Chapter 21: , forbidding the importation of foreign coals, was designed (8)

Therefore do they and we urge the Repealers to serve notices diligently, accurately, and at once. Therefore do they and we prompt them to attend at the Sessions, and boldly claim their rights as citizens contributing to the State, and entitled to a vote in electing its managers; and therefore do they and we advise each constituency to consider well whether they have or can procure a representative whose purity of life, undoubted honesty, knowledge of politics, and devoted zeal to secure Domestic Government fit him to legislate in St. Stephen's, or to agitate in the Corn Exchange, or wherever else nationality may have a temple.

We say, the advocacy of a "Domestic Legislature," because _that_ is what Ireland wants. We are a province, drained by foreign taxation and absentees, governed by a foreign legislature and executive. We seek to have _Ireland_ governed by an Irish senate and executive for herself, and by Irishmen; and although a man shall add to this a claim for a share in the government of the _empire_, and of course a consent to give taxes and soldiers, therefore that (though to us it seems unwise) is not such a difference as should make us divide. He is a Repealer of the Union as decidedly as if he never called himself a Federalist. Such Repealing Federalists are Messrs. Crawford, Wyse, John O'Brien, Caulfield, Ross, O'Malley, O'Hagan, Bishop Kennedy, and numbers of others in and out of the Association. In selecting or in agitating about Members we must therefore never forget that a Federalist is quite as likely to be national as a technical Repealer, and that if his morals and ability be better than those of a _so-called_ Repeal candidate, he is the better man.

We have also classed morals, ability, and zeal as being quite as requisite as national opinions in a Representative.

If our Members were a majority in the House, it might not be very moral, but at least it would have some show of excuse if we sent in a flock of pledged delegates to vote Repeal, regardless of their powers or principles; though even then we might find it hard to get rid of the scoundrels after Repeal was carried, and when Ireland would need virtuous and unremitting wisdom to make her prosper.

But now, when our whole Members are not a sixth of the Commons, and when the English Whigs are as hostile to Repeal as the English Tories, and more hostile to it than the Irish Tories--now, it is plain we must get weight for our opinions by the ability and virtue of our Members; and therefore we exhort the People, as they love purity, as they prize religion, as they are true to themselves, to Ireland, and to liberty, to spurn from their hustings any man who comes there without purity and wisdom, though he took or kept a thousand Repeal pledges.

We want men who are not spendthrifts, drunkards, swindlers--we want honest men--men whom we would trust with our private money or our family's honour; and sooner than see faded aristocrats and brawling profligates shelter themselves from their honest debtors by a Repeal membership, we would leave Tories and Whigs undisturbed in their seats, and strive to carry Repeal by other measures.

Conciliation, virtue, and wisdom are our moral means of success. They must be used and sought on the hustings as well as in the Conciliation Hall. We must not prematurely, and at Heaven knows what distance from an election, force a good and able man to accept a pledge or quarrel with us. Pledges are extreme things, hardly constitutional, and highly imprudent in a well-governed country. Nevertheless, they are sometimes needed, as are sharper remedies; and such need will exist here at the general election. No man must go in for any place where the popular will prevails unless he is a Repealer or a Federalist; and, what is _equally_ essential, an upright, unstained, and zealous man, who will work for Ireland and do her credit. But it seems to us quite premature to insist on those pledges from honourable, proud, and patriotic men _now_, who will, in all likelihood, be with us before an election comes, provided they are treated with the respect and forbearance due to them whether they join us or not.

These are some of the canons of moral force; and if, as we trust, Ireland can succeed without cannon of another kind, it must be by using those we have here mustered.

CONCILIATION.

The People of Ireland have done well in naming the scene of their future counsels the Conciliation Hall.

It intimates the cause of all our misery, and suggests the cure. Prostrated by division, union is our hope.

If Irishmen were united, the Repeal of the Union would be instantly and quietly conceded. A Parliament, at whose election mutual generosity would be in every heart and every act, would take the management of Ireland. For oh! we ask our direst foe to say from the bottom of his heart, would not the People of Ireland melt with joy and love to their Protestant brethren if they united and conquered? And surely from such a soil noble crops would grow. No southern plain heavy with corn, and shining with fruit-clad hamlets, ever looked so warm and happy as would the soul of Ireland, bursting out with all the generosity and beauty of a grateful People.

We trust that the opening of the Conciliation Hall will be a signal to Catholic and Protestant to _try_ and agree.

Surely our Protestant brethren cannot shut their eyes to the honour it would confer on them and us if we gave up old brawls and bitterness, and came together in love like Christians, in feeling like countrymen, in policy like men having common interests. Can they--ah! tell us, dear countrymen!--can you harden your hearts at the thought of looking on Irishmen joined in commerce, agriculture, art, justice, government, wealth, and glory?

