Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/149

CHAP. VII mediaeval period; and when, after the millennial year, the voices of the Middle Ages cease simply to utter the barbaric or echo the antique, it becomes clear that nowhere is there a happier balance of intellectual faculty and emotional capacity than in these peoples of mingled stock who long had dwelt in the country which we know as France.

Since the Celts of Gaul have left no witness of themselves in Gallic institutions or literature, it is necessary to turn to Ireland for clearer evidence of Celtic qualities. There one may see what might come of a predominantly Celtic people who lacked the lesson of Roman conquest and the discipline of Roman order. The early history of the Irish, their presentation of themselves in imaginative literature, their attainment in learning and accomplishment in art, are not unlike what might have been expected from Caesar's Gauls under similar conditions of comparative isolation. Irish history displays the social turmoil and barbarism resulting from the insular aggravation of the Celtic weaknesses noticeable in Caesar's sketch; and the same are carried to burlesque excess in the old Irish literature. On the other hand, Irish qualities of temperament and mind bear such fair fruit in literature and art as might be imagined springing from the Gallic stem but for the Roman graft.

No trustworthy story can be put together from the myth, tradition, and conscious fiction which record the unprogressive