BOOKS.

THE FORAY OF QUEEN MEAVE.*

"1 aONFESS," says Mr. Godkin, in the August number of the Nineteenth Century, "I have until recently under-estimated the strength and permanence of Irish hatred of England, which the English hatred of Irishmen has at last produced."

* Ma Foray of Queen Move, awl Other LCD:Sas of /rat:ma's Heroic Age, By Aubrey de Vero. London : Irat;an Paul and Co. We should have been very thankful to Mr. Godkin, if he had given us a little evidence of the English hatred of Irishmen to which he refers. The only atom of evidence he produces is the fiercely anti-Irish spirit of the caricatures in Punch, which has been condemned again and again, in all the better organs of the EngliAli Press. But what evidence is there in the literary field that Irishmen of genius of any kind have been coldly treated in England ? Was the poet Moore underrated hero? Was he not ,even more popular than in Ireland itself? Was Miss Edgeworth, —Anglo-Irish as she was, —appreciated for the English didac- ticism and preachiness of her stories, or rather for their Irish vivacity? Were Carlton's exquisite Tales and Stories of the Irish Peasantry undervalued hero? Did either Lover or Lover -obtain a less reputation in this country than he obtained in Ireland ? Again, so far -as we know, Irish oratory, as well as Irish literataro, has always commanded the fullest ad-

miration in England. And the volume of anti-British poems which was republished from the Nation soon after the revolutionary movement of 1848, obtained quite as lavish an -admiration in this country as it ever got in Ireland. Indeed, the only Irish writers of great beauty who have never received an adequate mood of admiration in this country are

-the two De Veres, father and son ; and that we ascribe in no -degree at all to their being Irishmen, but to their verso having -an air of supreme and almost fastidious culture, and to its dealing often with themes so remote from the popular imagina- tion that it takes a considerable effort, even on the part of true lovers of poetry, to enter heartily into the subjects of their verse.

Here, for example, is a volume of verse of no common kind, founded on the legends of the heroic age of Ireland, full of music and charm, of fairy legend raised to the higher imaginative -level by the breadth of its range and the sweetness of its lyrical ,exaltation, not wanting, too, in traits of that hare-brained humour which makes it reflect marvellously the national character, but above all, spiritual in its note, and carrying us away into regions far above the senses and far below the wills of men. Yet, we ques- tion as to its becoming as popular as it deserves ; not from any want of appreciation on our own part, but simply because it takes au effort to enter into an intellectual and spiritual world so remote as this from our own, an effort which, in days like ours, we do not ,often find men willing to make. Some will say that the subject. matter of these legends is a certain Ossianic rhodomontade, in it- self difficult to apprehend ; and some, that the blending of this 'Ossianie rhodomontade with the spiritual ideas of many of these poems gives us a combination still more remote from modern apprehension. Yet it is really this striking blending of Ossianic rhodomontade with spiritual ideas and feelings, which g1ve8 these Poems their characteristic beauty, by making them -expressions of the Irish imagination which produced and which .enjoyed them. The epic from which fragments are here given by Mr. De Vere, "Time Foray of Queen Meave," embodies this strange mixture of laughing rhodomontade and true spiritual beauty with wonderful skill. Indeed, the marvels of the Irish f airy legend might remind one of the marvels in the old Grecian myths,—of the stories, for example, of the birth and works of Hercules,—but for the much greater variety and wildness of the Irish caprice, and the spiritual turns which, even in their wildest moments, the Irish legends are apt to take. Let us -quote, for instance, one of the early legends of the great warrior .Cuchullain, not because it represents at all adequately the poetry of this volume, but because it represents so well the Irish heroic myth, both in its grandiose story and in its tender 'ending ;— "That eve, at banquet ranged, The warriors questioned Forges; Who is best Among the Uladh chiefs F' Ere answer came ICing Conor's son self-exiled, Conlinglas, Upleaping cried, 'Cuchullain is his name ! Cuchullain ! From his childhood man was lie! On Eman Macha ever was his thought, Its walls, its bulwarks, and its Red Branch Knights, The wonder of the world.' Then told the prince How, when his mother mocked his zeal, that child Pared forth alone, with wooden sword and shield, And life, and silver ball; and how he hurled His little spears before him as he ran,

.And caught theca ere they fell ; and how, arrived, He spurned great Eman's gates, and scaled its wall, And lighted in the pleasaunce of the king

His mother's brother, Conor Conehobar ; And how the noble youths of all that land 'There trained in warlike arts, had on him dashed _ITirith insult and with blows : and how the child This way and that had hurled them, while tho king 'Who Sat that hour with Fergus, playing chess, (lazed from hie turret wondering.