Fancy the aristocracy placed by just laws, or by wise concession, on terms of friendship with their tenants, securing to these tenants every farthing their industry entitled them to; living among them, promoting agriculture and education by example and instruction; sharing their joys, comforting their sorrows, and ready to stand at their head whenever their country called. Think well on it. Suppose it to exist in your own county, in your own barony and parish. Dwell on this sight. See the life of such a landlord and of such farmers--so busy, so thoughtful, so happy! How the villages would ring with pleasure and trade, and the fields laugh with contented and cheered labour. Imagine the poor supporting themselves on those waste lands which the home expenditure of our rents and taxes would reclaim, and the workhouse turned into an hospital, or a district college. Education and art would prosper; every village, like Italy, with its painter of repute. Then indeed the men of all creeds would be competent by education to judge of doctrines; yet, influenced by that education, to see that God meant men to live, and love, and ennoble their souls; to be just, and to worship Him, and not to consume themselves in rites, or theological contention; or if they did discuss, they would do so not as enemies, but inquirers after truth. The clergy of different creeds would be placed on an equality, and would hope to propagate their faith not by hard names or furious preaching, but by their dignity and wisdom, and by the marked goodness of their flocks. Men might meet or part at church or chapel door without sneer or suspicion. From the christening of the child, till his neighbours, Catholic and Protestant, followed his grey-haired corpse to the tomb, he might live enjoying much, honoured much, and fearing nothing but his own carelessness or vice.

This, 'twill be said, is a paradise.

Alas! no--there would still be individual crime and misfortune, national difficulties and popular errors. These are in the happiest and best countries.

But the condition of many countries is as Paradise to what we are.

Where else in Europe is the peasant ragged, fed on roots, in a wigwam, without education?

Where else are the towns ruined, trade banished, the till, and the workshop, and the stomach of the artisan empty? Where else is there an exportation of over one-third of the rents, and an absenteeism of the chief landlords? What other country pays four and a half million taxes to a foreign treasury, and has its offices removed or filled with foreigners? Where else are the People told they are free and represented, yet only one in two hundred of them have the franchise? Where, beside, do the majority support the Clergy of the minority? In what other country are the majority excluded from high ranks in the University? In what place, beside, do landlords and agents extort such vast rents from an indigent race? Where else are the tenants ever pulling, the owners ever driving, and both full of anger? And what country so fruitful and populous, so strong, so well marked and guarded by the sea, and with such an ancient name, was reduced to provincialism by bribery and treacherous force, and is denied all national government?

And if the answer be, as it must, "nowhere is the like seen," then we say that union amongst Irishmen would make this country comparatively a paradise. For union would peacefully achieve independence; would enable us to settle the landlord and tenant question; would produce religious equality, as the first act of independence; would restore the absentees by the first of our taxes; would cherish our commerce, facilitate agriculture and manufactures, and would introduce peace and social exertion, instead of religious and political strife.

Again, then, we ask the Protestant to ponder over these things--to think of them when he lies down--to talk over them to his Catholic neighbours--to see if he and they couldn't agree--and to offer up in church his solemn prayers that this righteous and noble conclusion of our mourning may be vouchsafed.

Where, in aught that has been said or done by the Catholic party, is there evidence of that intolerant and usurping spirit which the Protestants seem to dread?

Do they think it possible for a whole People of some millions of men, women, and children to tell a public lie, and to persevere in the giant falsehood for years? The present generation have been brought up in this faith of religious equality, and they would be liars, and apostates too, if they wished for ascendency. We may add it would not be safe nor possible for the Catholics to establish an ascendency, even if the Union were repealed; and, therefore, we again ask the Protestants, for the sake of peace, interest, and religion, to _try_ if they cannot unite with the Catholics for the prosperity of Ireland.

To the Catholics we have nothing to say but to redouble their efforts.

Conciliation is a fixed and everlasting duty, independently of the political results it might have. If they despaired of winning the Protestants to Repeal, conciliation would still be their duty, as men and Christians. But there is every ground for hope. The Protestants, in defeating the rack-renters' anti-Repeal meeting, showed they began to see their interest. Something has been, more shall be done to remove the prejudice against the Catholics, derived from lying histories; and if we may take the stern reproof of the _Banner of Ulster_ to the _Evening Mail_ as speaking the sentiments of the Presbyterians of the North, then they begin to feel like religious Irishmen, and they will presently be with us.

SCOLDING MOBS.[50]

Why on earth have so many of the People of Dublin made fools of themselves by getting together in Sackville Street every evening to hoot at coaches? The coach contract was an injury and an insult to us, but it is now irremediable. We have serious work before us, and let us have no by-battles. To the devil with the whole affair, rather than compromise our cause.

Nothing could please the Government more than frequent little rows, which would get up a hatred between the soldiers and police and the people. They are now very good friends. The armed men are becoming popular and patriotic, and the unarmed, we trust, more orderly, hospitable, and kindly every day. Let us have no more tussling and patrolling.

What do these mobs mean? A noisy mob is always rash--often cruel and cowardly. A good friendly shout from a multitude is well, and a passing hearty curse endurable. The silent and stern assemblage of orderly men, like the myriads of Tipperary, or like one of Napoleon's armies, is a noble sight and a mighty power; but a scolding, hooting mob, which meets to make a noise, and runs away from a stick, a horse, or a sabre, is a wretched affair.

"I hate little wars," said Wellington. So do we; and we hate still more a petty mob meeting without purpose, and dispersing without success. Perfect order, silence, obedience, alacrity, and courage make an assemblage formidable and respectable. We want law and order--we are seriously injured by every scene or act of violence, no matter how transient. Let us have no more of this humbug. If we are determined men we have enough to _learn_ and to do without wasting our time in hissing and groaning coaches.

