Chapter 21: , forbidding the importation of foreign coals, was designed (4)

In May, 1820, another Act was passed directing the Ordnance officers to send copies of their maps, as fast as finished, to the Lord Lieutenant, who was to appoint "_one_ Commissioner of Valuation for _any_ counties"; and to give notice of such appointment to the grand jury of every such county. Each grand jury was then to appoint an Appeal Committee for each barony, and a Committee of Revision for the whole county. This Commission of Valuation was then to appoint from three to nine fit valuators in the county, who, after trial by the Commissioner, were to go in parties of three and examine all parts of their district, and value such portion of it, and set down such valuation in a parish field book, according to the following average prices:--

"SCALE OF PRICES.

Wheat, at the general average price of 10s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Oats, at the general average price of 6s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Barley, at the general average price of 7s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Potatoes, at the general average price of 1s. 7d. per cwt., of
112 lbs.

Butter, at the general average price of 69s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Beef, at the general average price of 33s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Mutton, at the general average price of 34s. 6d. per cwt., of
112 lbs.

Pork, at the general average price of 25s. 6d. per cwt., of
112 lbs."

That is, having examined each tract--say a hill, a valley, an inch, a reclaimed bit, and by digging and looking at the soil, they were to consider what crop it could best produce, considering its soil, elevation, nearness to markets, and then estimating crops at the foregoing rate, they were to say how much per acre the tract was, in their opinion, worth.

From this Parish Field Book the Commissioner was to make out a table of the parishes and townlands, etc., in each barony, specifying the average and total value of houses in such sub-divisions, and to forward it to the high constable, who was to post copies thereof. A vestry of twenty-pound freeholders and twenty-shilling cesspayers was to be called in each parish to consider the table. If they did not appeal, the table was to stand confirmed; if they did appeal, the grand jury committee of appeal, with the valuation commissioner as chairman, were to decide upon the appeal; but if the assessor were dissatisfied, the appeal was to go to the committee of revision. The same committee were then to revise the _proportionate_ liabilities of _baronies_, subject to an appeal to the Queen's Bench. The valuation so settled was to be published in the _Dublin Gazette_, and thenceforward all _grand jury_ and _parish_ rates and cesses were to be levied in the _proportions_ thereby fixed. But no land theretofore exempt from any rate was thereby made liable. The expenses were to be advanced from the consolidated fund, and repaid by presentment from the county.

It made the _proportionate_ values of parishes and townlands, pending the baronial survey and the baronial valuation, to bind after revision and publication in some newspaper circulating in the county; but _within three years_ there was to be a second revision, after which they were to be published in the _Dublin Gazette_, etc., and be final as to the _proportions_ of all parish or grand jury rates to be paid by all baronies, parishes, and townlands. It also directed the annexation of detached bits to the counties respectively surrounding them, and it likewise provided for the _use_ of the valuation maps and field books in applotting the grand jury cess charged on the holders of lands, but such valuation to be merely a guide and not final. From the varying size and value of holdings this caution was essential.

Under this last Act the valuation has been continued, as every reader of the country papers must have seen by Mr. Griffith's Notices, and is now complete in twenty counties, forward in six, begun in two, and not yet begun in Cork, Kerry, Limerick, or Dublin.

Mr. Griffith's instructions are clear and full, and we strongly recommend the study of them, and an adherence to their forms and classifications, to valuators of all private and public properties, so far as they go. He appointed two classes of valuators--Ordinary Valuators to make the first valuation all over each county, and Check Valuators to re-value patches in every district, to test the accuracy of the ordinary valuators.

The ordinary valuator was to have two copies of the Townland (or 6-inch) Survey. Taking a sheet with him into the district represented on it, he was to examine the quality of the soil in lots of from fifty to thirty acres, or still smaller bits, to mark the bounds of each lot on the survey map, and to enter in his field book the value thereof, with all the special circumstances specially stated. The examination was to include digging to ascertain the depth of the soil and the nature of the subsoil. All land was to be valued at its agricultural worth, supposing it liberally set, leaving out the value of timber, turf, etc. Reductions were to be made for elevation above the sea, steepness, exposure to bad winds, patchiness of soil, bad fences, and bad roads. Additions were to be made for neighbourhood of limestone, turf, sea, or other manure, roads, good climate and shelter, nearness to towns.

The following classification of soils was recommended:--

"ARRANGEMENT OF SOILS.

All soils may be arranged under four heads, each representing the
characteristic ingredients, as--1. Argillaceous, or clayey; 2.
Silicious, or sandy; 3. Calcareous, or limy; 4. Peaty.

For practical purposes it will be desirable to sub-divide each of
these classes:--

Thus argillaceous soils may be divided into three varieties,
viz.--clay, clay loam, and argillaceous alluvial.

Of silicious soils there are four varieties, viz.--sandy, gravelly,
slaty, and rocky.

Of calcareous soils we have three varieties, viz.--limestone,
limestone gravel, and marl.

Of peat soils two varieties, viz.--moor, and peat or bog.

In describing in the field book the different qualities of soils,
the following explanatory words may be used as occasion may
require:--

_Stiff_--Where a soil contains a large proportion, say one-half, or
even more, of tenacious clay, it is called stiff. In dry weather
this kind of soil cracks and opens, and has a tendency to form into
large and hard lumps, particularly if ploughed in wet weather.

_Friable_--Where the soil is loose and open, as is generally the
case in sandy, gravelly, and moory lands.

_Strong_--Where a soil contains a considerable portion of clay, and
has some tendency to form into clods or lumps, it may be called
strong.

_Deep_--Where the soil exceeds ten inches in depth the term deep
may be applied.

