50 Royal Irish Academy. 



The knowledge on this subject was long very imperfect, and the 

 cuiTent opinions ahout it largely conjectural ; but since the time of 

 our countryman Edmund ITaione, who first undertook this inquiry, 

 scholars have accumulated a mass of evidence, founded partly on con- 

 temporary documents which have been brought to light, partly on 

 references in the plays themselves, as to their respective dates ; and, 

 in recent years, a study of what are called verse-tests, founded on the 

 regularly changing characters of the poet's versification throughout 

 his career, has been prosecuted with much assiduity, and with a large 

 measure of success. The results obtained by this last method are in 

 entire harmony with the external evidence, and enable us to supple- 

 ment its deficiencies ; and thus a chronological scheme has been con- 

 structed, which all competent judges have agreed in accepting as, in 

 its essential features, placed beyond reasonable question. 



IS'ow, first, by the aid of these discoveries, for such they deserve 

 to be called, our judgment of the poet's works, from the sesthetic 

 side, becomes more rational. The products of his different periods are 

 considered apart, and are estimated according to a relative, not an ab- 

 solute standard. The slight sketches of his almost boyish years are 

 not placed alongside the highest efforts of his maturity; and instead of 

 being tempted, with some of his worshippers, to maintain the existence 

 of an equally high standard of excellence in all the poet's work, we 

 are enabled, without compromising our reverence for his mighty 

 genius, to admit the inferiority of his early productions, and recog- 

 nise in the history of his, as of every other mind, the presence of 

 growth and development. 



But further, as is indicated above, when the path has been thus 

 prepared, we can approach with some prospect of success the ulterior 

 problem, behind and through the works to find the man, to under- 

 stand what no external record tells us, not merely what he sang or 

 painted, but what he was ; in what succession his great powers un- 

 folded themselves, how Ms conceptions of men and things broadened 

 with his larger experience : what were his ripest and ultimate con- 

 victions respecting human nature and human duty, and what, in 

 general, the final outcome of his spiritual life. 



It is chiefly for the valuable contributions of Professor Dowden to 

 this inquiry, that the Council has conferred on him the honour which 

 I am sure the Academy will gladly ratify. He was in an eminent 



