Page:The best hundred Irish books.djvu/11

 name of Mr. Lecky, no Irishman has laboured so assiduously in the field of original research and produced such excellent results as Mr. Prendergast. It is to br hoped he is not resting on his oars. The second part of his "Tory War in Ulster" has not yet been written, and some papers from his pen lie practically and of necessity buried in the "Journals of the Archæological Society of Kilkenny." It would be desirable to have Mr. Prendergast's "fragments" collected and published in a convenient and popular form. Facts about Ireland are so rare that those who gather them carefully and conscientiously should not cease to work and to publish. The Cromwellian period should not be passed over without reference to Carlyle's "Cromwell" and Petty's "Political Anatomy of Ireland," both works of the greatest value. The best account of the Williamite War is, of course, to be found in the contemporary records of Story ("Impartial History of Affairs in Ireland" and "A Continuation of the History of the War in Ireland,") Burnet ("History of His Own Time"), and "The Macariæ Excidium." The following works relating to this period all deserve attentive study:—Macaulay's "History of England," Hume's "History of England," Harris's "Life of William III."

From the Williamite period downwards we. have upon the whole more books, or materials for books, than during any other period, and some of the best of these were produced between the beginning of the eighteenth century and the Union, or soon after the Union. A host of familiar names may be mentioned;—Swift ("Works"); Burke ("Correspondence" "Speeches," and "Works"); Skelton ("Works"); Berkeley ("Works"); Boulter ("Letters"); Grattan ("Speeches"); Molyneux ("Case of Ireland Stated"); Lucas ("Addresses,"); Hutchinson ("Commercial Restraints"); Arthur Young ("Tour"); Campbell ("Philosophical Survey"); Dobbs' ("Essay on the Trade of Ireland"); Prior ("List of Absentees"). Many other works to which we are mainly indebted to the writers or statesmen of the eighteenth century, and all of which are excellent, may be enumerated; thus, taking them at random, we have— Taaffe, "Observations on the State of Ireland since the Settlement of 1691;" O'Conor, "History of the Catholics;" Curry, "Civil Wars;" and "State of the Catholics;" Hardy, "Life of Charlemont;" Father O'Leary, "Works;" Macartney, (Barrow's "Life and Writings of Lord Macartney) Mountmorres; "The Irish Parliament."

The "Autobiography" of Wolfe Tone deserves a sentence, or several sentences, to itself. It is the perfection of autobiography, frank and full, and written in a style eminently characteristic of the man—vigorous and original. Tone did not write his life with a view to what posterity might think of him. He wrote exactly what he was and what he thought, and did, and tried to do. We. have the whole man presented to us—"warts" and all—not a feature is left out, not a characteristic omitted. The portrait is simply perfect. His hatred of England, his love of adventure and fun, his abhorrence of injustice and shams, his boldness, ingenuity, strength of will, restless energy, great shrewdness, irritable temper, indomitable courage, and immense intellectual resources—are all graphically delineated. Tone was far from being a perfect man, or a perfect patriot, but he had one great virtue, and it is that virtue which gives such a charm to his autobiography—he told the truth. Shoals, of pamphlets and such like literature, were issued from the Press during the eighteenth century, and most of these are excellent. We shall mention as among the list "Madden—Reflections and Resolutions proper for the Gentlemen of Ireland," the admirable "Letters from an Armenian in Ireland to his friends at Trebizonde," the "Letters of Guatimozin," and the "Strong Box Open." Neither must "Barataria" or Barrington's " Rise and Fall" be omitted. Barrington, however, must not be taken as a grave and judicial historian.

Between the Union and the Young Ireland movement (which may be said to have in great measure made an epoch in Irish literary history), the first place ought, perhaps, to be assigned to Sir George Cornewall Lewis's "Irish Disturbances." Sir George Cornewall Lewis touched no subject which he did not exhaust, and his "Irish Disturbances" forms no exception to the rule he usually followed. There is no more complete, authoritative, or fairer work on the Irish agrarian wars than this. Like Mr.Lecky, Sir George accumulates proofs, and at once commands the re-