the past, what is the answer if we ask, where, even in our own times, have the history and traditions of our country found proper teaching and exposition? In what schools and centres of learning have they found the place they merit among Irishmen? They have been the spcial pursuit of persons whose very interest in them has stamped them in the general estimation of the upper classes as either useless or disloyal. They have been the property and the pride of a few, and to these few we may offer our homage for their preservation. At the present moment I venture to say that more knowledge of Irish history would be found among the children attending National schools than among the off- i spring of the gentry in their classrooms and seminaries.
The outcome of this is a poverty in national historical literature which contrasts with the voluminous and valuable records of other countries once no greater in their art or civilisation than we were. "Historicus" has therefore to choose from a list which has compelled by its paucity the inclusion of some works the merits of which may be open to question. While on the whole I admire his critical selection, I notice the omission of books which would fain see included. "Petrie on the Round Towers," Dr Todd's "Wars of the Gaedhill and the Gail," the late Lord Dunraven's "Ecclesiastical Architecture," and Father Meehan's Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell," are books for the many as well as for the few. MonckMason's "History of St Patrick's Cathedral," and Halliday's "Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin," have an interest more than local; while Hardiman's "History of Galway" may be read elsewhere than in the "City of the Tribes." If a selection is to be made calculated to be of use to all classes of readers, Mr. Challoner Smith's great catalogue of British Mezzotint Portraits has a claim, because it deals with an art largely Irish both as to its artists and its subjects.
When I had real the list of books propounded by "Historicus," I asked myself with that jealousy which makes every man who has a science or an art think his own the true profession, why no mention was made of medicine or the cognate sciences, which have had such great exponents in this city. But I reflected that if I proposed to insert in the list even the famous works of Cheyne, Harrison, Jacob, Graves, Stokes, Todd, or Robert Smith, which have given new views to the world of medicine, and made the Dublin school famous over the whole globe, I would but stimulate the devotee at some other altar to favour us with a list of writings on conic sections or the differential calculus, or on the atomic weight of certain gases, or the spectrum of a certain planet, and so I remain silent to protect myself from that specialism which I would fain inflict on others, and only say what I do on the subject, lest my silence should be construed into disloyalty.
The part of your correspondent's article to which I am most inclined to take exception is, however, his inclusion in his list only of books about Ireland, for he thus excludes the best literature her sons have produced It is true that writings on general subjects are the property of the whole world of letters, and are cosmopolitan rather than Irish. Still the productions of the genius of a country are always claimed as its own, whatever their subjects may be, and it seems to me that our home manufacture in this respect is one we should jealously lay hold of. In this respect I miss many names from the list. Bunting's Irish Music, Anster's Faust, and the poems of Parnell, without laying claim to the mixed nationality of Felicia Hemans, are works with which we should cherish the connection, and Sir Samuel Ferguson still sustains our history of song. The plays of Steele, no less than his splendid English, and his service to the world by the introduction of periodic literature, are inheritances of letters not to be forgotten; and the "Tatler" and "Spectator" should find a place on every Irish bookshelf. In our own day we had in Sir William Wilde a writer whose best work has been of his country as well as in it. Among other books his "Boyne and Blackwater" should be read by everyone Irish, and his Catalogue of Celtic Antiquities in the Irish Academy is a work of surprising labour and learning, and enough in itself to constitute a reputation. Within the last few years Mrs Hartley has added an element to our national literature as distinctive as that of Bret Harte is to America, and "Flitters, Tatters, and the Counsellor" is only one to be named of several of her writings which should not be omitted from a representative list. What has the Rev Francis Mahony done that the "Reliques of Father Prout" should be omitted from the list? Surely it is an Irish possession in the best sense of the word, both as to authorship and redolence of the soil? Sheridan has a claim on the admiration^ not only of his countrymen, but of the whole world; and finally, sir, in the sweetest and greatest of our writers we have one who has few equals and no superiors in the literature of any land, and the other nations may well be jealous that Oliver Goldsmith w.as an Irishman born and bred.—Yours faithfully,
W Thornley Stoker.
REV. DR. KAVANAGH, P.P., KILDARE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREEMAN.
Kildare, March 24th.
Dear Sir—I read with interest, and shall preserve very carefully "Historicus'" most interesting list of "The Best Hundred Irish Books" which you so kindly sent me.
I missed from that list Father Denis Murphy's "Cromwell in Ireland," one of the most perfect monograms in the language. Sir John Pope Hennessy's "Sir Walter Raleigh in Ireland" should also have a place in the list. I also expected to find William Parnell's "Ireland in 1807" and Sir Henry Parnell's "Ireland in 1827," Dr Doyle's "Letters to Lord Liverpool on the State of Ireland" and his "Catholic Claims." I know nothing equal to Dr Doyle's twelve letters for vivid and eloquent descriptions of Irish abuses of the day. I was also worry to see Thackeray's "Irish Dramatists" omitted. His sketch of Goldsmith is unrivalled. Few Englishmen so truly appreciated the Irish character, with all its defects and its many virtues, as the great novelist, His big heart was brimful of kind and tender sympathies with Ireland. Even in his "Sketch Book," when he sometimes says hard things, he assures us (and I believe him) that he does not speak with scorn or ill-feeling, but with hearty sympathy and goodwill. After Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Cowell, few Englishmen formed so just an estimate of the Irish character as Mr. Thackery.
