to pass that oilshop with averted eyes, less the ache to purchase should be worse than the toothache she had once endured for a day. As Sarah said to Tilder when she was back in Digby Buildings: 'I had to pinch myself right hard so as to make sure as I worn't in a trance.'

The editor was speaking gravely :

'In your spare moments-in the evenings, say-I advise you to study drawing. Could you draw your costumes as well as design them your services to me would be much more valuable, and, of course, they would command more money. When you can draw properly you can count on a salary of five pounds a week.'

The editor lay back in his chair and closed his eyes. Either elbow rested on the arms of the chair, thumb and forefinger were pressed to thumb and forefinger; this was the attitude he assumed when he had to work out the ever-recurring problem of how to keep his paper at least two points ahead of its rivals. At this moment he was engaged with a problem still more difficult to solvethe twang of Miss Short's Cockney accent sounded in his ears. Uneducated, limited, vulgar, and yet a genius. Was she the Worth or Paquin of a previous state? If so, what a strange resting-place for a great mind to choose! He had put some searching questions to discover if the girl had one lofty ambition, one fine instinct, any aspirations, but no-all that was not Clapham was Bloomsbury. For one moment he had thought to have her educated, but he had put the idea aside; genius such as this required the delicate handling of a watch-spring-so impossible to restore the lost balance-he feared he might already have done harm by the offer of wages that must, to some extent, alter the conditions of her life. After half an hour's thought he decided to dismiss the question from his mind; sufficient that he, and not a rival editor, had secured her services. We must call it a case of dual personality,' he told himself as he went back to his table. 'Miss Ellaline De Vere and Miss Sarah Short confined in the body of one little deformity of four foot nine!'

A few months later a lad was labouring up the steep stone staircase of Digby Buildings. He stopped in front of a freshly painted yellow door to which was secured a brass plate, bearing the words

MISS ELLALINE DE VERE, Costume Designer.

On a small stool outside the door sat Tilder. She was busy

wiping the inside of an empty salmon-tin with a crust of bread. She raised her tow-coloured head and remarked to the office-boy, with a familiarity which showed an acquaintanceship of some standing:

"'Ullo, Ugly, 'ow 'ave you been? D'you want anythink?'

'Why, yes; you know, it's press day. I've been sent up for Miss De Vere's full page.'

'Then you carn't 'ave it, 'tain't loikely-it ain't 'arf-past 'leven yet. Tell the heditor we won't forget 'im; it'll be down by one o'clock.'

But I was told to bring it,' said the boy, about to knock.

'You leave 'er alone, young Nibs, and 'ook it. She's just 'ad a snack of salmon and cowcumber, just to give the roite flavour to that 'ere Carlton supper gown. She's off into 'er trance now, and that's more than my plice is worth to let anyone disturb 'er. My compliments to your heditor, and tell 'im I'll see the job through in toime.'

The boy gave the salmon-tin a kick and followed it as it went clattering down the stairs.

'Naow then, what are you pliying at, stoopid?' shouted Tilder from above. Once more seating herself on the stool, she continued to keep watch.

Sally Short had realised her own hopes-and the editor's, in every particular save the art education. It had been found impossible to teach her to draw; but this mattered little to her, her salary had already been raised to three pounds a week. She was just the same Sally Short, daughter of the Clapham grocer, contented with Digby Buildings-though she now rented two rooms and paid Tilder half-a-crown a week to wait on her-able to take a day in the country when she chose, to visit the theatre, and. without trancing' herself, to alter her own costumes occasionally. In every respect she was perfectly satisfied, save with her figure, and that, notwithstanding well-fitting tweeds and elevators,' was as little commanding as of old. But, sad to relate, after she had gone to the expense of having her door painted yellow, like one she had seen in Maida Vale, and on which the brass plate, polished by Tilder, looked so elegant, some miscreant had again scratched the word 'Stumpy,' this time prefixing it with 'Old,' and on the clean, new paint the offensive epithet showed far more distinctly than of yore.

JESSIE AND CHARLES FIELDING MARSH,

495

IRISH EPICS AND HOMER.

WHEN we hear, at present, so much about the literary merits of the Celtic genius; when its admirers (who as a rule know nothing of the Celtic language) are ardently engaged in writing poetry and plays worthy of old Ireland, one fact may well amaze us. Erin has ancient poetry, or poetic romances, which correspond to the epics of Homer in Greece; to the Saga of the Volsungs in Icelandic; to the 'Song of Beowulf' in early English. The Irish poetry is pre-Christian, like the 'Volsunga Saga' it is heroic; it deals with ancient kings and warriors of the age when these heroes wore much gold on their persons, and fought from war-chariots like Boadicea or Achilles. Might one not suppose that Celtic enthusiasts would long ago have published these ancient Irish romances in critical editions, and translated them for the benefit of all Europe and the glory of Erin?

Nothing did more to spread the renown of Scotland in the eighteenth century than Macpherson's pretended translation of 'Ossian.' That work was, at most, a modernised pastiche, based on legends and ballads of a period confessedly later than the age of which the oldest genuine Irish romances tell. Macpherson's hero, Fingal, was a parvenu, an upstart, compared with Conchobar and Cuchulainn, Medb and Fer Diad, and Fedelma, the men and women of the ould ancient' epic' of all.'

