WANTED—AN IRISH SIB, WALTER.
[TO TER EDITOR OP Till "SPROTILTOR.1
SIR,—As the writer of the lines, "To the Coming Irish Poet" (Spectator. April 18th), which served as a text for your article, "Wanted—an Irish Sir Walter," you will not, I am sure, refuse me some little space in your columns. The desire ex- pressed by the writer of that article, although a natural, is far from being a very novel one. It has been uttered, sometimes playfully, sometimes seriously—occasionally even fiercely and passionately—alike in speeches and in articles, in books, in pamphlets, and in ordinary conversation, hundreds of times probably in the course of the last seventy or eighty years. Unfortunately, against the realisation of that wish two great, if not, indeed, insuperable, obstacles intervene. In the first place, looking at it from the purely literary point of view, although that difficulty is touched on lightly by your writer, it is, I think, the opinion of most critics that English literature may even see another Shakespeare before it can hope to be visited by a second Walter Scott ! This I am inclined myself to agree in, not merely from simple admiration for his genius—though I would yield to few in that respect—so much as on account of the amazing extent and variety of the field over which his Muse travelled so lightly, and the all but incredible number of figures which she was able, seemingly without the slightest effort, to scatter around her as she went. This, then, from the literary point of view, seems to be a reason against expecting the speedy arrival of any Irish Sir Walter.
From the historical side there is another, and a yet more formidable one. Let us suppose that your Irish Sir Walter has already arrived, you would still have to seek for the right historic field for him to conduct his operations upon. That field, which the Scotch one filled so magnificently, stood ready prepared and open long before he was born. Its capabilities must have been perceived by every competent eye; had, indeed, been tentatively tried by lesser writers, and was only waiting for its master's hand. In Irish history there is, I fear, no such field. There would be little danger in challenging all who are even moderately acquainted with that history to point to so much as a single period in which what we rather vaguely call the " picturesque " or " romantic " elements preponderate over, nay, even hold their own against, what we equally vaguely call the " gloomy" or the " tragic " ones. That " sorrow-laden stuff " which your writer so lightly, if so naturally, objects to is sorrow-laden rather, I imagine, because the matter that it treats of is sorrow-laden than from any inherent or perverse delight in gloom for its own sake. This has been before now clearly and generously expressed in your own columns; but in these relations commendation or the reverse is of little matter; it is the facts of the situation which are essential, and which we ought to try once for all to come to a right under- standing upon. The writer of your article asks : " If an Irish Sir Walter Scott began the story of Ireland with the Rebellion of 1798, would not he find material for as many novels as Scott himself ever contemplated ? " I should have thought in my perversity that the answer to that question would have been a simple negative ; but these are matters on which every man must judge for himself. There is indeed one extra- ordinarily romantic incident in connection with '98, but that incident unfortunately was neither an Irish nor an English one. The one piece of pure romance which took place in Ireland during that disastrous year was the all but in- credible descent of some nine hundred French troops, who, landing at Killala, marched upon Ballina, flung themselves unhesitatingly upon Castlebar, inflicting there a complete defeat upon General Lake and nearly four times their own number of strongly posted troops, many of whom never ceased from their panic-stricken flight till they had reached Athlone, sixty miles away. A week later, sallying forth to march upon Dublin, the invaders found themselves confronted by Lord Cornwallis, the Commander-in-Chief, and some twenty thousand troops, supported by cannon, whereupon they very properly surrendered upon the battle- field of Ballinamuck, the officers riding back to Dublin with Lord Cornwallis's Staff; the rank-and-file, packed into a string of turf-boats, being sent there by the canal, up which they travelled, singing the " Marseillaise " at the tops of their voices as they floated through the bogs ! This, Sir, I take
it, is Romance, nor would it be easy to find a better subject for the picturesque romancer, but the heroes of it were neither English nor Irish ones, and it has little to do with that bitter, discreditable struggle between two opposing races which is what we mean when we speak of Irish history.
The out-of-door aspect, the " landscape " of Ireland, is often one of the most romantic, the most wistfully romantic, upon the face of the earth ; but the long drama of which that land- scape has been the background has had little or nothing of those qualities either of tenderness or of chivalry which surely are, from the romance-writer's point of view, the moat in- dispensable ones of all. That was why, in place of echoing the oft-repeated wish for an Irish Scott, or romancer, I preferred, in the lines alluded to, to express a wish for an Irish poet, or a poet, at any rate, who would now and then seek in Irish history for a subject. This was from no lack of appreciation for much that has been done, often admirably done, of late in Irish verse. The kingdom of poetry, like the kingdom of heaven, has many mansions, and it was that large, somewhat austere abode reigned over by the Muse of History—in this connection we must say, of Tragic History—which I specially wished such a poet as I was dreaming of to be induced to occupy. A romancer, even the best of romancers, can hardly be expected to do more than combine, vivify, re- arrange, what is already visible and existing. The poet can do all this, but he can do much more besides, else he would assuredly not deserve the name of a creator.
To sigh for something that it is probable, if not certain, we shall never obtain may not be a very profitable, but is, at least, generally speaking, a perfectly harmless, form of recreation. Since we are allowing ourselves to indulge in it, why should we not, I would ask, go a little further ? Why should we not say, " Wanted—an Irish Marlowe!" " Wanted—an Irish Webster ! " nay, frankly and boldly at once, "Wanted—an Irish Shakespeare !" If such a simple and modest petition were only granted how many other desirable things might not be expected to follow,—how many threads, still hopelessly entangled, get straight ; how many long-enduring misunder- standings be put to rights ; how many foolish and obsolete controversies be lulled to rest for ever ? It is not an event which is, I fear, in the least likely to occur, but I fail to see that we shall do anybody any particular harm by praying for [The '45 and the subjugation of the Highlands must have seemed as gloomy before Scott touched them as the '98 seems now before an Irish Sir Walter. We cannot agree that the only romantic element in the '98 time was the Castlebar races. The " Wizard of the West " when he comes will only use the great historical episodes as background and foreground. The real romance, as in " Waverley," will be in " the hungering, thirsting men" and women " whose joys he will unravel, whose hopes he may fulfil." The alchemist does not want gold prepared for him, he makes it Spectator.]
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