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CHAPTER XXXIV

THE IRISH LITERARY REVIVAL

350. Irish writers in the eighteenth century. We have already spoken of the part played in Irish politics by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). Swift was Swift. born in Dublin, and it is very probable that we can trace the influences which surrounded him in childhood in his most famous work, "Gulliver's Travels." Among the entertainments of the Irish bards, voyages to wonderful undiscovered countries, inhabited by strange people, have been popular since the days of Ossin, and even centuries before Ossin journeyed to the "Land of the Young." It is very probable that Swift may have heard some of these stories in his early years, and that the captivity of Gulliver among the Lilliputians may have been suggested by the capture of the son of Find and his detention in the cavern near Killarney. There is certainly a genuine Irish spirit in the mirth and wit and humor which have given "Gulliver's Travels" a place in universal literature.

Sterne.

Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) undoubtedly owed much of the color and a good deal of the whimsical humor of his works to his life in Ireland. Born at Clonmel, the son of a soldier, the first years of his life were spent in wanderings from one garrison town to another, and in these wanderings he gathered the material for characters like Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) was born in County

Goldsmith.

Longford. One of his teachers was an old quartermaster, who, besides reading, writing, and arithmetic, gave the boy a complete course of instruction concerning ghosts, banshees, and fairies. This teacher spoke Irish, and even extemporized Irish verse. Goldsmith also devoted himself to the study of Irish music, and was a passionate admirer of Carolan, the harper, one

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of the last great bards.

1728-1774

Hence it comes that there is far more real Irish tenderness and sentiment in his works than in those of the two writers just noticed. There is a genuinely Irish note of lament and feeling for nature in "The Deserted Village":

"No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,

But, chok'd with sedges, works its weedy way;

Along thy glades, a solitary guest,

The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert-walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall;
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away thy children leave the land.”

There is a note of humor of which Goldsmith himself was hardly conscious, in his description of America, whither these exiled children were bound :

“Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men more murderous still than they ;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,

Mingling the ravag'd landscape with the skies."

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) has a deeper and more universal value than any of these writers, and is one of the greatest names in modern literature. He Burke. is one of the few writers who invariably bring every subject back to universal principles, and this is nowhere more evident than in his "Speech on Conciliation with the American Colonies," when he came forHis plea for ward on March 22, 1775, to speak in the EngAmerica. lish House of Commons on behalf of American liberty: "The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord fomented, from principle, in all parts of the empire; not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace, sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace

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sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific."

In contrast with Oliver Goldsmith's somewhat fanciful picture of America as haunted by tigers and wild men, is Burke's sound and accurate knowledge of the American colonies, their history, and constitutions, and his clear vision of their mighty future: "If you drive the people from one place, they will carry on their annual tillage and remove with their flocks and herds to another. Many of the people in the back settlements are already little attached to particular situations. Already they have topped the Appalachian Mountains. From thence they behold before them an immense plain-one vast rich level meadow, a square of five hundred miles. Over this they would wander without possibility of restraint; they would change their manners with the habits of their life; would soon forget a government by which they were disowned; would become hordes of English Tartars, and, pouring down upon your unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, become masters of your governors and your counsellors, your collectors and your comptrollers, and all of the slaves that adhered to them." This great Irishman was the first man in Europe to foresee the marvellous future growth and power of the United States.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) was another Irishman who won a high place in English literature.

His two greatest achievements were an elo- Sheridan. quent speech in favor of the impeachment

of Warren Hastings for misgovernment in India, and a series of comedies of which "The Rivals" and "The School for Scandal" are the best known. It is worth remembering that the plays of two Irishmen, Goldsmith and Sheridan, were the only dramas of high literary

value written, during nearly a century and a half, for the English stage: not merely good acting plays, but fine pieces of literature.

351. Nineteenth century authors. Thomas Moore (1779-1852) was the first writer who consciously sought

THOMAS MOORE

1779-1852

inspiration in the history, traditions, and romance of Ireland. It may almost be said of him that he alone of all those who have been mentioned was consciously an Irishman. He is, therefore, the morning star of the Irish literary revival. Moore chose as the subject of his most famous "Irish Melodies" historical events like the battle of Clontarf, the life of Saint Senanus, the traditions of Conn of the

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Hundred Battles, the achievements of the Red Branch Knights, the Hermitage of St. Kevin, and the Revenge for the Death of Deirdré. The quality of Moore's verse is well represented in the "Song of Fionnuala ":

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Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water,

Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,

While, murmuring mournfully, Lir's lonely daughter
Tells to the night star her tale of woes."

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