Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/127

Smith : Irish History and the Irish Question 1 1 7 Irish History and the Irish Question. By Goldwin Smith. (Xew York: iMcClure, Phillips and Co.; Toronto: Alorang and Co. 1905. Pp. viii, 270.) In two hundred pages of large print Mr. Smith has here given a brilliant narrative of Irish history from the earliest times down to Glad- stone's day. To this he has added a chapter on Ireland's political rela- tion to England, and a chapter by another hand on the Irish Land Code. For his narrative Mr. Smith has selected what is most significant and of permanent influence; his selection is usually good. His condensation is masterful. To the French invasion under Hoche, for instance, Lecky gives forty pages ; Mr. Smith gives twenty lines ; Lecky argues the Fitzwilliam episode in sixty pages ; Mr. Smith states it in less than two. Transitions are so skilfully made that the reader makes the leap of a century unawares; there are no dates as sign-posts of his rapid progress. Controversial points are affirmed with a decisiveness which leaves no chance for the hesitation of doubt or the delay of pro and con. Great men, great deeds, great horrors crowd upon each other with dramatic distinctness. And still the thread of the narrative stands out clearly and binds the whole together. The style has all the vigor and freshness of youth, though the author is past four-score. The sentences are short, crisp, and suggestive. It is interesting and stimulating, but not always impartial or impersonal. The author does not hesitate to judge past history according to his own view of present politics. " Of all histories the history of Ireland is the saddest." These words open the first chapter, and form the refrain of the whole book. The blame for the " seven centuries of woe " Mr. Smith appears to lay about equally on (a) Nature, (b) Irish character, (c) the Roman Catholic Church, and (d) English greed, (a) Nature made "the theatre of this tragedy " an island densely clothed with woods, which, with the broad and bridgeless rivers, tended to perpetuate the division into clans and prevent the growth of a nation ; it also made the English conquest partial only, long, and agonizing. England, with her coal and minerals, and Ireland, with her pasture land, were meant to be commercial supplements of each other, but " Nature made a fatal mistake in peopling them with different and uncongenial races" (p. 294). (b) The Celt has every- where shown himself " impulsive, prone to laughter and to tears, want- ing, compared with the Teuton, in depth of character, in steadiness and in perseverance. He is inclined rather to personal rule or leadership than to a constitutional polity" (p. 3). The circumstances of Irish his- tory have all tended to foster and prolong this notion of personal -rule, and make it a means of agitation against government and law. " To set up a stable democracy in Ireland would surely be an arduous under- taking " (p. 222). (c) The existence of the Roman Catholic Church has not merely added religious hatred to race hatred and stirred the Irish to make common cause with England's enemies, but at the present