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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78814 ***
+
+
+   This ebook, based on a book first published in 1825, was created in
+          honour of Distributed Proofreaders’ 25th Anniversary.
+
+
+
+
+                              ABSENTEEISM.
+
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                       WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
+
+                           Lately Published,
+
+      THE LIFE and TIMES of SALVATOR ROSA. In 2 vols. 8vo. with a
+    fine Portrait of Salvator, from the Original Painting by
+    himself, in the possession of Earl Grosvenor, price 28s. bds.
+
+      “Lady Morgan has produced two of the most amusing octavos we
+    have met with, even in this biographical age.”--EDINBURGH MAG.
+
+
+      ITALY. By LADY MORGAN. Being the Substance of a JOURNAL of HER
+    RESIDENCE in that Country; exhibiting a View of the present
+    State of SOCIETY and MANNERS, ARTS, LITERATURE, and Literary
+    Institutions, interspersed with numerous Anecdotes of the most
+    eminent Literary and Political Characters, &c. The Third
+    Edition, revised, in 3 vols. 8vo. price 36s.
+
+      “Lady Morgan’s fearless and excellent work upon Italy.”--LORD
+    BYRON.
+
+      “Lady Morgan has given us more information on the actual state
+    of society in Italy at the present moment, than can be found in
+    any of the numerous publications which have made their
+    appearance since the peace.”--NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
+
+      “This is not merely a work of opinions expressed in the
+    ornamental style of the writer. It is a substantial account of
+    Italy, and may be consulted for its facts by the historian, the
+    traveller, and the topographer.”--MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                              ABSENTEEISM.
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+
+                              LADY MORGAN.
+
+
+                    “Les absens ont toujours tort.”
+
+
+  “You heare of a case as it were in a dreame, and feell not the smart
+that vexeth us.”--_Speech of the Earl of Kildare to Cardinal Wolsey._
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+                 HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
+                                 1825.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+          IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                                   TO
+
+                         CHARLES BROWNLOW, ESQ.
+                                 M. P.
+
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+Your recent speech on the Catholic question, has been hailed as an event
+favourable to the best interests of Ireland by all who in sympathising
+with her sufferings, have sought for, and ascertained their master
+cause.
+
+All Irishmen are brave! it is scarce a national boast to say so! for the
+courage of nerve and sinew is, after all, a quality of pretty general
+distribution, “from Indus to the Pole.” Man is every where a pugnacious
+animal; and _les heros de circonstance_--prompt to fight “for any God or
+King”--are always to be had for hire, be the _cavalier pagante_ who he
+may. But there is a quality of courage, which has been found rare in all
+ages and in all regions, the peculiar endowment of high, free, and above
+all, of _honest minds_. This is the courage that sets at nought
+
+  “The world’s dread sneer,
+   Which scarce the stern philosopher can scorn,”
+
+which boldly opposes a startling truth to a received opinion, which
+frankly recants the cherished error of early associations, and avows the
+change operated by arduous inquiry and clear conviction, at the expense
+of all worldly interests, and the sacrifice of all private feelings.
+Such, Sir, is the courage which you have displayed upon a subject of
+vital importance to Ireland. As an Irishwoman, I beg to offer my mite of
+gratitude for the benefit conferred upon our common country--convinced
+that whenever the spirit of those sentiments which you have avowed shall
+govern the councils of the nation, Absenteeism will cease to be a
+national malady.
+
+    I have the honor to be,
+
+        With every sentiment of respect,
+
+            Your obedient Servant,
+
+                SYDNEY MORGAN.
+
+    London, June 4th, 1825.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                                PREFACE.
+
+
+The following pages were originally published in the New Monthly
+Magazine. The continued demand for the numbers in which they appeared,
+has induced the proprietor to reprint the article, and it is now offered
+to the public in a substantive form.
+
+Notwithstanding the intense interest which is felt throughout all
+England concerning Ireland and Irish affairs, notwithstanding the
+frequent debates in parliament, and more frequent pamphlets and volumes
+published on points of Irish politics and œconomy, the prevailing
+ignorance on these subjects still operates powerfully in maintaining
+prejudices the most unfounded and the most fatal, and in retarding those
+measures of wisdom and of justice without which Ireland can never be
+happy, or the British Empire secure.
+
+It is this ignorance more especially which enables the party opposed to
+the settlement of Ireland to occupy public attention with minor
+grievances, behind which the danger and malice of their system are
+concealed from a nation too generous to tolerate open and avowed
+oppression. No sooner is the question of Catholic Emancipation proposed
+in the senate, with some chance of obtaining a favourable consideration,
+than one or other of these convenient abuses is thrust forward to
+distract attention and to puzzle the will. The absentees, the deficiency
+of employment, the potatoe diet, the want of poor laws, or the want of
+education, are, from time to time put forth as the paramount evil, the
+gushing fountain of every misfortune of Ireland; while the main subject
+of complaint, the Catholic disability, is studiously represented as
+affecting only a few briefless barristers, or ambitious landlords. The
+advantage which is thus obtained in pre-occupying the public mind, and
+in affording additional ground for a superstructure of sophisms is
+immense.
+
+The British nation has so many and such vast interests to pursue, its
+relations with every country in the world are so many and so
+complicated, that the most instructed of its subjects can find but
+little time and attention to bestow on any one of them, however
+important. The public in general is therefore compelled to repose
+confidence in those who affect a knowledge of each particular subject;
+and to take for granted the propositions they advance. When the men who
+should be the guides of public opinion are false to their trust, and
+instead of presenting truths in a clear and perspicuous form, studiously
+bury them beneath a mass of plausibilities, or entangle them in a
+net-work of sophistry, the task of unweaving their web, and detecting
+their fallacies, must be again and again undertaken, before a credulous
+and a pre-occupied people can be made aware of the deception, and
+enabled to judge of the question at issue by its intrinsic merits.
+
+On this account, it cannot but be deemed most unfortunate that the
+friends of Ireland unwittingly complicated the recent discussion on the
+Catholic Question, by the two bills with which they clogged their main
+proposition. It was not sufficient that the public should be dinned and
+stupified with the mass of untelligible and absurd theology with which
+that very plain question of policy and common morality is too
+unfortunately loaded; but it must also be mystified with high sounding
+phrases of “disfranchisement,” “oppression of the poor,” and other
+similar phantoms. To lead the British public to imagine that the
+disqualification of the forty shilling freeholders would affect the
+influence either of the catholic or protestant party in Ireland, was, to
+say the best of it, a strange mistake: but on the other side, to attempt
+making men believe that the franchise is a benefit to its holder, or
+that the existing representative system of Ireland, with or without the
+forty shilling freeholders, has any the remotest practical utility as an
+instrument of liberty or of self-taxation, is a gross and absolute
+deception. All the discussion which was raised on this most silly of
+disputes (and the enemies of emancipation were not slow to profit by the
+advantage) was _de lana caprina_, and so much diversion of the public
+mind from the main point at issue; serving only to inflame enemies, and
+to divide friends. Though no one will dispute that both the riders were
+appended to the Catholic Bill in deference to the opponents of that
+measure, and with an honest intention to conciliate and to compromise,
+yet in the event, the introduction of extraneous matter has proved
+eminently unfavourable to the cause, and will, it is to be hoped, never
+again be attempted.
+
+The futility of the arguments derived from a putting forth of secondary
+causes of evil in Irish politics, as directed against the entertainment
+of the Catholic Question, is the greater, in as much as all the various
+subjects which are advanced as matters of complaint, derive immediately
+from this one source. Deficient capital, deficient knowledge, deficient
+civilization, are all the necessary consequences of bad government,--of
+that bad government for whose sake Catholic has been set against
+Protestant, and the Irish people divided, in order to prevent the
+assertion of their political rights. In England people are governed in
+their opinions on the Catholic Question exclusively by their hopes and
+fears; and none but the clergy have a corrupt interest in withholding
+justice from any religious sect. But in Ireland power and place, the
+licence to oppress, and the facility of living on the public purse, are
+closely entwined with the permanence of a system, which, while it
+tramples the Catholic in the dust, degrades and impoverishes the whole
+population, for the exclusive benefit of a few powerful families. It is
+bad government, and the destraction and turbulence which bad government
+has engendered, that drives industry and capital from the country, and
+forces the peasantry to abandon all pretence to luxuries and
+refinements, whether moral or physical. It is bad government that
+banishes meat from the cotter’s table, and instruction from his mind. It
+is bad government that puts a pike in his hand, and hardens his heart
+against all the charities of life; it is bad government that makes
+property insecure, and life precarious; it is bad government, therefore,
+that induces the aristocracy to fly to happier regions, to abandon their
+duties to their country and to themselves, and to seek for tranquillity
+and safety even at the expense of half their fortunes; and it is, above
+all, bad government which renders the absence of a limited aristocracy
+an evil of magnitude, either morally, politically, or economically.
+
+The geographical position of Ireland, and its political dependence, (the
+necessary consequence of that position,) must always occasion more
+absenteeism than usually occurs in other nations. The robbery and
+spoilation of the native proprietors to endow the pampered favourites of
+a foreign court, which took place in the preceding centuries, afford
+another cause for this evil; but by far the greatest number of absentees
+are banished by the direct operation of the penal code, or by its
+indirect influence in limiting the pursuit of fortune at home. Ireland
+has no field for enterprise and industry, it has no market for
+merchandize. It has no scope for honest ambition, no promise of
+pleasure, no resting place for repose; and yet it is expected that those
+who have the means of quitting the land will inhabit it out of respect
+for a principle, or regard for an abstraction!
+
+Absenteeism considered in itself is an unnatural ill. There is usually
+so much of ease, of happiness, and of personal consequence in living at
+home surrounded by friends, relations, and a respectful tenantry,--there
+is usually so much mortification and disgust in the condition of a
+stranger and a foreigner, that nothing but political causes can drive
+the great proprietors of a country to permanently abandon their estates.
+Yet so natural is it for men to complain of the evil which strikes the
+most powerfully on the senses,--so convenient is it for those, who are
+determined in the denial of justice, to make absenteeism the _causa
+causans_ of calamities which they want the humanity to relieve, that all
+classes of persons, the Protestant and the Catholic, the mere Irish and
+the lord of the pale, the oppressor and the oppressed, the Irish
+corporator and the English minister have joined in a common cry against
+absentees. It is not therefore very surprising that the mere John Bull,
+wrapped in his own affairs, and buried in his counting-house, should
+believe what every one repeats, and should shut his eyes against the
+real causes of that turbulence and that discontent which, though they
+have given him so much trouble and uneasiness, are yet too far removed
+from his gaze to allow of the formation of an independent judgment. It
+is not very wonderful that he should credit the assertion so hardily
+made, that Catholic Emancipation is not the one thing needful to
+Ireland, the essential preliminary, without which, no practical relief
+can be afforded to the economical distresses of the country.
+
+In taking up the subject of absenteeism, the peculiar bent of Lady
+Morgan’s mind, and the character of her habitual pursuits, have
+inevitably given a picturesque turn to her ideas, and induced her to
+view the matter less as an economist than as a poet and a woman. But the
+great truth has not escaped her, that absenteeism is less a cause than
+an effect: and while in the romance of her imagination she has
+delineated what Ireland might be under the fostering protection of an
+enlightened and liberal aristocracy, she has not forgotten that under
+existing circumstances it must remain for ever the blighted victim of an
+oppressive and ignorant _bureaucratie_.
+
+                                                       T. C. MORGAN.
+
+London, June 3, 1825.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                              ABSENTEEISM.
+
+
+                    “Les absens ont toujours tort.”
+
+                                                 _La Rochefaucault._
+
+
+The phrase “Absentee,” says Dr. Johnson, is one “used _with regard to
+Irishmen_ living out of their country;” and as its origin is Irish, so
+its use and application are strictly confined to the history of that
+unfortunate people. The inference to be drawn from this fact is plain:
+that there is something in the circumstances of the Irish, peculiar to
+themselves,--something which forces upon them a line of conduct contrary
+to the ordinary instincts of humanity, and compels them to fly from that
+land which all other nations regard with more or less of favour and
+affection,--from that land which youth quits with regret, and to which
+age clings with passion, when all other passions fade,--the land of
+their nativity.
+
+In every history of Irish grievances, this cabalistical term “absentee”
+appears in the front of the array, and, like the terrible “_Il
+Bondocani_” of the Calif of Bagdat, strikes down all before it,--the
+apology for every abuse, the obstacle to every plan of amelioration, the
+bugbear of the timid, the stalking-horse of the designing.
+
+“Absenteeism,” observes the Secretary for the Home Department, “is an
+operative cause of tumult, but it is without a remedy;” and thus
+dismissing all ministerial responsibility with a laconic aphorism, he
+launches an integral portion of the empire committed to his management,
+to revolve for ever in the turbulent whirlpool of a vicious circle of
+cause and effect. Tumult expels the rich landholders, the absence of the
+rich landholders perpetuates tumult: this is a law of nature, which
+admits of “no remedy;” and the executive have nothing to do but to
+procure the passing of penal statutes according to the necessities of
+the moment, and to find the means of extorting four millions a year from
+English industry, to pay the expense of Irish misrule.
+
+In political philosophy there are no evils without a remedy, save those
+which arise out of the common condition of humanity;--and the minister
+who confesses a political evil which he cannot remove, should remove
+himself: for he is himself the greatest evil with which the people have
+to contend. Sully, who administered the affairs of France under the most
+adverse circumstances, when it was still harassed with civil contentions
+and torn with religious factions, saw no political impossibilities,
+though many political difficulties, with which he courageously and
+successfully grappled: but, alas! the Secretary for the Home Department
+is not Sully.
+
+To what physiological peculiarity of constitution this irremediable
+tendency to wander, inherited from their progenitors by the restless
+sons of the great Milesius, is to be attributed, the learned Secretary
+has not informed us; and it is certain that Spurzheim, on his visit to
+the Irish capital, discovered no migratory inequality upon the surface
+of the Irish cranium, to account for the disposition. But in whatever
+particular of temperament or exuberance of cerebral developement the
+cause of this “effect defective” lies latent, it is matter of historic
+fact, that though the ancient Irish were restless enough at home,
+(“never,” says Campion, “wanting drift to drive a tumult,”) yet this
+activity, which induced them “to pick a quarrel, fall in love, or any
+other diverting accident of that kind,” never found vent in absenteeism.
+Where, indeed, could Irishmen go to better their condition, when all in
+Ireland, who were not saints, were kings; and many were both, while none
+were martyrs.[1] “_Il est certain negoce_,” says the French proverb,
+“_où l’on perd beaucoup en quittant boutique_;” and this proverb, at all
+times applicable to Irish absentees, was particularly so in that golden
+age, so often referred to by antiquaries, when Ireland, “lying aloof in
+the Western Ocean, was a nest of kingdoms,” when superb and wealthy
+monasteries and royal palaces occupied every foot of the territory, and
+when swallows built their nests in old men’s beards for want of worse
+habitations. In those true church and state times of Ireland’s
+prosperity, of which the Orangeman’s Utopia is but a type, it is little
+wonderful that the people gave into no wanderings, but those “_du cœur
+et de l’esprit_;” and that a pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s purgatory, a
+royal progress of some Toparck of the South to a Dynast in the North, or
+a morning visit from King Mac Turtell to his close neighbour King
+Gillemohalmoghe,[2] (which occasionally ended in the broken heads of
+both parties,) should include the recorded absenteeism of two thousand
+years.
+
+It was reserved, however, for one of these royal heroes first to commit
+the patricidal crime: and the first Irish absentee of note, though a
+great king, was but a _mauvais sujet_, having pillaged his people,
+wasted his revenue, ran away with his neighbour’s wife, and sold his
+country for a mess of pottage. It is almost unnecessary to add that this
+royal founder of absenteeism is condemned to the contempt of posterity
+by the title of Dermot Mac Murrogh O’Kavenagh, King of Leinster; and
+that the result of his absenteeship was the successful invasion of
+Ireland by Henry II. the crusading grants of Pope Adrian IV. and, above
+all, the fearful forfeitures followed by rebellion on one part, and on
+the other by an effort at extermination, which have multiplied from age
+to age those possessors and deserters of the soil, who have drawn over
+“the profits raised out of Ireland, and refunded nothing.”[3]
+
+It appears very probable that one of the motives by which the lords of
+Ireland (as the English kings were long styled) were actuated in giving
+such large tracts of land to great English proprietors, was to get rid
+of the troublesome and rebellious Barons, by tempting them to reside in
+that “most beautiful and sweet country as any is under heaven,” where so
+much was given up to their power and pillage, and where the services
+demanded in return, “the raising of forts and castles and fencing
+themselves with garrisons, as captains, keepers, and constables,” might
+forward the royal interests by protecting its power against the inroads
+of the natives. “For, except Leinster,” says Campion, “all other parts
+retayned still their ancient kind of government, and were always ready
+to start at every corner, _ag and rag_, to expell the English.” But the
+framers of Magna Charta, the guardians of all that was then known of
+liberty in England, were not by the bribe of principalities to be kept
+from the great scene of action; and some of the most considerable,
+having accepted, or seized upon the fairest portions of the land, made
+them over to sons-in-law or other kinsmen; and having thus, by the
+scratch of their rude pen,[4] conveyed to others the fee simple of an
+Irish province, hastened back to England to dispute the power of the
+barbarous despots, who reigned by their sufferance, or were deposed by
+their caprice.
+
+In process of time, the mischief of this species of transfer was not
+only felt as an additional grievance by the Irish, but as an annoyance
+by the English sovereign.[5] The injury done to their power by the
+absence of those whom they had deputed to watch over it, at a time when
+that power was held by a precarious tenure, was deemed so great, that a
+law against absentees was passed so early as the time of Richard II. The
+divisions of the houses of York and Lancaster, however, abrogated all
+laws; “at which time,” says Spenser, “all English lords and gentlemen
+which had great possessions in Ireland, repaired over hither into
+England, some to succour their friends here, and to strengthen their
+partie, others for to defend their lands and possessions here against
+such as hovered after the same, upon hope of the alteration of the
+kingdom, and success of that side which they favoured and affected.”[6]
+The result of this absenteeism of the great landholders of Ireland was
+natural and inevitable. “The Irish, whom before they had banished into
+the mountains, where they lived only upon white meates,[7] as it is
+recorded, seeing now their lands so dispeopled and weakened, came down
+into all the plains adjoining, and thence expelling those few English
+that remayned, re-possessed them again.” But these re-possessions were
+only temporary. New conquests and new forfeitures ensued. New
+possessors, unaffected to the soil, and disdainful of its children,
+afforded fresh causes of absenteeism, which, in whatever way it
+operated, was injurious to the country; till at length the forfeiture of
+Leix and Offaly (the King and Queen’s Counties) under Edward VI. threw
+the whole of those spacious and fertile districts into the hands of new
+proprietors; who having established themselves by “fire and sword,”
+transferred the ownership “to _foreigners by connexion, and resided
+themselves in England_.”
+
+But if the first barbarous English legislators for Ireland (and when has
+the epithet been inapplicable?) were, at an early period of their
+unfixed power, sensible of the injury which the state and the country
+suffered from absenteeism--if the Plantagenets took cognizance of the
+evil, and endeavoured to provide against it by statute, the Tudors
+(those sanguinary but sagacious despots) considered the absence of the
+Irish from their homes and country as a state engine; and wielded it
+with a policy which always advanced their own interests, and confirmed
+their power over that unhappy land. Sometimes they allured the Irish
+nobility to their splendid court for the purpose of dazzling their
+imagination, and corrupting their patriotism. Sometimes, on shallow
+pretexts, they cited them as accused or criminals, to awe them by their
+array of power, or to intimidate them by their display of cruelty. Yet,
+frequently forced to feel that the prosperity of the country and the
+English interests were both best served by the permanent residence of
+the gentry of the pale, they did not the less frame laws which made it
+penal for the proprietors of the soil to spend its profits elsewhere
+than at home.[8] The love which the Irish had borne to the house of
+York, had rendered it a point of courteous policy to appoint the second
+sons of the king to the Lieutenancy of Ireland, with a deputy for the
+execution of the high office: and Henry VIII. as Duke of York, while yet
+a boy, and during the life-time of his elder brother, began his career
+of power under this character, conjointly with his deputy, Gerald
+Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, “a mighty made man,” says his chronicler,
+“full of honour and courage.” (1501) This grand conservator of the
+peace, however, had the old Irish fashion of being occasionally disposed
+to break it; and his fierce feuds with the Butlers, Earls of Ormond,
+(“nothing inferior to Kildare in stomache, and in reach of policy farre
+beyond him,”) were the causes “of much ruffle and unquietness to the
+realm.” These served his enemies for a pretext to draw down upon him the
+displeasure of the English government, and finally induced Henry VII. to
+summon the old deputy over to the English court, and to seek to break
+down that haughty and turbulent spirit in a region rarely favourable to
+powerful energies and independence of mind. A bon-mot saved the earl
+from the danger which awaited him, and limited his absenteeism to a few
+months residence in the court of Henry, from which he returned to
+Ireland more powerful than he left it.
+
+Gerald Fitzgerald, son of the aforesaid earl, “a gentleman valiant and
+well spoken,” succeeded his father in all his dignities; but though
+appointed lord deputy of Ireland, his influence, power, and spirit, soon
+awakened the jealousy of Henry VIII. Being “overtaken with vehement
+suspicion of sundry treasons, it was deemed politic to draw him away
+from Ireland; and, by secret _heavers_ and enviers of his fortunes,
+nourishers of the old grudge, the king was urged to call upon him to
+attend the English court.” The illustrious but involuntary absentee,
+was, on his first arrival in England, treated with a severity vainly
+intended to intimidate a spirit which was afterwards to be subdued by
+other and more seducing means. Among many frivolous charges, “_he was
+opposed with divers interrogatories touching the Earl of Desmond, his
+cousin, a notorious traytor_.” His trial, however, was but a mockery,
+and as the object was to sink the popular chief of a nation into a
+pliant courtier, to bind him more firmly to the English interests, and
+to weaken his feelings of patriotism, the union of the turbulent Gerald
+was proposed with the Lady Elizabeth Grey, the king’s own kinswoman and
+daughter of the Duke of Suffolk. This marriage, celebrated with royal
+splendour, with all the festivities of a boisterous but splendid court,
+was deemed a preliminary step to permanent subjection, and to frequent
+and long visits to the English court.
+
+Scarcely, however, had Kildare returned home, and resumed the deputyship
+of Ireland, when the domestic tumults of the great lords of the pale
+involved him in new accusations on the part of the crown, “intimations
+of new treasons passing to and fro, with complaynts and replyes;” and as
+Cardinal Wolsey “_did hate the Kildare bloud_,” and had resolved on
+breaking down their power, the earl was again called from his stronghold
+in Ireland, and accused of having “wilfully winked at the Earl of
+Desmond (whose large possessions were his crimes in the eye of the
+minister), and with having curried acquaintance and friendship with mere
+Irish.” While lying under the imputation of a crime, always heinous in
+the Irish,--natural affection to the land and its suffering
+children,--the brave Kildare (like an eagle taken from its eirie in the
+mountain-cliffs of its native region, and chained to the earth in a
+golden cage) was suffered to loiter away his existence, in listless
+indolence and life-wearing anxiety, in the purlieus of a court that
+resembled the seraglio of an Asiatic satrap, alternately favoured and
+persecuted, as the caprice of the sovereign or the aversion of the
+minister ruled the hour. It was at this period, when his mind was borne
+down by his humiliating position, that he was prevailed on to consent to
+his daughter the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald’s permanent residence at
+court; and it was by this concession that the loveliest of all Irish
+absentees, “_the more than celestial Geraldine_,” has become an object
+of interest and admiration to posterity, as the poetical idol of the
+gallant and unfortunate Surrey.[9]
+
+Although educated at the rural palace of Hunsdon with her kinswomen the
+Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, and though afterwards maid of honour to
+the Queen, it is probable that this lady was rather an hostage than a
+guest, and was detained more by force than by inclination:--as the
+sequel of her story goes to prove. “All this while,” says Campion,
+“abode the Earl of Kildare at the court, and with much ado found shifte
+to be called before the Lords to answer solemnly.” When, at last, every
+excuse for delay was exhausted, and every hope of subduing his
+invincible spirit faded, he was “called before the lords to answer
+solemnly,” who “sat upon him diversly affectioned; and especially the
+Cardinal Lord Chancellor (Wolsey) who disliked his cause, comforted his
+accusers, and enforced the articles objected.”
+
+The whole scene of this mock trial is so graphic, and the speeches of
+the Cardinal and of the Irish Lord Deputy so curious and descriptive of
+the state and manners of the time, that the introduction may be pardoned
+of an episode which goes to prove, by a striking instance, that Irish
+absenteeism under any form, voluntarily or involuntary, graced by royal
+favour, or marked by ministerial persecution, is derogatory to the
+dignity, and injurious to the interests of the Irish nobility. The Earl
+of Kildare, alone, unfriended, without the aid of counsel to plead, or
+witness to depose in his behalf, appeared in the midst of the Lords,
+every one of whom was the slave of the King or the parasite of the
+minister,--“for what,” (says Walpole, one of their own caste,)--“what
+twelve tradesmen could be found more servile than every court of peers
+during the whole of this reign?”--Wolsey was the first to speak, and he
+began with these words:--“I wot well, my Lord, that I am not the meetest
+man at this board to charge you with these treasons, because it hath
+pleased some of your pew-fellows to report that I am a professed enemie
+to all nobilitie, and namely to the Geraldines: but seeing every curst
+boy can say as much when he is controled, and seeing these points are so
+weightie that they should not be dissembled of us, and so apparent that
+they cannot be denyed of you, I must have leave, notwithstanding your
+state slaunder, to be the mouth of these honorable persons at this time,
+and to trumpe your reasons in your way, howsoever you take me. First,
+you remember how the lewde Earle your kinsman, who passeth not whom he
+serve, might he change his master, sent his confederates with letters of
+credence to Frauncis the French king, and, having but cold comfort
+there, to Charles the Emperour, proffering the helpe of Mounster and
+Connaght towards the conquest of Ireland, if either of them would helpe
+to win it from our King. How many letters? what precepts? what messages?
+what threats have been sent you to apprehend him? and yet not done! why
+so? forsooth, I could not catch him: nay, nay, Earle, forsooth you would
+not nightly watch him. If he be justly suspected, why are you partiall
+in so great a cause? if not, why are you fearfull to have him tryed? Yea
+sir, it will be sworn and deposed to your face, that for feare of
+meeting him, you have winked, wilfully shunned his sight, altered your
+course, warned his friends, stopped both eyes and eares against his
+detectors, and, when soever you tooke upon you to hunt him out, then was
+he sure before hand to bee out of your walke: surely this juggling and
+false play little became either an honest man, called to such honour, or
+a nobleman put in such trust. Had you lost but a cow or a garron of your
+owne, two hundred Kyrneghes would have come at your whistle, to rescue
+the prey from the uttermost edge of Ulster: all the Irish in Ireland
+must have given you the way. But in pursuing so weightie a matter as
+this, mercifull God! how nice, how dangerous, how wayward have you bin!
+One while he is from home, sometimes fled, sometimes in the borders
+where you dare not venture: I wist, my Lord, there be shrewd Bugges in
+the borders for the Earl of Kildare to feare. The Earle, nay the King of
+Kildare, for, when you are disposed, you reigne more like than rule the
+land:--where you are malicious, the truest subjects stand for Irish
+enemies: where you are pleased the Irish enemie stands for a dutifull
+subject: hearts and hands, lives and lands, are all at your courtesie:
+who fawneth not thereon, hee cannot rest within your smell, and your
+smell is so ranke that you tracke them out at pleasure.”
+
+Whilst the Cardinal was speaking, the Earle chafed and changed colour,
+and sundry proffers made to answer every sentence as it came; at last he
+broke out, and interrupted them thus. “My Lord Chancellour, I beseech
+you pardon me; I am short-witted, and you, I perceive, intend a long
+tale. If you proceede in this order, halfe my purgation will be lost for
+lacke of carryage: I have no schoole tricks, nor art of memory; excepte
+you heare me while I remember your words, your second processe will
+hammer out the former.” The Lords associate, who for the most part
+tenderly loved him, and knew the Cardinal’s manner of termes so
+lothsome, as wherewith they were tyred many years agoe, humbly besought
+his Grace to charge him directly with particulars and to dwell in some
+one matter till it were examined through. That granted, “It is good
+reason (quoth the Earle) that your Grace beare the mouth of this
+chamber. But, my Lord, those mouthes that put this tale into your mouth,
+are very wide mouths, such indeed as have gaped long for my wreck, and
+now at length, for want of better stuff, are fain to fill their mouths
+with smoak. What my cousin Desmond hath compassed, as I know not, so I
+beshrew his naked heart for holding out so long. If hee can bee taken by
+my agents that presently wayte for him, then have my adversaryes
+betrayed their malice, and this heape of haynous wordes shall resemble a
+man of strawe, that seemeth at a blush to carry some proportion, but
+when it is felt and poysed, discovereth a vanity, serving only to fraye
+crowes; and I trust your honours will see the proofe hereof and mine
+innocencie testified in this behalfe by the thing itselfe within these
+few dayes. But goe to, suppose hee never bee had, what is Kildare to
+blame for it, more than my good brother of Ossory? notwithstanding his
+high promises, having also the king’s power, he is glad to take egges
+for his money, and bring him in at leysure. Cannot the Earle of Desmond
+shift, but I must bee of counsell? cannot hee bee hid, except I winke?
+If hee bee close, am I his mate? If hee bee friended, am I a traitour?
+This is a doughty kinde of accusation, which they urge against mee,
+wherein they are stabled and myred at my first denyall. You would not
+see him, say they; who made them so familiar with mine eye sight? or
+when was the Earle within my _Equinas_? or who stood by when I let him
+slip? or where are the tokens of my willfull hood-winking? Oh, but you
+sent him word to beware of you: who was the messenger? where are the
+letters? convince my negative. See how loosely this idle reason hangeth:
+Desmond is not taken, well, we are in fault: why? because you are. Who
+proves it? nobody. What conjectures? so it seemeth. To whom? to your
+enemies. Who told it them? What other grounds? none. Will they sweare
+it? they will sweare it. My Lords, then belike they know it: if they
+know it, either they have my hand to show, or can bring forth the
+messenger, or were present at a conference, or privy to Desmond, or
+somebody betrayed it to them, or themselves were my carryers or
+vice-gerents therein. Which of these parts will they choose? I know them
+too well to reckon myself convict by their bare wordes, or headlesse
+hearsayes, or frantick oathes: my letters were soone read, were any such
+writing extant; my servaunts and friends are ready to bee sifted. Of my
+cousin Desmond they may lye lewdly, since no man can heere will tell the
+contrary. Touching my selfe, I never noted in them either so much wit,
+or so much faith, that I could have gaged upon their silence the life of
+a good hound, much lesse mine owne. I doubt not, may it please your
+honours to oppose them, how they came to knowledge of these matters
+which they are so ready to depose, but you shall finde their tongues
+chayned to another man’s trencher, and as it were knights of the post,
+suborned to say, sweare, and stare the uttermost they can, as those that
+passe not what they say, nor with what face they say it, so they say no
+truths. But of another thing, it grieveth me that your good grace, whom
+I take to be wise and sharpe, and who of your own blessed disposition
+wish me well, should be so farre gone in crediting those corrupt
+informers, that abuse the ignorance of their state and country to my
+perill. Little know you, my lord, how necessary it is, not onely for the
+governour, but also for every nobleman in Ireland, to hamper his
+vincible neighbours at discretion, wherein, if they wayted for processe
+of law, and had not these lives and lands you speake of within their
+reach, they might pass to loose their own lives and lands without law.
+You heare of a case, as it were in a dreame, and feell not the smart
+that vexeth us. In England there is not a meane subject that dare extend
+this hand to fillip a peere of the realme;--in Ireland, except the lord
+have cunning to his strength, and strength to save his owne, and
+sufficient authoritie to racke thieves and varletts when they stirre,
+hee shall finde them swarme so fast that it will bee too late to call
+for justice. If you will have our service take effect, you must not tye
+us always to the judicial proceedings, wherewith your realme, thank-bee
+God, is inured. As touching my kingdome, my Lord, I would you and I had
+exchanged kingdomes but for one moneth, I would trust to gather up more
+crummes in that space, than twice the revenues of my poore
+earledome;--but you are well and warme, and so hold you, and upbraide
+not me with such an odious storme. I sleepe on a dablin, when you lye
+soft in your bed of downe; I serve under the cope of heaven, when you
+are served under a canopy; I drinke water out of a skull, when you
+drinke out of golden cuppes; my courser is trained to the field, when
+your jennet is taught to amble; when you are begraced, and belorded, and
+crowched and kneeled unto, then I finde small grace with our Irish
+borderers, except I cut them off by the knees.” At these girds the
+councell would have smiled if they durst; but each man bitt his lippe,
+and held his countenance. The Cardinall perceived that Kildare was no
+cake, and rose in a fume from the councell-table, committed the Earle,
+and deferred the matter till more direct probations came out of
+Ireland.--It is unnecessary to add, that these “_probations_” were
+readily procured. “For of this treason,” continues the quaint
+chronicler, “he (Kildare) was found guilty, and imprisoned in the Tower
+a long time. The gentleman betook himself to God and the King, was
+heartily loved of the lieutenant, pittied in all the court, and standing
+in so hard case, altered little his accustomed hue, comforted other
+noblemen prisoners with him dissembling his own sorrow.
+
+“One night, when the lieutenant and he, for disport, were playing at
+_slide-groat_, suddenly commeth from the Cardinall a mandat to execute
+Kildare on the _morrow_. The Earl marking the Lieutenant’s deep sigh on
+reading the bill, ‘By Sant Bride,’ quoth he, ‘there is some mad game in
+that scralle, but, fall how it will, this throw is for a huddle.’ When
+the worst was told him: ‘Now I pray thee,’ quoth he, ‘doe no more but
+learn assuredly from the King’s owne mouthe whether his Grace be witting
+thereto or not.’ Sore doubted the Lieutenant to displease the Cardinall;
+yet of very pure devotion to his friend, he posteth to the King at
+midnight, and said his errand (for all houres of the day or night, the
+lieutenant hath accesse to the prince upon occasions.) King Henry,
+controwling the sawcyness of the priest--those were his tearmes--gave
+him his signet in token of countermand; which, when the Cardinall had
+seene, he began to breake into unseasonable words with the lieutenant,
+which he was loath to heare, and so he left him fretting. Thus broke up
+the storme for a time, and the next yeare Wolsey was cast out of favour;
+and within few yeares Sir William Skevington was sent over deputy, who
+brought with him the Earle pardoned, and rid from all his troubles.”
+
+But this “riddance” was only of short duration. New causes of complaint,
+and new reasons, were soon found or invented for once more drawing the
+Earl from the strong hold of his interest and power--his native country:
+and he was again “commanded by sharp letters to repair to England.” His
+arrival there was followed by a report of his execution,[10] which soon
+reached his family in Ireland. His son, whom he had left Lord Justice in
+his place, the gallant but impetuous Lord Thomas, on hearing of this
+supposed act of treachery against his father, threw down the sword of
+office, and flew into open rebellion, followed by his five uncles the
+Lords Fitzgerald. The insurrection was soon quelled; and the unfortunate
+Geraldines having surrendered, set out for England on the parole of the
+Lord Marshal Dorset, where, shortly after their arrival, they were all
+executed in one day. The death of the old Earl himself in the Tower,
+where he is said to have died “for thought and paine,” ends the tragic
+story of the enforced absenteeism of the Geraldines.[11]
+
+This murder of the Lady Geraldine’s uncles, father, brother, and that of
+her unfortunate and highly endowed lover, (“who,” says Lodge, “reflected
+splendour even on the name of Howard,” and who was put to death by Henry
+VIII. for quartering the arms of Edward the Confessor,) must have
+rendered the English Court a dreary residence to her. Still, however,
+she remained there, most probably under the influence of the same major
+force which first drew her from her domestic home. But while Henry thus
+continued to retain the most beautiful woman of Ireland near his person,
+he began to see, as it appears, the policy of keeping the men at home;
+and he passed his famous bill against “_absencie_,” the preamble of
+which is curious, as portraying the evils against which it was
+framed--at least that portion of the evils by which the English
+government, for a long series of years, was alone touched. Like a good
+many more modern acts, be it remarked _en passant_, it commences by the
+formal averment of a self-evident falsehood: “That, for as much as it
+was notorious and manifest, that this land of Ireland being heretofore
+inhabited and _in obedience_ to the said king’s most noble progenitors,
+who in those days in the righte of the Crown of England had great
+possessions, rentes, and profits, within the same land,” &c. It then
+goes on to state “the ruine, rebellion, and decay,” which ensued by the
+absence of the great landholders: who, “after abiding within the said
+land, nobly and valiantly defended the same against all the king’s
+enemies, and also _kept the same in such tranquillity and good order_,
+as the King of England had due obedience of the inhabitance there, the
+laws obeyed, and the revenues and regalitie were duely answered;” but
+that afterwards “they and their heires absented themselves out of the
+said land of Ireland, _denjorning_ within the realm of England, not
+pondering, ne regarding the preservation thereof,--the townes, castels,
+and garrisons appertaining to them fell in ruin and decay, and the
+English inhabitants therein, in default of defence and _justice_, and by
+compulsion of those of the Irish, were exiled, whereby the king’s said
+progenitors lost as well their said dominion and subjection there, as
+also their revenues and profites; and their said enemies by redopting or
+retaining the said lands, dominions, and possessions, were elevated into
+great pride,” &c. &c.
+
+Hitherto, with a few exceptions, _absencie_, as touching a residence in
+England, had been confined to the great Irish lords of the pale, who,
+although of English descent, and bearing Norman names, had in the course
+of successive generations run through all those shades of
+naturalization, which left them in manners, habits, and affections, but
+little distinguishable from the aboriginal Irishman, who proudly traced
+his origin to the Lady Scota, the daughter or grand-daughter of King
+Pharaoh.[12]
+
+But it was reserved for the reign of the Virgin Queen to drive the
+genuine nobility of Ireland from their native land at any loss or risk
+into distant regions[13] and unknown countries, or to allure them to her
+own formal and fantastic court, by a show of feminine sympathy; which,
+though in direct contradiction to her whole policy and conduct, was well
+calculated to win the unwary, and to soothe the unfortunate.[14]
+
+The Queen, in her quality both of woman and sovereign, was fond of
+making speeches; and she probably found it prettier to be pathetic than
+just, as she certainly found it easier to chide than to call in the pack
+of bloodhounds she had let loose upon the devoted country of her
+delegated sway. While the Fitzwilliams, the Binghams, the Drurys, the
+Bagnals, and others of her Irish ministers, were carrying destruction
+through the land by “fire, sword, and pestilence,”[15] the fair and
+royal rhetorician was exclaiming in her closet against their conduct, by
+classical allusions to parallel facts, which showed at once her learning
+and her sympathy. “I fear,” she said, apostrophizing her ministers in
+Ireland, “that the same reproach will be made to me as was formerly made
+by Bato to Tiberius. It is you who are to blame for these things, who
+have committed your flocks not to shepherds but to wolves.” The Irish,
+“who love learning to a fault,” says Spenser, (and women too, God
+forgive them,) were bewitched by similar declarations of pity, breathed
+in the language of the learned from the lips of the royal and the fair.
+The O’Rourkes, the O’Neils, the O’Connors, forgot the wiles and the
+treachery of which their fathers had been the dupes or the victims; and
+each in his turn expiated his credulity in its fatal results.[16]
+
+The English were accustomed to the presence of the Geraldines, the
+Butlers, the De Courceys, De Burgos, and other great Anglo-Irish lords
+of the pale, who, though by “gossipry and alliance” they occasionally
+fell into Irish habits, and sported a glib or a mantle at home, were
+still sure to resume the English costume when at the English court. But
+the true aboriginal Irish gentlemen, the brave O’s and Macs, who, driven
+to their woods and morasses with no other weapon of defence than their
+skein, their hatchet, or their pike, had for centuries resisted the
+well-armed force of England,--they were creatures of almost fabulous
+interest and existence; and the “anthropophagi and men whose heads do
+grow beneath their shoulders,” were not more monstrous to English
+apprehensions than the “flying Irish,” whose wings were supposed to grow
+beneath their heads. To the higher castes, however, they were known by
+the reputation of their prowess and their comeliness; and were noted by
+some of the poets of the day, alike for their invincible spirits and
+their lofty stature.[17] This romantic interest thrown round a race at
+once so brave and so unfortunate, so wild, and yet so gallant in their
+bearing, might not have been without its effect in influencing the
+policy of the coquettish queen, and drawing to her court those (as yet
+unseen) Thanists, the known admirers of her sex and contemners of her
+power.
+
+The restlessness of suffering, the enterprise of romantic valour, the
+partiality of the House of Tudor to the O’Neil’s, and other inducements
+which Elizabeth herself held out, determined the famous Shane O’Neil (by
+the prescriptive right of ages Thanist of his powerful sept, and by the
+patent of Henry VIII. to his father, Earl of Tyrone) to visit the court
+of England in the most perilous moment of his life. The sudden
+appearance of the representative of the ancient kings of Ulster in the
+ante-chambers of Whitehall excited a sensation in which the “lion-ported
+queen” is said to have deeply and obviously participated. He burst upon
+the guarded presence of her, whose acts against his religion and his
+rights “resembled the bloody mandates of a Turkish divan rather than the
+mild ordinance of a Christian queen,” in all the fearless hardihood of
+one who “bore a charmed life,” fresh from the lines of revolt, with the
+excitement of the fierce contest between the oppressor and the oppressed
+fluttering at his bold heart and fevering his manly brow. He is
+described as entering the presence-chamber at the head of a rude but
+imposing train, composed of his guard of honour, the Irish
+gallowglasses, who,--armed with battle-axes, their heads bare, their
+long hair flowing in locks on their broad shoulders, their yellow
+surplices with open sleeves trailing to the earth and surmounted by a
+military harness--formed a strange contrast to the groupings and
+_tournure_ of the ribboned and tagged chivalry through which they
+passed. Even the “Londoners,” says Spenser, “marvelled at this strange
+sight.”
+
+O’Neil had come to plead his own cause at one of the court historians,
+“received him with an affectation of tenderness; and after he had
+resided some time at court, the flattery of his address, which appeared
+artless and unstudied, and the speciousness of his allegations, so
+wrought upon her, that, at his departure, she dismissed him with favour
+and presents.”
+
+This absenteeism of O’Neil, though favourable to his pride, and
+flattering to his vanity while abroad, was injurious to his interests at
+home. His base-born brother, Matthew, availing himself of his absence,
+had usurped his rights, and assumed the chieftainship of his sept. The
+question was debated (as if it were debateable) by the Irish government,
+who, in defiance of all law, “ruled the point in favour of the bastard;
+practising (says Parnell[18]) a policy that has governed them (the
+English) to the latest times in India, where it has been the custom to
+raise to the throne, in violation of the customary mode of succession, a
+person who depended for his station on their power, who was strictly a
+dependent, and _who might be set aside whenever a favourable opportunity
+occurred_.” The _Sic jubeo_ of the Virgin Queen was, of course,
+decisive. The bastard was declared the lawful heir; and the consequence
+was a rebellion on the part of Shane. In this rebellion the chieftain
+was unfortunate, and the whole possessions, both of Shane and Matthew,
+were confiscated. “In order,” says Parnell, “to divert Shane, the
+territory was reputed Matthew’s; and in order to get rid of Matthew’s
+claim, the territory was confiscated as Shane’s.”[19] Meanwhile,
+however, the Queen had won golden opinions in Ireland for her reception
+of the most popular of Irish chiefs. The gates of absenteeism were now
+thrown most seducingly open. The track was already beaten down which led
+from the desolated banks of the Shannon to the pavilioned shores of the
+Thames. Men, whose national failing was a sanguine credulity not
+untouched with personal vanity, whose infirmity of temperament was a
+reckless impetuosity, and whose weariness of suffering caught at every
+change as a relief, now first began to find new hopes for their country
+and themselves springing up in the “primrose path of dalliance” which
+conducted them to the British court, and placed them in personal contact
+with a woman and a queen--with one who, unlike her savage delegates in
+Ireland, received them “with tenderness, and dismissed them with
+favour.” The baubles given by a royal hand, and displayed at Shane’s
+Castle, were pledges to the followers of O’Neil that the heart of the
+Queen was of another policy from the counsels of her ministers. This
+characteristic credulity is not even yet abated by experience. A
+flattering reception of the Roman Catholic bishops, and a ribbon
+bestowed on a Roman Catholic peer, led the sanguine Irish to draw a
+similar conclusion respecting the politics of George IV. A mandate,
+therefore got up in the form of a slight accusation, but considered by
+the accused as an invitation, brought the O’Rourke chief or prince of
+Brefny promptly and inconsiderately to the feet of the fair sovereign
+who had issued it.
