ce against us.

A nation may produce one man or ten men of eminence, but if they cannot
succeed in impressing their mind upon the spirit and intellect of their
own country, so as to create in her a taste for literature or science,
no matter how highly they may be appreciated by strangers, they have not
reached the exalted purposes of genius. To make this more plain I shall
extend the metaphor a little farther. During some of the years of Irish
famine, such were the unhappy circumstances of the country, that she was
exporting provisions of every description in most prodigal abundance,
which the generosity of England was sending back again for our support.
So was it with literature, our men and women of genius uniformly carried
their talents to the English market, whilst we labored at home under all
the dark privations of a literary famine.

In truth, until within the last ten or twelve years, an Irish author
never thought of publishing in his own country, and the consequence was
that our literary men followed the example of our great landlords; they
became absentees, and drained the country of its intellectual wealth
precisely as the others exhausted it of its rents.

Thus did Ireland stand in the singular anomaly of adding some of her
most distinguished names to the literature of Great Britain, whilst she
herself remained incapable of presenting anything to the world beyond a
school-book or a pamphlet; and even of the latter it is well-known that
if the subject of it were considered important, and its author a man
of any talent or station in society, it was certain to be published in
London.

Precisely in this state was the country when the two first volumes of
the "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry" were given to the public
by the house of Messrs. Gurry and Co., of Sackville Street. Before they
appeared, their author, in consequence of their originating from an
Irish press, entertained no expectation that they would be read, or
excite any interest whatever in either England or Scotland. He was not,
however, without a strong confidence that notwithstanding the wild
and uncleared state of his own country at the time, so far as native
literature was concerned, his two little pioneers would work their
way with at least moderate success. He felt conscious that everything
depicted in them was true, and that by those who were acquainted with
the manners, and language, and feelings of the people, they would sooner