truth that for many reasons we regret there is not amongst us a cultivated public sufficiently numerous to have made Hibernia a permanent factor in our literature. When the christening of our own Magazine "" was one of the names was not yet an accomplished fact "Hibernia suggested on the model of the Catholic Germania; but this title was reserved for a periodical of less popular aims, more scientifically literary, belonging more to the l'art pour l'art school, and devoted solely to literature and art without any admixture of that religious feeling which flavours, we trust not too obtrusively, our lightest fiction and sprightliest song,

The most important poems that appeared in Hibernia were Miss Tynan's "Joan of Arc" and "Vivia Perpetua in Prison," dramatic monologues of a very stately and picturesque kind. They are of considerable length and require to be studied, nor can they be fairly represented by extracts. They are in the dignified metre with which the name of Alexander Pope is identified, but the heroic couplet is relieved by a modern touch such as William Morris and others have accustomed us to. Indeed this maiden Muse shows a partiality for grave measures and does not indulge in lighter lyrics or in ballad themes. Even when she takes a subject from Irish history or legend. she produces a poem rather than a ballad. Witness her treatment of the tale of the warriors sleeping spell-bound in a cavern in Donegal. Here are a few verses from the middle of " Waiting," in which she seems to attribute to the hero Fionn Charlemagne's "Oh! that I were there with my Franks," and also the central fact of Mr. T. D. Sullivan's delightful ballad, "The Death of King Conor Mac Nessa "—

The fierce old gods we hailed with worshipping,

The blind old gods, waxed mad with sin and blood,

Laid down their godhead as an idle thing

At a God's feet, whose throne was but a Rood,
His crown wrought thorns, his joy long travailing.

Here in the gloom, I see it all again,

As ages since in visions mystical,

I saw the swaying crowds of fierce-eyed men,
And heard the murmurs in the judgment-hall:
Oh, for one charge of my dark warriors then!

Nay, if he willed, his Father presently

Twelve star-girt legions unto Him had given.
I traced the blood-stained path to Calvary,

And heard far-off the angels weep in heaven;
Then the Rood's arms against an awful sky.

I saw Him when they pierced Him, hands and feet,
And one came by and smote Him, this new King,
So pale and harmless, on the tired face sweet;
He was so lovely and so pitying,

The icy heart in me began to beat.

The manifestly competent critic, who in the Edinburgh Review of April, 1881, bestows the highest praise on Judge O'Hagan's "Song of Roland," remarks very truly, that "poetic diction has in recent times been refined into singular exquisiteness and expressiveness; but its very charm is sometimes a seduction, and draws the reader's attention, and perhaps the poet's no less, unduly from the subjectmatter to the language." We were at one time apprehensive that Miss Tynan was falling too much under this spell, aiming too much at richness of colour and daintiness of epithet, and varying the monotony of musical metre with subtle cadences, which, to the untutored ear, seem only wilful ruggedness. We are delighted to perceive that there is hardly a trace of affectation, modernism, or mannerism in the most recent productions of our youngest poetess. For instance, in Merry England of last May, appears another dramatic monologue, "Louise la Vallière," which, for the most refined beauty of thought and diction, will hold a high place in the volume that will bear the same title as our present paper. We would fain quote the pathetic and melodious stanzas in which the beautiful penitent reverts to her "white girlhood" in Touraine; but it will be better to give the whole of a still later 6. poem, Faint-hearted," contributed to The Month, for November, 1884:

Ah! yonder path is fair,

And musical with many singing birds,

Large golden fruit and rainbow-coloured flowers
The wayside branches bear;

The air is murmurous with sweet love-words,
And hearts are singing through the happy hours.

Nay, I shall look no more.

Take Thou my hands between thy firm fair hands
And still their trembling, and I shall not weep.
Some day, the journey o'er,

My feet shall tread the still safe evening-lands,
And Thou canst give to thy beloved, sleep.

And though Thou dost not speak,

And the mists hide Thee, now I know thy feet
Will tread the path my feet walk wearily;

Some day the mists will break,

And sudden looking up, mine eyes shall meet

Thine eyes, and lo, thine arms shall gather me!

Our citations have now, we trust, abundantly justified the title prefixed to this article; and our readers will join with us in understanding that title as a prophecy and a prayer.

MISS STOKES ON EARLY IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL

THAT

ARCHITECTURE.