_Shallow_--Where the depth of the soil is less than eight inches.

_Dry_--Where the soil is friable, and the subsoil porous (if there
be no springs), the term dry should be used.

_Wet_--Where the soil or subsoil is very tenacious, or where
springs are numerous.

_Sharp_--Where there is a moderate proportion of gravel, or small
stones.

_Fine or Soft_--Where the soil contains no gravel, but is chiefly
composed of very fine sand, or soft, light earth without gravel.

_Cold_--Where the soil rests on a tenacious clay subsoil, and has a
tendency when in pasture to produce rushes and other aquatic
plants.

_Sandy or Gravelly_--Where there is a large proportion of sand or
gravel through the soil.

_Slaty_--Where the slaty substratum is much intermixed with the
soil.

_Worn_--Where the soil has been a long time under cultivation,
without rest or manure.

_Poor_--Where the land is naturally of bad quality.

_Hungry_--Where the soil contains a considerable portion of gravel,
or coarse sand, resting on a gravelly subsoil; on such land manure
does not produce the usual effect.

The _colours of soils_ may also be introduced, as brown, yellow,
blue, grey, red, black, etc.

Also, where applicable, the words steep, level, shrubby, rocky,
exposed, etc., may be used."

Lists of market prices were sent with the field books, and the amounts then reduced to a uniform rate, which Mr. Griffith fixed at 2_s._ 6_d._ per pound over the prices of produce mentioned in the Act.

Rules were also given for valuation of houses, but we must refer to Mr. Griffith's work for them.

COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF IRELAND.

While the Irish were excluded from English law and intercourse, England imposed no restrictions on our trade. The Pale spent its time tilling and fighting, and it was more sure of its bellyful of blows than of bread. It had nothing to sell; why tax its trade? The slight commerce of Dublin was needful to the comforts of the Norman Court in Dublin Castle. Why should _it_ be taxed? The market of Kilkenny was guarded by the spears of the Butlers, and from Sligo to Cork the chiefs and towns of Munster and Connaught--the Burkes, O'Loghlens, O'Sullivans, Galway, Dingle, and Dunboy--carried on a trade with Spain, and piracy of war against England. How _could they_ be taxed?

Commercial taxes, too, in those days were hard to be enforced, and more resembled toll to a robber than contribution to the state. Every great river and pass in Europe, from the Rhine and the Alps to Berwick and the Blackwater, was affectionately watched by royal and noble castles at their narrowest points, and the barge anchored and the caravan halted to be robbed, or, as the receivers called it, to be taxed.

At last the Pale was stretched round Ireland by art and force. Solitude and peace were in our plains; but the armed colonist settled in it, and the native came down from his hills as a tenant or a squatter, and a kind of prosperity arose.

Protestant and Catholic, native and colonist, had the same interest--namely, to turn this waste into a garden. They had not, nor could they have had, other things to export than Sydney or Canada have now--cattle, butter, hides, and wool. They had hardly corn enough for themselves; but pasture was plenty, and cows and their hides, sheep and their fleeces, were equally so. The natives had always been obliged to prepare their own clothing, and therefore every creaght and digger knew how to dress wool and skins, and they had found out, or preserved from a more civilised time, dyes which, to this day, are superior to any others. Small quantities of woollen goods were exported, but our assertion holds good that in our war-times there was no manufacture for export worth naming.

Black Tom Wentworth, the ablest of despots, came here 210 years ago, and found "small beginnings towards a clothing trade." He at once resolved to discourage it. He wrote so to the king on July 25th, 1636, and he was a man true to his enmities. "But," said he, "I'll give them a linen manufacture instead." Now, the Irish had raised flax and made and dyed linen from time immemorial. The saffron-coloured linen shirt was as national as the cloak and birred; so that Strafford rather introduced the linen manufacture among the new settlers than among the Irish. Certainly he encouraged it, by sending Irishmen to learn in Brabant, and by bringing French and Flemings to work in Ireland.

Charles the Second, doubtless to punish us for our most unwise loyalty to him and his father, assented to a series of Acts prohibiting the export of Irish wool, cattle, etc., to England or her colonies, and prohibiting the _direct_ importation of several colonial products into Ireland. The chief Acts are 12 Charles, c. 4; 15 Charles, c. 7; and 22 and 23 Charles, c. 26. Thus were the value of land in Ireland, the revenue, and trade, and manufactures of Ireland--Protestant and Catholic--stricken by England.

Perhaps we ought to be grateful, though not to England, for these Acts. They plundered our pockets, but they guarded our souls from being anglicised. To France and Spain the produce was sent, and the woollen manufacture continued to increase.

England got alarmed, for Ireland was getting rich. The English lords addressed King William, stating that "the growth and increase of the woollen manufacture in Ireland had long been, and would be _ever_, looked upon with great jealousy by his English subjects, and praying him, by very strict laws, totally to prohibit and suppress the same." The Commons said likewise; and William answered comfortably:--"I shall do all that in me lies to discourage the woollen manufacture in Ireland, and to encourage the linen manufacture there, and to promote the trade of England."

He was as good as his word, and even whipped and humbugged the unfortunate Irish Parliament to pass an Act, putting twenty per cent. duty on broad and ten per cent. on narrow cloths--

"But it did not satisfy the English parliament, where a perpetual
law was made, prohibiting from the 20th of June, 1699, the
exportation from Ireland of all goods made or mixed with wool,
except to England and Wales, and with the licence of the
commissioners of the revenue; duties had been before laid on the
importation into England equal to a prohibition, therefore this Act
has operated as a total prohibition of the exportation."