In reference to popular faults, we cannot help saying a word on the language applied to certain of the enemy's leaders, especially the Duke of Wellington. We dislike the whole system of false disparagement. The Irish People will never be led to act the manly part which liberty requires of them by being told that "the Duke," that gallant soldier and most able general, is a screaming coward and doting corporal. We have grave and solemn work to do. Making light of it or of our enemies may inspire a moment's overweening confidence, but would ensure ultimate defeat. We have much to contend against; but our resources are immense, and nothing but our own rashness or cowardice can defeat us.

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[50] The withdrawal of the Coach Contracts from Ireland is but
another instance of the same spiteful and feeble policy. Messrs.
Bourne and Purcell had for years held the contract for building the
Irish Mail Coaches. This contract was less a source of wealth to
them than of support and comfort to hundreds of families employed
by them. The contract runs out--Messrs. Bourne & Purcell propose in
form for it--an _informal_ proposal, at a rate inconsiderably
lower, is sent in by another person, and is at once accepted. It is
accepted notwithstanding its irregularity, and notwithstanding the
offer of Messrs. Bourne & Purcell to take it, even at a loss, as
low as anyone else. It is given to a foreigner. Were the difference
triple what it was, that contract should have been left in
Ireland.--_Nation_.

MUNSTER OUTRAGES.

The people of Munster are in want--will murder feed them? Is there some prolific virtue in the blood of a landlord that the fields of the South will yield a richer crop where it has flowed? As the Jews dashed their door-posts on the Passover, shall the blood of an agent shelter the cabins of Tipperary? Shame, shame, and horror! Oh! to think that these hands, hard with innocent toil, should be reddened with assassination! Oh! bitter, bitter grief, that the loving breasts of Munster should pillow heads wherein are black plots, and visions of butchery and shadows of remorse! Oh! woe unutterable, if the men who abandoned the sin of drunkenness should companion with the devil of murder; and if the men who, last year, vowed patience, order, and virtue, rashly and impiously revel in crime.

But what do we say? Where are we led by our fears? Surely, Munster is against these atrocities--they are the sins of a few--the People are pure and sound, and all will be well with Ireland! 'Tis so, 'tis so; we pray God 'tis so: but yet the People are not without blame!

Won't they come and talk to us about these horrid deeds? Won't they meet us (as brothers to consider disorders in their family) and do something--do all to stop them? Don't they confide in us? Oh! they know, well they know that our hearts love them better than life--well they know that to-morrow, if 'twould serve, we would be ready to die by their side in battle; but we are not ready to be their accomplices in crime--we would not be unsteady on the scaffold, so we honestly died for them, but we have no share with the murderer!

Nor is it we alone, who have ever professed our willingness to take the field with the people, who loathe and denounce these crimes. Let the men of Munster read the last Act of the Repeal Association, and they will find Daniel O'Connell, William Smith O'Brien, and the entire Repeal League confederated to proclaim and trample down the assassins. Let them enter their chapels, and from every altar they will hear their beloved priests solemnly warning them that the forms of the Church are as fiery coals on the heads of the blood-stained. Let them look upon government, and they will find a potent code and vast police--a disciplined army--all just citizens, combined to quell the assassin; and then let them with their consciences approach their God, and learn that the murderer is dark before Him.

Heaven and earth raise their voices against these crimes. Will they not be hopeless?--must they not be desperately wicked?

What chance has the guilty of success?--what right to commit so deadly a sin? These murders will not give the people the land, nor leases, nor low rents. When the country was in a rude state, intimidation easy, and concealment easier, they tried the same thing. They began butchering bailiffs--they rose to shooting landlords. Did they get nearer their object? Did they overpower their oppressors, stop the law, mitigate their condition?--No, but the opposite; the successors of the slaughtered men levied the rents and enforced the ejectments of the slain. They did so with greater zeal, for vengeance strengthened their resolve. They did so with greater effect, for the law that might have interfered where the people were oppressed, and society, which would have aided the wronged people, took arms against assassins, and the death groan of the victim was the best rallying cry of oppression.

So it will be again. Already men whose tongues, and pens, and hearts were busy pleading for better tenures and juster rents are silenced. They will not clamour for rights when assassins may recruit their gangs with the words of the innocent. Already minds deep in preparing remedies for popular suffering are meditating means of popular coercion. The justice, not only of government but society, has grown cautious of redress, and is preparing to punish--a repetition of guilt will aggravate that punishment and postpone that redress.

Headstrong and vain men, your sins will not give you a landlord the less nor a persecutor the less; while ever the land is liable to the rent there will be found men willing to hazard their lives to get it, and you but arm them with fresh powers, with the sympathy of the public and the increased force of law and government, to lean yet heavier on you.

Why, too, should Munster lead in guilt? Our richest province, our purest race, our fairest scenes--oh! why should its bloodshed be as plenteous as its rains? Other people suffer much. The peaceful people of Kerry, the whole province of Connaught, many counties of Leinster are under a harsher yoke than the men of North Munster: yet they do not seek relief in butchery.

Thank God! they do not. How horrid a blot upon earth were Ireland, if its poor had no reliance but the murder of the rich; better by far that that people rose and waged open war. That were wild--that were criminal; but 'twould be wisdom and mercy compared with these individual murders.

