urg, the greatest German poet of his time, and Richard Wagner;
but all the beauty and power in the works of these men existed in the
original Celtic form of the tale, and the later writers have only
discovered it and brought it to light.

The same thing is true of the Arthurian Legend and the story of the
Holy Grail. Dante knew of King Arthur's fame, and mentions him in the
_Inferno_. To Dante he was a Christian hero, and the historical
Arthur may have been a Christian; but much in the story goes back to
the pagan Celtic religion. We can find in Irish literature many
references that indicate a belief in a self-sustaining, miraculous
object similar to the Holy Grail, and the fact that this object was
developed into a symbol of some of the deepest and most beautiful
Christian truths shows the high character of the civilization and
literature of ancient Ireland.

REFERENCES:

Wright: St. Patrick's Purgatory (London, 1844); Krapp: The Legend of
St. Patrick's Purgatory (Baltimore, 1900); Becker: Mediaeval Visions
of Heaven and Hell (Baltimore, 1899); Shackford: Legends and Satires
(Boston, 1913); Meyer and Nutt: The Voyage of Bran, edited and
translated by K. Meyer, with an Essay on the Irish Version of the
Happy Other World and the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth, by A. Nutt, 2
vols. (London, 1895); Boswell: An Irish Precursor of Dante (London,
1908).

IRISH INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH LITERATURE

By E.C. QUIGGIN, M.A.

Among the literary peoples of the west of Europe, the Irish, in late
medieval and early modern times, were singularly little affected by
the frequent innovations in taste and theme which influenced Romance
and Teutonic nations alike. To such an extent is this true, that one
is often inclined to think that far-off Iceland was to a greater
degree in the general European current than the much more accessible
Erin. During the age of chivalry, conditions in Ireland were not
calculated to promote the growth of epic and lyric poetry after the
continental manner. Some considerable time elapsed before the Norman
barons became fully Hibernicised, previous to which their interest
may be assumed to have turned to the compositions of the trouveres.
In the early Norman period, the poets of Ireland might well have
begun to imitate Romance models. But, strange to say, they did not,
and, for this, various reasons might be assigned. The flowing verses
of the Anglo-Norman were impossible for men who delighted in the
tramm