The Irish standard., 1894-02-17

.
Ease our neighbor would agree. to donate
) cite and another incline road to get up
i ere. We must beat Eau Clair and
Oshkosh somehow. They've been saying
some awful mean things about us.
PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
A Character Sketch Of the Ilustrious Irish
man From the Review of Reviews.
In the February number of the Review
of Reviews, Grant Allen gives the follow
lowing interesting sketch of the late
Professor Tyndall:
John Tynda]l was an 1rishman. Much
of his history is explained by that illum-
mating fact. The Celt was strong in
him. People forget too often how much
ireland contributes to the general life OF
our complex nationality. How many
Eng]ishmen are aware, wonder, that
Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thompson,
Lord Wolseley, Professor Bryce, Oscar
Wilde, Comyns Carr, Harry Furn1ss,
Lord Dufferin--to take few names at
random out of many that occur to me
are every one of them Irishmen? About
Tyndall, at any rate, there was never any
doubt. He retained to the last no small
physical traces of his Hibernian ancestry.
He was born in 1920 at Leighlin Bridge,
in County Carlow, So that his age
marched, year by year, abreast with Her
bert Spencer's. 1t is usual to say chat
he was of English descent, and believe
he claimed kinship with Mathew Tindal,
one of the stoutest defenders OF freedom
of thought in the seventeenth century.
That may have been so, and his ancestry
in the direct patsrnal limo may perhaps
have been English. But those who know
the ways Of Irish Protestants we'll are
aware OF the tsnacity with which many
families cling to the vaguest shred OF
what they are pleased to call 'Anglo-
Saxon" descent. To be English in Ire
land is like being Norman in England, or
coming over with the "Mayfower" in
Massachusetts. You will find scores OF
Irish1nen bearing English names and
boasting an English origin who are never
theless as Celtic in type as the McOar-
thys or the O'Donohues. How could it
we'll be otherwise? Mothers count in her
edity for Just as much as fathers; and
members Of English households which
have settled in Ireland and intermarrled
with Irish women become 10 few gen
erations, as Gerald the Welshman (whom
We absurdly call Giraldus Cambrensis)
long ago remarked. s'more Irish than the
Irish,"- ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores. Ger
tain]y family domiciled at Carlow, IN
the heart Of Leinster, could hardly nave
failed TO chow traces of Irish blood. AZ
a matter of fact John Tyndall himself
was a thorough going Celt in phi, sique
and in tom permanent. He had the iron
constitution, the wiry strength, the <sck-
less love of danger and adventure, the
feryid imagination, the fiery zeal, the
abundant eloquence, the somewhat flow
ery rhetoric, the tenderness of heart, the
munifcent generosity, which distinguish
the character of his Celtic countrymen.
Even the obstinate determination with
which in later life he opposed, tooth and
nail. the claim of his nation to national
salf-government Yves itself thoroughly
Irish. He fought Home Rule with the
vigorous spirit OF the Kilkenny cats; Tor
ever since Ireland was nation at all,
Irishmen have always been divided into
factions and have harried one another,
unfortunately, with more bitter hatred
than ever they have displayed towards
the common enemy. No Englishman has
ever shown the same hatred of Home
Rule that has been shown by the Leckys,
the Burkes and the Hamiltons. The
part which he took on the question OF
Home Rule have always largely attrib-
uted to the influence of Carlyle, the evil
fairy of the last half century. Liberal in
fibre and progressive in most directions,
Tyndall had the misfortune to be'born
an Irish Protestant. Now Professionalism
in Ireland has long been an aggressive
exotic, maintaining itself as the creed OF
a dominant caste by sheer main force for
two hundred years among hostile peo-
pie. The consequence is that Irish Pro-
testants retain for the most part pam
full attitude of undisguised enmity toward
their genial and tolerant Catholic fellow
Those who have mixed
with the leaders of Irish thought must
have been struck by the strange contrast
between the breadth and catholicity OF
the Catholics on the one hand and the
bieotry and intolerance of the Orange
mon on the other. Now, Tyndall came
to England essentially an Orangeman.
Had he mixed with liberal Englishmen
only it is probable he would have got rid i
in time of his Irish prejudicee, like 80
many more of us whose Irish Protestant