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54 national mythology. A. E.'s doctrine of the "national being," which traces back the destiny of nations to divine origins; Mr Yeats' symbolism; Mr Stephens' gift of devout if playful realism in the presentation of epic personages; the dramatic movement, which requires a stereotyped legendary world; the real and powerful fascination of the remains of ancient Irish literature—all these influences have contributed to make the reconstitution of Irish mythology the distinctive achievement of the Literary Renaissance. Most of the writers concerned in the Renaissance would probably agree about this; not so, I fear, Ireland generally; for the Irish have lost all reverence for, and even interest in, their ancient divinities, almost as much so, in fact, as the English have lost interest in theirs; though our authors are fond of making the special claim for Ireland, that almost alone of European nationalities it has remained affiliated to antiquity. Irish idealism, which attributes so much importance to mythology, is thus left a good deal to itself; and the barrier which divides the popular consciousness from this inner circle of belief is perhaps the natural limit of the Irish Literary Renaissance, beyond which it cannot pass. I pointed out in my last Letter that Christianity and Paganism were brought into dramatic opposition in the mediaeval literature of Ireland as perhaps in no other literature, and that the writers of the Literary Revival have been bent on making amends to Oisin for his discomfiture at the hands of Saint Patrick. To a group of young Protestant writers this appeared almost in the light of a patriotic privilege: hardly so to Catholic Ireland, which has looked on with only a moderate enthusiasm at the glorification of its pagan past. A little band of Protestant poets engaged in interpreting the spirit of the most Catholic of European nationalities!—is there not in the mere statement of the situation some suggestion of the natural limitations of the Irish Literary Renaissance? For the spirit of revival had also breathed on Catholic Ireland, and the ideal in which Catholic Ireland was chiefly interested—the revival of the Gaelic language which disappeared in the time of O'Connell—was really somewhat embarrassing to the ideal of a new Irish literature in the English language. Moreover, Catholic Ireland by no means shared in that indifference to politics which Mr Boyd has noted as peculiar to the Literary Movement in its earlier days, when the Protestant Unionist O'Grady was hailed as its father.