The Irish standard., 1896-12-26
And He Also had a Large Guam
tity of Welsh Blood in
His Veins.
England's Leading Poets, Orators
and Statesmen Were
Irish.
A Man of Genius Cannot be an
Englishman Unless he
is Sick.

p S-~N >~~'' ~~~~~ ~~'~s~~~
loves to hug himself into the belief that
he is the most superior person on earth.
Even for his neighbors and fellow citi-
zens, for Taffy the Welshmasl, for Soun-
dy the Scotchman, and for Paddy the
Irishman, he entertains a certain con-
tempt. They are not, to be sure, low
things like that frog eating Johnny Cra-
paud, or upstairs like that insolent strip
ling Brother Jonathan, but their compar-
atiye merit is due to the elevating in-
fluence of his companionsnip and feL-
lowship. One carnot live near the rose
without imbibing some Of it's fragrance.
John Bulls main differentiation as he
sees it, lies in the fact that hes9is an
Anglo-Saxon with Norman admixture.
The Anglo-Saxon, he holds, has finally
conquered his conquerer and assimilatet
him. so that the dominant note in j. B.
composition is today the Anglo Saxon.
On the other hand, all his neighbors are,
to greater or less degree. Celts--greater
in the case of the Irish, less in that of
the Scotch
Now, John. Bull holds that he is first
in war and first i.s-all the arts Of peace.
He swells with pride as he calls over the
long bead roll of great names wAo are
the glories OF England and challenges
the world to produce their equals.
He has not always been allowed to do
all the growing. He has been reminded
that in various departments Of human
endeavor the crown has been borne Off
by his neigh bors, that the greatest co1nfc
dramatist of Great Britain was Sheridan,
an Irishman, who likewise was The
greatest of all British orators, save only
Burke, an Irishman; that tha~three
greatest lyric poets of Great Britain were
burns and Byron, Celts by blood and
Tom Moore, an out and out lrishman;
that the greatest novelist of the United
Kingdom was Sir Walter Scott, a Scot
of Celtic origin; that it's greatest and
almost it's only well known musical
composers were Balfe and Sir Arthur
Sullivan, both Irishmen; tnat such shin
ing lights in drama and in general liter
ature as Oliver Goldsmith and Ben John
son and Christopher North and JOHN
Lockhart and Robert Louis Stevenson
were Celts in blood and in feeling.
Nay, he has been reminded that an
Irish environment for many generations,
if not in each case an actual admixture
Of Irish blood, has helped to produce
Great Britain's greatest soldier in the
past, the Duke of Wellington. its great
est soldiers in the present, Roberts and
Garnet Wolseley; it's greatest satirist,
Dean Swift, its greatest h1lnorist, Iau-
renee Sterne.
All these things have lately been rub
bed into the tough Anglo-Saxon skin by
Prof. Sharp. The latter boldly claims
that considerable more than half of all
that is great in English literature comes
from Celtic sources and is the work of
men with Celtic blood in their veing.
And as fact after fact has been accuInu.
lated in support Of this statement, John,
Bull has thrown up his hands and ex-
claimed:
"Well, you may have your Byrons,
Scots, Burnses, Goldsmithsl. Moores,
and Besa1onsy86SSiis, but you cannot claim
Shakespeare He, at least, was Saxon to
the finger tips"
''It is now regarded as sufficiently
proven that Shakespeare's paternal
grandmother was Griffith, member Of
q race most intensely Celtic. or rather
Cymbric, in South Wales. And now we
are asking ourselves how it did not hith-
erto strike us that the great poets un-
doubtedly Celtic vein was his by right
hereditary. Stratford is but step from
the Welsh marshes. The Shakespeares
probably made many other Welsh alli-
ances Nay. the very name Shakespeare
may be q corruptionor amplification Of 4
some good old Cymbric patronymic." II
So let us throw up our hats and hur-
rah for Ap Shakespeare, in the hope that
further researches may discover that hs
is more properly O'Shakespeare.
And now even this comfortable opinion
has been rudely overthrow. The anti
auaries who are ever at work upon the
family history Of the Bard Of Avon, have sss
estab ablished the fact that he had behind
him q long line of Welsh ancestry. sss
Prof. Edward Dowden, who Is at pres-.Ss
ent In this country. Is perhaps the fore- u
most living authority on Shakespearian #sS
matters. His book on Shakespeare
His Mind and Art" !" is q standard. Prot
Dowden emphatically Endorses the Welsh 3, !,
genealogy. Speaking the other day, hseg3s: eg n,
said: sEssssa sEsl
"It is interesting In this connection tssS .sss
remember Nathaniel Hawthorn u Y ne's 9
tim that Eng glishmen are greet ssss h Y
Is glish quail j IL