'Like Saul's plate armour on the shepherd boy,
Encumbering, and not arming them.'
If it were just to estimate our bardic poetry by the specimens we have received in this manner, it could not be rated highly. But it would manifestly be most unjust. Noble and touching, and often subtle and profound thoughts, which no translation could entirely spoil, shine through the poverty of the style, and vindicate the character of the originals. Like the costly arms and ornaments found in our bogs, they are substantial witnesses of a distinct civilisation; and their credit is no more diminished by the rubbish in which they chance to be found than the authenticity of the ancient torques and skians by their embedment in the mud. When the entire collection of our Irish Percy—James Hardiman—shall have been given to a public (and soon may such a one come) that can relish them in their native dress, they will be entitled to undisputed precedence in our national minstrelsy."
About a dozen of the ballads in the volume are derived from the Irish. It is only in this way that Clarence Mangan (a name to which Mr. Duffy does just honour) contributes to the volume. There are four translations by him, exhibiting eminently his perfect mastery of versification—his flexibility of passion, from loneliest grief to the maddest humour. One of these, "The Lament for O'Neil and O'Donnell," is the strongest, though it will not be the most popular, ballad in the work.
Callanan's and Ferguson's translations, if not so daringly versified, are simpler and more Irish in idiom.
Most, indeed, of Callanan's successful ballads are translations, and well entitle him to what he passionately prays for—a minstrel of free Erin to come to his grave,
"And plant a wild wreath from the banks of the river
O'er the heart and the harp that are sleeping for ever."
But we are wrong in speaking of Mr. Ferguson's translations in precisely the same way. His "Wicklow War Song" is condensed, epigrammatic, and crashing, as anything we know of, except the "Pibroch of Donnil Dhu."
The second source is—the common people's ballads. Most of these "make no pretence to being true to Ireland, but only being true to the purlieus of Cork and Dublin"; yet now and then one meets a fine burst of passion, and oftener a racy idiom. The "Drimin Dhu," "The Blackbird," "Peggy Bawn," "Irish Molly," "Willy Reilly," and the "Fair of Turloughmore," are the specimens given here. Of these "Willy Reilly" (an old and worthy favourite in Ulster, it seems, but quite unknown elsewhere) is the best; but it is too long to quote, and we must limit ourselves to the noble opening verse of "Turloughmore"—