There was nothing left but to send the wool raw to England; to smuggle it and cloths to France and Spain, or to leave the land unstocked. The first was worst. The export to England declined, smuggling prospered, "wild geese" for the Brigade and woollen goods were run in exchange for claret, brandy, and silks; but not much land was left waste. Our silks, cottons, malt, beer, and almost every other article was similarly prohibited. Striped linens were taxed thirty per cent., many other kinds of linen were also interfered with, and twenty-four embargoes in nineteen years straitened our foreign provision trade. Thus England kept her pledge of wrath, and broke her promise of service to Ireland.

A vigorous system of smuggling induced her to relax in some points, and the cannon of the Volunteers blew away the code.

By the Union we were so drained of money, and absentee rents and taxes, and of spirit in every way, that she no longer needs a prohibitory code to prevent our competing with her in any market, Irish or foreign. The Union is prohibition enough, and that England says she will maintain.

Whether it be now possible to create home manufactures, in the old sense of the word--that is, manufactures made in the homes of the workers--is doubted.

In favour of such a thing, if it be possible, the arguments are numberless. Such work is a source of ingenuity and enjoyment in the cabin of the peasant; it rather fills up time that would be otherwise idled than takes from other work. Our peasants' wives and daughters could clothe themselves and their families by the winter night work, even as those of Norway do, if the peasants possessed the little estates that Norway's peasants do. Clothes manufactured by hand-work are more lasting, comfortable, and handsome, and are more natural and national than factory goods. Besides, there is the strongest of all reasons in this, that the factory system seems everywhere a poison to virtue and happiness.

Some invention, which should bring the might of machinery in a wholesome and cheap form to the cabin, seems the only solution of the difficulty.

The hazards of the factory system, however, should be encountered, were it sure to feed our starving millions; but this is dubious.

A Native Parliament can alone judge or act usefully on this momentous subject. An absentee tax and a resident government, and the progress of public industry and education, would enable an Irish Parliament to create vast manufactures here by protecting duties in the first instance, and to maintain them by our general prosperity, or it could rely on its own adjustment of landed property as sufficient to put the people above the need of hazarding purity or content by embarking in great manufactures.

A peasant proprietary could have wealth enough to import wrought goods, or taste and firmness enough to prefer home-made manufactures.

But these are questions for other years. We wish the reader to take our word for nothing, but to consult the writers on Irish trade:--Laurence's _Interest of Ireland_ (1682); Browne's _Tracts_ (1728); Dobbs on "Trade" (1729); Hutchinson's _Commercial Restraints_ (1779); Sheffield on "Irish Trade" (1785); Wallace on "Irish Trade" (1798); the various "Parliamentary Reports," and the very able articles on the same subject in the _Citizen_.

Do not be alarmed at the list, reader; a month's study would carry you through all but the Reports, and it would be well spent. But if you still shrink, you can ease your conscience by reading Mr. John O'Connell's Report on "The Commercial Injustices," just issued by the Repeal Association. It is an elaborate, learned, and most useful tract.

NATIONAL ART.

No one doubts that if he sees a place or an action he knows more of it than if it had been described to him by a witness. The dullest man, who "put on his best attire" to welcome Caesar, had a better notion of life in Rome than our ablest artist or antiquary.

Were painting, then, but a coloured chronicle, telling us facts by the eye instead of the ear, it would demand the Statesman's care and the People's love. It would preserve for us faces we worshipped, and the forms of men who led and instructed us. It would remind us, and teach our children, not only how these men looked, but, to some extent, what they were, for nature is consistent, and she has indexed her labours. It would carry down a pictorial history of our houses, arts, costume, and manners to other times, and show the dweller in a remote isle the appearance of countries and races of his cotemporaries.

As a register of _facts--as a portrayer of men, singly, or assembled--and as a depicter of actual scenery, art is biography, history, and topography taught through the eye.

So far as it can express facts, it is superior to writing; and nothing but the scarcity of _faithful_ artists, or the stupidity of the public, prevents us from having our pictorial libraries of men and places. There are some classes of scenes--as where continuous action is to be expressed--in which sculpture quite fails, and painting is but a shadowy narrator.

But this, after all, though the most obvious and easy use of Painting and Sculpture, is far indeed from being their highest end.

Art is a regenerator as well as a copyist. As the historian, who composes a history out of various materials, differs from a newspaper reporter, who sets down what he sees--as Plutarch differs from Mr. Grant, and the Abbe Barthelemy from the last traveller in India--so do the Historical Painter, the Landscape composer (such as Claude or Poussin) differ from the most faithful Portrait, Landscape, or Scene Drawer.

The Painter who is a master of composition makes his pencil cotemporary with all times and ubiquitous. Keeping strictly to nature and fact, Romulus sits for him and Paul preaches. He makes Attila charge, and Mohammed exhort, and Ephesus blaze when he likes. He tries not rashly, but by years of study of men's character, and dress, and deeds, to make them and their acts come as in a vision before him. Having thus got a design, he attempts to realise the vision on his canvas. He pays the most minute attention to truth in his drawing, shading, and colouring, and by imitating the force of nature in his composition, all the clouds that ever floated by him, "the lights of other days," and the forms of the dead, or the stranger, hover over him.

