otwithstanding the persecutions to which the Irish had been subjected for so many centuries, they preserved their love of literature, and the cultivated tastes for which the Celt has been distinguished in all ages. Indeed, if this taste had not existed, the people would have sunk into the most degraded barbarism; for education was absolutely forbidden, and the object of the governing powers seems to have been to reduce the nation, both intellectually and morally, as thoroughly as possible. In such times, and under such circumstances, it is not a little remarkable to find men devoting themselves to literature with all the zest of a freshman anticipating collegiate distinctions, while surrounded by difficulties which would certainly have dismayed, if they did not altogether crush, the intellects of the present age. I have already of the mass of untranslated national literature existing country and in continental libraries. These treasures of mental labour are by no means confined to one period of our history; but it could scarcely be expected that metaphysical studies or the fine arts could flourish at a period when men's minds were more occupied with the philosophy of war than with the science of Descartes, and were more inclined to patronize a new invention in the art of gunnery, than the chef d'oeuvre of a limner or sculptor. The Irish language was the general medium of conversation in this century. No amount of Acts of Parliament had been able to repress its use, and even the higher classes of English settlers appear to have adopted it by preference. Military proclamations were issued in this language;[[512]] or if the Saxon tongue were used, it was translated for the general benefit into the vernacular. During the Commonwealth, however, the English tongue made some way; and it is remarkable that the English-speaking Irish of the lower classes, in the present day, have preserved the idioms and the accentuation used about this period. Many of the expressions which provoke the mirth of the modern Englishman, and which he considers an evidence of the vulgarity of the uneducated Irish, may be found in the works of his countrymen, of which he is most justly proud.
The language of Cromwell's officers and men, from whom the Celt had such abundant opportunities of learning English, was (less the cant of Puritanism) the language of Shakspeare, of Raleigh, and of Spenser. The conservative tendencies of the Hibernian preserved the dialect intact, while causes, too numerous for present detail, so modified it across the Channel, that each succeeding century condemned as vulgarism what had been the highest fashion with their predecessors. Even as Homeric expressions lingered for centuries after the blind bard's obit had been on record, so the expressions of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakspeare, may still be discovered in provincial dialects in many parts of the British Isles. I do not intend to quote Tate and Brady as models of versification and of syntax; but if the best poets of the age did not receive the commission to translate the Psalms into verse, it was a poor compliment to religion. We find the pronunciation of their rhymes corresponding with the very pronunciation which is now condemned as peculiarly Irish. Newton also rhymes way and sea, while one can scarcely read a page of Pope[[513]] without finding examples of pronunciation now supposed to be pure Hibernicism. In the Authorized Protestant version of the Bible, learn is used in the sense of to teach, precisely as it is used in Ireland at the present day: "If thy children shall keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall learn them" and their use of the term forninst is undoubtedly derived from an English source, for we find it in Fairfax's Tasso.[[514]]
History and theology were the two great studies of the middle ages, and to these subjects we find the literati of Ireland directing special attention. The importance and value of Latin as a medium of literary intercommunication, had been perceived from an early period: hence that language was most frequently employed by Irish writers after it had become known in the country. It is unquestionably a national credit, that no amount of suffering, whether inflicted for religious or political opinions, deprived the Irish of historians.[[515]] Some of their works were certainly compiled under the most disadvantageous circumstances.
None of the writers whom we shall presently enumerate, worked for hope of gain, or from any other motive save that of the purest patriotism. Keating, whose merits are becoming more and more recognized since modern research has removed Celtic traditions from the region of fable to the tableland of possibility, wrote his History principally in the Galtee Mountains, where he had taken refuge from the vengeance of Carew,[[516]] Lord President of Munster. Although he had received a high education in the famous College of Salamanca, for the sake of his people he preferred suffering persecution, and, if God willed it, death, to the peaceful life of literary quiet which he might have enjoyed there. He wrote in his mother-tongue, although master of many languages; and in consequence of this choice his work remained in MS. for many years. When it came to light, those who were ignorant of the MS. materials of ancient Irish history, were pleased to suppose that he had invented a considerable portion, and supplied the remainder from the viva voce traditions of the country people. Unfortunately, he was not sufficiently master of the science of criticism to give the authorities which he had used so carefully, and to prove their value and authenticity. But truth has at length triumphed. Several of the works from which he has quoted have been discovered; and it has been shown that, wild as some of his legends may read in the garb in which he has given them, there is proof that important facts underlie the structure, though it has been somewhat overembellished by a redundant fancy.
TUBRID CHURCHYARD—BURIAL-PLACE OF THE HISTORIAN KEATING.
Keating was also a poet. Many of his pieces are still well known and highly popular in Munster, and copies of nearly all of them are preserved by the Royal Irish Academy. One of his ballads has been "coaxed" into verse by D'Arcy M'Gee, in his Gallery of Irish Writers. It is entitled "Thoughts on Innisfail." I shall give one verse as a specimen, and as an illustration of the popular feelings of the time:
"And the mighty of Naas are mighty no more,
Like the thunders that boomed 'mid the banners of yore;
And the wrath-ripened fields, 'twas they who could reap them;
Till they trusted the forsworn, no foe could defeat them."