The same story has to be told of Scotland and even of Wales; but neither Scotland nor Wales was ever subjected to the same long and constant pressure for the extinction of its nationality which strove for centuries against the utterance of Ireland's genuine voice. Scotland was always able to hold her own against the domination of England, just as when she consented to merge her Parliament into that of Britain she was able to maintain her own system of laws, her own creed, and her own national institutions. No such pertinacity of effort on the part of the ruling power was ever made to suppress the language of Wales as that which was employed, even up to comparatively modern times, for the suppression of the language of Ireland. Yet the reader of these volumes will easily be able to see for himself that the true spirit of the Irish Celt found its full expression with equal clearness, whether it breathed through the hereditary language of the Irish people or through the Anglo-Saxon tongue which that people was compelled to adopt. The literature of Ireland remains from the first to the last distinctively Irish. The study of this historical and ethnological truth may well give to the reader a new and peculiar interest while he is reading these volumes. But I must not be supposed to suggest that this constitutes the chief interest in the works of Irishmen and Irish women which are brought together in this collection. The fact to which I have invited attention is one of great literary and historical value, but the array of literary work we present to the world in this library offers its best claim to the world's attention by its own inherent artistic worth. We are presenting to our readers in these volumes a collection of prose and poetry that cannot but be regarded as in itself a cabinet of literary treasures. The world has no finer specimens of prose and poetry, of romance and drama, than some of the best of those which the genius of Ireland can claim as its own. When we come somewhat below the level of that highest order, it will still be found that Ireland can show an average of successful and popular literature equal to that of any other country. The great wonder-flowers of literature are rare indeed in all countries, and Ireland has had some wonder-flowers which might well charm the most highly cultivated readers. When we come to the literary gardens not claiming to exhibit those marvelous products, we shall find that the flower-beds of Ireland's literature may fearlessly invite comparison with the average growth of any other literature. I have spoken of the great movement which is lately coming into such activity and winning already so much practical success in Ireland for the revival of the Gaelic language and its literature. Every sincere lover of literature must surely hope that this movement is destined to complete success, and that the Irishmen of the coming years may grow up with the knowledge of that language in which their ancestors once spoke, wrote, and sang, as well as of that Anglo-Saxon tongue which already bids fair to become the leading language of civilization. But in the meanwhile it is beyond question that Ireland has created a brilliant and undying literature of her own in the English language and there can be no more conclusive evidence of this than will be found in the library of 'IRISH LITERATURE.' Justin McCarthy. |