The Revival of Irish Literature Part 6

_From_ THE DUBLIN DAILY INDEPENDENT.

To Sir Charles Gavan Duffy this work must have been much of a labour of love. Of that company of devoted Irishmen who had gathered together in Dublin nigh fifty years ago--he alone survives with one other, a busy philanthropist in a southern city who has enhanced the beauty of our national ballads and endeared himself to his countrymen thereby. The coming home of Gavan Duffy to renew the work of his early manhood after half a century of exile is an interesting incident. The young fresh revival in Irish literature in its connection with these few fine old men is as the return of the Son of Cool to the few remaining old Fians who kept true to the traditions of their youth in the heart of the wooded hills of Connaught. It is the proof that their fond hopes cannot be for ever unfulfilled. Sharing with Sir Charles Gavan Duffy the _kudos_ of editing the New Library were two men--not unknown to their countrymen. One of them, as _An Chraoibhin Aoibhinn_, has laboured earnestly and well to resuscitate an interest in the purely Gaelic side of Irish literature--Dr.

Douglas Hyde. The other, recognising that Thomas Davis's influence is of that peculiar kind rather bequeathed than withdrawn, has gone forth zealously to the endeavour of making Thomas Davis understanded of the people, and with confidence to Mr. T. W. Rolleston may be entrusted the gathering up the fragments that remain--that nothing be lost--of those who brought a new soul into Erinn.

_From_ THE DUBLIN EVENING TELEGRAPH.

An able work, by Thomas Davis, edited by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, with a magnificent essay on the Stuart and Cromwell period. That we should get such a jewel as this first volume, such a thing of beauty for a shilling, is little short of a marvel.

_From_ THE CORK HERALD.

It might be said, without exaggeration, that the appearance of this work--the forerunner as it is of a series in which Irish life, Irish genius, and Irish character will be represented--const.i.tutes an event of no ordinary importance in Irish history. It is the outcome of a desire and a want which have been long felt that the Irish people should know accurately and intimately everything connected with the past history of their country, with its literature, its music, its antiquities, and its art. The same idea which is now taking visible shape, presented itself to the minds of the leaders of the Young Ireland movement fifty years ago, when a series of little books was published which have since been the companions, the inspiration, and the delight of two generations of Irishmen at home and abroad. There are few Irishmen who have not at one time or another received a potent intellectual stimulus from the writings of Davis or Duffy, Mitch.e.l.l or M'Nevin. We do not err, therefore, when we say that great possibilities lie hidden in this new movement.

WORKS by DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D. (An Chraoibhin Aoibhinn).

"LEABHAR SGEULUIGHEACHTA."

_viii--261 pp., 8vo. Price =5/-=. Gill & Son, O'Connell Street, Dublin._

Containing some sixteen Folk Tales, Riddles, Ranns, &c., in Irish, with copious Notes on the p.r.o.nunciation, Vocabulary, and Dialect.

"The mult.i.tude of characteristic idioms and of those charmingly expressive turns of speech which one meets with daily among the peasantry is so great as to make the work a perfect treasure-house of rich jewels of thought....

Dr. Hyde deserves well, not only of his country, but of all scientific investigators and philologists."--_Freeman's Journal._

"This is the most noteworthy addition that has been made for nearly a century to modern Gaelic literature."--_Chicago Citizen._

"His collection of Irish Gaelic Folk Stories is the fruit of years of pious work. He has travelled into every corner of Ireland where the old tongue still lingers, gathering from the mouths of the Irish-speaking peasants the olden stories that linger among them."--_Nation._

"BESIDE THE FIRE."

_lviii--204 pp., large 8vo. Price =7/6=. David Nutt, Strand, London._

Containing Folk Tales and Fairy Stories in Irish and English, collected from the mouths of the peasantry. With Introduction and Notes, and additional Notes by ALFRED NUTT.