+
+This gallant Irishman, as renowned for his personal beauty as for his
+turbulence, had long been a favourite theme of complaint in the
+despatches of the Irish deputies. Even his personal influence, and the
+splendid endowments out of which it arose, were brought as damning
+proofs against him. These also may have induced the Queen to judge for
+herself; for the handsome absentee was received like O’Neil with a show
+of tenderness, though not, alas! like him, “dismissed with favour.”
+While history has briefly thrown off the facts of his summons, to court
+his detention, and his unexpected execution, tradition has woven his
+story in the many-coloured web of her own romantic loom; and though the
+catastrophe of the tale, which still circulates in the neighbourhood of
+his ruined castle, attests the ignorance or the love of the marvellous
+of those who invented and circulated it; still there is a dovetailing of
+the old Irish _Shanaos_ with historic record, which shows that _si cela
+n’étoit pas vrai, c’étoit bien vraisemblable_.
+
+“A wild story concerning O’Rourke,” says the author of the History of
+the Irish Bards, “wanders about the County of Leitrim. O’Rourke was a
+powerful and turbulent chieftain of this country in the reign of
+Elizabeth. The Queen invited him to London, making him, at the same
+time, warm professions of honours and service, though she only intended,
+by this invitation, to lead him into a kind of exile, in order to secure
+his obedience. The ingenuous O’Rourke, duped by the Queen’s arts,
+promised to comply. Before his departure, he assembled his vassals and
+neighbours in the great hall of his castle, and entertained them with
+all the splendour of the times.[20] This is the feast so humorously
+described by Mac Gauran.
+
+“On O’Rourke’s arrival at Whitehall, the Queen was ready to receive him.
+The elegant symmetry of his person, and his noble aspect, struck her
+Majesty, and she secretly determined to rank him with her choicest
+favourites. A sumptuous apartment was allotted him in the palace, and a
+train of domestics were ordered to attend him. One night, a female
+tapped at his door, and was readily admitted; but she retired before the
+morning broke. The lady continued her visits for several nights, always
+retiring about the same hour. O’Rourke’s curiosity was awakened and he
+often urged her, but in vain, to disclose her name. At length he
+discovered, by the light of the moon, a ring on one of her fingers,
+which he observed with strict care, in the hope that it would lead to a
+discovery. Next day espying the identical ring on her Majesty’s finger,
+he unfortunately insinuated to her that he had discovered his fair
+visitor. The following night an assassin was employed to punish him for
+his idle curiosity.” The public execution of O’Rourke is however on
+historical record.[21]
+
+The fate of O’Neil, O’Rourke, and of O’Connor, who, to his own eternal
+disgrace,[22] had been lured over to the English court, was not
+calculated to encourage others, or to bring absenteeship into fashion.
+Even those, who from long sufferings, harassed spirits, and subdued
+energies, were desirous of peace and forgiveness at the expense of
+independence, were still afraid, from experienced treachery, “to come
+in,” as the phrase was; and were unwilling to absent themselves from the
+fearful security of their woods and mountains, to which they were
+romantically attached.
+
+Lord Deputy Mountjoy, in a curious letter to the English council,
+observes that “all the Irish that are now obstinate, are so only out of
+their diffidence to be safe in forgiveness. They have the ancient
+swelling of liberty of their countrymen to work on, and they fear to be
+rooted out, and have their old faults punished upon particular
+discontents.”
+
+The plunder of Shane O’Neil, who, attainted, and driven beyond the pale
+of law and of humanity, died a miserable death, did not satisfy those
+who had benefited by his ruin. There was something too terrible to be
+endured in the name of these fierce toparchs of the North, who were
+still crowned in their stone chair, “with heaven for their canopy and
+earth for their footstool;” and when the young and gallant Hugh O’Neil,
+the last of his race, worthy of their illustrious descent, started up to
+claim his inheritance, his death or his absenteeship (a political
+decease) were the alternatives proposed to themselves by those who had
+so largely profited by the confiscation of the immense property of his
+family. “In an Irish parliament,” says Morrison, “O’Neil put up his
+petition, that by virtue of letters patent granted to his grandfather,
+his father, and their heirs, he might there (in parliament) have the
+place of Earl of Tyrone, and be admitted to his inheritance. The title
+and place were granted him:” but the inheritance was “reserved for the
+Queen’s pleasure;” for the obtaining whereof, Sir John Perrot, (Lord
+Deputy,) upon O’Neil’s promise of a great rent to be reserved to the
+crown, gave him letters of recommendation into England. There he well
+knew how to humour the court; for in the year 1587 he got the queen’s
+letters patent for the earldom of Tyrone without any reservation of the
+rent he had promised.
+
+Whatever was O’Neil’s secret for “humouring the court,” great efforts
+were made to fix him there as a permanent absentee; and the queen (who
+at the same time had the young and unfortunate Earl of Desmond shut up
+in the Tower[23]) gave O’Neil a troop of horse, a pension of a thousand
+marks, and such proofs of her personal favour, as might have subdued a
+less energetic mind, and abated a less deep-seated feeling of patriotism
+and independence. But the young Irish Hercules soon became weary of the
+court of his middle-aged Omphale. He sought “_to do her Majesty
+service_” in Ireland by his influence over his countrymen, rather than
+to submit to the bondage which he foresaw awaited his protracted
+residence in England. “He lived,” says Morrison, “sometimes in Ireland
+and much at the court of England:” yet by degrees he abandoned the
+English court altogether; and, resuming his natural position in Ireland
+as Earl of Tyrone, he contrived to preserve the good opinion of his
+countrymen even while acting for the queen, “with all the alacrity of a
+faithful subject.”
+
+The reappearance of O’Neil in Ireland, his loyalty, and the queen’s
+favour, threw the Irish government into utter consternation; and the
+Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam, upon the execution of M‘Mahon (who was put to
+death for an offence committed before the law which declared it capital
+had been enacted) let fall some speeches against the Earl of Tyrone
+(says Morrison) notwithstanding his late services,[24] “which speeches
+coming to the Earl’s ears, were, as he afterwards said, the first causes
+which _moved him to misdoubt his safety_, and to stand upon his defence,
+now first combining with O’Donnel and other lords of the north, to
+defend their honour, estates, and liberties.” The horrors which ensued
+during a civil war of ten years’ duration, and which laid waste what
+Lord Verulam calls “the most miserable and desolate nation on the face
+of the earth,” produced the most effectual species of absenteeship; for
+it sent out of the world, those that were not driven by any other means
+out of the country; exterminating more than a third of the native
+population!
+
+The queen, however, says Bacon, “sought not an extirpation, but a
+reduction;” but such was the _reduction_, that at the end of the war,
+when Lord Mountjoy received the submission of a few “well-disposed
+chiefs,” he _disposed_ of the others in a very summary way, “and by
+fire, famine, or sword, weakened or ruined most of those who still
+continued obstinate.” Still, however, the master-blow of this deputy
+(who was after all one of the best Irish viceroys who served under the
+Tudors) was the ruin of the once magnanimous and invincible O’Neil.
+Having “taken the most of his fortresses, and what perhaps was more
+mortifying to him, having broken in pieces the chair of stone, wherein
+for many centuries the O’Neils of his family had been invested with more
+than kingly authority, he obliged the unfortunate chief “to tender his
+submission on his knees before the Lord Deputy and the council, and in
+the presence of a great assembly; whereupon the Lord Deputy, in the
+Queen’s name, promised the Earl for himself and his followers her
+majesty’s gracious pardon.” Is it wonderful that in the ensuing reign
+the O’Neils and the O’Donnels fled for ever from the scene of their
+sufferings and humiliation; or that having chosen Spain as the goal of
+their permanent absenteeship, they should have arrived there, only to
+die of broken hearts?
+
+Remote as are the times, the events of which are here so slightly
+touched,--unfixed, capricious and despotic as were the government and
+the laws,--rude, wild, weak and disorganized as was the state of
+society,--yet, through the obscurity and confusion which hung over the
+neglected annals of the day, it is evident that absenteeism, sometimes
+encouraged or enforced by the English policy, was foreign to the
+national habits and natural temperament of the Irish; and that the
+aristocracy of the country were more than any other wedded to their
+native land by natural affection, by family pride, by power, by
+religion, and by every feeling and every prejudice which brightens or
+shadows the mixed and imperfect condition of humanity. Hitherto
+emigration had been the result of necessity or of despair; but it was
+reserved for the Stuarts, Ireland’s direst foes, the flatterers of her
+foible, and the enemies of her rights, to give a spell to absenteeism,
+which even the policy and the despotism of the Tudors could not lend to
+it. When the rude home of the Irish had by the sanguinary crusades of
+Elizabeth been rendered no longer endurable, the Stuarts held out a lure
+and presented a blandishment which suffering humanity could not resist;
+and under an impulse, consecrated by a mistaken sense of loyalty and
+chivalrous devotion, the long-enduring Irish rushed from the dreariness
+of their desolate abodes, and thronged to a court where they fancied
+they saw the representative of their native kings, seated on the throne
+of their foreign tyrants.
+
+The drivelling and despotic pedant, James, with the true family instinct
+towards power, sought to win over that portion of his subjects whose
+religion preached “passive obedience and the divine right of kings,” and
+with whom he had so deeply tampered in the reign of his predecessor. On
+his coming to the throne, he loaded the Irish with favours, while he
+withheld rights; but with a disingenuous and stupid policy, secretly
+counteracting the intentions of his own council, he privately led the
+Irish to an open assumption of religious privileges, which he permitted
+his ministers in Ireland to oppose, not only by remonstrance and
+proclamation, but by “fire and sword.” To ingratiate himself still
+further with the Irish gentry, and to break down whatever yet remained
+of devotion to their country, or of “the old swelling of liberty,”
+inherited from their fathers, he invited the most distinguished among
+them to his court; where, “graciously received by the king,” and
+incontinently ridiculed by the courtiers, they obtained the honour of
+being made the heroes of a court masque, in which the sarcastic
+laureate, Jonson, has handed down to posterity their devotion to “_the
+king’s sweet faish_,” and the melancholy fact that they danced “_a
+fadan_” for the amusement of “_King Yamish_;” who, as the arch-patron of
+all buffoonery, doubtless chuckled over the degrading exhibition. How
+many Irish _absentees_ have since danced “_the fadan_,” for the
+amusement of mystifying royalty![25]
+
+Thus prepared, by being “brayed as in a mortar” at home, and at once
+degraded and flattered abroad, the Irish nobility but too willingly lent
+themselves to the allurements held out by Charles the Second; (the
+falsest of all their royal friends;) and from the epoch of the
+Restoration absenteeship became a voluntary habit. It was then that what
+has been called the characteristic virtue of the Irish, became the
+source of one of their peculiar vices; and that the feeling of loyalty
+which had led them to follow the king in his misfortunes, and to embrace
+his almost hopeless cause in many a distant land, now once more lured
+them from their own, to “share the triumph and partake the gale” of his
+prosperity. The habits of a great capital and a gay court confirmed
+their taste for emigration, and excited a disgust for their native land,
+which became, in the end, as fatal to their interests as it was
+destructive of their patriotism. Then absenteeism became a species of
+national malady, a disease, infinitely more grievous in its effects than
+that terrible pestilence, which, a little before, in ravaging the
+population of Ireland, confined its mortal epidemia to a season and a
+generation.[26]
+
+Absenteeism was no longer limited to the harassed Catholic gentlemen or
+loyal cavaliers, who came to seek the price of their sacrifice and their
+fidelity at the exchequer of royal gratitude, and found it, like that of
+the nation, closed by a fraudulent bankruptcy. The wealthy and the
+noble, the Protestant and the Papist, the English by blood, and the
+Scotch patentees; in a word, all who could afford to fly, now hastened
+to a court, where for a time an Irish mistress and an Irish minister
+held the ascendant; and where the Ormondes, the Ossorys, and the
+Villars, exchanged the honourable retreat of their own beautiful
+residences in Ireland, for the entresol of a royal villa at Newmarket,
+or “a lodging” in the harem of Whitehall.[27] Titles, and places, and
+pensions, and privileges, were then scattered among the Irish nobility,
+and became the premium of absenteeism; paying the sacrifice of
+patriotism in one sex, and of honour in the other. The talent, beauty,
+and virtue, which, if concentrated at home, might have redeemed and
+adorned the country from whence they were drawn, now served but to
+increase the sum of elegant profligacy in that region, whose very
+atmosphere was as fatal to manly independence, as it was to female
+purity. Ireland, thus abandoned by the heads of her noble families,
+deserted by her rank, her talent, her beauty, and her education, pouring
+out the “_profits of the land to those who refunded nothing_,”--unhappy
+Ireland, during the whole of the reign of Charles II. exhibited the most
+deplorable picture of a country left a prey to strangers, to
+undertakers, to patentees, to delegated powers, and official despotism;
+and of a society which, false in its position, and divested of all those
+ties and combinations which bind man to man, was totally destitute of
+every element that confers the strength of political cohesion, and
+disseminates the advantages of moral civilization.
+
+In the midst of this anti-social chaos, every act of the legislature
+served to render the atoms of the system more jarring and discordant,
+until finally “the _Act of Settlement_,” by unsettling every thing and
+rendering “confusion worse confounded,” added insult to injury, and
+multiplied both the causes and the effects of absenteeism to the opulent
+of all sects. The country was now more than ever given up to a
+particular faction, which made its powerful stand on the heights of
+ascendancy, under the sanction of a king who, in a great degree, owed
+his life and throne to those whom that ascendancy was to reduce to
+slavery and ruin.[30] It was at this period, more than any other, that
+the stale devices of Catholic conspiracies and Popish plots were
+resorted to, as a means of startling a distant ignorant legislature into
+new acts of rigour, which, by crushing all that remained to be crushed,
+by forfeitures and penalties, was to elevate a factious minority of the
+nation to the supremacy of power and wealth.
+
+The English Parliament, frightened, or pretending to be so, by the state
+of things in Ireland, published a proclamation “for the apprehension and
+prosecution of all Irish rebels,” at a moment when Ireland had sealed by
+her best blood her devotion to the reigning dynasty; and the King, in
+the face of his pledged honour and royal promise, excluded from the act
+of indemnity (which was shortly after passed) more than two thirds of
+his Irish subjects, who had alone been faithful to him, when all else
+were false. While calumny and misrepresentation were thus working the
+destruction of Ireland abroad, there were none at home to “remonstrate,”
+as in the time of Elizabeth and James; none to protect or vindicate the
+national character, or to raise the dark veil, which the cupidity of
+domestic and predatory enemies had dropped over the injuries, the worth,
+and the misfortunes of the country. It is still more lamentable to add,
+that some of the most illustrious of the absentees, who haunted the
+Court as dependants, or influenced the Cabinet as counsellors, found it
+their account to sanction the misrepresentations, and to perpetuate a
+state of things by which the noble renegadoes were to be themselves the
+ultimate gainers. It is the effect of absenteeship to harden the heart
+against all the precious sympathies of patriotism, and it has ever been
+the practice of absentees to magnify and circulate the rumour of those
+national disorders which arise in part out of their own desertion of
+their native land, and which they suppose might offer a reason, if not
+an excuse, for their abandonment of the soil and its interests.[31]
+
+The times, however, changed with the men, and the short reign of the
+unfortunate bigot James II. was pregnant with new and important events
+for Ireland. At the first temporary turn of the scale in Irish politics,
+absenteeism, which could scarcely increase, certainly did not diminish.
+By this change, the nation at large gained little; and the mean ambition
+of the nobility, who accepted power and place without one feeling of
+patriotism or sympathy for the country, was soon nipped in the bud, and
+for ever blasted with the fortunes of the monarch, on whose favour it
+was founded.[32] The Irish gentry supported the cause of despotism and
+bigotry in vain; and the impetuous imbecility of James served only to
+hasten that ruin, which public opinion had so deservedly prepared for
+him and his family. The mistaken adherence of the people to so bad a
+cause, was, in some measure redeemed by the disinterested fidelity with
+which they continued to serve that family in its adversity, which in
+prosperity had always repaid their services with ingratitude. It was the
+Irish (the ultra-royalists of all times) who, during the dark fortunes
+of the worthless _protégé_ of the Bourbons, clung to him, when all else
+deserted him. They manned his navy, recruited his army, replenished his
+coffers, and took their stand around his person on their native soil;
+and when they saw him the first to fly,[33] they still erected his torn
+standard, and rallied in his cause,[34] paying the penalty of their
+generous but misapplied devotion to a bigot and a tyrant, by utter ruin,
+and eternal exile. The outlawry and confiscations of 1688 drove near
+four thousand Irishmen of family into a dreary and perpetual
+absenteeism, and sent them to dole out for a pitiful hire, in the cause
+of oppression in other countries, the same valour, and the same spirit,
+which their fathers had displayed in support of the liberty of their
+own.
+
+The sale of the estates of these unfortunate and involuntary
+absentees,[35] under the authority of the English parliament, changed a
+large portion of the Irish population, and introduced a new race of
+landed proprietors, whose interest it was _to stay at home_. The tide of
+absenteeship received a powerful check from the necessity of
+circumstances. Those Irish Catholics, who had escaped detection, or were
+exempt from suspicion, retired to their remote patrimonial domains, and
+sought safety in obscurity; hoping, by remaining peaceably at home, to
+escape the notice of a government which had sprung out of a revolution
+they had so lately opposed. The Protestants likewise found it their
+interest to remain the vigilant guardians of the new possessions they
+had recently acquired, and of the old, which they had so bravely
+protected. All parties were either impoverished or unsettled; and few
+had the means, if they had the desire, to remove from a scene of ferment
+and desolation, to one of security and enjoyment. For the Irish of any
+sect or race, there was then no resting-place.
+
+While England gained every thing by a revolution, which she owed to the
+moral and political education acquired during a century of struggle for
+civil rights and religious freedom, Ireland lost nearly all she had left
+to lose through her deficiency in these endowments, resulting from many
+centuries of anarchy and misrule. The picture, sketched by a
+master-hand, of the condition of affairs at this singular epoch, is full
+of a fearful and melancholy interest. “By the total reduction of the
+kingdom of Ireland in 1691,” says Burke, “the ruin of the native Irish,
+and in a great measure of the first race of the English, was completely
+accomplished. The new interest was settled with as solid a stability as
+any thing in human affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that
+unparalleled code of oppression which were made after the last event,
+were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a
+conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and were
+not at all afraid to provoke. They were not the effects of their fears,
+but of their security. They who carried on this system looked to the
+irresistible force of Great Britain for their support in their acts of
+power. They were quite certain that no complaints of the natives would
+be heard on this side of the water, with any other sentiments than those
+of contempt and indignation. Their cries served only to augment their
+torture. Machines which could answer their purposes so well must be of
+an excellent contrivance. Indeed, at that time, in England, the double
+name of the complainants, Irish and Papists, (it would be hard to say
+singly which was the most odious,) shut up the hearts of every one
+against them. Whilst that temper prevailed in all its force to a time
+within our memory, every measure was pleasing and popular, just in
+proportion as it tended to harass and ruin a set of people who were
+looked upon as enemies to God and man; and, indeed, as a race of bigoted
+savages, who were a disgrace to human nature itself.”[36]
+
+In spite, however, of religious intolerance[37] and civil
+disqualification--of statutes which render commerce a crime, and laws
+which made industry penal[38]; of abuses of power numerous under
+William, and quadrupled under the last of the Stuarts and the first of
+the Brunswicks, still something like a counterpoise was found to balance
+these political evils in the _home residence of the educated gentry_,
+and in the political bustle and activity of an Irish Parliament. As soon
+as the positive calamities of war and confiscation ceased, as soon as an
+approach was made to European habits and policy, and industry was
+permitted to find a scope and a reward for its exertions, the nation
+made a sudden and a rapid progress in civilization and comfort, simply
+through the efficiency of its own resources, and the demands of its own
+market. It was in vain that the talismanic words “Irishman” and “Papist”
+were employed to arm passion and prejudice against the country; it was
+in vain that commercial jealousy threw shackles round its infant
+manufactures. In spite of these and many other obstacles, the moral
+strength of a country always distinguished for the natural endowments of
+its population,[39] rose superior to the cruel pressure of its political
+inflictions; and the domestic activity and intellectual improvement of
+the people--slow and limited as they appear, when compared with the
+advances of the sister kingdom--proceeded with a rapidity little short
+of miraculous, under so stultifying a system of legislation and
+government. It was then that the light of national genius concentrated
+its long-scattered rays to a point, and shining steadily from its proper
+focus, threw out those inextinguishable sparks of moral lustre,
+
+          “----Which are wont to give
+  Light to a world and make a nation live.”
+
+It was then that the powerful collision of active, ardent, and energetic
+minds produced that brilliant burst of talent which, for something more
+than a century, flung over the political darkness of the land a
+splendour to which her struggles and her misfortunes served only to give
+a stronger relief and more brilliant effect. It was then that, after
+ages of mental depression, which the song of the Irish bard but deepened
+into a more poetical sadness,[40] the Irish intellect broke out, like
+the Irish rebellion, “threescore thousand strong,” when none expected or
+were prepared for the startling and splendid irruption. The old mart of
+learning was re-opened to the erudite of Europe, as in those times, when
+if a sage was missing, it was said “_emandatus est ad disciplinam in
+Hibernia_;” and the rich stream of native humour which, like a caverned
+river, had hitherto kept the “noiseless tenor of its way,” darkened by
+impending shadows, now rushed forth with the rapidity of a torrent,
+pure, sparkling, and abundant, at the first vent afforded to its
+progress. Science and philosophy now first raised their altars amidst
+the monkish monuments of an antiquated institution, and benefited the
+world by theories and by experiments originated in a land where public
+opinion and private faith were still struggling under the ban of legal
+proscription.[41] England then opened a running account with Ireland for
+dramatic contributions when her own resources had, by being too largely
+drawn upon, nearly become bankrupt;[42] and literary Europe stood
+indebted to Irish wit, fancy, and humour, for the richest treats, which
+render the leisure of the learned delectable, and the amusement of the
+idle instructive.[43]
+
+Even the arts, in these stirring times of social concentration, awakened
+from their long and deadly slumbers; and the slowly reviving school of
+painting in England received some of its most noted disciples from
+Ireland, a country so little adapted, by its miseries and its
+commotions, to the cultivation of the most tranquil and meditative of
+intellectual pursuits.[44] At this time, too, the Irish muse found a
+willing and a worthy priestess in one of the fair daughters of the
+land,[45] where her temples had so long been closed; and “the mother of
+sweet singers,” awakened by the genius of national melody, beheld her
+sons
+
+                   “Thronging round her magic cell,”
+
+as in the days of the Mayos[46] and the O’Connors.[47]
+
+The triumphs of Carolan, the last of the Firsgealaighthes or Irish
+Troubadours, were followed by those of Handel and Piccini;[48] and
+though the wild sweet tones of the Irish harp were still occasionally
+heard in the pauses of the Messiah and of the elegant Armida, still,
+taste, improving with the developement of the art, soon rendered the
+Italian and German schools of music the exclusive study in Ireland; and
+they excited an enthusiasm which well belonged to a people who, in all
+their wretchedness and degradation, had found in music a vehicle for
+their feelings and their passions, for their deep-seated indignation,
+and their long-meditated revenge. St. Bridget now hid her diminished
+head in her “cell of the oak;[50] while St. Cecilia saw more tapers
+lighted at her shrine in the Irish capital than ever illumined her dusky
+chapel in the Trastevere at Rome. Music halls were built for public
+concerts; and musical societies, assuming the importance and dignities
+of corporate bodies, were formed out of the amateur[51] and professional
+talent of the country; while the conciliating genius of harmony,
+refusing that “to a party which was meant for mankind,” devoted its
+divine powers to smoothing political austerities, reknitting the social
+affections, and promoting the first of all human virtues--charity.[52]
+Oh! surely this was the true purpose for which the Divinity breathed
+into the soul of man that fine susceptibility to the mystic charm of
+harmony, which lulls the harsher passions, and substitutes the
+excitement of delicious sensations for the bitter feelings and harassing
+emotions which the cross purposes of life call hourly into existence.
+Who now in Ireland but may look back with regret to the philharmonic
+societies “of other times,” from the magic of whose strains a shelter
+rose for the wretched, and in whose bands men of all parties blended the
+“concord of sweet sounds.” Who that in the present day has witnessed in
+the capital of Ireland, the different and dark purposes to which music
+and musical society have been perverted, but must lament that the
+sweetest of the arts should have been pressed into the service of civil
+dissension--should have fulfilled the purposes of party intrigue, and
+gratified the malice of a narrow-souled faction. Who but must shudder to
+perceive its influence directed to rousing the irritable fibre, and
+stirring up the bile of political malady; to exciting by its “musical
+cheers” the passions of the powerful few against the suffering many, and
+fomenting by its choicest harmonies the discord of social disunion and
+the dissonance of party hatred. Spirits of Handel and of Arne, of
+Calcott and of Mozart, how little did ye dream in your philosophy that
+your heaven-inspired strains should serve as the war-whoop of faction,
+the death-song of domestic peace, and national confraternity!!
+
+While music excited in Ireland the same enthusiasm, and was cultivated
+with more science, than when “in early Greece she sung,” the drama
+partook of the triumph. Two royal theatres and an Italian
+opera-house[53] could scarcely supply the cravings of the public taste;
+and an audience, noted for its critical acumen, gave to the Irish stage
+a classical character, and developed a competition which drew forth
+candidates for dramatic fame even from the higher classes of society,
+conferring that respectability upon the members of the stage, which
+ought at all times to belong to a profession which holds so decided an
+influence over the morals and the manners of a nation.[54]
+
+But though the circumstances of the times rendered the home residence of
+the Irish gentry more permanent than it has since ever been, or perhaps
+ever was before, the fashion universally prevailed of sending the youth
+of good family to make the grand tour; and the young and travelled
+aristocracy, the Fitzgeralds, the Caulfields, the Kirwans, the O’Neils,
+the Blakes, came back, no less to improve the tastes of their country,
+than to defend her cause, and to enlarge the sphere of her energies. A
+variety of refined amusements and elegant enjoyments, hitherto unknown
+in Ireland, came in their suite; which while they gave employment and
+food to the lowly and the industrious, tended to disseminate that taste
+for factitious pleasures, and that craving for refined gratifications,
+which though not in themselves the efficient causes of civilization, are
+in no small degree favourable to its developement.[55] Pleasure, lured
+to the Irish shores from distant regions, planted her gay standard, and
+raised her brilliant pavilions in the capital, at that time crowded with
+the wealthy and the educated. The ridottos of the music hall, with their
+fantastic arrangements and sylvan scenery,[56] recalled the similar
+festivities of the Italian carnival. Palaces succeeded to the cumbrous
+mansions of the seventeenth century; and Charlemont house, with its
+beautiful architecture, its splendid library, and invaluable
+collections, still preserved in all their integrity by the present noble
+owner, stands a singular monument not only of the pure taste and
+magnificent spirit of an Irish nobleman, who had even higher claims to
+the admiration and respect of his country, but of the genius of the
+times, and the prosperity--the short-lived prosperity--of the land in
+which such a private edifice was raised. The villas of Tuscany and
+Lombardy were repeated along the shores of a bay that wanted only a
+Vesuvius to rival that of Naples; and the names which these pretty
+villas still bear, recal the travelled tastes of their elegant
+founders.[57] Private theatricals (the dramatis personæ taken from the
+red book) were got up in the castles of the O’Neils and the halls of the
+Butlers; and the public assemblies, held under the newly-raised dome of
+the Rotunda, were types of the _casino nobile_ of Florence and
+Bologna;[58] while the Sunday evening promenades in its illuminated
+gardens contributed to the funds of a blessed charity, and bestowed that
+health and those spirits, without which the kindlier feelings are too
+frequently blighted, and the generous propensities absorbed in a
+querulous and fretful egoism.[59]
+
+The Irish press!--and who that now knows the capital of Ireland, and
+beholds its utter incompetency to support the publication of even _one_
+trifling periodical work, will believe that Ireland once _had a
+press_!--the Irish press then teemed with native literary productions;
+which if as mere “_pieces de circonstance_,” thrown off at a heat, they
+might sometimes want the higher finish of more elaborated composition,
+were still stamped with the ardour of the national spirit, and “faithful
+to its fires.” The frequent and “keen encounter of the wits” upon great
+questions, produced an animated competition, which even the
+statesman-like sobriety of English viceroys could not always resist. The
+Draper’s letter of Lord Chesterfield, (an imitation of Swift,) and the
+political caricatures of Lord Townshend, written at a later period, were
+proofs that Ireland was not always governed by the dull and the dogged,
+and that her metropolis once boasted of a society which _obliged_ the
+representatives of majesty as well as the representatives of the people
+to cultivate the suffrages of the public, by means never addressed to an
+uncivilized or an illiterate community. Politics and polemics then alike
+fell to the discussion of humour and talent. The public journals, though
+few, were fair; their editors were responsible both by their property
+and their personal consideration; and their contributors were frequently
+the most brilliant members of Irish society, the most learned sons of
+the Irish alma mater. Swift, Dr. Sheridan, Lucas, Flood, Burgh,
+Yelverton, Courtenay, Jephson, Bishop Marley, Grattan, Curran, and
+others equally notable, if not equally noted, contributed successively a
+portion of their luminous intellects to illustrate the pages of that
+mighty engine of public feeling--the PERIODICAL PRESS. Whatever side was
+advocated,--the country or the court, patriotism or power,--it does not
+appear that any journal was set up on a merely sordid principle, or an
+utter disregard of all truth and decency. There was then no waylaying
+with indiscriminate ruffianism the feelings of private individuals, no
+exhibition of the sacred details of the domestic life of political
+characters, as a means of existence to some outcast of society, who
+wanted the courage to seek a less dishonourable bread on the public
+highway. For when the genuine and educated gentry of Ireland, her
+hereditary senators and native legislators, made up the larger portion
+of the reading public of her capital, a journal edited by the nefarious
+and the base, by the hired assassin of reputation or the paid pander of
+ribald passions, would have been hunted down with one common feeling of
+national indignation and manly contempt. Where is the land, so lost in
+its degradation, so insensible to all its higher interests, as to endure
+that such a “damning witness” should go forth to the world and bear
+testimony to its moral, social, and literary depravity? Alas that there
+should be one! Alas that the land of wit and feeling should furnish
+forth readers, even from its high and official classes, to reward and
+encourage the instruments of its own disgrace! Alas for the country,
+where the hired servants of the government club their quota to propagate
+the rancorous overflowings of the vilest and most antisocial passions;
+where the ordained ministers of religion, subscribe for the
+dissemination of the grossest and most mischievous falsehoods; where the
+magistrate chuckles privately over the libel he is publicly bound to
+punish; and where to be pre-eminent in villainy and matchless in
+audacity, is the short road to command sympathy and ensure subsistence.
+
+But if a reduction of absenteeism, if the permanent residence of the
+major part, of the wealth, the nobility, and above all, and more
+precious than all, of the EDUCATION of the country, produced these
+blessed effects, the greater good, the “last best gift,” which
+congregated interests and intellects could bestow on a community, Public
+Spirit, fell like dew in the desert upon the renovating nation. Men who
+had long learned to feel and to think, now, in the consciousness and
+confidence of their associated strength, first ventured to speak and to
+act: at once inspiring and inspired, they spoke as prophets and acted as
+patriots. The talent of the free suddenly burst into existence, as if by
+a divine miracle in the land of the enslaved; and eloquence, the
+inherent characteristic of the nation, which had occasionally broken
+forth in the rude but exciting harangues of the O’Donnels and the
+O’Neils, now shone out brilliantly, with a lustre which Athens in her
+best, and Rome in her greatest days, scarcely surpassed. Political
+oratory and political knowledge, proceeding from the same cause and
+bearing on the same point exhibited Ireland in a new aspect to the
+wondering world; and the names of Molyneux,[60] Ponsonby,[61] Prior,[62]
+Boyle,[63] Connolly,[64] Tottenham,[65] Lucas, Charlemont, Burke,
+Grattan, Curran--names which are now but sounds--will retain to the
+latest posterity their mystical and magic influence, as the signs of
+times and events, the glory of a nation’s history, and as the evoquing
+spells of that genius, which awakens liberty and watches over a nation’s
+happiness. Oh! these were times to live in and men to live among--when
+the capital of the kingdom was something better than a garrison or an
+assize town! when its fashionable assemblies were not thrown upon the
+eleemosinary contributions of barracks and boarding-schools, of military
+exquisites who “_never dance_,” and harmless young gentlemen who do
+nothing else! These were times, when the men were all at home, and their
+spirits all abroad! when the rush from the senate was sure to fill the
+drawing-room; and they who boldly fought in the one for the liberties of
+their country, came to lay their own liberty at the feet of beauty in
+the other. These were times, when even love and law went forth arm in
+arm together from the inns of court, to _that_ court, where the special
+pleading of counsel rarely failed to win the cause, where even losses
+were victories, and where the inconsiderate heart of the young legal
+aspirant selected its client for life without reference to politics,
+place, pension, or promotion. Then Leinster-house, and Charlemont-house,
+and Powerscourt-house, and Waterford-house, and Moira-house, and an
+hundred other splendid “_houses_” of the resident nobility, were open to
+the wit, the talent, the literature, and the gallantry of the country.
+Then, the cells of the University, silent as the tomb during the
+studious day, echoed at night to the song, the laugh, the epigram, or
+the jest of gay and brilliant spirits destined to come forth and enchant
+society by their social and colloquial powers; while they defended the
+independence of their country by their eloquence and patriotism. These
+were times when the charms of the lovely Gunnings, the more lovely
+Munroes,[66] and an hundred others of their lovely successors, were
+embalmed for posterity in the verses of contemporary poets; and when the
+amatory sonnets of one of the first orators of the age were not deemed
+inferior to his speeches at the bar, or his orations in the senate.[67]
+These were times when the young ladies of the capital did not wait for
+the _marching in_ of the divisions of a regiment, as their only chance
+of _marching out_ of the ranks of celibacy; for absenteeship was then
+but temporary: the young nobility and gentry, if they travelled and
+flirted abroad, came back to love and to marry at home; since, “where’er
+they roamed, whatever climes” they saw, they still saw nothing fairer
+than the fair they left behind them. These were times, which, when
+recalled, like Ossian’s Song of Sorrow, are both “pleasing and mournful
+to the soul.”
+
+But to return. When penal statutes and all that is intended by the false
+policy of shallow and self-interested legislators to disqualify man for
+the knowledge and assertion of his political rights, still continued to
+check the progress of civil liberty in Ireland, the combined effects of
+a portion of the liberal and educated resident gentry were found
+sufficient to make head against a government which the sternest upholder
+of English power, and he too an Irish chancellor,[68] declared “was
+enough to crush any nation upon earth;” and which one of the wisest and
+best philanthropists of that or any age[69] has defined to have been
+“such a combination of rapine, treachery, and violence as would have
+disgraced the name of government in the most arbitrary country in the
+world.” Other events, bearing upon the same point, tended at this epoch
+to soften, if not to remedy the evils of that terrific code, which
+disgraced England even more than it degraded Ireland.[70] While the
+church militant in Ireland usurped a power in the persons of its
+Protestant popes, the primates and archbishops, which smelt of the times
+of the Beckets and the Wolseys,--while Boulter and Stone preserved their
+own supremacy by their well-sustained system of dividing Ireland within
+herself, and adding to her restrictions by fomenting her
+discontents,--it _did_ happen that the necessity of circumstances
+occasionally procured for the country a chief governor, whose personal
+interests in the land from which he drew his maintenance and support,
+awakened “some bowels for a poor relation,” or whose higher order of
+genius and generalized views raised him above the level of the miserable
+local politics, the petty cabals, and factious intrigues of that remote
+and wretched spot which is, in position as in politics, the _cul de sac_
+of civilized Europe. These happy incidents indeed were rare, and make
+but a poor set-off in the balance, of vice-regal virtue and talent,
+against the dulness, bigotry, and ostentatious pretension, which have so
+often covered their Midas’ ears under the coronet of delegated sway.
+
+It was under a Devonshire that the susceptible Irish, always led by
+personal feelings, first began to rally with confidence and hope round a
+government that seemed to abate in the execution, if not in the spirit
+of the law, something of that sanguinary reign which had hitherto
+chilled loyalty into despair; and the personal qualities of this great
+Irish proprietor were productive of the most felicitous effects, at the
+most fearful epoch in the reign of the house of Hanover. The Stuarts,
+the abdicated, the Catholic Stuarts, had planted their standard on the
+English and Scottish shores, and the English and the Scotch, to a
+dangerous amount, rushed from all parts to support the principles of
+Toryism, in the person of him who was the “brief abstract” of all
+Toryism. Where then in this moment of frightful exigency, when empire,
+liberty, and life were at stake, where then were those “_enfans de la
+revolution_,” the Protestant princes of Brunswick, the defenders of the
+faith of Luther, to look for the rally of defence, for the protection of
+loyalty against Catholic oppression? It was to the native Irish, the
+Catholic Irish! that England, in the face of her own savage laws,[71]
+turned for aid against British rebellion; and while the Irish gentry of
+all sects remained immutably true to their legitimate (or according to
+modern doctrines their _illegitimate_) sovereign, the flower of the
+Catholic population rushed forth to man the navy and recruit the army,
+which was to make a stand against successful rebellion,--successful at
+least for a time, in every part of the British islands save alone in
+Ireland.
+
+Still, however, in this moment of fearful exigency, when the old idols
+of Irish devotion were again presenting themselves to a susceptible
+people in all the charm of struggle and misfortune, something more than
+the mild wisdom which the gentle blood of Cavendish has always produced,
+was deemed necessary to watch over Catholic Ireland; and one was chosen
+suited to meet the difficulties of the day, and to carry on that system
+of conciliation begun by the Duke of Devonshire. This one was Philip
+Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield, who, as the “Mirror of (Irish)
+Magistrates,” in which succeeding chief governors of Ireland should
+“dress themselves,” merits a particular notice.
+
+This nobleman, who had been for ten years in opposition, was selected
+more in necessity than in liking: and he with difficulty obtained an
+audience of leave from reluctant Majesty, on his departure for his
+viceroyalty. When he demanded in the closet, “his Majesty’s commands,”
+he was coolly told that he had already received his instructions, and
+was dismissed without any token of confidence or of courtesy. While the
+ministry put him forward as an instrument of conciliation, and loaded
+him with the responsibility of a difficult government, they wished to
+retain in their own hands the substance of power, and to shackle him
+with some creature of their own, in the character of secretary; but he
+laughed at the intrigue, and in their despite chose for himself one,
+whom he describes to his son as “a very pretty young fellow, who knew
+nothing of business;” for he was determined to rule by himself, to see
+with his own eyes, and to encounter no subaltern interference with the
+system he chose to adopt. Such was the spirit in which Lord Chesterfield
+entered on his arduous mission, and ascended the vice-regal throne of
+Ireland, on which he was placed by that influence to which even kings
+and ministers must sometimes submit,--the influence of circumstances!
+Docile mediocrity, the ordinary qualification of an Irish Lord
+Lieutenant, was now no longer adequate to meet the exigencies of the
+hour, as in those times of comparative tranquillity, when any
+stalking-horse of diplomacy might be led over the beaten course by some
+self-sufficient political jockey with the name of chief secretary; who,
+without the pageantry of the higher office, monopolized all its
+patronage and exercised more than its powers. At this moment dangers
+both internal and external called for qualities of a different order,
+and the English government was driven to the desperate resource of
+accepting the aid of great abilities, at the expense of abiding by the
+decisions of untrammelled independence. Such was the moment at which
+George the Second disdainfully appointed one of the cleverest men of his
+empire to the government of Ireland; and to this involuntary election he
+probably owed that he was not himself sent back “to give his little
+senate laws” in his patrimonial estate of Hanover.
+
+It was in vain that “Popery and the Pretender”[72] was the cry _mille
+fois repeté_ in the ears of this new and singular Lord Lieutenant,--that
+the old measures of the Boulters and the Stones were proposed as the
+golden rules of vice-regal conduct,--that preachers from the pulpit
+aroused the crusading spirit of intolerance against a sect beaten down
+to the earth,--that the domineering party of a haughty ascendancy
+assailed the audience-room of the Viceroy, and “stopped the chariot or
+boarded the barge,” to teach him how to rule, to force him to recur to a
+system beyond the rigour of the law, which enabled them to reign by
+dividing, while it placed him on the list of mannikin lord lieutenants,
+the wire-worked puppet of a bigoted faction. The acute, the elegant
+Chesterfield, soon fathomed the depths of their ferocious feebleness,
+and he played with the virulence he did not deign to wrestle with. When
+the advocates of intolerance preached persecution, he answered their
+counsels by an apotheghm and a _bon-mot_,--he quoted Cicero when they
+cited Nassau,--he gave them parties for their politics,--suppers for
+their sophistry, he forced them to swallow his measures with his
+claret,--and he stopped the mouths of many with good dinners on whom
+good arguments would have been thrown away. In a word, he knew them all,
+he defied them all; and in despite of that party in the ministry which
+supported an anti-national faction, he saved the wretched country they
+were driving into a rebellion, which at that peculiar moment might have
+separated Ireland for ever from the mother country.
+
+By this personal combination of wisdom, humanity, and impartiality, Lord
+Chesterfield preserved a Catholic population in the most perfect peace
+and obedience, during the whole of that rebellion, which in Protestant
+England and Presbyterian Scotland had nearly restored the Stuarts to the
+throne they had forfeited by their blind and bigoted attachment to papal
+institutions--a memorable example of the value of an enlarged philosophy
+in governors, and of the disposition of the people to be grateful for
+kindness in their rulers, of their proneness to yield a willing
+obedience to authority, if encouraged by the slightest show of justice
+and fair dealing in those whom chance has placed over them.
+
+But narrow hearts and narrow intellects, impervious to the more generous
+impulses of nature, and placing the whole force of government in the
+scaffold and the bayonet--oppressing those they fear, and fearing those
+they oppress--have too long exerted their baleful influence in
+brutalizing and debasing the Irish nation into permanent anarchy,
+creating those abuses, which they now plead in justification of their
+own unpitying rigour: and if in rare and distant intervals the
+patriotism and the kindly feelings of a Chesterfield have again found
+themselves under the canopy of the viceregal throne, the oppressor and
+the oppressed have alike been opposed to their beneficent activity. The
+good which Chesterfield effected in times of difficulty and danger, can
+now scarcely be hoped for even in the halcyon hour of peace: and should
+the British empire be again involved in foreign conflict, Ireland,
+unemancipated Ireland, might be urged to seek new destinies for herself
+in an alliance from which she _might_ have something to hope, but from
+which she could have nothing to fear more terrible than she has already
+encountered during the ceaseless miseries of nearly six centuries. Of
+this truth, harsh and repulsive as it may seem, no one who has studied
+the subject can entertain a rational doubt. The example of America is
+before the eyes of the people, and the hope delayed and the promise and
+the pledge unredeemed lie deep in their hearts: restrictive and penal
+laws, too severe even for occasional application, have become also
+permanent on the statute book; famine and pestilence have grown almost
+periodical in their visitations. From such premises what other
+conclusion can be drawn? An influence behind the throne, and greater
+than the throne, has chilled the sympathies and arrested the
+outstretched hand of royalty; even the collective wisdom of the empire
+has cowered before a party, and truckled to a faction; the cup of
+reconciliation, though pledged by a sovereign, has been drugged with
+poison; and a divided cabinet has distracted the country and paralyzed
+the exertions of the only public functionary, who for years has
+administered the laws of the country with any thing approaching to the
+spirit of mercy and of fairness.
