quoits or stones, but only to shoot in long bows, short crossbows, and hurling of darts or spears, to lose, at every time so found in doing the same, eightpence, and also at no time to use nor occupy the hurling of the little ball with hocky sticks or staves, nor use no hand-ball to play without the walls, but only the great foot-ball, on pain of the pains above limited.' We read that they [the Irish] keened over the dead -making open noise of an unreasonable cry after the Irishry at wakes and in the house, street, church and fields' (p. 180). The statute referred to says:

'Finally, we conclude that no outcry, howling or shouting be made in or out of the streets of this town upon the burial, or at the burial of any deceased person or persons whatsoever within this town, but that all such barbarous courses be given over, on pain of five shillings English money for each abuse in that kind.'

We can imagine what Mrs Green's excuse in these two last instances would be; but, if she insists that a law is evidence of its breach, she must admit that the existence of a law is likewise evidence that the breach of it was not tolerated by the law-makers. We do not deny that hurling, keening, and the like, may have taken place in Galway; but we urge that such practices were not permitted. In other words, the citizens of Galway consistently desired to keep themselves free from Irish native customs.

The Irish inhabitants who crowded in were (we are told) only put out if they paid no taxes' (p. 186). Authority: All idle men and women, whether they be householders or not, that are not able to pay watchtax, nor tallage, to be expulsed out of the town by the officers, on pain to lose six shillings and eightpence.' Not one word, it will be observed, about Irish' inhabitants. 'An ancient rule,' says Mrs Green, 'that no man should be made free unless he could speak English and shaved his upper lip weekly (which was not enforced), allowed as many Irishmen as wished to become burghers' (p. 186). 'Which was not enforced'! That is Mrs Green's opinion; she offers us no proof. We, on the contrary, prefer to think it was enforced, and that the presence of men of Irish birth in the city is evidence that there were loyal Irishmen even in those days-men who preferred English

·

civilisation, and the chances it offered to them of pushing their way in life, to their native customs. But their presence was not always welcome to citizens of English blood. On p. 183 Mrs Green quotes with approval an order that no man should make comparison of lineage and lineage' with the object of stirring up strife. She is evidently unaware that the order is merely a recital of a clause in the Statute of Kilkenny; but 'lineage and lineage' is there explained as English born in England and English of Irish birth. English hobbe' and 'Irish dogge find their counterparts to-day in Bohemia in 'Deutscher Hund' and 'Böhmischer Dickschädel.' We could go on indefinitely; but 'ex pede Herculem.' We think that, from the instances we have given, the reader will be able to form a pretty accurate idea of the value of Mrs Green's authorised statements. As for those she makes on her own authority, we prefer to say nothing.

Coming to the second part of her book, on Education and Learning,' we are astonished that, when writing it, Mrs Green did not recognise how utterly untenable is her theory of the absorption of Anglo-Irish culture by the native Irish. What, we wonder on looking through the list she has given of Irish scholars who studied at Oxford (pp. 289-302) from 1285-1542, would Mrs Green not have given had she been able to substitute for the Cusacks, Welshes, Smiths, de la Hydes, Fitzsimonses, Plunketts, Dormers, Suttons, Lynches, Bathes, Eustaces -all Anglo-Irishmen-a few good O's and Macs? Out of the 136 names in her list not more than seventeen cau possibly be claimed as of Celtic origin. But Mrs Green is not easily discouraged. She remembers that an Act was passed in the reign of Edward IV, requiring all Irishmen living in the Pale to abandon their Irish surnames and to assume the name of some trade, as smith, cook, baker, etc., or of some colour, as gray, white, black, etc. With the help of this Act she lightly surmounts every difficulty. Speaking of a certain Peter White of Waterford, sometime Fellow of Oriel, she infers that he was 'probably' of Irish, i.e. of Celtic origin (p. 367). A little later (p. 440) she is so sure of her conjecture that it is impossible not to divine Vol. 210.-No. 418.