But Art in its higher stage is more than this. It is a creator. Great as Herodotus and Thierry are, Homer and Beranger are greater. The ideal has resources beyond the actual. It is infinite, and Art is indefinitely powerful. The Apollo is more than noble, and the Hercules mightier than man. The Moses of Michael Angelo is no likeness of the inspired law-giver, nor of any other that ever lived, and Raphael's Madonnas are not the faces of women. As Reynolds says, "the effect of the capital works of Michael Angelo is that the observer feels his whole frame enlarged." It is creation, it is representing beings and things different from our nature, but true to their own. In this self-consistency is the only nature requisite in works purely imaginative. Lear is true to his nature, and so are Mephistopheles, and Prometheus, and Achilles; but they are not true to human nature; they are beings created by the poets' minds, and true to _their_ laws of being. There is no commoner blunder in men, who are themselves mere critics, never creators, than to require consistency to the nature of us and our world in the works of poet or painter.

To create a mass of great pictures, statues, and buildings is of the same sort of ennoblement to a people as to create great poems or histories, or make great codes, or win great battles. The next best, though far inferior, blessing and power is to inherit such works and achievements. The lowest stage of all is neither to possess nor to create them.

Ireland has had some great Painters--Barry and Forde, for example, and many of inferior but great excellence; and now she boasts high names--Maclise, Hogan, and Mulready. But their works were seldom done for Ireland, and are rarely known in it. Our portrait and landscape Painters paint foreign men and scenes; and, at all events, the Irish people do not see, possess, nor receive knowledge from their works. Irish history has supplied no subjects for our greatest Artists; and though, as we repeat, Ireland possessed a Forde and Barry, creative Painters of the highest order, the pictures of the latter are mostly abroad; those of the former unseen and unknown. Alas! that they are so few.

To collect into, and make known, and publish in Ireland the best works of our living and dead Artists is one of the steps towards procuring for Ireland a recognised National Art. And this is essential to our civilisation and renown. The other is by giving education to students and rewards to Artists, to make many of this generation true representers, some of them great illustrators and composers, and, perchance, to facilitate the creation of some great spirit.

Something has been done--more remains.

There are schools in Dublin and Cork. But why are those so neglected and imperfect? and why are not similar or better institutions in Belfast, Derry, Galway, Waterford, and Kilkenny? Why is there not a decent collection of casts anywhere but in Cork, and why are they in a garret there? And why have we no gallery of Irishmen's, or any other men's, pictures in Ireland?

The Art Union has done a great deal. It has helped to support in Ireland artists who should otherwise have starved or emigrated; it has dispersed one (when, oh when, will it disperse another?) fine print of a fine Irish picture through the country, and to some extent interested as well as instructed thousands. Yet it could, and we believe will, do much more. It ought to have Corresponding Committees in the principal towns to preserve and rub up old schools of art and foster new ones, and it might by art and historical libraries, and by other ways, help the cause. We speak as friends, and suggest not as critics, for it has done good service.

The Repeal Association, too, in offering prizes for pictures and sculptures of Irish historical subjects, has taken its proper place as the patron of nationality in art; and its rewards for Building Designs may promote the comfort and taste of the people, and the reputation of the country. If artists will examine the rules by which the pictures, statues, and plates remain their property, they will find the prizes not so small as they might at first appear. Nor should they, from interest or just pride, be indifferent to the popularity and fame of success on national subjects, and with a People's Prizes to be contended for. If those who are not Repealers will treat the Association's design kindly and candidly, and if the Repealers will act in art upon principles of justice and conciliation, we shall not only advance national art, but gain another field of common exertion.

The Cork School of Art owes its existence to many causes.

The intense, genial, and Irish character of the people, the southern warmth and variety of clime, with its effects on animal and vegetable beings, are the natural causes.

The accident of Barry's birth there, and his great fame, excited the ambition of the young artists. An Irishman and a Corkman had gone out from them, and amazed men by the grandeur and originality of his works of art. He had thrown the whole of the English painters into insignificance, for who would compare the luscious commonplace of the Stuart painters, or the melodramatic reality of Hogarth, or the imitative beauty of Reynolds, or the clumsy strength of West, with the overbearing grandeur of his works?

But the _present_ glories of Cork, Maclise and Hogan, the greater, but buried might of Forde, and the rich promise which we know is springing there now, are mainly owing to another cause; and that is, that Cork possesses a gallery of the finest casts in the world.

These casts are not very many--117 only; but they are perfect, they are the first from Canova's moulds, and embrace the greatest works of Greek art. They are ill-placed in a dim and dirty room--more shame to the rich men of Cork for leaving them so--but there they are, and there studied Forde, and Maclise, and the rest, until they learned to draw better than any moderns, except Cornelius and his living brethren.

In the countries where art is permanent there are great collections--Tuscany and Rome, for example. But, as we have said before, the highest service done by success in art is not in the possession but in the creation of great works, the spirit, labour, sagacity, and instruction needed by the artists to succeed, and flung out by them on their country like rain from sunny clouds.

Indeed, there is some danger of a traditionary mediocrity following after a great epoch in art. Superstition of style, technical rules in composition, and all the pedantry of art, too often fill up the ranks vacated by veteran genius, and of this there are examples enough in Flanders, Spain, and even Italy. The schools may, and often do, make men scholastic and ungenial, and art remains an instructor and refiner, but creates no more.

Ireland, fortunately or unfortunately, has everything to do yet. We have had great artists--we have not their works--we own the nativity of great living artists--they live on the Tiber and the Thames. Our capital has no school of art--no facilities for acquiring it.

To be sure, there are rooms open in the Dublin Society, and they have not been useless, that is all. But a student here cannot learn anatomy, save at the same expense as a surgical student. He has no great works of art before him, no Pantheon, no Valhalla, not even a good museum or gallery.

We think it may be laid down as unalterably true that a student should never draw from a flat surface. He learns nothing by drawing from the lines of another man--he only mimics. Better for him to draw chairs and tables, bottles and glasses, rubbish, potatoes, cabins, or kitchen utensils, than draw from the lines laid down by other men.

