Excerpt from Literary and Historical Essays IN this volume I have endeavoured to do for thomas davis what I once hoped to see him do for himself - to gather together such of his historical and literary Miscellanies as were mainly devoted to the illustration of Ireland. I have done so with care and reverence, and I believe they will be found to make a rich and suggestive book, and one with a true soul in it. In selecting them I kept in view - as I know he would have desired - not fame for the dead, but usefulness to the living. 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.