STAGE IRISHMEN AND OTHERS 247 



hot it may be, is anything but "warm." A wife 

 accuses an angry husband of " unmannerhness before 

 the gentry," and advises him, if he must indeed 

 " loose his temper," that he should " ease it on 

 the little boy when he'd be alone." If further 

 proof of this contention is required, we may cite 

 a saying of an ancient woman of Kerry, who, 

 when questioned by her doctor as to her health and 

 well-being, replied, "Thanks be to the merciful God 

 and to your honour, I'm as gay as Garrick ! " Where 

 else in the three kingdoms has this phrase from the 

 days of Dr. Johnson and Fanny Burney survived ? 

 It has the sparkle in it of diamond shoe-buckles, a 

 whiff of scented powder clouds the air of the dark 

 Kerry kitchen, where the pedigree of the aphorism is 

 as little suspected as is that of the old Waterford glass 

 jug that is on the dresser, " undher buttermilk ! " 

 These sayings, and many more like unto them, are 

 legacies of the High Quality. The Munster peasant 

 of seventy or eighty years ago had a vocabulary 

 founded on direct translation from his own richly 

 poetical tongue into the English that he learned from 

 his masters and mistresses. A Kerry fisherman was 

 asked if the sea were too rough for saihng. " There is 

 a white blossom on the fisherman's garden," he replied. 

 A poor woman, telling of the illness of one of her 

 children, says, " It's quare now, I had ten o' them, 

 but me heart's inside in this little one-een ! " Yet 

 another woman spoke of " the blaze of darkness " that 

 painted the cheek of a fever patient. Wien these 

 things are present in the mind, it is difficult to have 

 patience with the storm of laboured facetiousness, 

 extravagance and vulgarity that is offered by Carleton 

 as the speech of the typical Irish peasant. 



In The Collegians a different spirit is shown. The 

 extravagances are reserved for the upper classes. 



