The new volume referred to here by Canon Sheehan is Aubrey de Vere's Mediaeval records and sonnets published in 1893.1 Sheehan regarded De Vere as a worthy candidate to succeed Wordsworth and Tennyson as Poet Laureate.2 Aubrey de Vere was one of eight siblings: five boys and three girls. The third son, he was born at Curragh Chase on 10 January 1814.3 The De Vere estate in Co. Limerick, located thirty-six miles north-west from Doneraile, Co. Cork, compares well with that of the Castletowns at Doneraile and both families were on friendly terms with Canon Sheehan.4
De Vere's father approved of the political ideals of Daniel O'Connell and several members of the De Vere family later converted to Catholicism. Aubrey de Vere began writing poetry before studies in metaphysics and theology at Trinity College Dublin where his father hoped he would enter holy orders as a Church of Ireland clergyman.5 After graduating in 1837, De Vere regularly visited England and became acquainted with a wide literary circle. At Oxford he met John Henry Newman in 1838 and, through the Cambridge Apostles Club a year later, James Spedding, who edited the works of Francis Bacon. In 1841, De Vere met Wordsworth and remained a loyal follower. In London he became close friends with Sara Coleridge, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's daughter, where he also met Thomas and Jane Carlyle. At De Vere's invitation, Tennyson visited Ireland in 1842.6
In early 1846, De Vere returned to Curragh Chase from Scotland. The suffering he witnessed during the Great Famine made a profound impression on him.7 He and his brothers — Vere, Stephen, William and Horace — assisted in the famine relief schemes. As a result, Aubrey de Vere made a study of political economy and agriculture. At the end of the 1840s, seeing no improvement in conditions for the poor, he recorded his concerns that famine could return again.8
Already drawn to Catholicism, De Vere made a pilgrimage to Rome in the autumn of 1851 with Fr. Henry Manning.9 On 15 November, De Vere sent Sara Coleridge news that he had been received into the Catholic Church at Avignon.10 His decision was not without its difficulties and Carlyle was among those to voice their disapproval.
Four years later, noting the advantage of selecting someone from Trinity College Dublin, Newman appointed De Vere to the chair of political and social science at the newly-founded Catholic University of Ireland.11 De Vere got to know Newman well and compared him in character to Edmund Burke. Attendance at the university was lower than expected and De Vere stepped down in 1853. He subsequently published the lectures he had prepared in Essays, chiefly literary and ethical (London 1889).12
The transition in De Vere's writing is best understood in the context of the Oxford Movement which advocated a return to lost Christian traditions and their acceptance in Anglican thought and practice.13 Canon Sheehan equated De Vere's philosophy with Malebranche, a Cartesian, and the development of ontologism by thinkers such as Fran[cedil ]ois Fénelon, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Sigismond Gerdil and Joseph Gratry.14 These ideas, according to Chadwick, resonated with the changing expression of Christian identity in the late nineteenth century.15
Along with Sheehan's writings, works by De Vere became popular with American readers whose literary tastes included Belloc, Chesterton, Meynell, Newman, Patmore, Vaughan and Wiseman.16
While paying tribute to Arthurian legend, to ‘the most mirthful and human-hearted’ Geoffrey Chaucer, and to Shakespeare, Burke, Browning and Tennyson — the best of English-language literature in De Vere's view — his 1893 volume rests on themes from European history and culture.17 Here, for instance, we find Dante's Beatrice, the art of Giotto and Fra Angelico of Fiesole, the German mystic, Gertrude the Great, and the astronomer Copernicus. On the reconciliation of science with religion, Sheehan commented: ‘then as now, science was supposed to be in conflict with faith, and their revelations to be mutually contradictory’. Understanding that science offers a world of discovery, a believing member of the Church recognises that true peace is found in the will of God.
Sheehan referred to De Vere's extracts from the legends of El Cid expecting that many would enjoy reading of these deeds for the first time.18 Tales such as the twelfth-century Spanish epic were otherwise neglected in De Vere's time.19 He was further inspired by the earliest literature from Ireland and brought to print Inisfail: a lyrical chronicle of Ireland in 1861. Two decades later De Vere published The Foray of Queen Maeve, derived from Professor Brian O'Looney's translation of Táin Bó Cuailnge. De Vere also offered his support to Lady Gregory in her earliest endeavours to found the Irish Literary Theatre.20
Canon Sheehan's essay lends support to the views of Douglas Hyde by noting the belief that ‘the delay will not be long’ before a revolution in Irish public opinion.21 Sheehan asked whether De Vere could have reached people more through prose but recognised the potential for teaching readers to identify with the Christian heritage of Europe. Aubrey de Vere died on 21 January 1902 and is buried at St Mary's graveyard in Askeaton, Co. Limerick.