The Irish standard., 1890-09-20
THE INTELLECT OF IRELAND.
Justin MCCARTHY on the Influence of
Ireland on the Literature of
the World.
SEES 4 GREAT CHANGE COMING
In Eloquanoe Alone Does Ireland Of To-
Day Hold Her Own With Ireland
of the Past.

The intellect of Ireland, writes Justin
Mccarthy. is not asserting itself in
English literature just now to anything
like the extent which it did in the davs
of Burke and Sheridan and Goldsmith.
Against these three names it would be
hardly possible to set the names Of any
three Englishmen Of the same time who
could be considered the equals Of the
Irishmen. Nor, to come to later day,
is there any Irish poet with anything
like the popularity in England which
Thomas Moore had. or any Irish novel
ist who is read in English homes as
Miss Edgeworth was. The Irish novel,
should say, is almost absolutely un-
known in England now-~I mean the
Irish novel Of the present. Indeed,
even in ireland itself. tie distlnctivelv
Irish novel would seem to have all but
disappeared. l know that there are two
or three writers, and perhaps more, who
still make good stand up for .ae life
OF the distinctlvely Irish novel; but
their stories are not read in Great Brit
ain as the stories OF Carleton and Ban
im once once were. Gerald Griffin, who
wrote, according to my judgment. the
best Irish novel eyer produced, did not
maze his proper mark in this country,
but he was much more widely read than
any Irish novelist OF our time. Poor
Gerald Griffin His literary fate was
strange. His marvellous romance, "Ihe
CoIlegians.' with its racking pathos It's
passion It's hum or, It's :nairUh. it's tragedy, :,
it's absolutely truthful picture of Irish
life in the big House" aud the cabin,
it's renderings Of the peasants brogue
in all Its varying tones of the different
provinces. never, OF course, was read in
England by anything like SO wide d
circle of readers as that which gathered
round "Charles O'Malley'' and Jack
Hinton" But it came up again trans
mogrified, Bless thee, Bot
tom, bless thee, tnou art translated ~
1t was set upon the meIodranatlc stage
as 1.-The Coleen Bawn," and on the
lyric stage as The Lily of Killarney"
all the pathos and the poetry and the
reality were knocked out Of it; the fa-
niiiar old stage Irishman was made to
dance aud caper in it; the stage parish
priest was substituted for the exquisi
tely truthful and tenderly humorous
figure in the original story-and it swept
the country, and indeed, all the English
speaking world. 1t was an 1rishman
who wrought the genuine and exalted
art~jt was an 1rishman, too, who did
the trlck which caught the public. l
am inclined to think that the still lin
gering forms Of purely Irish life out of
which novel could be- made have ex-
hausted their artistic effect. The rela-
tions between the landlord and the ten
ant, between the agent and the peasant,
formed, and necessarily formed, the
greater part of the Irish novelist's
stock in trade. The pathos and humor,
the comedy and tragedy, arose like the
mists from the land. Even already the
state Of things has changed. Still create,
change is undoubtedly to be looked for.
Ireland will one day be, to great ex-
tent, a country OF peasant proprietors.
The new Irish novel WILL have to grow
out of the new conditions OF life. There
tore the new Irish novel will have to
wait for this new life and to be born Of
it, A work Of fiction, If it is worth any
thing. does not die with the conditions
which gave it life. There are readers
for ''Uncle Toms CABIN still, though
the slave system has gone. But there
could not be a new ''Uncle Toms
Cabin" written now. So of the old
fashioned Irish novel. it will have its
readers still. But there would be little
chance, indeed, now for new novel
constructed on the old lines. Some dis
tant day free aud happy Russia will
still, no doubt, read the novel OF four
genieff; but it IS not likely that In the
Tar off and happy Russia there will be 9
new tale of Virgin Soil"
do not know whether there are now
any great Irish advocates at the Irish
bar. Ireland may be proud Of having
given to the English bar It's greatest
living advocate. in the person Of Sir
Charles Russell. But I do not hear of
any advocates il Dublin with q fame at |
all like that Of the Currans and Shiels
ana DU Uonnells of the past time. Wei