Some of them, indeed, the "garrison" pure and simple, had all their interests centred not only in resisting but in calumniating her.

But the majority yielded gaily to her music, her poetry, her sociability, that magical quality of hers which the Germans call _Gemuetlichkeit_.

In a few centuries a new and enduring phrase had designated them as more Irish than the Irish themselves.

So far as any superiority of civilisation manifests itself in this first period it is altogether on the side of Ireland.

This power of assimilation has never decayed.