Excerpt from Irish Literature, Vol. 2 of 10: Section One; Irish Authors and Their Writings; Sir William Francis Butler, And, George Darley The editors of irish literature have very wisely de cided to represent in their volumes, so far as literal trans lations will allow them, the real autochthonous literature of Ireland as it existed both before any of the modern lan guages of Europe had made their appearance as literary vehicles, and since that time. The great and revivifying movement which is at present pulsing through Ireland, and creating, wherever it is felt, new hopes and a new spirit, has indeed rendered it impossible to produce a work upon Irish literature in which, as has happened too often before, the real Irish element was calmly ignored, and the scope of Irish literature narrowed to the productions of Eng lish-irish writers, who after all were, for the most part, too often only imitations of Englishmen. For the literature of Ireland does not begin with Ware or with Swift, with Molyneux or with Sheridan. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.