pains as Thackeray took with him, he is worth most of the Irishmen in fiction.

Since the Celtic Renaissance began, with its deep spiritual and patriotic motive, with its literary marvels as if owing to a new descent of Fiery Tongues,-the one troubling of the pool in these latter years so barren of faith and wonder, the critics, so long hostile or merely contemptuous, have taken to considering us more seriously. This rebirth of genius and spirituality has served Ireland well. More true light, more education will do the rest. The pitiable subjection in which this people has so long been held, -of its own loving, ignorant choice, it must be said, by a power which has too often mingled politics with religion, is fast giving way. Nay, in a vital sense it is already dissolved. Neither this power, strong in the grace of age-long reverence and fidelity, nor any other on the earth, will ever again dare dictate a backward step to a people pressing

forward to the goal of liberty. History will not repeat itself in this regard for the Irish people.

So, whether you call it a dream or not, I'll believe it—yes, as though Tim Healy, M. P., instead of Costigan, had told me. The refrain of Ned Lysaght's ditty is still with mewould that he might hear it, set to the new tune of hope and promise! And so to conclude, Sir-asking a fair pardon for the few political observations above injected-I pledge you Captain Costigan's toast,

Nova Hibernia!

With this addition,

Esto perpetua!

YEATS AND SYNGE

I

HAT the truest and deepest poetry must

TH

often seem a vanity and a foolishness to the world not intimately concerned or spiritually indifferent, needs not to be proven :—it is an axiom that instantly recalls Wordsworth in his earlier period, and even more aptly, Blake; and in these latter days, the Irish poets Yeats and Synge.

Yeats is the poet of the banshee, of the leprechaun, of the lonesome Irish wind, of the mystery of the swaying reeds, the murmuring pool, and of all that uncharted realm of the imagination "where there is nothing." But he is a poet, don't forget that, and he has the real frenzy, instead of a literary attachment and a facility of making rhymes. Poetry may be mere moonshine, and in the case of Yeats, it is perhaps only the shadow of moon

shine:-still is it the miracle of the human mind, the most authentic proof of the god within us. This the world has ever felt, for the bearer of the sacred fire, the possessor of the true poetical gift, has always held the highest place in the intellectual sphere.

It is, however, true that the poet threatens to become extinct, like the dodo, and that is the best possible reason why you should make a point of seeing one of the last of the race. An Irish poet, too, for in spite of his English preciosity of style, Yeats has more deeply explored the sources of Irish poetical inspiration than any of his forerunners, and he is without a living rival. I do not agree with the too fervid admirers of Mr. Yeats, who would place him even above Moore, one of the world's great lyrists; but I will grant that he often seems more spiritually Irish. His distinction is so rare indeed and the quality of his work so far removed from general appreciation, that one is puzzled to account for his extraordinary vogue among his compatriots.

Something of it is no doubt referable to the present Celtic renaissance in which Mr. Yeats has borne a foremost part that, even more than his poetry, commends him to the esteem and gratitude of Ireland.

But it is as a poet that I like to think of him, and it is as a poet that you will be glad to hear and see him. Should you require an introduction to his work, read his verses about "the old priest Peter Gilligan," and if there be a soul in you, it will respond to the awe and mystery of human life, the deep spiritual sense of common things, which this poet is charged to interpret.

Both Yeats and Synge have left the beaten path in quest of themes congenial to their talent. They have intellectually gone far afield, while actually remaining amongst and taking their subject-matter from their own people. Yet there is nothing unfamiliar, at a first glance, in the material employed by Yeats and Synge, fairies and leprechauns and all