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usages, institutions, habits, and affections of the community. A popular revolution would overthrow the monarchy and the aristocracy; and even if it were not true that revolution propagates revolution, as waves gives rise to waves, till the agitation is stopped by the iron boundary of despotism, it would still require ages of anxious discomfort, before we could build up again that magnificent fabric, which now requires purification rather than repair; or secure that permanency to our new establishments, without which they could have no other good quality.

Such we humbly conceive to be the course, and the causes, of the evils which we believe to be impending. It is time now to inquire whether there be no remedy. If the whole nation were actually divided into revolutionists and high-monarchy men, we do not see how they could be prevented from fighting, and giving us the miserable choice of a despotism or a tumultuary democracy. Fortunately, however, this is not the case. There is a third party in the nation-small, indeed, in point of numbers, compared with either of the others and, for this very reason, low, we fear, in present popularity-but essentially powerful from talents and reputation, and calculated to become both popular and authoritative, by the fairness and the firmness of its principles. This is composed of the Whig Royalists of England,-men who, without forgetting that all government is from the people, and for the people, are satisfied that the rights and liberties of the people are best maintained by a regulated hereditary monarchy, and a large, open aristocracy; and who are as much averse, therefore, from every attempt to undermine the throne, or to discredit the nobles, as they are indignant at every project to insult or enslave the people. In the better days of the constitution, this party formed almost the whole ordinary opposition, and bore no inconsiderable proportion to that of the courtiers. It might be said too, to have with it, not only the greater part of those who were jealous of the prerogative, but all that great mass of the population which was apparently neutral and indifferent to the issue of the contest. The new-sprung factions, however, have swallowed up almost all this disposable body; and have drawn largely from the ranks of the old constitutionalists themselves. In consequence of this change of circumstances, they can no longer act with effect, as a separate party; and are far too weak to make head, at the same time, against the overbearing influence of the Crown, and the rising pretensions of the people. It is necessary, therefore, that they should now leave this attitude of stern and defying mediation; and, if they would escape being crushed along with the constitution on the collision of the two hostile bodies, they must identify themselves cordially with the better part of one of them, and thus soothe, ennoble, and control it, by the infusion of their own spirit, and the authority of their own wisdom and experience. Like faithful generals, whose troops have mutinied, they must join the

march, and mix with the ranks of the offend. ers, that they may be enabled to reclaim and repress them, and save both them and themselves from a sure and shameful destruction. They have no longer strength to overawe or repel either party by a direct and forcible attack; and must work, therefore, by gentle and conciliatory means, upon that which is most dangerous, most flexible, and most capable of being guided to noble exertions. Like the Sabine women of old, they must throw themselves between the kindred combatants; and stay the fatal feud, by praises and embraces, and dissuasives of kindness and flattery.

Even those who do not much love or care for the people, are now called upon to pacify them, by granting, at least, all that can reasonably be granted; and not only to redress their Grievances, but to comply with their Desires, in so far as they can be complied with, with less hazard than must evidently arise from disregarding them.

We do not say, therefore, that a thorough reconciliation between the Whig royalists and the great body of the people is desirable merely-but that it is indispensable: since it is a dream-a gross solecism and absurdity, to suppose, that such a party should exist, unless supported by the affections and approbation of the people. The advocates of prerogative have the support of prerogative; and they who rule by corruption and the direct agency of wealth, have wealth and the means of corruption in their hands:-But the friends of national freedom must be recognised by the nation. If the Whigs are not supported by the people, they can have no support; and, therefore, if the people are seduced away from them, they must just go after them and bring them back: And are no more to be excused for leaving them to be corrupted by Demagogues, than they would be for leaving them to be oppressed by tyrants. If a party is to exist at all, therefore, friendly at once to the liberties of the people and the integrity of the monarchy, and holding that liberty is best secured by a monarchical establishment, it is absolutely necessary that it should pos sess the confidence and attachment of the people; and if it appear at any time to have lost it, the first of all its duties, and the necessary prelude to the discharge of all the rest, is to regain it, by every effort consistent with probity and honour.

Now, it may be true, that the present alienation of the body of the people from the old constitutional champions of their freedom, originated in the excesses and delusion of the people themselves; but it is not less true, that the Whig royalists have increased that alienation by the haughtiness of their deportment

by the marked displeasure with which they have disavowed most of the popular proceedings-and the tone of needless and imprudent distrust and reprobation with which they have treated pretensions that were only partly inadmissible. They have given too much way to the offence which they naturally received from the rudeness and irreverence of the terms in which their grievances were frequently

