STAGE IRISHMEN AND OTHERS 245 



witli what practised ease he gave the darhngs a 

 roguish chuck under the chin ! ' Why, faix ! ' as 

 the fair ones often said of him, ' before Phehm speaks 

 at all, one laughs at what he says ! ' " 



An observation ingeniously introduced to show the 

 entire competence of the fair ones to take their places 

 beside Phelim as Stage Colleens. 



The only date supplied in the introduction is that 

 of Carleton's birth, 1794 ; it may, however, be assumed 

 that about a century has gone by since these stories 

 were first published. The Stage Irishman, as promul- 

 gated by Carleton, has expired, his great-grandsons 

 in 1920 are grave and gloomy gentlemen, who talk 

 sombrely of revolutions and find their pastime in 

 republics instead of in " pubs." We have not, we 

 humbly thank Heaven, to occupy ourselves with such 

 high themes, and may now turn our attention to 

 Gerald Griffin. He, in his younger and unregenerate 

 days, raised, it is true, a stalwart company of suc- 

 cessors to the heroes of Carleton ; yet the fact emerges 

 that the country people in The Collegians have a 

 vraisemblance that, as it seems to us, is denied to the 

 beings who storm and yell through the pages of 

 Carleton. And yet, singularly enough, Carleton was 

 himself a peasant, while Gerald Griffin, as we gather 

 from Mr. Colum's interesting memoir, came of a family 

 of good standing and education, and seems to have 

 spent a considerable part of his short life in London. 



It may be that, in Carleton's case, his very fami- 

 liarity with the everyday speech of the peasant per- 

 suaded him that it was necessary to lay on the local 

 colour Avith a palette-knife in order to produce an 

 effect. Unfortunately, that colour was acquired by 

 him — so we learn from the introduction — in parts of 

 Ireland where an ahen civilisation had, even in 

 Carleton's day, vulgarised and coarsened what Dr. 



