The above heading was suggested to us by a friend as the subject of a
paper some months back, but it was not until much time had elapsed,
and not a little reflection had been devoted to the matter, that
we felt ourselves constrained to admit its unwelcome truth. For to
acknowledge that Irish humor is on the wane is a serious admission at
the present day, when we are suffering from an undoubted dearth of
that commodity on this side of the Channel; when laughter has been
effectually quenched at St. Stephen's; when our interest in the best
comic paper is almost entirely centred in the illustrations, and not
the text; and when we have grown to be strangely dependent upon
America for light reading of all sorts. This year—an exceptionally
uninteresting year for the reader—has, it is true, been marked by a new
departure or a reaction in the direction of startling sensation and
melodramatic plots—engendered perhaps by a desire to escape from the
unromantic common placeness of our daily surroundings, culminating in
Mr. Stevenson's tale, “The Bodysnatcher,” in the Christmas number of
the _Pall Mall Gazette_, which literally reeks of the charnel-house.
But this movement, apart from its general literary or constructive
merit, is from its very nature opposed to sunshine and mirth. The
advent of a new humorist was hailed by some critics on the appearance
of “Vice Versâ,” but his second considerable contribution to fiction,
“The Giant's Robe,” is anything but a cheerful book. Lastly, at
least two conscious and elaborate attempts have been made during the
last six months to transplant the squalid anatomical photography of
Zola into the realm of English fiction. Where, then, in these latter
days are we to look for native humorists? Not in the ranks of Irish
politicians surely, for the Irish political fanatic is anything but a
comic personage, and the whole course of the Nationalist agitation has
been unredeemed by any humorous passage. There are no Boyle Roches,
or O'Connells, or Dowses, or even O'Gormans, to be found amongst
the followers of Mr. Parnell. The cold, impassive address of their
leader, utterly un-Irish in its character, and, perhaps, only the more
effective on that account, has infected them all. Mr. O'Donnell has now
and then let fly a sardonic shaft; but Mr. Justin McCarthy reserves his
graceful pleasantry for the pages of his novels, save no one occasion
when Mr. Gladstone pounced down on a “bull” of preternatural magnitude.
Acrimony, virulence, and powers of invective, these are abundantly
displayed by Messrs. Sexton, Healy, and O'Brien; but as for humor,
there is none of it. For otherwise would they not have seen the logical
outcome of their decision (we speak of the Nationalists as a whole)
to rename the Dublin streets,—we mean the corollary that they should
in many cases divest themselves also of their indubitably Sassenach
patronymics in favor of Celtic and national names? From their own point
of view, Charles Stewart Parnell is an odious combination, and should
give place, let us say, to Brian Boroihme O'Toole. If we turn from
politics to literature, we shall find much the same state of things
prevailing. Irishmen are remarkably successful as journalists, but
the prizes of that profession draw them away from their own country;
their lives are spent amid other surroundings, less favorable to the
development of their characteristic humor, which encourage their facile
wits to waste themselves in mere over-production. Some of the very
best specimens of recent Irish verse are to be found in the pages of
_Kottabos_, a magazine supported by the members of Trinity College,
Dublin. But although it is hardly a good sign that the best work of
this kind should flourish under Academic patronage, we have been
sincerely grieved to learn that _Kottabos_ is no more, and the goodly
company of _Kottabistæ_ finally disbanded.
