IRELAND
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IRELAND
a poet, was Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, a son of the
Earl of Cork. He was at once soldier, statesman, cour-
tier, playwright, poet, and romancist. A bloody sup-
porter of Cromwell, the murderer of the Bishop of
Ross, and extirpator of the native Irish, he had the
wit to turn with the times and under Charles II to
exchange the rusty broadsword of
Ohver for the puiisliod pen of the wit and the graceful Kibc of the courtier. A ditfcrcut character was Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Ros- common (1633-10S4), whom Pope characterized as the most correct writer of English verse before Ad- dison ; he was almost the only moral writer of the reign of the "merry monarch". Denham (1615-16GS), " majestic Denham ", as Pope calls him, was also an Irishman, and was in a way a forerunner both of Dry- den and of Pope, had much of the strength of the one and of the pointed antithesis and classic polish of the other. "He is one of the writers", says Dr. Johnson, "that improved our taste and advanced our language." His lines on the river Thames are widely known even still, though it is safe to say that not one in a thousand knows that they were composed l)y an Irishman. Richard Flecknoe (d. did Lynch, and Luke Wadding, '"""" "" 1078), whom Dryden damned as
pride of the Franciscan Order. Of all the great writers being " without dispute . . . through all the realms and scholars of the seventeenth century Keating, of nonsense absolute", was another Irishman. So MacFirbis, and O'Flaherty were the only ones who were Tate and Brady, the translators of the Psalms remained throughout upon their native soil. During into a kind of doggerel verse, which, bad as it was, many years the lives of most of these men would not held its own in Protestant worship for genera- have been worth an hour's purchase had they been tions. So was Southern, the celebrated playwright, caught upon their native soil. who made seven hundred pounds Ijy a smgle play.
It is indeed only with the advent of Molyneux (b. in while "glorious John" Dryden had to confess that he lC).')(i), that we find the first Irishman who used the had never made more than one hundred. SowasFar- ICuglish language with effect on behalf of Ireland her- quhar (1078-1707), born in Derry, one of the most
Ireland jiroduced a more vigorous literature in English,
which liegan to be occasionallv written by natives as
well as Ptilesmcn. Stanihurst (1547-1618), although
ho wrote his " De rebus in Hibernia gestis" in Latin,
was |)erhaps the first Irish-born man (he was a native
of Dnlilin) to attempt more amljitious things in Eng-
lish verse. He translated the first
four books of Virgil's ^Eneid into
" English heroieall Verse" in 15S.S,
but only arouseil the scornful de-
rision of his English contemporaries
by his effort. The seventeenth
century, however, was in Ireland
an era of great men and great learn-
ing, if not of great literature. It
witnessed from start to finish a war
of race and of religion, miserable
anil merciless, a long drawn out
agony. Such eras are necessarily
fatal" to literature. During this
century Keating and MacFirbis
wrote in Irish, O'Mulchonry in Irish
and Latin and trarLslated from the
Spanish, 0'Sulle\-an Bearr wrote
his great history of the Irish wars
in Latin. Ussher, the renowned
scholar and ecclesiastic, the glory
of the Pale, wrote in Latin and
English. Stanihurst, his uncle, an-
swered himin Latin; Ward, Colgan,
and O'Clery wrote in Irish and
Latin. Ware wrote in Latin. So
Luke Waddin
brilliant dramatists of his age. So
was the inimitable Richard Steele
(1676-1729), whose delightful essays
glorified the " Spectator". So was
Parnell, the poet (1679-1717). Con-
greve, too, the witty dramatist,
though born in England, was edu-
cated in Ireland.
Of all these men, however, and many more who might lie men- tioned, it may at once be jiret Heated that though born in Ireland they did not draw from the land of their childhood any inspiration whatso- ever. They were in Ireland but not of her; England they looked upon as their real country; to her and her alone they consecrated their talents. But in justice to them it must be remembered that men who would
^ rise by the pen or shine in literature
summation,' three-quarters of a century later, in in the English language must look to England and the burning eloquence of Grattan and the humilia- to it alone, for there only was to be had a public tion of England. One briUiant Irish writer of this cen- who would imderstand them. It is really with tury. Count Hamilton (b. at Roscrea, in 1646; d. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) that English literature 1720), used French for his literary medium. His in Ireland for the first time allowed itself to be " M^moires du Chevalier de Gramont " is a delightful coloured, in part at least, by the country of its birth, classic, which gives a brilliant description of the Court For although the bulk of Swift's direct, lucid, power- of Charles II. ful, and nervous writings belong to England, yet a
A number of poets of Anglo-Irish birth, but chiefly consideralile portion of them are the direct outcome of English up-bringing, whose names figure rather of his Irish life and his Irish surroundings. It is true prominently in the story of English literature, are that Moljmeux had preceded him as an exponent of that found through this and the next century. Of these, Protestant nationahsm which, by making the English one of the most remarkable as a man, though hardly as in Ireland as independent as possible of the English in
self. He forms a kind of connecting
link between the nationality of the
Catholic and Celtic Irish, by this time
largely banished, broken, or extermi-
nated, and those Protestant national-
ists who waxed ever stronger during
the succeeding century. .\ scientific
and learned writer of renown, a friemi
of Locke, and lay training and incli-
nation a philosopher, Molyneux was
moved to write his " Case of Ireland "
in 1698 by his indignation at the
violent action of the English Parlia-
ment in ruining Ireland by forcililv
throttling its woollen trade to help
the traders of England. His book
was by order of the British Hou.se of
Commons burnt by the common
hangman. But it found a mighty
echo soon after in the sceva indigna-
lio of Swift, and its legitimate con