How horrible is the condition of a district subject to such crimes! Few are struck, but all suffer! 'Tis as if men knew assuredly that a spirit of plague were passing through the land, but knew not whom it would wither. Think of a district where there has been peace--the People are poor, but they are innocent; some of the rich are merciless, but some are just, and many are kind and sympathising; in their low homes, in their safe chapels, in the faith of their fellows, in the hope of better days, in the effort for improvement, but above all in their conscious innocence, the most trampled of them have consolation, and there is a sort of smile even on the wretched. But let some savage spirits appear among them--let the shebeen house supply the ferocity which religion kept down, and one oppressor is marked out for vengeance, his path is spied, the bludgeon or the bullet smites, and he is borne in to his innocent and loving family a broken and stained corpse, slain in his sins.

Pursuit follows--the criminals become outlaws--they try to shelter their lives and console their consciences by making many share their guilt--another and another is struck at. Haunted by remorse, and tracked by danger, and now intimate with crime, a less and a less excuse suffices. He began by avenging his own wrong, becomes the avenger of others, then perhaps the tool of others, who use the wrongs of the country as a cloak for unjustified malice, and the _suspected_ tyrant or the rigid, yet not unjust, man shares the fate of the glaring oppressors. What terror and suspicion--what a shadow as of death is there upon such a district! No one trusts his neighbour. The rich, excited by such events, believe the poor have conspired to slay them. They dread their very domestics, they abhor the People, rage at the country, summon each other, and all the aid that authority can give to protect and to punish; they bar their doors before sunset, their hearths are surrounded with guns and pistols--at the least rustle every heart beats and women shriek, and men with clenched teeth and embittered hearts make ready for that lone and deadly conflict--that battle without object, without honour, without hope, without quarter.

Then they cover the country with patrols--they raise up a cloud of hovering spies--no peasant, no farmer feels safe. Those who connive shudder at every passing troop, and see an informer in every stranger. Those who do not connive tremble lest they be struck as enemies of the criminal; and thus from bad to worse till no home is safe--no heart calm of the thousands.

As yet no district has attained this horrible ripeness; but to this North Munster may come, unless the People interfere and put down the offenders.

Will they suffer this hell-blight to come upon them? Will they wait till violence and suspicion are the only principles retaining power among them? Will they look on while the Repeal movement--the educating, the ennobling, the sacred effort for liberty--is superseded by the buzz of assassination and vengeance? Or will they now join O'Connell and O'Brien--the Association, the Law, and the Priesthood; and whenever they hear a breath of outrage, denounce it as they would Atheism--whenever they see an attempt at crime, interpose with brave, strong hand, and, in Mr. O'Brien's words, "leave the guilty no chance of life but in hasty flight from the land they have stained with their crimes."

Once again we ask the People--the guiltless, the suffering, the noble, the brave People of Munster--by their patience, by their courage, by their hopes for Ireland, by their love to God, we implore them to put down these assassins as they would and could were the weapons of the murderers aimed at their own children.

A SECOND YEAR'S WORK.

It was a bold experiment to establish _The Nation_. Our success is more honourable to Ireland than to us, for it was by defying evil customs and bad prejudices we succeeded.

Let us prove this.

Religion has for ages been so mixed with Irish quarrels that it is often hard to say whether patriotism or superstition was the animating principle of an Irish leader, and whether political rapacity or bigoted zeal against bigotry was the motive of an oppressor. Yet in no country was this more misplaced in our day than in Ireland. Our upper classes were mostly Episcopalians--masters not merely of the institutions, but the education and moral force of the country. The middle ranks and much of the peasantry of one of our greatest provinces were Presbyterians, obstinate in their simple creed--proud of their victories, yet apprehensive of oppression. The rest of the population were Catholics, remarkable for piety and tenderness, but equally noted for ignorance and want of self-reliance. To mingle politics and religion in such a country was to blind men to their common secular interests, to render political union impossible, and national independence hopeless.

We grappled with the difficulty. We left sacred things to consecrated hands--theology and discipline to Churchmen. We preached a nationality that asked after no man's creed (_friend's or foe's_); and now, after our Second Year's Work, we have got a _practical_ as well as a verbal admission that religion is a thing between man and God--that no citizen is to be hooted, or abused, or marked down because he holds any imaginable creed, or changes it any conceivable number of times.

We are proudly conscious that, in preaching these great truths with success, we have done more to convince the Protestants that they may combine with the Catholics and get from under the shield of England than if we had proved that the Repeal of the Union would double the ears of their corn fields.

There had been a long habit of looking to foreign arms or English mercy for redress. We have shared the labours of O'Connell and O'Brien in impressing on the People that self-reliance is the only liberator. We have, not in vain, taught that, though the concessions of England or the sympathy of others was to be welcomed and used, still they would be best won by dignity and strength; and that, whether they came or not, Ireland could redress herself by patience, energy, and resolution.

Yet, deficient as the People were in genuine self-reliance, they had been pampered into the belief that they were highly educated, nobly represented, successful in every science and art, and that consequently their misery was a mysterious fate, for which there was no remedy in human means. We believe we have convinced them of the contrary of this. Ireland has done great things. She has created an unrivalled music and oratory, taken a first place in lyric poetry, displayed great valour, ready wit--has been a pattern of domestic virtue and faith under persecution; and lately has again advanced herself and her fame by deliberate temperance, by organised abstinence from crime, and by increasing political discipline. Yet there is that worst of all facts on the face of the census, that most of the Irish can neither read nor write; there is evidence in every exhibition that this land, which produced Barry, Forde, Maclise, and Burton, is ignorant of the fine arts; and proof in every shop or factory of the truth of Kane's motto, that industrial ignorance is a prime obstacle to our wealth. We have no national theatre, either in books or performance; and though we have got of late some classes of prose literature--national fiction, for instance--we have yet to write our history, our statistics, and much of our science.

