The Irish standard., 1894-09-15

ence handed down by memory, and whose
literature, ,profane and religious, must
have been enormous. But as they stood
in the way OF Roman Capitalization and
absolutism, the Roman state broke up
their control, degraded and banished
them back to Ireland and Britain W hence
they had come The bards remained,
with their songs and tales, their elegant
eiegies and their cutting satires. They
sang TO the Kettle harp up and down the
Roman roads Of Gaul, but they were OF
another day and culture. They, too, dis
appeared, like the Druids, before the
compact and organized literature, the
more systematic schools, and the higher
culture OF the Greek and the Greco Ro-
man. The Kelt OF Gaul became an in
tegral part Of the Roman state, and be-
ling like all Kelts OF q plastic and
receptive nature, continued to perfect
his agricul ure and mining. his skill in
|OrnRmentation Of chains and shields,
and swords. He made better roads and
bridges. He did more trading in exports
and imports, sending out his soaps, pipes
and perfumes, his cloaks, mantles and
trousers, his coral, tapestries and dyes,
and bringing in furniture, ivory, books,
jewels, paintings, cunning carvings, tis-
sues and brocades, spices and rare meats,
Roman newspapers and imperial gossip,
until he became the most cultured and
the least warlike subject OF the Eternal
City, and eventually took up the care OF
her immortal literature on the day when
he had lost all memory OF his own.
III.
SECOND PERIOD or CELTIC LITERATURE.
The extinction or absorption Of the
continental Kelts by the Teutonic tribes
and the Roman system did not close the
career OF the race in history and liter
ature. It's shrunken and diminished ele-
ments took refuge in the British Islands,
the westernmost edge of the European
world, where, until this day, they have
maintained fierce, unequal struggle for
existence against pitiless human foes, and
q certain dark relentless fate whose
shadow seems to be ever heavier upon
this people, turning its existence into one
long dramatic wandering from the utter
most Orient to the last limits of the
West.
The main outlines of the history of the
Keltic race in the British Islands are too
well known 10 need repetition, and I
therefore proceed to treat OF its literature
in this second period. The Kettle tribes
of these islands are divided generally, as
far as language and literature are con-
cerned, into two great families, the Irish
and the British, which are both de-
scended from one more ancient common
Keltic idiom. The British includes those
dialects OF the language spoken in what
is now called England, i. B., in Wales and
Cornwall, or in Brittany. The Irish
comprises the Manx, spoken in the Isle
of Man, the Gaelic of the Scotch High
lands, and the Erse or Irish proper. All
OF these dialects are substantially the
same, and the differences are such as can
easily be accounted for by well-known
rules, of Kettle philology,
Though rapidly disappearing, and ep-
parently doomed to extinction, they are
all spoken as yet, except the Cornish,
which died out in the last century. In
round numbers there are perhaps in the
world one million and quarter Of people
who speak Kettle only, and three mil
lions and quarter who use it as their
mother tongue, besides growing hand
full OF scholars in Germany, France, Italy,
and the British Islands, who have taken
up it's study ere it disappears from hu-
man society where once it played 80
varied role. It has q literature in all
six dialects. The Cornish literature is
the poorest Of ali, consisting of few
miracle plays, some songs and proverbs,
very old glossary Of the twelfth century,
and the story Of the Passion OF Our Lord
in two hundred and fifty nine stanzas or
quatrains.