We have, in the Red Book Preface, the very same features. It is, perhaps, in his treatment of these interesting fragments (1170) that we detect most vividly Mr. Hall’s strange capacity of inventing difficulties that do not exist, and of dismissing those that do. In the teeth of the clearest possible facts, we are given such vague probabilities, or possibilities, as these: This will perhaps be ... it is probable that ... it can only be surmised that ... we are almost tempted to suspect that ... we may perhaps hazard the supposition that ... would probably have been ... it might be held that ... we might perhaps identify, etc., etc. (pp. ccii.-ccvi.). The fact is that, as I have said, this preface is really the fruit of a habit of mind, a mental twist, which distorts the writer’s vision, and seems to impel him, irresistibly, to arrive at the wrong conclusion.[338] We trace this singular tendency throughout, but its effect has nowhere proved more disastrous than in his treatment of these returns to the great “Inquest of Sheriffs.” That these records should have been so treated in the first work that gives them to the world is a really lamentable matter. VII The Conquest of Ireland[339] A brilliant but paradoxical writer--I refer to Mr. Standish O’Grady--has, with unerring hand, sketched for us the state of Ireland when as yet the Norman adventurer had not set foot upon her shores.[340] To those who dream of a golden age, of a land in the enjoyment of peace and happiness till invaded by the ruthless stranger, the scene his pen reveals should prove a rude awakening. That Mr. O’Grady writes with unrivalled knowledge of his subject, is neither his only nor his chief claim to the confidence of those we speak of: they are more likely to be influenced by the fact that his sympathies are all with the Irish, that he cannot conceal his admiration for government by ‘battle-axe,’ and that he strives to justify what to English eyes could be nothing but a glorified Donnybrook Fair. He is wrathful with Mr. Freeman for picturing Ireland as only “the scene of waste tribal confusions, aimless flockings and fightings, a wilderness tenanted by wolves and wolfish men,” and claims that her history, in each generation, was at this time “that of some half-dozen strong men striving for the mastery ... a most salutary warfare, inevitable, indispensable, enjoined by nature herself.” No! Freedom, whose smile we shall never resign, Go, tell our invaders, the Danes, That ’tis sweeter to bleed for an age at thy shrine Than to sleep but a moment in chains.