Next he told How to that child, Setanta first, there fell Cachullain's nobler mime. 'To Email near

There dwelt an armorer, Cullain was his name,

That earliest rose, and latest with his forge Reddened the night : mail-clad in might of his

The Red Branch Knights forth rode; the bard the chief

Claimed him fur friend. One day, when Conor's self Partook his feast, the armourer held discourse ; The Gods have made my house a house of fame : The craftsmen grin and grudge because I prosper : The forest bandits hunger for my goods, Yea, and would eat mine anvil if they might- Trow ye what saves me, Sirs I' A Hound is mine, Each eve I loose him, lion-like, and fell ; The blood of many a rogue is on his mouth: The bravest if they hear him bay far off, Flee like a deer!' Setanta's shout rang loud That Moment at the gate, and, with it bleat, The baying of that hound ! The boy is dead,'

King Conor cried in horror. Forth they rushed—

There stood he, bright and calm, his rigid hands Clasping the dead hound's throat ! They wept for joy : The armourer wept for grief. My friend is dead ! My friend that kept my house and me at peace : My friend that loved his lord !' Setantrt heard Then first that cry forth issuing from the heart Of him whose labour wins his children's bread ; That cry he honours yet. Rod-checked he spoke; 'Cullain ! unwittingly I did thee wrong ! I make amends. I, child of kings, henceforth Abide, thy watch-hound, warder of thy house.' Thenceforth the 'Hound of Callain ' was his name, And Cullain's house well warded.'"

Hercules would certainly never have apologised to a blacksmith for killing his hound, or proposed. to make amends by taking his place.

Here, again, we are reminded, of course, of the horses of Achilles :—

'The laughter ceasing, spoke King Conor's son ;

Recount the wonder of those fairy steeds That drag Cuchullain'a war-car !' Fergus then Despite Queen Motive, who plaited still her robe With angry, hectic, hand, the tale began. Cuchullain paced the herbage thin that clothes neve Fund's summit. On that airy height A wan lake glittered, whitening in the blast, Pale plains around it. From beneath that lake Emerged a horse foam-white I Cuchullain saw, And straightway round that creature's neck high-held Looked the lithe arms no struggles could unwind. That courser baffled clothed his strength with speed :

From cliff to cliff he sped ; cleared at a bound

Inlet, and rocky rift ; nor stayed his course, Men say, till he had circled Erin's Isle. Panting then lay he, on his conqueror's knee Resting his head; thenceforth that conqueror's friend, His g Liath Macha.' Gentle..souled is she Sangland,' the wild one's comrade. As the night

Sank on those huge, red-berried woods of Yew

Loch Darvra's girdle, from beneath am wave She issued, darker still. Softly she paced, As though with woman's foot, the grassy marge In violets diapered, And laid her bead Upon Cuchullain's alloalder. In his wars Emulous those mated marvels drag his oar: In peace he yokes them never."

While the legend is cast • in a wilder and more extravagant mood than Homer's, the final touch, that Cuchullain never yoked his fiery steeds in time of peace, is not at all in Homer's way, and conceived in a tenderer spirit than his.

It would, however, be a great mistake to suppose that this volume is chiefly made up of marvellous stories of this kind. Though the basis of the epic is a raid of Queen Meave's on the kingdom of Uladh (Ulster) for the capture of a wonderful black bull, and though much of the peculiar character of the poem depends on the thread of caprice which runs through Irish war and history, and though Mr. de Vero has been careful to make the element of caprice prominent, both in the invading and the defending host,—prominent even in the great Cachullain, who never forgets his country or her good,—the charm of these poems is that they bring out so skilfully the spiritual exaltation which gives to all these freaks of imagination a separateness and unity of their own. Here, for instance, is a Druid's condemna- tion of the war, expressly on account of its capricious origin :—

" The royal tent was set High on a grassy platform. Heave that night

The first time since the death of Einobar Was cheerful of asp6ct; and, banquet o'er, Rising her warriors she addressed with vaunt I3eseeming not a queen. 'A year,' sho Said, 'Is past since northward to the war we marched :'