We have week after week candidly told these things to the People, and, instead of quarrelling with us, or running off to men who said "the Irish have succeeded in everything," they hearkened to us, and raised our paper into a circulation beyond most of the leaders of the London press, and immensely beyond any other journal that ever was in Ireland. What is more cheering still, they have set about curing their defects. They are founding Repeal Reading-rooms. They have noted down their ignorance in many portions of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, history, literature, and fine arts; and they are working with the Agricultural Societies, forming Polytechnic Institutions for the improvement of manufactures, and giving and demanding support to the antiquarian and historical and artistical books and institutions in Ireland. Large _classes_ wished well to, and small ones supported each of these projects before; but in this journal _all_ classes were canvassed incessantly, and not in vain--and if there be unanimity now, we claim some credit for ourselves, but much more for the People, who did not resent harsh truth, and took advice that affronted their vanity.

A political impatience and intolerance have too often been seen in this country. It is one of the vices of slaves to use free speech to insult all who do not praise their faults and their friends and their caprices. We rejoice, in looking over our files, to see how rarely we were personal and how generally we recognised the virtues of political foes. It is an equal pleasure to recall that in many questions, but especially in reference to the Liberal Members not in the Association, we stood between an impolitic fury and its destined victims. The People bore with us, and then agreed with us. We told them that men able and virtuous--men who had gone into Parliament when Repeal was a Whig buggaboo to frighten the Tories, were not to be hallooed from their seats because Repeal had suddenly grown into a national demand. These men, we said, may become your allies, if you do not put them upon their mettle by your rudeness and impatience. If they join you, they will be faster and more useful friends than men who compensate for every defect by pledge-bolting at command.

Mr. O'Connell, who had at first seemed to incline to the opposite opinion, concurred with us. Mr. O'Brien was zealous on the same side; the "premature pledges" were postponed to their fit time--an election--and the people induced to apply themselves to the Registries, as the true means of getting Repeal members.

We have maintained and advanced our foreign policy--the recognition and study of other countries beside England, and a careful separation of ourselves from England's crimes. We have, we believe, not neglected those literary, antiquarian, and historical teachings, and those popular projects which we pointed to last year as part of our labours; and we are told that the poetry of _The Nation_ has not been worse than in our first year. But these things are more personal, less indicative of national progress, and therefore less interesting than our success in producing political tolerance, increased efforts for education, and that final concession to religious liberty--the right to change without even verbal persecution.

The last year has been a year of hard work and hard trial to the country and to us. Our first year was spent in rousing and animating--the second in maintaining, guiding, and restraining. Its motto is, "Bide your time." Never had a People more temptation to be rash; and it is our proudest feeling that in our way we aided the infinitely greater powers of O'Connell till his imprisonment, and of O'Brien thereafter, to keep in the passion, while they kept up the spirit of the People.

They and we succeeded.

The People saw the darling of their hearts dragged to trial, yet they never rioted; they found month after month go by in the disgusting details of a trial at bar, yet, instead of desponding, they improved their organisation, studied their history and statistics--increased in dignity, modesty, and strength. At length came the imprisonment; we almost doubted them, but they behaved gloriously--they recognised their wrongs, but they crossed their arms--they were neither terrified, disordered, nor divided--they promptly obeyed their new leaders, and, with shut teeth, swore that their "only vengeance should be victory." They succeeded--bore their triumph as well as their defeat, and are now taking breath for a fresh effort at education, organisation, and conciliation.

It is something to have laboured through a Second Year for such a People. Let them go on as they have begun--growing more thoughtful, more temperate, more educated, more resolute--let them complete their parish organisation, carry out their registries, and, above all, establish those Reading-rooms which will inform and strengthen them into liberty; and, ere many years' work, the Green Flag will be saluted by Europe, and Ireland will be a Nation. The People have shown that their spirit, their discipline, and their modesty can be relied on; they have but to exhibit that greatest virtue which their enemies deny them--perseverence--and all will be well.

ORANGE AND GREEN.

Here it is at last--the dawning. Here, in the very sanctuary of the Orange heart, is a visible angel of Nationality:--

"If a British Union cannot be formed, perhaps an Irish one might.
What could Repeal take from Irish Protestants that they are not
gradually losing '_in due course_'?

"However improbable, it is not impossible, that better terms might
be made with the Repealers than the Government seem disposed to
give. A hundred thousand Orangemen, with their colours flying,
might yet meet a hundred thousand Repealers on the banks of the
Boyne; and, on a field presenting so many solemn reminiscences to
all, sign the Magna Charta of Ireland's independence. The Repeal
banner might then be Orange and Green, flying from the Giant's
Causeway to the Cove of Cork, and proudly look down from the walls
of Derry upon a new-born nation.

