Even the printed stock of early Welsh literature is, therefore,
considerable, and the manuscript stock of it is very great indeed.
Of Irish literature, the stock, printed and manuscript, is truly
vast; the work of cataloguing and describing this has been admirably
performed by another remarkable man, who died only the other day, Mr.
Eugene O'Curry. Obscure Scaliger of a despised literature, he
deserves some weightier voice to praise him than the voice of an
unlearned bellettristic trifler like me; he belongs to the race of
the giants in literary research and industry,--a race now almost
extinct. Without a literary education, and impeded too, it appears,
by much trouble of mind and infirmity of body, he has accomplished
such a thorough work of classification and description for the
chaotic mass of Irish literature, that the student has now half his
labour saved, and needs only to use his materials as Eugene O'Curry
hands them to him. It was as a professor in the Catholic University
in Dublin that O'Curry gave the lectures in which he has done the
student this service; it is touching to find that these lectures, a
splendid tribute of devotion to the Celtic cause, had no hearer more
attentive, more sympathising, than a man, himself, too, the champion
of a cause more interesting than prosperous,--one of those causes
which please noble spirits, but do not please destiny, which have
Cato's adherence, but not Heaven's,--Dr.
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