+
+From the period of Lord Chesterfield’s administration, the effects
+produced by the permanent residence of the Irish gentry, were felt in
+that most blessed consequence, the developement of a public spirit. The
+English in Ireland, says Burke, began to feel that they were
+domiciliated, and had a country; and the Irish found that what was
+technically called “the English interest,” was gradually fading before
+one common and independent national will! It was in vain that one of the
+belligerent chiefs of the church (always the fomentors of Irish discord)
+still struggled to uphold a system which was ruin to the many and power
+to the few. The proud churchman and servile courtier, the arrogant and
+despotic primate of the day, was taught to feel that he had other times
+and other men to deal with than those living when the country sunk under
+the weight of Boulter’s iron crosier. It was in vain that he affected to
+“_do the king’s business_,” (as he termed it) as other Protestant
+Wolseys had done it; and openly avowed his intention of carrying every
+government measure, _à coup de main_, and in spite of all constitutional
+opposition; for he lived to see the Irish gentry arrayed against the
+undue influence of despotic churchmen under the standard of an Irish
+speaker! The Irish patriots, led on by the chief of the Irish
+aristocracy,[73] and united with the middle and the mercantile classes,
+formed but one caste in feeling and in effort to array public opinion,
+against unconstitutional measures,[74] and to put down for ever the
+direct and ruinous interference of ecclesiastical statesmen! The
+government was now awakened to the danger of employing the zealous and
+intemperate, by the resistance which the primate had roused into
+activity; and Stone, struck off the list of privy counsellors, the
+object of national hatred and party contempt, exhibited one more example
+of the vanity of unfounded ambition, and the weakness of that policy
+which is opposed to public virtue, and the plain rule of right.
+
+The rapid progress which at this period public opinion and political
+science were making, through the agency of a resident and educated
+gentry, was so highly estimated, that an English Lord Lieutenant, (Lord
+Harcourt,) as the most popular measure he could bring forward to
+counteract the distasteful effect of other less gracious and salutary
+acts, proposed on the part of government (1773) a tax on absentees!
+Never was such a tax less called for; for the absentees were not in that
+day in the proportion of one to an hundred, compared with those of the
+present times. Yet the draining of the resources of Ireland in the
+smallest proportion, the pouring forth of any modicum of native treasure
+into foreign coffers, was considered as nothing less than high treason
+to the country. The great English landholders of Ireland made a powerful
+resistance to a tax which principally affected themselves; but the
+majority by which the measure was rejected was so small[75] as to leave
+no doubt of its popularity, and of the feelings of the public on the
+subject.
+
+Those feelings, whether founded or erroneous, were by no means
+unnatural; and the government, on its part, has never been slow to
+encourage and strengthen them. The greater portion of the absentee
+property had fallen to the lot of its English possessors, by fraud or
+violence, by legal quibbling or by open proscriptions; and under the
+most favourable circumstances, the cultivators of that soil, which on
+the general principles of right and justice they imagined still to be
+their own property, must naturally have regarded with a jealous eye the
+foreign intruders. But in a country so poor as Ireland, so divested of
+all other means of making money beyond the cultivation of the soil, this
+annual exportation of excessive and burthensome rents could not fail to
+be viewed with great discontent.[76] In England at the present day, if
+all the landed proprietors were to export themselves to the Continent,
+and to spend their rents in its various capitals, their absence would
+scarcely be felt, amidst the multiplied resources of commercial
+activity. Wherever the lord of the soil abandoned his dwelling, an East
+India Nabob, a money-broker, or a merchant, would stand forth ready to
+occupy his station, and rule over his domains; and the sums expended
+abroad, would rapidly find their way home, in increased demands for the
+products of English industry. On the other hand, the _nouveaux riches_,
+divested of hereditary pretensions and feudal prejudices, and more
+deeply instructed in the true principles of political economy, would
+afford less opposition to the reception and diffusion of the lessons of
+experience; and would therefore be the more acceptable to the labouring
+classes, than those who, trammelled in the prejudices of hereditary
+consequence, obstinately stand still in knowledge, while all around them
+is moving in advance. In Ireland, however, it has always been otherwise.
+Land has been ever the only instrument of industry, and rent the only
+source of accumulated capital. The landed proprietors, together with
+their immediate dependants, the members of the learned professions, have
+long formed exclusively the educated classes; and their expenditure has
+produced the only stimulus which existed, to excite the petty commerce
+and circumscribed industry, which in the country towns of Ireland
+support half-a-dozen shopkeepers; who, dignified with the name of
+merchants, fill the municipal offices and send representatives to
+Parliament. When, therefore, these favourites of fortune, the landed
+proprietors, expatriate themselves, their mansions are left silent and
+desolate; and none remains behind to employ the tenantry, to spread
+illumination, or to distribute justice, but agents, middle men, and the
+clergy, whose _ex parte_ notions of right and wrong, whose different
+creed and opposed pecuniary interests wholly unfit them for the civil
+duties which are thus devolved upon them.
+
+With such reasons for the unpopularity of absenteeism, the interests of
+government in the prevalence of such a prejudice strongly conspire. When
+the wretched condition of the country is made matter of general
+declamation, the minister calls for specific abuses; and when a specific
+abuse is dragged to daylight, and remedies are loudly demanded,
+absenteeism is made a ready skreen to conceal the incapacity or
+unwillingness to redress of the governing faction. Tithe abuses are met
+by the charge of excessive rents and absentee consumption; corruption of
+the magistracy is defended by the absence of independent justices of the
+peace; and whatever is the evil to be averted, whatever the malpractice
+to be reformed, the Absentees are the ready scapegoats for every
+delinquent, and the plausible pretext for every forbearance.
+
+Absenteeship, however, always founded in bad government, becomes ruinous
+only as it co-operates with other and mightier evils proceeding from the
+same cause. In a well-ordered community the number and influence of
+those who eat the bread of idleness and enjoy the means of expatriation,
+can never bear an overwhelming proportion to that of the industrious
+citizens chained down to a spot by the habits and the necessities of
+their laborious lives. Wherever this relative proportion is materially
+deranged, there will be found much to alter in existing institutions. In
+such a condition of things, a restraining tax is as futile as it is
+unjust. Government exists but to protect property; and any law which
+restrains the owner’s right of spending his money where he pleases,
+operates a violence, which the most urgent necessity alone could
+justify. On the other hand, to expect that a pecuniary mulct, of any
+amount short of an absolute seizure of the entire rental, would keep
+those at home, whom a sense of injustice, of insecurity, and of the
+absence of educated and liberal intercourse (of all that makes life
+endurable and wealth enjoyable) drives into exile, is to be utterly
+ignorant of human nature, and of the habits and feelings of the
+aristocratical part of the community.
+
+To the pause which followed the commotions of 1745, succeeded an event
+which belonged not to _one_ country or _one_ age, but to the great
+history of mankind and to ages yet unborn! an event, which though it has
+produced the most extraordinary and wide-spreading consequences on the
+social condition, has not yet half worked out its mighty and
+incalculable effects. The American Revolution,--the greatest explosion
+that ever shook the complicated fabric of political abuses, the boldest
+step which civilization has yet made _en avant_,--was felt in its
+reverberations throughout all Europe; and even Ireland, remote,
+isolated, and oppressed Ireland, returned some vibration to the shock!
+England, amidst the host of ills which assailed her at this, the most
+awful crisis of her history, already beheld the children of the land she
+had so long oppressed, bursting their bonds and hailing with their
+wonted “ten thousand welcomes,”[77] the hope of emancipation, which came
+to them from the greatest and freest region of the earth. It was then
+that a British minister, worked upon by his fears, or driven by his
+necessities, granted a reluctant boon, for the purpose of winning back
+the affections of an alienated people, whose co-operation he wanted, and
+whose desertion he had but too just a cause to apprehend. It was then
+that he admitted the Irish to rights for which during past ages they had
+sued in vain; and flattered those with eulogies to whom he had hitherto
+denied justice. It was not, therefore, wonderful, though it was new,
+that when an Irish member in the British senate ventured to observe,
+that “Ireland was the chief dependence of the British crown, and that it
+behoved England to admit the Irish nation to the privileges of British
+citizens,” there was not one dissentient voice to deny the fact, or
+oppose the proposition;[78] and the bills which then passed the
+Parliament for the relief of the Catholics, and for the opening of the
+Irish trade, produced the usual effects of kindness on the human heart.
+From that moment America promised, and Franklin wrote in vain. “If,”
+says that patriotic philosopher,--the patriot of humanity, and the
+philosopher of common sense!--in his celebrated letter to the people of
+Ireland, “If the government whom you at home acknowledge, does not, in
+conformity to its own interests, take off and remove every restraint on
+your trade, commerce, and manufacture, I am charged to assure you that
+means will be found to establish your freedom in the fullest and freest
+manner; and as it is the ardent wish of America to promote, as far as
+her other engagements will permit, a reciprocal commercial intercourse
+with you, I can assure you that they will seek every means to establish
+and maintain it.”
+
+But Ireland had not recourse to a foreign power to reclaim her rights.
+She placed her cause in the hands of her resident gentry: she committed
+it in the senate to a Grattan, and in the field to a Charlemont! The
+restrictions on trade, which America offered to break, were removed by
+the exertions of Irish patriotism, supported by that force, which is
+alone constitutional, a national militia! It was at this eventful epoch
+of Irish regeneration, that the combined exercise of those native
+energies to which, in a moment of exigency, a brave and unhappy people
+never fail to resort, produced that bulwark of national independence,
+the IRISH VOLUNTEERS; and a whole people, with arms in their hands, and
+liberty in their hearts, stood forth the protectors of their native
+land, which an unnatural government had thus exposed to danger and
+seduction. Even England looked on with respect and gratitude at the
+efforts of the devoted and loyal Irish, who, forgetful of all past
+injuries, came forward no less in her cause than their own;[79] and when
+the Irish volunteers presented themselves to the admiration of the
+empire, organised into a compact and disciplined body, under their
+illustrious chief the Earl of Charlemont, (whose name ever falls like
+light upon the page it illustrates,) it was declared in the British
+senate, by one whose words were then deemed as _prophet’s breathings_,
+“that this great event resembled, intrinsically and substantially, the
+glorious Revolution of England in 1688!”
+
+This event, however, so glorious for the fame, and so profitable to the
+interests and independence of Ireland, never could have occurred, if the
+majority of the gentry, with their spirit, their wealth, their
+influence, and their education, had not been a resident gentry! and if
+there is one illuminated page in the dark story of Ireland’s misery! one
+pause in her sufferings! it belongs to this proud and blessed moment,
+when her people and their chiefs were armed, morally and physically, in
+her defence; when her senate resounded to an eloquence as pure and
+patriotic as the Forum ever echoed; when the private society of the
+capital became proverbial for its wit and festivity; and when all tended
+to, if it did not reach, the term of national prosperity and national
+glory.
+
+But alas! this moment of promise and splendour was transient as a dream,
+and the bright effulgence of Irish patriotism, brilliant as the midnight
+meteor, was as suddenly succeeded by a midnight darkness. Causes on
+which it is now beside the purpose to dwell, paralysed the virtues, and
+marred the hopes of the honest and the brave. Engines were put into
+play, and agents into activity, to destroy or to sap the foundations of
+national independence. Corruption and injustice recommenced their
+suicidal career; the rebellion and the Union were got up, and succeeded
+beyond the hopes of their authors; and from that epoch every evil which
+can afflict humanity and degrade a nation has gathered to a foul and
+purulent head; every sad succeeding year has been marked by some new
+step towards social disorganization and national extinction.
+
+“Scarcely had the law passed ratifying that great mischief--the
+Union--(says one of the ablest, and what is yet more, one of the
+honestest and most uncompromising writers on Irish affairs, of the
+present or of any age) when Absenteeism, the predominant calamity of
+Ireland, was fearfully accelerated. The chief proprietors fled from the
+metropolis, as from an invading army; and the country affording neither
+interest nor expectation, they expatriated themselves in shame, in
+disgust, in anguish, in despair. A category of evils beset the
+land.--Those who had entertained fair hopes soon found their prospects
+darken, and a long night close the transient day. To infatuation
+succeeded self-torment. A chief Judge died of a broken heart because he
+had participated in that signal treachery--another Judge asked pardon of
+God and his country, for sanctioning it with his vote. Pitt, the
+machinist, perished amidst the misfortunes of the Empire--and
+Castlereagh, in his pride and power, became his own executioner. The
+noble delinquents and their race perish together. Twenty-four Irish
+peerages have become extinct since the Union in January, 1801, exclusive
+of Peerages under a superior title, but continued in an inferior
+honour--and while I write, another of the noble order which stands
+between the prerogative and the people, as hounds between the huntsman
+and the hare, is extinguished. Thus nature takes vengeance on the
+exalted traitors to their country. The Union cannot subsist--Sin and
+Death have fixed their peremptory seal of doom upon it. Not all the
+vices of Ferdinand to his parentage and family and country--not all the
+deeds of the magnanimous Allies and the Holy Alliance to Spain, Germany,
+and Italy--no, not the repeated partitions of Poland by the Royal
+Robbers, the Austrian, and Frederic, and Catherine, equalled altogether
+the dreadful sum of sinning by the English Ministry, in preparing,
+prosecuting, and accomplishing that sad catastrophe--the Incorporate
+Union of Ireland with Great Britain.”--_Ensor’s Address to the People of
+Ireland._
+
+Previously to the Act of Union, Absenteeism, though encouraged by the
+geographical position of the country, and promoted by some inveterate
+habits derived from ancient abuse, was principally confined, among the
+native Irish, to a few individuals whose ill understood vanity tempted
+them to seek for a consequence abroad, which is ever denied to the
+unconnected stranger, a consequence which no extravagant expense can
+purchase. With a few exceptions, therefore, the malady was confined to
+the great English proprietors of forfeited estates, whose numbers must
+in the progress of events have been diminished, by the dissipations
+inseparable from unbounded wealth, and the growth of commercial and
+manufactural fortunes. It might, in some cases, indeed, be both a vice,
+and a ridicule, in the absent; but had the nation in other respects been
+well used and well governed, it would have been of no serious evil to
+those who remained at home. But the Act of Union, whatever may be its
+other operations, meritorious or vicious, at once converted a local
+disease into a national pestilence. The centre of business and of
+pleasure, the mart of promotion, and the fountain of favour, were by
+this one fatal act at once removed into a foreign land; ambition,
+avarice, dissipation and refinement, all combined to seduce the upper
+classes into a desertion of their homes and country: and as each
+succeeding ornament of the Irish capital abandoned his hotel, as each
+influential landlord quitted his castle in the country, or his house in
+the city, a new race of vulgar upstarts, of uneducated and capricious
+despots, usurped their place, spreading a barbarous _morgue_ over the
+once elegant society of the metropolis, and banishing peace and security
+from the mountain and the plain.
+
+Many whom temptation could not hitherto seduce from home, were now
+forced by fear to fly; and every passion, every motive combined to drive
+from the happy land, all those who were possessed of the means of
+flight. It is in vain that patriotism struggles and conscience arrests
+the departing step of those who yet linger behind in painful
+vacillation. Self-preservation must and will in the end prevail.
+Whatever is educated, whatever is tasteful, whatever is liberal, will
+too probably fly a land, where the insolence of official rank supplies
+the amenity of an admitted aristocracy, and where vulgar wealth,
+acquired by political subserviency, and too frequently unaccompanied by
+knowledge, holds talent at arms’ length, and rejects wit from its
+coteries as dangerous to its own dull supremacy and hostile to the
+repose of its own “_fat contented ignorance_.” Philanthropists,
+disgusted with the perpetual spectacle of hopeless wretchedness and
+irredeemable despair, will seek relief by flying the misery they cannot
+mitigate; the enlightened and the liberal will turn with horror from the
+country where laws of exception have been adopted into the permanent
+code, and where necessitated violence is only met by judicial severity
+and legal murder. The landholder, wearied by his contests with the
+clergy, and intimidated by the armed and masked opposition of his
+tenantry, will be contented to purchase repose by abandoning at once the
+soil and its produce, to the proctors, the police-men and their chiefs.
+The _sbirri_ of Ireland will alone find in a land, thus every way
+accursed, the elements congenial to their existence, as the reptiles and
+insects subsist in that putrefaction, which spreads disease and death
+among the nobler animals.
+
+In the present political prospect of Ireland, the eye of philosophy and
+philanthrophy turns on every side in search of a principle of
+regeneration, and turns in vain. On every side a circle of recurrent
+cause and effect, like the mystic emblem of the Egyptians, points to an
+eternity of woe, and to endless cycles of misgovernment and resistance.
+As long as the actual system continues, (as long as every cause is
+forced to concur in rendering Ireland uninhabitable,) so long will it be
+impossible to organize any plan for civilizing, tranquillizing, and
+enriching the country. It is an empty and an idle boast in the British
+House of Commons, that it devotes its successive nights to the debating
+Irish affairs, so long as the religious division of the people and the
+proconsular government founded upon that division are to be recognized
+as sound policy or Christian charity. The half measures which have
+hitherto been adopted, far from proving beneficial, and composing the
+contentions of hostile factions, have served only to increase discontent
+and disarm inquiry.[80] Nor can the ministers be entitled to any praise
+for generosity who dare not, in the first place, be just. In spite,
+therefore, of all their professions of zeal and compassion for the
+national distress; in spite of all their parliamentary tamperings with
+the national abuses, they must still remain answerable for the greater
+part of the absenteeship which they strenuously hold up as the giant
+ill, over which they have no controul, and for the existence of which
+they imagine themselves not responsible.
+
+The grand principle of “_divide et impera_” has produced both the
+religious question and the question between landlords and tenants, which
+are the hinges on which all the misfortunes of Ireland turn. To commence
+the work of regeneration in earnest, that principle must be fairly and
+honestly abandoned: when this is done, and not before, absenteeship,
+with every other evil which has grown out of the monstrous anarchical
+system, that has so long subsisted, will gradually disappear; and
+proprietors in Ireland, as in other countries, will inhabit their
+country, when their country becomes inhabitable.--“_Ubi bene, ibi
+patria_” is a maxim not altogether unreasonable; and, surely, if in any
+circumstances it is entitled to toleration, it is in that land where the
+greater the patriotism and virtue, the less chance is there of social
+comfort and rational happiness. To the absentees themselves we would
+willingly appeal with every invocation that can bind the conscience or
+awaken the heart. But the appeal were worse than idle, it would in fact
+be injurious, by pointing to effects and disengaging the attention from
+causes. In the present condition of affairs, absenteeism is a
+necessitated evil!! In the absentees it is less a crime than a
+misfortune; and with respect to the government it is so far from being a
+justification of its acts, that it has become a pregnant and a pointed
+conclusion of its ignorance of all sound principle, or its heartless
+indifference to all those interests which the unhappy destiny of “_the
+most unhappy country under heaven_,” has committed to its charge.
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+          IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+Footnote 1:
+
+  Irish potentates were then as plenty “as Munster potatoes.” “Ils se
+  coudoyoient,” as in the _salle des rois_ of Napoleon. Irish saints
+  were equally numerous; but, if the scandalous chronicles of the times
+  be worthy of credit, the social order of that day was not the better
+  for the circumstance. While King Mac Murrogh was running away with
+  Queen O’Rourke, wife of O’Rory, King of Breffny, who was on a
+  pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s purgatory, his son was undergoing the
+  operation of having those eyes put out, which had looked too tenderly
+  on the Queen of Ossory. The gallantries of these Macs and O’s from the
+  earliest ages to the present day, recall the answer of the French
+  Silvester Daggerwood to his manager, who asked his line of parts,
+  “_Chacun s’en tienne au metier de ses pères; je sais que dans notre
+  famille, nous sommes tous amoureux de père en fils_.”
+
+Footnote 2:
+
+  King Mac Turtell was King of Dublin, and held his kingdom by tribute
+  from the King of Leinster. “Not far from Dublin,” says the admirable
+  Maurice Regan, historiographer to Mac Murrogh,--“not far from Dublin
+  there lived an Irish king named Gillemohalmoghe.” Of the territories
+  of this prince, Michael’s lane in Dublin formed a part. It is called
+  in the black book of Christchurch, Gillemohalmoghe. As there is some
+  reason to suppose that the kingdom extended as far as Swords, Sir
+  Compton Domville may be regarded as the modern representative of the
+  Gillemohalmoghe dynasty.
+
+Footnote 3:
+
+  Child’s Discourse upon Trade.--“No inconsiderable portion of the
+  entire of Ireland has been confiscated twice, and perhaps thrice, in
+  the course of a century.”--_Lord Clare’s Speech on the Union._
+
+  The causes of absenteeship are, in fact, coeval with the first steps
+  of English power in this country. “Those that were adventurers,” says
+  Temple, “in the first conquests, and such others of the English nation
+  as came over afterwards, took possession by former grants of the whole
+  kingdom, and _drove the Irish_ in a manner out of all habitable parts
+  of it, and settled themselves in all the plains and fertile places of
+  the country, especially in the chief towns, ports, and sea-coasts. It
+  was no capital offence to kill any of the rest of the Irish; the law
+  did neither protect their life nor revenge their death.”--_History of
+  Irish Rebellion._ Here is the starting-post of absenteeism, pointed
+  out by an English minister and historian.
+
+Footnote 4:
+
+  The signatures of Magna Charta evince that the nobility of those
+  times, like Pierrot in the farce, were “_un peu brouillés avec
+  l’Alphabet_;” but the spirit which founded that great arch of British
+  freedom, was well worth all the namby-pamby acquirements of all the
+  modern nobles who ever presided over archæology, (or, as Walpole calls
+  it, “old woman’s logic,”) flirted with the muses, and combined to give
+  tracts to England, or rose-trees to the starving peasantry of
+  Connaught and Munster.
+
+Footnote 5:
+
+  Henry II. obliged the Earl Strongbow to return to Ireland, “being
+  likely for his own wealth and assurance to procure all possible means
+  of bridling and annoying the Irish.” In the time of Edward III.
+  military emigration seems to have been considerable. The Irish robbers
+  did good service at Cressy.
+
+Footnote 6:
+
+  The Irish were always ready for a little commotion at home or abroad;
+  “Great was the credit of the Geraldines ever when the House of York
+  prospered, and likewise the Butlers thryved under the bloud of
+  Lancaster.” It was this disposition towards the House of York, which
+  caused the temporary success of Perkin Warbeck in Ireland. The
+  unfortunate Duke of Clarence, who was drowned in a butt of Malmsey,
+  was born in Ireland during the lieutenancy of his father, the Duke of
+  York. His godfathers were the Earls of Ormond and Desmond. Whether
+  this Irish origin will serve to explain the peculiarity of his
+  destiny, I cannot say; but the residence of a York in Dublin may in
+  part account for the popularity of the faction in that city.
+  Shakspeare probably alludes to this personage in Henry VI.
+
+    “Please it your grace to be advertised
+    The Duke of York is newly come from Ireland,
+    And with a puissant and mighty power
+    Of Gallowglasses and stout Kernes
+    Is marching hitherward in proud array.”
+
+Footnote 7:
+
+  The English reader is not to suppose that these _blanc-mangers_ of the
+  poor Irish were such as are to be had at the Verys or Beauvilliers.
+  The Irish white meates were curds and whey, the only provisions which
+  men whose lives were “in wandering spent and care” could obtain. The
+  Irish then lived like Arabs, a prey of cattle being the subject of
+  their fiercest contests.
+
+Footnote 8:
+
+  Had they made the country endurable to live in, they would have done
+  what all the penal laws that ever have been framed can never
+  affect--they would have kept the Irish at home. At the time when Henry
+  VIII. was framing his “act of absencie” for preventing the increase of
+  the absentees the state of the country in which they _were by law_
+  obliged to live, is thus described by Spenser;--“Notwithstanding that
+  the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and
+  cattle, (Munster more particularly is here speken of,) yet in one year
+  and a half (during the war carried on against the Earl of Desmond for
+  the purpose of forfeiting his estates) the natives were brought to
+  such wretchedness, as that any stoney heart would rue the same. Out of
+  every corner of the woods and glyns they came creeping forth upon
+  their hands, for their legs could not bear them, they looked like
+  anatomies of death, they shoke like ghosts crying out of their graves,
+  they did eat the dead carrion, happy when they could find them; yea,
+  and one another soon after, inasmuch as the very carcasses they spared
+  not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of
+  water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the
+  time, yet not able to continue them withal, that in short space there
+  was none almost left; and a most populous and plentiful country
+  suddenly left void of man and beast.”--_State of Ireland_, 1581.
+
+Footnote 9:
+
+  English antiquaries have been much puzzled to determine the identity
+  of this “more than celestial Geraldine.” “Who she was,” says Walpole,
+  “we are not directly told.” Surrey himself mentions some particulars
+  of her, but not her name. The editor of the last edition of Surrey’s
+  Poems, in some short notes on his life, says, “that she was the
+  greatest beauty of her time, and maid of honour to Queen Catharine;
+  but I think I have very nearly discovered who this fair person was,
+  &c. &c. &c. I am inclined to think her poetical appellation was her
+  real name, as every one of the circumstances tally.” The elegant
+  antiquary then devotes three pages to prove the probability that Lady
+  Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Kildare, was the Geraldine of Lord
+  Surrey. Warton adopts this supposition, and compliments the biographer
+  on having, with the most happy segacity, solved the difficulties of
+  “this little enigmatical ode.”--_History of English Poets._ There was,
+  however, a much shorter way of solving the difficulties, namely, the
+  consultation of Irish authors for an historical incident respecting
+  one of the most illustrious Irish families. Campion, who had probably
+  many a time and oft seen the “fair Geraldine,” with his usual quaint
+  simplicity says, “The Fitzgerald family is touched in the Sonnet of
+  Surrey made upon Kildare’s sister, now Lady Clinton;”
+
+    From Tuscane came my ladyes worthy race,
+      Faire Florence was sometime her ancient seate;
+    The western isle, whose plaisant shore doth face
+      Wilde Cambre’s cliffes, did give her lively heate.”
+
+  The ode goes on as follows;--
+
+    Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast,
+      Her sire an earle, her dame of prince’s blood;
+    From tender years in Britain she doth rest
+      With kinges childe, while she tasteth costly food.
+    Honsdon did first present her to mine yeen,
+      Bright is her hue, and Geraldine her hight,
+
+                        &c. &c. &c.
+
+  This fair and celebrated Irish absentee, after having sent her
+  illustrious lover to Italy “to defend her beautie by an open
+  challenge,” in which he was victorious, married the Earl of
+  Clinton:--a most unsentimental conclusion to a most romantic story.
+
+Footnote 10:
+
+  “A false muttering flew about that his execution was intended.”
+
+Footnote 11:
+
+  “Soon after,” says Campion, “was the house of the Geraldines attaynted
+  by Parliament, and all of the name busily trayned out for feare of new
+  commotions. But Thomas Leurces, late Bishop of Kildare, schoolemaster
+  to a younger brother, Gerald Fitzgerald, the Earle that now liveth,
+  secretly stole away with the childe, first into Scotland, then into
+  France, and misdoubting the French, into Italy; where Cardinall Pole,
+  his neare kinsman preserved him till the raigne of Edward the Sixt,
+  with whom hee entred into high favour, and obtayned of him his olde
+  inheritance of Meinothe.”
+
+Footnote 12:
+
+  The various epithets applied to these retrogradations on the scale of
+  civilization are very amusing. Between the “mere and uncivil Irish,”
+  and the “English Lords of the Pale,” were the “English Lords beginning
+  to wax Irish;” “degenerating,” “becoming mere Irish,” and ending by
+  being “very wilde Irish,” &c. &c.
+
+Footnote 13:
+
+  O’Sullivan Beare, one of the bravest and noblest chiefs of Kerry, and
+  Lord of part of the paradise of Killarney, in writing to the Spanish
+  minister an account of his sufferings at this period, urges him “to
+  the speedy sending of a ship to receive him, his wife, and children,
+  to save them from the hands of his most merciless enemies: Making
+  choice (he pathetically adds) rather to forsake my ancient
+  inheritance, friends, followers, and goods, than any way trust to
+  their graceless pardon or promise.”--_Pacata Hibernia._ Here was
+  absenteeship in the sixteenth century!!
+
+Footnote 14:
+
+  Elizabeth frequently discovered that her Deputies were carrying the
+  joke too far. On the occasion of the wanton massacre of Smerwick, “The
+  queen (says the Bishop of Chichester) was not _pleased_ at the
+  _manner_ of this execution, and was hardly _after_ drawn to admit any
+  excuse of the slaughter committed.” The “_manner_” was curious
+  enough,--“It was concluded that only the leaders should be saved, (the
+  leaders were Spanish officers,) the rest slain, and _all the Irish_
+  hanged up: which was presently put into execution, to the great
+  disliking of the queen, who detested the slaughter of such as yielded
+  themselves.”--_Baker’s Chronicle._
+
+Footnote 15:
+
+  “The Queen was assured,” says Leland, speaking of the inhuman rigour
+  of Lord Deputy Gray, “that he tyrannized with such barbarity, that
+  little was left in Ireland for her Majesty to reign over but ashes and
+  dead carcases.”--_Hist. of Ireland_, v. ii. p. 227.--Here are reasons
+  for absenteeship quite as cogent as any which can be advanced in the
+  present day.
+
+Footnote 16:
+
+  The credulity of the Irish has ever been their ruin. Some English
+  officers having assured certain Irish chiefs that, upon surrendering
+  themselves to the government, they would obtain their pardon; those
+  chiefs (says Leland) “embraced the counsel, submitted, and consented
+  to attend the Lord Deputy St. Leger to Ireland. But here the only
+  favour granted them was, that they were not brought to immediate
+  execution. They were committed to prison, their lands declared
+  forfeit, and granted to those on whose counsel they had
+  surrendered.”--_Hist. of Ireland_, v. ii.
+
+Footnote 17:
+
+    “Then came the Irishmen of valiant hearts,
+      And active limbs, and personages tall.”
+
+                   _Sir J. Harrington’s Translation of Orlando Furioso._
+
+Footnote 18:
+
+  Apology, p. 58.
+
+Footnote 19:
+
+  _Si je ne vous mange pas en oiseau, je vous mangerai en souris._
+  “Other times,” they say, “bring other manners;” and it is not
+  impossible that men, restrained by the _manners of our own times_, may
+  avail themselves of the circumstance of their enforced moderation, to
+  reproach the writer who thus recalls a fact disreputable to the
+  English government, with _ripping up old sores_. The fact, however, is
+  “germane to the matter;” for it was such forfeitures that sowed the
+  first seeds of that permanent absenteeism which modern ministers
+  affect to deplore: and it was these flagrant violations of common
+  justice, that first nurtured the lawless disposition in the peasantry,
+  which is made an excuse for the suspension of all constitutional
+  rights, and which is most unjustly charged on the Catholic religion.
+  Besides, as long as the system is continued, which withholds
+  emancipation, and gives over the land to the tyranny and plunder of
+  churchmen and their inherents, the “ripping up old sores” is both
+  useful and justifiable.
+
+Footnote 20:
+
+  The only crime of which O’Rourke could be accused, was his having
+  received some shipwrecked Spaniards under his roof,--men, says
+  O’Connor, whom the most hardened barbarity could scarcely consider as
+  enemies. It is remarkable that O’Rourke previously to his execution
+  was denied a priest of his own persuasion. But Miles Macgrath, the
+  converted archbishop of Cashel, was sent to prevail on him to conform.
+  “No,” said O’Rourke firmly, “but do you remember the dignity from
+  which you have fallen; return to the ancient Church, and learn from my
+  fortitude the lesson you should have taught me, and which you ought to
+  have been the last to disavow.”
+
+  If there is a shadow of truth in this wild story of Leitrim, and if
+  Rourke did not betray the lady, he deserves canonization. Essex,
+  however, who shared the same fate, preserved the same honourable
+  secrecy; and the purity of the Virgin Queen remains intact.
+
+Footnote 21:
+
+  The ruins of O’Rourke’s castle still exist. They are sublimely
+  situated on a rock that hangs and frowns over a rapid river, near
+  Manor Hamilton, in the county of Leitrim. A few trees are scattered
+  immediately about the castle, and around are heathy mountains rising
+  to the clouds. “O’Rourke’s noble feast” has been rendered immortal by
+  the translation of Dean Swift.
+
+Footnote 22:
+
+  O’Connor Sligo resided some time in the court of Elizabeth, where he
+  was flattered up to his bent, though not into a permanent
+  absenteeship. He returned to Ireland in 1596, after obtaining a grant
+  to secure him in the possession of his own property; in gratitude for
+  which “he was extremely active in her (the Queen’s) favour, and gained
+  back, partly by menace and partly by cunning, many of the revolted
+  clans.” The celebrated O’Donnel of Tirconnel, hearing of O’Connor’s
+  desertion from the common cause, marched with an army to bring him to
+  obedience: and, in spite of the assistance of Sir Conyers Clifford and
+  Lord Mayo, he ravaged and destroyed O’Connor’s country.
+
+Footnote 23:
+
+  This youth was the only son of the Earl of Desmond, already mentioned.
+  He had been detained a prisoner in the Tower from his infancy as a
+  pledge for his father’s loyalty. He was afterwards sent to Ireland as
+  a state engine to play off against another Geraldine who had made
+  claims to the forfeited Palatinate; but after he had fretted his hour
+  on the bloody stage of his own country, he was brought back to
+  England, and lingering at court for a few months in hopeless
+  despondency, he died in the prime of his youth, of a broken
+  heart.--_See_ _Pacata Hibernia_.
+
+Footnote 24:
+
+  Upon two occasions the Earl saved a large party of English from
+  destruction. Macguire, chief of Fermanagh, had given the Lord Deputy
+  three hundred cows to free his country from a sheriff; “after which
+  bargain, the sheriff, one Willis, was let loose upon Fermanagh,
+  leading about some hundreds of women and boys, with a guard of one
+  hundred men, all living upon the spoils of the country.” Macguire,
+  having driven this model of a modern Irish police into a church, was
+  about to put them to the sword, when the Earl of Tyrone interposed his
+  authority. This same Willis was again rescued by Tyrone from an
+  insurrection occasioned by similar circumstances in the O’Donnel’s
+  country.--_See_ _Memorial to Queen Elizabeth_.
+
+Footnote 25:
+
+  The “Irish masque,” got up to compliment the absentees at the English
+  court, is either a bitter satire, or a disgusting picture of the state
+  of Irish society at that epoch. “The King being seated (says _the
+  programme_) in expectation, out ran a fellow attired as a citizen,
+  after him three or four footmen, Denis, Donnel, Dermoch, and Patrick,”
+  the object of whose visit to London was not like that of many of the
+  Denises and Patricks of the present day, to become either _porters_,
+  or _reporters_, as the chances determined; but simply, as Donnel
+  observes, ‘to see King Yamish,’ for which purpose ‘they had travelled
+  a great way miles,’ having got the start of their lords or chiefs who
+  had come over on the same loyal errand.
+
+  _Der._ I’ fayt, tere ish very much phoyt stick here stirring to night.
+  He takes ush for no shquires I tinke.
+
+  _Pat._ No; he tinksh not ve be imbasheters.
+
+  _Der._ No, fayt, I tinke sho too. But tish marriage bring over a
+  doshen of our besht mashters to be merry, perht tee shweet faish, an’t
+  be; and daunsh a fading at te vedding.
+
+  _Den._ But tey vere leeke to daunsh naked, and pleash ty majesty; for
+  tey villanous vild Irish sheas have casht away all ter fine cloysh, as
+  many ash cosht a towsand cowes and garrans, I warrant tee.
+
+  _Der._ And te prishe of a cashtell or two upon teyr backs.
+
+  _Don._ And tey tell ty majesty, tey have ner a great fish now, nor a
+  shea moynshter to save teyr cloyth alive now.
+
+  _Pat._ Nor a devoish vit a clowd to fesh’hem out o’ te bottom o’ te
+  vayter.
+
+  _Der._ But tey musht eene come and daunsh in teyr mantles now; and
+  show tee how tey can foot te fading and te fadow, and te phip a’
+  Dunboyne, I trow.
+
+  _Don._ I pree dee now, let not ty sweet faysh ladies make a mock on’
+  him, and scorn to daunsht vit ’hem now, becash tey be poor.
+
+  _Pat._ Tey drink no bonny clabber, i’ fayt now.
+
+  _Don._ It ish better ten usquebaugh to daunsh vit Patrick.
+
+  _Pat._ By my fater’s hand, tey vill daunsh very vell.
+
+  _Der._ Ay, by St. Patrick, vill tey; for tey be nimble men.
+
+  _Den._ And vill leap ash light, be creesh save me, ash he tat veares
+  te biggest fethur in ty court, King Yamish.
+
+  _Der._ For all tey have no good vindsh to blow tem heter, nor
+  elementsh to preserve hem.
+
+  _Don._ Nor all te four cornersh o’ te world to creep out on.
+
+  _Pat._ But tine own kingdomes.
+
+  _Don._ Tey be honesht men.
+
+  _Pat._ And goot men; tine own shubshects.
+
+  _Der._ Tou hast very good shubshects in Ireland.
+
+  _Den._ A great goot many, o’ great good shubshects.
+
+  _Don._ Tat love ty mayesty heartily.
+
+  _Den._ And vill run t’rough fire and vater for tee over te bog and te
+  bannoke, be te graish o’ Got and graish o’ King.
+
+  _Der._ By Got tey will fight for tee, King Yamish, and for my mistiesh
+  tere.
+
+  _Den._ And my little maishter. Paish, paish, now room for our
+  mayshter.--Then the gentlemen dance forth a dance in their Irish
+  mantles to a solemn music of harps, which done, the footmen fall to
+  speak again.”
+
+Footnote 26:
+
+  Borlase asserts that in 1650, ten years before the Restoration, 1700
+  died of the plague in Dublin alone; this horrible infliction was
+  peculiar to those “picturesque times,” which describe so well, and
+  which, it is a mark of literary loyalty to admire and eulogize.
+
+    “Sir, nothing against antiquity, I pray you,
+    I must not hear ill of antiquity.”--_B. Jonson._
+
+Footnote 27:
+
+  The most noted beauties of the Court of Charles the Second, Lady
+  Barbara Villars, (Duchess of Cleveland,) the Countess of Chesterfield,
+  (a Butler,) the Lady Kildare, introduced by St. Evremont into his
+  pleasant little poem of “The Basset Table,”[28] the Countess de
+  Grammont, and many others, were Irish women. The delightful author of
+  “Mémoires de Grammont,” Anthony Hamilton, was himself an Irishman,[29]
+  and a branch of the illustrious house of Hamilton, which obtained from
+  James the First such princely possessions in the North of Ireland, and
+  which is still represented by the Marquis of Abercorn. The
+  Fitzmaurices, (Muskerry,) the O’Briens, the Butlers, the Talbots, are
+  names noted in the fasti of Whitehall at this period. With respect to
+  the Talbots, however, it is but fair to observe that the elder branch
+  of this ancient and patriotic family always remained permanently
+  resident in their splendid castle and domain of Malahide, as their
+  worthy representative the Member for the county of Dublin continues to
+  do in the present day; though the younger branch, the Lords of Carton
+  (now the seat of the Duke of Leinster) were prime favourites at
+  Whitehall, and boon companions of both Charles and James. “The Dick
+  Talbot” of that day, whom Charles would fain have set at odds with the
+  Duke of Ormonde, brought no additional rays to the original splendour,
+  when he added a ducal coronet to its less perishable honours. This
+  Colonel Richard Talbot (afterwards Duke of Tirconnel) was sent to the
+  Tower for having challenged the Duke of Ormonde with duplicity of
+  conduct with respect to the Irish Catholics, whose agent Colonel
+  Talbot then was. Ormonde, believing the better part of valour to be
+  discretion, fought shy, instead of fighting Talbot; and when rallied
+  on this circumstance by the King, petulantly demanded, “Is it then
+  your Majesty’s pleasure that at this time of day I should put off my
+  doublet to fight duels with Dick Talbot?”
+
+Footnote 28:
+
+    Vous ne me parlez pas de Madame de Kildare,
+      I never saw personne avoir meilleure air.
+
+Footnote 29:
+
+  His mother, the beautiful Lady Maria Butler, was daughter to the Duke
+  of Ormonde.
+
+Footnote 30:
+
+  It is farther particularly notable that James, the friend and
+  correspondent of Pope Clement VIII. and the special protector of the
+  Irish Catholics, first established in Ireland a Protestant ascendancy
+  in parliament, in obedience to the advice of the Lord Deputy
+  Chichester. With the inconsistency which ever accompanies a want of
+  principle, he occasionally amused himself at the expense of the very
+  people he affected to favour. When Chichester made King James a
+  present of a beautiful horse, his Majesty asked him if it were an
+  Irish horse: on being answered in the affirmative, the King swore his
+  favourite oath, “Then it must be a Papist,” for he verily believed
+  that all things produced in Ireland were Papists, even the very
+  animals themselves.
+
+Footnote 31:
+
+  None benefited more largely by these “plots of rebellion” than the
+  house of Ormonde. “His Grace (says Lord Anglesey in his letter to the
+  Earl of Castlehaven) his Grace (the Duke of Ormonde) and his family,
+  by the forfeiture and punishment of the Irish, were the greatest
+  gainers in the kingdom, and had added to their inheritance vast scopes
+  of land, and a revenue three times greater than his paternal estate,
+  as it was before the Rebellion, and most of his increase was out of
+  their estates who adhered to the peace of 1648, or served under His
+  Majesty’s ensigns abroad.” In the anonymous and curious pamphlet “The
+  Unkind Deserter,” it is asserted that the Ormonde estate was but
+  7000_l._ per annum before the civil wars in Ireland, and that in 1674
+  it was close upon 100,000_l._ a year; which increase arose from the
+  King’s grants to him “of other men’s estates,” &c. &c. &c. The history
+  of the last Rebellion in 1798, and of the Union, would furnish many
+  anecdotes of a similar increase of the wealth of Irish families; not
+  indeed by forfeitures, (for the mode had passed,) but by intriguing
+  and bullying the government out of every place at its disposal, from a
+  mitre to a cornetcy of dragoons,--by the wholesale and retail sale of
+  the country: (a vote upon a single stage of a question has been hired,
+  like a job-carriage, by the night;) by corrupt dabbling in every
+  species of public work; in short, by every disgraceful practice of the
+  fraudulent tradesman, the scheming adventurer, and the sturdy
+  mendicant. The philosopher Kirwan was wont to quote a calculation he
+  had made, that the money spent on carrying the Union, would have built
+  a bridge from Howth to Holyhead.
+
+Footnote 32:
+
+  In James the Second’s reign some of the measures were calculated to be
+  of the greatest service to Ireland, and emanated from a wise and
+  discreet minister, formerly attached to the Protestant interest, the
+  second Earl of Clarendon. His instructions announced the intentions of
+  the legislature, or at least of the King, to introduce Catholics into
+  the corporations, and invest them with magistracies and judicial
+  offices; and he gave his opinion in favour of the legality of the
+  measure, though contrary to an Act of Elizabeth. But the greatest evil
+  which can occur to a reformation, is to have it undertaken by men of
+  small capacity; as their best intentions are ever marred by their
+  petulance and dullness. The folly with which James hurried on a
+  change, and the injudiciousness of some of the proposed measures,
+  caused his own ruin, and that of the unhappy country he made the
+  principal scene of his egregious weakness and incapacity.
+
+Footnote 33:
+
+  The Irish army under Tirconnel and Sarsfield made a most vigorous
+  resistance against a superior and well-disciplined force; and
+  Limerick, the last hold, was surrendered upon terms from which it
+  appears that none more esteemed their valour and fidelity than King
+  William himself.