Of those forms of nature which the student can originally consult--the sea, the sky, the earth--we would counsel him to draw from them in the first learning; for though he ought afterwards to analyse and mature his style by the study of works of art, from the first sketches to the finished picture, yet, by beginning with nature and his own suggestions, he will acquire a genuine and original style, superior to the finest imitation; and it is hard to acquire a master's skill without his manner.

Were all men cast in a divine mould of strength and straightness and gallant bearing, and all women proportioned, graceful, and fair, the artist would need no gallery, at least to begin his studies with. He would have to persuade or snatch his models in daily life. Even then, as art creates greater and simpler combinations than ever exist in fact, he should finally study before the superhuman works of his predecessors.

But he has about him here an indifferently-made, ordinary, not very clean, nor picturesquely-clad people; though, doubtless, if they had the feeding, the dress, and the education (for mind beautifies the body) of the Greeks, they would not be inferior, for the Irish structure is of the noblest order.

To give him a multitude of fine natural models, to say nothing of ideal works, it is necessary to make a gallery of statues or casts. The statues will come in good time, and we hope, and are sure, that Ireland, a nation, will have a national gallery, combining the greatest works of the Celtic and Teutonic races. But at present the most that can be done is to form a gallery.

Our readers will be glad to hear that this great boon is about to be given to Irish Art. A society for the formation of a gallery of casts in Dublin has been founded.

It embraces men of every rank, class, creed, politics, and calling, thus forming another of those sanctuaries, now multiplying in Ireland, where one is safe from the polemic and the partisan.

Its purpose is to purchase casts of all the greatest works of Greece, Egypt, Etruria, ancient Rome, and Europe in the middle ages. This will embrace a sufficient variety of types, both natural and ideal, to prevent imitation, and will avoid the debateable ground of modern art. Wherever they can afford it the society will buy moulds, in order to assist provincial galleries, and therefore the provinces are immediately interested in its support.

When a few of these casts are got together, and a proper gallery procured, the public will be admitted to see, and artists to study, them without any charge. The annual subscription is but ten shillings, the object being to interest as many as possible in its support.

It has been suggested to us by an artist that Trinity College ought to establish a gallery and museum containing casts of all the ancient statues, models of their buildings, civil and military, and a collection of their implements of art, trade, and domestic life. A nobler institution, a more vivid and productive commentary on the classics, could not be. But if the Board will not do this of themselves, we trust they will see the propriety of assisting this public gallery, and procuring, therefore, special privileges for the students in using it.

But no matter what persons in authority may do or neglect, we trust the public--for the sake of their own pleasure, their children's profit, and Ireland's honour--will give it their instant and full support.

HINTS FOR IRISH HISTORICAL PAINTINGS.

National art is conversant with national subjects. We have Irish artists, but no Irish, no national art. This ought not to continue; it is injurious to the artists, and disgraceful to the country. The following historical subjects were loosely jotted down by a friend. Doubtless, a more just selection could be made by students noting down fit subjects for painting and sculpture, as they read. We shall be happy to print any suggestions on the subject--our own are, as we call them, mere hints with loose references to the authors or books which suggested them. For any good painting, the marked figures must be few, the action obvious, the costume, arms, architecture, postures historically exact, and the manners, appearance, and rank of the characters strictly studied and observed. The grouping and drawing require great truth and vigour. A similar set of subjects illustrating social life could be got from the Poor Report, Carleton's, Banim's, or Griffin's stories, or, better still, from observation.

The references are vague, but perhaps sufficient.

The Landing of the Milesians.--Keating, Moore's Melodies.

Ollamh Fodhla Presenting his Laws to his People. Keating's,
Moore's, and O'Halloran's Histories of Ireland.--Walker's Irish
Dress and Arms, and Vallancey's Collectanea.

Nial and his Nine Hostages.--Moore, Keating.

A Druid's Augury.--Moore, O'Halloran, Keating.

A Chief Riding out of his Fort.--Griffin's Invasion, Walker, Moore.

The Oak of Kildare.--Moore.

The Burial of King Dathy in the Alps, his thinned troops laying
stones on his grave.--M'Geoghegan, "Histoire de l'Irlande" (French
edition), Invasion, Walker, Moore.

St. Patrick brought before the Druids at Tara.--Moore and his
Authorities.

The First Landing of the Danes.--See Invasion, Moore, etc.

The Death of Turgesius.--Keating, Moore.

Ceallachan tied to the Mast.--Keating.

Murkertach Returning to Aileach.--Archaeological Society's Tracts.

Brian Reconnoitring the Danes before Clontarf.

The Last of the Danes Escaping to his Ship.

O'Ruare's Return.--Keating, Moore's Melodies.

Raymond Le Gros Leaving his Bride.--Moore.

Roderick in Conference with the Normans.--Moore, M'Geoghegan.

Donald O'Brien Setting Fire to Limerick.--M'Geoghegan.

Donald O'Brien Visiting Holycross.--M'Geoghegan.

O'Brien, O'Connor, and M'Carthy making Peace to attack the
Normans.--M'Geoghegan, Moore.

The Same Three Victorious at the Battle of Thurles.--Moore and
O'Conor's Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores.

Irish Chiefs leaving Prince John.--Moore, etc.

M'Murrough and Gloster.--Harris's Hibernica, p. 53.

Crowning of Edward Bruce.--Leland, Grace's Annals, etc.

Edgecombe Vainly Trying to Overawe Kildare.--Harris's Hibernica.

Kildare "On the Necks of the Butlers."--Leland.

