In what I have to say of the work of the Irish poets, I am thinking of it solely as a part of English literature. I have in mind no political bias whatever, though I confess I have small admiration for extremists. During the last forty years Irishmen have written mainly in the English language, which assures to what is good in their compositions an influence bounded only by the dimensions of the earth. Great creative writers are such an immense and continuous blessing to the world that the locality of their birth pales in comparison with the glory of it, a glory in which we all profit. We need original writers in America; but I had rather have a star of the first magnitude appear in London than a star of lesser power appear in Los Angeles. Every one who writes good English contributes something to English literature and is a benefactor to English-speaking people. An Irish or American literary aspirant will be rated not according to his local flavour or fervour, but according to his ability to write the English language. The language belongs to Ireland and to America as much as it belongs to England; excellence in its command is the only test by which Irish, American, Canadian, South African, Hawaiian and Australian poets and novelists will be judged. The more difficult the test, the stronger the appeal to national pride. In a recent work, called _The Celtic Dawn_, I found this passage: "The thesis of their contention is that modern English, the English of contemporary literature, is essentially an impoverished language incapable of directly expressing thought." I am greatly unimpressed by such a statement. The chief reason why there is really a Celtic Dawn, or a Celtic Renaissance, is because Irishmen like Synge, Yeats, Russell and others have succeeded in writing English so well that they have attracted the attention of the world. Ireland has never contributed to English literature a poet of the first class. By a poet of the first class I mean one of the same grade with the leading half-dozen British poets of the nineteenth century. This dearth of great Irish poets is the more noticeable when we think of Ireland's contributions to English prose and to English drama. Possibly, if one had prophecy rather than history to settle the question, one might predict that Irishmen would naturally write more and better poetry than Englishmen; for the common supposition is that the poetic temperament is romantic, sentimental, volatile, reckless. If this were true, then the lovable, careless, impulsive Irish would completely outclass in original poetry the sensible, steady-headed, cautious Englishman. What are the facts about the so-called poetic temperament?