Then forth she loosed the sheets and spread the sails

And bounded on the waves of proud discourse Recounting all her triumphs; first, her wrong; Lastly, the cause of war, Cuailgeo's Donn Chief captive mid her captives ! Here her voice Rang loudest, and her oyes their fiercest beamed Rapturous response succeeded ; one alone, A Druid old, dissentient. Thus he spake, Not rising, to that throng of courtiers crowned : 'III doctrine have ye praised this evening, kings, Unwise, to Erin' realms unprofitable, Extolling war not based on xighteons cause Nor righteous ends ensuing. Kings and queen, The end of war is retribution just For deeds unjust; ill cure for greater ill : Wars there must he ; and woman-mouthed were he Who railed against them :—aye, but demon-mouthed The man that boasts of war-dishonouriug wars Opprobrious, spiteful, predatory, base.

Sirs, how began this feud ? It rose from jest !

And what its close ? A sacred site profaned,

Inviolate till this day !' The warriors frowned Yet all men feared the Druid beard and rod : They stood in silence."

A nobler defence of righteous, and denunciation of unrighteous, war, than this is not, we think, to be found in English verse. There are fine passages, however, of a very different kind in these fragments of the Irish epic. Here, for instance, is an apparition to the Irish host of the ancient war goddess of the race, the Mor Reega

" Silence they kept,

Long silence. Then far off, as though from depths By thought untraversable of cloudless skies, Such sound was heard as roaches ships at sea When, launched on airy voyage, though still remote, Nation of ocean-crossing birds begins To obscure the serene heaven. That sound drew near : From every tent the revellers rushed ! Then Jo!

That portent seen alone in fateful times, The dread Mor lleega I Terrible as Fate The goddess of the battles high o'er head Sailed on full-panoplied, in hue as when On Alpine snows, their sunset glories gone, Night's winding-sheet descends. Upon her =ague And spear beyond it pointing glared the moon, And on a face like hers that froze of old The gazers into stone. As on she sailed On that huge army coldness fell of death : Yea, some there died. Next morning, from that spot Northward to Eman lay a branded track: Straight as a lance still stretched it, league on league ; A. bar of winter black through harvest fields, A bridge of ice spanning the rippling waves ; A pledge that men had dreamed not."

In " The Children of Lir," we have an Irish version, exalted by true poetic imagination, and modified, of course, by the subse- quent influence of the Christian faith, of a legend, which is con- tained also in Grimm's German legends, of the wicked step- mother's magic transformation of her step-children into swans, at a moment when she is possessed with jealousy of their beauty and her husband's devotion to them. But "The Children of Lir" is exalted far above the level of the fairy legend, and become§ in the hands of the Irish poet a story of suffering, expiation, and spiritual hope. There is singular beauty in Mr. de Vere's account of the swan- song, .which was rumoured to have haunted pagan Ireland and Scotland for nine centuries, and which only sank at last into the silence of a happy immortality under the consecrating hand of Christian blessing :—

"And ever, when the sacred night descended,

While with those ripples on the sandy bars The sighing woods and winds low murmurs blended, Their music fell upon them from the stars, And they gave utterance to that gift divine In silver song or anthem crystalline.

Who heard that strait: no more his woes lamented: The exiled chief forget his place of pride: The prince ill-crowned his ruthless deed repented :

The childless mother and the widowed bride Amid their locks tear-wet and loosely straying Felt once again remembered touches playing.

The words of that high music no one knew; Yet all men felt there lived a meaning there Immortal, marvellous, searching, strengthening, true, The pledge of some great future, strange and fair, When sin shall lose her might, and cleansing woe Shall on the Just some starry crown bestow."

We prefer all the epic fragments, and "The Children of Lir" to "The Sons of Usnach," which, though it contains a fine pic- ture of the famous Irish heroine Deirdr6, is a chronicle of almost unintelligibly bloodthirsty and treacherous malignity, and of unintelligibly witless good-faith. But in all these poems there is the same wild, sweet note, rising out of an almost hare- brained wealth of childish wonder ; and whoever wants to make the acquaintance of the Irish heroic age, without having access to its original documents, can hardly do better than study Mr. de Yore's beautiful versions of the childish traditions of a people who even now seem to lose the best part of themselves. when they surrender their imaginative vision and their spiritual' faith for the hard realities of worldly prudence and earthly gain..