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| committer | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-06-05 04:47:57 -0700 |
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} + .anniversary {border:2px solid black;padding:10px 15px; } + .transcribers-notes { width: 80%; margin: auto; padding: 0 1em; + color:black; background-color: #E3E4FA; border: 1px solid silver; + page-break-before:always;margin-top:4em; } + </style> + </head> + + <body> +<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, &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,” &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,” &c. &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, &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.”—<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'>&c. &c. &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,” &c. &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,” &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.</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,) &c. &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, &c. &c. And among the actors, Wilks, +Quin, Sheridan, Barry, Mossop, Macklin, Havard, +O’Brien, Brown, Woffington, Clive, Fitzhenry, &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), &c. &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, &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,—&c. &c. &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, &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, &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. &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, &c, &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, &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, &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, +&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> diff --git a/78814-h/images/cover.jpg b/78814-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..45e7be6 --- /dev/null +++ b/78814-h/images/cover.jpg |
