Part 9 (1/2)

Yet the man who would keep chronicling the dry events would miss writing a history. He must fathom the social condition of the peasantry, the townsmen, the middle-cla.s.ses, the n.o.bles, and the clergy (Christian or Pagan), in each period--how they fed, dressed, armed, and housed themselves. He must exhibit the nature of the government, the manners, the administration of law, the state of useful and fine arts, of commerce, of foreign relations. He must let us see the decay and rise of great principles and conditions--till we look on a tottering sovereignty, a rising creed, an incipient war, as distinctly as, by turning to the highway, we can see the old man, the vigorous youth, or the infant child. He must paint--the council robed in its hall--the priest in his temple--the conspirator--the outlaw--the judge--the general--the martyr. The arms must clash and s.h.i.+ne with genuine, not romantic, likeness; and the brigades or clans join battle, or divide in flight, before the reader's thought. Above all, a historian should be able to seize on character, not vaguely eulogising nor cursing; but feeling and expressing the pressure of a great mind on his time, and on after-times.

Such things may be done partly in disquisitions, as in Michelet's ”France”; but they must now be done in narrative; and nowhere, not even in Livy, is there a finer specimen of how all these things may be done by narrative than in Augustine Thierry's ”Norman Conquest” and ”Merovingian Scenes.” The only danger to be avoided in dealing with so long a period in Thierry's way is the continuing to attach importance to a once great influence, when it has sunk to be an exceptive power.

He who thinks it possible to dash off a profoundly coloured and shaded narrative like this of Thierry's will find himself bitterly wrong. Even a great philosophical view may much more easily be extemporised than this lasting and finished image of past times.

The greatest vice in such a work would be bigotry--bigotry of race or creed. We know a descendant of a great Milesian family who supports the Union, because he thinks the descendants of the Anglo-Irish--his ancestors' foes--would mainly rule Ireland, were she independent. The opposite rage against the older races is still more usual. A religious bigot is altogether unfit, incurably unfit, for such a task; and the writer of such an Irish history must feel a love for all sects, a philosophical eye to the merits and demerits of all, and a solemn and haughty impartiality in speaking of all.

Need we say that a history, wherein glowing oratory appeared in place of historical painting, bold a.s.sertion instead of justified portraiture, flattery to the living instead of justice to the dead, clever plunder of other compilers instead of original research, or a cramped and scholastic instead of an idiomatic, ”clear and graphic”

style, would deserve rejection, and would, we cannot doubt, obtain it.

To give such a history to Ireland as is now sought will be a proud and ill.u.s.trious deed. Such a work would have no pa.s.sing influence, though its first political effect would be enormous; it would be read by every cla.s.s and side; for there is no readable book on the subject; it would people our streets, and glens, and castles, and abbeys, and coasts with a hundred generations besides our own; it would clear up the grounds of our quarrels, and prepare reconciliation; it would _unconsciously_ make us recognise the causes of our weakness; it would give us great examples of men and of events, and materially influence our destiny.

Shall we get such a history? Think, reader! has G.o.d given you the soul and perseverance to create this marvel?

--------------------------------------------------------------- [30] The following is the list of books given as the present sources of history:--

SOME OF THE ORIGINAL SOURCES OF IRISH HISTORY.

ANCIENT IRISH TIMES.

Annals of Tigernach, abbot of Clonmacnoise, from A.D. 200 to his death, 1188, partly compiled from writers of the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries.

Lives of St. Patrick, St. Columba.n.u.s, etc.

Annals of the Four Masters, from the earliest times to 1616.

Other Annals, such as those of Innisfallen, Ulster, Boyle, etc.

Publications of the Irish Archaeological Society, Danish and Icelandic Annals.

ENGLISH INVASION AND THE PALE.

Gerald de Barri, surnamed Cambrensis, ”Topography” and ”Conquest of Ireland.” Four Masters, Tracts in Harris's Hibernica. Campion's, Hanmer's, Marlborough's, Camden's, Holingshed's, Stanihurst's, and Ware's Histories. Hardiman's Statutes of Kilkenny.

Henry VIII. and Elizabeth.--Harris's Ware. O'Sullivan's Catholic History. Four Masters. Spencer's View. Sir G. Carew's Pacata Hibernia. State Papers, Temp. H. VIII. Fynes Moryson's Itinerary.

James I.--Harris's Hibernica. Sir John Davies' Tracts.

Charles I.--Strafford's Letters. Carte's Life of Ormond. Lodge's Desiderata. Clarendon's Rebellion. Tichborne's Drogheda. State Trials. Rinuccini's Letters. Pamphlets. Castlehaven's Memoirs.

Clanrickarde's Memoirs. Peter Walsh. Sir J. Temple.

Charles II.--Lord Orrery's Letters. Ess.e.x's Letters.

James II. and William III.--King's State of Protestants, and Lesley's Answer. The Green Book. Statutes of James's Parliament, in Dublin Magazine, 1843. Clarendon's Letters. Rawdon Papers. Tracts.

Molyneux's Case of Ireland.

George I. and II.--Swift's Life. Lucas's Tracts. Howard's Cases under Popery Laws. O'Leary's Tracts. Boulter's Letters.

O'Connor's and Parnell's Irish Catholics. Foreman on ”The Brigade.”