If we descend to the other end of the social scale, we shall find that
a variety of causes have conspired to diminish or even destroy the
sense of humor with the possession of which tradition has credited
the Irish peasant. It is only fair, however, to premise that much of
what strikes an appreciative visitor as humorous in the speech of an
Irish peasant is wholly unconscious in the speaker, and arises from
his casting his sentences in the diffuse form of his mother-tongue, or
from his use of imposing phrases picked up from the books read during
his school-time. The first of these causes probably accounts for many
picturesque expressions, such as “to let a screech out of oneself;”
where an Englishman would merely say, “to shout,” or “screech;” the
second explains the use of words like “extricate,” “congratulate,” by
bare-legged gossoons in remote mountain glens. Among the destructive
agents alluded to above, the tourist occupies a prominent position. For
when the native inhabitants at any favorite place of resort found that
it paid them to amuse the visitors, they cultivated the faculty and
spoilt it in the cultivation. If we are asked for an example, we have
only to mention the Killarney guide, a creature who is to every true
Irishman _anathema_,—a tedious retailer of stories concocted during
the slack season. A more serious cause of decay of late years has been
the emigration which is slowly draining certain districts of the South
and West of the cream of their population. In some parts of Kerry it
is well-nigh impossible to get young and vigorous laborers; and the
national game of “hurly” has completely died out, in consequence of
the dearth of able-bodied players. We regard this as a serious loss,
for though matches between the teams of rival villages often led to
subsequent “ructions,” the game was a fine one and a good outlet for
the excitable side of the Celtic character, which now finds a far less
healthy field for expansion. All attempts to teach the peasants cricket
have failed. Though fine athletes and unsurpassed jumpers, they lacked
the coolness, the patience, and faculty of co-operating so essential
to success in cricket. From this absence of vigorous youth, there
results a dearth of “play-boys”—_i.e._, jokers, merry fellows—which is
not likely to be remedied in this generation. Even in former years,
before the _entente cordiale_ between landlord and tenant had been
so rudely severed, it struck us as a symptom of decadence—unless,
may-be, it was a mere compliment to the “quality,”—that on all festive
gatherings where gentle and simple met on a friendly footing, the
singers as often as not chose for the delectation of their superiors
some old popular music-hall song of six or seven seasons back, which
had filtered down from London through the provinces to Dublin, and
so slowly made its way into our remote district. Thus we have heard
“The Grecian Bend” rendered with the richest brogue imaginable, which
partly alleviated the Philistinism of the song. The Irish peasantry,
it should be remarked, do not sing Moore's Irish melodies, with few
exceptions, in spite of the charm of the airs to which the words are
wedded, which is an adequate proof, if any were wanted, that he has
no claim to be considered a national poet. Few readers realise that
by far his finest work is in the domain of satire, on which his title
to immortality is far more securely based than on his erotic dactyls.
Nor do the peasants, as a rule, know much of Lover, whose amusing
ballads have a great and well-merited popularity in the middle and
upper classes of Irish society. The reason of this is, perhaps, to be
found in the character of the music, generally Lover's own, which is
a sort of compromise between an Irish melody of the flowing type and
the modern drawing-room ballad. Genuine Irish music is a barbarous
thing enough—a wild, nasal chant, freely embellished with trills and
turns—and to this setting the peasantry in the outlying districts
still sing a good many songs in Irish or in English, in the latter
case generally translations. To this must be added a certain number of
ballads which trace their source to the events of the last few years.
Nothing can be gained from an attempt to write down the Land League
from a literary point of view, and we are very far from harboring such
an intention. But these songs are, in the main, dreary and abusive, as
one might naturally expect, for the events of recent years have not
been conducive to mirth in Ireland. Here is a fragment from one on the
landlords of Ireland:—
“The bare, barren mountains and bog, I must state,
The poor Irish farmer he must cultivate;
Whilst the land-shark is watching
His chance underhand,
To gobble his labor, his house, and his land.
But the Devil is fishing, and he'll soon get a pull,
Of those bad landlords and agents
His net is near full....
Then hurrah! for the Land League,
And Parnell so brave;
Each bad landlord, my boys,
We'll muzzle him tight.
May the banner of freedom
And green laurels wave
O'er the men of the Land League,
And Parnell so brave.”
Irish humor is not dead yet, but it is decaying or dormant; and if
ever, in spite of the malign influence of the Gulf Stream, and the
Nationalist Party, and a sense of their past wrongs, and race-hatred,
and half-a-dozen other drawbacks, Ireland should recover her sanity and
grow prosperous and contented, then, and not till then, may we expect
to see her sons grow merry as well as wise,—unless, indeed, their sense
of humor is entirely improved out of them in the process. Judging
from the character of the men of Antrim, this is not impossible. But
valuable as is the gift of humor, the harmony of Great Britain would
not be too dearly bought by its sacrifice.—_The Spectator._