was peopled by
distinct and scattered populations of conquerors. By virtue of these
ancient dignities she was accorded international rank long after England
had risen to nationhood, and when invasion had brought her national polity
to ruin and silenced the voice of poet and scholar.

These are not matters merely of the past. If they were, they could be
dismissed to the antiquity in which they would lie. But they live in the
consciousness of a nation to-day; and therefore to-day they are a factor,
to neglect which would be to neglect a prime element without which neither
the present nor the future may be understood. Only the sentimentalist
waves out of sight considerations that are unpleasant to him. The realist
faces every element of being, conscious or unconscious; for he knows that
only out of the sum of all those elements can life proceed, or creation
begin.

For these ancient dignities have passed into the consciousness of every
sort of Irishmen. It was, for example, Molyneux who, in his _Case of
Ireland Stated_ at the end of the 17th century, first among modern Irish
writers based an argument upon them. Molyneux was an English colonist. In
the wars of Tirconnell and Patrick Sarsfield he had fled to England,
returning only when Ginkel the Dutchman had won the field for his master,
now monarch of England. He regarded the ancient nation with aversion. Yet
when the English Parliament harassed what he proudly conceived to be the
ancient liberty of Ireland, he stated the case of that nation, stated it
as his case, in a public document of historic moment; and the English
Parliament caused his book to be burned by the public hangman.

The sorest part of his book was his reference to the Council of Constance
of 1416. This Council may rightly claim to be the first of modern
international congresses. At it a certain question of precedence had
arisen between France and England, which was referred to the Court of
Heralds. In the judgment which was given it was stated as an international
ruling that Europe was first constituted from four nations. These nations,
in the order of their precedence, were Rome, Byzantium, Ireland and Spain.
And Molyneux, the English colonist, proudly referred to this ruling, and
based a great part of his case upon it.

The breed of Molyneux is alive to-day. Political differences have divided
it from the ancient race which furnished its arguments. But the pride is
the same; the sense of possession