Page:Irish minstrelsy, vol 2 - Hardiman.djvu/18

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IRISH MINSTRELSY.

the head of each. The bards have been exterminated; but the priests, sustained by a higher power, survive, for what end yet remains to be developed.

The persecuted bards of Ireland, like their brethren of ancient Wales, had long, and assiduously laboured in the service of their country. They sung of its ancient glories, they mourned over its woes, and lamented its downfall. They incessantly exerted themselves to rouse their fellow countrymen to resist the invader, and stimulated them to almost incredible deeds of heroism and romantic valour.^[1] Hence they became particularly obnoxious to the English, by whom they were invariably proscribed and persecuted. This extraordinary succession of men, has, notwithstanding, left behind imperishable memorials

↑ The following eloquent passage, from Remarks on the Speeches of our famous countryman, Grattan, in a modern periodical, presents a true picture of Irish warfare, for centuries after the invasion:—
"What Ireland might have been with her great original qualities of war and peace, cultivated and guided to her true interests, is now beyond conjecture. In the recent struggles of the empire, she has not fallen behind any of its kingdoms in the vigour of her genius, or the valour of her soldiers. It cannot be doubted, that, in her historic darkness, many a bold hand and mighty intellect arose and perished. Men fought from the rage of appetite, from the madness of faction, from the impulse of gallant blood ; without direction and without reward. History recoils from this furious gladiatorship, and leaves the heroic slaves without a name. Yet, in a nobler cause, and in a later time, those men might have stood among the glorious of the earth. If, in the spirit of the Homeric prayer, the light had been let in upon the conflict round that trampled and defaced corpse, their native sovereignty, the world would have seen, grappling hand to hand, many a form worthy of kings and chieftains, many a noble courage and superb mind, stamped by nature to have led armies to battle, and guided the councils of empires."—New Edinburgh Review, vol. iii. p. 554.

[1] The following eloquent passage, from Remarks on the Speeches of our famous countryman, Grattan, in a modern periodical, presents a true picture of Irish warfare, for centuries after the invasion:—
"What Ireland might have been with her great original qualities of war and peace, cultivated and guided to her true interests, is now beyond conjecture. In the recent struggles of the empire, she has not fallen behind any of its kingdoms in the vigour of her genius, or the valour of her soldiers. It cannot be doubted, that, in her historic darkness, many a bold hand and mighty intellect arose and perished. Men fought from the rage of appetite, from the madness of faction, from the impulse of gallant blood ; without direction and without reward. History recoils from this furious gladiatorship, and leaves the heroic slaves without a name. Yet, in a nobler cause, and in a later time, those men might have stood among the glorious of the earth. If, in the spirit of the Homeric prayer, the light had been let in upon the conflict round that trampled and defaced corpse, their native sovereignty, the world would have seen, grappling hand to hand, many a form worthy of kings and chieftains, many a noble courage and superb mind, stamped by nature to have led armies to battle, and guided the councils of empires."—New Edinburgh Review, vol. iii. p. 554.

[1]