The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1871-01-08

49, ~AAsSsASVS11A A1AASSS1sSM0 W &A~AsA1~
At meeting ofthe Civil Service Literary
Society. held recently in Dublin, Sir Will
liam Wild delivered brilliant and highly
interesting address, few passages of which
we snbjoin:
Are Irishmen less learned, witty, poetic
or industrious than heretofore ] think
not bnt those who live by literature as
their means, not their mistress, and a more
| ready aud profitable market for their wares
| elsewhere, and why The answer ia GEN.
traiization. If we would have u healthy,
vigorous ana rumenative literature, we
] must have wealth, taste and a capital re-
sorted to by our nobility and gentry for
purpose that perhaps should not be men,
toned here, but which may be summed up
| in a word that you all understand, called
nationality. Are not at this moment some
of the best writer's in London Irishmen Is
not the best describer of war, the most
| graphic painter of a charge, the most faith
| fuI deiineator of II bivOuac, or the strata
! getic movement of a column, one of our
countrymen, William Russelli Had we
capital and society fit to appreciate, and
publishers enterprisipg enough TO pay for
literature, Frank Mallory Father Proat)
and William Magipn might have lived and
died amongst us. I am here reminded that
among the many reasons offered for the
want Of literary energy in this country is
thought might be interchanged with
thought, and men and women brought TO-
b5BE1Aer In social converse who now know
each other bnt by name. ! acknowledge
that Impeachment, and, to a certain ex-
tent, and some Others endeavored 70 OBJ
viate it. I wish We had good Irish BIZ
Ogriphal dictionary, 81 cheap, and 30 wide
~ disseminated, as to make orr people ac-
quainted with the names of those who have
, borne part in the culture and progress of
the country. Then, instead of beginning
with Adam we might commence with Am
who accompanied the Spanish invaders to
Ireland two thousand years before the
Christian era-that is about two hundred
years before Homer wrote, and consequent
Iy in the times of some of the Hebrew
Prophets-although fear that in that re-
vision of general chronology which is now
taking place in the world the historian of
Milesius would be brought nearer to modern
times. The Auditor has justly remarked
that we have been Defective in historians.
This is true. Strange to say that although
the Irish have history it has not yet been
written. The materials for a faithful! his
. tory of Ireland were, to those who had
heretofore attempted the task, either I'M
known, incomprehensible, on account OF
their language, were suppressed FROM
public pse by these who had their custody
$ We have now been for the last thirty sars
: dOtnS tnS greatest WOfk th6 DatfOn ever
y achieved in literary point of view-col.
: lecting materials for our history; and
. hope the day is not far distant-possibty
. within the present generation-when
: historian may arise equal to the task. Blu
'. these native materials to which l allud.
"a are doing something more than merely de
scribing the cattle raids of chieftains o.
It the hymns of monks and anchorites. They
y are affording to Psychologists and ethno
If graphers the means for tracing, througl
9 the medium of language, the migrations o
h the earliest waves of population that pas
g from east to west on the surface of tn
d globe. In oratory the essay is full, thougl
70 not complete, without including othe
y great names of former times that wer
1t contemporaneous with O'Connell and SHE
re 1 refer to those of the three distipguishe,
n pulpit orators-Kirwan, O'Neill, aud Nor
timer O'Suiliran, who have their fttiu
j. representatives in this department by Ma
n gee and Burke-a bishop and friar. LIE
= me say that think Irish oratory is Target
d the result, not merely of Celtic energy an
y fancy, but Of that copiousness Of Ian
g suage which, although I'VE do not speak
n now, has, when fused with the more higi
vt and stern Saxon, made our orators wba
i they are.
% The blush is Natures alarm at the ap
| ~, - 60 = I,ar ~,