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an Irish sept hiding its nationality' under the name of White.*

Similarly, James Archer of Kilkenny was 'no doubt an Irishman, whose family name had been changed' (p. 452). The names of Galway, Athy, White, Walsh, and many more, among the merchants of Cork and of Waterford hid, no doubt, the memory of tribal titles' (p. 135). We marvel at the frame of mind that can see in the Statute of Kilkenny merely a transient attack on Irish civilisation, and can attach such permanent importance to the re-enactment of one of its clauses. Would it not be wiser to abandon a theory which requires to be bolstered up by such equivocal methods, and to regard both the Statute of Kilkenny and the Act in question as conclusive evidence that the colony, like the city of Galway, was anxious, by every means in its power, to keep itself free from native influences? Let us not be misunderstood. We are not arguing that no assimilation in manners, customs, dress and language took place between the English colonists and the Irish in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. What we are arguing is that, where assimilation took place, as it did wherever the exposed position of the English rendered effectual resistance impossible, we are justified in regarding it as a process of decay, and of a relapse from civilisation to quasi-barbarism.

We have said nothing of the political animus and spirit of partisanship that inspires Mrs Green's argument. There are some books, e.g. O'Sullivan's 'Compendium,' of which Mr Byrne has presented us with a good translation, adding certain useful notes, so far as it concerns the Elizabethan wars, which cannot be called pleasant reading for Englishmen. But O'Sullivan has this excuse, that he was writing while the memory of the wars was still fresh. Besides, he had valuable information to impart, and was willing to recognise that, however much the English were to blame, 'the Irish largely aided their own destruction by assisting the English in order to

* Commenting on this name, O'Donovan, to whose authority Mrs Green will no doubt bow, remarks ('Irish Topographical Poems,' Introd. p. 26) that it is a mistake to assume that geal, white, was by itself ever used of any family in Ireland. As for the Act itself, he says, 'It appears, however, that the Statute referred to had not the intended effect to any great extent.'

injure one another ('History,' p. 32). For Mrs Green no such excuse can be pleaded. We are willing to overlook her querulous and unfounded complaint against the editors of the Calendar of Irish State Papers (116, n.); but we cannot suppress our indignation at the shameful insinuation contained in the comparison of the English rule in Ireland with that of the Turk in Greece in the matter of a tribute of children' (p. 467). It is not true that 'the deputies Sussex and Sidney carried off in their train every notable chief's son they could lay hands on' (p. 426). As for the practice of taking pledges, surely Mrs Green is not ignorant that it was essentially a native custom, and part of that civilisation she so highly estimates? 'He is not a king,' says the Brehon Law (iv, p. 51), 'who has not hostages in fetters.' Do we not know that Rory O'Conor, King of Ireland, put to death the hostages of Dermot MacMurrough, viz. his son and grandson and the son of his foster-brother? But enough of this. We deeply regret that Mrs Green has written this book. No doubt it will secure her a certain popularity in circles where history is treated as the slave of politics; but it will be at the expense of forfeiting the respect of those who regard history as a serious subject, and the office of historian as one not lightly to be assumed.

ROBERT DUNLOP.

Art. 14.-WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

1. The Subjection of Women. By John Stuart Mill. Second edition. London: Longmans, 1869.

2. The Case for Women's Suffrage. Edited by Brougham Villiers. London: Fisher Unwin, 1907.

3. The Human Woman. By Lady Grove. London: Smith, Elder, 1908.

4. Report of Speeches delivered. . . in Queen's Hall, 17 December, 1907. Men's League for Women's Suffrage. 5. The Importance of the Vote. By Mrs Pankhurst. National Women's Social and Political Union, 1907. 6. The Case against Woman Suffrage. London: Alston Rivers, 1907.

7. The Freedom of Women. By Ethel B. Harrison. London: Watts, 1908.

8. Realities and Ideals. By Frederic Harrison. London: Macmillan, 1908.

9. Woman in relation to the State. By G. Calderon. Hampstead: Priory Press, 1908.

And other works.

WILL the grant of parliamentary votes to English women promote the welfare of England? This is the question which every elector throughout the United Kingdom will, as he values the prosperity of his country, be called upon, it may be within a few months and certainly within two or three years, to answer. It is a problem to which not one man in a thousand has given careful attention. In the attempt to solve it an elector will receive little aid from his leaders. The hesitation of the Government and the ambiguous silence of the Opposition are of bad omen; they suggest transactions and intrigues; they foretell that a fundamental change in the constitution of England, to which the world presents no real parallel, may be carried through in obedience, not to the clearly expressed will of the nation, but to those calculations of election agents and wirepullers which guide the action even of honest statesmen who have too fully imbibed the spirit of parliamentary partisanship.

Our purpose in this article is to make woman suffrage the subject of calm argument. We propose to examine the main reasons in favour of, and the objections which