One of our English poets has nearly the same idea:—
“As long as streams in silver mazes run,
Or spring with annual green renews the grove.”
Without the advantages of a classical education, the lower Irish sometimes make similes that bear a near resemblance to those of the admired poets of antiquity. A loyalist, during the late rebellion, was describing to us the number of the rebels who had gathered on one spot, and were dispersed by the king’s army; rallied, and were again put to flight.
“They were,” said he, “like swarms of flies on a summer’s day, that you brush away with your hand, and still they will be returning.”
There is a simile of Homer’s which, literally translated, runs thus: “As the numerous troops of flies about a shepherd’s cottage in the spring, when the milk moistens the pails, such numbers of Greeks stood in the field against the Trojans.” Lord Kames observes, that it is false taste to condemn such comparisons for the lowness of the images introduced. In fact, great objects cannot be degraded by comparison with small ones in these similes, because the only point of resemblance is number; the mind instantly perceives this, and therefore requires no other species of similitude.
When we attempt to judge of the genius of the lower classes of the people, we must take care that we are not under the influence of any prejudice of an aristocratic or literary nature. But this is no easy effort of liberty.
“Agk! Dublin, sweet Jasus be wid you!” exclaimed a poor Irishman, as he stood on the deck of a vessel, which was carrying him out of the bay of Dublin. The pathos of this poor fellow will not probably affect delicate sensibility, because he says wid instead of with, and Jasus instead of Jesus. Adam Smith is certainly right in his theory, that the sufferings of those in exalted stations have generally most power to command our sympathy. The very same sentiment of sorrow at leaving his country, which was expressed so awkwardly by the poor Irishman, appears, to every reader of taste, exquisitely pathetic from the lips of Mary queen of Scots.
“Farewell, France! Farewell, beloved country! which I shall never more behold!” [52]
In anger as well as in sorrow the Irishman is eloquent. A gentleman who was lately riding through the county of ——, in Ireland, to canvass, called to ask a vote from a poor man, who was planting willows in a little garden by the road side.
“You have a vote, my good sir, I am told,” said the candidate, in an insinuating tone.