'HAT problem of continuous and conscious identity in the midst of perpetual flux and change, which is the mystery of our personal existence, has its analogy in the life of nations. In vain do physiologists tell us that no particle, no atom of our present corporeal frames had existence there a score of years ago. In vain is it brought home to us that changes almost as great have taken place in our mental fabric, in our judgments, emotions, and purposes. In spite of all, we know with the deepest certainty that we remain throughout the same human beings. And so, speaking by similitude, is it with nations. They have an indestructible sense of being one with the past, which not only the silent ravages of time, but invasions the most ruthless and wars the most exterminating, are impotent to destroy. Wave after wave of barbarous conquest may seemingly sweep away whole populations, and render it dark and doubtful who were the original inhabitants of the soil, or whether any tie of descent or affinity links them

to its present possessors. Yet when the blood-feud is appeased and the fires of race-hatred become quenched as they inevitably do, there grows the irresistible tendency to claim and take pride in every good and great deed done by those who trod the same earth and breathed the same air with us, whatever may have been the hostility of our forefathers. The British Kymri were extirpated by the Saxons of Hengist and Horsa with sword and fire, or driven into the mountain fastnesses; their very language became extinguished, save in one remote region. And yet to the descendants of those very Saxons Caractacus is a national hero and Boadicea a national heroine, as much as if they had been genuine worshippers of Thor and Odin. So also, when a peaceful union among the inhabitants of this island was at least a great hope, the descendants of the Norman and Saxon conquerors set up the figure of the Celtic Ollamh Fodhla as the type and effigy of a great Irish legislator.

This thought has been borne in upon us with singular force by the perusal of the works of Miss Stokes upon Irish antiquities, and especially of her beautifully written book upon early Christian Architecture in Ireland.

The family of Miss Stokes came from England and settled in Ireland scarcely two centuries ago. Her grandfather was the revered Whitley Stokes, Fellow of Trinity College, the friend of Wolfe Tone, whom the latter hoped to place at the head of a great and comprehensive system of education in a free Ireland. Her father was the eminent physician, the first in his profession at home, the possessor of an European reputation abroad. Her brother, the present Whitley Stokes, in addition to the fame which he has earned in India as a jurist, is one of the first living linguists, especially in Sanskrit and in Celtic. His translations from the Irish, above all, of Irish psalms and hymns of the early Christian centuries, are among the most beautiful English compositions which it has been our lot to read.

As for Miss Stokes herself, she has written and published much upon Irish antiquarian subjects, Christian and pre-Christian. Our space forbids us to do more than give a slight idea of that volume which we think will possess the greatest interest for our readers. It is the simple truth to say that if this daughter of the Saxon had been a descended Celt from the time of Heremon, and a Catholic through her fathers since the days of St. Patrick, she could not enter with more entire and heartfelt sympathy than she does into the vindication of Celtic religious art, and the assertion of its high claims to peculiar and original beauty. And she has done this not with the pen alone. Miss Stokes is an accomplished artist, and she has illustrated her books with designs giving the most faithful representations of the remains of early Irish art. In an article lately published in this Magazine upon the poetry of Sir Samuel Ferguson, we spoke of his poem upon the grave

of Queen Aideen at Howth. That poem originally appeared in a volume illustrated by Miss Stokes with designs representing the beautiful and romantic scenes of that region, and illuminated in the style of the ancient Irish manuscripts which have become the wonder of the world for their singular and original type of beauty. It is this feature which constitutes the real difficulty of giving by mere criticism an adequate idea of such works.

The volume immediately before us* deals not with early Irish illumination, but with early Irish architecture. And in this, perhaps the greatest walk of art, the authoress shows that the Irish had developed a native order of Architecture, which, if circumstances had allowed of its attaining its full development, might in grace of ornamentation have surpassed the Roman or the Norman. Let us hear her own words :

"The study of these buildings and the questions that they raise may be of wider import than has been as yet acknowledged. To the Irishman it may minister to his self-respect to feel that he belongs to a race who could originate and develop to a result of great excellence and beauty a native school of architecture. To the student of art in its widest sense it is a matter of deepest interest that enough yet remains through which he can trace step by step the progress of this style from the simple source from which it sprang. To copy the work of a former age is one thing, to search out its vital principles and strive to trace them to its source is another; and if we are to be the begetters of new beauty, and our work to be a living growth and no mere imitation, no work of ancient art will be too humble for our study.

"It would appear that Irish Romanesque, though influenced by foreign art, yet was somewhat pre-existent to Anglo-Norman architecture, and entirely independent of it. It was a native style, springing from a people possessed of original power and mind, lowly in aspect when placed beside the grand monuments of Norman art in England-lowly, but not therefore unlovable. No one can stand before the doorway of Maghera or the chancel arch of Queen Devorgail's Church, or gaze upon the Chalice of Ardagh, without feeling that there was a true instinct of composition and a pure vital principle of beauty at the source of art so noble and so chaste; for in them a certain classic character is visible, and these works give evidence of the existence of a spirit which, could it be called back to life, might help us to better results than we have yet attained: None but a master may dare such simplicity.""

It is not our purpose in this paper to enter into technical details. In every country the adoption of the principle of the arch has formed the most striking crisis or innovation in architecture. In the far ages,

before the Christian era, there were the massive stone fortresses, of which the great fort of Dun Aengus, upon the distant extremity of the isles of Arran, forms the most remarkable specimen, piled stone upon stone, without cement, with doorways whose lintels consisted either of one huge stone laid flat across, or of stones meeting in the centre and supported in this position by the superincumbent weight piled upon them. The early Christian edifices followed the same idea; but the lintels, though still flat, grew more delicate and ornate. And,

# " Early Christian Architecture in Ireland," by Margaret Stokes. London: George Bell and Sons. 1878.