"Any reader conversant with the subject will at once recognise the fact that this book is distinctly the most valuable contribution that has ever been made to Irish Folk-lore. It would be hardly an exaggeration to say that it is the only work in that particular department that is trustworthy in its details and scientific in its treatment."--_Nature._

"We may say that Dr. Hyde's is the first [collection of Irish Folk-lore]

which has been presented in a form entirely satisfactory to the scientific folk-lorist.... Few men know the living Gaelic tongue so well as Dr. Hyde, and he has made it his object to give these fragments of Gaelic tradition exactly as he gathered them from the lips of the peasantry, and with all the collateral information that the scientific investigator can require.

The result is certainly one of the most interesting and entertaining books of Folk-lore that it has ever been our good fortune to come across."--_The Speaker._

"Perhaps the most interesting part of Dr. Hyde's collection of Irish tales, 'Beside the Fire,' is his Introduction."--_Sat.u.r.day Review._

"We trust that his warning, though late, is not given in vain, and that a whole literature will not be allowed to die or to become a fossil in the studies of the Dryasdusts."--_Daily News leading article._

"COIS NA TEINEADH."

_60 pp., large 8vo. Price =1/6=. Gill & Son, O'Connell Street, Dublin._

Containing six Folk Stories in Irish, reprinted from the last volume. With Additional Notes, &c.

CONTES IRLANDAIS.

Being Extracts from the untranslated portion of the "Leabhar Sgeuluigheachta," translated into French by M. GEORGES DOTTIN, with the original Irish text in Roman letters as arranged by Monsieur DOTTIN on the opposite page.

_70pp., 4to. Price =7/6=. Gill & Son, O'Connell Street, Dublin._

ABHRaIN GRaDH; OR, LOVE SONGS OF CONNACHT.

Containing 45 Poems collected from the mouths of Connacht peasantry or from modern ma.n.u.scripts, now for the first time collected, translated, and published, with metrical and literal versions in English on one side of the page and the Irish text on the other, with Notes, Anecdotes, and much Ill.u.s.trative matter.

_160pp., 8vo. Price =2/6= net. T. Fisher Unwin, Paternoster Buildings, and Gill & Son, Upper O'Connell Street, Dublin._

"In these Connaught Love Songs Dr. Hyde has made, whether in verse or prose, the best transcript of Celtic poetry into English that we have yet had. So much of the magic, so much of the local colour, the native grace, the idiom of the Irish as he has given, one had thought it impossible to give."--ERNEST RHYS, _in the Academy, Oct. 13th, 1893._

"We cannot too cordially commend to ethnologists and Gaelic antiquarians these relics of Irish Folk Songs collected with so much industry and devotion by Dr. Hyde."--_The Times, July 20th, 1893._

"The price of this valuable and delightful work is only half-a-crown, and it should be welcomed by several cla.s.ses of readers. The folk-lorists of course will pounce on it, but folk-lorists are a very small public and despised of men. Still less numerous are students of the Irish language, who here find what they need, the Erse poetry on the left page, the literal translation on the right.... There remains the cla.s.s of English readers of poetry, and to them the 'Love Songs of Connacht' may be warmly recommended."--_From the Daily News leading article, Sept. 1st, 1893._

"No one who has examined Dr. Hyde's previous work can fail to see that he combines two gifts, the conjunction of which is rarely met with in one man; he adds to the knowledge, the love of accuracy, and the scientific spirit of a modern scholar that sense of the _form_, and love of the _spirit_ of his material which belongs to the creative far more than to the critical mind. And if such praise seems to any reader excessive, let him examine for himself the 'Fourth Chapter of the Songs of Connacht.'"--_From the Speaker, July 15th, 1893._

"Every page deserves some quotation.... Accompanying the poems is the enchanting commentary of Dr. Hyde; he tells of the old folk from whose lips, of the old ma.n.u.scripts, from whose pages he took his songs. He is philosophical, historical, scientific, at need.... The reader will reflect that were these poems, or poems a thousand times less good in Greek or Latin, old French, or old German, or songs of Russia or Roumania, many a learned man, many a lover of poetry, would be keen to edit, criticise, proclaim them."--_From the Daily Chronicle, Aug. 21st, 1893._