+
+Footnote 34:
+
+  When James, after his flight from the battle of the Boyne, arrived in
+  Dublin, he had the ingratitude and ungraciousness to reflect upon the
+  cowardice of the Irish. He reached the Castle late at night, and was
+  met at its gates by the Lady Lieutenant, the beautiful Duchess of
+  Tirconnel, “La belle Jennings” of Grammont’s Memoirs. In return for
+  the sympathizing respect which marked her reception, the King is said
+  to have sarcastically complimented her upon the “alertness of her
+  husband’s countrymen.” The high-spirited beauty replied, “In that,
+  however, your Majesty has had the advantage of them all.” The King, in
+  fact, was among the first to arrive in the capital with the news of
+  his own defeat.
+
+Footnote 35:
+
+  They were estimated at the annual sum of two hundred and eleven
+  thousand six hundred pounds.
+
+Footnote 36:
+
+  Letter to Sir H. Langrish.
+
+Footnote 37:
+
+  Of this intolerance William stands in a great measure acquitted. His
+  known liberality subjected him to the suspicions of the party who
+  forged the penal statutes for Ireland, and who accused him of
+  infidelity, because he was unwilling to become a persecutor. When left
+  to act for himself, he exhibited a wisdom, wanting in the measures of
+  those to whom he was occasionally obliged to submit. In his
+  instructions to the commissioners in Scotland, dated 1689, he says
+  expressly, “You are to pass an act establishing that church government
+  which is most agreeable to the inclinations of the people.”
+
+Footnote 38:
+
+  To favour the English manufacturer, the exportation of the staple
+  commodity and manufacture of Ireland (wool) was prohibited on pain of
+  confiscation, imprisonment, and transportation!! It would be difficult
+  to say whether the infamy or the absurdity of such legislation is the
+  greatest; and indignation at the avarice of the lawgivers, is so
+  largely mixed with contempt for their blind ignorance, that the pen
+  pauses in its vituperation of measures which were so obviously their
+  own punishment. Be it however remarked “_en passant_,” that the
+  framers of these laws were the aristocracy of England, the most
+  educated and moral people then in existence; a striking proof of the
+  perfect inadequacy of abstract principles of right and wrong to the
+  good government of conduct. Force, and force alone, too generally
+  makes right, in opinion, as well as in fact; and where the power to
+  abuse exists, the will to injure and the sophistry to justify the
+  injury, will never long be wanting.
+
+Footnote 39:
+
+  “Have they any wit in their compositions? (says Spenser in speaking of
+  the poetry of the Irish in his day.) Yea, truly, I have caused divers
+  of them to be translated unto me, that I might understand them; and
+  surely they savoured of sweet wit and good invention, sprinkled with
+  some pretty flowers of their natural device, which gave good grace and
+  comeliness to them.”
+
+Footnote 40:
+
+  “Oh wretched condition of our loved compatriots, the remains of a once
+  happy people, steeped in blood and drenched in slaughter! Vain is your
+  struggle for liberty, hapless crew of a bark long tempest-tossed, and
+  now cast away forever. What! are we not wrecked on our own shores, and
+  prisoners to the Saxons? Is not the sentence passed and our excision
+  foredoomed? How are ye fallen from the ancient glories of your native
+  land! Power degraded into weakness, beauty to deformity, freedom into
+  slavery, and the song of triumph into elegies of despair. Nial, of the
+  nine hostages, look not down upon us, lest thou blush for thy captive
+  Gadhelians. Conn, of the hundred battles, sleep in thy grass-grown
+  tomb, nor upbraid our defeats with thy victories.”--_Oran_ (or song)
+  _of Ognive, the family bard of the last of the O’Neils._
+
+Footnote 41:
+
+  Boyle, Berkeley, King, Dodwell, Leslie, Toland, Clayton, (Bishop of
+  Clogher,) Molyneux, (the friend of Locke the philosopher and champion
+  of Irish independence,) Helsham, Robinson, Macbride, Sullivan,
+  Hutchinson, Abernethy, Harris, Keating, Leland, Kirwan, Young, (Bishop
+  of Clonfert,) &c. &c.
+
+Footnote 42:
+
+  Even so far back as the reign of James the First, Ireland began to
+  furnish her quota to the English drama. But from the middle of the
+  seventeenth century to something more than the middle of the
+  eighteenth, she produced almost all the best dramatic writers on the
+  British stage: Congreve, Howard, Southerne, Steele, Farquhar,
+  Phillips, Kelly, Jones, Orrery, (Earl of,) Tate, Concanen, Dobbs,
+  Bickerstaff, Brook, Centlivre, Griffiths, Jephson, Murphy, Macklin,
+  O’Hara, West, Goldsmith, Sheridan, &c. &c. And among the actors,
+  Wilks, Quin, Sheridan, Barry, Mossop, Macklin, Havard, O’Brien, Brown,
+  Woffington, Clive, Fitzhenry, &c.
+
+Footnote 43:
+
+  Denham, Parnell, Swift, Sterne, Burke, Goldsmith, the Sheridans; to
+  whom may be added Molesworth, Millar, Wood, Webb, Pilkington, Johnson
+  (Chrysal), &c. &c. Even the women no longer deemed it the exclusive
+  purpose of their being
+
+               “To suckle fools and chronicle small-beer;”
+
+  and the elegant and witty productions of Mesdames Millar, Pilkington,
+  Centlivre, Grierson, Griffiths, Sheridan, Barker, Brook, contributed
+  to the general stock of national literature.
+
+Footnote 44:
+
+  Jervas, (Pope’s Raphael,) Bindon, Roberts the landscape-painter,
+  Barrett, &c.
+
+Footnote 45:
+
+  Miss Brook, the elegant translator and composer of the “Relics of
+  Ancient Irish Poetry.”
+
+Footnote 46:
+
+  The Lord Mayo, of the early part of the eighteenth century, here
+  alluded to, was a model of the genuine Irish resident nobleman, living
+  in his rural palace, surrounded by his family, his bards, and
+  musicians. One of these, “his retainer,” David Murphy, composed an
+  Irish Ode of some celebrity, called “Tiagherna Mhaigho,” the “Lord of
+  Mayo,” which another of his retainers, O’Keeneghan, set to music. This
+  Carolan was wont to play at night in the hall of the Burkes, on his
+  harp. It happened that during Carolan’s last visit to Lord Mayo,
+  Geminiani arrived from Italy by special invitation from the amateur
+  Earl; and his Italian music completely usurped the attention of the
+  Ladies Susan and Bridget Burke, of whose praise Carolan was especially
+  jealous, and he frankly complained to his noble host of this neglect.
+  Lord Mayo, rallying the bard on his feelings, concluded by telling
+  him, that when he should produce the same music as Geminiani, he would
+  meet with the same attention. On this Carolan proposed a wager, that
+  he on his harp would follow the Italian in any piece of his
+  composition, but that Geminiani should not follow him through an Irish
+  planxty: the wager was accepted by the Italian, and won by the Irish
+  bard.
+
+Footnote 47:
+
+  The O’Connors of Ballingar, the favourite residence of Carolan.
+
+Footnote 48:
+
+  “In the year 1740, the sublime genius of Handel roused our feelings
+  from the lethargy into which they had fallen.”--_Memoirs of the Irish
+  Bards._
+
+  Banished from London by the intrigues of a party, Handel[49] fled to
+  Ireland, where, with his friend Dubourg, the violin of his age, he was
+  received with rapture. His first public exhibition in Dublin was the
+  Messiah, which he performed for the benefit of the city prisons.
+  Whoever had the happiness of knowing the late Richard Kirwan, the
+  Irish philosopher, may judge of the enthusiasm of the travelled Irish
+  gentlemen for Italian music, and the vogue which Piccini obtained
+  through their means.
+
+Footnote 49:
+
+  Pope alludes to this banishment of Handel in his Dunciad:
+
+      “Strong in new arms, lo! Giant Handel stands
+    Like bold Briareus with his hundred hands,--&c. &c. &c.
+    Arrest him, Goddess, or you sleep no more:
+    She heard, and drove him to Hibernia’s shore.”
+
+Footnote 50:
+
+  St. Bridget was accustomed to pray under the shade of an oak, a
+  circumstance which has given its name to an Irish county, Cil doire,
+  the cell of the oak (Kildare.)
+
+Footnote 51:
+
+  “Concerts were the favourite amusement in the houses of the nobility
+  and gentry, and musical societies were formed in all the great
+  towns.”--_Memoirs of Irish Bards._
+
+Footnote 52:
+
+  The Philharmonic Society gave up its subscriptions towards building
+  the hospital in Townsend-street, 1753.
+
+Footnote 53:
+
+  “Italian singers were invited over, and the fair dames of Ireland
+  learned to expire at an opera.”--_History of Irish Music._
+
+Footnote 54:
+
+  Barry, Sheridan, Mossop, Diggs, Daly, Crawford, and others of a more
+  modern date, were all gentlemen of family, and members of the Irish
+  University. They lived with their own class, and some of them went to
+  court. The intimacy of Sheridan with successive lords lieutenant is
+  recorded in the life of his celebrated wife, written and recently
+  published by their accomplished grand-daughter.
+
+Footnote 55:
+
+  If a desire for luxuries and refinements is in all classes the natural
+  check to excessive population, and to the degradation of the species,
+  that check is wholly wanting in Ireland. Not only the peasant, but the
+  tradesman sees no attainable object of enjoyment in the possession of
+  a class just above himself in ease and comfort, which might stimulate
+  his ambition. The connecting link between the rich and the poor is
+  wanting; for middlemen are no refiners of manners. As a familiar
+  illustration, let the reader imagine that, except in towns of the
+  first class, few vegetables beyond a cabbage or a potatoe are to be
+  found in the market. There is absolutely no demand for such _luxuries_
+  to repay the culture.
+
+Footnote 56:
+
+  One of these rooms painted in fresco and highly decorated, remains, or
+  did remain a few years back, in Fishamble-street.
+
+Footnote 57:
+
+  Marino, Frescati, Marli, Sanssouci, Tivoli, Bellevue, Maritimo, &c.
+  are curious monuments of the manners and feelings of the Irish
+  nobility of the eighteenth century.
+
+Footnote 58:
+
+  Concerts were given in this room twice a week, for the benefit of the
+  Lying-in Hospital, to which it is an appendage. Previously to its
+  erection, these musical meetings were held for the same purpose in a
+  long room in Granby-row, where Castruci, the last pupil of Corelli,
+  performed.--See _Memoirs of Irish Bards_.
+
+Footnote 59:
+
+  The refinement not to say dissipation, of this period was perhaps
+  precocious and disproportionate to the riches of the country; but this
+  circumstance, always perhaps inherent in a particular stage of
+  civilization, was in Ireland increased by peculiarities in the
+  distribution of national wealth, another fatal consequence of the
+  frequent forfeitures. Time, however, would have cured this evil, if
+  the tide of absenteeship had not again set in, and swept away all
+  improvement and prosperity from the land.
+
+Footnote 60:
+
+  It has been said with great truth that “the politics of Molyneux long
+  continued to be no less revered by the Irish than the morality of
+  Confucius by the Chinese.” The burning of his excellent work, the
+  “Case of Ireland,” the prosecution of Swift’s “Drapier’s Letters,” and
+  the imprisonment of his spirited publisher, Faulkner, had the great
+  merit of bringing the doctrine of libel into public discussion, and of
+  first awakening the people of Ireland to the value of the liberty of
+  public speaking and writing, the most important of the many blessed
+  constitutional rights extorted from power at the Revolution. It is
+  pleasant to observe, that patriotism becomes an heir-loom, and to note
+  that the immediate descendant of William Molyneux, who inherits his
+  principles with his property and name, is a permanently resident Irish
+  gentleman!
+
+Footnote 61:
+
+  John Ponsonby, Speaker of the House of Commons in 1756, under whom the
+  Irish patriots made a most successful stand on a constitutional
+  question of vital importance. The energy and firmness of the patriotic
+  Speaker, and of a majority of the members of the House of Commons, who
+  then (“Hear this, ye gods, and wonder how ye made them”) attended to
+  the business of their country, forms a brilliant feature in the
+  history of the times.
+
+Footnote 62:
+
+  The friend of the celebrated Berkeley, a right good Irishman and
+  author of a “List of Absentees,” a class, to which he showed no
+  quarter.
+
+Footnote 63:
+
+  Henry Boyle, the patriot of the Irish House of Commons in the early
+  part of the eighteenth century.
+
+Footnote 64:
+
+  Connolly died Speaker of the House in 1730, lamented by all who loved
+  Ireland; Sir R. Walpole gave him the name of “King of the Irish
+  Commons,” from his astonishing influence over the Lower House.
+
+Footnote 65:
+
+  Member for New Ross. On an important political question he rode post
+  to town sixty miles to be present at the debate, and arrived just in
+  time to give his vote.
+
+Footnote 66:
+
+  Dolly Munroe, the reigning Irish beauty of Goldsmith’s day, to whom he
+  alludes in his Haunch of Venison:
+
+    “’Twas a neck and a breast that might rival Munroe’s.”
+
+Footnote 67:
+
+  See some of Right Hon. John Philpot Curran’s Verses preserved in his
+  Life by his son William Henry Curran--a work full of interest with
+  respect to matter, and full of beauty with respect to style. The
+  account given in its pages, of the convivial and intellectual meetings
+  of “the Monks of the Screw” at the Priory (Mr. Curran’s villa) forms a
+  brilliant but painful contrast to other orgies now celebrated in
+  Dublin, which alas! are neither social nor intellectual!
+
+Footnote 68:
+
+  Lord Clare.
+
+Footnote 69:
+
+  Dr. Franklin.
+
+Footnote 70:
+
+  The penal laws had been multiplied and rigorously executed under
+  George the First. On the accession of George the Second, for the first
+  time since the Revolution, the unfortunate Catholics, who by a feeble
+  and foolish fiction of the law of the land, were “not supposed to
+  exist,” ventured to approach the throne by a public act of their body;
+  and they presented an address of congratulation at once dignified and
+  loyal.
+
+Footnote 71:
+
+  Forbidding Catholics to bear arms either by sea or land.
+
+Footnote 72:
+
+  When Lord Chesterfield arrived in Ireland, all the Catholic places of
+  worship were closed. A Mr. Fitzgerald saying mass in the obscure
+  garret of a condemned house, an immense crowd had assembled, and the
+  floor giving way, the officiating priest with many of his flock were
+  buried in the ruins, and the greater number were maimed or wounded.
+  Lord Chesterfield, horror-struck at the event, ordered that all the
+  chapels in the capital should be opened on St. Patrick’s day, and they
+  have never since been closed.
+
+  A zealous Protestant thinking to pay his court to the Lord Lieutenant,
+  came to inform him that one of his coachmen was a Roman Catholic, and
+  went privately to mass. “Does he, indeed?” said his Lordship, “then I
+  shall take care that he never drives me there.”--_Chesterfield’s
+  Memoirs._
+
+  The Bishop of Waterford relates that the vice-treasurer, Mr. Gardiner,
+  a man of good character and considerable fortune, waited upon Lord
+  Chesterfield, one morning, and in a great fright told him that he was
+  assured upon good authority that the people in the province of
+  Connaught were actually rising; upon which the Viceroy looked at his
+  watch, and with great composure answered him, “It is nine o’clock, and
+  time for them to rise; I believe, therefore that your news is true.”
+  This system of alarm, be it observed, continues in all its vigour to
+  the present day; and the actual Viceroy has to withstand the falsehood
+  of the designing and the credulity of the nervous, full as much as any
+  of his predecessors.
+
+Footnote 73:
+
+  In a contest for constitutional rights (1755), the Earl of Kildare
+  placed himself at the head of the liberal party, which was then
+  technically designated “the patriots:” and the agents of the Castle
+  and the Church faction having represented to the King that the Irish
+  House of Commons was bent on destroying the royal prerogative, for the
+  purpose of preparing his Majesty’s expulsion, the Earl, with “the
+  oulde bloode of the Geraldines” boiling in his veins, denied the
+  calumny, and composed and with his own hand presented a memorial to
+  the king, proving historically that the Irish were to a fault the
+  upholders of the royal prerogative, and lovers of kingly government.
+  For this spirited conduct, which recalls the opposition of the
+  Kildares of old to the ministers of Henry the Seventh and Eighth, he
+  received the glorious appellation of Father of his country.
+
+Footnote 74:
+
+  The terrorism of former times having now yielded to a more salutary
+  system, the expression of public feeling took a variety of forms. It
+  was at this period that political toasts came into fashion, introduced
+  into social meetings through the convivial talents of a Mr. Carter,
+  son to the Master of the Rolls. His toast of “May all secretary
+  bashaws and lordly high-priests be kept to their proper tackle, the
+  sword and the bible,” became a charter sentiment at all public and
+  private dinners. The lordly high-priest was Archbishop Stone, and the
+  bashaw was Lord G. Sackville, who brought all the pedantry of the
+  schools to his official diplomacy, and added the superciliousness of
+  fashion to the hauteur of conscious supremacy.
+
+Footnote 75:
+
+  The numbers of those who voted were 102 for, and 122 against the
+  measure. The tax proposed was two shillings in the pound upon rents
+  and profits of landed property in the hands of those who did not
+  reside in Ireland for six months in each year, from 1773 to 1775.
+
+Footnote 76:
+
+  It is stated in the public prints that 350,000_l._ are, at this day,
+  taken annually from the county of Kilkenny alone.
+
+Footnote 77:
+
+  Cead mille faltha.
+
+Footnote 78:
+
+  It is worth citing, that Sir Cecil Wray, one of the most violent
+  opponents of the extension of Irish trade, observed at this time to
+  the House, “that the true grievances of Ireland were the Irish Pension
+  List, the Sinecure Offices, the Roman Catholic Disabilities, and the
+  Absentees.”
+
+Footnote 79:
+
+  It was to the loyalty of the people of Ireland at this period, that
+  the Lord Lieutenant of the day alluded, when, in his speech from the
+  throne, he observed, “That the united and great military preparations
+  of the House of Bourbon seemed only to have roused the courage and
+  called forth the exertions of his Majesty’s brave and loyal subjects
+  of this kingdom of Ireland; and I have only to lament that the
+  exhausted state of the treasury has hitherto put it out of my power to
+  give those exertions the most extensive and constitutional operation,
+  by carrying the militia law into effect.
+
+Footnote 80:
+
+  These half measures are, however, in the present state of affairs
+  almost inevitable.--A divided cabinet founded upon a divided state of
+  public opinion, opposes an insuperable barrier to a frank and honest
+  reform: and oscillations of principle and of practice must attend the
+  effort to manage factions so nicely balanced.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                               PROSPECTUS
+                                   OF
+                         SIR JONAH BARRINGTON’s
+                     HISTORIC ANECDOTES OF IRELAND
+                         DURING HIS OWN TIMES,
+                   WITH SECRET MEMOIRS OF THE UNION;
+
+
+Illustrated by Delineations of the principal Characters connected with
+those Transactions, curious Letters and Papers in fac simile; and
+numerous Original Portraits, engraved by the elder HEATH.
+
+
+             To be completed in Ten Numbers, in Royal 4to.
+                          Price 12s. 6d. each.
+
+
+                       PRINTED FOR HENRY COLBURN,
+                         NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
+
+
+Unforeseen circumstances, over which the Author had no influence or
+controul, had altogether checked the progress of this Work, suspended
+the publication of its latter parts, and left them on the Publisher’s
+shelves unadvertised and uncirculated.
+
+This temporary relinquishment had given rise to unfounded and injurious
+reports of its suppression; an object which never was for one moment in
+the contemplation of the Author, nor sought for, or even suggested, by
+the Government of England.
+
+On the contrary--the lamentable and unimproving march of Ireland from
+the period of the Union having fully proved the deceptious prospective
+given to that fatal measure by its mistaken or corrupt supporters, and
+exciting a novel interest and grave reflections of vital importance to
+the British Empire, the Author had determined to seize upon the first
+available opportunity of fulfilling his engagement to the friends and
+patrons of the Work, by its completion.
+
+Those friends were not confined to one party. They were mingled in
+all--they comprised several of the highest orders of society--many who
+held, and some who still hold important stations in the Government of
+both countries;--and the commencing parts of the Work having been
+honoured by the approbation and encouragement of His present Majesty and
+other Members of His Royal House, it was with deep regret the Author
+found himself, from a succession of causes, for several years unable to
+fulfil his intentions, and gratify his own laudable ambition, by
+compiling into a compact Memoir, the most important Historic events of
+Ireland. In many of those he was himself a not unimportant actor. He
+possessed also the advantage of individual intimacy or acquaintance with
+the most celebrated personages of all parties; without which, and the
+fidelity of a contemporary and independent pen, the delineation of their
+characters and the record of their conduct, if not lost for ever, would
+have descended to posterity with imperfect details and an ambiguous
+authenticity;--or have left a wide chasm in a highly interesting epocha
+of British History.
+
+The fallacious measure of a Legislative Union,--the progress of which
+from commencement to consummation the Author energetically resisted--has
+proved by its inoperative or mischievous results, the justness of that
+resistance. And he now, in common with many of the most distinguished of
+its original supporters, deeply deplores its accomplishment. But
+established by lapse of time--confirmed by passive assent--and
+complicated with some beneficial, and many political and financial
+arrangements, its tranquil reversal seems to have passed feasibility.
+Yet--as an hereditary friend to British connexion--the Author hopes, by
+the revival and completion of this History, to open wide the eyes of
+Great Britain to the present dangers of Ireland--to draw aside the
+curtain of ignorance and prejudice by which her history has been so long
+obscured--to compare her once rising prosperity with her existing
+miseries--to discover the occult causes of their continuance and the
+false principles of her misrule--to display her sacrifices for
+England--and to unmask her libellers in both countries.
+
+Developments such as these may rouse the Legislature to probe her wounds
+to their depth--to employ her labour--to succour--to foster--and to rule
+her on the broad principles of a steady and philanthropic policy--and to
+relinquish for ever that system of coercive Government, which an
+experience of many centuries has proved to be destructive of almost
+every thing--except her crimes and her population.
+
+The British people should also learn that the absence of the ancient
+Nobles and protecting Aristocracy of Ireland,--drawn away by the Union
+from their demesnes and tenantry to the Seat of Legislation, and
+replaced only by the griping hands and arbitrary sway of upstart
+deputies,--increases in proportion with the miseries and turbulence of
+the lower orders; and that the luxuriance of vegetation which clothes
+that capable Island, has, through the same causes, become only a
+harbinger of want, or the forbidden fruit of a famished peasantry.
+
+It should therefore be the object of every pen and of every tongue, to
+render the Union as innoxious as its paralyzing nature can now admit of;
+to recall the proprietors of the Irish soil to a sense of their own
+security and their country’s welfare; and thereby strengthen the ties
+which should bind the two nations together, in equality, prosperity, and
+affection--on the firmness and durability of which _species_ of
+connexion depends, not only the constitutional security of England
+herself, but perhaps the political existence of both countries.
+
+Such is the Author’s view in the completion of this Work. The obstacles
+to its progress are surmounted, and its publication is now in the hands
+of those who will spare nothing to render it worthy of its object, and
+ensure a lasting and beneficial record to the United Empire.
+
+It is fortunate for Ireland, and disastrous to her calumniators, that a
+recent and great event has at once exposed the misrepresentations of her
+enemies, and displayed a great source of her misfortunes. The visit of a
+conciliating King to a distracted people rapidly disclosed their native
+character, and produced a burst of unfeigned, unanimous, genuine
+loyalty--never before experienced in such profusion by any Monarch from
+his subjects. The equivocating language of diplomacy was rejected for
+awhile. The King was a Patriot, and the People were loyal. For the first
+time they were allowed to approach each other. Both were sincere--and
+both were ardent. In a few days, the King became despotic in the
+affections of the Nation, and his Ministers descended into a comparative
+insignificance. When he arrived, he was respected as a British King--but
+when he departed, he was adored as an Irish Monarch. He saw at once that
+the existence of faction and discord was incompatible with the peace and
+the prosperity of Ireland; and that she hung on Great Britain, as a
+withering limb upon a healthful body--essential to its symmetry, but
+useless to its functions and injurious to its Constitution.
+
+There was but one remedy--conciliation. His Majesty saw its efficacy and
+commanded its adoption.--But his commands were disobeyed by the _Regal
+Rebels_[81]--and Ireland is still seen withering and cankering--by the
+obstinacy of intolerant faction, the irritation of local tyranny, and
+the multiplying mischiefs resulting from disobedience to the benevolent
+and wise commands of the only British King who ever yet set foot on the
+Irish shore as a friend, and as a patriot.
+
+Footnote 81:
+
+  Mr. Grattan’s definition of men, “Who make their loyalism a pretence
+  to perpetuate their supremacy,--and distract the peace of a Country
+  under colour of protecting it.”
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                               NEW BOOKS,
+                      PUBLISHED BY HENRY COLBURN,
+                       8, NEW BURLINGTON-STREET,
+             (Removed from the Library in Conduit Street.)
+
+
+1. MEMOIRS OF SAMUEL PEPYS, Esq. F.R.S. Secretary to the Admiralty in
+the Reigns of Charles II. and James II. comprising his Diary, deciphered
+from the Original Short-hand MSS. in the Pepysian Library, and a
+Selection from his “Private Correspondence.” Edited by RICHARD LORD
+BRAYBROOKE. In 2 vols. royal 4to. printed uniformly with Evelyn’s
+Memoirs, and embellished with Portraits and other Engravings by the
+first Artists.
+
+The Diary commences immediately before the Restoration, when Mr. Pepys
+sailed with the Earl of Sandwich to bring over the King from Breda, and
+is continued almost uninterruptedly for ten years, containing much
+curious matter not to be found in any other history of that eventful
+period. Independently of the political transactions of the period, the
+pages abound with private anecdotes of Charles II. and his Court; and
+Mr. Pepys’ peculiar habits of observation led him generally to record
+the most curious characteristics of the times in which he lived.
+
+2. The MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS of JOHN EVELYN, Esq. the celebrated Author
+of “Sylva,” or, a Discourse of Forest Trees, Memoirs, &c. Now first
+collected and edited, with Notes. Printed uniformly with Evelyn’s
+Memoirs, in 1 vol. royal 4to. and embellished with Engravings, price 3l.
+10s. boards.
+
+3. SYLVA: or, a DISCOURSE of FOREST TREES, and the Propagation of
+Timber, to which is added the “Terra.” By JOHN EVELYN, Esq. A new
+Edition, with Notes by the late A. HUNTER, Esq. F.R.S. &c., in 2 vols.
+4to. embellished with numerous plates, price 5l. 5s. boards.
+
+4. MEMOIRS of the COUNTESS DE GENLIS. Illustrative of the History of the
+Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Written by Herself. Editions in
+French and English.
+
+⁂ This work will be found to abound in Anecdotes of the most Eminent
+Literary and Political Characters, who figured at the latter end of the
+Eighteenth, and the commencement of the Nineteenth Centuries.
+
+5. TREMAINE; or, the MAN of REFINEMENT; a New and revised Edition. 3
+vols. post 8vo. 31s. 6d.
+
+6. A SECOND SERIES OF SAYINGS AND DOINGS; or, SKETCHES FROM LIFE. Second
+Edition. 3 vols. post 8vo. 31s. 6d.
+
+“Full of wise saws and modern instances.”--SHAKESPEARE.
+
+7. A SECOND SERIES of HIGHWAYS and BY-WAYS, or TALES of the ROAD-SIDE;
+picked up in the French Provinces by a Walking Gentleman. Containing
+Caribert the Bear Hunter; the Priest and the Garde du Corps; and the
+Vouee au Blanc, or Maid devoted to the Virgin. A New Edition, in 3 vols.
+post. 8vo. 30s.
+
+“I hate the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say, ’Tis all
+barren.”--STERNE.
+
+8. DON ESTEBAN; or, MEMOIRS of a SPANIARD. Written by Himself. In 3
+vols. post 8vo. 27s.
+
+This Work forms an excellent supplement and companion to the admirable
+Letters of Don Leucadio Doblado. In giving a detailed history of his
+life, Don Esteban professes to present a faithful picture of the
+manners, habits, and customs of his countrymen. “He takes the reader
+into the interior of their private houses; introduces him to their
+Tertulias, Balls, Assemblies, and public places; leads him to the
+Romerias, Convents, Nunneries, and Palaces; and gives him an insight
+into the national private character of the Spaniards.--The work,
+besides, contains an account of the state of the Spanish Court under
+Ferdinand, which is worthy of Gil Blas, and puts us in mind of that
+Novel.”--(GLOBE AND TRAVELLER.)
+
+9. GAIETIES and GRAVITIES. A Series of Essays, Comic Tales, and Fugitive
+Vagaries. Now first collected. BY ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF THE REJECTED
+ADDRESSES. 3 vols. post 8vo. 27s.
+
+10. REMINISCENCES OF MICHAEL KELLY, of the King’s Theatre, and Theatre
+Royal Drury Lane; Abroad and at Home: including a period of nearly Half
+a Century: with original Anecdotes of many distinguished Persons,
+Political, Literary, and Musical. Dedicated, by permission, to His
+Majesty. In 2 vols. 8vo. with a portrait.
+
+11. MEMOIRS of the COURT of FRANCE, during the Residence (above thirty
+years) of the MARQUIS DE DANGEAU, Now first translated from the French,
+with Historical and Critical Notes. In 2 vols. 8vo. 28s.
+
+This very curious Work will be found to contain a great number of Secret
+Anecdotes and Facts, hitherto unknown, respecting the Courts of France
+and England.
+
+12. A NEW FRENCH EDITION of the MEMOIRES de DANGEAU, with a Supplement
+by M. LE MONTEY, containing curious Autograph Notes, by an Anonymous
+Courtier of the same period. In 3 vols. 8vo. price 28s.
+
+13. CAPTAIN C.S. COCHRANE’S JOURNAL of a RESIDENCE and TRAVELS IN
+COLOMBIA, during the years 1823 and 1824. In 2 vols 8vo. with a Map, and
+coloured Plates, 30s.
+
+14. MEMOIRS and RECOLLECTIONS of COUNT SEGUR, Ambassador from France to
+the Courts of Russia and Prussia. 8vo. English, 12s.; French 10s. 6d.
+
+The Count de Segur was connected by ties of friendship or consanguinity
+with all the remarkable personages of the Courts of Louis XV. and XVI.
+and was engaged in the intercourse of Affairs and Society with Catharine
+II., Frederic the Great, Potemkin, Joseph II., Gustavus III.,
+Washington, Kosciusko, La Fayette, Mirabeau, and Napoleon, as well as
+with the Chiefs of the Aristocratical and Democratical Parties, and the
+most illustrious Writers of the times, of whom he records the most
+interesting particulars.
+
+15. THE SPIRIT of the AGE; or, CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS. 8vo. 12s.
+
+Contents.--Mr. Jeffery, Mr. Gifford, Mr. Southey, Sir Walter Scott, Lord
+Byron, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Thomas Moore, Mr. William Godwin, Mr. Jeremy
+Bentham, Mr. Coleridge, Mr. Leigh Hunt, Mr. Wordsworth, Sir James
+Mackintosh, Mr. Brougham, Sir F. Burdett, Rev. E. Irving, Lord Eldon,
+Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Malthus, Mr. Crabbe, the late Mr. Horne Tooke, &c,
+&c,
+
+16. THE LAST DAYS of NAPOLEON. By Dr. ANTOMMARCHI. In French and
+English, in 2 vols. 8vo. 21s.
+
+17. LETTERS FROM SPAIN. By Don LEUCADIO DOBLADO. Second Edition,
+revised. In 1 vol. 8vo.
+
+“This is an invaluable work.”--MORNING CHRONICLE.
+
+18. COUNT LAS CASES’ JOURNAL of the PRIVATE LIFE and CONVERSATIONS of
+the late EMPEROR NAPOLEON: a new edition, illustrated with Portraits of
+Napoleon and Las Cases; a View of the House in which Napoleon was born
+at Ajaccio in Corsica; four coloured views of St. Helena, taken on the
+spot; besides Maps, Plans, &c. complete in 4 handsome volumes, 8vo.
+Price 2l. 12s. in French or English.
+
+As this work is universally acknowledged to form the most complete
+epitome of the Life, Character, and Opinions of this extraordinary man,
+it is presumed that this new edition, compressed into 4 vols. and
+published at a very moderate price, will be extremely acceptable to the
+public, and that there are few who will not be desirous of possessing
+it.
+
+19. THE ILLUSTRATIONS to the JOURNAL of COUNT LAS CASES, separately, to
+complete the First Edition, price 5s. comprising a Portrait of Napoleon,
+engraved by Cooper after the original well-known Painting by DAVID, a
+Portrait of Count Las Cases, and four coloured Views of St. Helena, from
+Drawings taken on the spot by eminent artists.
+
+20. THE FOURTH and LAST LIVRAISON of NAPOLEON’S HISTORICAL MEMOIRS.
+Dictated at Saint Helena, to Counts Montholon, Bertrand, Gourgaud, &c,
+and published from the original manuscripts. Corrected by Himself. 8vo.
+14s. French, 12s.
+
+This important work is now completed in 7 vols. comprising four of
+Memoirs, and three of Historical Miscellanies, and the public are
+advised to complete their sets without delay.
+
+“This work bears impressed on it the stamp of the gigantic mind from
+which it emanated. It is wholly free from the usual vices of French
+composition; depth, originality, comprehensiveness, and great energy of
+expression are its prominent characteristics. A profound and intuitive
+sagacity, a clear and unerring insight into human character, mental
+resources almost preternatural, and an incredible knowledge of the
+minutest details of every subject discussed, are exhibited in almost
+every page: nothing escapes the observation, or transcends the capacity,
+of the Imperial Annalist. He combines the judgment and penetration of
+Tacitus with the prodigious versatility of Cæsar, and the more enlarged
+views of modern philosophy and science; policy, religion, war, civil
+administration, statistics, art, even literature,--in short, whatever he
+touches on,--seems to unfold its most recondite principles to his view,
+and to be fully comprehended and appreciated. To the future historian
+the value of the “Historical Miscellanies” is incalculable: with regard
+to the Memoirs themselves, no history can ever supersede
+them.”--EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+“On these sheets are traced events that will never be forgotten,
+portraits that will decide the judgment of posterity. It is the book of
+life or death to many whose names are recorded in it.”--OPINION OF LAS
+CASES IN HIS JOURNAL.
+
+21. JOURNAL of a RESIDENCE in ASHANTEE. By JOSEPH DUPUIS, Esq. late his
+Britannic Majesty’s Envoy and Consul for that Kingdom, comprising Notes
+and Researches relative to the Gold Coast and the Interior of Western
+Africa, chiefly from Arabic MSS. and Information communicated by the
+Moslems of Guinea. To which is prefixed an Account of the causes of the
+present War. In 1 vol. 4to. with a map and 15 plates, 2l. 12s. 6d.
+boards.
+
+22. THE PRIVATE JOURNAL of MADAME CAMPAN’s CONVERSATIONS; comprising
+Original Anecdotes of the French Court; also Selections from her
+Correspondence, her Thoughts on Education, &c. 8vo. 14s. French, 12s.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. New original cover
+art included with this ebook is granted to the public domain.
+
+The spelling and diacriticals used in non-English words and phrases has
+not been modernised or corrected.
+
+This book as printed included multiple complex footnotes, including
+footnotes to footnotes. All notes have been converted to endnotes for
+this ebook edition. The following changes and corrections have been
+made:
+
+ • p. 7: Added period after phrase “the recorded absenteeism of two
+   thousand years.”
+ • p. 19: Replaced “kings” with “king’s” in phrase “Lady Elizabeth Grey,
+   the king’s own kinswoman.”
+ • p. 20: Replaced opening with closing quotation mark after phrase
+   “having curried acquaintance and friendship with mere Irish.”
+ • p. 23: Replaced “of of” with “of” in phrase “England, in the face of
+   her own savage laws.”
+ • p. 27: Added period after phrase “for the Earl of Kildare to feare.”
+ • p. 28: Replaced apparent mid-dot with period after phrase “that you
+   tracke them out at pleasure.”
+ • p. 35: Added opening double quotation mark to indicate continuation
+   of quotation before paragraph beginning “One night, when the
+   lieutenant and he, for disport, were playing at _slide-groat_.”
+ • p. 35: Added opening single quotation mark before phrase “there is
+   some mad game in that scralle, but, fall how it will, this throw is
+   for a huddle.”
+ • p. 45: Added closing double quotation mark after phrase “gossipry and
+   alliance.”
+ • p. 45 note 16: Replaced “to to” with “to” in phrase “and granted to
+   those on whose counsel they had surrendered.”
+ • p. 103 note 53: Added period after phrase “the fair dames of Ireland
+   learned to expire at an opera.”
+ • p. 133: Replaced closing single quotation mark with closing double
+   quotation mark after phrase “the English interest.”
+ • Booklist item 14: Added commas after “Joseph II.” and “Gustavus III.”
+   in list.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78814 ***
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78814 ***</div>
+
+
+<div class='anniversary-wrapper'>
+
+<div class='anniversary'>
+
+<p class='c000'>This ebook, based on a book first published in 1825, was created in honour of Distributed Proofreaders’ 25th Anniversary.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><span class='xlarge'>ABSENTEEISM.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c002'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><span class='large'>WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div><i>Lately Published</i>,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c003'>THE LIFE and TIMES of SALVATOR ROSA. In 2 vols. 8vo.
+with a fine Portrait of Salvator, from the Original Painting by himself,
+in the possession of Earl Grosvenor, price 28s. bds.</p>
+
+<p class='c003'>“Lady Morgan has produced two of the most amusing octavos we
+have met with, even in this biographical age.”—<span class='sc'>Edinburgh Mag.</span></p>
+
+<p class='c004'>ITALY. By LADY MORGAN. Being the Substance of a <span class='sc'>Journal</span>
+of <span class='sc'>her Residence</span> in that Country; exhibiting a View of the present
+State of <span class='sc'>Society</span> and <span class='sc'>Manners</span>, <span class='sc'>Arts</span>, <span class='sc'>Literature</span>, and
+Literary Institutions, interspersed with numerous Anecdotes of the most
+eminent Literary and Political Characters, &#38;c. The Third Edition,
+revised, in 3 vols. 8vo. price 36s.</p>
+
+<p class='c003'>“Lady Morgan’s fearless and excellent work upon Italy.”—<span class='sc'>Lord
+Byron.</span></p>
+
+<p class='c003'>“Lady Morgan has given us more information on the actual state of
+society in Italy at the present moment, than can be found in any of the
+numerous publications which have made their appearance since the
+peace.”—<span class='sc'>New Monthly Magazine.</span></p>
+
+<p class='c003'>“This is not merely a work of opinions expressed in the ornamental
+style of the writer. It is a substantial account of Italy, and may be
+consulted for its facts by the historian, the traveller, and the topographer.”—<span class='sc'>Monthly
+Magazine.</span></p>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c005'>
+</div>
+
+<div>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_I'>I</span>
+  <h1 class='c006'>ABSENTEEISM.</h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div>BY</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div><span class='xlarge'>LADY MORGAN.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div>“Les absens ont toujours tort.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>“You heare of a case as it were in a dreame, and feell not
+the smart that vexeth us.”—<cite>Speech of the Earl of Kildare to
+Cardinal Wolsey.</cite></p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div><span class='large'>LONDON:</span></div>
+    <div>HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.</div>
+    <div>1825.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c005'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_II'>II</span><span class='small'>LONDON:</span></div>
+    <div><span class='small'>IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c005'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_III'>III</span>TO</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div><span class='xlarge'>CHARLES BROWNLOW, ESQ.</span></div>
+    <div><span class='large'>M. P.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>Dear Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Your recent speech on the Catholic question,
+has been hailed as an event favourable to the
+best interests of Ireland by all who in sympathising
+with her sufferings, have sought for,
+and ascertained their master cause.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>All Irishmen are brave! it is scarce a national
+boast to say so! for the courage of nerve
+and sinew is, after all, a quality of pretty
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_IV'>IV</span>general distribution, “from Indus to the Pole.”
+Man is every where a pugnacious animal; and
+<span lang="fr"><i>les heros de circonstance</i></span>—prompt to fight “for
+any God or King”—are always to be had for
+hire, be the <span lang="it"><i>cavalier pagante</i></span> who he may. But
+there is a quality of courage, which has been
+found rare in all ages and in all regions, the
+peculiar endowment of high, free, and above
+all, of <em>honest minds</em>. This is the courage that
+sets at nought</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c010'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“The world’s dread sneer,</div>
+      <div class='line'>  Which scarce the stern philosopher can scorn,”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>which boldly opposes a startling truth to a
+received opinion, which frankly recants the
+cherished error of early associations, and avows
+the change operated by arduous inquiry and
+clear conviction, at the expense of all worldly
+interests, and the sacrifice of all private feelings.
+Such, Sir, is the courage which you have
+displayed upon a subject of vital importance to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_V'>V</span>Ireland. As an Irishwoman, I beg to offer my
+mite of gratitude for the benefit conferred upon
+our common country—convinced that whenever
+the spirit of those sentiments which you have
+avowed shall govern the councils of the nation,
+Absenteeism will cease to be a national
+malady.</p>
+
+<p class='c012'>I have the honor to be,</p>
+
+<p class='c013'>With every sentiment of respect,</p>
+
+<p class='c014'>Your obedient Servant,</p>
+
+<p class='c015'>SYDNEY MORGAN.</p>
+
+<p class='c012'><i>London, June 4th, 1825.</i></p>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c005'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span>
+  <h2 class='c016'>PREFACE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c008'>The following pages were originally published
+in the New Monthly Magazine. The continued
+demand for the numbers in which they appeared,
+has induced the proprietor to reprint
+the article, and it is now offered to the public
+in a substantive form.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Notwithstanding the intense interest which is
+felt throughout all England concerning Ireland
+and Irish affairs, notwithstanding the frequent
+debates in parliament, and more frequent pamphlets
+and volumes published on points of Irish
+politics and œconomy, the prevailing ignorance
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_x'>x</span>on these subjects still operates powerfully in
+maintaining prejudices the most unfounded and
+the most fatal, and in retarding those measures
+of wisdom and of justice without which Ireland
+can never be happy, or the British Empire
+secure.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is this ignorance more especially which
+enables the party opposed to the settlement of
+Ireland to occupy public attention with minor
+grievances, behind which the danger and malice
+of their system are concealed from a nation
+too generous to tolerate open and avowed
+oppression. No sooner is the question of Catholic
+Emancipation proposed in the senate,
+with some chance of obtaining a favourable
+consideration, than one or other of these convenient
+abuses is thrust forward to distract
+attention and to puzzle the will. The absentees,
+the deficiency of employment, the potatoe diet,
+the want of poor laws, or the want of education,
+are, from time to time put forth as the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span>paramount evil, the gushing fountain of every
+misfortune of Ireland; while the main subject
+of complaint, the Catholic disability, is studiously
+represented as affecting only a few
+briefless barristers, or ambitious landlords.
+The advantage which is thus obtained in pre-occupying
+the public mind, and in affording
+additional ground for a superstructure of sophisms
+is immense.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The British nation has so many and such
+vast interests to pursue, its relations with every
+country in the world are so many and so complicated,
+that the most instructed of its subjects
+can find but little time and attention to bestow
+on any one of them, however important. The
+public in general is therefore compelled to
+repose confidence in those who affect a knowledge
+of each particular subject; and to take
+for granted the propositions they advance.