Shane O'Neill at Elizabeth's Court.--Leland.

Lord Sydney Entertained by Shane O'Neill.

The Battle of the Red Coats.--O'Sullivan's Catholic History.

Hugh O'Neill Victor in Single Combat at Clontibret.--Fynes Moryson,
O'Sullivan, M'Geoghegan.

The Corleius.--Dymmok's Treatise, Archaeological Society's Tracts.

Maguire and St. Leger in Single Combat.--M'Geoghegan.

O'Sullivan Crossing the Shannon.--Pacata Hibernia.

O'Dogherty Receiving the Insolent Message of the Governor of
Derry.--M'Geoghegan.

The Brehon before the English Judges.--Davis's Letter to Lord
Salisbury.

Ormond Refusing to give up his Sword.--Carte's Life of Ormond.

Good Lookers-on.--Strafford's Letters.

Owen Conolly before the Privy Council, 1641.--Carey's Vindiciae.

The Battle of Julianstown.--Temple's Rebellion, and Tichbourne's
Drogheda.

Owen Roe Organising the Creaghts.--Carte, and also Belling and
O'Neill in the Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica.

The Council of Kilkenny.--Carte.

The Breach of Clonmel.--Do.

Smoking Out the Irish.--Ludlow's Memoirs.

Burning Them.--Castlehaven's Memoirs.

Nagle before the Privy Council.--Harris's William.

James's Entry into Dublin.--Dublin Magazine for March, 1843.

The Bridge of Athlone.--Green Book and Authorities.

St. Ruth's Death.--Do.

The Embarkation from Limerick.--Do.

Cremona.--Cox's Magazine.

Fontenoy.--Do.

Sir S. Rice Pleading against the Violation of the Treaty of
Limerick.--Staunton's Collection of Tracts on Ireland.

Molyneux's Book burned.

Liberty Boys Reading a Drapier's Letter.--Mason's St. Patrick's
Cathedral.

Lucas Surrounded by Dublin Citizens in his Shop.

Grattan Moving Liberty.--Memoirs.

Flood Apostrophising Corruption.--Barrington.

Dungannon Convention.--Wilson, Barrington.

Curran Cross-Examining Armstrong.--Memoirs.

Curran Pleading before the Council in Alderman James's Case.

Tone's First Society.--See his Memoirs.

The Belfast Club.--Madden's U. I., Second Series, vol. i.

Tone, Emmet, and Keogh in the Rathfarnham Garden.

Tone and Carnot.--Tone's Memoirs.

Battle of Oulart.--Hay, Teeling, etc.

First Meeting of the Catholic Association.

O'Connell Speaking in a Munster Chapel.--Wyse's Association.

The Clare Hustings.--Proposal of O'Connell.

The Dublin Corporation Speech.

Father Mathew Administering the Pledge in a Munster County.

Conciliation.--Orange and Green.

The Lifting of the Irish Flags of a National Fleet and Army.

OUR NATIONAL LANGUAGE.

Men are ever valued most for peculiar and original qualities. A man who can only talk commonplace, and act according to routine, has little weight. To speak, look, and do what your own soul from its depths orders you are credentials of greatness which all men understand and acknowledge. Such a man's dictum has more influence than the reasoning of an imitative or commonplace man. He fills his circle with confidence. He is self-possessed, firm, accurate, and daring. Such men are the pioneers of civilisation and the rulers of the human heart.

Why should not nations be judged thus? Is not a full indulgence of its natural tendencies essential to a _people's_ greatness? Force the manners, dress, language, and constitution of Russia, or Italy, or Norway, or America, and you instantly stunt and distort the whole mind of either people.

The language, which grows up with a people, is conformed to their organs, descriptive of their climate, constitution, and manners, mingled inseparably with their history and their soil, fitted beyond any other language to express their prevalent thoughts in the most natural and efficient way.

To impose another language on such a people is to send their history adrift among the accidents of translation--'tis to tear their identity from all places--'tis to substitute arbitrary signs for picturesque and suggestive names--'tis to cut off the entail of feeling, and separate the people from their forefathers by a deep gulf--'tis to corrupt their very organs, and abridge their power of expression.

The language of a nation's youth is the only easy and full speech for its manhood and for its age. And when the language of its cradle goes, itself craves a tomb.

What business has a Russian for the rippling language of Italy or India? How could a Greek distort his organs and his soul to speak Dutch upon the sides of the Hymettus, or the beach of Salamis, or on the waste where once was Sparta? And is it befitting the fiery, delicate-organed Celt to abandon his beautiful tongue, docile and spirited as an Arab, "sweet as music, strong as the wave"--is it befitting in him to abandon this wild, liquid speech for the mongrel of a hundred breeds called English, which, powerful though it be, creaks and bangs about the Celt who tries to use it?

We lately met a glorious thought in the "Triads of Mochmed," printed in one of the Welsh codes by the Record Commission: "There are three things without which there is no country--common language, common judicature, and co-tillage land--for without these a country cannot support itself in peace and social union."

A people without a language of its own is only half a nation. A nation should guard its language more than its territories--'tis a surer barrier, and more important frontier, than fortress or river.

And in good times it has ever been thought so. Who had dared to propose the adoption of Persian or Egyptian in Greece--how had Pericles thundered at the barbarian? How had Cato scourged from the forum him who would have given the Attic or Gallic speech to men of Rome? How proudly and how nobly Germany stopped "the incipient creeping" progress of French! And no sooner had she succeeded than her genius, which had tossed in a hot trance, sprung up fresh and triumphant.

