concerning Ireland. I thank him for jogging my memory about Reeves — Adamnan’s Life of St Columba, and for giving a prominent place to Colgan’s “ Acta,” &c. I think that Mr. Bagwell is under some obligation to me for omitting his name from my list, as in so doing I have been the unintentional, but certainly not the unsympathetic, cause of having his book on the Tudor period recom- mended to the Irish public by the greatest and the fairest of Irish historians, i have not read Miss Lawless’s “ Hurrish,” but that Mr. Lecky should ‘ ‘ warrant’’ it satisfies me of its excellence. Crumpe’s “Essay” de- serves a place in the Best Irish Books at all events. Aubrey de Vere ought not to have been forgotten.
I thank Mr. Carton, Q C, for drawing at- tention to “Inisfail.” It is a poem which, apart from its great literary merit, is emi- nently entitled to a place even on purely his- torical grounds. Mr. Carton does not think that the “ Library of Ireland,” the “Spirit of the Nation,” and Davis’s Poems “ are calcu- lated to make the Irishpeople ‘rebels.’” This is a matter of history. Does not Mr. Carton remember the famous mot about the Nation made by a distinguished member of his profession some time after the establishment of that brilliant and honest journal? “ What is the tone of the new paper?” this barrister was asked. “Wolfe Tone” was the ready reply. We have it from Mr. John O’Leary with characteristic outspokenness that it was Davis’s poems that made liim a rebel; and there are a great maiiy others of whom the same may safely be affirmed. Charles Gavan Duffy once said, or wrote, that Young Ire- land (I hope I quote correctly) “brought a soul into Eire.” Commenting uj:)on this line, Mr. John O’Leary has said that it would have been more accurate to have stated that Young Ireland “brought back a soul into Eire.” Reducing the poetry of the Young Ireland Chief and the Fenian leader to sober prose, t.h(j simple fact is that Young Ireland “ brought back” Wolfe Tone into Ireland. The Bishop of Achonry mentions Cardinal !Moran, and 1 have no hesitation in saying that his “Catliolic ArcIibishoj)S,” and “ Early Irish Church,” are good books, displaying careful and conscientious research.
Of the books mentioned by tlio President of Maynooth — and I bog to thank him as well }>.H otli(!rs of your correspondents, who have givyii us not merely criticism, but light — I have already accepted Adamnan, Colgan, and Ware. I shall try and find a place for the others, but I am afraid it must not be in the “ Best Hundred.”
Mr. John Morley must be excused for not giving us any “liglvt,” as he is at the moment better employed in giving our English fellow- subjects “leading.”
I regret that Mr. William Johnston, M P, has not given us a little light either; and there is no excuse for him. I had expected that he would at least have named Walker’s “ Journal of the Siege of Derry ” — an ad- mirable chronicle of one of the most brilliant episodes in the military his- tory of the world. Poor Walker ! gallant fellow ! Even in his day he was badly treated by Mr. Johnston’s political an- cestors, and Mr. Johnston forgets him now. Walker, as we all know, fell at the Boyne. “ He was shot,” says Story, “ a little beyond the river, and stripped immediately, for the Scotch-Irish that followed our camp were got through already, and took off most of the plunder.” They might at least have spared the hero of Derry.
I have to thank Mr. John O’Leary for his long and painstaking letter. I wish, indeed, he had undertaken the work which I have en- deavoured to do.
To paraphrase what Sir C. Gavan Duffy has said respecting my list, I feel no hesita- tion in asserting that there are not three men in Ireland who could draw up a better list of Irish books than the former editor of the Irish People. I am not sure, however, that he does himself justice in the letter before me. He says that M‘Gee’s History and Mitchel’s do not “ give any measures of the men.” I do not think that Mr. O’Leary’s letter gives us any measure of him. There is too much criticism and too little light in it. I am bound to say this, for, with Mr. O’Leary’s vast know- ledge of Irish books, I think there is a duty imposed on him, some time or other — I do not say now — to give us a paper in one of the magazines on Irish literature worthy of his talents and erudition. I do not understand what Mr. OTicary means by stating that I “astound” him in saying, “In truth, no general history of Ireland worthy of being j)lacod among the productions of liingard, Hume, Green, or Burton has yet boon written !” Ho admits that this is an “ undonbti'd fart,” but adds, “ might it not bo said of nil the