+When the men who should be the guides of
+public opinion are false to their trust, and instead
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span>of presenting truths in a clear and perspicuous
+form, studiously bury them beneath a
+mass of plausibilities, or entangle them in a
+net-work of sophistry, the task of unweaving
+their web, and detecting their fallacies, must
+be again and again undertaken, before a credulous
+and a pre-occupied people can be made
+aware of the deception, and enabled to judge
+of the question at issue by its intrinsic merits.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>On this account, it cannot but be deemed
+most unfortunate that the friends of Ireland
+unwittingly complicated the recent discussion
+on the Catholic Question, by the two bills with
+which they clogged their main proposition. It
+was not sufficient that the public should be
+dinned and stupified with the mass of untelligible
+and absurd theology with which that very
+plain question of policy and common morality
+is too unfortunately loaded; but it must also
+be mystified with high sounding phrases of
+“disfranchisement,” “oppression of the poor,”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiii'>xiii</span>and other similar phantoms. To lead the British
+public to imagine that the disqualification
+of the forty shilling freeholders would affect the
+influence either of the catholic or protestant
+party in Ireland, was, to say the best of it,
+a strange mistake: but on the other side, to
+attempt making men believe that the franchise
+is a benefit to its holder, or that the existing
+representative system of Ireland, with or
+without the forty shilling freeholders, has any
+the remotest practical utility as an instrument
+of liberty or of self-taxation, is a gross and
+absolute deception. All the discussion which
+was raised on this most silly of disputes (and
+the enemies of emancipation were not slow
+to profit by the advantage) was <span lang="it"><i>de lana caprina</i></span>,
+and so much diversion of the public mind
+from the main point at issue; serving only to
+inflame enemies, and to divide friends. Though
+no one will dispute that both the riders were
+appended to the Catholic Bill in deference to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiv'>xiv</span>the opponents of that measure, and with an
+honest intention to conciliate and to compromise,
+yet in the event, the introduction of
+extraneous matter has proved eminently unfavourable
+to the cause, and will, it is to be
+hoped, never again be attempted.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The futility of the arguments derived from a
+putting forth of secondary causes of evil in
+Irish politics, as directed against the entertainment
+of the Catholic Question, is the greater,
+in as much as all the various subjects which are
+advanced as matters of complaint, derive immediately
+from this one source. Deficient capital,
+deficient knowledge, deficient civilization, are all
+the necessary consequences of bad government,—of
+that bad government for whose sake
+Catholic has been set against Protestant, and
+the Irish people divided, in order to prevent the
+assertion of their political rights. In England
+people are governed in their opinions on the
+Catholic Question exclusively by their hopes
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_xv'>xv</span>and fears; and none but the clergy have a corrupt
+interest in withholding justice from any
+religious sect. But in Ireland power and place,
+the licence to oppress, and the facility of living
+on the public purse, are closely entwined with
+the permanence of a system, which, while it
+tramples the Catholic in the dust, degrades
+and impoverishes the whole population, for the
+exclusive benefit of a few powerful families. It
+is bad government, and the destraction and turbulence
+which bad government has engendered,
+that drives industry and capital from the country,
+and forces the peasantry to abandon all
+pretence to luxuries and refinements, whether
+moral or physical. It is bad government that
+banishes meat from the cotter’s table, and instruction
+from his mind. It is bad government
+that puts a pike in his hand, and hardens his
+heart against all the charities of life; it is bad
+government that makes property insecure, and
+life precarious; it is bad government, therefore,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_xvi'>xvi</span>that induces the aristocracy to fly to happier
+regions, to abandon their duties to their
+country and to themselves, and to seek for
+tranquillity and safety even at the expense of
+half their fortunes; and it is, above all, bad
+government which renders the absence of a
+limited aristocracy an evil of magnitude, either
+morally, politically, or economically.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The geographical position of Ireland, and its
+political dependence, (the necessary consequence
+of that position,) must always occasion more
+absenteeism than usually occurs in other nations.
+The robbery and spoilation of the native
+proprietors to endow the pampered favourites
+of a foreign court, which took place in the preceding
+centuries, afford another cause for this
+evil; but by far the greatest number of absentees
+are banished by the direct operation of the penal
+code, or by its indirect influence in limiting
+the pursuit of fortune at home. Ireland has
+no field for enterprise and industry, it has no
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_xvii'>xvii</span>market for merchandize. It has no scope for
+honest ambition, no promise of pleasure, no
+resting place for repose; and yet it is expected
+that those who have the means of quitting the
+land will inhabit it out of respect for a principle,
+or regard for an abstraction!</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Absenteeism considered in itself is an unnatural
+ill. There is usually so much of ease, of
+happiness, and of personal consequence in
+living at home surrounded by friends, relations,
+and a respectful tenantry,—there is usually so
+much mortification and disgust in the condition
+of a stranger and a foreigner, that nothing
+but political causes can drive the great
+proprietors of a country to permanently abandon
+their estates. Yet so natural is it for men to
+complain of the evil which strikes the most
+powerfully on the senses,—so convenient is it
+for those, who are determined in the denial of
+justice, to make absenteeism the <span lang="la"><i>causa causans</i></span>
+of calamities which they want the humanity to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_xviii'>xviii</span>relieve, that all classes of persons, the Protestant
+and the Catholic, the mere Irish and the
+lord of the pale, the oppressor and the oppressed,
+the Irish corporator and the English
+minister have joined in a common cry against
+absentees. It is not therefore very surprising
+that the mere John Bull, wrapped in his own
+affairs, and buried in his counting-house, should
+believe what every one repeats, and should
+shut his eyes against the real causes of that
+turbulence and that discontent which, though
+they have given him so much trouble and
+uneasiness, are yet too far removed from his
+gaze to allow of the formation of an independent
+judgment. It is not very wonderful
+that he should credit the assertion so hardily
+made, that Catholic Emancipation is not the
+one thing needful to Ireland, the essential
+preliminary, without which, no practical relief
+can be afforded to the economical distresses
+of the country.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xix'>xix</span>In taking up the subject of absenteeism, the
+peculiar bent of Lady Morgan’s mind, and the
+character of her habitual pursuits, have inevitably
+given a picturesque turn to her ideas, and
+induced her to view the matter less as an economist
+than as a poet and a woman. But the
+great truth has not escaped her, that absenteeism
+is less a cause than an effect: and
+while in the romance of her imagination she
+has delineated what Ireland might be under
+the fostering protection of an enlightened and
+liberal aristocracy, she has not forgotten that
+under existing circumstances it must remain for
+ever the blighted victim of an oppressive and
+ignorant <span lang="fr"><i>bureaucratie</i></span>.</p>
+
+<div class='c017'>T. C. MORGAN.</div>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>London, June 3, 1825.</i></p>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c005'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>
+  <h2 class='c016'>ABSENTEEISM.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c018'>
+    <div>“Les absens ont toujours tort.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c019'><i>La Rochefaucault.</i></div>
+
+<p class='c008'>The phrase “Absentee,” says Dr. Johnson, is
+one “used <em>with regard to Irishmen</em> living out
+of their country;” and as its origin is Irish, so
+its use and application are strictly confined to
+the history of that unfortunate people. The
+inference to be drawn from this fact is plain:
+that there is something in the circumstances of
+the Irish, peculiar to themselves,—something
+which forces upon them a line of conduct contrary
+to the ordinary instincts of humanity, and
+compels them to fly from that land which all
+other nations regard with more or less of favour
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>and affection,—from that land which youth
+quits with regret, and to which age clings with
+passion, when all other passions fade,—the land
+of their nativity.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In every history of Irish grievances, this
+cabalistical term “absentee” appears in the
+front of the array, and, like the terrible
+“<span lang="fr"><i>Il Bondocani</i></span>” of the Calif of Bagdat, strikes
+down all before it,—the apology for every abuse,
+the obstacle to every plan of amelioration, the
+bugbear of the timid, the stalking-horse of the
+designing.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Absenteeism,” observes the Secretary for
+the Home Department, “is an operative cause
+of tumult, but it is without a remedy;” and
+thus dismissing all ministerial responsibility
+with a laconic aphorism, he launches an integral
+portion of the empire committed to his
+management, to revolve for ever in the turbulent
+whirlpool of a vicious circle of cause and
+effect. Tumult expels the rich landholders, the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>absence of the rich landholders perpetuates
+tumult: this is a law of nature, which admits
+of “no remedy;” and the executive have
+nothing to do but to procure the passing of
+penal statutes according to the necessities of
+the moment, and to find the means of extorting
+four millions a year from English industry, to
+pay the expense of Irish misrule.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In political philosophy there are no evils
+without a remedy, save those which arise out
+of the common condition of humanity;—and
+the minister who confesses a political evil which
+he cannot remove, should remove himself: for
+he is himself the greatest evil with which the
+people have to contend. Sully, who administered
+the affairs of France under the most adverse
+circumstances, when it was still harassed
+with civil contentions and torn with religious
+factions, saw no political impossibilities, though
+many political difficulties, with which he courageously
+and successfully grappled: but, alas!
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>the Secretary for the Home Department is not
+Sully.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>To what physiological peculiarity of constitution
+this irremediable tendency to wander,
+inherited from their progenitors by the restless
+sons of the great Milesius, is to be attributed,
+the learned Secretary has not informed us; and
+it is certain that Spurzheim, on his visit to the
+Irish capital, discovered no migratory inequality
+upon the surface of the Irish cranium, to account
+for the disposition. But in whatever particular
+of temperament or exuberance of cerebral developement
+the cause of this “effect defective” lies
+latent, it is matter of historic fact, that though
+the ancient Irish were restless enough at home,
+(“never,” says Campion, “wanting drift to
+drive a tumult,”) yet this activity, which induced
+them “to pick a quarrel, fall in love, or
+any other diverting accident of that kind,”
+never found vent in absenteeism. Where, indeed,
+could Irishmen go to better their condition,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>when all in Ireland, who were not saints,
+were kings; and many were both, while none
+were martyrs.<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c020'><sup>[1]</sup></a> “<span lang="fr"><i>Il est certain negoce</i></span>,” says
+the French proverb, “<span lang="fr"><i>où l’on perd beaucoup en
+quittant boutique</i></span>;” and this proverb, at all
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>times applicable to Irish absentees, was particularly
+so in that golden age, so often referred
+to by antiquaries, when Ireland, “lying aloof
+in the Western Ocean, was a nest of kingdoms,”
+when superb and wealthy monasteries and royal
+palaces occupied every foot of the territory, and
+when swallows built their nests in old men’s
+beards for want of worse habitations. In those
+true church and state times of Ireland’s prosperity,
+of which the Orangeman’s Utopia is but
+a type, it is little wonderful that the people gave
+into no wanderings, but those “<span lang="fr"><i>du cœur et de
+l’esprit</i></span>;” and that a pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s
+purgatory, a royal progress of some Toparck of
+the South to a Dynast in the North, or a morning
+visit from King Mac Turtell to his close
+neighbour King Gillemohalmoghe,<a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c020'><sup>[2]</sup></a> (which occasionally
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>ended in the broken heads of both
+parties,) should include <a id='tn-thousandyears'></a>the recorded absenteeism
+of two thousand years.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was reserved, however, for one of these
+royal heroes first to commit the patricidal crime:
+and the first Irish absentee of note, though a
+great king, was but a <span lang="fr"><i>mauvais sujet</i></span>, having
+pillaged his people, wasted his revenue, ran
+away with his neighbour’s wife, and sold his
+country for a mess of pottage. It is almost
+unnecessary to add that this royal founder of
+absenteeism is condemned to the contempt of
+posterity by the title of Dermot Mac Murrogh
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>O’Kavenagh, King of Leinster; and that the
+result of his absenteeship was the successful
+invasion of Ireland by Henry II. the crusading
+grants of Pope Adrian IV. and, above all, the
+fearful forfeitures followed by rebellion on one
+part, and on the other by an effort at extermination,
+which have multiplied from age to age
+those possessors and deserters of the soil, who
+have drawn over “the profits raised out of Ireland,
+and refunded nothing.”<a id='r3'></a><a href='#f3' class='c020'><sup>[3]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>It appears very probable that one of the
+motives by which the lords of Ireland (as the
+English kings were long styled) were actuated
+in giving such large tracts of land to great
+English proprietors, was to get rid of the troublesome
+and rebellious Barons, by tempting
+them to reside in that “most beautiful and
+sweet country as any is under heaven,” where
+so much was given up to their power and pillage,
+and where the services demanded in return,
+“the raising of forts and castles and
+fencing themselves with garrisons, as captains,
+keepers, and constables,” might forward the
+royal interests by protecting its power against
+the inroads of the natives. “For, except
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>Leinster,” says Campion, “all other parts retayned
+still their ancient kind of government,
+and were always ready to start at every corner,
+<em>ag and rag</em>, to expell the English.” But the
+framers of Magna Charta, the guardians of all
+that was then known of liberty in England,
+were not by the bribe of principalities to be kept
+from the great scene of action; and some of the
+most considerable, having accepted, or seized
+upon the fairest portions of the land, made
+them over to sons-in-law or other kinsmen; and
+having thus, by the scratch of their rude pen,<a id='r4'></a><a href='#f4' class='c020'><sup>[4]</sup></a>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>conveyed to others the fee simple of an Irish
+province, hastened back to England to dispute
+the power of the barbarous despots, who reigned
+by their sufferance, or were deposed by their
+caprice.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In process of time, the mischief of this
+species of transfer was not only felt as an additional
+grievance by the Irish, but as an annoyance
+by the English sovereign.<a id='r5'></a><a href='#f5' class='c020'><sup>[5]</sup></a> The injury
+done to their power by the absence of those
+whom they had deputed to watch over it, at a
+time when that power was held by a precarious
+tenure, was deemed so great, that a law against
+absentees was passed so early as the time of
+Richard II. The divisions of the houses of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>York and Lancaster, however, abrogated all
+laws; “at which time,” says Spenser, “all
+English lords and gentlemen which had great
+possessions in Ireland, repaired over hither
+into England, some to succour their friends
+here, and to strengthen their partie, others
+for to defend their lands and possessions here
+against such as hovered after the same, upon
+hope of the alteration of the kingdom, and
+success of that side which they favoured and
+affected.”<a id='r6'></a><a href='#f6' class='c020'><sup>[6]</sup></a> The result of this absenteeism of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>the great landholders of Ireland was natural
+and inevitable. “The Irish, whom before they
+had banished into the mountains, where they
+lived only upon white meates,<a id='r7'></a><a href='#f7' class='c020'><sup>[7]</sup></a> as it is recorded,
+seeing now their lands so dispeopled and weakened,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>came down into all the plains adjoining,
+and thence expelling those few English that
+remayned, re-possessed them again.” But
+these re-possessions were only temporary. New
+conquests and new forfeitures ensued. New
+possessors, unaffected to the soil, and disdainful
+of its children, afforded fresh causes of absenteeism,
+which, in whatever way it operated,
+was injurious to the country; till at length the
+forfeiture of Leix and Offaly (the King and
+Queen’s Counties) under Edward VI. threw the
+whole of those spacious and fertile districts
+into the hands of new proprietors; who having
+established themselves by “fire and sword,”
+transferred the ownership “to <em>foreigners by
+connexion, and resided themselves in England</em>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But if the first barbarous English legislators
+for Ireland (and when has the epithet been inapplicable?)
+were, at an early period of their
+unfixed power, sensible of the injury which
+the state and the country suffered from absenteeism—if
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>the Plantagenets took cognizance of
+the evil, and endeavoured to provide against it
+by statute, the Tudors (those sanguinary but
+sagacious despots) considered the absence of
+the Irish from their homes and country as
+a state engine; and wielded it with a policy
+which always advanced their own interests, and
+confirmed their power over that unhappy land.
+Sometimes they allured the Irish nobility to
+their splendid court for the purpose of dazzling
+their imagination, and corrupting their patriotism.
+Sometimes, on shallow pretexts, they
+cited them as accused or criminals, to awe
+them by their array of power, or to intimidate
+them by their display of cruelty. Yet, frequently
+forced to feel that the prosperity of the
+country and the English interests were both
+best served by the permanent residence of the
+gentry of the pale, they did not the less frame
+laws which made it penal for the proprietors of
+the soil to spend its profits elsewhere than at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>home.<a id='r8'></a><a href='#f8' class='c020'><sup>[8]</sup></a> The love which the Irish had borne
+to the house of York, had rendered it a point
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>of courteous policy to appoint the second sons
+of the king to the Lieutenancy of Ireland, with
+a deputy for the execution of the high office:
+and Henry VIII. as Duke of York, while yet
+a boy, and during the life-time of his elder
+brother, began his career of power under this
+character, conjointly with his deputy, Gerald
+Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, “a mighty made
+man,” says his chronicler, “full of honour
+and courage.” (1501) This grand conservator
+of the peace, however, had the old Irish
+fashion of being occasionally disposed to break
+it; and his fierce feuds with the Butlers, Earls
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>of Ormond, (“nothing inferior to Kildare in
+stomache, and in reach of policy farre beyond
+him,”) were the causes “of much ruffle and
+unquietness to the realm.” These served his
+enemies for a pretext to draw down upon him
+the displeasure of the English government, and
+finally induced Henry VII. to summon the old
+deputy over to the English court, and to seek
+to break down that haughty and turbulent
+spirit in a region rarely favourable to powerful
+energies and independence of mind. A <span lang="fr">bon-mot</span>
+saved the earl from the danger which
+awaited him, and limited his absenteeism to
+a few months residence in the court of Henry,
+from which he returned to Ireland more powerful
+than he left it.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Gerald Fitzgerald, son of the aforesaid earl,
+“a gentleman valiant and well spoken,” succeeded
+his father in all his dignities; but
+though appointed lord deputy of Ireland, his
+influence, power, and spirit, soon awakened the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>jealousy of Henry VIII. Being “overtaken
+with vehement suspicion of sundry treasons, it
+was deemed politic to draw him away from
+Ireland; and, by secret <em>heavers</em> and enviers of
+his fortunes, nourishers of the old grudge, the
+king was urged to call upon him to attend the
+English court.” The illustrious but involuntary
+absentee, was, on his first arrival in England,
+treated with a severity vainly intended to intimidate
+a spirit which was afterwards to be
+subdued by other and more seducing means.
+Among many frivolous charges, “<em>he was opposed
+with divers interrogatories touching the
+Earl of Desmond, his cousin, a notorious traytor</em>.”
+His trial, however, was but a mockery,
+and as the object was to sink the popular chief
+of a nation into a pliant courtier, to bind him
+more firmly to the English interests, and to
+weaken his feelings of patriotism, the union of
+the turbulent Gerald was proposed with the
+<a id='tn-elizabethgrey'></a>Lady Elizabeth Grey, the king’s own kinswoman
+and daughter of the Duke of Suffolk.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>This marriage, celebrated with royal splendour,
+with all the festivities of a boisterous but
+splendid court, was deemed a preliminary step
+to permanent subjection, and to frequent and
+long visits to the English court.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Scarcely, however, had Kildare returned home,
+and resumed the deputyship of Ireland, when
+the domestic tumults of the great lords of
+the pale involved him in new accusations
+on the part of the crown, “intimations of
+new treasons passing to and fro, with complaynts
+and replyes;” and as Cardinal Wolsey “<em>did
+hate the Kildare bloud</em>,” and had resolved on
+breaking down their power, the earl was again
+called from his stronghold in Ireland, and
+accused of having “wilfully winked at the Earl
+of Desmond (whose large possessions were his
+crimes in the eye of the minister), and with
+<a id='tn-mereirish'></a>having curried acquaintance and friendship with
+mere Irish.” While lying under the imputation
+of a crime, always heinous in the Irish,—natural
+affection to the land and its suffering
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>children,—the brave Kildare (like an eagle
+taken from its eirie in the mountain-cliffs of its
+native region, and chained to the earth in a
+golden cage) was suffered to loiter away his
+existence, in listless indolence and life-wearing
+anxiety, in the purlieus of a court that resembled
+the seraglio of an Asiatic satrap, alternately
+favoured and persecuted, as the caprice
+of the sovereign or the aversion of the minister
+ruled the hour. It was at this period, when his
+mind was borne down by his humiliating position,
+that he was prevailed on to consent to his
+daughter the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald’s permanent
+residence at court; and it was by this
+concession that the loveliest of all Irish absentees,
+“<em>the more than celestial Geraldine</em>,” has
+become an object of interest and admiration to
+posterity, as the poetical idol of the gallant and
+unfortunate Surrey.<a id='r9'></a><a href='#f9' class='c020'><sup>[9]</sup></a>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Although educated at the rural palace of
+Hunsdon with her kinswomen the Princesses
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>Mary and Elizabeth, and though afterwards
+maid of honour to the Queen, it is probable that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>this lady was rather an hostage than a guest,
+and was detained more by force than by inclination:—as
+the sequel of her story goes to
+prove. “All this while,” says Campion,
+“abode the Earl of Kildare at the court, and
+with much ado found shifte to be called before
+the Lords to answer solemnly.” When, at last,
+every excuse for delay was exhausted, and every
+hope of subduing his invincible spirit faded,
+he was “called before the lords to answer solemnly,”
+who “sat upon him diversly affectioned;
+and especially the Cardinal Lord Chancellor
+(Wolsey) who disliked his cause, comforted his
+accusers, and enforced the articles objected.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The whole scene of this mock trial is so
+graphic, and the speeches of the Cardinal
+and of the Irish Lord Deputy so curious and
+descriptive of the state and manners of the time,
+that the introduction may be pardoned of an
+episode which goes to prove, by a striking instance,
+that Irish absenteeism under any form,
+voluntarily or involuntary, graced by royal
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>favour, or marked by ministerial persecution,
+is derogatory to the dignity, and injurious to
+the interests of the Irish nobility. The Earl of
+Kildare, alone, unfriended, without the aid of
+counsel to plead, or witness to depose in his
+behalf, appeared in the midst of the Lords, every
+one of whom was the slave of the King or the
+parasite of the minister,—“for what,” (says
+Walpole, one of their own caste,)—“what twelve
+tradesmen could be found more servile than
+every court of peers during the whole of this
+reign?”—Wolsey was the first to speak, and he
+began with these words:—“I wot well, my
+Lord, that I am not the meetest man at this
+board to charge you with these treasons, because
+it hath pleased some of your pew-fellows to
+report that I am a professed enemie to all nobilitie,
+and namely to the Geraldines: but seeing
+every curst boy can say as much when he is
+controled, and seeing these points are so
+weightie that they should not be dissembled of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>us, and so apparent that they cannot be denyed
+of you, I must have leave, notwithstanding your
+state slaunder, to be the mouth of these honorable
+persons at this time, and to trumpe your
+reasons in your way, howsoever you take
+me. First, you remember how the lewde
+Earle your kinsman, who passeth not whom
+he serve, might he change his master, sent
+his confederates with letters of credence to
+Frauncis the French king, and, having but cold
+comfort there, to Charles the Emperour, proffering
+the helpe of Mounster and Connaght
+towards the conquest of Ireland, if either of
+them would helpe to win it from our King. How
+many letters? what precepts? what messages?
+what threats have been sent you to apprehend
+him? and yet not done! why so? forsooth, I
+could not catch him: nay, nay, Earle, forsooth
+you would not nightly watch him. If he be
+justly suspected, why are you partiall in so great
+a cause? if not, why are you fearfull to have him
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>tryed? Yea sir, it will be sworn and deposed
+to your face, that for feare of meeting him, you
+have winked, wilfully shunned his sight, altered
+your course, warned his friends, stopped both
+eyes and eares against his detectors, and, when
+soever you tooke upon you to hunt him out,
+then was he sure before hand to bee out of your
+walke: surely this juggling and false play little
+became either an honest man, called to such
+honour, or a nobleman put in such trust. Had
+you lost but a cow or a garron of your owne, two
+hundred Kyrneghes would have come at your
+whistle, to rescue the prey from the uttermost edge
+of Ulster: all the Irish in Ireland must have given
+you the way. But in pursuing so weightie a
+matter as this, mercifull God! how nice, how
+dangerous, how wayward have you bin! One
+while he is from home, sometimes fled, sometimes
+in the borders where you dare not venture:
+I wist, my Lord, there be shrewd Bugges
+in the borders <a id='tn-earltofeare'></a>for the Earl of Kildare to feare.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>The Earle, nay the King of Kildare, for, when
+you are disposed, you reigne more like than rule
+the land:—where you are malicious, the truest
+subjects stand for Irish enemies: where you are
+pleased the Irish enemie stands for a dutifull subject:
+hearts and hands, lives and lands, are all at
+your courtesie: who fawneth not thereon, hee cannot
+rest within your smell, and your smell is so
+ranke <a id='tn-atpleasure'></a>that you tracke them out at pleasure.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Whilst the Cardinal was speaking, the
+Earle chafed and changed colour, and sundry
+proffers made to answer every sentence as it
+came; at last he broke out, and interrupted
+them thus. “My Lord Chancellour, I beseech
+you pardon me; I am short-witted, and you,
+I perceive, intend a long tale. If you proceede
+in this order, halfe my purgation will be lost for
+lacke of carryage: I have no schoole tricks, nor
+art of memory; excepte you heare me while I remember
+your words, your second processe will
+hammer out the former.” The Lords associate,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>who for the most part tenderly loved him, and
+knew the Cardinal’s manner of termes so lothsome,
+as wherewith they were tyred many years
+agoe, humbly besought his Grace to charge him
+directly with particulars and to dwell in some
+one matter till it were examined through. That
+granted, “It is good reason (quoth the Earle)
+that your Grace beare the mouth of this chamber.
+But, my Lord, those mouthes that put
+this tale into your mouth, are very wide mouths,
+such indeed as have gaped long for my wreck,
+and now at length, for want of better stuff, are
+fain to fill their mouths with smoak. What my
+cousin Desmond hath compassed, as I know
+not, so I beshrew his naked heart for holding
+out so long. If hee can bee taken by my agents
+that presently wayte for him, then have my
+adversaryes betrayed their malice, and this
+heape of haynous wordes shall resemble a man
+of strawe, that seemeth at a blush to carry some
+proportion, but when it is felt and poysed, discovereth
+a vanity, serving only to fraye crowes;
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>and I trust your honours will see the proofe
+hereof and mine innocencie testified in this behalfe
+by the thing itselfe within these few dayes.
+But goe to, suppose hee never bee had, what
+is Kildare to blame for it, more than my good
+brother of Ossory? notwithstanding his high
+promises, having also the king’s power, he is
+glad to take egges for his money, and bring him
+in at leysure. Cannot the Earle of Desmond
+shift, but I must bee of counsell? cannot hee
+bee hid, except I winke? If hee bee close, am
+I his mate? If hee bee friended, am I a traitour?
+This is a doughty kinde of accusation, which
+they urge against mee, wherein they are stabled
+and myred at my first denyall. You would not
+see him, say they; who made them so familiar
+with mine eye sight? or when was the Earle
+within my <span lang="la"><i>Equinas</i></span>? or who stood by when I
+let him slip? or where are the tokens of my
+willfull hood-winking? Oh, but you sent him
+word to beware of you: who was the messenger?
+where are the letters? convince my negative.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>See how loosely this idle reason hangeth:
+Desmond is not taken, well, we are in fault:
+why? because you are. Who proves it? nobody.
+What conjectures? so it seemeth.
+To whom? to your enemies. Who told
+it them? What other grounds? none. Will
+they sweare it? they will sweare it. My
+Lords, then belike they know it: if they know
+it, either they have my hand to show, or can
+bring forth the messenger, or were present at a
+conference, or privy to Desmond, or somebody
+betrayed it to them, or themselves were my carryers
+or vice-gerents therein. Which of these
+parts will they choose? I know them too well to
+reckon myself convict by their bare wordes, or
+headlesse hearsayes, or frantick oathes: my
+letters were soone read, were any such writing
+extant; my servaunts and friends are ready to
+bee sifted. Of my cousin Desmond they may
+lye lewdly, since no man can heere will tell the
+contrary. Touching my selfe, I never noted in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>them either so much wit, or so much faith, that
+I could have gaged upon their silence the life of
+a good hound, much lesse mine owne. I doubt
+not, may it please your honours to oppose them,
+how they came to knowledge of these matters
+which they are so ready to depose, but you shall
+finde their tongues chayned to another man’s
+trencher, and as it were knights of the post,
+suborned to say, sweare, and stare the uttermost
+they can, as those that passe not what they say,
+nor with what face they say it, so they say no
+truths. But of another thing, it grieveth me
+that your good grace, whom I take to be wise
+and sharpe, and who of your own blessed disposition
+wish me well, should be so farre gone
+in crediting those corrupt informers, that abuse
+the ignorance of their state and country to my
+perill. Little know you, my lord, how necessary
+it is, not onely for the governour, but also for
+every nobleman in Ireland, to hamper his vincible
+neighbours at discretion, wherein, if they
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>wayted for processe of law, and had not these
+lives and lands you speake of within their reach,
+they might pass to loose their own lives and lands
+without law. You heare of a case, as it were
+in a dreame, and feell not the smart that vexeth
+us. In England there is not a meane subject
+that dare extend this hand to fillip a peere of
+the realme;—in Ireland, except the lord have
+cunning to his strength, and strength to save his
+owne, and sufficient authoritie to racke thieves
+and varletts when they stirre, hee shall finde
+them swarme so fast that it will bee too late to call
+for justice. If you will have our service take
+effect, you must not tye us always to the judicial
+proceedings, wherewith your realme, thank-bee
+God, is inured. As touching my kingdome,
+my Lord, I would you and I had exchanged
+kingdomes but for one moneth, I would trust to
+gather up more crummes in that space, than
+twice the revenues of my poore earledome;—but
+you are well and warme, and so hold you,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>and upbraide not me with such an odious
+storme. I sleepe on a dablin, when you lye
+soft in your bed of downe; I serve under the
+cope of heaven, when you are served under a
+canopy; I drinke water out of a skull, when you
+drinke out of golden cuppes; my courser is
+trained to the field, when your jennet is taught
+to amble; when you are begraced, and belorded,
+and crowched and kneeled unto, then I
+finde small grace with our Irish borderers,
+except I cut them off by the knees.” At these
+girds the councell would have smiled if they
+durst; but each man bitt his lippe, and held his
+countenance. The Cardinall perceived that Kildare
+was no cake, and rose in a fume from the
+councell-table, committed the Earle, and deferred
+the matter till more direct probations came
+out of Ireland.—It is unnecessary to add, that
+these “<em>probations</em>” were readily procured.
+“For of this treason,” continues the quaint
+chronicler, “he (Kildare) was found guilty,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>and imprisoned in the Tower a long time. The
+gentleman betook himself to God and the King,
+was heartily loved of the lieutenant, pittied in all
+the court, and standing in so hard case, altered little
+his accustomed hue, comforted other noblemen
+prisoners with him dissembling his own sorrow.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><a id='tn-onenight'></a>“One night, when the lieutenant and he,
+for disport, were playing at <em>slide-groat</em>, suddenly
+commeth from the Cardinall a mandat
+to execute Kildare on the <em>morrow</em>. The Earl
+marking the Lieutenant’s deep sigh on reading
+the bill, <a id='tn-santbride'></a>‘By Sant Bride,’ quoth he, ‘there is
+some mad game in that scralle, but, fall how it
+will, this throw is for a huddle.’ When the
+worst was told him: ‘Now I pray thee,’ quoth
+he, ‘doe no more but learn assuredly from the
+King’s owne mouthe whether his Grace be witting
+thereto or not.’ Sore doubted the Lieutenant
+to displease the Cardinall; yet of very pure
+devotion to his friend, he posteth to the King
+at midnight, and said his errand (for all houres
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>of the day or night, the lieutenant hath accesse
+to the prince upon occasions.) King Henry,
+controwling the sawcyness of the priest—those
+were his tearmes—gave him his signet in token
+of countermand; which, when the Cardinall had
+seene, he began to breake into unseasonable
+words with the lieutenant, which he was loath
+to heare, and so he left him fretting. Thus
+broke up the storme for a time, and the next
+yeare Wolsey was cast out of favour; and
+within few yeares Sir William Skevington was
+sent over deputy, who brought with him
+the Earle pardoned, and rid from all his
+troubles.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But this “riddance” was only of short duration.
+New causes of complaint, and new reasons,
+were soon found or invented for once more drawing
+the Earl from the strong hold of his interest
+and power—his native country: and he was
+again “commanded by sharp letters to repair to
+England.” His arrival there was followed by
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>a report of his execution,<a id='r10'></a><a href='#f10' class='c020'><sup>[10]</sup></a> which soon reached
+his family in Ireland. His son, whom he had
+left Lord Justice in his place, the gallant but
+impetuous Lord Thomas, on hearing of this
+supposed act of treachery against his father,
+threw down the sword of office, and flew into
+open rebellion, followed by his five uncles the
+Lords Fitzgerald. The insurrection was soon
+quelled; and the unfortunate Geraldines having
+surrendered, set out for England on the parole
+of the Lord Marshal Dorset, where, shortly
+after their arrival, they were all executed in one
+day. The death of the old Earl himself in the
+Tower, where he is said to have died “for
+thought and paine,” ends the tragic story of
+the enforced absenteeism of the Geraldines.<a id='r11'></a><a href='#f11' class='c020'><sup>[11]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>This murder of the Lady Geraldine’s uncles,
+father, brother, and that of her unfortunate and
+highly endowed lover, (“who,” says Lodge,
+“reflected splendour even on the name of Howard,”
+and who was put to death by Henry
+VIII. for quartering the arms of Edward the
+Confessor,) must have rendered the English
+Court a dreary residence to her. Still, however,
+she remained there, most probably under the influence
+of the same major force which first drew
+her from her domestic home. But while Henry
+thus continued to retain the most beautiful
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>woman of Ireland near his person, he began to
+see, as it appears, the policy of keeping the
+men at home; and he passed his famous bill
+against “<span lang="la"><i>absencie</i></span>,” the preamble of which is
+curious, as portraying the evils against which it
+was framed—at least that portion of the evils
+by which the English government, for a long
+series of years, was alone touched. Like a good
+many more modern acts, be it remarked <span lang="fr"><i>en
+passant</i></span>, it commences by the formal averment
+of a self-evident falsehood: “That, for as much
+as it was notorious and manifest, that this land
+of Ireland being heretofore inhabited and <em>in
+obedience</em> to the said king’s most noble progenitors,
+who in those days in the righte of the
+Crown of England had great possessions, rentes,
+and profits, within the same land,” &#38;c. It
+then goes on to state “the ruine, rebellion, and
+decay,” which ensued by the absence of the
+great landholders: who, “after abiding within
+the said land, nobly and valiantly defended the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>same against all the king’s enemies, and also
+<em>kept the same in such tranquillity and good order</em>,
+as the King of England had due obedience of
+the inhabitance there, the laws obeyed, and the
+revenues and regalitie were duely answered;”
+but that afterwards “they and their heires
+absented themselves out of the said land of
+Ireland, <em>denjorning</em> within the realm of England,
+not pondering, ne regarding the preservation
+thereof,—the townes, castels, and garrisons appertaining
+to them fell in ruin and decay, and
+the English inhabitants therein, in default of
+defence and <em>justice</em>, and by compulsion of those
+of the Irish, were exiled, whereby the king’s
+said progenitors lost as well their said dominion
+and subjection there, as also their revenues and
+profites; and their said enemies by redopting or
+retaining the said lands, dominions, and possessions,
+were elevated into great pride,” &#38;c. &#38;c.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Hitherto, with a few exceptions, <span lang="la"><i>absencie</i></span>, as
+touching a residence in England, had been confined
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>to the great Irish lords of the pale, who,
+although of English descent, and bearing Norman
+names, had in the course of successive generations
+run through all those shades of naturalization,
+which left them in manners, habits,
+and affections, but little distinguishable from the
+aboriginal Irishman, who proudly traced his
+origin to the Lady Scota, the daughter or
+grand-daughter of King Pharaoh.<a id='r12'></a><a href='#f12' class='c020'><sup>[12]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But it was reserved for the reign of the Virgin
+Queen to drive the genuine nobility of Ireland from
+their native land at any loss or risk into distant
+regions<a id='r13'></a><a href='#f13' class='c020'><sup>[13]</sup></a> and unknown countries, or to allure
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>them to her own formal and fantastic court, by
+a show of feminine sympathy; which, though
+in direct contradiction to her whole policy and
+conduct, was well calculated to win the unwary,
+and to soothe the unfortunate.<a id='r14'></a><a href='#f14' class='c020'><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>The Queen, in her quality both of woman
+and sovereign, was fond of making speeches;
+and she probably found it prettier to be pathetic
+than just, as she certainly found it easier to
+chide than to call in the pack of bloodhounds
+she had let loose upon the devoted country of
+her delegated sway. While the Fitzwilliams,
+the Binghams, the Drurys, the Bagnals, and
+others of her Irish ministers, were carrying
+destruction through the land by “fire, sword,
+and pestilence,”<a id='r15'></a><a href='#f15' class='c020'><sup>[15]</sup></a> the fair and royal rhetorician
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>was exclaiming in her closet against their conduct,
+by classical allusions to parallel facts,
+which showed at once her learning and her
+sympathy. “I fear,” she said, apostrophizing
+her ministers in Ireland, “that the same reproach
+will be made to me as was formerly
+made by Bato to Tiberius. It is you who are
+to blame for these things, who have committed
+your flocks not to shepherds but to wolves.”
+The Irish, “who love learning to a fault,” says
+Spenser, (and women too, God forgive them,)
+were bewitched by similar declarations of pity,
+breathed in the language of the learned from
+the lips of the royal and the fair. The
+O’Rourkes, the O’Neils, the O’Connors, forgot
+the wiles and the treachery of which their
+fathers had been the dupes or the victims; and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>each in his turn expiated his credulity in its
+fatal results.<a id='r16'></a><a href='#f16' class='c020'><sup>[16]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The English were accustomed to the presence
+of the Geraldines, the Butlers, the De Courceys,
+De Burgos, and other great Anglo-Irish lords of
+the pale, who, though by <a id='tn-gossipry'></a>“gossipry and alliance”
+they occasionally fell into Irish habits,
+and sported a glib or a mantle at home, were
+still sure to resume the English costume when
+at the English court. But the true aboriginal
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>Irish gentlemen, the brave O’s and Macs, who,
+driven to their woods and morasses with no other
+weapon of defence than their skein, their hatchet,
+or their pike, had for centuries resisted the well-armed
+force of England,—they were creatures
+of almost fabulous interest and existence; and
+the “anthropophagi and men whose heads do
+grow beneath their shoulders,” were not more
+monstrous to English apprehensions than the
+“flying Irish,” whose wings were supposed to
+grow beneath their heads. To the higher castes,
+however, they were known by the reputation of
+their prowess and their comeliness; and were
+noted by some of the poets of the day, alike for
+their invincible spirits and their lofty stature.<a id='r17'></a><a href='#f17' class='c020'><sup>[17]</sup></a>
+This romantic interest thrown round a race at
+once so brave and so unfortunate, so wild, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>yet so gallant in their bearing, might not have
+been without its effect in influencing the
+policy of the coquettish queen, and drawing
+to her court those (as yet unseen) Thanists, the
+known admirers of her sex and contemners of
+her power.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The restlessness of suffering, the enterprise
+of romantic valour, the partiality of the House
+of Tudor to the O’Neil’s, and other inducements
+which Elizabeth herself held out, determined
+the famous Shane O’Neil (by the prescriptive
+right of ages Thanist of his powerful
+sept, and by the patent of Henry VIII. to his
+father, Earl of Tyrone) to visit the court of
+England in the most perilous moment of his
+life. The sudden appearance of the representative
+of the ancient kings of Ulster in the ante-chambers
+of Whitehall excited a sensation in
+which the “lion-ported queen” is said to have
+deeply and obviously participated. He burst
+upon the guarded presence of her, whose acts
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>against his religion and his rights “resembled
+the bloody mandates of a Turkish divan rather
+than the mild ordinance of a Christian queen,”
+in all the fearless hardihood of one who “bore
+a charmed life,” fresh from the lines of revolt,
+with the excitement of the fierce contest between
+the oppressor and the oppressed fluttering
+at his bold heart and fevering his manly
+brow. He is described as entering the presence-chamber
+at the head of a rude but imposing
+train, composed of his guard of honour,
+the Irish gallowglasses, who,—armed with battle-axes,
+their heads bare, their long hair flowing
+in locks on their broad shoulders, their yellow
+surplices with open sleeves trailing to the earth
+and surmounted by a military harness—formed
+a strange contrast to the groupings and <span lang="fr"><i>tournure</i></span>
+of the ribboned and tagged chivalry through
+which they passed. Even the “Londoners,”
+says Spenser, “marvelled at this strange sight.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>O’Neil had come to plead his own cause at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>one of the court historians, “received him with
+an affectation of tenderness; and after he had
+resided some time at court, the flattery of his
+address, which appeared artless and unstudied,
+and the speciousness of his allegations, so
+wrought upon her, that, at his departure, she
+dismissed him with favour and presents.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This absenteeism of O’Neil, though favourable
+to his pride, and flattering to his vanity while
+abroad, was injurious to his interests at home.
+His base-born brother, Matthew, availing himself
+of his absence, had usurped his rights, and
+assumed the chieftainship of his sept. The
+question was debated (as if it were debateable)
+by the Irish government, who, in defiance of
+all law, “ruled the point in favour of the
+bastard; practising (says Parnell<a id='r18'></a><a href='#f18' class='c020'><sup>[18]</sup></a>) a policy
+that has governed them (the English) to the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>latest times in India, where it has been the
+custom to raise to the throne, in violation of
+the customary mode of succession, a person
+who depended for his station on their power, who
+was strictly a dependent, and <em>who might be set
+aside whenever a favourable opportunity occurred</em>.”
+The <span lang="la"><i>Sic jubeo</i></span> of the Virgin Queen
+was, of course, decisive. The bastard was
+declared the lawful heir; and the consequence
+was a rebellion on the part of Shane. In this
+rebellion the chieftain was unfortunate, and the
+whole possessions, both of Shane and Matthew,
+were confiscated. “In order,” says Parnell,
+“to divert Shane, the territory was reputed
+Matthew’s; and in order to get rid of Matthew’s
+claim, the territory was confiscated as Shane’s.”<a id='r19'></a><a href='#f19' class='c020'><sup>[19]</sup></a>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>Meanwhile, however, the Queen had won
+golden opinions in Ireland for her reception of
+the most popular of Irish chiefs. The gates of
+absenteeism were now thrown most seducingly
+open. The track was already beaten down
+which led from the desolated banks of the
+Shannon to the pavilioned shores of the Thames.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>Men, whose national failing was a sanguine
+credulity not untouched with personal vanity,
+whose infirmity of temperament was a reckless
+impetuosity, and whose weariness of suffering
+caught at every change as a relief, now first
+began to find new hopes for their country and
+themselves springing up in the “primrose
+path of dalliance” which conducted them to the
+British court, and placed them in personal contact
+with a woman and a queen—with one who,
+unlike her savage delegates in Ireland, received
+them “with tenderness, and dismissed them
+with favour.” The baubles given by a royal
+hand, and displayed at Shane’s Castle, were
+pledges to the followers of O’Neil that the heart
+of the Queen was of another policy from the
+counsels of her ministers. This characteristic
+credulity is not even yet abated by experience.
+A flattering reception of the Roman Catholic
+bishops, and a ribbon bestowed on a Roman
+Catholic peer, led the sanguine Irish to draw a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>similar conclusion respecting the politics of
+George IV. A mandate, therefore got up in
+the form of a slight accusation, but considered
+by the accused as an invitation, brought the
+O’Rourke chief or prince of Brefny promptly
+and inconsiderately to the feet of the fair sovereign
+who had issued it.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This gallant Irishman, as renowned for his
+personal beauty as for his turbulence, had long
+been a favourite theme of complaint in the despatches
+of the Irish deputies. Even his personal
+influence, and the splendid endowments
+out of which it arose, were brought as damning
+proofs against him. These also may have
+induced the Queen to judge for herself; for the
+handsome absentee was received like O’Neil
+with a show of tenderness, though not, alas!
