ESSAYS
LITERARY, CRITICAL
AND HISTORICAL
BY
THOMAS O’HAGAN,
M.A., Ph.D.
Author of “Canadian Essays,”
“Studies in Poetry,” “In
Dreamland,” “Songs of
the Settlement,”
etc.
AUTHOR’S EDITION
TORONTO
WILLIAM BRIGGS
1909
Copyright, Canada, 1909, by
THOMAS O’HAGAN.
TO
HIS FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN,
THE FRENCH CANADIANS AND ACADIANS
Who, speaking the language of Bossuet
and Lamartine, have added Lustre
to our Canadian Citizenship,
Virtue to our Canadian
Homes, and Joy to our
Canadian Firesides,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,
IN SINCERE ADMIRATION,
BY THE AUTHOR
PREFACE.
Four of the five essays which make up thisvolume have appeared during the pastfew years in the American Catholic QuarterlyReview and the Champlain Educator. Theauthor begs to acknowledge particularly hisindebtedness to Dr. S. E. Dawson’s admirablework on Tennyson’s “The Princess,” in thepreparation of his study of that poem. Indeed,without Dr. Dawson’s fine analysis of thepoem the first essay in this volume could neverhave been written.
The paper on “The Italian Renaissance andthe Popes of Avignon” was prepared while thewriter was sojourning at Louvain University,Belgium, in the autumn of 1903, and atGrenoble University, France, during thesummer of 1904. It may be well to addthat the libraries of both these ancient andrenowned seats of learning are very rich inworks relating to medieval history and literature,and afforded the author unusual opportunityin the preparation of the essay.
In the writing of the essay on “Poetry andHistory Teaching Falsehood,” the author hasbeen motived by a desire to set forth in theclearest light possible the misrepresentation ofCatholic truth which obtains in much of thehistory and poetry