ENGLISH AS SPOKEN IN IRELAND.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 Sin,—In the first letter on this subject (Spectator, April 25th, 1903) an instance was given of poetic imagination in the case of a poor woman who described her dead husband as " giving the grass in the churchyard." This takes us back to Hamlet

"Lay her i' the earth : And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring !"

also to "In Memoriam " " And from his ashes may be made The violet of his native land."

This is a remarkable coincidence truly, for here you have a very poor Irish peasant woman practically thinking of her beloved dead from the same standpoint as these two great English poets. Tennyson may have borrowed the idea from Shakespeare ; but from whom could she have borrowed it, as She probably had never read a classical book in all her life ?

It is a clear instance of the force of Irish poetic imagination.

The expression "that your journey may thrive with you" is very common in Ireland as an equivalent for "good luck to you in your undertaking." But this wish has a further extension and application of a very interesting kind,—e.g., when a funeral piocession is passing along the road you will hear this same formula made use of : " Well that his journey may thrive with him." Surely there is something very beautiful, touching, and appropriate in this-

" Tender farewell on the shore

Of this rude world when all is o'er "—

in this kind wish that the last and longest of all the journeys

that the poor departed has entered on may thrive with him. Au unthinking person might too hastily assume that this common expression was repeated merely from pure force of habit ; but this is not so ; for those who use it, being accus- tomed always to pray for the dead, naturally read into this favourite saying this fuller and deeper meaning so appro- priate to the occasion.

One may take it for granted that there is a spontaneity about Irish forms of expression, however strange they may seem to the hearer. They are not elaborated : not produced to improve the occasion,—they are perfectly simple, natural, and easy. An Irishman does not try to say funny things for the sake of being funny, or odd things for the sake of being odd ; and this adds to the charm of his conversation, and makes it an undying source of interest to those who can estimate it at its true standard. The difference of forms of expression, as indicative of differences of race between Ulstermen and

Irishmen of the other provinces, has already been indicated. Take a single instance which recently came under the writer's notice by way of illustration. An Ulsterman observed to a friend that it was a fine day. In Leinster, Munster, or Connaught the reply would have been : " It is, glory be to

God." But in Ulster the response was : " Well ye hae yere share o't." What a difference of temperament and race is conveyed by this guarded admission ! A Southerner, even in the worst and most tempestuous weather, will not omit his favourite and pious acknowledgment of an ever over- ruling Providence. In the wettest weather, when, to use his own formula, " the weather is very fond of the rain," he will invariably add: "glory be to God." What Englishman or Scotsman would ever dream of such. a descriptive expression of the Irish climate as this : " The weather is very fond of the rain"? There is a sort of caress and excuse about it ; there is no complaint or repining in it. The tone in which it is said also implies almost a sort of quiet pride and satisfaction that Ireland is keeping up her reputation in this respect. At Killarney a guide will tell you, during what you consider a heavy shower, that it's not rain at all, but only a little "paspiration " off the mountain. Cork City has a great reputation for rain, and a member of the Munster Bar has told the writer that he always feels depressed if it is not raining when he visits Cork, as the city is not then living up to the name it has got.

Politeness influences forms of expression largely, and three-fourths of Irishmen are all naturally very polite. Politeness does not necessarily imply insincerity, though Ulstermen say it does ; but then it is not their line. There is a large town on the Northern Counties Railway which, it is said, boasts itself as possessing the most polite porters on the system. Everything is relative. Recently, a lady having secured a porter at this station, told him (after her small luggage had been removed from the carriage) to get the rest of it from the van. He returned presently empty-handed, with the observation : " Beg pardon, ma'am, but ye're a liar; there's name o't in the van." In the South a similar official would have said : "If it's in the world, I'll get it for ye."

Education has done a good deal to. improve the native power of expression among the poorer classes in Ireland. It has not in any way submerged their originality, but has en- riched their vocabulary with suitable material for illustration. There is a certain Dan Donovan known to the writer who spends a considerable part of his time in the Union. His services are much valued there, as he is clever, obliging, and bandy. But at certain intervals Dan must break loose, and get away into the outside world, where, alas ! he gets very drunk, and continues to be drunk as long as resources last. He is in the habit of begging for a "little hand-reach" to buy " bread " at such times ! If you ask him why he does not

stay in the Union, be will ask you in return why the angels were not content to remain in Paradise, or, striking an attitude, he will dramatically repeat the lines:— "Adieu, adieu! my native shore Fades o'er the waters blue ;

The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,

And shrieks the wild sea-mew."

" Tell me, now, yere reverence, if Lord Byron and his aiquals couldn't always stay at home, why should Dan? Shure, it's often when I breaks out of the House, I goes and sits at the back of a ditch on a fine soft day, and goes over

these lines by meself." Now, is not Dan's "English as spoken in Ireland" interesting and unique ? Where will you find

his fellow in England or Scotland : his fellow in his own rank

" Winter lingers in the lap of May."

There are more Dana than one in Ireland.—I am, Sir, &c., C. M.