+like him, “dismissed with favour.” While
+history has briefly thrown off the facts of his
+summons, to court his detention, and his unexpected
+execution, tradition has woven his
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>story in the many-coloured web of her own
+romantic loom; and though the catastrophe
+of the tale, which still circulates in the neighbourhood
+of his ruined castle, attests the
+ignorance or the love of the marvellous of those
+who invented and circulated it; still there is
+a dovetailing of the old Irish <span lang="ga"><i>Shanaos</i></span> with
+historic record, which shows that <span lang="fr"><i>si cela n’étoit
+pas vrai, c’étoit bien vraisemblable</i></span>.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“A wild story concerning O’Rourke,” says
+the author of the History of the Irish Bards,
+“wanders about the County of Leitrim. O’Rourke
+was a powerful and turbulent chieftain of this
+country in the reign of Elizabeth. The Queen
+invited him to London, making him, at the
+same time, warm professions of honours and
+service, though she only intended, by this invitation,
+to lead him into a kind of exile, in
+order to secure his obedience. The ingenuous
+O’Rourke, duped by the Queen’s arts, promised
+to comply. Before his departure, he
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>assembled his vassals and neighbours in the
+great hall of his castle, and entertained them
+with all the splendour of the times.<a id='r20'></a><a href='#f20' class='c020'><sup>[20]</sup></a> This
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>is the feast so humorously described by Mac
+Gauran.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“On O’Rourke’s arrival at Whitehall, the
+Queen was ready to receive him. The elegant
+symmetry of his person, and his noble
+aspect, struck her Majesty, and she secretly
+determined to rank him with her choicest
+favourites. A sumptuous apartment was allotted
+him in the palace, and a train of domestics
+were ordered to attend him. One
+night, a female tapped at his door, and was
+readily admitted; but she retired before the
+morning broke. The lady continued her visits
+for several nights, always retiring about the
+same hour. O’Rourke’s curiosity was awakened
+and he often urged her, but in vain, to disclose
+her name. At length he discovered,
+by the light of the moon, a ring on one of her
+fingers, which he observed with strict care,
+in the hope that it would lead to a discovery.
+Next day espying the identical ring on her
+Majesty’s finger, he unfortunately insinuated
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>to her that he had discovered his fair visitor.
+The following night an assassin was employed
+to punish him for his idle curiosity.” The
+public execution of O’Rourke is however on
+historical record.<a id='r21'></a><a href='#f21' class='c020'><sup>[21]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The fate of O’Neil, O’Rourke, and of O’Connor,
+who, to his own eternal disgrace,<a id='r22'></a><a href='#f22' class='c020'><sup>[22]</sup></a> had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>been lured over to the English court, was not
+calculated to encourage others, or to bring absenteeship
+into fashion. Even those, who
+from long sufferings, harassed spirits, and subdued
+energies, were desirous of peace and forgiveness
+at the expense of independence, were
+still afraid, from experienced treachery, “to
+come in,” as the phrase was; and were unwilling
+to absent themselves from the fearful
+security of their woods and mountains, to
+which they were romantically attached.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Lord Deputy Mountjoy, in a curious letter
+to the English council, observes that “all the
+Irish that are now obstinate, are so only out of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>their diffidence to be safe in forgiveness. They
+have the ancient swelling of liberty of their
+countrymen to work on, and they fear to be
+rooted out, and have their old faults punished
+upon particular discontents.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The plunder of Shane O’Neil, who, attainted,
+and driven beyond the pale of law and of humanity,
+died a miserable death, did not satisfy
+those who had benefited by his ruin. There
+was something too terrible to be endured in the
+name of these fierce toparchs of the North, who
+were still crowned in their stone chair, “with
+heaven for their canopy and earth for their
+footstool;” and when the young and gallant
+Hugh O’Neil, the last of his race, worthy of
+their illustrious descent, started up to claim
+his inheritance, his death or his absenteeship
+(a political decease) were the alternatives proposed
+to themselves by those who had so largely
+profited by the confiscation of the immense
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>property of his family. “In an Irish parliament,”
+says Morrison, “O’Neil put up his petition,
+that by virtue of letters patent granted
+to his grandfather, his father, and their heirs,
+he might there (in parliament) have the place
+of Earl of Tyrone, and be admitted to his inheritance.
+The title and place were granted him:”
+but the inheritance was “reserved for the
+Queen’s pleasure;” for the obtaining whereof,
+Sir John Perrot, (Lord Deputy,) upon O’Neil’s
+promise of a great rent to be reserved to the
+crown, gave him letters of recommendation into
+England. There he well knew how to humour
+the court; for in the year 1587 he got the queen’s
+letters patent for the earldom of Tyrone without
+any reservation of the rent he had promised.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Whatever was O’Neil’s secret for “humouring
+the court,” great efforts were made to fix
+him there as a permanent absentee; and the
+queen (who at the same time had the young
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>and unfortunate Earl of Desmond shut up in
+the Tower<a id='r23'></a><a href='#f23' class='c020'><sup>[23]</sup></a>) gave O’Neil a troop of horse, a pension
+of a thousand marks, and such proofs of
+her personal favour, as might have subdued a
+less energetic mind, and abated a less deep-seated
+feeling of patriotism and independence.
+But the young Irish Hercules soon became weary
+of the court of his middle-aged Omphale. He
+sought “<em>to do her Majesty service</em>” in Ireland
+by his influence over his countrymen, rather
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>than to submit to the bondage which he foresaw
+awaited his protracted residence in England.
+“He lived,” says Morrison, “sometimes
+in Ireland and much at the court of
+England:” yet by degrees he abandoned the
+English court altogether; and, resuming his
+natural position in Ireland as Earl of Tyrone,
+he contrived to preserve the good opinion of his
+countrymen even while acting for the queen,
+“with all the alacrity of a faithful subject.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The reappearance of O’Neil in Ireland, his
+loyalty, and the queen’s favour, threw the Irish
+government into utter consternation; and the
+Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam, upon the execution of
+M‘Mahon (who was put to death for an offence
+committed before the law which declared it capital
+had been enacted) let fall some speeches
+against the Earl of Tyrone (says Morrison)
+notwithstanding his late services,<a id='r24'></a><a href='#f24' class='c020'><sup>[24]</sup></a> “which
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>speeches coming to the Earl’s ears, were, as he
+afterwards said, the first causes which <em>moved
+him to misdoubt his safety</em>, and to stand upon
+his defence, now first combining with O’Donnel
+and other lords of the north, to defend their honour,
+estates, and liberties.” The horrors which
+ensued during a civil war of ten years’ duration,
+and which laid waste what Lord Verulam calls
+“the most miserable and desolate nation on
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>the face of the earth,” produced the most effectual
+species of absenteeship; for it sent out of
+the world, those that were not driven by any
+other means out of the country; exterminating
+more than a third of the native population!</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The queen, however, says Bacon, “sought
+not an extirpation, but a reduction;” but such
+was the <em>reduction</em>, that at the end of the war,
+when Lord Mountjoy received the submission of
+a few “well-disposed chiefs,” he <em>disposed</em> of the
+others in a very summary way, “and by fire,
+famine, or sword, weakened or ruined most of
+those who still continued obstinate.” Still,
+however, the master-blow of this deputy (who
+was after all one of the best Irish viceroys who
+served under the Tudors) was the ruin of the once
+magnanimous and invincible O’Neil. Having
+“taken the most of his fortresses, and what
+perhaps was more mortifying to him, having
+broken in pieces the chair of stone, wherein for
+many centuries the O’Neils of his family had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>been invested with more than kingly authority,
+he obliged the unfortunate chief “to tender his
+submission on his knees before the Lord Deputy
+and the council, and in the presence of a great
+assembly; whereupon the Lord Deputy, in the
+Queen’s name, promised the Earl for himself
+and his followers her majesty’s gracious pardon.”
+Is it wonderful that in the ensuing reign
+the O’Neils and the O’Donnels fled for ever
+from the scene of their sufferings and humiliation;
+or that having chosen Spain as the goal
+of their permanent absenteeship, they should
+have arrived there, only to die of broken
+hearts?</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Remote as are the times, the events of which
+are here so slightly touched,—unfixed, capricious
+and despotic as were the government and
+the laws,—rude, wild, weak and disorganized
+as was the state of society,—yet, through the
+obscurity and confusion which hung over
+the neglected annals of the day, it is evident
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>that absenteeism, sometimes encouraged
+or enforced by the English policy, was foreign
+to the national habits and natural temperament
+of the Irish; and that the aristocracy of the
+country were more than any other wedded to
+their native land by natural affection, by family
+pride, by power, by religion, and by every feeling
+and every prejudice which brightens or
+shadows the mixed and imperfect condition of
+humanity. Hitherto emigration had been the
+result of necessity or of despair; but it was reserved
+for the Stuarts, Ireland’s direst foes, the
+flatterers of her foible, and the enemies of her
+rights, to give a spell to absenteeism, which
+even the policy and the despotism of the Tudors
+could not lend to it. When the rude home of
+the Irish had by the sanguinary crusades of
+Elizabeth been rendered no longer endurable,
+the Stuarts held out a lure and presented a
+blandishment which suffering humanity could
+not resist; and under an impulse, consecrated
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>by a mistaken sense of loyalty and chivalrous
+devotion, the long-enduring Irish rushed from
+the dreariness of their desolate abodes, and
+thronged to a court where they fancied they
+saw the representative of their native kings,
+seated on the throne of their foreign tyrants.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The drivelling and despotic pedant, James,
+with the true family instinct towards power,
+sought to win over that portion of his subjects
+whose religion preached “passive obedience and
+the divine right of kings,” and with whom he
+had so deeply tampered in the reign of his predecessor.
+On his coming to the throne, he
+loaded the Irish with favours, while he withheld
+rights; but with a disingenuous and stupid
+policy, secretly counteracting the intentions of
+his own council, he privately led the Irish to an
+open assumption of religious privileges, which
+he permitted his ministers in Ireland to oppose,
+not only by remonstrance and proclamation, but
+by “fire and sword.” To ingratiate himself still
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>further with the Irish gentry, and to break down
+whatever yet remained of devotion to their country,
+or of “the old swelling of liberty,” inherited from
+their fathers, he invited the most distinguished
+among them to his court; where, “graciously
+received by the king,” and incontinently ridiculed
+by the courtiers, they obtained the honour
+of being made the heroes of a court masque, in
+which the sarcastic laureate, Jonson, has handed
+down to posterity their devotion to “<em>the king’s
+sweet faish</em>,” and the melancholy fact that they
+danced “<em>a fadan</em>” for the amusement of “<em>King
+Yamish</em>;” who, as the arch-patron of all buffoonery,
+doubtless chuckled over the degrading
+exhibition. How many Irish <em>absentees</em> have
+since danced “<em>the fadan</em>,” for the amusement
+of mystifying royalty!<a id='r25'></a><a href='#f25' class='c020'><sup>[25]</sup></a>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Thus prepared, by being “brayed as in a
+mortar” at home, and at once degraded and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>flattered abroad, the Irish nobility but too willingly
+lent themselves to the allurements held
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>out by Charles the Second; (the falsest of all
+their royal friends;) and from the epoch of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>Restoration absenteeship became a voluntary
+habit. It was then that what has been called
+the characteristic virtue of the Irish, became
+the source of one of their peculiar vices; and
+that the feeling of loyalty which had led them
+to follow the king in his misfortunes, and to
+embrace his almost hopeless cause in many a
+distant land, now once more lured them from
+their own, to “share the triumph and partake
+the gale” of his prosperity. The habits of a
+great capital and a gay court confirmed their
+taste for emigration, and excited a disgust for
+their native land, which became, in the end, as
+fatal to their interests as it was destructive of
+their patriotism. Then absenteeism became
+a species of national malady, a disease, infinitely
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>more grievous in its effects than that
+terrible pestilence, which, a little before, in
+ravaging the population of Ireland, confined
+its mortal epidemia to a season and a generation.<a id='r26'></a><a href='#f26' class='c020'><sup>[26]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Absenteeism was no longer limited to the
+harassed Catholic gentlemen or loyal cavaliers,
+who came to seek the price of their sacrifice
+and their fidelity at the exchequer of royal
+gratitude, and found it, like that of the nation,
+closed by a fraudulent bankruptcy. The
+wealthy and the noble, the Protestant and the
+Papist, the English by blood, and the Scotch
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>patentees; in a word, all who could afford to
+fly, now hastened to a court, where for a time
+an Irish mistress and an Irish minister held
+the ascendant; and where the Ormondes, the
+Ossorys, and the Villars, exchanged the honourable
+retreat of their own beautiful residences
+in Ireland, for the entresol of a royal
+villa at Newmarket, or “a lodging” in the
+harem of Whitehall.<a id='r27'></a><a href='#f27' class='c020'><sup>[27]</sup></a> Titles, and places, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>pensions, and privileges, were then scattered
+among the Irish nobility, and became the premium
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>of absenteeism; paying the sacrifice of
+patriotism in one sex, and of honour in the
+other. The talent, beauty, and virtue, which,
+if concentrated at home, might have redeemed
+and adorned the country from whence they
+were drawn, now served but to increase the
+sum of elegant profligacy in that region, whose
+very atmosphere was as fatal to manly independence,
+as it was to female purity. Ireland,
+thus abandoned by the heads of her noble
+families, deserted by her rank, her talent, her
+beauty, and her education, pouring out the
+“<em>profits of the land to those who refunded nothing</em>,”—unhappy
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>Ireland, during the whole of
+the reign of Charles II. exhibited the most
+deplorable picture of a country left a prey to
+strangers, to undertakers, to patentees, to delegated
+powers, and official despotism; and of a
+society which, false in its position, and divested
+of all those ties and combinations which bind
+man to man, was totally destitute of every
+element that confers the strength of political
+cohesion, and disseminates the advantages of
+moral civilization.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In the midst of this anti-social chaos,
+every act of the legislature served to render
+the atoms of the system more jarring and
+discordant, until finally “the <em>Act of Settlement</em>,”
+by unsettling every thing and rendering
+“confusion worse confounded,” added
+insult to injury, and multiplied both the causes
+and the effects of absenteeism to the opulent
+of all sects. The country was now more than
+ever given up to a particular faction, which
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>made its powerful stand on the heights of
+ascendancy, under the sanction of a king who,
+in a great degree, owed his life and throne to
+those whom that ascendancy was to reduce to
+slavery and ruin.<a id='r30'></a><a href='#f30' class='c020'><sup>[30]</sup></a> It was at this period, more
+than any other, that the stale devices of Catholic
+conspiracies and Popish plots were resorted
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>to, as a means of startling a distant
+ignorant legislature into new acts of rigour,
+which, by crushing all that remained to be
+crushed, by forfeitures and penalties, was to
+elevate a factious minority of the nation to the
+supremacy of power and wealth.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The English Parliament, frightened, or pretending
+to be so, by the state of things in
+Ireland, published a proclamation “for the
+apprehension and prosecution of all Irish
+rebels,” at a moment when Ireland had sealed
+by her best blood her devotion to the reigning
+dynasty; and the King, in the face of his
+pledged honour and royal promise, excluded
+from the act of indemnity (which was shortly
+after passed) more than two thirds of his Irish
+subjects, who had alone been faithful to him,
+when all else were false. While calumny and misrepresentation
+were thus working the destruction
+of Ireland abroad, there were none at home
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>to “remonstrate,” as in the time of Elizabeth
+and James; none to protect or vindicate the
+national character, or to raise the dark veil,
+which the cupidity of domestic and predatory
+enemies had dropped over the injuries, the
+worth, and the misfortunes of the country. It
+is still more lamentable to add, that some of
+the most illustrious of the absentees, who
+haunted the Court as dependants, or influenced
+the Cabinet as counsellors, found it their account
+to sanction the misrepresentations, and to
+perpetuate a state of things by which the noble
+renegadoes were to be themselves the ultimate
+gainers. It is the effect of absenteeship to
+harden the heart against all the precious sympathies
+of patriotism, and it has ever been the
+practice of absentees to magnify and circulate
+the rumour of those national disorders which
+arise in part out of their own desertion of their
+native land, and which they suppose might
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>offer a reason, if not an excuse, for their abandonment
+of the soil and its interests.<a id='r31'></a><a href='#f31' class='c020'><sup>[31]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>The times, however, changed with the men,
+and the short reign of the unfortunate bigot
+James II. was pregnant with new and important
+events for Ireland. At the first temporary turn
+of the scale in Irish politics, absenteeism, which
+could scarcely increase, certainly did not diminish.
+By this change, the nation at large gained
+little; and the mean ambition of the nobility,
+who accepted power and place without one
+feeling of patriotism or sympathy for the country,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>was soon nipped in the bud, and for ever
+blasted with the fortunes of the monarch, on
+whose favour it was founded.<a id='r32'></a><a href='#f32' class='c020'><sup>[32]</sup></a> The Irish
+gentry supported the cause of despotism and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>bigotry in vain; and the impetuous imbecility
+of James served only to hasten that ruin, which
+public opinion had so deservedly prepared for
+him and his family. The mistaken adherence
+of the people to so bad a cause, was, in some
+measure redeemed by the disinterested fidelity
+with which they continued to serve that family
+in its adversity, which in prosperity had always
+repaid their services with ingratitude. It was
+the Irish (the ultra-royalists of all times)
+who, during the dark fortunes of the worthless
+<span lang="fr"><i>protégé</i></span> of the Bourbons, clung to him, when all
+else deserted him. They manned his navy, recruited
+his army, replenished his coffers, and
+took their stand around his person on their
+native soil; and when they saw him the first
+to fly,<a id='r33'></a><a href='#f33' class='c020'><sup>[33]</sup></a> they still erected his torn standard, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>rallied in his cause,<a id='r34'></a><a href='#f34' class='c020'><sup>[34]</sup></a> paying the penalty of their
+generous but misapplied devotion to a bigot and
+a tyrant, by utter ruin, and eternal exile. The
+outlawry and confiscations of 1688 drove near
+four thousand Irishmen of family into a dreary
+and perpetual absenteeism, and sent them
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>to dole out for a pitiful hire, in the cause of
+oppression in other countries, the same valour,
+and the same spirit, which their fathers had
+displayed in support of the liberty of their own.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The sale of the estates of these unfortunate
+and involuntary absentees,<a id='r35'></a><a href='#f35' class='c020'><sup>[35]</sup></a> under the authority
+of the English parliament, changed a large
+portion of the Irish population, and introduced a
+new race of landed proprietors, whose interest
+it was <em>to stay at home</em>. The tide of absenteeship
+received a powerful check from the necessity
+of circumstances. Those Irish Catholics,
+who had escaped detection, or were exempt
+from suspicion, retired to their remote patrimonial
+domains, and sought safety in obscurity;
+hoping, by remaining peaceably at home, to
+escape the notice of a government which had
+sprung out of a revolution they had so lately
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>opposed. The Protestants likewise found it
+their interest to remain the vigilant guardians
+of the new possessions they had recently acquired,
+and of the old, which they had so
+bravely protected. All parties were either impoverished
+or unsettled; and few had the
+means, if they had the desire, to remove from
+a scene of ferment and desolation, to one of
+security and enjoyment. For the Irish of any
+sect or race, there was then no resting-place.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>While England gained every thing by a
+revolution, which she owed to the moral and
+political education acquired during a century
+of struggle for civil rights and religious freedom,
+Ireland lost nearly all she had left to lose
+through her deficiency in these endowments,
+resulting from many centuries of anarchy and
+misrule. The picture, sketched by a master-hand,
+of the condition of affairs at this singular
+epoch, is full of a fearful and melancholy interest.
+“By the total reduction of the kingdom
+of Ireland in 1691,” says Burke, “the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>ruin of the native Irish, and in a great measure
+of the first race of the English, was
+completely accomplished. The new interest
+was settled with as solid a stability as any thing
+in human affairs can look for. All the penal
+laws of that unparalleled code of oppression
+which were made after the last event, were
+manifestly the effects of national hatred and
+scorn towards a conquered people, whom the
+victors delighted to trample upon, and were not
+at all afraid to provoke. They were not the
+effects of their fears, but of their security. They
+who carried on this system looked to the irresistible
+force of Great Britain for their support
+in their acts of power. They were quite certain
+that no complaints of the natives would be
+heard on this side of the water, with any
+other sentiments than those of contempt and
+indignation. Their cries served only to augment
+their torture. Machines which could
+answer their purposes so well must be of an excellent
+contrivance. Indeed, at that time, in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>England, the double name of the complainants,
+Irish and Papists, (it would be hard to say singly
+which was the most odious,) shut up the hearts
+of every one against them. Whilst that temper
+prevailed in all its force to a time within our
+memory, every measure was pleasing and popular,
+just in proportion as it tended to harass and
+ruin a set of people who were looked upon as
+enemies to God and man; and, indeed, as a
+race of bigoted savages, who were a disgrace to
+human nature itself.”<a id='r36'></a><a href='#f36' class='c020'><sup>[36]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In spite, however, of religious intolerance<a id='r37'></a><a href='#f37' class='c020'><sup>[37]</sup></a>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>and civil disqualification—of statutes which
+render commerce a crime, and laws which made
+industry penal<a id='r38'></a><a href='#f38' class='c020'><sup>[38]</sup></a>; of abuses of power numerous
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>under William, and quadrupled under the last
+of the Stuarts and the first of the Brunswicks,
+still something like a counterpoise was found to
+balance these political evils in the <em>home residence
+of the educated gentry</em>, and in the political
+bustle and activity of an Irish Parliament. As
+soon as the positive calamities of war and confiscation
+ceased, as soon as an approach was
+made to European habits and policy, and industry
+was permitted to find a scope and a reward
+for its exertions, the nation made a sudden
+and a rapid progress in civilization and comfort,
+simply through the efficiency of its own resources,
+and the demands of its own market.
+It was in vain that the talismanic words “Irishman”
+and “Papist” were employed to arm
+passion and prejudice against the country; it
+was in vain that commercial jealousy threw
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>shackles round its infant manufactures. In
+spite of these and many other obstacles, the
+moral strength of a country always distinguished
+for the natural endowments of its population,<a id='r39'></a><a href='#f39' class='c020'><sup>[39]</sup></a>
+rose superior to the cruel pressure of its political
+inflictions; and the domestic activity and intellectual
+improvement of the people—slow and
+limited as they appear, when compared with the
+advances of the sister kingdom—proceeded with
+a rapidity little short of miraculous, under so
+stultifying a system of legislation and government.
+It was then that the light of national
+genius concentrated its long-scattered rays to a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>point, and shining steadily from its proper focus,
+threw out those inextinguishable sparks of moral
+lustre,</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c010'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in8'>“⸺Which are wont to give</div>
+      <div class='line'>Light to a world and make a nation live.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was then that the powerful collision of active,
+ardent, and energetic minds produced that brilliant
+burst of talent which, for something more
+than a century, flung over the political darkness
+of the land a splendour to which her struggles
+and her misfortunes served only to give a stronger
+relief and more brilliant effect. It was then
+that, after ages of mental depression, which the
+song of the Irish bard but deepened into a
+more poetical sadness,<a id='r40'></a><a href='#f40' class='c020'><sup>[40]</sup></a> the Irish intellect broke
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>out, like the Irish rebellion, “threescore thousand
+strong,” when none expected or were prepared
+for the startling and splendid irruption.
+The old mart of learning was re-opened to the
+erudite of Europe, as in those times, when if a
+sage was missing, it was said “<span lang="la"><i>emandatus est
+ad disciplinam in Hibernia</i></span>;” and the rich
+stream of native humour which, like a caverned
+river, had hitherto kept the “noiseless tenor of
+its way,” darkened by impending shadows, now
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>rushed forth with the rapidity of a torrent, pure,
+sparkling, and abundant, at the first vent afforded
+to its progress. Science and philosophy
+now first raised their altars amidst the monkish
+monuments of an antiquated institution, and
+benefited the world by theories and by experiments
+originated in a land where public opinion
+and private faith were still struggling under the
+ban of legal proscription.<a id='r41'></a><a href='#f41' class='c020'><sup>[41]</sup></a> England then opened
+a running account with Ireland for dramatic
+contributions when her own resources had, by
+being too largely drawn upon, nearly become
+bankrupt;<a id='r42'></a><a href='#f42' class='c020'><sup>[42]</sup></a> and literary Europe stood indebted
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>to Irish wit, fancy, and humour, for the richest
+treats, which render the leisure of the learned
+delectable, and the amusement of the idle instructive.<a id='r43'></a><a href='#f43' class='c020'><sup>[43]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>Even the arts, in these stirring times of social
+concentration, awakened from their long and
+deadly slumbers; and the slowly reviving school
+of painting in England received some of its
+most noted disciples from Ireland, a country so
+little adapted, by its miseries and its commotions,
+to the cultivation of the most tranquil
+and meditative of intellectual pursuits.<a id='r44'></a><a href='#f44' class='c020'><sup>[44]</sup></a> At
+this time, too, the Irish muse found a willing
+and a worthy priestess in one of the fair daughters
+of the land,<a id='r45'></a><a href='#f45' class='c020'><sup>[45]</sup></a> where her temples had so
+long been closed; and “the mother of sweet
+singers,” awakened by the genius of national
+melody, beheld her sons</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c005'>
+    <div>“Thronging round her magic cell,”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>as in the days of the Mayos<a id='r46'></a><a href='#f46' class='c020'><sup>[46]</sup></a> and the O’Connors.<a id='r47'></a><a href='#f47' class='c020'><sup>[47]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>The triumphs of Carolan, the last of the <span lang="ga">Firsgealaighthes</span>
+or Irish Troubadours, were followed
+by those of Handel and Piccini;<a id='r48'></a><a href='#f48' class='c020'><sup>[48]</sup></a> and
+though the wild sweet tones of the Irish harp
+were still occasionally heard in the pauses of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>the Messiah and of the elegant Armida, still,
+taste, improving with the developement of the
+art, soon rendered the Italian and German
+schools of music the exclusive study in Ireland;
+and they excited an enthusiasm which
+well belonged to a people who, in all their
+wretchedness and degradation, had found in
+music a vehicle for their feelings and their passions,
+for their deep-seated indignation, and
+their long-meditated revenge. St. Bridget now
+hid her diminished head in her “cell of the
+oak;<a id='r50'></a><a href='#f50' class='c020'><sup>[50]</sup></a> while St. Cecilia saw more tapers lighted
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>at her shrine in the Irish capital than ever
+illumined her dusky chapel in the Trastevere at
+Rome. Music halls were built for public concerts;
+and musical societies, assuming the importance
+and dignities of corporate bodies, were
+formed out of the amateur<a id='r51'></a><a href='#f51' class='c020'><sup>[51]</sup></a> and professional
+talent of the country; while the conciliating
+genius of harmony, refusing that “to a party
+which was meant for mankind,” devoted its divine
+powers to smoothing political austerities,
+reknitting the social affections, and promoting
+the first of all human virtues—charity.<a id='r52'></a><a href='#f52' class='c020'><sup>[52]</sup></a> Oh!
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>surely this was the true purpose for which the
+Divinity breathed into the soul of man that fine
+susceptibility to the mystic charm of harmony,
+which lulls the harsher passions, and substitutes
+the excitement of delicious sensations for the
+bitter feelings and harassing emotions which
+the cross purposes of life call hourly into existence.
+Who now in Ireland but may look
+back with regret to the philharmonic societies
+“of other times,” from the magic of whose
+strains a shelter rose for the wretched, and in
+whose bands men of all parties blended the
+“concord of sweet sounds.” Who that in the
+present day has witnessed in the capital of Ireland,
+the different and dark purposes to which
+music and musical society have been perverted,
+but must lament that the sweetest of the arts
+should have been pressed into the service of
+civil dissension—should have fulfilled the purposes
+of party intrigue, and gratified the malice
+of a narrow-souled faction. Who but must
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>shudder to perceive its influence directed to
+rousing the irritable fibre, and stirring up the
+bile of political malady; to exciting by its
+“musical cheers” the passions of the powerful
+few against the suffering many, and fomenting
+by its choicest harmonies the discord of social
+disunion and the dissonance of party hatred.
+Spirits of Handel and of Arne, of Calcott and of
+Mozart, how little did ye dream in your philosophy
+that your heaven-inspired strains should
+serve as the war-whoop of faction, the death-song
+of domestic peace, and national confraternity!!</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>While music excited in Ireland the same enthusiasm,
+and was cultivated with more science,
+than when “in early Greece she sung,” the
+drama partook of the triumph. Two royal
+theatres and an Italian opera-house<a id='r53'></a><a href='#f53' class='c020'><sup>[53]</sup></a> could
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>scarcely supply the cravings of the public taste;
+and an audience, noted for its critical acumen,
+gave to the Irish stage a classical character,
+and developed a competition which drew forth
+candidates for dramatic fame even from the
+higher classes of society, conferring that respectability
+upon the members of the stage,
+which ought at all times to belong to a profession
+which holds so decided an influence over
+the morals and the manners of a nation.<a id='r54'></a><a href='#f54' class='c020'><sup>[54]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But though the circumstances of the times
+rendered the home residence of the Irish gentry
+more permanent than it has since ever been, or
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>perhaps ever was before, the fashion universally
+prevailed of sending the youth of good family
+to make the grand tour; and the young and
+travelled aristocracy, the Fitzgeralds, the Caulfields,
+the Kirwans, the O’Neils, the Blakes,
+came back, no less to improve the tastes of their
+country, than to defend her cause, and to enlarge
+the sphere of her energies. A variety of
+refined amusements and elegant enjoyments,
+hitherto unknown in Ireland, came in their suite;
+which while they gave employment and food to
+the lowly and the industrious, tended to disseminate
+that taste for factitious pleasures, and
+that craving for refined gratifications, which
+though not in themselves the efficient causes of
+civilization, are in no small degree favourable to
+its developement.<a id='r55'></a><a href='#f55' class='c020'><sup>[55]</sup></a> Pleasure, lured to the Irish
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>shores from distant regions, planted her gay
+standard, and raised her brilliant pavilions in
+the capital, at that time crowded with the
+wealthy and the educated. The ridottos of the
+music hall, with their fantastic arrangements and
+sylvan scenery,<a id='r56'></a><a href='#f56' class='c020'><sup>[56]</sup></a> recalled the similar festivities
+of the Italian carnival. Palaces succeeded to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>the cumbrous mansions of the seventeenth century;
+and Charlemont house, with its beautiful
+architecture, its splendid library, and invaluable
+collections, still preserved in all their integrity
+by the present noble owner, stands a singular
+monument not only of the pure taste and magnificent
+spirit of an Irish nobleman, who had
+even higher claims to the admiration and respect
+of his country, but of the genius of the
+times, and the prosperity—the short-lived prosperity—of
+the land in which such a private edifice
+was raised. The villas of Tuscany and Lombardy
+were repeated along the shores of a bay
+that wanted only a Vesuvius to rival that of
+Naples; and the names which these pretty
+villas still bear, recal the travelled tastes of
+their elegant founders.<a id='r57'></a><a href='#f57' class='c020'><sup>[57]</sup></a> Private theatricals
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>(the dramatis personæ taken from the red book)
+were got up in the castles of the O’Neils and
+the halls of the Butlers; and the public assemblies,
+held under the newly-raised dome of the
+Rotunda, were types of the <span lang="it"><i>casino nobile</i></span> of
+Florence and Bologna;<a id='r58'></a><a href='#f58' class='c020'><sup>[58]</sup></a> while the Sunday
+evening promenades in its illuminated gardens
+contributed to the funds of a blessed charity,
+and bestowed that health and those spirits,
+without which the kindlier feelings are too frequently
+blighted, and the generous propensities
+absorbed in a querulous and fretful egoism.<a id='r59'></a><a href='#f59' class='c020'><sup>[59]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>The Irish press!—and who that now knows
+the capital of Ireland, and beholds its utter incompetency
+to support the publication of even
+<em>one</em> trifling periodical work, will believe that
+Ireland once <em>had a press</em>!—the Irish press then
+teemed with native literary productions; which
+if as mere “<span lang="fr"><i>pieces de circonstance</i></span>,” thrown off
+at a heat, they might sometimes want the
+higher finish of more elaborated composition,
+were still stamped with the ardour of the national
+spirit, and “faithful to its fires.” The
+frequent and “keen encounter of the wits”
+upon great questions, produced an animated
+competition, which even the statesman-like sobriety
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>of English viceroys could not always resist.
+The Draper’s letter of Lord Chesterfield,
+(an imitation of Swift,) and the political caricatures
+of Lord Townshend, written at a later
+period, were proofs that Ireland was not always
+governed by the dull and the dogged, and that
+her metropolis once boasted of a society which
+<em>obliged</em> the representatives of majesty as well
+as the representatives of the people to cultivate
+the suffrages of the public, by means never addressed
+to an uncivilized or an illiterate community.
+Politics and polemics then alike
+fell to the discussion of humour and talent.
+The public journals, though few, were fair;
+their editors were responsible both by their
+property and their personal consideration; and
+their contributors were frequently the most
+brilliant members of Irish society, the most
+learned sons of the Irish alma mater. Swift,
+Dr. Sheridan, Lucas, Flood, Burgh, Yelverton,
+Courtenay, Jephson, Bishop Marley, Grattan,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>Curran, and others equally notable, if not
+equally noted, contributed successively a portion
+of their luminous intellects to illustrate
+the pages of that mighty engine of public feeling—the
+<span class='sc'>Periodical Press</span>. Whatever side
+was advocated,—the country or the court, patriotism
+or power,—it does not appear that
+any journal was set up on a merely sordid principle,
+or an utter disregard of all truth and decency.
+There was then no waylaying with indiscriminate
+ruffianism the feelings of private
+individuals, no exhibition of the sacred details
+of the domestic life of political characters, as a
+means of existence to some outcast of society,
+who wanted the courage to seek a less dishonourable
+bread on the public highway. For
+when the genuine and educated gentry of Ireland,
+her hereditary senators and native legislators,
+made up the larger portion of the reading
+public of her capital, a journal edited by
+the nefarious and the base, by the hired assassin
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>of reputation or the paid pander of ribald
+passions, would have been hunted down with
+one common feeling of national indignation and
+manly contempt. Where is the land, so lost in
+its degradation, so insensible to all its higher
+interests, as to endure that such a “damning
+witness” should go forth to the world and bear
+testimony to its moral, social, and literary depravity?
+Alas that there should be one! Alas
+that the land of wit and feeling should furnish
+forth readers, even from its high and official
+classes, to reward and encourage the instruments
+of its own disgrace! Alas for the country,
+where the hired servants of the government
+club their quota to propagate the rancorous
+overflowings of the vilest and most antisocial
+passions; where the ordained ministers of religion,
+subscribe for the dissemination of the
+grossest and most mischievous falsehoods;
+where the magistrate chuckles privately over
+the libel he is publicly bound to punish; and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>where to be pre-eminent in villainy and matchless
+in audacity, is the short road to command
+sympathy and ensure subsistence.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But if a reduction of absenteeism, if the permanent
+residence of the major part, of the
+wealth, the nobility, and above all, and more
+precious than all, of the <span class='sc'>Education</span> of the
+country, produced these blessed effects, the
+greater good, the “last best gift,” which congregated
+interests and intellects could bestow
+on a community, Public Spirit, fell like dew in
+the desert upon the renovating nation. Men
+who had long learned to feel and to think, now,
+in the consciousness and confidence of their
+associated strength, first ventured to speak and
+to act: at once inspiring and inspired, they
+spoke as prophets and acted as patriots. The
+talent of the free suddenly burst into existence,
+as if by a divine miracle in the land of the
+enslaved; and eloquence, the inherent characteristic
+of the nation, which had occasionally
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>broken forth in the rude but exciting harangues
+of the O’Donnels and the O’Neils, now shone
+out brilliantly, with a lustre which Athens in
+her best, and Rome in her greatest days,
+scarcely surpassed. Political oratory and political
+knowledge, proceeding from the same
+cause and bearing on the same point exhibited
+Ireland in a new aspect to the wondering world;
+and the names of Molyneux,<a id='r60'></a><a href='#f60' class='c020'><sup>[60]</sup></a> Ponsonby,<a id='r61'></a><a href='#f61' class='c020'><sup>[61]</sup></a>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>Prior,<a id='r62'></a><a href='#f62' class='c020'><sup>[62]</sup></a> Boyle,<a id='r63'></a><a href='#f63' class='c020'><sup>[63]</sup></a> Connolly,<a id='r64'></a><a href='#f64' class='c020'><sup>[64]</sup></a> Tottenham,<a id='r65'></a><a href='#f65' class='c020'><sup>[65]</sup></a> Lucas,
+Charlemont, Burke, Grattan, Curran—names
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>which are now but sounds—will retain to the
+latest posterity their mystical and magic influence,
+as the signs of times and events, the
+glory of a nation’s history, and as the evoquing
+spells of that genius, which awakens liberty
+and watches over a nation’s happiness. Oh!
+these were times to live in and men to live
+among—when the capital of the kingdom was
+something better than a garrison or an assize
+town! when its fashionable assemblies were not
+thrown upon the eleemosinary contributions of
+barracks and boarding-schools, of military exquisites
+who “<em>never dance</em>,” and harmless
+young gentlemen who do nothing else! These
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>were times, when the men were all at home,
+and their spirits all abroad! when the rush
+from the senate was sure to fill the drawing-room;
+and they who boldly fought in the one
+for the liberties of their country, came to lay
+their own liberty at the feet of beauty in the
+other. These were times, when even love and
+law went forth arm in arm together from the
+inns of court, to <em>that</em> court, where the special
+pleading of counsel rarely failed to win the
+cause, where even losses were victories, and
+where the inconsiderate heart of the young
+legal aspirant selected its client for life without
+reference to politics, place, pension, or promotion.
+Then Leinster-house, and Charlemont-house,
+and Powerscourt-house, and Waterford-house,
+and Moira-house, and an hundred other
+splendid “<em>houses</em>” of the resident nobility,
+were open to the wit, the talent, the literature,
+and the gallantry of the country. Then, the
+cells of the University, silent as the tomb
+during the studious day, echoed at night to the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>song, the laugh, the epigram, or the jest of
+gay and brilliant spirits destined to come forth
+and enchant society by their social and colloquial
+powers; while they defended the independence
+of their country by their eloquence
+and patriotism. These were times when the
+charms of the lovely Gunnings, the more lovely
+Munroes,<a id='r66'></a><a href='#f66' class='c020'><sup>[66]</sup></a> and an hundred others of their
+lovely successors, were embalmed for posterity
+in the verses of contemporary poets; and when
+the amatory sonnets of one of the first orators
+of the age were not deemed inferior to his
+speeches at the bar, or his orations in the
+senate.<a id='r67'></a><a href='#f67' class='c020'><sup>[67]</sup></a> These were times when the young
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>ladies of the capital did not wait for the
+<em>marching in</em> of the divisions of a regiment, as
+their only chance of <em>marching out</em> of the ranks
+of celibacy; for absenteeship was then but
+temporary: the young nobility and gentry, if
+they travelled and flirted abroad, came back to
+love and to marry at home; since, “where’er
+they roamed, whatever climes” they saw, they
+still saw nothing fairer than the fair they left
+behind them. These were times, which, when
+recalled, like Ossian’s Song of Sorrow, are
+both “pleasing and mournful to the soul.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But to return. When penal statutes and all
+that is intended by the false policy of shallow
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>and self-interested legislators to disqualify man
+for the knowledge and assertion of his political
+rights, still continued to check the progress of
+civil liberty in Ireland, the combined effects of
+a portion of the liberal and educated resident
+gentry were found sufficient to make head
+against a government which the sternest upholder
+of English power, and he too an Irish
+chancellor,<a id='r68'></a><a href='#f68' class='c020'><sup>[68]</sup></a> declared “was enough to crush
+any nation upon earth;” and which one of the
+wisest and best philanthropists of that or any
+age<a id='r69'></a><a href='#f69' class='c020'><sup>[69]</sup></a> has defined to have been “such a combination
+of rapine, treachery, and violence as
+would have disgraced the name of government
+in the most arbitrary country in the world.”
+Other events, bearing upon the same point,
+tended at this epoch to soften, if not to remedy
+the evils of that terrific code, which disgraced
+England even more than it degraded Ireland.<a id='r70'></a><a href='#f70' class='c020'><sup>[70]</sup></a>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>While the church militant in Ireland usurped
+a power in the persons of its Protestant popes,
+the primates and archbishops, which smelt of
+the times of the Beckets and the Wolseys,—while
+Boulter and Stone preserved their own
+supremacy by their well-sustained system of
+dividing Ireland within herself, and adding to
+her restrictions by fomenting her discontents,—it
+<em>did</em> happen that the necessity of circumstances
+occasionally procured for the country a
+chief governor, whose personal interests in the
+land from which he drew his maintenance and
+support, awakened “some bowels for a poor
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>relation,” or whose higher order of genius and
+generalized views raised him above the level of
+the miserable local politics, the petty cabals,
+and factious intrigues of that remote and
+wretched spot which is, in position as in politics,
+the <span lang="fr"><i>cul de sac</i></span> of civilized Europe. These
+happy incidents indeed were rare, and make
+but a poor set-off in the balance, of vice-regal
+virtue and talent, against the dulness, bigotry,
+and ostentatious pretension, which have so
+often covered their Midas’ ears under the
+coronet of delegated sway.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was under a Devonshire that the susceptible
+Irish, always led by personal feelings, first began
+to rally with confidence and hope round a government
+that seemed to abate in the execution, if
+not in the spirit of the law, something of that
+sanguinary reign which had hitherto chilled
+loyalty into despair; and the personal qualities
+of this great Irish proprietor were
+productive of the most felicitous effects, at the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>most fearful epoch in the reign of the house of
+Hanover. The Stuarts, the abdicated, the Catholic
+Stuarts, had planted their standard on
+the English and Scottish shores, and the
+English and the Scotch, to a dangerous
+amount, rushed from all parts to support the
+principles of Toryism, in the person of him who
+was the “brief abstract” of all Toryism. Where
+then in this moment of frightful exigency, when
+empire, liberty, and life were at stake, where
+then were those “<span lang="fr"><i>enfans de la revolution</i></span>,” the
+Protestant princes of Brunswick, the defenders
+of the faith of Luther, to look for the rally of
+defence, for the protection of loyalty against
+Catholic oppression? It was to the native Irish,
+the Catholic Irish! that <a id='tn-ofof'></a>England, in the face of
+her own savage laws,<a id='r71'></a><a href='#f71' class='c020'><sup>[71]</sup></a> turned for aid against
+British rebellion; and while the Irish gentry of
+all sects remained immutably true to their legitimate
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>(or according to modern doctrines their
+<em>illegitimate</em>) sovereign, the flower of the Catholic
+population rushed forth to man the navy and
+recruit the army, which was to make a stand
+against successful rebellion,—successful at least
+for a time, in every part of the British islands
+save alone in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Still, however, in this moment of fearful exigency,
+when the old idols of Irish devotion were
+again presenting themselves to a susceptible
+people in all the charm of struggle and misfortune,
+something more than the mild wisdom
+which the gentle blood of Cavendish has always
+produced, was deemed necessary to watch over
+Catholic Ireland; and one was chosen suited to
+meet the difficulties of the day, and to carry on
+that system of conciliation begun by the Duke
+of Devonshire. This one was Philip Stanhope
+Earl of Chesterfield, who, as the “Mirror of
+(Irish) Magistrates,” in which succeeding chief
+governors of Ireland should “dress themselves,”
+merits a particular notice.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>This nobleman, who had been for ten years in
+opposition, was selected more in necessity than
+in liking: and he with difficulty obtained an
+audience of leave from reluctant Majesty, on his
+departure for his viceroyalty. When he demanded
+in the closet, “his Majesty’s commands,”
+he was coolly told that he had already
+received his instructions, and was dismissed
+without any token of confidence or of courtesy.
+While the ministry put him forward as an
+instrument of conciliation, and loaded him with
+the responsibility of a difficult government,
+they wished to retain in their own hands the
+substance of power, and to shackle him with
+some creature of their own, in the character of
+secretary; but he laughed at the intrigue, and
+in their despite chose for himself one, whom
+he describes to his son as “a very pretty young
+fellow, who knew nothing of business;” for he
+was determined to rule by himself, to see with
+his own eyes, and to encounter no subaltern interference
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>with the system he chose to adopt.
+Such was the spirit in which Lord Chesterfield
+entered on his arduous mission, and ascended
+the vice-regal throne of Ireland, on which he
+was placed by that influence to which even kings
+and ministers must sometimes submit,—the influence
+of circumstances! Docile mediocrity,
+the ordinary qualification of an Irish Lord Lieutenant,
+was now no longer adequate to meet the
+exigencies of the hour, as in those times of comparative
+tranquillity, when any stalking-horse of
+diplomacy might be led over the beaten course
+by some self-sufficient political jockey with the
+name of chief secretary; who, without the pageantry
+of the higher office, monopolized all its
+patronage and exercised more than its powers.