Had Pyrrhus quelled Italy, or Xerxes subdued Greece for a time long enough to impose new languages, where had been the literature which gives a pedigree to human genius? Even liberty recovered had been sickly and insecure without the language with which it had hunted in the woods, worshipped at the fruit-strewn altar, debated on the council-hill, and shouted in the battle-charge.

There is a fine song of the Fusians, which describes

"Language linked to liberty."

To lose your native tongue, and learn that of an alien, is the worst badge of conquest--it is the chain on the soul. To have lost entirely the national language is death; the fetter has worn through. So long as the Saxon held to his German speech he could hope to resume his land from the Norman; now, if he is to be free and locally governed, he must build himself a new home. There is hope for Scotland--strong hope for Wales--sure hope for Hungary. The speech of the alien is not universal in the one; is gallantly held at bay in the other; is nearly expelled from the third.

How unnatural--how corrupting 'tis for us, three-fourths of whom are of Celtic blood, to speak a medley of Teutonic dialects! If we add the Celtic Scots, who came back here from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and the Celtic Welsh, who colonised many parts of Wexford and other Leinster counties, to the Celts who never left Ireland, probably five-sixths, or more, of us are Celts. What business have we with the Norman-Sassenagh?

Nor let any doubt these proportions because of the number of English _names_ in Ireland. With a politic cruelty the English of the Pale passed an Act (3 Edw. IV., c. 3) compelling every Irishman within English jurisdiction "to go like to one Englishman in apparel, and shaving off his beard above the mouth," "and shall take to him an English sirname of one town, as Sutton, Chester, Trym, Skryne, Corke, Kinsale; or colour, as White, Blacke, Browne; or art or science, as Smith or Carpenter; or office, as Cook, Butler; and that he and his issue shall use this name, under pain of forfeiting his goods yearly."

And just as this Parliament before the Reformation, so did another after the Reformation. By the 28th Henry VIII., c. 15, the dress and language of the Irish were insolently described as barbarous by the minions of that ruffian king, and were utterly forbidden and abolished under many penalties and incapacities. These laws are still in force; but whether the Archaeological Society, including Peel and O'Connell, will be prosecuted seems doubtful.

There was, also, 'tis to be feared, an adoption of English names, during some periods, from fashion, fear, or meanness. Some of our best Irish names, too, have been so mangled as to require some scholarship to identify them. For these and many more reasons the members of the Celtic race here are immensely greater than at first appears.

But this is not all; for even the Saxon and Norman colonists, notwithstanding these laws, melted down into the Irish, and adopted all their ways and language. For centuries upon centuries Irish was spoken by men of all bloods in Ireland, and English was unknown, save to a few citizens and nobles of the Pale. 'Tis only within a very late period that the majority of the people learned English.

But, it will be asked, how can the language be restored now?

We shall answer this partly by saying that, through the labours of the Archaeological and many lesser societies, it _is_ being revived rapidly.

We shall consider this question of the possibility of reviving it more at length some other day.

Nothing can make us believe that it is natural or honourable for the Irish to speak the speech of the alien, the invader, the Sassenagh tyrant, and to abandon the language of our kings and heroes. What! give up the tongue of Ollamh Fodhla and Brian Boru, the tongue of M'Carty, and the O'Nials, the tongue of Sarsfield's, Curran's, Mathew's, and O'Connell's boyhood, for that of Strafford and Poynings, Sussex, Kirk, and Cromwell!

No! oh, no! the "brighter days shall surely come," and the green flag shall wave on our towers, and the sweet old language be heard once more in college, mart, and senate.

But even should the effort to save it as the national language fail, by the attempt we will rescue its old literature, and hand down to our descendants proofs that we had a language as fit for love, and war, and business, and pleasure, as the world ever knew, and that we had not the spirit and nationality to preserve it!

Had Swift known Irish he would have sowed its seed by the side of that nationality which he planted, and the close of the last century would have seen the one as flourishing as the other. Had Ireland used Irish in 1782, would it not have impeded England's re-conquest of us? But 'tis not yet too late.

For _you_, if the mixed speech called English was laid with sweetmeats on your child's tongue, English is the best speech of manhood. And yet, rather, in that case you are unfortunate. The hills, and lakes, and rivers, the forts and castles, the churches and parishes, the baronies and counties around you, have all Irish names--names which describe the nature of the scenery or ground, the name of founder, or chief, or priest, or the leading fact in the history of the place. To you these are names hard to pronounce, and without meaning.

And yet it were well for you to know them. That knowledge would be a topography, and a history, and romance, walking by your side, and helping your discourse. Meath tells it flatness, Clonmel the abundant riches of its valley, Fermanagh is the land of the Lakes, Tyrone the country of Owen, Kilkenny the Church of St. Canice, Dunmore the great fort, Athenry the Ford of the Kings, Dunleary the Fort of O'Leary; and the Phoenix Park, instead of taking its name from a fable, recognises as christener the "sweet water" which yet springs near the east gate.[43]

All the names of our airs and songs are Irish, and we every day are as puzzled and ingeniously wrong about them as the man who, when asked for the air, "I am asleep, and don't waken me," called it "Tommy M'Cullagh made boots for me."

The bulk of our history and poetry are written in Irish, and shall we, who learn Italian, and Latin, and Greek, to read Dante, Livy, and Homer in the original--shall we be content with ignorance or a translation of Irish?

The want of modern scientific words in Irish is undeniable, and doubtless we should adopt the existing names into our language. The Germans have done the same thing, and no one calls German mongrel on that account. Most of these names are clumsy and extravagant; and are almost all derived from Greek or Latin, and cut as foreign a figure in French and English as they would in Irish. Once Irish was recognised as a language to be learned as much as French or Italian, our dictionaries would fill up and our vocabularies ramify, to suit all the wants of life and conversation.

