at capacity for detail, a
special aptitude for fine arrangements and nice distinctions. Our ancient
laws and history reveal the existence of great capacity for complex social
mechanism with a minor grasp of dominating and sustained control. The
character of our metric might have changed had the race developed a strong
central authority. In support of this speculation, I think it may be said
that in France and England the classic form, borrowed from Rome, ruled
with autocracy and disappeared with the theory of the right divine. The
Revolution revolutionised poetry as well as politics.

It was a splendid idea of the bards to conjure back Oisin from the land of
Youth, and present him and St. Patrick--types of Paganism and
Christianity--in dramatic debate. The great passionate character of Oisin,
his vivid love of battle and the chase, his generous spirit, his pathetic
regret for lost kin and comrades, with his fiery flashes of revolt,
constitute a creation in literature. No wonder that, even though amplified
and altered in the garb of another language, the great conception left its
impress on a later age. But I cite it here for a special reason, because
it may also be taken as typifying the meeting and interaction of ancient
Irish and Roman literatures. Christianity gave the Irish that cohesive
organisation which their political system lacked, and the great schools
took new vigour and vitality. Their rapid and wide-extended reputation
shows that this must have been a pre-cultured people who could thus throw
themselves so alertly into new study and so quickly conquer fame. The
island became the University of Europe, whither students came from many
foreign lands, and where they were warmly welcomed, supplied with food and
books, and all gratuitously. But never in any land had learning such an
explosive power upon a people as upon the Irish. Elsewhere it merely gave
limited impulses. Here, no sooner had scholars trained themselves in
academic studies than all the old adventurous spirit of the nation
revived, and, ignoring minor ambitions, they swarmed off, like bees from a
full hive, carrying with them the honey of knowledge and the ability to
create other centres that should be celebrated for all times.

They are known to have been the first settlers in Iceland. They penetrated
to Athens, and helped potently to revive or establish the study of Greek
in Europe. Some lines of their influences only may be noticed here, but
thes