+At this moment dangers both internal and external
+called for qualities of a different order,
+and the English government was driven to the
+desperate resource of accepting the aid of great
+abilities, at the expense of abiding by the decisions
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>of untrammelled independence. Such was
+the moment at which George the Second disdainfully
+appointed one of the cleverest men of
+his empire to the government of Ireland; and
+to this involuntary election he probably owed
+that he was not himself sent back “to give his
+little senate laws” in his patrimonial estate of
+Hanover.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was in vain that “Popery and the Pretender”<a id='r72'></a><a href='#f72' class='c020'><sup>[72]</sup></a>
+was the cry <span lang="fr"><i>mille fois repeté</i></span> in the ears
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>of this new and singular Lord Lieutenant,—that
+the old measures of the Boulters and the Stones
+were proposed as the golden rules of vice-regal
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>conduct,—that preachers from the pulpit aroused
+the crusading spirit of intolerance against a sect
+beaten down to the earth,—that the domineering
+party of a haughty ascendancy assailed the
+audience-room of the Viceroy, and “stopped
+the chariot or boarded the barge,” to teach him
+how to rule, to force him to recur to a system
+beyond the rigour of the law, which enabled
+them to reign by dividing, while it placed him
+on the list of mannikin lord lieutenants, the
+wire-worked puppet of a bigoted faction. The
+acute, the elegant Chesterfield, soon fathomed
+the depths of their ferocious feebleness, and he
+played with the virulence he did not deign to
+wrestle with. When the advocates of intolerance
+preached persecution, he answered
+their counsels by an apotheghm and a <span lang="fr"><i>bon-mot</i></span>,—he
+quoted Cicero when they cited Nassau,—he
+gave them parties for their politics,—suppers
+for their sophistry, he forced them to swallow his
+measures with his claret,—and he stopped the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>mouths of many with good dinners on whom
+good arguments would have been thrown away.
+In a word, he knew them all, he defied them all;
+and in despite of that party in the ministry
+which supported an anti-national faction, he
+saved the wretched country they were driving into
+a rebellion, which at that peculiar moment might
+have separated Ireland for ever from the mother
+country.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>By this personal combination of wisdom,
+humanity, and impartiality, Lord Chesterfield
+preserved a Catholic population in the most
+perfect peace and obedience, during the whole
+of that rebellion, which in Protestant England
+and Presbyterian Scotland had nearly restored
+the Stuarts to the throne they had forfeited by
+their blind and bigoted attachment to papal institutions—a
+memorable example of the value
+of an enlarged philosophy in governors, and of
+the disposition of the people to be grateful for
+kindness in their rulers, of their proneness to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>yield a willing obedience to authority, if encouraged
+by the slightest show of justice and fair
+dealing in those whom chance has placed over
+them.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But narrow hearts and narrow intellects,
+impervious to the more generous impulses of
+nature, and placing the whole force of government
+in the scaffold and the bayonet—oppressing
+those they fear, and fearing those they
+oppress—have too long exerted their baleful
+influence in brutalizing and debasing the Irish
+nation into permanent anarchy, creating those
+abuses, which they now plead in justification of
+their own unpitying rigour: and if in rare and
+distant intervals the patriotism and the kindly
+feelings of a Chesterfield have again found
+themselves under the canopy of the viceregal
+throne, the oppressor and the oppressed have
+alike been opposed to their beneficent activity.
+The good which Chesterfield effected in times
+of difficulty and danger, can now scarcely be
+hoped for even in the halcyon hour of peace:
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>and should the British empire be again involved
+in foreign conflict, Ireland, unemancipated Ireland,
+might be urged to seek new destinies for
+herself in an alliance from which she <em>might</em> have
+something to hope, but from which she could
+have nothing to fear more terrible than she has
+already encountered during the ceaseless miseries
+of nearly six centuries. Of this truth, harsh
+and repulsive as it may seem, no one who has
+studied the subject can entertain a rational
+doubt. The example of America is before the
+eyes of the people, and the hope delayed and
+the promise and the pledge unredeemed lie deep
+in their hearts: restrictive and penal laws, too
+severe even for occasional application, have become
+also permanent on the statute book;
+famine and pestilence have grown almost periodical
+in their visitations. From such premises
+what other conclusion can be drawn? An influence
+behind the throne, and greater than the
+throne, has chilled the sympathies and arrested
+the outstretched hand of royalty; even the collective
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>wisdom of the empire has cowered before
+a party, and truckled to a faction; the cup of
+reconciliation, though pledged by a sovereign,
+has been drugged with poison; and a divided
+cabinet has distracted the country and paralyzed
+the exertions of the only public functionary, who
+for years has administered the laws of the country
+with any thing approaching to the spirit of
+mercy and of fairness.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>From the period of Lord Chesterfield’s administration,
+the effects produced by the permanent
+residence of the Irish gentry, were felt in
+that most blessed consequence, the developement
+of a public spirit. The English in Ireland, says
+Burke, began to feel that they were domiciliated,
+and had a country; and the Irish found that
+what was technically called <a id='tn-englishinterest'></a>“the English interest,”
+was gradually fading before one common
+and independent national will! It was in vain
+that one of the belligerent chiefs of the church
+(always the fomentors of Irish discord) still
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>struggled to uphold a system which was ruin to
+the many and power to the few. The proud
+churchman and servile courtier, the arrogant
+and despotic primate of the day, was taught to
+feel that he had other times and other men to
+deal with than those living when the country
+sunk under the weight of Boulter’s iron crosier.
+It was in vain that he affected to “<em>do the king’s
+business</em>,” (as he termed it) as other Protestant
+Wolseys had done it; and openly avowed his
+intention of carrying every government measure,
+<span lang="fr"><i>à coup de main</i></span>, and in spite of all constitutional
+opposition; for he lived to see the Irish gentry
+arrayed against the undue influence of despotic
+churchmen under the standard of an Irish
+speaker! The Irish patriots, led on by the chief
+of the Irish aristocracy,<a id='r73'></a><a href='#f73' class='c020'><sup>[73]</sup></a> and united with the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>middle and the mercantile classes, formed but
+one caste in feeling and in effort to array public
+opinion, against unconstitutional measures,<a id='r74'></a><a href='#f74' class='c020'><sup>[74]</sup></a> and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>to put down for ever the direct and ruinous
+interference of ecclesiastical statesmen! The
+government was now awakened to the danger of
+employing the zealous and intemperate, by the
+resistance which the primate had roused into
+activity; and Stone, struck off the list of privy
+counsellors, the object of national hatred and
+party contempt, exhibited one more example of
+the vanity of unfounded ambition, and the weakness
+of that policy which is opposed to public
+virtue, and the plain rule of right.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The rapid progress which at this period public
+opinion and political science were making,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>through the agency of a resident and educated
+gentry, was so highly estimated, that an English
+Lord Lieutenant, (Lord Harcourt,) as the most
+popular measure he could bring forward to counteract
+the distasteful effect of other less gracious
+and salutary acts, proposed on the part
+of government (1773) a tax on absentees!
+Never was such a tax less called for; for the
+absentees were not in that day in the proportion
+of one to an hundred, compared with those of
+the present times. Yet the draining of the resources
+of Ireland in the smallest proportion,
+the pouring forth of any modicum of native
+treasure into foreign coffers, was considered as
+nothing less than high treason to the country.
+The great English landholders of Ireland made a
+powerful resistance to a tax which principally
+affected themselves; but the majority by which
+the measure was rejected was so small<a id='r75'></a><a href='#f75' class='c020'><sup>[75]</sup></a> as
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>to leave no doubt of its popularity, and of the
+feelings of the public on the subject.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Those feelings, whether founded or erroneous,
+were by no means unnatural; and the government,
+on its part, has never been slow to encourage and
+strengthen them. The greater portion of the absentee
+property had fallen to the lot of its English
+possessors, by fraud or violence, by legal quibbling
+or by open proscriptions; and under the
+most favourable circumstances, the cultivators
+of that soil, which on the general principles of
+right and justice they imagined still to be their
+own property, must naturally have regarded
+with a jealous eye the foreign intruders. But
+in a country so poor as Ireland, so divested of
+all other means of making money beyond the
+cultivation of the soil, this annual exportation
+of excessive and burthensome rents could not
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>fail to be viewed with great discontent.<a id='r76'></a><a href='#f76' class='c020'><sup>[76]</sup></a> In
+England at the present day, if all the landed
+proprietors were to export themselves to the
+Continent, and to spend their rents in its various
+capitals, their absence would scarcely be
+felt, amidst the multiplied resources of commercial
+activity. Wherever the lord of the soil
+abandoned his dwelling, an East India Nabob,
+a money-broker, or a merchant, would stand
+forth ready to occupy his station, and rule over
+his domains; and the sums expended abroad,
+would rapidly find their way home, in increased
+demands for the products of English industry.
+On the other hand, the <span lang="fr"><i>nouveaux riches</i></span>, divested
+of hereditary pretensions and feudal prejudices,
+and more deeply instructed in the true principles
+of political economy, would afford less
+opposition to the reception and diffusion of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>lessons of experience; and would therefore be
+the more acceptable to the labouring classes,
+than those who, trammelled in the prejudices of
+hereditary consequence, obstinately stand still
+in knowledge, while all around them is moving
+in advance. In Ireland, however, it has always
+been otherwise. Land has been ever the only
+instrument of industry, and rent the only source
+of accumulated capital. The landed proprietors,
+together with their immediate dependants,
+the members of the learned professions, have
+long formed exclusively the educated classes;
+and their expenditure has produced the only
+stimulus which existed, to excite the petty commerce
+and circumscribed industry, which in
+the country towns of Ireland support half-a-dozen
+shopkeepers; who, dignified with the
+name of merchants, fill the municipal offices
+and send representatives to Parliament. When,
+therefore, these favourites of fortune, the landed
+proprietors, expatriate themselves, their mansions
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>are left silent and desolate; and none remains
+behind to employ the tenantry, to spread
+illumination, or to distribute justice, but agents,
+middle men, and the clergy, whose <span lang="la"><i>ex parte</i></span>
+notions of right and wrong, whose different
+creed and opposed pecuniary interests wholly
+unfit them for the civil duties which are thus
+devolved upon them.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>With such reasons for the unpopularity of absenteeism,
+the interests of government in the
+prevalence of such a prejudice strongly conspire.
+When the wretched condition of the country is
+made matter of general declamation, the minister
+calls for specific abuses; and when a specific
+abuse is dragged to daylight, and remedies are
+loudly demanded, absenteeism is made a ready
+skreen to conceal the incapacity or unwillingness
+to redress of the governing faction. Tithe abuses
+are met by the charge of excessive rents and
+absentee consumption; corruption of the magistracy
+is defended by the absence of independent
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>justices of the peace; and whatever is
+the evil to be averted, whatever the malpractice
+to be reformed, the Absentees are the ready
+scapegoats for every delinquent, and the plausible
+pretext for every forbearance.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Absenteeship, however, always founded in
+bad government, becomes ruinous only as it
+co-operates with other and mightier evils proceeding
+from the same cause. In a well-ordered
+community the number and influence of
+those who eat the bread of idleness and enjoy
+the means of expatriation, can never bear an
+overwhelming proportion to that of the industrious
+citizens chained down to a spot by the
+habits and the necessities of their laborious lives.
+Wherever this relative proportion is materially
+deranged, there will be found much to alter in
+existing institutions. In such a condition of
+things, a restraining tax is as futile as it is
+unjust. Government exists but to protect property;
+and any law which restrains the owner’s
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>right of spending his money where he pleases,
+operates a violence, which the most urgent necessity
+alone could justify. On the other hand,
+to expect that a pecuniary mulct, of any amount
+short of an absolute seizure of the entire rental,
+would keep those at home, whom a sense of
+injustice, of insecurity, and of the absence of
+educated and liberal intercourse (of all that
+makes life endurable and wealth enjoyable)
+drives into exile, is to be utterly ignorant of
+human nature, and of the habits and feelings of
+the aristocratical part of the community.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>To the pause which followed the commotions
+of 1745, succeeded an event which belonged
+not to <em>one</em> country or <em>one</em> age, but to the
+great history of mankind and to ages yet unborn!
+an event, which though it has produced
+the most extraordinary and wide-spreading consequences
+on the social condition, has not yet
+half worked out its mighty and incalculable
+effects. The American Revolution,—the greatest
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>explosion that ever shook the complicated
+fabric of political abuses, the boldest step which
+civilization has yet made <span lang="fr"><i>en avant</i></span>,—was felt
+in its reverberations throughout all Europe;
+and even Ireland, remote, isolated, and oppressed
+Ireland, returned some vibration to the shock!
+England, amidst the host of ills which assailed
+her at this, the most awful crisis of her history,
+already beheld the children of the land she had
+so long oppressed, bursting their bonds and
+hailing with their wonted “ten thousand welcomes,”<a id='r77'></a><a href='#f77' class='c020'><sup>[77]</sup></a>
+the hope of emancipation, which
+came to them from the greatest and freest
+region of the earth. It was then that a British
+minister, worked upon by his fears, or driven
+by his necessities, granted a reluctant boon,
+for the purpose of winning back the affections
+of an alienated people, whose co-operation he
+wanted, and whose desertion he had but too
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>just a cause to apprehend. It was then that
+he admitted the Irish to rights for which during
+past ages they had sued in vain; and flattered
+those with eulogies to whom he had hitherto
+denied justice. It was not, therefore, wonderful,
+though it was new, that when an Irish member
+in the British senate ventured to observe,
+that “Ireland was the chief dependence of the
+British crown, and that it behoved England to
+admit the Irish nation to the privileges of British
+citizens,” there was not one dissentient voice to
+deny the fact, or oppose the proposition;<a id='r78'></a><a href='#f78' class='c020'><sup>[78]</sup></a> and
+the bills which then passed the Parliament for
+the relief of the Catholics, and for the opening
+of the Irish trade, produced the usual effects of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>kindness on the human heart. From that
+moment America promised, and Franklin wrote
+in vain. “If,” says that patriotic philosopher,—the
+patriot of humanity, and the philosopher
+of common sense!—in his celebrated letter to the
+people of Ireland, “If the government whom
+you at home acknowledge, does not, in conformity
+to its own interests, take off and remove
+every restraint on your trade, commerce, and
+manufacture, I am charged to assure you that
+means will be found to establish your freedom
+in the fullest and freest manner; and as it is
+the ardent wish of America to promote, as far
+as her other engagements will permit, a reciprocal
+commercial intercourse with you, I can
+assure you that they will seek every means to
+establish and maintain it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But Ireland had not recourse to a foreign
+power to reclaim her rights. She placed her
+cause in the hands of her resident gentry:
+she committed it in the senate to a Grattan, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>in the field to a Charlemont! The restrictions
+on trade, which America offered to break, were
+removed by the exertions of Irish patriotism,
+supported by that force, which is alone constitutional,
+a national militia! It was at this
+eventful epoch of Irish regeneration, that the
+combined exercise of those native energies to
+which, in a moment of exigency, a brave and
+unhappy people never fail to resort, produced
+that bulwark of national independence, the
+<span class='sc'>Irish Volunteers</span>; and a whole people, with
+arms in their hands, and liberty in their hearts,
+stood forth the protectors of their native land,
+which an unnatural government had thus exposed
+to danger and seduction. Even England looked
+on with respect and gratitude at the efforts of the
+devoted and loyal Irish, who, forgetful of all
+past injuries, came forward no less in her cause
+than their own;<a id='r79'></a><a href='#f79' class='c020'><sup>[79]</sup></a> and when the Irish volunteers
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>presented themselves to the admiration of the
+empire, organised into a compact and disciplined
+body, under their illustrious chief the
+Earl of Charlemont, (whose name ever falls like
+light upon the page it illustrates,) it was declared
+in the British senate, by one whose words
+were then deemed as <em>prophet’s breathings</em>, “that
+this great event resembled, intrinsically and substantially,
+the glorious Revolution of England
+in 1688!”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This event, however, so glorious for the fame,
+and so profitable to the interests and independence
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>of Ireland, never could have occurred, if
+the majority of the gentry, with their spirit,
+their wealth, their influence, and their education,
+had not been a resident gentry! and if there
+is one illuminated page in the dark story of
+Ireland’s misery! one pause in her sufferings!
+it belongs to this proud and blessed moment,
+when her people and their chiefs were
+armed, morally and physically, in her defence;
+when her senate resounded to an eloquence as
+pure and patriotic as the Forum ever echoed;
+when the private society of the capital became
+proverbial for its wit and festivity; and when
+all tended to, if it did not reach, the term of
+national prosperity and national glory.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>But alas! this moment of promise and splendour
+was transient as a dream, and the bright
+effulgence of Irish patriotism, brilliant as the
+midnight meteor, was as suddenly succeeded
+by a midnight darkness. Causes on which it
+is now beside the purpose to dwell, paralysed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>the virtues, and marred the hopes of the honest
+and the brave. Engines were put into play,
+and agents into activity, to destroy or to sap
+the foundations of national independence. Corruption
+and injustice recommenced their suicidal
+career; the rebellion and the Union were
+got up, and succeeded beyond the hopes of
+their authors; and from that epoch every evil
+which can afflict humanity and degrade a nation
+has gathered to a foul and purulent head;
+every sad succeeding year has been marked by
+some new step towards social disorganization
+and national extinction.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Scarcely had the law passed ratifying that
+great mischief—the Union—(says one of the
+ablest, and what is yet more, one of the honestest
+and most uncompromising writers on Irish
+affairs, of the present or of any age) when Absenteeism,
+the predominant calamity of Ireland,
+was fearfully accelerated. The chief proprietors
+fled from the metropolis, as from an
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>invading army; and the country affording neither
+interest nor expectation, they expatriated
+themselves in shame, in disgust, in anguish,
+in despair. A category of evils beset the land.—Those
+who had entertained fair hopes soon
+found their prospects darken, and a long night
+close the transient day. To infatuation succeeded
+self-torment. A chief Judge died of a
+broken heart because he had participated in
+that signal treachery—another Judge asked
+pardon of God and his country, for sanctioning
+it with his vote. Pitt, the machinist, perished
+amidst the misfortunes of the Empire—and
+Castlereagh, in his pride and power, became
+his own executioner. The noble delinquents
+and their race perish together. Twenty-four
+Irish peerages have become extinct since
+the Union in January, 1801, exclusive of Peerages
+under a superior title, but continued in an
+inferior honour—and while I write, another of
+the noble order which stands between the prerogative
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>and the people, as hounds between the
+huntsman and the hare, is extinguished. Thus
+nature takes vengeance on the exalted traitors
+to their country. The Union cannot subsist—Sin
+and Death have fixed their peremptory
+seal of doom upon it. Not all the vices of
+Ferdinand to his parentage and family and
+country—not all the deeds of the magnanimous
+Allies and the Holy Alliance to Spain,
+Germany, and Italy—no, not the repeated partitions
+of Poland by the Royal Robbers, the
+Austrian, and Frederic, and Catherine, equalled
+altogether the dreadful sum of sinning by the
+English Ministry, in preparing, prosecuting,
+and accomplishing that sad catastrophe—the
+Incorporate Union of Ireland with Great Britain.”—<cite>Ensor’s
+Address to the People of Ireland.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Previously to the Act of Union, Absenteeism,
+though encouraged by the geographical position
+of the country, and promoted by some
+inveterate habits derived from ancient abuse,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>was principally confined, among the native
+Irish, to a few individuals whose ill understood
+vanity tempted them to seek for a consequence
+abroad, which is ever denied to the unconnected
+stranger, a consequence which no extravagant
+expense can purchase. With a few
+exceptions, therefore, the malady was confined
+to the great English proprietors of forfeited
+estates, whose numbers must in the progress of
+events have been diminished, by the dissipations
+inseparable from unbounded wealth, and
+the growth of commercial and manufactural
+fortunes. It might, in some cases, indeed, be
+both a vice, and a ridicule, in the absent;
+but had the nation in other respects been well
+used and well governed, it would have been of
+no serious evil to those who remained at home.
+But the Act of Union, whatever may be its other
+operations, meritorious or vicious, at once converted
+a local disease into a national pestilence.
+The centre of business and of pleasure, the mart
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>of promotion, and the fountain of favour, were
+by this one fatal act at once removed into a foreign
+land; ambition, avarice, dissipation and
+refinement, all combined to seduce the upper
+classes into a desertion of their homes and country:
+and as each succeeding ornament of the
+Irish capital abandoned his hotel, as each influential
+landlord quitted his castle in the country,
+or his house in the city, a new race of vulgar
+upstarts, of uneducated and capricious despots,
+usurped their place, spreading a barbarous
+<em>morgue</em> over the once elegant society of the metropolis,
+and banishing peace and security from the
+mountain and the plain.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Many whom temptation could not hitherto
+seduce from home, were now forced by fear
+to fly; and every passion, every motive combined
+to drive from the happy land, all those
+who were possessed of the means of flight.
+It is in vain that patriotism struggles and
+conscience arrests the departing step of those
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>who yet linger behind in painful vacillation.
+Self-preservation must and will in the end prevail.
+Whatever is educated, whatever is tasteful,
+whatever is liberal, will too probably fly a
+land, where the insolence of official rank supplies
+the amenity of an admitted aristocracy, and
+where vulgar wealth, acquired by political subserviency,
+and too frequently unaccompanied by
+knowledge, holds talent at arms’ length, and
+rejects wit from its coteries as dangerous to its
+own dull supremacy and hostile to the repose of
+its own “<em>fat contented ignorance</em>.” Philanthropists,
+disgusted with the perpetual spectacle of
+hopeless wretchedness and irredeemable despair,
+will seek relief by flying the misery they cannot mitigate;
+the enlightened and the liberal will turn
+with horror from the country where laws of exception
+have been adopted into the permanent code,
+and where necessitated violence is only met by judicial
+severity and legal murder. The landholder,
+wearied by his contests with the clergy, and intimidated
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>by the armed and masked opposition
+of his tenantry, will be contented to purchase
+repose by abandoning at once the soil and its
+produce, to the proctors, the police-men and
+their chiefs. The <span lang="it"><i>sbirri</i></span> of Ireland will alone
+find in a land, thus every way accursed, the elements
+congenial to their existence, as the reptiles
+and insects subsist in that putrefaction, which
+spreads disease and death among the nobler
+animals.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>In the present political prospect of Ireland,
+the eye of philosophy and philanthrophy
+turns on every side in search of a principle of
+regeneration, and turns in vain. On every side
+a circle of recurrent cause and effect, like the
+mystic emblem of the Egyptians, points to an
+eternity of woe, and to endless cycles of misgovernment
+and resistance. As long as the actual
+system continues, (as long as every cause is
+forced to concur in rendering Ireland uninhabitable,)
+so long will it be impossible to organize
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>any plan for civilizing, tranquillizing, and enriching
+the country. It is an empty and an idle
+boast in the British House of Commons, that it
+devotes its successive nights to the debating Irish
+affairs, so long as the religious division of the
+people and the proconsular government founded
+upon that division are to be recognized as sound
+policy or Christian charity. The half measures
+which have hitherto been adopted, far from
+proving beneficial, and composing the contentions
+of hostile factions, have served only to
+increase discontent and disarm inquiry.<a id='r80'></a><a href='#f80' class='c020'><sup>[80]</sup></a> Nor
+can the ministers be entitled to any praise for
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>generosity who dare not, in the first place, be
+just. In spite, therefore, of all their professions
+of zeal and compassion for the national distress;
+in spite of all their parliamentary tamperings
+with the national abuses, they must still remain
+answerable for the greater part of the absenteeship
+which they strenuously hold up as the giant
+ill, over which they have no controul, and for
+the existence of which they imagine themselves
+not responsible.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The grand principle of “<span lang="la"><i>divide et impera</i></span>”
+has produced both the religious question
+and the question between landlords and
+tenants, which are the hinges on which all
+the misfortunes of Ireland turn. To commence
+the work of regeneration in earnest, that principle
+must be fairly and honestly abandoned:
+when this is done, and not before, absenteeship,
+with every other evil which has grown out of
+the monstrous anarchical system, that has so
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>long subsisted, will gradually disappear; and proprietors
+in Ireland, as in other countries, will inhabit
+their country, when their country becomes
+inhabitable.—“<span lang="la"><i>Ubi bene, ibi patria</i></span>” is a maxim
+not altogether unreasonable; and, surely, if in any
+circumstances it is entitled to toleration, it is in
+that land where the greater the patriotism and
+virtue, the less chance is there of social comfort
+and rational happiness. To the absentees
+themselves we would willingly appeal with every
+invocation that can bind the conscience or
+awaken the heart. But the appeal were worse
+than idle, it would in fact be injurious, by
+pointing to effects and disengaging the attention
+from causes. In the present condition of affairs,
+absenteeism is a necessitated evil!! In the
+absentees it is less a crime than a misfortune;
+and with respect to the government it is so far
+from being a justification of its acts, that it has
+become a pregnant and a pointed conclusion of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>its ignorance of all sound principle, or its heartless
+indifference to all those interests which the
+unhappy destiny of “<em>the most unhappy country
+under heaven</em>,” has committed to its charge.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div><span class='small'>THE END.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><span class='small'>LONDON:</span></div>
+    <div><span class='xsmall'>IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c005'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. Irish potentates were then as plenty “as Munster
+potatoes.” “Ils se coudoyoient,” as in the
+<span lang="fr"><i>salle des rois</i></span> of Napoleon. Irish saints were
+equally numerous; but, if the scandalous chronicles
+of the times be worthy of credit, the social
+order of that day was not the better for the circumstance.
+While King Mac Murrogh was running
+away with Queen O’Rourke, wife of O’Rory, King
+of Breffny, who was on a pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s
+purgatory, his son was undergoing the operation of
+having those eyes put out, which had looked too
+tenderly on the Queen of Ossory. The gallantries
+of these Macs and O’s from the earliest ages to the
+present day, recall the answer of the French Silvester
+Daggerwood to his manager, who asked his
+line of parts, “<span lang="fr"><i>Chacun s’en tienne au metier de ses
+pères; je sais que dans notre famille, nous sommes
+tous amoureux de père en fils</i></span>.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f2'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. King Mac Turtell was King of Dublin, and
+held his kingdom by tribute from the King of
+Leinster. “Not far from Dublin,” says the admirable
+Maurice Regan, historiographer to Mac
+Murrogh,—“not far from Dublin there lived an
+Irish king named Gillemohalmoghe.” Of the territories
+of this prince, Michael’s lane in Dublin
+formed a part. It is called in the black book of
+Christchurch, Gillemohalmoghe. As there is some
+reason to suppose that the kingdom extended as
+far as Swords, Sir Compton Domville may be regarded
+as the modern representative of the Gillemohalmoghe
+dynasty.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f3'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. Child’s Discourse upon Trade.—“No inconsiderable
+portion of the entire of Ireland has been
+confiscated twice, and perhaps thrice, in the course
+of a century.”—<cite>Lord Clare’s Speech on the Union.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The causes of absenteeship are, in fact, coeval
+with the first steps of English power in this country.
+“Those that were adventurers,” says Temple, “in
+the first conquests, and such others of the English
+nation as came over afterwards, took possession by
+former grants of the whole kingdom, and <em>drove the
+Irish</em> in a manner out of all habitable parts of it,
+and settled themselves in all the plains and fertile
+places of the country, especially in the chief towns,
+ports, and sea-coasts. It was no capital offence to
+kill any of the rest of the Irish; the law did neither
+protect their life nor revenge their death.”—<cite>History
+of Irish Rebellion.</cite> Here is the starting-post of
+absenteeism, pointed out by an English minister
+and historian.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f4'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. The signatures of Magna Charta evince that
+the nobility of those times, like Pierrot in the farce,
+were “<span lang="fr"><i>un peu brouillés avec l’Alphabet</i></span>;” but the
+spirit which founded that great arch of British freedom,
+was well worth all the namby-pamby acquirements
+of all the modern nobles who ever presided
+over archæology, (or, as Walpole calls it, “old
+woman’s logic,”) flirted with the muses, and combined
+to give tracts to England, or rose-trees to the
+starving peasantry of Connaught and Munster.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f5'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. Henry II. obliged the Earl Strongbow to return
+to Ireland, “being likely for his own wealth and
+assurance to procure all possible means of bridling
+and annoying the Irish.” In the time of Edward III.
+military emigration seems to have been considerable.
+The Irish robbers did good service at Cressy.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f6'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. The Irish were always ready for a little commotion
+at home or abroad; “Great was the credit
+of the Geraldines ever when the House of York
+prospered, and likewise the Butlers thryved under
+the bloud of Lancaster.” It was this disposition
+towards the House of York, which caused the temporary
+success of Perkin Warbeck in Ireland. The
+unfortunate Duke of Clarence, who was drowned in
+a butt of Malmsey, was born in Ireland during the
+lieutenancy of his father, the Duke of York. His
+godfathers were the Earls of Ormond and Desmond.
+Whether this Irish origin will serve to explain the
+peculiarity of his destiny, I cannot say; but the
+residence of a York in Dublin may in part account for
+the popularity of the faction in that city. Shakspeare
+probably alludes to this personage in Henry VI.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c010'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Please it your grace to be advertised</div>
+      <div class='line'>The Duke of York is newly come from Ireland,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And with a puissant and mighty power</div>
+      <div class='line'>Of Gallowglasses and stout Kernes</div>
+      <div class='line'>Is marching hitherward in proud array.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f7'>
+<p class='c021'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. The English reader is not to suppose that
+these <span lang="fr"><i>blanc-mangers</i></span> of the poor Irish were such as
+are to be had at the Verys or Beauvilliers. The
+Irish white meates were curds and whey, the only
+provisions which men whose lives were “in wandering
+spent and care” could obtain. The Irish then
+lived like Arabs, a prey of cattle being the subject
+of their fiercest contests.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f8'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. Had they made the country endurable to live
+in, they would have done what all the penal laws
+that ever have been framed can never affect—they
+would have kept the Irish at home. At the time
+when Henry VIII. was framing his “act of absencie”
+for preventing the increase of the absentees
+the state of the country in which they <em>were by law</em>
+obliged to live, is thus described by Spenser;—“Notwithstanding
+that the same was a most rich
+and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle,
+(Munster more particularly is here speken of,) yet
+in one year and a half (during the war carried on
+against the Earl of Desmond for the purpose of
+forfeiting his estates) the natives were brought to
+such wretchedness, as that any stoney heart would
+rue the same. Out of every corner of the woods
+and glyns they came creeping forth upon their
+hands, for their legs could not bear them, they
+looked like anatomies of death, they shoke like
+ghosts crying out of their graves, they did eat the
+dead carrion, happy when they could find them;
+yea, and one another soon after, inasmuch as the
+very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their
+graves; and if they found a plot of water-cresses
+or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for
+the time, yet not able to continue them withal, that in
+short space there was none almost left; and a most
+populous and plentiful country suddenly left void
+of man and beast.”—<cite>State of Ireland</cite>, 1581.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f9'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. English antiquaries have been much puzzled to
+determine the identity of this “more than celestial
+Geraldine.” “Who she was,” says Walpole, “we
+are not directly told.” Surrey himself mentions
+some particulars of her, but not her name. The
+editor of the last edition of Surrey’s Poems, in some
+short notes on his life, says, “that she was the
+greatest beauty of her time, and maid of honour to
+Queen Catharine; but I think I have very nearly
+discovered who this fair person was, &#38;c. &#38;c. &#38;c.
+I am inclined to think her poetical appellation was
+her real name, as every one of the circumstances
+tally.” The elegant antiquary then devotes three
+pages to prove the probability that Lady Elizabeth,
+daughter of the Earl of Kildare, was the Geraldine
+of Lord Surrey. Warton adopts this supposition,
+and compliments the biographer on having, with
+the most happy segacity, solved the difficulties of
+“this little enigmatical ode.”—<cite>History of English
+Poets.</cite> There was, however, a much shorter way
+of solving the difficulties, namely, the consultation
+of Irish authors for an historical incident respecting
+one of the most illustrious Irish families. Campion,
+who had probably many a time and oft seen the
+“fair Geraldine,” with his usual quaint simplicity
+says, “The Fitzgerald family is touched in the
+Sonnet of Surrey made upon Kildare’s sister, now
+Lady Clinton;”</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c010'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>From Tuscane came my ladyes worthy race,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Faire Florence was sometime her ancient seate;</div>
+      <div class='line'>The western isle, whose plaisant shore doth face</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Wilde Cambre’s cliffes, did give her lively heate.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The ode goes on as follows;—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c010'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Her sire an earle, her dame of prince’s blood;</div>
+      <div class='line'>From tender years in Britain she doth rest</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>With kinges childe, while she tasteth costly food.</div>
+      <div class='line'>Honsdon did first present her to mine yeen,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Bright is her hue, and Geraldine her hight,</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in20'>&#38;c. &#38;c. &#38;c.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c021'>This fair and celebrated Irish absentee, after
+having sent her illustrious lover to Italy “to defend
+her beautie by an open challenge,” in which he
+was victorious, married the Earl of Clinton:—a most
+unsentimental conclusion to a most romantic story.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f10'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. “A false muttering flew about that his execution
+was intended.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f11'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. “Soon after,” says Campion, “was the house
+of the Geraldines attaynted by Parliament, and all
+of the name busily trayned out for feare of new commotions.
+But Thomas Leurces, late Bishop of
+Kildare, schoolemaster to a younger brother, Gerald
+Fitzgerald, the Earle that now liveth, secretly stole
+away with the childe, first into Scotland, then into
+France, and misdoubting the French, into Italy;
+where Cardinall Pole, his neare kinsman preserved
+him till the raigne of Edward the Sixt, with whom
+hee entred into high favour, and obtayned of him his
+olde inheritance of Meinothe.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f12'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. The various epithets applied to these retrogradations
+on the scale of civilization are very amusing.
+Between the “mere and uncivil Irish,” and the
+“English Lords of the Pale,” were the “English
+Lords beginning to wax Irish;” “degenerating,”
+“becoming mere Irish,” and ending by being “very
+wilde Irish,” &#38;c. &#38;c.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f13'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. O’Sullivan Beare, one of the bravest and noblest
+chiefs of Kerry, and Lord of part of the paradise of
+Killarney, in writing to the Spanish minister an account
+of his sufferings at this period, urges him “to
+the speedy sending of a ship to receive him, his wife,
+and children, to save them from the hands of his
+most merciless enemies: Making choice (he pathetically
+adds) rather to forsake my ancient inheritance,
+friends, followers, and goods, than any way
+trust to their graceless pardon or promise.”—<cite><span lang="la">Pacata
+Hibernia.</span></cite> Here was absenteeship in the sixteenth
+century!!</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f14'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. Elizabeth frequently discovered that her Deputies
+were carrying the joke too far. On the occasion
+of the wanton massacre of Smerwick, “The
+queen (says the Bishop of Chichester) was not <em>pleased</em>
+at the <em>manner</em> of this execution, and was hardly <em>after</em>
+drawn to admit any excuse of the slaughter committed.”
+The “<em>manner</em>” was curious enough,—“It
+was concluded that only the leaders should be saved,
+(the leaders were Spanish officers,) the rest slain, and
+<em>all the Irish</em> hanged up: which was presently put
+into execution, to the great disliking of the queen,
+who detested the slaughter of such as yielded themselves.”—<cite>Baker’s
+Chronicle.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f15'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. “The Queen was assured,” says Leland, speaking
+of the inhuman rigour of Lord Deputy Gray,
+“that he tyrannized with such barbarity, that
+little was left in Ireland for her Majesty to reign
+over but ashes and dead carcases.”—<cite>Hist. of Ireland</cite>,
+v. ii. p. 227.—Here are reasons for absenteeship
+quite as cogent as any which can be advanced
+in the present day.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f16'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. The credulity of the Irish has ever been their
+ruin. Some English officers having assured certain
+Irish chiefs that, upon surrendering themselves to
+the government, they would obtain their pardon;
+those chiefs (says Leland) “embraced the counsel,
+submitted, and consented to attend the Lord Deputy
+St. Leger to Ireland. But here the only favour
+granted them was, that they were not brought to
+immediate execution. They were committed to
+prison, their lands declared forfeit, <a id='tn-toto'></a>and granted to
+those on whose counsel they had surrendered.”—<cite>Hist.
+of Ireland</cite>, v. ii.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f17'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. </p>
+<div class='lg-container-l c010'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Then came the Irishmen of valiant hearts,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And active limbs, and personages tall.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c022'><cite>Sir J. Harrington’s Translation of Orlando Furioso.</cite></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f18'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. Apology, p. 58.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f19'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. <span lang="fr"><i>Si je ne vous mange pas en oiseau, je vous mangerai
+en souris.</i></span> “Other times,” they say, “bring
+other manners;” and it is not impossible that men,
+restrained by the <em>manners of our own times</em>, may
+avail themselves of the circumstance of their enforced
+moderation, to reproach the writer who thus
+recalls a fact disreputable to the English government,
+with <em>ripping up old sores</em>. The fact, however,
+is “germane to the matter;” for it was such forfeitures
+that sowed the first seeds of that permanent
+absenteeism which modern ministers affect to deplore:
+and it was these flagrant violations of common
+justice, that first nurtured the lawless disposition
+in the peasantry, which is made an excuse for
+the suspension of all constitutional rights, and
+which is most unjustly charged on the Catholic
+religion. Besides, as long as the system is continued,
+which withholds emancipation, and gives over
+the land to the tyranny and plunder of churchmen
+and their inherents, the “ripping up old sores” is
+both useful and justifiable.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f20'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. The only crime of which O’Rourke could be
+accused, was his having received some shipwrecked
+Spaniards under his roof,—men, says O’Connor,
+whom the most hardened barbarity could scarcely
+consider as enemies. It is remarkable that O’Rourke
+previously to his execution was denied a priest of
+his own persuasion. But Miles Macgrath, the converted
+archbishop of Cashel, was sent to prevail
+on him to conform. “No,” said O’Rourke firmly,
+“but do you remember the dignity from which you
+have fallen; return to the ancient Church, and
+learn from my fortitude the lesson you should have
+taught me, and which you ought to have been the
+last to disavow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>If there is a shadow of truth in this wild story of
+Leitrim, and if Rourke did not betray the lady, he
+deserves canonization. Essex, however, who shared
+the same fate, preserved the same honourable secrecy;
+and the purity of the Virgin Queen remains
+intact.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f21'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. The ruins of O’Rourke’s castle still exist. They
+are sublimely situated on a rock that hangs and
+frowns over a rapid river, near Manor Hamilton, in
+the county of Leitrim. A few trees are scattered
+immediately about the castle, and around are
+heathy mountains rising to the clouds. “O’Rourke’s
+noble feast” has been rendered immortal by the
+translation of Dean Swift.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f22'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. O’Connor Sligo resided some time in the court
+of Elizabeth, where he was flattered up to his bent,
+though not into a permanent absenteeship. He
+returned to Ireland in 1596, after obtaining a grant
+to secure him in the possession of his own property;
+in gratitude for which “he was extremely active in
+her (the Queen’s) favour, and gained back, partly
+by menace and partly by cunning, many of the revolted
+clans.” The celebrated O’Donnel of Tirconnel,
+hearing of O’Connor’s desertion from the
+common cause, marched with an army to bring him
+to obedience: and, in spite of the assistance of Sir
+Conyers Clifford and Lord Mayo, he ravaged and
+destroyed O’Connor’s country.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f23'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. This youth was the only son of the Earl of Desmond,
+already mentioned. He had been detained a
+prisoner in the Tower from his infancy as a pledge
+for his father’s loyalty. He was afterwards sent to
+Ireland as a state engine to play off against another
+Geraldine who had made claims to the forfeited Palatinate;
+but after he had fretted his hour on the
+bloody stage of his own country, he was brought
+back to England, and lingering at court for a few
+months in hopeless despondency, he died in the
+prime of his youth, of a broken heart.—<i>See</i> <span lang="la"><cite>Pacata
+Hibernia</cite></span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f24'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. Upon two occasions the Earl saved a large party
+of English from destruction. Macguire, chief of
+Fermanagh, had given the Lord Deputy three hundred
+cows to free his country from a sheriff; “after
+which bargain, the sheriff, one Willis, was let loose
+upon Fermanagh, leading about some hundreds of
+women and boys, with a guard of one hundred men,
+all living upon the spoils of the country.” Macguire,
+having driven this model of a modern Irish police into
+a church, was about to put them to the sword, when
+the Earl of Tyrone interposed his authority. This
+same Willis was again rescued by Tyrone from an
+insurrection occasioned by similar circumstances in
+the O’Donnel’s country.—<i>See</i> <cite>Memorial to Queen
+Elizabeth</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f25'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. The “Irish masque,” got up to compliment the
+absentees at the English court, is either a bitter satire,
+or a disgusting picture of the state of Irish
+society at that epoch. “The King being seated
+(says <em>the programme</em>) in expectation, out ran a fellow
+attired as a citizen, after him three or four footmen,
+Denis, Donnel, Dermoch, and Patrick,” the
+object of whose visit to London was not like that of
+many of the Denises and Patricks of the present day,
+to become either <em>porters</em>, or <em>reporters</em>, as the chances
+determined; but simply, as Donnel observes, ‘to
+see King Yamish,’ for which purpose ‘they had
+travelled a great way miles,’ having got the start of
+their lords or chiefs who had come over on the same
+loyal errand.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Der.</i> I’ fayt, tere ish very much phoyt stick here
+stirring to night. He takes ush for no shquires I
+tinke.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Pat.</i> No; he tinksh not ve be imbasheters.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Der.</i> No, fayt, I tinke sho too. But tish marriage
+bring over a doshen of our besht mashters
+to be merry, perht tee shweet faish, an’t be; and
+daunsh a fading at te vedding.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Den.</i> But tey vere leeke to daunsh naked, and
+pleash ty majesty; for tey villanous vild Irish sheas
+have casht away all ter fine cloysh, as many ash
+cosht a towsand cowes and garrans, I warrant tee.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Der.</i> And te prishe of a cashtell or two upon teyr
+backs.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Don.</i> And tey tell ty majesty, tey have ner a great
+fish now, nor a shea moynshter to save teyr cloyth
+alive now.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Pat.</i> Nor a devoish vit a clowd to fesh’hem out o’
+te bottom o’ te vayter.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Der.</i> But tey musht eene come and daunsh in
+teyr mantles now; and show tee how tey can foot te
+fading and te fadow, and te phip a’ Dunboyne, I
+trow.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Don.</i> I pree dee now, let not ty sweet faysh ladies
+make a mock on’ him, and scorn to daunsht vit
+’hem now, becash tey be poor.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Pat.</i> Tey drink no bonny clabber, i’ fayt now.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Don.</i> It ish better ten usquebaugh to daunsh vit
+Patrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Pat.</i> By my fater’s hand, tey vill daunsh very
+vell.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Der.</i> Ay, by St. Patrick, vill tey; for tey be nimble
+men.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Den.</i> And vill leap ash light, be creesh save me,
+ash he tat veares te biggest fethur in ty court, King
+Yamish.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Der.</i> For all tey have no good vindsh to blow tem
+heter, nor elementsh to preserve hem.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Don.</i> Nor all te four cornersh o’ te world to creep
+out on.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Pat.</i> But tine own kingdomes.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Don.</i> Tey be honesht men.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Pat.</i> And goot men; tine own shubshects.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Der.</i> Tou hast very good shubshects in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Den.</i> A great goot many, o’ great good shubshects.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Don.</i> Tat love ty mayesty heartily.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Den.</i> And vill run t’rough fire and vater for tee
+over te bog and te bannoke, be te graish o’ Got and
+graish o’ King.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Der.</i> By Got tey will fight for tee, King Yamish,
+and for my mistiesh tere.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'><i>Den.</i> And my little maishter. Paish, paish, now
+room for our mayshter.—Then the gentlemen dance
+forth a dance in their Irish mantles to a solemn
+music of harps, which done, the footmen fall to
+speak again.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f26'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. Borlase asserts that in 1650, ten years before
+the Restoration, 1700 died of the plague in Dublin
+alone; this horrible infliction was peculiar to those
+“picturesque times,” which describe so well, and
+which, it is a mark of literary loyalty to admire and
+eulogize.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c010'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Sir, nothing against antiquity, I pray you,</div>
+      <div class='line'>I must not hear ill of antiquity.”—<cite>B. Jonson.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f27'>
+<p class='c021'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. The most noted beauties of the Court of
+Charles the Second, Lady Barbara Villars, (Duchess
+of Cleveland,) the Countess of Chesterfield, (a
+Butler,) the Lady Kildare, introduced by St. Evremont
+into his pleasant little poem of “The Basset
+Table,”<a id='r28'></a><a href='#f28' class='c020'><sup>[28]</sup></a> the Countess de Grammont, and many
+others, were Irish women. The delightful author
+of “Mémoires de Grammont,” Anthony Hamilton,
+was himself an Irishman,<a id='r29'></a><a href='#f29' class='c020'><sup>[29]</sup></a> and a branch of the
+illustrious house of Hamilton, which obtained from
+James the First such princely possessions in the
+North of Ireland, and which is still represented by
+the Marquis of Abercorn. The Fitzmaurices, (Muskerry,)
+the O’Briens, the Butlers, the Talbots, are
+names noted in the fasti of Whitehall at this period.