"Such a union, not to be accomplished without concession on all
sides, would remove the great offence of Irish Protestants--their
Saxon attachment to their British fatherland. Cast off, as they
would feel themselves by Great Britain, and baptised on the banks
of the Boyne into the great Irish family, they would be received
into a brotherhood which, going forward towards the attainment of a
national object, would extinguish the spirit of Ribbonism, and
establish in its place a covenant of peace."

So speaks the _Evening Mail_, the trumpet of the northern confederates, and we cry amen! amen!

We exult, till the beat of our heart stays our breathing, at the vision of such a concourse. Never--never, when the plains of Attica saw the rivals of Greece marching to expel the Persian, who had tried to intrigue with each for the ruin of both--never, when, from the uplands of Helvetia, rolled together the victors of Sempach--never, when, at the cry of Fatherland, the hundred nations of Germany rose up, and swept on emancipating to the Rhine--never was there under the sky a godlier or more glorious sight than that would be--to all slaves, balsam; to all freemen, strength; to all time, a miracle!

If Ireland's wrongs were borne for this--if our feuds and our weary sapping woes were destined to this ending, then blessed be the griefs of the past! His sickness to the healed--his pining to the happy lover--his danger to the rescued, are faint images of such a birth from such a chaos.

It is something--the cheer of an invisible friend--to have, even for a moment, heard the hope. It must abide in the souls of the Irish, guaranteeing the moderation of the Catholic--wakening the aspirations of the Orangemen. There it is--a cross on the sky.

It may not now lead to anything real. Long-suffering, oft-baffled Ireland will not abandon for an inch or hour its selected path by reason of this message.

We hope from it, because it has been prompted by causes which will daily increase. Incessantly will the British Minister labour to gain the support of seven millions of freed men, by cutting away every privilege and strength from one million of discarded allies.

We hope from it, because, as the Orangemen become more enlightened, they will more and more value the love of their countrymen, be prouder of their country, and more conscious that their ambition, interest, and even security are identical with nationality.

We hope from it, because, as the education of People and the elevation of the rich progress, they will better understand the apprehensions of the Orangemen, allow for them in a more liberal spirit, and be able to give more genuine security to even the nervousness of their new friends.

We hope most from it, because of its intrinsic greatness. It is the best promise yet seen to have the Orangemen proposing, even as a chance, the conference of 100,000 armed and ordered yeomen from the North, with 100,000 picked (ay, by our faith! and martial) Southerns on the banks of the Boyne, to witness a treaty of mutual concession, oblivion, and eternal amity; and then to lift an Orange-Green Flag of Nationhood, and defy the world to pull it down.

Yet 'tis a distant hope, and Ireland, we repeat, must not swerve for its flashing. When the Orangemen treat the shamrock with as ready a welcome as Wexford gave the lily--when the Green is set as consort of the Orange in the lodges of the North--when the Fermanagh meeting declares that the Orangemen are Irishmen pledged to Ireland, and summons another Dungannon Convention to prepare the terms of our treaty; then, and not till then, shall we treat this gorgeous hope as a reality, and then, and not till then, shall we summon the Repealers to quit their present sure course, and trust their fortunes to the League of the Boyne.

Meantime, we commend to the hearts and pride of "the Enniskilleners" this, their fathers', declaration in 1782:--

"COUNTY FERMANAGH GRAND JURY.

"We, the Grand Jury of the county of Fermanagh, being
constitutionally assembled at the present assizes, held for the
county of Fermanagh, at Enniskillen, this 18th day of March, 1782,
think ourselves called upon at this interesting moment to make our
solemn declarations relative to the rights and liberties of
Ireland.

"We _pledge ourselves_ to this our country, that we will never
pay obedience to any law made, or to be made, to bind Ireland,
except those laws which are and shall be made by the King, Lords,
and Commons of Ireland.

"Signed by order,

"ARTHUR COLE HAMILTON, Foreman."

ACADEMICAL EDUCATION.[51]

The rough outlines of a plan of Academical Education for Ireland are now before the country. The plan, as appears from Sir James Graham's very conciliatory speech, is to be found three Colleges; to give them L100,000 for buildings, and L6,000 a year for expenses; to open them to all creeds; the education to be purely secular; the students not to live within the Colleges; and the professors to be named and removed, now and hereafter, by Government.

The announcement of this plan was received in the Commons with extravagant praise by the Irish Whig and Repeal members, nor was any hostility displayed except by the blockhead and bigot, Sir Robert Inglis--a preposterous fanatic, who demands the repeal of the Emancipation Act, and was never yet missed from the holy orgies of Exeter Hall. Out of doors it has had a darker reception; but now that the first storm of joy and anger is over, it is time for the people of Ireland to think of this measure.

It is for them to consider it--it is for them to decide on it--it is for them to profit by it. For centuries the Irish were paupers and serfs, because they were ignorant and divided. The Protestant hated the Catholic, and oppressed him--the Catholic hated the Protestant, and would not trust him. England fed the bigotry of both, and flourished on the ignorance of both. The ignorance was a barrier between our sects--left our merchant's till, our farmer's purse, and our state treasury empty--stupefied our councils in peace, and slackened our arm in war. Whatsoever plan will strengthen the soul of Ireland with knowledge, and knit the sects of Ireland in liberal and trusting friendship, will be better for us than if corn and wine were scattered from every cloud.

