190 PRINCE— SLAV AND CELT. 



Graham in his recent work on this point (" The Way of Martha and 

 the Way of Mary," London, 191 5) is certainly correct in emphasiz- 

 ing the prevalence of this Russian " Gospel of Incompetence." It 

 would seem as if public sympathy has been at all times, but more 

 especially of recent years, with the unsuccessful, rather than with 

 the successful, hero. Even in the old Russian literature, as ex- 

 emplified in the "Tale of the Armament of Igor" (1185 A.D.), we 

 find a glorification of the defeat of this prince by the Tatar hordes 

 of the Polovtsy. That there was, however, a healthier tone in Old 

 Russian is evident from such a work as Zadonscina, where the great 

 victory of Dimitri Donskoi over the Tatar chieftain Mamai is well 

 sung. Of late years, particularly in the Russian literature of the 

 later nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this same tendency is chiefly 

 conspicuous by its absence. This Russian morbid pleasure in 

 failure is seen also among the other Slavs, although to a less marked 

 extent, as exemplified in such Polish songs as Nasze skiby nasze 

 lany or the beautiful Czech dirge Haidicek and also in many Serbo- 

 Croatian poems of the sadder style. 



The Celts, especially the Irish and Scotch, are remarkable for 

 their delight in a "lost cause" which is expressed in such well- 

 known songs as " Patrick Sarsfield " or the " Wearing of the Green " 

 and the many Jacobite ditties of Scotland. It should be noted, 

 however, that many songs of this style breathe a spirit of defiance 

 or at least of obstinacy which always implies remote hope. No such 

 implication of hope is usual in the corresponding Slavonic poetry. 

 The Celtic morbid pleasure in death and its appurtenances such as 

 funerals and wakes is well recognized. Wakes, known as pominki 

 is Russian, are observed all over Slavia in much the same manner 

 as among the Celts. From the purely literary point of view, it is 

 a matter of regret that modern Welsh poetical productions have 

 nearly all been case-hardened by the stereotyped soul-deadening 

 form of the twenty-four meters, a system which inclines to sacrifice 

 everything to alliteration and rhyme. The modern Welsh people 

 have been very largely denaturalized as Celts, so far as their power 

 of expression is concerned, by the rigid forms of Protestantism 

 prevalent in Wales which have tinged the whole of recent Welsh 

 literature with a dull conventionalism, thus driving out almost 



