It cannot indeed be said that this renaissance has added any new masterpieces to the native literatures, either in prose or poetry. A wonderful outburst of literary activity there has been, and distinguished authors have arrived; but the remarkable thing is, and it is worthy of note, that the so-called Celtic renaissance, if we regard it solely from its literary side and apart from the work of scholars, has found its fullest expression in English, and addresses itself not so much to the native Gaels or Cymri as to the English-speaking world in general. Highland, Welsh, and Irish litterateurs have taken to placing their wealth of dream, of poetic sentiment and imagination, as well as their marvellous gift of story-telling, at the service of English literature, which is accordingly enriched, while the old river dries up in proportion as the number of readers and writers of the original tongue declines. There are some things that we cannot hope to resuscitate. They pass in the nature of things. Some that we would not wish to recall even if we might. They have served their day. And if the current Celtic renaissance has not contributed as much to the vernacular literature as might be desired, it has certainly immensely enhanced the glories of the past, and it has otherwise exhibited a revival of Celtic _esprit de corps_ which shows that— The ancient spirit is not dead— Old times, methinks, are breathing there. That this race-feeling survives, this kinship of blood, and is ever and anon reasserting itself, may be inferred from the recent Pan-Celtic Congress in Dublin, where representatives of Wales, of Brittany, of the Highlands, of Ireland, and even of Celtdom beyond the seas, assembled in all their ancient _tailoring_ to do homage to the past, to reckon with the present, and formulate afresh their aspirations—to ask, in fact, what does this latest renaissance mean? and whither tends it? A truly heterogeneous gathering, and eminently characteristic of the race, who still look wistfully for the return of Arthur or of the Feinn, and some new age of magic and romance, and whose forte it is unceasingly to pursue the unknown, the undefinable, the ideal. We can picture the bewildered surprise and irrepressible mirth of the average, unimaginative, unbelieving Sassenach, as he suddenly encounters the extraordinary Pan-Celtic pageant on the living streets of Dublin. Whence this resurrection of phantoms—these apparitions of long dead ancestors? “Nay, good citizen, ’tis no phantasy,” sober reason replies, “but one of various manifestations, perhaps the most evanescent of the present Celtic renaissance, which finds little in our modern, materialistic civilisation answering to its deepest aspirations.” And, falling into reverie over the unwonted spectacle, we ourselves in our wonderment musingly repeat the words of Charles Lamb:—