UNIVERSITY TOPICS.

CLASSICAL AND PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF YALE COLLEGE.

January 17, 1888, Professor Knapp read extracts from the unpublished journals of George Borrow, relating to travels and researches in Wales and on the Isle of Man.

Mr. F. G. Moore presented a communication on LUCRETIUS AND VERGIL. A list of Vergil's imitations of Lucretius-making no pretensions to completeness-shows a total of about four hundred, one hundred and seventy of which are in the Georgics. The great influence of Lucretius traceable in the Georgics, is explained by the fact that the poem is didactic, and its subject is Nature. Moreover, Vergil was strongly inclined to philosophy, down to the time of writing the second Georgic (vs. 475-494). Thenceforward he was affected by Lucretius chiefly as a poet. Of the imitations in the Georgics about sixty per cent. are in the first two books; of those in the Æneid only about forty per cent.,-all in the first six books; of those in the Eclogues the great majority are in the sixth. Nearly two-thirds of these imitations are from Lucretius's 5th, 1st, and 6th books, and in this order of frequency. From an actual grouping of the references it is evident that Vergil admired, and most frequently had in mind, just those passages upon which rest the reputation of Lucretius, as judged by modern

critics.

The Secretary read a brief account, from private sources, of the excavations at Sicyon which have been resumed by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

CURRENT LITERATURE.

THE STORY OF IRELAND.-It is not an easy thing to tell the story" of Ireland dispassionately. It is therefore to the credit of the author of this volume-who modestly claims only to have prepared a summary of Irish history-that she has written with. marked impartiality, and has evidently sought to give only the bare facts. In a somewhat hasty reading we have not noticed a line which would show whether Miss Emily Lawless is an Englishwoman or an Irishwoman, a Protestant or a Roman Catholic.

The story of Ireland is told from the very beginning—when the island was covered with Arctic glaciers-and is brought down. to the present year, and the agitation for "home rule." The reader is not wearied or confused with details. Attention is directed only to the more important events, and these are described briefly and clearly, so that a distinct impression can be obtained with regard to each one. Prominent in the early history, of course, is the golden age of the Irish church, when Irish ecclesiastics in the sixth century were noted for their learning and piety, and Irish missionaries, with true Celtic enthusiasm, made their way to so many heathen countries on the continent of Europe. But while the church afforded some bond of union for the people, unfortunately there was no political union. The tribal system gave rise to jealousies and feuds which made all sense of patriotism and devotion to a common country impossible, and brought on an internecine war of clan against clan which resulted in what was little better than anarchy. Here was the opportunity of England. The Anglo-Norman invasion under Strongbow could not but be successful, and the "conquest" of the island was accomplished. If this conquest had been complete, and a strong government could have been established, there might have been a possibility of the growth in time of a united Irish people. But the condition of the island for hundreds of years remained substantially the same as when it was ruled by its native chiefs. The best of the land was parcelled out among the Geraldines, who soon became petty kings and "Irish of the Irish ;" and, being too far

away from England for any adequate control by the English government, each sought to extend his own power at the expense of the others. Hence came a long, long succession of English invasions, and attempts to root out the native population and replace it by English colonists; "which," as Sir John Davis says, “the English not being able to do, caused a perpetual war between the two nations, which continued four hundred and odd years, and would have lasted unto the world's end, if in Queen Elizabeth's reign the Irish had not been broken and conquered by the sword." It is a long and sickening story of misgovernment; of brutal deeds and yet more brutal retaliations. From the time of Strongbow to the battle of the Boyne, does the history of the worlddoes the history of even despotic and inhuman Russia, which is to-day a menace to civilization-furnish an example of more outrageous cruelty or of more stupid imbecility than that of the treatment of Ireland by England? We cannot but remember that our ancestors were Englishmen, and do not hesitate to acknowledge that they deserve their full share of the blame. Perhaps this fact of our ancestry is the reason why our American treatment of the Indians offers some remarkably striking and humiliating parallels to English treatment of Ireland. Ireland was colonized by England and re-colonized during hundreds of years, and times without number; and yet, says an old writer: "There was scarce an Englishman who had been seven years in the country and meant to remain there, who did not become averse to England and grow into something of an Irishman." The evidence of the poet Spenser has been often quoted. He went over to Ireland to share in the work of subjugation and colonization, and he says: "They [the Irish] were brought to such wretchedness that any strong heart would rue the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them. They looked like anatomies of death; they spoke like ghosts crying out of their graves. They did eat the dead carrions where they did find them, yea and one another soon after; inasmuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they thronged as to a feast." Every generation from Spenser to the beginning of the eighteenth century has its witnesses of what has passed before their own eyes, and they all tell the same terrible story. Sir Henry Sydney tried his hand, and the Earl of Essex,