These objections are ingenious refinements, however, rarely thought of till after the other and great objection has been answered.

The usual objection to attempting the revival of Irish is, that it could not succeed.

If an attempt were made to introduce Irish, either through the national schools, or the courts of law, into the eastern side of the island, it would certainly fail, and the reaction might extinguish it altogether. But no one contemplates this save as a dream of what may happen a hundred years hence. It is quite another thing to say, as we do, that the Irish language should be cherished, taught, and esteemed, and that it can be preserved and gradually extended.

What we seek is, that the people of the upper classes should have their children taught the language which explains our names of persons or places, our older history, and our music, and which is spoken in the majority of our counties, rather than Italian, German, or French. It would be more useful in life, more serviceable to the taste and genius of young people, and a more flexible accomplishment for an Irish man or woman to speak, sign, and write Irish than French.

At present the middle classes think it a sign of vulgarity to speak Irish--the children are everywhere taught English, and English alone in schools--and, what is worse, they are urged by rewards and punishments to speak it at home, for English is the language of their masters. Now, we think the example and exertions of the upper classes would be sufficient to set the opposite and better fashion of preferring Irish; and, even as a matter of taste, we think them bound to do so. And we ask it of the pride, the patriotism, and the hearts of our farmers and shopkeepers, will they try to drive out of their children's minds the native language of almost every great man we had, from Brian Boru to O'Connell--will they meanly sacrifice the language which names their hills, and towns, and music, to the tongue of the stranger?

About half the people west of a line drawn from Derry to Waterford speak Irish habitually, and in some of the mountain tracts east of that line it is still common. Simply requiring the teachers of the national schools in these Irish-speaking districts to know Irish, and supplying them with Irish translations of the school books, would guard the language where it now exists, and prevent it from being swept away by the English tongue, as the Red Americans have been by the English race from New York to New Orleans.

The example of the upper classes would extend and develop a modern Irish literature, and the hearty support they have given to the Archaeological Society makes us hope that they will have sense and spirit to do so.

But the establishment of a newspaper partly or wholly Irish would be the most rapid and sure way of serving the language. The Irish-speaking man would find, in his native tongue, the political news and general information he has now to seek in English; and the English-speaking man, having Irish frequently before him in so attractive a form, would be tempted to learn its characters, and, by-and-by, its meaning.

These newspapers in many languages are now to be found everywhere but here. In South America many of these papers are Spanish and English, or French; in North America, French and English; in Northern Italy, German and Italian; in Denmark and Holland, German is used in addition to the native tongue; in Alsace and Switzerland, French and German; in Poland, German, French, and Sclavonic; in Turkey, French and Turkish; in Hungary, Magyar, Sclavonic, and German; and the little Canton of Grison uses three languages in its press. With the exception of Hungary, the secondary language is, in all cases, spoken by fewer persons than the Irish-speaking people of Ireland, and while they everywhere tolerate and use one language as a medium of commerce, they cherish the other as the vehicle of history, the wings of song, the soil of their genius, and a mark and guard of nationality.

---------------------------------------------------------------
[43] 'Bright water' is the true rendering: Could Davis have been
thinking of _binn uisge_, and supposing that _binn_ meant sweet in
taste as well as in sound?--[Ed.]

INSTITUTIONS OF DUBLIN.

Judged by the _Directory_, Dublin is nobly supplied with institutions for the promotion of Literature, Science, and Art; and, judged by its men, there is mind enough here to make these institutions prosper, and instruct and raise the country. Yet their performances are far short of these promises, and the causes for ill-success are easily found. We believe these causes could be almost as easily removed.

In the first place, we have too many of these institutions. Stingy grants from Government and the general poverty of the people render economy a matter of the first consequence; yet we find these societies maintaining a number of separate establishments, at a great expense of rent and salaries.

The consequence, of course, is that none of them flourish as they ought--museums, meetings, lectures, libraries, and exhibitions are all frittered away, and nothing is done so well as it might be. Moreover, from the want of any arrangement and order, the same men are dragged from one society to another--few men do much, because all are forced to attempt so many things.

But 'tis better to examine this in detail, and in doing so we may as well give some leading facts as to the chief of these bodies. Take, for example, as a beginning, the

INSTITUTIONS FOR THE PROMOTION OF FINE ARTS.

And first there is the Hibernian Academy. It was founded in 1823, received a present of its house in Abbey Street, and some books and casts, from Francis Johnston, a Dublin architect, and has the miserable income of L300 a year from the Treasury. It has a drawing-school, with a few casts, no pictures, bad accommodation, and professors whose pay is nearly nominal.

It undoubtedly has some men of great ability and attainments, and some who have neither; but what can be done without funds, statues, or pictures? To aggravate its difficulties, the Dublin Society has another art school, still worse off as to casts, and equally deficient in pictures. As a place of instruction in the designing of patterns for manufactures and the like, the Dublin Society school has worked well; and many of the best-paid controllers of design in the English manufactories were educated there; but as a school of fine arts it does little; and no wonder. Another branch of the Hibernian Academy's operations is its annual exhibition of pictures. These exhibitions attract crowds who would never otherwise see a painting, promote thought on art, and procure patronage for artists. In this, too, the Hibernian Academy has recently found a rival in the Society of Irish Artists, established in 1842, which has an annual exhibition in College Street, and pays the expenses of the exhibition out of the admission fees, as does the Hibernian Academy. We are not attaching blame to the Society of Irish Artists in noticing the fact of its rivalry.