faculty whichemanates from the Deity, ought rather to be applied to theillustration of celestial objects, and to the exultation of hisglory, from whose abundance all our talents have been received;every faculty (say they) ought to be employed in praising himfrom whom, as from a perennial source, every perfect gift isderived, and from whose bounty everything which is offered withsincerity obtains an ample reward. But since excellenthistories of other countries have been composed and published bywriters of eminence, I have been induced, by the love I bear tomy country and to posterity, to believe that I should performneither an useless nor an unacceptable service, were I to unfoldthe hidden merits of my native land; to rescue from obscuritythose glorious actions which have been hitherto imperfectlydescribed, and to bring into repute, by my method of treating it,a subject till now regarded as contemptible.
What indeed could my feeble and unexercised efforts add to thehistories of the destruction of Troy, Thebes, or Athens, or tothe conquest of the shores of Latium? Besides, to do whathas been already done, is, in fact, to be doing nothing; I have,therefore, thought it more eligible to apply my industry to thearrangement of the history of my native country, hitherto almostwholly overlooked by strangers; but interesting to my relationsand countrymen; and from these small beginnings to aspire bydegrees to works of a nobler cast. <