The Irish standard., 1886-05-01

They are fairy tales pure and simple.
full of wild animal spirits, Of rough,
good-natured horse play, of love, and
battle, and. adventure. They are ex-
cellent as studies of Irish and English
life in foreign Continental cities they
are amusing, entertaining, very good
company, indeed; but they no more
present a faithful picture Of Ireland
than the bardic accounts Of the dwell
lings Of the Fens resemble the London
Dublin Of to-day. Lady Morgan. with
all her faults, understood some phases
of Irish life and of irish nationalism
better than Lever. Her 80 'Briens and
O'Flahertys'' has fallen into curious
obscurity Of late it deserved. and still
deserves, better fate. tor the sake Of
it's fine study Of the rebellious chieftain
of an ancient Irish house, the last of
his line, and for it's skillful and cruelty
sarcastic study of the blended corrup-
tion and frivolity of Castle society. But
"The Collegians'' is far and away the
best of all. Ireland, unfortunately,
has not yet found her Walter Scott,
but if Gerald Griffin had cared OF
chosen to write more, if he had given
ireland and the world a series Of novels
which should have borne the same re-
lationship to 1.-The Collegians'' that the
Waverley novels do to the first OF their
race, Gerald Griffin would undoubtedly
have made himself the Walter Scott of
Ireland. From one cause on another,
'sThe Collegians' has never won the
success it deserved. Even in Ireland
it is not read as much as it should be,
and outside Ireland it is practically
unknown. Yet, curiously enough.
there is not character i'll the book
whose name is not perfectly familiar
wherever the English language is
spoken. Danny Mann, Hardness Gre
gan. Ely O'Connor, Anne Chute,
Kyr]e DAILY, have all been made every
day acquaintances TO the theatre -goer
everywhere, through Dion Bouclcault's
"Colieen Bawn," and through the op-
era taken from it, and called ''The
Lilly OF Killarney" But, for the thou
sands and tens of thousands to whom
the music Of the opera and the incidents
Of the melodrama are familiar, how
many hundreds have gone to the or
iginal OF the one and of the other, and
have studied for it's own sake ''The
Collegians'' itself? To the English
man who desires to have a faithful pic
ture OF what Ireland was like
at the time in which The Col
}egians" is laid, to the Irishman
who wishes to appreciate what must be
called the greatest triumph OF Irish
prose fiction, 'The Collegians' will not
be merely a pleasure. it will be an es-
sential Of education,
1t is curious and ironic fact that
Gerald Gritfin's name should be best
remembered IN most English-speaking
countries through that very dramatic
art in which he feverishly thirsted for
success. But it is not by ''Gisippus,
the hearts love Of his youth, that his
memory is kept green. 1t is by the
adaptation of his great novel made by
other hands long after Gerald Griffin
was laid in his quiet grave that the
dramatic triumph came, and the laur-
els that were to have crowned ''Gisip-
pus'' have been awarded with full
hands to the colleen Bawn."
Gerald Griffin is not merely one OF
the most mastery of Irish prose
writer's; he is further entitled to a
place, and a proud one, among the
poets of Ireland. IT he had chosen TO
devote himself to verse wriJlng alone,
or had even dedicated his talents chief
ly t. verse-writing, he might have
easily taken rank with the foremost OF
his country's poets, with Moore, Davis,
and Clarence Mangan. AS it is, the
mere handful of perfect verses which
he has bequeathed to us entitle him, by
their fawless beauty Of thought and
form, to place only second to that OF
the three stars iii the Orion belt Of
Irish song.
The verses that star the so1nbre
pages OF 1.-The Collegians." lighting up
it's tragic beauty with their serene.
fixed lustre, are perhaps the very high
est proofs OF his literary genius. Where
is there TO be found in the literature OF
the English-speaking races loveller
lyric than that which Hardness Cregan
wrote for Anne Chute, and which be-
gins:
IA place in thy memory, dearest,
Is all that claim
TO pause and look back when thou nearest
The sound of my name"
Lofty passion, and pathos, and brave
resignation, were never expressed IN
more melodious numbers.-Justin Nc
Carthy, NJ. F., in United Ireland.
Archbishop Taschereau OF Quebec, is
the sixteenth ordinary Of thaJ see,.
which was founded in 1854. 100 years
before Baltimore.
Tie entire population of Germany is
Il, ,2}4 ,O61, of whom a little more than
7Od Catholics