have been
capable of expressing completely in criticism alone, of bringing
together the rough life of the road and the frenzy that the poets have
found in their ancient cellar,--a prophecy, as it were, of the time
when it will be once again possible for a Dickens and a Shelley to be
born in the one body.

The chief person of the earlier Play was very dominating, and I have
grown to look upon this as a fault, though it increases the dramatic
effect in a superficial way. We cannot sympathise with the man who sets
his anger at once lightly and confidently to overthrow the order of the
world, for such a man will seem to us alike insane and arrogant. But
our hearts can go with him, as I think, if he speak with some humility,
so far as his daily self carry him, out of a cloudy light of vision;
for whether he understand or not, it may be that voices of angels and
archangels have spoken in the cloud, and whatever wildness come upon
his life, feet of theirs may well have trod the clusters. But a man so
plunged in trance is of necessity somewhat still and silent, though it
be perhaps the silence and the stillness of a lamp; and the movement of
the Play as a whole, if we are to have time to hear him, must be
without hurry or violence.

NOTES

I cannot give the full cast of "Cathleen ni Houlihan," which was first
played at St. Teresa's Hall, Dublin, on April 3, 1902, for I have been
searching the cupboard of the Abbey Theatre, where we keep old
Play-bills, and can find no record of it, nor did the newspapers of the
time mention more than the principals. Mr. W. G. Fay played the old
countryman, and Miss Quinn his wife, while Miss Maude Gonne was
Cathleen ni Houlihan, and very magnificently she played. The Play has
been constantly revived, and has, I imagine, been played more often
than any other, except perhaps Lady Gregory's "Spreading the News," at
the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.

The "Hour-Glass" was first played at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, on
March 14, 1903, with the following cast:--

The Wise Man J. W. Digges
Bridget, his wife Maire T. Quinn
Her children Eithne and Padragan ni Shiubhlaigh
{ P. I. Kelly
Her pupils { Seumas O'Sullivan
{ P. Colum
{ P. MacShiubhlaigh
The Angel Maire ni Shiubhlaigh
The Fool