While 400,000 of the poor find instruction in the National Schools, the means of education for the middle and upper classes are as bad now as they were ten or fifty years ago. A farmer or a shopkeeper in Ireland cannot, by any sacrifice, win for his son such an education as would be proffered to him in Germany. How can he afford to pay the expense of his son's living in the capital, in addition to Collegiate fees; and, if he could, why should he send his son where, unless he be an Episcopalian Protestant, those Collegiate offices which, though they could be held but by a few score, would influence hundreds, are denied him. Even to the gentry the distance and expense are oppressive; and to the Catholics and Presbyterians of them the monopoly is intolerable.

To bring Academical Education within the reach and means of the middle classes, to free it from the disease of ascendency, and to make it a means of union as well as of instruction, should be the objects of him who legislates on this subject; and we implore the gentry and middle classes, whom it concerns, to examine this plan calmly and closely, and to act on their convictions like firm and sensible men. If such a measure cannot be discussed in a reasonable and decent way, our progress to self-government is a progress to giddy convulsions and shameful ruin.

Let us look into the details of the plan.

It grants L100,000 and L18,000 a year for the foundation of three Provincial Colleges. The Colleges proposed are for the present numerous enough. It will be hard to get competent Professors for even these. Elementary Education has made great way; but the very ignorance for which these Institutions are meant as a remedy makes the class of Irishmen fit to fill Professors' chairs small indeed; and, small as it is, it yearly loses its best men by emigration to London, where they find rewards, fame, and excitement. The dismissal, hereafter, of incompetent men would be a painful, but--if pedants, dunces, and cheats were crammed into the chairs--an unavoidable task. A gradual increase of such Colleges will better suit the progress of Irish intelligence than a sudden and final endowment. But though the Colleges are enough, and the annual allowance sufficient, the building fund is inadequate--at least double the sum would be needed; but this brings us to another part of the plan--the residence of the students outside the College.

To the extern residence we are decidedly opposed. It works well in Germany, where the whole grown population are educated; but in Ireland, where the adult population are unhappily otherwise, 'tis a matter of consequence to keep the students together, to foster an academic spirit and character, and to preserve them from the stupefying influences of common society. However, this point is but secondary, so we pass from it, and come to the two great principles of the Bill.

They are--Mixed Education and Government Nomination; and we are as resolute for the first as we are against the second.

The objections to separate Education are immense; the reasons for it are reasons for separate life, for mutual animosity, for penal laws, for religious wars. 'Tis said that communication between students of different creeds will taint their faith and endanger their souls. They who say so should prohibit the students from associating _out_ of the Colleges even more than _in_ them. In the Colleges they will be joined in studying mathematics, natural philosophy, engineering, chemistry, the principles of reasoning, the constitution of man. Surely union in these studies would less peril their faith than free communication out of doors. Come, come, let those who insist on unqualified separate Education follow out their principles--let them prohibit Catholic and Protestant boys from playing, or talking, or walking together--let them mark out every frank or indiscreet man for a similar prohibition--let them establish a theological police--let them rail off each sect (as the Jews used to be cooped) into a separate quarter; or rather, to save preliminaries, let each of them proclaim war in the name of his creed on the men of all other creeds, and fight till death, triumph, or disgust shall leave him leisure to revise his principles.

These are the logical consequences of the doctrine of Separate Education, but we acquit the friends of it of that or any other such ferocious purpose. Their intentions are pious and sincere--their argument is dangerous, for they might find followers with less virtue and more dogged consistency.

We say "an _unqualified_ separate Education," because it is said, with some plausibility, that the manner in which theology mixes up with history and moral philosophy renders common instruction in them almost impossible. The reasoning is pushed too far. Yet the objection should be well weighed; though we warn those who push it very far not to fall into the extravagance of a valued friend of ours, who protested against one person attempting to teach medicine to Catholics and Protestants, as one creed acknowledged miraculous cures and demoniacal possessions, and the other rejected both!

It should be noted, too, that this demand for separate _Professors_ does not involve separate Colleges, does not assume that any evil would result from the friendship of the students, and does not lead to the desperate, though unforeseen, conclusions which follow from the other notion.

'Tis also a different thing to propose the establishment of Deans in each College to inspect the religious discipline and moral conduct of the students--a Catholic Dean, appointed by the Catholic Church, watching over the Catholic students; and so of the Episcopalians and Presbyterians. Such Deans, and Halls for religious teaching, will be absolutely necessary, should a residence in the Colleges be required; but should a system of residence in registered lodgings and boarding-houses be preferred, similar duties to the Deans might be performed by persons nominated by the Catholic, Protestant, and Presbyterian Churches respectively, without the direct interposition of the College; for each parent would take care to put his child under the control of his own Church. An adequate provision in some sufficient manner for religious discipline is essential, and to be dispensed with on no pretence.

These, however, are details of great consequence to be discussed in the Commons' Committee; but we repeat our claim for mixed education, because it has worked well among the students of Trinity College, and would work better were its offices free, because it is the principle approved by Ireland when she demanded the opening of those offices, and when she accepted the National Schools--because it is the principle of the Cork, the Limerick, and the Derry meetings; but above all, because it is consistent with piety, and favourable to that union of Irishmen of different sects, for want of which Ireland is in rags and chains.

