and
composing rhymes before other European nations, as well as a highly
developed metric machinery, another question may arise. It might be
alleged that, confined apart in an island remote from the Continent,
Irish methods could in no way affect the literature of the central and
southern peoples, whilst as regards the northern, it might be urged that
the Irish had no points of contact with them except where sword met sword.
And for this contention, which, I shall prove erroneous, support may
indeed be found in some of our chroniclers and others who seem to imagine
that fighting, not thinking, is the glory of nations, and so exaggerate
the first and show a practical contempt for the last.

Before entering on that topic, let me add another observation. The earlier
development of auditory power in the ancient Irish, their keen
discrimination of subtle sound-agreements and differences, did not stand
alone. It must have been correlated with a corresponding evolution of the
faculty of articulation, and, as this process went on, language as well as
literature was consequently influenced. Other senses evidently shared in
the development. In those initial letters, already mentioned, there is
overflowing evidence of acute visual perception of colour, whilst
appreciation of grace of outline and form is proved also from the writing
of our oldest manuscripts, the finely wrought implements of metal, and the
admirable shape of some of the flint arrow-heads, fashioned before metal
was supposedly known. Mankind may lose what it has acquired (though not
necessarily the inner aptitude), and with the ancient language is passing
away some of the articulation-gains, as with our ancient civilisation have
disappeared some of the educated powers of eye, and ear, and hand.

It occurs to me that from the mechanism of a people's literature, the
composition of its metric especially, we can deduce conclusions as to the
qualities and capacities in social and governmental matters. Building up
verse may be correlated with the building up of a State, for it is an
index of constructive power. The rhythmical tramp of the hexameter of
Hellas and Rome, and the sustained strength of their great epics,
re-appear in the disciplined tread of phalanx and legion, and the
long-continued control of their rule. In the ancient Irish metric there
was less of the rhythmic tread, and probably, as a consequence, much less
sustained power exhibited, whilst there is a gre