THE AUTHOR OF "IRISH PEDIGREES."
TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREEMAN.
25th March.
Dear Sir—Many thanks for the proof of "The Best Hundred Irish Books," by "Historicus," which you so kindly sent me. While "Historicus" deserves great praise for his patience, labour, and research in the compilation of that very interesting paper, there are, in my opinion, many works on Irish literature, racy of the soil, which he might have mentioned. Some of these works, however, are named in the correspondence on the subject which you have published in tgday's and yesterday's issues of the Freeman .—Yours very faithfully,
MR. PARNELL, M.P.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREEMAN.
Dear Sir—I have received your kind inquiry as to my views on the interesting question of the "Hundred Best Irish Books." I have seen your selections with the greatest interest, and I have also read the numerous and very valuable contributions to the subject from your correspondents. Without expressing any definite opinion of my own as to the merits of your selection, for I do not feel that such an opinion would be of much weight, I will content myself by saying that I believe the discussion in your columns will prove of great importance, and will afford valuable information otherwise unattainable to many thousands.—Yours truly,
CANON ULICK BOURKE P.P., M.R.I.A.
TO THE EDITOR OP THE FREEMAN.
Dear Sir—Accept my best thanks for having sent me an advanced proof of the able essay by "Historicus" on the subject "The Beat Hundred Irish Books," or, rather, as I must take it from his own views—the hundred beat books relating to Ireland and to her people.
Its publication in the pages of the Freeman's Journal has been earlier than I had expected.
His Lordship the Bishop of Achonry has given expression to the thought that came to my mind directly on reading the praise lavished on Lecky's writings in reference to Ireland—that what he did write has been over-estimated. The rarity of such honest writing by prgEnglish historians in treating of Ireland and her children in the past has, like water in a desert land, added immensely to the literary and historic value of Lecky's views in his "History of England" in the eighteenth century, and his "Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland." With some of your distinguished contributors I eagerly share surprise at the very ample extension given by "Historicus" to the complex term "Irish Books"—meaning books, or parts of books, written, no matter by whom, about Ireland or the Irish. For my own part, I am pleased with the definition, for it enables one to haul within his literary net all sorts of books relating to Ireland and her people, and then he can sit leisurely on the shore of his own home, and select, according to taste, a hundred which
he sets store by, and make thorn the nucleus of a good Irish library. I see that one critic in the issue of Saturday last (27th March) is quite out of sorts when "Historicus" has not named the valuable work, "Specilegium Ossoriense," a series of extracts relating to Ireland during the "Cromwellian Campaign," copied from documents in the Vatican Library, Rome, and other sources, and edited by Cardinal Moran. This work, so lauded by the critic, does not, after all, say much that is not already known regarding Ireland and things ecclesiastical. The readers of the "Specilegium" should be familiar with Latin, Italian, Spanish, mediaeval French, and Queen Anne English, or rather the quaint language spoken and written connected with the Elizabethan period. It appears, at all events, that parts of books written no matter by whom and in any language fell, in tho opinion of the writer or critic, under the definition of "Irish books," as expounded by "Historicus." Others who have written claim as "Irish" books those regarding Ireland or her people, though the works be in Latin, French, German, Italian, old English, or Irish of tho early, middle, or modern periods. Judge Barry well observes some of the works named by "Historicus" treat of propositions once disputed, but not so any longer. Those works were accordingly of only ephemeral interest. Mere knowledge of the title and purport of such works is enough; take for instance much of what has been written by Swift. "Controversial" details regarding the "Union" or "Emancipation," are now of no value. All that has passed away. Tho events remain. Able writings like those of Edmund Burke, or the speeches of Grattan, will always be read with pleasure, not for the events recorded so much as for the beauty and the grace of the language in which they have been clothed. The able essay of "Historicus" has received praise on the score that it is impartial. On this head I too wish to bestow praise; nevertheless I should not like to recommend Dr Todd's Life of St Patrick without telling my readers to purchase a copy of Dr Gargan's able critique of that work—or the volume, "St Patrick, Apostle of Ireland," by my friend Father William Bullen Morris, priest of the oratory* I should not like to see "Hibernia Expugnata"—written by Cambrensis in the twelfth century —recommended for a place amongst any hundred books, good or bad, and the able work "Cambrensis Eversus," from the pen of our countryman. Rev John Lynch, Archdeacon of Tuam (born A D 1600), so full of real history, denied a place. One of the best books in its way that can be put into a student's hands is "Cambrensis Eversus," translated by Rev Dr Matthew Kelly of Maynooth, and edited with original text by him, in the years 1849-52 (3 vols, price 30s). Along with the Life of Bishop Bedel, I should like to have that of the Lord Primate, Dr Oliver Plunkett, written by Cardinal Moran, a small volume, yet, like the Life of Hugh O'Neill, by Mitchel, one replete with interest. Bedel and Plunkett flourished in the same century, and are symbols of opposing interests and of religious life in the seventeenth century. Miss Charlotte O'Brien will, I feel convinced, thank me for telling the title of the "Very Old Irish Dictionary," full of curious old English words and country phrases, "which in her copy has been lost." It is "The English-Irish Dictionary," compiled by Father Connor Begley, and
