CLASSICAL LEARNING IN IRELAND.
Some Passages in the Early History of Classical Learning in Ireland. By the Right Hon. Mr. Justice Madden. (Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Dublin.)—Perhaps it is unreasonable to expeat detail from a writer who has to crowd into a limited space some account of twelve centuries. Still, the want of it is the defect of this book. What did these early Irish scholars achieve? The special subject of the lecturer is the time immediately preceding the foundation of Trinity College, Dublin, though an earlier period is sketched. We have indications rather than descriptions of the classical attainments of the monks, being told, for example, of a Latin-speaking peasant instead of being given a consistent idea of the general state of classical knowledge. Was there anything, to take a concrete instance, like the literary development of Elizabeth's reign ? In England there was a school of translators, whose work has never been excelled, with such men as Sir Richard Savile and Philemon Holland, and there must have been a public to which they ministered. What was there to correspond in Ireland? Mr. Justice Madden's lecture is interesting enough to make us ask for more.
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