THE PROSE WRITINGS OF THOMAS DAYIS.*
THERE was a peculiar fitness in entrusting to Mr. Rolleston the editing of Thomas Davis's literary remains, inasmuch as of all living Irishmen, there is perhaps no one who is more in sympathy with that generous and romantic figure. Of what modern Irish leader can it now be said, as Mr. Rolleston says with perfect truth of Davis : " All Ireland, irrespective of creeds and parties, mourned for him" P And yet he was a bitter foe of England, who would have laughed to scorn such a phrase as that of the " Union of Hearts." England, as Mr. Rolleston puts it in his all too brief biographical introduction, with him stood for selfishness, ruthless greed, mammon-worship, incorporate in national form. He despised her mechanical civi- lisation, and was repelled by her industrial enterprise. If you -want to measure the strength of Davis's anti-English feeling, you should read the really splendid ballads which he contributed to The Spirit of the Nation, " Clare' s Dragoons" and " The Irish Brigade," songs which almost persuade the most loyal Irishman to be a rebel. If the present movement had given birth to such verses, that would afford a greater guarantee of its sincerity than any which is yet forthcoming. But although efforts have been made to claim Davis as a prospective patron and coun- tenancer of the present agrarian movement, Mr. Rolleston, his -disciple and admirer, has elsewhere emphatically exposed the • Peosc Ilreitings of Thomas Davis. Edited, with an Introduction, by T. W. Rolleston. Loudon: Walter Scott.
hollowness of the pretext on which the claim is based. Davis was genuinely anti-English at heart ; but be was a chivalrous opponent, singularly candid in admitting his party's faults, and resolutely opposed to the employment of any methods that were not perfectly above-board and honest. Whatever he thought unworthy and false he attacked with unsparing zeal, no matter on which side it appeared. He was an enthusiast : but at the same time he had not a little of the critic in his composition.
Though bright and animated in style, it is more for their spirit than their literary form that these papers are worthy of republication. Davis never pretended to be a poet, though he wrote not a few soul-stirring stanzas ; and so, too, was it with his prose writing. " Literature," as Mr. Rolleston says, " with him was a means to an end, not, so far as his short life gave him the chance to cultivate it, an end in itself." But that his was a cultivated mind, no one can deny after a perusal of these pages. With all his passionate admiration of the Irish tongue, he was free to admit that English literature should be the first and principal study of an Irish student. That admira- tion, by-the-way, is illustrated in an amusing editorial note on p. 158. Contributors to the columns of the Nation found him a relentless editor in this regard, one of them declaring that if he sent in a poem beginning,-
" Let us go down
To pretty Kingstown,"
he might confidently expect to find in his proof,- " Let us go down To pretty Dunleary."
But this feeling never degenerated in him to that absurd glorification of the past which marks so many Irish National- ists. With them, the prodigious age of Irish antiquities and the existence of an early Irish civilisation of an extraordinarily developed character are cardinal tenets in their patriotic creed. Now, we can give no better instance of Davis's honesty in this matter than is to be found in the paper on The Round Towers of Ireland," where he reluctantly admits that Mr. Petrie's researches have " displaced a heap of incongruous though agreeable fancies." It is the mixture of candour and enthusiasm that renders his writings peculiarly engaging. He was not afraid to express his admiration for the Orange- men's ballads, or to declare that, although Balfe was "very sweet," " not one passion or association in Ireland's heart would answer to his songs." Three points above all others emerge clearly in his writings,—his abhorrence for crime, his belief in moral force as a potent factor in practical politics, and, above all, his conviction that Ireland's demand for a separate national existence, if it is to have any value, must be unanimous. " However closely we study our history," he says in his Maxims and Reflections, " when we come to deal with politics, we must sink the distinctions of blood as well as sect. The Milesian, .the Dane, the Norman, the Welshman, the Scotch- man, and the Saxon naturalised here must combine, regardless of their blood This is as much needed as the mixture of Protestant and Catholic." And so we find him constantly appealing to all creeds and classes to carry out his favourite schemes for preserving Irish monuments, perpetuating the Irish tongue, and in every way doing honour to what was dis- tinctively Irish. The idea of boycotting would have been as alien from his generous spirit as night from day. As for his denun- ciation of crime, we would refer our readers to his article on " Munster outrages," in which he begins : " The people of Munster are in want—will murder feed them ?" and continues in the same strain of impassioned rebuke. " Why," he asks, " should Munster lead in guilt? Our richest province, our purest race, our fairest scenes,—oh ! why should its blood- shed be as plenteous as its rains ? Other people suffer much. The peaceful people of Kerry, the whole province of Connaught, many counties of Leinster are under a harsher yoke than the men of North Munster : yet they do not seek relief in butchery. Thank God ! they do not. How horrid a blot upon earth were Ireland, if its poor had no reliance but the murder of the rich ; better by far that that people rose and waged open war. That were wild—that were criminal; but 'twould be wisdom and mercy compared with these indi- vidual murders." One cannot help feeling that had Davis lived, be would have been as much out of touch with some later developments of the Irish national movement as was his friend and fellow-singer, Sir Samuel Ferguson. For example, we cannot imagine Thomas Davis exhorting the electors
to return all the present Members. A representative of the people, he declares, must be a man who comms,nds respect. " Morals, ability, and zeal are quite as requisite as national opinions in a Representative." " We exhort the People, as they love purity, as they prize religion, as they are true to themselves, to Ireland, and to liberty, to spurn from the hustings any man who comes there without purity and wisdom, though he took or kept a thousand Repeal pledges." There is an admirable little paper called " Scolding Mobs," from which we will take our last extract :—" In reference to popular faults, we cannot help saying a word on the language applied to certain of the enemy's leaders, especially the Duke of Wellington. We dislike the whole system of false drisparagement. The Irish people will never be led to act the manly part which liberty requires of them by being told that the ' Duke,' that gallant soldier and most able General, is a screaming coward and a doting corporal."
Well may Mr. Rolleston say that Ireland still has too good cause to mourn for Thomas Davis. He was born in 1814— that is to say, five years later than Mr. Gladstone—and although it is perhaps gratuitous to speculate on what course he might have taken had he lived till to-day, it is not too much to say that these writings contain as effective a con- demnation of the methods of Parnellism as any Unionist could wish for. Between the journalism of Davis and of United Ireland there is an unbridgable gulf. " False dis- paragement" is of the very essence of the later method. Mr. Balfour, whom the Irish Members know in their heart of hearts to be a gallant and able leader, is habitually de- scribed as a whining and lily-livered craven. He is always " pale " and " miserable-looking," while the Separatist cham- pions are in the pink of condition. But whatever turn his politics might have taken, Davis would always have remained a healthful and invigorating influence in Irish politics. It is impossible to imagine him working in concert with the English Members, but it is at least as impossible to conceive him sanctioning the methods invented and adopted by the Land League.
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