and Strafford, and Cromwell, and William III., and then—then, after the battle of the Boyne-Ireland was at last "quiet." A graveyard quiet settled down for two generations. We have not space to describe the commercial ruin that England brought on Ireland in the eighteenth century. It is well known how England, for what she supposed to be the good of her own people, deliberately suppressed and destroyed Irish trade and Irish manufactures. It is enough to refer to the Penal Code to which the people were then subjected, and which Edmund Burke described as "well digested and well disposed in all its parts; a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." In this connection we will quote the testimony of Mr. Lecky: "By this code the Roman Catholics were absolutely excluded from the Parliament, from the magistracy, from the corporations, from the bench, and from the bar. They could not vote at Parliamentary elections or at vestries; they could not act as constables or sheriffs, or jurymen, or serve in the army, or navy, or become solicitors, or even hold the positions of gamekeeper or watchman. Schools were established to bring up their children as Protestants; and if they refused to avail themselves of these, they were deliberately assigned to hopeless ignorance, being excluded from the university, and debarred, under crushing penalties, from acting as schoolmasters, as ushers, or as private tutors, or from sending their children abroad to obtain the instruction they were refused at home. They could not marry Protestants, and if such a marriage were celebrated it was annulled by law, and the priest who officiated might be hung. They could not buy land or inherit or receive it as a gift from Protestants, or hold life-annuities, or leases for more than thirty-one years, or any lease on such terms that the profits of the land exceeded one-third of the rent. any Catholic leaseholder by his industry so increased his profits that they exceed this proportion, and did not immediately make a corresponding increase in his payments, any Protestant who gave the information could enter into possession of his farm. If any Catholic had secretly purchased either his old forfeited estate, or any other land, any Protestant who informed against him might become the proprietor. The few Catholic landowners who remained were deprived of the right which all other classes pos

If

sessed of bequeathing their lands as they pleased. If their sons continued Catholics, it was divided equally between them. If, however, the eldest son consented to apostatize, the estate was settled upon him, the father from that hour became only a lifetenant, and lost all power of selling, mortgaging, or otherwise disposing of it. If the wife of a Catholic abandoned the religion of her husband, she was immediately free from his control and the Chancellor was empowered to assign to her a certain propor tion of her husband's property. If any child, however young, professed itself a Protestant, it was at once taken from the father's care, and the Chancellor could oblige the father to declare upon oath the value of his property, both real and personal, and could assign for the present maintenance and future portion of the converted child such proportion of that property as the court might decree. No Catholic could be guardian either to his own children or to those of another person; and therefore a Catholic who died while his children were minors had the bitterness of reflecting upon his death-bed that they must pass into the care of ProtestAn annuity of from twenty to forty pounds was provided as a bribe for every priest who would become a Protestant. To convert a Protestant to Catholicism was a capital offence. In every walk of life, the Catholic was pursued by persecution or restriction. Except in the linen trade, he could not have more than two apprentices. He could not possess a horse of the value of more than five pounds, and any Protestant, on giving him five pounds, could take his horse. He was compelled to pay double to the militia. He was forbidden, except under particular condi tions, to live in Galway or Limerick. In case of war with a Catholic power, the Catholics were obliged to reimburse the damage done by the enemy's privateers. The Legislature, it is true, did not venture absolutely to suppress their worship, but it existed only by a doubtful connivance-stigmatized as if it were a species of licensed prostitution, and subject to conditions which, if they had been enforced, would have rendered its continuance impossible. An old law which prohibited it, and another which enjoined attendance at the Anglican worship, remained unrepealed, and might at any time be revived; and the former was, in fact, enforced during the Scotch rebellion of 1715. The parish priests, who alone were allowed to officiate, were compelled to be registered, and were forbidden to keep curates or to officiate any where except in their own parishes. The chapels might not have