“Lays of the Western Gael” (1865) is a series of historical ballads, original in effect, though based upon old Gaelic chronicles.  “Congal” (1872) is an epic, founded on an ancient bardic tale, and written in Chapman’s “fourteener” and reminding the reader frequently of Chapman’s large, vigorous manner, his compound epithets and spacious Homeric similes.  The same epic breadth of manner was applied to the treatment of other hero legends, “Conary,” “Deirdre,” etc., in a subsequent volume (1880).  “Deirdre,” the finest of all the old Irish stories, was also handled independently by the late Dr. R. D. Joyce in the verse and manner of William Morris’ “Earthly Paradise.” [18] Among other recent workers in this field are Aubrey de Vere, a volume of selections from whose poetry appeared at New York in 1894, edited by Prof.  G. E. Woodberry; George Sigerson, whose “Bards of the Gael and the Gall,” a volume of translations from the Irish in the original metres, was issued in 1897; Whitley Stokes, an accomplished translator, and the joint editor (with Windisch) of the “Irische Texte “; John Todhunter, author of “The Banshee and Other Poems” (1888) and “Three Bardic Tales” (1896); Alfred Perceval Graves, author of “Irish Folk Songs” (1897), and many other volumes of national lyrics; and William Larminie—­“West Irish Folk Tales and Romances” (1893), etc.

The Celtism of this Gaelic renascence is of a much purer and more genuine character than the Celtism of Macpherson’s “Ossian.”  Yet with all its superiority in artistic results, it is improbable that it will make any such impression on Europe or England as Macpherson made.  “Ossian” was the first revelation to the world of the Celtic spirit:  sophisticated, rhetorical, yet still the first; and it is not likely that its success will be repeated.  In the very latest school of Irish verse, represented by such names as Lionel Johnson, J. B. Yeats, George W. Russell, Nora Hopper, the mystical spirit which inhabits the “Celtic twilight” turns into modern symbolism, so that some of their poems on legendary subjects bear a curious resemblance to the contemporary work of Maeterlinck:  to such things as “Aglivaine et Salysette” or “Les Sept Princesses.” [19]

The narrative ballad is hardly one of the forms of high art, like the epic, the tragedy, the Pindaric ode.  It is simple and not complex like the sonnet:  not of the aristocracy of verse, but popular—­not to say plebeian—­in its associations.  It is easy to write and, in its commonest metrical shape of eights and sixes, apt to run into sing-song.  Its limitations, even in the hands of an artist like Coleridge or Rossetti, are obvious.  It belongs to “minor poetry.”  The ballad revival has not been an unmixed blessing and is responsible for much slip-shod work.  If Dr. Johnson could come back from the shades and look over our recent verse, one of his first comments would probably be:  “Sir, you have too many ballads.”