Brehon Laws, the ancient body of laws under which the Celtic Irish lived for many ages, to which they clung with reverence until the beginning of the 17th century in at least one province of Ireland, Ulster, and which very gradually gave place to English laws founded on the feudal system, in proportion as British arms and policy completed the conquest of the island. The Brehon laws were not properly a code, but were simply the whole body of ancient legal maxims and usages as administered by the brehons, who were the judges of the land. Brehon (breithamh) signified a judge or professor of law; and the root is the Irish word breith, judgment or right. The brehons formed a kind of college or faculty; and each great clan had its own brehons, whose office was hereditary, not in the feudal sense, by descent from eldest son to eldest son, but in the Gaelic sense, in which the chiefs of clans and high-kings, or ardrigJis of Ireland, came to their own offices and dignities. Much light has been thrown upon the whole subject within a few years past by the labors of a government commission.

As early as 1783, Edmund Burke suggested the propriety of collecting and publishing in English or Latin these remnants of a former civilization, but it was not till 1852 that the English government consented to lend its aid to the work. In that year, at the special instance of Drs. Todd and Graves, both Protestant clergymen, a commission was issued appointing them and several other scholars " to direct, superintend, and carry into effect the transcription and translation of the ancient laws of Ireland, and the preparation of the same for publication," with power to employ proper persons to execute the work. The persons selected by the commissioners were Dr. O'Donovan and Prof. O'Curry, whose discharge of the duties so assigned them ended only at their death. They were succeeded by others, whose labors are not yet ended; and private associations have also been busy upon one department of the multifarious materials; so that we have now these two authentic records, edited and annotated with great care: "The Ancient Laws of Ireland," of which two volumes have appeared, the first in 1865; and Senchus Mor (" Great Law Compilation") and Leabhar na- g-Ceart ("The Book of Rights"), published by the Celtic society, with extremely valuable notes by the late John O'Donovan (Dublin, 1847). The two first mentioned volumes can scarcely be called even compilations, because, as their editors avow, they consist of mere fragments, decisions of the brehons, rules and maxims of law, gathered together out of many more or less imperfect manuscripts, of various ages.

The principal materials used by the translators are thus described in the preface to the first volume: "I. A comparatively full copy among the manuscripts of Trinity college, Dublin. II. An extensive fragment of the first part, 432, of the Harleian manuscripts in the British museum.

III. A large fragment of the latter part among the manuscripts of Trinity college, Dublin.

IV. A fragment among the manuscripts in Trinity college." These materials, however, being used with due discrimination, are enough to present in a tolerably consistent form an authentic series of the text books, a much larger, older, and clearer system of the institutions which once prevailed over all western Europe, than any other nation has yet been able to produce from its own archaic resources. Besides the works named above, the student who desires further information concerning the various texts, their origin, their comparative age, and their preservation, may consult O'Cur-ry's published lectures "Onthe MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History," as delivered in the Catholic university of Dublin. - The principles of the Brehon law were essentially distinct from and incompatible with the feudal; so that when those two systems came face to face on the same small island, it was inevitable that one of the two must succumb. The main basis of every national system of law is of course its land tenure. The possession and inheritance of landed property was regulated by the law called gavelkind (gavail-kinne), an ancient Celtic institution, but common to Britons, Anglo-Saxons, and others.

By this law, inherited or other property was divided equally between the sons, to the exclusion of the daughters, except in default of heirs male, when females were permitted a life interest. The tenure of land was a tribe or family right, and the whole system of government was far more patriarchal than Teutonic - an indication of an eastern origin. All the members of a tribe or family had an equal right to their proportionate share of the land occupied by the whole. This system created a mutual independence and self-consciousness of personal right and importance, strongly at variance with the subjugation of the Germanic and Anglo-Norman vassal. One of the most noticeable peculiarities of the Brehon law is the compensation for murder, and for other crimes and wrongs proportionally, called eric. This, however, was common to many nations. Its origin is ascribed to the Germans, but the institution was probably far more ancient. We find the eric forbidden in the oldest code of laws in existence; and hence it must have existed at an early period of the world's civil history. The law of succession, called tanaisteacht, or tanistry, is one of the most peculiar of the Brehon laws.

