Merriman's Secret: An Interpretation.
I.
Travelling through the history of a literature one comes to different climates, different scenery, different races of men; but every now and then one sees strange, grim, gigantic figures, abnormal, refusing to conform to the type of the place where they are located. There are always giants in literary history, but it is the average men rather than the giants that betray the influence and tendencies of their age. The typical Gaelic poet of 1780 is rather Eoghan Ruadh than Brian Merriman.
II.
In the history of modern Gaelic literature two strikingly original figures stand out—Keating and Merriman—and the latter was the more original of the two. Only by those who have pored over much Gaelic literature can the full extent of that originality be appreciated. Few literatures have been less coloured by the individuality of writers than Gaelic literature. It had been originally the product of a separate literary caste, confined to certain families, taught in schools, shackled by conventions, by respect for tradition, by archaism. Its history is a history of schools and forms and movements rather than of men.
One seems to watch a procession of soldiers. The troops are divided into companies, each company in a somewhat different uniform to be sure; but all in the same company are clad alike, all are about the same stature, their weapons are the same, they keep step in time to the same music. It is all very handsome and splendid, but one's eye seeks in vain
