Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/262

 240 Reviews.

cliaracter and in their literature. It was with the high object of attaining this end that Arnold set out to deliver his lectures. It was, he thought, the task of the Celt to spiritualize the Saxon, of the Saxon to direct the wayward genius of the Celt. With a strange inconsistency, he would have wiped out the languages in which the national genius had found its expression, while he would have preserved the sentiments which those languages enshrined. The languages, being a bar to intercourse with the Englishman, must be sacrificed on the altar of brotherhood, and the Celt must lose his individuality in order to spiritualize the Saxon. As Mr. Nutt shows, the actual accomplishment has been quite otherwise than Arnold anticipated. The revived interest in the national languages and literatures has been accompanied by, may we not even say largely brought about by, a desire to deepen the gap between the two countries, rightly or wrongly believed to be fundamentally antagonistic to each other in aim, in temperament, and in destiny. The motive power has in many cases been, not a desire of closer union, but the purpose of greater isolation. This Arnold did not foresee; but had he foreseen it, we believe, with Mr. Nutt, that it would not have led him to deny his theory, but only to raise it on to higher ground; " that," in the editor's words, "if the contact in these islands of Celt and Teuton has in the past produced results of such signal excellence, it is the best of reasons why we should continue and intensify that contact . . .; finally, recognising that contact implies friction, he would plead that tolerance, broad-minded sympathy, the resolute will to under- stand and to think the best, are the only efficacious lubricants."

The appendix to this edition contains a brief but admirable sketch of the outlines of the history of Irish Literature.

Eleanor Hull.

Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Edit, by James Hastings. Vol. IV. (Confirmation — Drama). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1911. 4to, pp. xvi -1-907.

This fourth volume, of over nine hundred pages, brings as far as Drama the accomplishment of Dr. Hastings' purpose " to give a