The eldest son succeeded the father to the exclusion of all collateral claimants, unless he was disqualified by deformity, imbecility, or crime. In after ages, by a compact between parents or mutual agreement, the succession was sometimes made alternative in two or more families. The eldest son, being recognized as presumptive heir, was denominated tanaiste, that is, minor or second; while the other sons, or persons eligible in case of failure, were termed righdhamhua, which literally means king material, or king-makings. The tanaiste had a separate establishment and distinct privileges. The primitive intention was that the best man should reign; but practically it sometimes ended in might being taken for right. A very large portion of the Senchus Mor relates to the law of distress. The movable wealth of the people consisted mainly of cattle and sheep, a kind of riches easily carried off; and as debts and erics were collected chiefly by distraining on the lands of the debtor, the stronger might be easily tempted to oppress the weaker, either by distraining wrongfully or by denying payment and resisting a lawful distress with the strong hand. Therefore we naturally find numerous regulations governing the exercise of this right.

Two points are noticeable in this: First, the careful and accurate administration of justice which is indicated by the details of these legal enactments; second, the custom therein sanctioned of the creditor fasting upon the debtor, a custom which still exists in Hindostan. Thus, in some cases, the creditor fasts on the debtor until he is compelled to pay his debt, lest his creditor should die at the door; in other cases, the creditor not only fasts himself, but also compels his debtor to fast, by stopping his supplies. Elphinstone describes this as used even against princes, and especially by troops to procure payment of arrears. This singular method of levying money due is called in Irish achari-tan, and is known in Cabool and Afghanistan as dherna. The student of these laws will find them pervaded on the whole by a spirit of humanity and gentleness. We find this more particularly the case in studying the laws regulating the domestic relations of the family, which, being the unit of which society is but an aggregate, is the most vital and important part of all human arrangements. Ample provision is made for the mutual protection of husband and wife, and the reciprocal rights and duties of parent and child are minutely defined and carefully guarded.

There is also found a universal respect and tenderness toward women, a thing rare in that age. Here is one passage from the Senchus: " In the connection of equal property, if with equal land and cattle and household stuff, and if their marriage state be equally free and lawful, the wife in this case is called the wife of equal rank. The contract made by either party is not a lawful contract without the consent of the other, except in cases of contracts tending equally to the welfare of both; such as the alliance of co-tillage with a lawful tribe when they (the couple) have not the means themselves of doing the work of ploughing; the taking of land; the collection of food; the gathering for the festivals; the buying of breeding cattle; the collecting of house furniture; the collecting of litters of pigs; the buying of stacks and other necessaries. . . . Each of the two parties has the power to give refection and feast according to their respective dignity." The maxims of law relating to the enforcement of the rights of women are very precise. In case of separation, adequate protection was thrown around the wife's right of property.

If her property was equal to that of her husband at the time of marriage, she took an equal moiety of the collective lands, goods, and chattels, and in case of dairy produce and the proceeds of the loom two thirds. . If the property had originally belonged wholly to the husband, the wife was entitled to one third on her separation; and if it had been her own before marriage, to two thirds. The institution of the family, on which all clanship rests, is not only found here surrounded by much sanctity and careful guardianship, but the family relation is even extended outside of the mere household, by two institutions called fosterage and gossipred. When a child was put out to be fostered in another family of the same clan, he grew up with two mothers and two sets of brothers and sisters, and often was more attached to the foster mother and foster brother than to those of his own household. It was a relation well known in other nations of the west, especially among those other Gael, the Highlanders of Scotland; but nowhere was it regulated by such elaborate laws, as to the food, clothing, and education of the foster child, and its training, if a boy, in all manly exercises, if a girl, in feminine accomplishments suitable to their degree, as it may here be found regulated by the bre-hons. Gossipred, or the relation between a child and his godfathers and godmothers, was also a substantial and legal tie, inferring obligations, not a mere sentimental notion calling only for christening presents.

Then there was a literary fosterage, in use only among the professional classes, that is, the fileas, ollamhs, and orehons; concerning which here is a curious extract: "The social connection that is considered between the foster pupil and the literary foster father is, that the latter is to instruct him without reserve, and to prepare him for his degree, and to chastise him without severity, and to feed and clothe him while he is learning his profession, unless he obtains it from another person, and from the school of Fenius Forsaidh onward this custom prevails; and the foster pupil is to assist his tutor in poverty and to assist him in his old age, and the honor price of the degree for which he prepares him and all the gains of his art while he is learning it, and the first earnings of his art after leaving the house of his tutor, are to be given to the tutor".