.

Yet the Iliads' and 'Odysseys' of heroic Ireland have never, or have only of late,' been published, while not till 1904 did Miss Winifred Faraday give us her prose translation of a portion of the Irish Cycle, the Tain Bo Cuailnge' (pronounce 'Cooly') ('The Cattle Raid of Cualnge'). Recently a French translation, by M. d'Arbois de Jubainville, has appeared in the austere pages of the Revue Celtique.'

While one is amazed that Celtic patriotism has kept the good wine till so late, I must confess that the good wine is not a popular beverage. Whether there really exists a genuine taste for les

1 Táin Bó Cúalnge, Windisch, Leipzig, 1905, pp. 1120.

primitifs in painting or not (I have my doubts), the public assuredly does not care for old poets of

old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago.

But I naturally love les primitifs-the Saga-men, the makers of the early medieval French epics, and even the singer of 'Beowulf.' Moreover, I like to compare all these half-barbaric minstrels, and the manners of their times, with the epics of Homer and the manners of his age.

Now, no way of living known to us has so much in common, perhaps, with the Homeric way of living as that described in the most ancient Irish romances. In Erin, about 150 B.C. to 150 a.d., as in Greece about 1100 B.C., kings and princes were numerous, and above them all was an Ardrigh, or over-lord, like Agamemnon. In Erin, as in Homeric Greece, the kings had their palaces; though if Mr. Evans dug on the sites of Tara or of Cruachan he probably would not be so well rewarded as he has been in the palace of King Minos in Crete. In both Erin and Greece, as I said, heroes fought from chariots. Cavalry are unknown in the old Irish cycle of romances, as they are unknown in the Iliad.' In Greece and in Erin the chiefs bought their wives, paid a bride-price,' yet the women were very independent, masterful, and much respected. Greek morals were better than Celtic. Fair Helen and fair Clytaemnestra went astray; but Medb, Queen of Connaught, found it a sine qua non that her husband should not be jealous.' Medb made no secret of her inconséquences; pecca fortiter was her

motto.

6

The Irish houses were very like those in Homer. The rule was that each room stood as a separate house (in old Scots a 'house' is synonymous with a 'room'); there were connecting passages, and there were lofts, but we scarcely hear of a second storey. In religion the Irish folk-beings, the Sidh, behave partly like the Greek Olympian gods, partly like the fairies.

The swords, shields, spears, and chariots of the old Irish, and their dress, were much akin to those of Homer's heroes, except that iron, not bronze, was the metal in use for Irish military purposes; and I do not know that the Irish wore corselets, though a kind of iron-plated apron or kirtle, like the Homeric mitre, protected the lower body and the thighs. The Irish dead were buried, not, as in Homer, burned; but, like Homer's heroes, the fallen

warriors had their memorial pillars of stone. On these, and not on Homeric grave-pillars, were inscriptions in writing, called 'Ogam.' The Irish decorative art, as on the bronze sword-sheaths, was in excellent taste. The copious jewelry was in massive gold, but was not so good in style or so elaborate in design as in the Homeric age, though the safety-pin brooches were much akin to that worn by Odysseus. The costume in Homer and in the oldest Irish romances was practically identical, consisting of a long belted smock, of wool or linen, with an enveloping cloak or mantle. The garments were of white, blue, scarlet, or green, and often were trimmed in other colours. Two societies could scarcely be more alike, in all these matters, than Greek society about 1100 B.C. and Irish society in the three hundred years before and after our era. In both the heroes wore long locks; in Ireland yellow hair was most admired, perhaps because it was less common than black or brown.

We see, in short, that remote Ireland was about a thousand years behind the Achaeans of Homer's time, who inherited the rich civilisation of the Ægean, in touch as it was with the civilisation of ancient Egypt. We might expect the Irish epic of the period (called the 'Late Celtic period') to resemble the epic of Homer. But here we are wofully disappointed. In the first place, the Irish poems, to use a bull,' are in prose, interspersed with speeches in verse. Now, verse comes earlier in literary development than prose, and I am inclined to suspect that, in their original shape, the Irish epics were all in verse, were sung or chanted by minstrels in hall, but that through the early Middle Ages, say from 400 to 1100 A.D., the verse was for the most part translated into prose. The romances as they stand, in two of the oldest manuscripts ('The Yellow Book of Lecan' and 'The Book of the Dun Cow '), seem in many passages to be rather prose summaries, much condensed, than anything else. There is a much more copious version in The Book of Leinster,' which certainly contains matter that must once have existed in the oldest versions, but is omitted in 'The Yellow Book' and 'The Book of the Dun Cow.' If these books disappoint us, as they do, it would not be fair to blame the original poet.

The story of The Cattle Raid' is not worthy of Homer in subject. His Iliad,' on the Wrath of Achilles, deals with a moment in the legend of the Quest for Helen the Fair. His 'Odyssey deals with one of the many legends about the return of the heroes

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