+With respect to the Talbots, however, it is but fair
+to observe that the elder branch of this ancient and
+patriotic family always remained permanently resident
+in their splendid castle and domain of Malahide,
+as their worthy representative the Member for
+the county of Dublin continues to do in the present
+day; though the younger branch, the Lords of
+Carton (now the seat of the Duke of Leinster) were
+prime favourites at Whitehall, and boon companions
+of both Charles and James. “The Dick
+Talbot” of that day, whom Charles would fain
+have set at odds with the Duke of Ormonde,
+brought no additional rays to the original splendour,
+when he added a ducal coronet to its less
+perishable honours. This Colonel Richard Talbot
+(afterwards Duke of Tirconnel) was sent to the
+Tower for having challenged the Duke of Ormonde
+with duplicity of conduct with respect to the Irish
+Catholics, whose agent Colonel Talbot then was.
+Ormonde, believing the better part of valour to be
+discretion, fought shy, instead of fighting Talbot;
+and when rallied on this circumstance by the King,
+petulantly demanded, “Is it then your Majesty’s
+pleasure that at this time of day I should put off
+my doublet to fight duels with Dick Talbot?”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f28'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. </p>
+<div class='lg-container-l c010'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Vous ne me parlez pas de Madame de Kildare,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>I never saw personne avoir meilleure air.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f29'>
+<p class='c021'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. His mother, the beautiful Lady Maria Butler, was
+daughter to the Duke of Ormonde.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f30'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. It is farther particularly notable that James, the
+friend and correspondent of Pope Clement VIII.
+and the special protector of the Irish Catholics,
+first established in Ireland a Protestant ascendancy
+in parliament, in obedience to the advice of the
+Lord Deputy Chichester. With the inconsistency
+which ever accompanies a want of principle, he
+occasionally amused himself at the expense of the
+very people he affected to favour. When Chichester
+made King James a present of a beautiful horse,
+his Majesty asked him if it were an Irish horse:
+on being answered in the affirmative, the King
+swore his favourite oath, “Then it must be a
+Papist,” for he verily believed that all things produced
+in Ireland were Papists, even the very animals
+themselves.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f31'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. None benefited more largely by these “plots of
+rebellion” than the house of Ormonde. “His
+Grace (says Lord Anglesey in his letter to the Earl
+of Castlehaven) his Grace (the Duke of Ormonde)
+and his family, by the forfeiture and punishment of
+the Irish, were the greatest gainers in the kingdom,
+and had added to their inheritance vast scopes of
+land, and a revenue three times greater than his
+paternal estate, as it was before the Rebellion, and
+most of his increase was out of their estates who
+adhered to the peace of 1648, or served under His
+Majesty’s ensigns abroad.” In the anonymous and
+curious pamphlet “The Unkind Deserter,” it is
+asserted that the Ormonde estate was but 7000<i>l.</i>
+per annum before the civil wars in Ireland, and that
+in 1674 it was close upon 100,000<i>l.</i> a year; which
+increase arose from the King’s grants to him “of
+other men’s estates,” &#38;c. &#38;c. &#38;c. The history of
+the last Rebellion in 1798, and of the Union, would
+furnish many anecdotes of a similar increase of the
+wealth of Irish families; not indeed by forfeitures,
+(for the mode had passed,) but by intriguing and
+bullying the government out of every place at its
+disposal, from a mitre to a cornetcy of dragoons,—by
+the wholesale and retail sale of the country:
+(a vote upon a single stage of a question has been
+hired, like a job-carriage, by the night;) by corrupt
+dabbling in every species of public work; in
+short, by every disgraceful practice of the fraudulent
+tradesman, the scheming adventurer, and the
+sturdy mendicant. The philosopher Kirwan was
+wont to quote a calculation he had made, that the
+money spent on carrying the Union, would have
+built a bridge from Howth to Holyhead.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f32'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. In James the Second’s reign some of the measures
+were calculated to be of the greatest service to
+Ireland, and emanated from a wise and discreet
+minister, formerly attached to the Protestant interest,
+the second Earl of Clarendon. His instructions
+announced the intentions of the legislature, or
+at least of the King, to introduce Catholics into the
+corporations, and invest them with magistracies and
+judicial offices; and he gave his opinion in favour
+of the legality of the measure, though contrary to an
+Act of Elizabeth. But the greatest evil which can
+occur to a reformation, is to have it undertaken by
+men of small capacity; as their best intentions are
+ever marred by their petulance and dullness. The
+folly with which James hurried on a change, and the
+injudiciousness of some of the proposed measures,
+caused his own ruin, and that of the unhappy country
+he made the principal scene of his egregious
+weakness and incapacity.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f33'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. The Irish army under Tirconnel and Sarsfield
+made a most vigorous resistance against a superior
+and well-disciplined force; and Limerick, the last
+hold, was surrendered upon terms from which it
+appears that none more esteemed their valour and
+fidelity than King William himself.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f34'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. When James, after his flight from the battle of
+the Boyne, arrived in Dublin, he had the ingratitude
+and ungraciousness to reflect upon the cowardice of
+the Irish. He reached the Castle late at night, and
+was met at its gates by the Lady Lieutenant, the
+beautiful Duchess of Tirconnel, “La belle Jennings”
+of Grammont’s Memoirs. In return for the
+sympathizing respect which marked her reception,
+the King is said to have sarcastically complimented
+her upon the “alertness of her husband’s
+countrymen.” The high-spirited beauty replied,
+“In that, however, your Majesty has had the advantage
+of them all.” The King, in fact, was among
+the first to arrive in the capital with the news of his
+own defeat.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f35'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. They were estimated at the annual sum of two
+hundred and eleven thousand six hundred pounds.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f36'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. Letter to Sir H. Langrish.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f37'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. Of this intolerance William stands in a great
+measure acquitted. His known liberality subjected
+him to the suspicions of the party who forged the
+penal statutes for Ireland, and who accused him of
+infidelity, because he was unwilling to become a
+persecutor. When left to act for himself, he exhibited
+a wisdom, wanting in the measures of those to
+whom he was occasionally obliged to submit. In
+his instructions to the commissioners in Scotland,
+dated 1689, he says expressly, “You are to pass an
+act establishing that church government which is
+most agreeable to the inclinations of the people.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f38'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. To favour the English manufacturer, the exportation
+of the staple commodity and manufacture of
+Ireland (wool) was prohibited on pain of confiscation,
+imprisonment, and transportation!! It would be
+difficult to say whether the infamy or the absurdity
+of such legislation is the greatest; and indignation
+at the avarice of the lawgivers, is so largely mixed
+with contempt for their blind ignorance, that the
+pen pauses in its vituperation of measures which
+were so obviously their own punishment. Be it however
+remarked “<span lang="fr"><i>en passant</i></span>,” that the framers of
+these laws were the aristocracy of England, the most
+educated and moral people then in existence; a
+striking proof of the perfect inadequacy of abstract
+principles of right and wrong to the good government
+of conduct. Force, and force alone, too generally
+makes right, in opinion, as well as in fact;
+and where the power to abuse exists, the will to injure
+and the sophistry to justify the injury, will
+never long be wanting.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f39'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. “Have they any wit in their compositions?
+(says Spenser in speaking of the poetry of the Irish
+in his day.) Yea, truly, I have caused divers of
+them to be translated unto me, that I might understand
+them; and surely they savoured of sweet wit
+and good invention, sprinkled with some pretty
+flowers of their natural device, which gave good
+grace and comeliness to them.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f40'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. “Oh wretched condition of our loved compatriots,
+the remains of a once happy people, steeped in blood
+and drenched in slaughter! Vain is your struggle
+for liberty, hapless crew of a bark long tempest-tossed,
+and now cast away forever. What! are we
+not wrecked on our own shores, and prisoners to the
+Saxons? Is not the sentence passed and our excision
+foredoomed? How are ye fallen from the ancient
+glories of your native land! Power degraded
+into weakness, beauty to deformity, freedom into
+slavery, and the song of triumph into elegies of
+despair. Nial, of the nine hostages, look not down
+upon us, lest thou blush for thy captive Gadhelians.
+Conn, of the hundred battles, sleep in thy grass-grown
+tomb, nor upbraid our defeats with thy victories.”—<cite>Oran</cite>
+(or song) <cite>of Ognive, the family bard
+of the last of the O’Neils.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f41'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. Boyle, Berkeley, King, Dodwell, Leslie, Toland,
+Clayton, (Bishop of Clogher,) Molyneux, (the friend
+of Locke the philosopher and champion of Irish independence,)
+Helsham, Robinson, Macbride, Sullivan,
+Hutchinson, Abernethy, Harris, Keating, Leland,
+Kirwan, Young, (Bishop of Clonfert,) &#38;c. &#38;c.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f42'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. Even so far back as the reign of James the First,
+Ireland began to furnish her quota to the English
+drama. But from the middle of the seventeenth
+century to something more than the middle of the
+eighteenth, she produced almost all the best dramatic
+writers on the British stage: Congreve, Howard,
+Southerne, Steele, Farquhar, Phillips, Kelly,
+Jones, Orrery, (Earl of,) Tate, Concanen, Dobbs,
+Bickerstaff, Brook, Centlivre, Griffiths, Jephson,
+Murphy, Macklin, O’Hara, West, Goldsmith,
+Sheridan, &#38;c. &#38;c. And among the actors, Wilks,
+Quin, Sheridan, Barry, Mossop, Macklin, Havard,
+O’Brien, Brown, Woffington, Clive, Fitzhenry, &#38;c.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f43'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. Denham, Parnell, Swift, Sterne, Burke, Goldsmith,
+the Sheridans; to whom may be added
+Molesworth, Millar, Wood, Webb, Pilkington, Johnson
+(Chrysal), &#38;c. &#38;c. Even the women no longer
+deemed it the exclusive purpose of their being</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div>“To suckle fools and chronicle small-beer;”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c023'>and the elegant and witty productions of Mesdames
+Millar, Pilkington, Centlivre, Grierson, Griffiths,
+Sheridan, Barker, Brook, contributed to the general
+stock of national literature.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f44'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. Jervas, (Pope’s Raphael,) Bindon, Roberts the
+landscape-painter, Barrett, &#38;c.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f45'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. Miss Brook, the elegant translator and composer
+of the “Relics of Ancient Irish Poetry.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f46'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. The Lord Mayo, of the early part of the
+eighteenth century, here alluded to, was a model
+of the genuine Irish resident nobleman, living in
+his rural palace, surrounded by his family, his bards,
+and musicians. One of these, “his retainer,” David
+Murphy, composed an Irish Ode of some celebrity,
+called “Tiagherna Mhaigho,” the “Lord of
+Mayo,” which another of his retainers, O’Keeneghan,
+set to music. This Carolan was wont to play at
+night in the hall of the Burkes, on his harp. It
+happened that during Carolan’s last visit to Lord
+Mayo, Geminiani arrived from Italy by special invitation
+from the amateur Earl; and his Italian music
+completely usurped the attention of the Ladies Susan
+and Bridget Burke, of whose praise Carolan
+was especially jealous, and he frankly complained
+to his noble host of this neglect. Lord Mayo, rallying
+the bard on his feelings, concluded by telling
+him, that when he should produce the same music
+as Geminiani, he would meet with the same attention.
+On this Carolan proposed a wager, that he on
+his harp would follow the Italian in any piece of
+his composition, but that Geminiani should not follow
+him through an Irish planxty: the wager was
+accepted by the Italian, and won by the Irish bard.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f47'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. The O’Connors of Ballingar, the favourite residence
+of Carolan.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f48'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. “In the year 1740, the sublime genius of Handel
+roused our feelings from the lethargy into which
+they had fallen.”—<cite>Memoirs of the Irish Bards.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Banished from London by the intrigues of a
+party, Handel<a id='r49'></a><a href='#f49' class='c020'><sup>[49]</sup></a> fled to Ireland, where, with his
+friend Dubourg, the violin of his age, he was received
+with rapture. His first public exhibition in
+Dublin was the Messiah, which he performed for
+the benefit of the city prisons. Whoever had the
+happiness of knowing the late Richard Kirwan, the
+Irish philosopher, may judge of the enthusiasm of
+the travelled Irish gentlemen for Italian music, and
+the vogue which Piccini obtained through their
+means.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f49'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r49'>49</a>. Pope alludes to this banishment of Handel in his Dunciad:</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c010'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>“Strong in new arms, lo! Giant Handel stands</div>
+      <div class='line'>Like bold Briareus with his hundred hands,—&#38;c. &#38;c. &#38;c.</div>
+      <div class='line'>Arrest him, Goddess, or you sleep no more:</div>
+      <div class='line'>She heard, and drove him to Hibernia’s shore.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f50'>
+<p class='c021'><a href='#r50'>50</a>. St. Bridget was accustomed to pray under the
+shade of an oak, a circumstance which has given
+its name to an Irish county, Cil doire, the cell
+of the oak (Kildare.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f51'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r51'>51</a>. “Concerts were the favourite amusement in
+the houses of the nobility and gentry, and musical
+societies were formed in all the great towns.”—<cite>Memoirs
+of Irish Bards.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f52'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r52'>52</a>. The Philharmonic Society gave up its subscriptions
+towards building the hospital in Townsend-street,
+1753.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f53'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r53'>53</a>. “Italian singers were invited over, and <a id='tn-fairdames'></a>the fair
+dames of Ireland learned to expire at an opera.”—<cite>History
+of Irish Music.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f54'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r54'>54</a>. Barry, Sheridan, Mossop, Diggs, Daly, Crawford,
+and others of a more modern date, were all
+gentlemen of family, and members of the Irish
+University. They lived with their own class, and
+some of them went to court. The intimacy of
+Sheridan with successive lords lieutenant is recorded
+in the life of his celebrated wife, written and recently
+published by their accomplished grand-daughter.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f55'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r55'>55</a>. If a desire for luxuries and refinements is in all
+classes the natural check to excessive population,
+and to the degradation of the species, that check
+is wholly wanting in Ireland. Not only the peasant,
+but the tradesman sees no attainable object of enjoyment
+in the possession of a class just above himself
+in ease and comfort, which might stimulate
+his ambition. The connecting link between the
+rich and the poor is wanting; for middlemen are
+no refiners of manners. As a familiar illustration,
+let the reader imagine that, except in towns of the
+first class, few vegetables beyond a cabbage or a potatoe
+are to be found in the market. There is absolutely
+no demand for such <em>luxuries</em> to repay the
+culture.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f56'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r56'>56</a>. One of these rooms painted in fresco and highly
+decorated, remains, or did remain a few years back,
+in Fishamble-street.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f57'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r57'>57</a>. Marino, Frescati, Marli, Sanssouci, Tivoli,
+Bellevue, Maritimo, &#38;c. are curious monuments
+of the manners and feelings of the Irish nobility of
+the eighteenth century.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f58'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r58'>58</a>. Concerts were given in this room twice a week,
+for the benefit of the Lying-in Hospital, to which it
+is an appendage. Previously to its erection, these
+musical meetings were held for the same purpose in
+a long room in Granby-row, where Castruci, the
+last pupil of Corelli, performed.—See <cite>Memoirs of
+Irish Bards</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f59'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r59'>59</a>. The refinement not to say dissipation, of this
+period was perhaps precocious and disproportionate
+to the riches of the country; but this circumstance,
+always perhaps inherent in a particular stage of
+civilization, was in Ireland increased by peculiarities
+in the distribution of national wealth, another
+fatal consequence of the frequent forfeitures. Time,
+however, would have cured this evil, if the tide of
+absenteeship had not again set in, and swept away
+all improvement and prosperity from the land.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f60'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r60'>60</a>. It has been said with great truth that “the
+politics of Molyneux long continued to be no less
+revered by the Irish than the morality of Confucius
+by the Chinese.” The burning of his excellent
+work, the “Case of Ireland,” the prosecution of
+Swift’s “Drapier’s Letters,” and the imprisonment
+of his spirited publisher, Faulkner, had the great
+merit of bringing the doctrine of libel into public
+discussion, and of first awakening the people of
+Ireland to the value of the liberty of public speaking
+and writing, the most important of the many
+blessed constitutional rights extorted from power at
+the Revolution. It is pleasant to observe, that
+patriotism becomes an heir-loom, and to note that
+the immediate descendant of William Molyneux,
+who inherits his principles with his property and
+name, is a permanently resident Irish gentleman!</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f61'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r61'>61</a>. John Ponsonby, Speaker of the House of Commons
+in 1756, under whom the Irish patriots made
+a most successful stand on a constitutional question
+of vital importance. The energy and firmness of
+the patriotic Speaker, and of a majority of the
+members of the House of Commons, who then
+(“Hear this, ye gods, and wonder how ye made
+them”) attended to the business of their country,
+forms a brilliant feature in the history of the times.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f62'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r62'>62</a>. The friend of the celebrated Berkeley, a right
+good Irishman and author of a “List of Absentees,”
+a class, to which he showed no quarter.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f63'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r63'>63</a>. Henry Boyle, the patriot of the Irish House of
+Commons in the early part of the eighteenth century.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f64'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r64'>64</a>. Connolly died Speaker of the House in 1730,
+lamented by all who loved Ireland; Sir R. Walpole
+gave him the name of “King of the Irish Commons,”
+from his astonishing influence over the Lower
+House.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f65'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r65'>65</a>. Member for New Ross. On an important political
+question he rode post to town sixty miles to be
+present at the debate, and arrived just in time to
+give his vote.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f66'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r66'>66</a>. Dolly Munroe, the reigning Irish beauty of
+Goldsmith’s day, to whom he alludes in his Haunch
+of Venison:</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c010'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“’Twas a neck and a breast that might rival Munroe’s.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f67'>
+<p class='c021'><a href='#r67'>67</a>. See some of Right Hon. John Philpot Curran’s
+Verses preserved in his Life by his son William
+Henry Curran—a work full of interest with respect
+to matter, and full of beauty with respect to style.
+The account given in its pages, of the convivial and
+intellectual meetings of “the Monks of the Screw”
+at the Priory (Mr. Curran’s villa) forms a brilliant
+but painful contrast to other orgies now celebrated
+in Dublin, which alas! are neither social nor intellectual!</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f68'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r68'>68</a>. Lord Clare.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f69'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r69'>69</a>. Dr. Franklin.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f70'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r70'>70</a>. The penal laws had been multiplied and rigorously
+executed under George the First. On the
+accession of George the Second, for the first time
+since the Revolution, the unfortunate Catholics,
+who by a feeble and foolish fiction of the law of
+the land, were “not supposed to exist,” ventured
+to approach the throne by a public act of their
+body; and they presented an address of congratulation
+at once dignified and loyal.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f71'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r71'>71</a>. Forbidding Catholics to bear arms either by
+sea or land.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f72'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r72'>72</a>. When Lord Chesterfield arrived in Ireland, all
+the Catholic places of worship were closed. A Mr.
+Fitzgerald saying mass in the obscure garret of a
+condemned house, an immense crowd had assembled,
+and the floor giving way, the officiating priest
+with many of his flock were buried in the ruins, and
+the greater number were maimed or wounded. Lord
+Chesterfield, horror-struck at the event, ordered that
+all the chapels in the capital should be opened on
+St. Patrick’s day, and they have never since been
+closed.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>A zealous Protestant thinking to pay his court to
+the Lord Lieutenant, came to inform him that one of
+his coachmen was a Roman Catholic, and went privately
+to mass. “Does he, indeed?” said his Lordship,
+“then I shall take care that he never drives
+me there.”—<cite>Chesterfield’s Memoirs.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Bishop of Waterford relates that the vice-treasurer,
+Mr. Gardiner, a man of good character
+and considerable fortune, waited upon Lord Chesterfield,
+one morning, and in a great fright told him
+that he was assured upon good authority that the
+people in the province of Connaught were actually
+rising; upon which the Viceroy looked at his watch,
+and with great composure answered him, “It is
+nine o’clock, and time for them to rise; I believe,
+therefore that your news is true.” This system of
+alarm, be it observed, continues in all its vigour to
+the present day; and the actual Viceroy has to
+withstand the falsehood of the designing and the
+credulity of the nervous, full as much as any of his
+predecessors.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f73'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r73'>73</a>. In a contest for constitutional rights (1755), the
+Earl of Kildare placed himself at the head of the
+liberal party, which was then technically designated
+“the patriots:” and the agents of the Castle and
+the Church faction having represented to the King
+that the Irish House of Commons was bent on destroying
+the royal prerogative, for the purpose of
+preparing his Majesty’s expulsion, the Earl, with
+“the oulde bloode of the Geraldines” boiling in his
+veins, denied the calumny, and composed and with
+his own hand presented a memorial to the king,
+proving historically that the Irish were to a fault the
+upholders of the royal prerogative, and lovers of
+kingly government. For this spirited conduct,
+which recalls the opposition of the Kildares of old
+to the ministers of Henry the Seventh and Eighth,
+he received the glorious appellation of Father of
+his country.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f74'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r74'>74</a>. The terrorism of former times having now yielded
+to a more salutary system, the expression of public
+feeling took a variety of forms. It was at this
+period that political toasts came into fashion, introduced
+into social meetings through the convivial
+talents of a Mr. Carter, son to the Master of the
+Rolls. His toast of “May all secretary bashaws
+and lordly high-priests be kept to their proper tackle,
+the sword and the bible,” became a charter sentiment
+at all public and private dinners. The lordly
+high-priest was Archbishop Stone, and the bashaw
+was Lord G. Sackville, who brought all the pedantry
+of the schools to his official diplomacy, and added
+the superciliousness of fashion to the hauteur of
+conscious supremacy.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f75'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r75'>75</a>. The numbers of those who voted were 102 for,
+and 122 against the measure. The tax proposed
+was two shillings in the pound upon rents and profits
+of landed property in the hands of those who
+did not reside in Ireland for six months in each
+year, from 1773 to 1775.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f76'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r76'>76</a>. It is stated in the public prints that 350,000<i>l.</i>
+are, at this day, taken annually from the county of
+Kilkenny alone.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f77'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r77'>77</a>. Cead mille faltha.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f78'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r78'>78</a>. It is worth citing, that Sir Cecil Wray, one of
+the most violent opponents of the extension of Irish
+trade, observed at this time to the House, “that the
+true grievances of Ireland were the Irish Pension
+List, the Sinecure Offices, the Roman Catholic Disabilities,
+and the Absentees.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f79'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r79'>79</a>. It was to the loyalty of the people of Ireland at
+this period, that the Lord Lieutenant of the day
+alluded, when, in his speech from the throne, he observed,
+“That the united and great military preparations
+of the House of Bourbon seemed only to have
+roused the courage and called forth the exertions of
+his Majesty’s brave and loyal subjects of this kingdom
+of Ireland; and I have only to lament that the
+exhausted state of the treasury has hitherto put it
+out of my power to give those exertions the most
+extensive and constitutional operation, by carrying
+the militia law into effect.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f80'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r80'>80</a>. These half measures are, however, in the present
+state of affairs almost inevitable.—A divided cabinet
+founded upon a divided state of public opinion,
+opposes an insuperable barrier to a frank and honest
+reform: and oscillations of principle and of practice
+must attend the effort to manage factions so nicely
+balanced.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c005'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><span class='xlarge'>PROSPECTUS</span></div>
+    <div><span class='small'>OF</span></div>
+    <div><span class='large'>SIR JONAH BARRINGTON’</span>s</div>
+    <div><span class='large'>HISTORIC ANECDOTES OF IRELAND</span></div>
+    <div><span class='small'>DURING HIS OWN TIMES,</span></div>
+    <div>WITH SECRET MEMOIRS OF THE UNION;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c008'>Illustrated by Delineations of the principal Characters connected
+with those Transactions, curious Letters and Papers in fac simile; and
+numerous Original Portraits, engraved by the elder <span class='sc'>Heath</span>.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div><i>To be completed in Ten Numbers, in Royal 4to.</i></div>
+    <div><i>Price 12s. 6d. each.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div><span class='large'>PRINTED FOR HENRY COLBURN,</span></div>
+    <div>NEW BURLINGTON STREET.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c008'>Unforeseen circumstances, over which the Author had
+no influence or controul, had altogether checked the progress
+of this Work, suspended the publication of its latter
+parts, and left them on the Publisher’s shelves unadvertised
+and uncirculated.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This temporary relinquishment had given rise to unfounded
+and injurious reports of its suppression; an object
+which never was for one moment in the contemplation of the
+Author, nor sought for, or even suggested, by the Government
+of England.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>On the contrary—the lamentable and unimproving march
+of Ireland from the period of the Union having fully proved
+the deceptious prospective given to that fatal measure by its
+mistaken or corrupt supporters, and exciting a novel interest
+and grave reflections of vital importance to the British Empire,
+the Author had determined to seize upon the first
+available opportunity of fulfilling his engagement to the
+friends and patrons of the Work, by its completion.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Those friends were not confined to one party. They were
+mingled in all—they comprised several of the highest orders
+of society—many who held, and some who still hold important
+stations in the Government of both countries;—and the
+commencing parts of the Work having been honoured by the
+approbation and encouragement of His present Majesty and
+other Members of His Royal House, it was with deep regret
+the Author found himself, from a succession of causes, for
+several years unable to fulfil his intentions, and gratify his
+own laudable ambition, by compiling into a compact Memoir,
+the most important Historic events of Ireland. In many of
+those he was himself a not unimportant actor. He possessed
+also the advantage of individual intimacy or acquaintance
+with the most celebrated personages of all parties; without
+which, and the fidelity of a contemporary and independent
+pen, the delineation of their characters and the record of their
+conduct, if not lost for ever, would have descended to posterity
+with imperfect details and an ambiguous authenticity;—or
+have left a wide chasm in a highly interesting epocha of
+British History.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The fallacious measure of a Legislative Union,—the progress
+of which from commencement to consummation the
+Author energetically resisted—has proved by its inoperative
+or mischievous results, the justness of that resistance. And
+he now, in common with many of the most distinguished of
+its original supporters, deeply deplores its accomplishment.
+But established by lapse of time—confirmed by passive assent—and
+complicated with some beneficial, and many political
+and financial arrangements, its tranquil reversal seems to
+have passed feasibility. Yet—as an hereditary friend to
+British connexion—the Author hopes, by the revival and completion
+of this History, to open wide the eyes of Great Britain
+to the present dangers of Ireland—to draw aside the curtain
+of ignorance and prejudice by which her history has been
+so long obscured—to compare her once rising prosperity
+with her existing miseries—to discover the occult causes of
+their continuance and the false principles of her misrule—to
+display her sacrifices for England—and to unmask her libellers
+in both countries.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Developments such as these may rouse the Legislature to
+probe her wounds to their depth—to employ her labour—to
+succour—to foster—and to rule her on the broad principles of
+a steady and philanthropic policy—and to relinquish for ever
+that system of coercive Government, which an experience of
+many centuries has proved to be destructive of almost every
+thing—except her crimes and her population.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The British people should also learn that the absence of the
+ancient Nobles and protecting Aristocracy of Ireland,—drawn
+away by the Union from their demesnes and tenantry to
+the Seat of Legislation, and replaced only by the griping
+hands and arbitrary sway of upstart deputies,—increases in
+proportion with the miseries and turbulence of the lower
+orders; and that the luxuriance of vegetation which clothes
+that capable Island, has, through the same causes, become
+only a harbinger of want, or the forbidden fruit of a famished
+peasantry.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It should therefore be the object of every pen and of every
+tongue, to render the Union as innoxious as its paralyzing
+nature can now admit of; to recall the proprietors of the
+Irish soil to a sense of their own security and their country’s
+welfare; and thereby strengthen the ties which should bind
+the two nations together, in equality, prosperity, and affection—on
+the firmness and durability of which <em>species</em> of connexion
+depends, not only the constitutional security of
+England herself, but perhaps the political existence of both
+countries.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Such is the Author’s view in the completion of this Work.
+The obstacles to its progress are surmounted, and its publication
+is now in the hands of those who will spare nothing to
+render it worthy of its object, and ensure a lasting and beneficial
+record to the United Empire.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>It is fortunate for Ireland, and disastrous to her calumniators,
+that a recent and great event has at once exposed
+the misrepresentations of her enemies, and displayed a
+great source of her misfortunes. The visit of a conciliating
+King to a distracted people rapidly disclosed their native
+character, and produced a burst of unfeigned, unanimous,
+genuine loyalty—never before experienced in such profusion
+by any Monarch from his subjects. The equivocating language
+of diplomacy was rejected for awhile. The King was
+a Patriot, and the People were loyal. For the first time they
+were allowed to approach each other. Both were sincere—and
+both were ardent. In a few days, the King became
+despotic in the affections of the Nation, and his Ministers
+descended into a comparative insignificance. When he
+arrived, he was respected as a British King—but when he
+departed, he was adored as an Irish Monarch. He saw at
+once that the existence of faction and discord was incompatible
+with the peace and the prosperity of Ireland; and
+that she hung on Great Britain, as a withering limb upon a
+healthful body—essential to its symmetry, but useless to its
+functions and injurious to its Constitution.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>There was but one remedy—conciliation. His Majesty
+saw its efficacy and commanded its adoption.—But his commands
+were disobeyed by the <em>Regal Rebels</em><a id='r81'></a><a href='#f81' class='c020'><sup>[81]</sup></a>—and Ireland
+is still seen withering and cankering—by the obstinacy of
+intolerant faction, the irritation of local tyranny, and the
+multiplying mischiefs resulting from disobedience to the
+benevolent and wise commands of the only British King who
+ever yet set foot on the Irish shore as a friend, and as a
+patriot.</p>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f81'>
+<p class='c009'><a href='#r81'>81</a>. Mr. Grattan’s definition of men, “Who make their loyalism a
+pretence to perpetuate their supremacy,—and distract the peace of a
+Country under colour of protecting it.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c005'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><span class='xlarge'>NEW BOOKS,</span></div>
+    <div><span class='large'>PUBLISHED BY HENRY COLBURN,</span></div>
+    <div>8, NEW BURLINGTON-STREET,</div>
+    <div>(<i>Removed from the Library in Conduit Street.</i>)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c008'>1. MEMOIRS OF SAMUEL PEPYS, Esq. F.R.S. Secretary
+to the Admiralty in the Reigns of Charles II. and James II. comprising
+his Diary, deciphered from the Original Short-hand MSS. in the
+Pepysian Library, and a Selection from his “Private Correspondence.”
+Edited by RICHARD LORD BRAYBROOKE. In 2 vols. royal 4to.
+printed uniformly with Evelyn’s Memoirs, and embellished with Portraits
+and other Engravings by the first Artists.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Diary commences immediately before the Restoration, when Mr.
+Pepys sailed with the Earl of Sandwich to bring over the King from
+Breda, and is continued almost uninterruptedly for ten years, containing
+much curious matter not to be found in any other history of that eventful
+period. Independently of the political transactions of the period,
+the pages abound with private anecdotes of Charles II. and his Court;
+and Mr. Pepys’ peculiar habits of observation led him generally to record
+the most curious characteristics of the times in which he lived.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>2. The MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS of JOHN EVELYN,
+Esq. the celebrated Author of “Sylva,” or, a Discourse of Forest
+Trees, Memoirs, &#38;c. Now first collected and edited, with Notes.
+Printed uniformly with Evelyn’s Memoirs, in 1 vol. royal 4to. and embellished
+with Engravings, price 3l. 10s. boards.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>3. SYLVA: or, a DISCOURSE of FOREST TREES, and
+the Propagation of Timber, to which is added the “Terra.” By JOHN
+EVELYN, Esq. A new Edition, with Notes by the late A. HUNTER,
+Esq. F.R.S. &#38;c., in 2 vols. 4to. embellished with numerous plates, price
+5l. 5s. boards.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>4. MEMOIRS of the COUNTESS DE GENLIS. Illustrative
+of the History of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Written
+by Herself. Editions in French and English.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>⁂ This work will be found to abound in Anecdotes of the most
+Eminent Literary and Political Characters, who figured at the latter end
+of the Eighteenth, and the commencement of the Nineteenth Centuries.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>5. TREMAINE; or, the MAN of REFINEMENT; a New
+and revised Edition. 3 vols. post 8vo. 31s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>6. A SECOND SERIES OF SAYINGS AND DOINGS;
+or, SKETCHES FROM LIFE. Second Edition. 3 vols. post 8vo. 31s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Full of wise saws and modern instances.”—<span class='sc'>Shakespeare.</span></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>7. A SECOND SERIES of HIGHWAYS and BY-WAYS, or
+TALES of the ROAD-SIDE; picked up in the French Provinces by a
+Walking Gentleman. Containing Caribert the Bear Hunter; the Priest
+and the Garde du Corps; and the Vouee au Blanc, or Maid devoted to
+the Virgin. A New Edition, in 3 vols. post. 8vo. 30s.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“I hate the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say, ’Tis
+all barren.”—<span class='sc'>Sterne.</span></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>8. DON ESTEBAN; or, MEMOIRS of a SPANIARD.
+Written by Himself. In 3 vols. post 8vo. 27s.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This Work forms an excellent supplement and companion to the admirable
+Letters of Don Leucadio Doblado. In giving a detailed history
+of his life, Don Esteban professes to present a faithful picture of the
+manners, habits, and customs of his countrymen. “He takes the reader
+into the interior of their private houses; introduces him to their Tertulias,
+Balls, Assemblies, and public places; leads him to the Romerias,
+Convents, Nunneries, and Palaces; and gives him an insight into the
+national private character of the Spaniards.—The work, besides, contains
+an account of the state of the Spanish Court under Ferdinand,
+which is worthy of Gil Blas, and puts us in mind of that Novel.”—(<span class='sc'>Globe
+and Traveller.</span>)</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>9. GAIETIES and GRAVITIES. A Series of Essays,
+Comic Tales, and Fugitive Vagaries. Now first collected. BY ONE OF
+THE AUTHORS OF THE REJECTED ADDRESSES. 3 vols. post
+8vo. 27s.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>10. REMINISCENCES OF MICHAEL KELLY, of the
+King’s Theatre, and Theatre Royal Drury Lane; Abroad and at Home:
+including a period of nearly Half a Century: with original Anecdotes
+of many distinguished Persons, Political, Literary, and Musical. Dedicated,
+by permission, to His Majesty. In 2 vols. 8vo. with a portrait.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>11. MEMOIRS of the COURT of FRANCE, during the
+Residence (above thirty years) of the MARQUIS DE DANGEAU,
+Now first translated from the French, with Historical and Critical
+Notes. In 2 vols. 8vo. 28s.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This very curious Work will be found to contain a great number of
+Secret Anecdotes and Facts, hitherto unknown, respecting the Courts of
+France and England.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>12. A NEW FRENCH EDITION of the MEMOIRES de
+DANGEAU, with a Supplement by M. LE MONTEY, containing
+curious Autograph Notes, by an Anonymous Courtier of the same period.
+In 3 vols. 8vo. price 28s.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>13. CAPTAIN C.S. COCHRANE’S JOURNAL of a RESIDENCE
+and TRAVELS IN COLOMBIA, during the years 1823 and
+1824. In 2 vols 8vo. with a Map, and coloured Plates, 30s.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>14. MEMOIRS and RECOLLECTIONS of COUNT SEGUR,
+Ambassador from France to the Courts of Russia and Prussia. 8vo.
+English, 12s.; French 10s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Count de Segur was connected by ties of friendship or consanguinity
+with all the remarkable personages of the Courts of Louis XV.
+and XVI. and was engaged in the intercourse of Affairs and Society
+with Catharine II., Frederic the Great, Potemkin, <a id='tn-joseph'></a>Joseph II., Gustavus
+III., Washington, Kosciusko, La Fayette, Mirabeau, and Napoleon,
+as well as with the Chiefs of the Aristocratical and Democratical
+Parties, and the most illustrious Writers of the times, of whom he records
+the most interesting particulars.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>15. THE SPIRIT of the AGE; or, CONTEMPORARY
+PORTRAITS. 8vo. 12s.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>Contents.—Mr. Jeffery, Mr. Gifford, Mr. Southey, Sir Walter Scott,
+Lord Byron, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Thomas Moore, Mr. William Godwin,
+Mr. Jeremy Bentham, Mr. Coleridge, Mr. Leigh Hunt, Mr. Wordsworth,
+Sir James Mackintosh, Mr. Brougham, Sir F. Burdett, Rev. E.
+Irving, Lord Eldon, Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Malthus, Mr. Crabbe, the late
+Mr. Horne Tooke, &#38;c, &#38;c,</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>16. THE LAST DAYS of NAPOLEON. By Dr. ANTOMMARCHI.
+In French and English, in 2 vols. 8vo. 21s.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>17. LETTERS FROM SPAIN. By Don LEUCADIO
+DOBLADO. Second Edition, revised. In 1 vol. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“This is an invaluable work.”—<span class='sc'>Morning Chronicle.</span></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>18. COUNT LAS CASES’ JOURNAL of the PRIVATE
+LIFE and CONVERSATIONS of the late EMPEROR NAPOLEON:
+a new edition, illustrated with Portraits of Napoleon and Las Cases; a
+View of the House in which Napoleon was born at Ajaccio in Corsica;
+four coloured views of St. Helena, taken on the spot; besides Maps,
+Plans, &#38;c. complete in 4 handsome volumes, 8vo. Price 2l. 12s. in
+French or English.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>As this work is universally acknowledged to form the most complete
+epitome of the Life, Character, and Opinions of this extraordinary man,
+it is presumed that this new edition, compressed into 4 vols. and published
+at a very moderate price, will be extremely acceptable to the
+public, and that there are few who will not be desirous of possessing it.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>19. THE ILLUSTRATIONS to the JOURNAL of COUNT
+LAS CASES, separately, to complete the First Edition, price 5s. comprising
+a Portrait of Napoleon, engraved by Cooper after the original
+well-known Painting by DAVID, a Portrait of Count Las Cases, and
+four coloured Views of St. Helena, from Drawings taken on the spot by
+eminent artists.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>20. THE FOURTH and LAST LIVRAISON of NAPOLEON’S
+HISTORICAL MEMOIRS. Dictated at Saint Helena, to
+Counts Montholon, Bertrand, Gourgaud, &#38;c, and published from the
+original manuscripts. Corrected by Himself. 8vo. 14s. French, 12s.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>This important work is now completed in 7 vols. comprising four of
+Memoirs, and three of Historical Miscellanies, and the public are advised
+to complete their sets without delay.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“This work bears impressed on it the stamp of the gigantic mind
+from which it emanated. It is wholly free from the usual vices of
+French composition; depth, originality, comprehensiveness, and great
+energy of expression are its prominent characteristics. A profound and
+intuitive sagacity, a clear and unerring insight into human character,
+mental resources almost preternatural, and an incredible knowledge of
+the minutest details of every subject discussed, are exhibited in almost
+every page: nothing escapes the observation, or transcends the capacity,
+of the Imperial Annalist. He combines the judgment and penetration of
+Tacitus with the prodigious versatility of Cæsar, and the more enlarged
+views of modern philosophy and science; policy, religion, war, civil administration,
+statistics, art, even literature,—in short, whatever he touches
+on,—seems to unfold its most recondite principles to his view, and to be
+fully comprehended and appreciated. To the future historian the value
+of the “Historical Miscellanies” is incalculable: with regard to the Memoirs
+themselves, no history can ever supersede them.”—<span class='sc'>Edinburgh
+Magazine.</span></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>“On these sheets are traced events that will never be forgotten, portraits
+that will decide the judgment of posterity. It is the book of life
+or death to many whose names are recorded in it.”—<span class='sc'>Opinion of Las
+Cases in his Journal.</span></p>
+
+<p class='c009'>21. JOURNAL of a RESIDENCE in ASHANTEE. By
+JOSEPH DUPUIS, Esq. late his Britannic Majesty’s Envoy and
+Consul for that Kingdom, comprising Notes and Researches relative to
+the Gold Coast and the Interior of Western Africa, chiefly from Arabic
+MSS. and Information communicated by the Moslems of Guinea. To
+which is prefixed an Account of the causes of the present War. In 1 vol.
+4to. with a map and 15 plates, 2l. 12s. 6d. boards.</p>
+
+<p class='c009'>22. THE PRIVATE JOURNAL of MADAME CAMPAN’s
+CONVERSATIONS; comprising Original Anecdotes of the French
+Court; also Selections from her Correspondence, her Thoughts on Education,
+&#38;c. 8vo. 14s. French, 12s.</p>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c005'>
+</div>
+<div>
+
+<p class='c024'></p>
+
+</div>
+<div class='transcribers-notes'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div><span class='xlarge'>Transcriber’s Notes</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c025'>New original cover art included with this ebook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The spelling and diacriticals used in non-English words and phrases has not been modernised or corrected.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This book as printed included multiple complex footnotes, including footnotes to footnotes. All notes have been converted to endnotes for this ebook edition.
+The following changes and corrections have been made:</p>
+  <ul  class='ul_1'>
+    <li><a href='#tn-thousandyears'>p. 7</a>: Added period after phrase “the recorded absenteeism of two 
+    thousand years.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-elizabethgrey'>p. 19</a>: Replaced “kings” with “king’s” in phrase “Lady Elizabeth 
+    Grey, the king’s own kinswoman.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-mereirish'>p. 20</a>: Replaced opening with closing quotation mark after phrase 
+    “having curried acquaintance and friendship with mere Irish.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-ofof'>p. 23</a>: Replaced “of of” with “of” in phrase “England, in the face of her 
+    own savage laws.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-earltofeare'>p. 27</a>: Added period after phrase “for the Earl of Kildare to feare.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-atpleasure'>p. 28</a>: Replaced apparent mid-dot with period after phrase “that you 
+    tracke them out at pleasure.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-onenight'>p. 35</a>: Added opening double quotation mark to indicate continuation of 
+    quotation before paragraph beginning “One night, when the lieutenant and he, for disport, 
+    were playing at <em>slide-groat</em>.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-santbride'>p. 35</a>: Added opening single quotation mark before phrase “there is 
+    some mad game in that scralle, but, fall how it will, this throw is for a huddle.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-gossipry'>p. 45</a>: Added closing double quotation mark after phrase “gossipry and 
+    alliance.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-toto'>p. 45 note 16</a>: Replaced “to to” with “to” in phrase “and granted to those 
+    on whose counsel they had surrendered.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-fairdames'>p. 103 note 53</a>: Added period after phrase “the fair dames of Ireland 
+    learned to expire at an opera.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-englishinterest'>p. 133</a>: Replaced closing single quotation mark with closing 
+    double quotation mark after phrase “the English interest.”
+    </li>
+    <li><a href='#tn-joseph'>Booklist item 14</a>: Added commas after “Joseph II.” and “Gustavus III.” in 
+    list.
+    </li>
+  </ul>
+
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78814 ***</div>
+</body>
+<!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57i (with regex) on 2026-06-05 08:38:00 GMT -->
+</html>
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78814
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78814)