I meant it for the best. I done all my work an' didn't sit down to send the cards till you was all in bed. I thought it 'ud be no harm if I got up an' lit me own candle then-and I put a stamp on your letter as well as Sister Mary's and Maggie Brophy's, the way ye'd see I wouldn't grudge ye anything. I thought it 'ud be more of a surprise comin' by post. I made sure you'd be delighted."

And here Lizzie's irretrievably crushed apron went up to her eyes again.

Mrs. Byrne's face had changed during this speech. Perhaps that vivid imagination of hers enabled her not only to conjure up the image of the little figure crouching on the bare boards of her attic room, but to realise the intense bliss of that night vigil. What matter if the blanket wrapped round her failed to protect her from the arctic cold, if the fingers that grasped the pen were stiff and sore with many chilblains, if the limbs, cramped from their position, ached more than usual after the fatigue of a long day, for want of the petticoat. Lizzie M'Cann, despatching her "greetings "-her own specially-printed greetings from her garret had been entirely and rapturously happy, and Mrs. Byrne was still young enough at heart to understand and sympathize.

"Well, well, Lizzie dear," she said," and so I was delighted, and—and thankful to you, my dear. You're the best hearted little girl in the world."

She pulled down Lizzie's apron and kissed the hot cheek; then she hastily fumbled in her little black bag.

"Why I declare, with all this talk, I was near forgettin' to give you your Christmas Box! "

"My Christmas Box!" faltered Lizzie.

"Why, to be sure, you don't suppose I'd let you go without a Christmas Box! Here's a shillin' for you, and whisper, now, dear, the first thing you'll do on Saturday mornin' must be to run an' get your petticoat out of pawn."

A

THE WRITING OF IRISH HISTORY

SMALL book on Irish history by Miss Maxwell,* which

has been recently published, deserves more consideration on account of the standpoint from which it is written than, owing to the size of the book, it is likely to receive. It is not an ambitious work-simply a short summary of Irish history as it is usually taught in the schools; a book which contains all the facts usually required by examiners, condensed in a short volume of one hundred and twenty pages, which many students cramming for examinations will find invaluable. But its importance depends rather on two facts: first, that its author, Miss Maxwell, has a reputation as a brilliant student of great promise, and has held for some years an official position as lecturer in History in T.C.D. Secondly, this little book, coming as it does from one of Trinity's most brilliant students of history, may quite fairly be taken to represent the way in which Irish history is taught in Trinity College. It is so treated by practically all the authors of standard text-books on the subject.

Miss Maxwell has undertaken to write a short history of Ireland. She tells briefly, and in outline, the story with which we are all familiar-the gradual conquest of Ireland by England, the repeated attempts by the Irish to shake off the conquest, the final subjugation, and the more recent attempts to make the relations between the two countries more reasonable and less intolerable. Only, we ask, when we have read her book, where does Ireland come in? This is not a history of Ireland, but of English rule in Ireland. We have a long catalogue of English invasions of Ireland, of English statutes for the government of Ireland, of statutes passed by the Irish Parliament at the bidding of England; the long succession of English viceroys, some treating Ireland harshly, and producing revolt, some more leniently and humanely, and so encouraging disaffection, others sent to succeed them, reducing Ireland to a silent and despairing submission, which lasts until some less inhuman successor relaxes the yoke, and the dismal cycle begins

*A Short History of Ireland, by Constantia Maxwell, M. A., Lecturer in History in Trinity College, Dublin. The Educational Company of Ireland, Is.

again. But the repetition of the old story, however true it may be, however complete, however impartially told, cannot take the place of Irish history. Froude, whose work we have never learnt to associate with accuracy, at least saw the limitations of his treatment of Irish history, and called his book, The English in Ireland; Miss Maxwell-following the ordinary usage— calls her work a History of Ireland, though it contains far less about Ireland than Froude's. The people of Ireland hardly appear in her book at all. There is one rather ingenuous reference to the state of the people, coming between the end of the Tuder conquest and the "Rebellion " of 1641 :

"Travellers in Ireland at the time all tell us that the people were still very primitive. They wore poor clothing and ate simple food. They lived in mud cabins, where they slept on the ground, and when they lit a fire on the hearth, the smoke escaped out of the door or through a hole in the roof. Those settled on the tribe lands, which they still owned in common, tilled the ground, but their agriculture was so rude that their ploughs, for instance, were often tied to their horses' tails instead of yoking them in the English fashion. Many of them moved from place to place with their cattle, having no fixed home, but erecting huts of turf or boughs, in which they lived till the grass was eaten down, when they moved off to fresh pastures.” There is no attempt to establish the relation of cause and effect between the story that has gone before and this state of affairs. There are few other references to the Irish people in the early part of the book. Later, in the chapter on the "Period of Protestant Ascendancy," there are two or three pages devoted to the state of the country under the Penal System; and from this on the remainder of the book gives more attention to the state of Ireland.

