(1839-) IT has been said of Dr. John Todhunter that had he lived in the Middle Ages he would probably have made experiments in astrology. He gives one the impression of an artist who has had quiet dealings with occult powers. He is also like one of the old Irish bards, but a bard who knows he has fallen on quiet times, and whose lot is cast in an unheroic environment. He sometimes sings or chants his song in the style of one of those old bards. When his theme is Irish it is generally weird or passionate; something from the deep and expansive world of legend, into which, however, he can breathe the fire and wildness of primeval human nature. He has other moods, some of them modern, but he turns ever and anon to the stormy and epic past with a grim enthusiasm. Dr. Todhunter was born in Dublin in 1839. He was educated at Trinity College, and showed his literary bent early in contributions to the Trinity magazine, Kottabos. He pursued his medical studies in Paris and in Vienna, and returning to Dublin practiced there as a physician in the seventies. He succeeded Professor Dowden as professor of English literature at Alexandra College. His ambition went beyond medicine or a professorship; in 1875 he virtually broke the old connection; he traveled much on the continent of Europe and has since devoted himself to literature, living chiefly in London. He gradually became noted for his poems and poetical plays upon classic and idyllic themes, several of them revealing a rare poetic insight. Legends, forest songs, old tragedies and mysteries were the loves of his antique and contemplative muse. His poems on Irish themes were a later development, and revealed a new intensity and power in his poetry. The Fate of the Children of Lir' woke old enchantments and pathos, but 'The Banshee' sounded a note at once weirder and more passionate as well as modern. 'The Shan Van Vocht (Sean Bhean Bhocht) of '87' and the intense and passionate Aghadoe' carried his fame still farther among Irishmen, and revealed him as a kindred spirit to a rising and more spirited generation. Dr. Todhunter was of the little band of Irishmen who found a congenial haunt for a time in the Rhymers' Club, but who were destined to fare far in the more hopeful sphere of Irish ideas. He was one of the original members of the Irish Literary Society, and a steady and unobtrusive worker from the start. He seemed a grave and gentle bard, who habitually brooded on the past and would like the world to be antique or at least medieval; but finding it modern had not the heart to complain, preferring, gently and thoughtfully, to make the best of it. He wrote a Life of Sarsfield,' for 'The New Irish Library,' founded by the first President of the Irish Literary Society, Šir Charles Gavan Duffy. He did the work conscientiously and carefully; though poetry, not history, was his forte, he felt that the new day demanded the less ambitious and plainer duty. He showed in the book that the battle of the Boyne had been no more than a drawn battle in reality, when all was said. A somewhat unexpected development of his power-at least, to some-was his work as a playwright for the Independent Theater. His most successful achievement in this connection was his play The Black Cat.' But the drama had fallen on evil and ironical days in England, and though he wrote more in the dramatic way Dr. Todhunter did not follow the doubtful fortunes of the stage very long nor apparently very zealously. The Irish language movement grew, and he joined the Gaelic League in London. He remains a quiet and estimable figure, with a bardic and artistic air in a world none too devoted to deep ideas. He is a true poet who in a more poetic age and land would have achieved far more distinction. In addition to the works already referred to Dr. Todhunter has written' Alcestes, a Dramatic Poem,' a volume entitled 'A Study of Shelley,' 'The True Tragedy of Rienzi,'' Forest Songs,' 'Helena in Troas, The Banshee and Other Poems,'' A Sicilian Idyll,''The Poison Flowers,' A Comedy of Sighs,' etc. W. P. R. THE WAVES' LEGEND OF THE STRAND OF BALA. The sea moans on the strand, O moaning sea! what sorrowful story Ever they moan on the strand, And my ear, like a sounding shell, Chants to me the sorrowful story For Bala the Sweet-Voiced moan! Sweet was thy tongue, O Bala, To win man's love! Thy voice She gave for thy heart her heart Warm in her swan-white breast, Their pledge was here by the shore And swift in his war-car Bala from Eman Sped o'er Muirthemne plain. He found her not by the shore, Gloom was o'er sea and sky, And a man of the Shee with dreadful face On a blast from the South rushed by. Said Bala: "Stay that man! Ask him what word he brings?" "A woe on the Dun of Lugah! a woe On Eman of the Kings! "Wail for Aillin the Fair! Wail for him her feet Were swift to meet on the lonely strand "Swift were her feet on the way, A hound of swiftness, a shape of fear, "Swift are the lover's feet, But swifter our malice flies! I told her: Bala is dead; and dead In her sunny house she lies." He scowled on Bala, and rose A wraith of the mist, and fled Like a wind-rent cloud; and suddenly Bala With a great cry fell dead. Mourn for all lovers true, Mourn for all beautiful things, Vanished, faded away, forgotten With dead forgotten Springs! So moans the sea on the strand, |