What is called ‘the Celtic Movement,’ in recent literature, is, no doubt, part of the general agitation in Celtdom. But the form, and aims, and ideas of the ‘Celtic Renascence’ come from the influence of two men – M. Renan, who may be called the Moses of the proceedings, and Mr Matthew Arnold, who was the eloquent Aaron. We shall briefly examine their part, mainly prophetic, before criticising the conquering legions who now march under Mr William Sharp, Miss Fiona Macleod (who may be aptly likened to the inspired Miriam), Professor Geddes, and other leaders, through the Promised Land of New Celtic Literature.

Monsieur Renan was the original conductor of the march. After Macpherson's ‘Ossian’ took its present lowly place in critical opinion,⁵ after Scott's Highlanders made their final charge –

Celtic studies were mainly left to Celtic scholars in Ireland, England, France, Germany, and Wales. But Monsieur Renan, a Breton and a scholar, was also a vulgarisateur, a populariser of many things. In his ‘Essais de Morale et de Critique’ (1859) he republished (the piece has recently been translated by Mr Hutchison) his ‘La Poésie des Races Celtiques,’ also a study of ‘The Poetry of the Exhibition.’ In the latter work he blamed those who ‘limit their sympathies to forms of the past’ in the former he dwelt on the Poetic Past of the Celts. They had a great, or at all events a copious, literature. M. Renan praised Owen Jones's collection, the ‘Myvyrian Archaeology,’ and the delightful ‘Mabinogion’ translated by Lady Charlotte Guest. He expatiated on the secular distressfulness of the Gael and Cymry: de la vient sa tristesse. Infinite delicacy, a thirst for the ideal not to be quenched by whisky, – these are other Celtic qualities. ‘Call not their taste for intoxication a gross indulgence; never was a more sober people!’ The Celt, being ideal, must get drunk: it is part of the pleasant unconscious poetry of his nature, as Harold Skimpole says; whereas your beery Teuton – German, Scotch, or English – is a mere sensual lout. The Bretons sought in hydromel what St Brandan and Peredur pursued in their own manner, the vision of the world invisible. We ‘drink for drinkee,’ they ‘drink for drunkee,’ as the negro said.