The last chapter, on "Ireland Since the Union," alone is largely devoted to the desire for reform in Ireland; but her version of Irish history in the last century is strangely unreal. The section on the Land Question states the evils which existed in the Irish land system, and shows how the existence of tenantright in Ulster protected the people there. But we hear nothing of the Ulster Land War, and are left to assume that the custom of tenant-right arose spontaneously in the North. An account of the great famine, which does not mention the all-important fact that there need have been no famine if the Government had forbidden the export of food, which mentions with approbation the establishment of relief works, but says nothing of their

absolute futility, is certainly incomplete history. Then follows an account of the Land Legislation, with Gladstone, Ashbourne, Balfour, and Wyndham, as the enlightened reformers, ending with the statement: "English statesmen have given a great deal of attention to Ireland, and have done what they could to remove the old grievances of the people." We are not allowed to get even a glimpse of the naked truth, that every one of these reforms was won for Ireland by violence and blood. In the next and final section, on Home Rule, the description of the Young Ireland Party as “a number of enthusiastic young men who wished to go much further than O'Connell, desiring to see Ireland cut off from England," is misleading. Miss Maxwell omits Dillon's name from her list, and of those she mentions--Mitchel, Davis, Lalor, Duffy, and O'Brien-the second and the last were certainly not separatists. Nor can I admire Miss Maxwell's sense of proportion. While the history of Ireland since the Union gets thirteen pages, the war of 1689-91 gets eleven pages.

The list of authorities given by Miss Maxwell at the end of her book equally clearly illustrates her point of view. Her list is out of all proportion drawn from the English sources. There is not a single Irish book among her general works of reference, which are the Cambridge Modern History, Hunt and Poole's Political History of England, the Dictionary of National Biography, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and the English Historical Review. In the section from the Union to the present day," out of fifteen books there are only three representing the Irish Nationalist view-the biographies of O'Connell and Parnell, and Gavan Duffy's Young Ireland. There is no place for Davitt's Fall of Feudalism in Ireland. Most significant of all, in her four-page list of books, there is no mention of Mrs. Green's Making of Ireland and its Undoing.

In Miss Maxwell's preface we may find an excuse for this treatment of her subject. She says that "my endeavour has been to present a clear and impartial account of the chief features of Irish history. In view of the notable gaps which exist in the scientific treatment of social and economic questions I have purposely dealt mainly with political events." With this statement before us it may seem unreasonable to quarrel with Miss Maxwell for not treating of those parts of Irish history which she declares her intention of ignoring. But we cannot accept her limitation of Irish history to political events; her book is intended specially for use as a text-book in schools,

and ought, therefore, to give as complete a view of Irish history as is possible in so small a compass. No one denies that there are great gaps in the social and economic history of Ireland. But there are gaps in all history. Certainly enough has been written on the social history of Ireland to make it impossible for any writer of a school history to neglect it. There are greater gaps still in the economic history of Ireland; but so much is known that some mention of it is indispensable. It is too daring for a writer on Irish history since the publication of Mrs. Green's Making of Ireland and its Undoing, to pass over the native Irish trade during the Middle Ages.

And here, I think, we come upon the central fault in Miss Maxwell's, and many other people's, writing of Irish history. It is not merely that they treat Irish history as a branch of English history; but, approaching Irish history from the English point of view, this school of historians is unable to shake off the long-standing prejudices and preconceived ideas about the history of Ireland. When Mrs. J. R. Green and the other Irish historians of the same school present a view of Irish history in entire contradiction to the existing teaching of the subject they are not listened to. Mrs. Green's picture of mediæval Ireland is so obviously one-sided that it cannot be quite a fair statement of the facts. It aims at overthrowing the usual teaching, and all the English authorities on the subject; it proves too much for us to believe it all without some reserve. Her work is, on this account, disregarded by the Anglo-Irish historians, and is not treated as serious history. At most it modifies the usual writing on the subject; but it does not alter the point of view of those who accept the ordinary teaching of Irish history. Miss Maxwell is following in the footsteps of the Anglo-Irish school-her version is only less partisan than some of the others. I refuse to consider it as a fair statement of Irish history. Political history is rapidly assuming a less prominent place in historical studies; in Irish history least of all can this part be taken for the whole. For until the eighteenth century there was practically no political life in Irish Ireland; the political history of Ireland before Grattan's Parliament is nothing more than a history of the English garrison in Ireland. Till then, the only Irish history is social and economic, and this part of the picture Miss Maxwell deliberately ignores.

It may be argued that until the chaotic and inadequate materials have been collected and arranged no purely Irish