The Irish standard., 1899-05-20

to which the FORE, ES,dent of our
country might be n. <9.lvisedly re-
ferred. Engllshmen ha. e; too long
drawn their ideas about and from
the. pages of Levers novels, have too
long deluded themselves into the belief
that that grotesque carnival OF riotous
dragons, of comic peasants, OF Castle
hacks, and practical jokers from Trinity
makes up the sum and substance of Irish
life and Irish character. AS matter
of fact, the "Arabian Nights" in spite
of their wizards and witches, their in
carnations, and entertainments, their roc's
eggs and magic lamps, present far
more faithful picture OF the Egypt of
to-day than Levers novels do of the
Ireland OF. his time or of any time
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 excel
lent as studies of Irish and English life
in foreign Continental cities; they are
amusing, entertaining, very good COM
pany, indeed, but they no more present
faithful picture of ireland than the
Bardic accounts of the dwellings OF the
Feni 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 "O'Briens and O'Flahertys" has
fallen into curious obscurity of late; it
deserved, and still deserves, better fate
for the sake of its one study of the
rebelious chieftain Of an ancient Irish
house, the last of his line, and for its
skillful and cruelty sarcastic study of
the blended corruption 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 or chosen to write more, if he had
given Ireland and the world series
OF novels which should have borne the
same relationship to "The Collegians"
that the Waverley novels do to the first
of their race, Gerald Griffin would un-
doubtedly have made himself the Wal
ter Scott of Ireland. From one\cause
or 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 prac-
ticallyunknown. Yet curiously enough,
there is not character in the book
whose name is not perfectly familiar
wherever the English language is
spoken. Danny Mann, IIardress Gre
gan, Ely O'Connor, Anne Chute, Kyrle
DAILY, have all been made everyday ac-
quaintances to the theater-goer every
where through Dion Boucicault's "Col-
leen Bawn,' and through the opera
taken from it and called "The Lily of
Killarney" But, for the thousands and
tens of thousands to whom the music
OF the opera and the incidents of the
olelodrama are familiar, how many hum
dreds have gone to the original of the
one and of the other and have studied
for its own sake "The Collegians" itself?
10 the Englishman who desires to have
a faithful picture of what Ireland was
like at the time in which "The Collie
gians" is laid, to the Irishman who wish
es to appreciate what must be called the
greatest triumph of Irish prose-fction,
"The Collegians' will not be merely
pleasure, it will be an essential of edu-
cation.
1t is curious and ironic fact that
Gerald Griffin's name should be best re-
melnbered in most English-speaking
countries through that very dramatic
art in which he feverishly thirstcd for
success. But it is not by Gisippus, the
hearts love of his youth, that his men,
ory is kept green. 1t is by the adapta-
ton OF his great novel made by other
hands long after Gerald Griffin was laid
in his quiet grave that the dramatic tri-
umph came, and the laurels that were to
have crowned Gisppus have been
awarded with full hands to the "Colleen
Bawn."
Gerald Griffin was not merely one OF
the most mastery of Irish prose writer's;
he is further entitled to place, and
proud one, among the poets OF Ireland.
If he had chosen to devote himself to
verse writing alone, Or had even dedi-
Gated his talents chiefly to verse writing,
he might have easily taken rank with
the foremost of his countrys poets, with
Moore, Davis and Clarence Mangan.
AS it is, the mere handful of perfect
verses which he has bequeathed to us
crtitle him, by their fawless beauty of
thought and form, to place only Sec
ond to that of the three stars in tire
Orion belt of Irish song. The verses
he did write are comparatively few in
number. The whole of them might be
included in such an anthology, such a
flower harvest and blossom garland as
Meleager and his rivals gathered in an
cient days from the violets, and anem-
ones, and narcissus blooms on the Hell
lenic Parnassus. Scholars pore in rapt
admiration over the epigrams of Ru-
tlnus or Agathias, as minute and as fine