Against the nomination of Professors by Government we protest altogether. We speak alike of Whig or Tory. The nomination would be _looked on_ as a political bribe, the removal as a political punishment. Nay, the nomination _would_ be political. Under great public excitement a just nomination might be made, but in quiet times it would be given to the best mathematician or naturalist who attended the levee and wrote against the opposition. And it would be an enormous power; for it would not merely control the immediate candidates, but hundreds, who thought they might some ten years after be solicitors for professorships, would shrink from committing themselves to uncourtly politics, or qualify by Ministerial partisanship, not philosophical study, for that distant day. A better engine for corrupting that great literary class which is the best hope of Ireland could not be devised; and if it be retained in the Bill, that Bill must be resisted and defeated, whether in or out of Parliament. We warn the Minister!

We have omitted a strange objection to the Bill--that it does not give mixed education. It is said the Colleges of Cork and Galway would be attended only by Catholics, and that of Belfast by Protestants. Both are errors. The middle class of Protestants in Cork is numerous--they and the poorer gentry would send their sons to the Cork College to save expense. The Catholics would assuredly do the same in Belfast; they do so with the Institution in the Academy there already; and though the Catholics in Cork, and the Protestants in Belfast, would be the majorities, enough of the opposite creed would be in each to produce all the wholesome restraint, and much of the wholesome toleration and goodwill, of the mixed system of Trinity. Were the objection good, however, it ought to content the advocates of separate education.

It has been said, too, that the Bill recognises a religious ascendency in the case of Belfast. This seems to us a total misconception of the words of the Minister. He suggested that the Southern College should be in Cork, the Western in Limerick or Galway, the Northern in Derry or Belfast. Had he stopped at Derry the mistake could never have occurred; but he went on to say that if the College were planted in Belfast, the building now used for the Belfast Academy would serve for the new College, and unless the echoes of the old theological professors be more permanent than common, we cannot understand the sectarianism of the _building_ in Belfast.

A more valid objection would be that the measure was not more complete; and the University system will certainly be crippled and impotent unless residence for a year at least in it be essential to a University degree.

The main defect of the Bill is its omitting to deal with Trinity College. It is said that the property is and was Protestant; but the Bill of '93, which admitted Catholics to be educated on this Protestant foundation, broke down the title; and, at all events, the property is as public as the Corporation, and is liable to all the demands of public convenience. But it is added that the property of Trinity College is not more than L30,000 or L40,000 a year, and that the grant for Catholic Clerical Education alone is L26,000 a year; and certainly till the Protestant Church be equalised to the wants of the Protestant population there will be something in the argument. When that Reformation comes, a third of the funds should be given for Protestant Clerical Education, and the College livings transferred to the Clerical College, and the remaining two-thirds preserved to Trinity College as a secular University.

Waiting that settlement, we see nothing better than the proposal so admirably urged by the _Morning Chronicle_, of the grant of L6,000--we say L10,000--a year, for the foundation of Catholic fellowships and scholarships in Trinity College. Some such change must be made, for it would be the grossest injustice to give Catholics a share, or the whole, of one or two new, untried, characterless Provincial Academies, and exclude them from the offices of the ancient, celebrated, and national University. If there is to be a religious equality, Trinity College must be opened, or augmented by Catholic endowment. For this no demand can be too loud and vehement, for the refusal will be an affront and a grievance to the Catholics of Ireland.

We have only run over the merits and faults of this plan. Next to a Tenure or a Militia Bill, it is the most important possible. Questions must arise on every section of it; and, however these questions be decided, we trust in God they will be decided without acrimony or recrimination, and that so divine a subject as Education will not lead to disunions which would prostrate our country.

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[51] From _The Nation_, May 17, 1845.

IV. Poetical Works.

A NATION ONCE AGAIN.

I.

When boyhood's fire was in my blood
I read of ancient freemen
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood,
THREE HUNDRED MEN AND THREE MEN.[52]
And then I prayed I yet might see
Our fetters rent in twain,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A NATION ONCE AGAIN.

II.

And, from that time, through wildest woe,
That hope has shone, a far light;
Nor could love's brightest summer glow
Outshine that solemn starlight:
It seemed to watch above my head
In forum, field and fane;
Its angel voice sang round my bed,
"A NATION ONCE AGAIN."

III.

It whispered, too, that "freedom's ark
And service high and holy,
Would be profaned by feelings dark
And passions vain or lowly:
For freedom comes from God's right hand,
And needs a godly train;
And righteous men must make our land
A NATION ONCE AGAIN."

IV.

So, as I grew from boy to man,
I bent me to that bidding--
My spirit of each selfish plan
And cruel passion ridding;
For, thus I hoped some day to aid--
Oh! can _such_ hope be vain?--
When my dear country shall be made
A NATION ONCE AGAIN.

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[52] The Three Hundred Greeks who died at Thermopylae, and the
Three Romans who kept the Sublician Bridge.

THE GERALDINES.

I.

The Geraldines! the Geraldines!--'tis full a thousand years Since, 'mid the Tuscan vineyards, bright flashed their battle-spears; When Capet seized the crown of France, their iron shields were known, And their sabre-dint struck terror on the banks of the Garonne: Across the downs of Hastings they spurred hard by William's side, And the grey sands of Palestine with Moslem blood they dyed; But never then, nor thence, till now, has falsehood or disgrace Been seen to soil Fitzgerald's plume, or mantle in his face.

II.