We, in short, are for the monarchy and the aristocracy of England, as the only sure supports of a permanent and regulated freedom: But we do not see how either is now to be preserved, except by surrounding them with the affection of the people. The admirers of arbitrary power, blind to the great lesson which all Europe is now holding out to them, have attempted to dispense with this protec tion; and the demagogues have taken advantage of their folly to excite the people to with. draw it altogether. The true friends of the constitution must now bring it back; and must reconcile the people to the old monarchy and the old Parliament of their land, by restraining the prerogative within its legitimate bounds, and bringing back Parliament to its natural habits of sympathy and concord with its constituents. The people, therefore, though it may be deluded, must be reclaimed by gentleness, and treated with respect and indulgence. All indications, and all feelings of jealousy or contempt, must be abjured. Whatever is to be granted, should be granted with cordial alacrity; and all denials should be softened with words and with acts of kind

The wounds that are curable, should be cured; those that have festered more deeply should be cleansed and anointed; and, into such as it may be impossible to close, the patient should be allowed to pour any innocent balsam, in the virtues of which he believes. The irritable state of the body politic will admit of no other treatment.-Incisions and cauteries would infallibly bring on convulsions and insanity.

stated; and have felt too proud an indignation
when they saw vulgar and turbulent men pre-
sume to lay their unpurged hands upon the
sacred ark of the constitution. They have
disdained too much to be associated with
coarse coadjutors, even in the good work of
resistance and reformation; and have hated
too virulently the demagogues who have in-
flamed the people, and despised too heartily
the people who have yielded to so gross a de-
lusion. All this feeling, however, though it
may be natural, is undoubtedly both misplaced
and imprudent. The people are, upon the
whole, both more moral and more intelligent
than they ever were in any former period; and
therefore, if they are discontented, we may be
sure they have cause for discontent: if they
have been deluded, we may be satisfied that
there is a mixture of reason in the sophistry
by which they have been perverted. All
their demands may not be reasonable; and
with many, which may be just in principle, it
may, as yet, be impracticable to comply. But
all are not in either of these predicaments;
though we can only now afford to make par-
ticular mention of one: and one, we are con-
cerned to say, on which, though of the greatness.
est possible importance, the people have of
late found but few abettors among the old
friends of the constitution, we mean that of a
Reform in the representation. Upon this
point, we have spoken largely on former oc-
casions; and have only to add that, though we
can neither approve of such a reform as some
very popular persons have suggested, nor
bring ourselves to believe that any reform
would accomplish all the objects that have
been held out by its most zealous advocates,
we have always been of opinion that a large
and liberal reform should be granted. The
reasons of policy which have led us to this
conviction, we have stated on former occa-
sions. But the chief and the leading reason
for supporting the proposal at present is, that
the people are zealous for its adoption; and
are entitled to this gratification at the hands
of their representatives. We laugh at the
idea of there being any danger in disfranchis-
ing the whole mass of rotten and decayed
boroughs, or communicating the elective fran-
chise to a great number of respectable citi-
zens: And as to the supposed danger of the
mere example of yielding to the desires of
the people, we can only say, that we are far
more strongly impressed with the danger of
thwarting them. The people have far more
wealth and far more intelligence now, than
they had in former times; and therefore they
ought to have, and they must have, more po-
litical power. The danger is not in yielding
to this swell, but in endeavouring to resist it.
If properly watched and managed, it will only
bear the vessel of the state more proudly and
steadily along;—if neglected, or rashly op-
posed, it will dash her on the rocks and shoals
of a sanguinary revolution.

77

We had much more to say; but we must close here: Nor indeed could any warning avail those who are not aware already. He must have gazed with idle eyes on the recent course of events, both at home and abroad, who does not see that no government can now subsist long in England, that is not bottomed in the affection of the great body of the people; and who does not see, still more clearly, that the party of the people is every day gaining strength, from the want of judgment and of feeling in those who have defied and insulted it, and from the coldness and alienation of those who used to be their patrons and defenders. If something is not done to conciliate, these heartburnings must break out into deadly strife; and impartial history will assign to each of the parties their share of the great guilt that will be incurred. The first and the greatest outrages will probably proceed from the people themselves; but a deeper curse will fall on the corrupt and supercilious government that provoked them: Nor will they be held blameless, who, when they might have repressed or moderated the popular impulse, by attempting to direct it, chose rather to take counsel of their pride, and to stand by, and see the constitution tora to pieces, because they could not approve entirely of either of the combatants!

(October, 1827.)

The History of Ireland. By JOHN O'DRISCOL.

In two vols. 8vo. pp. 815. London: 1827. even a partial memorial of the truth. That truth is, no doubt, for the most part, at once revolting and pitiable;-not easily at first to be credited, and to the last difficult to be told with calmness. Yet it is thus only that it can be told with advantage-and so told, it is pregnant with admonitions and sugges tions, as precious in their tenor, as irresistible in their evidence, when once fairly received.

be, often an offender: But even when the guilt may have been nearly balanced, the weight of suffering has always fallen on the weakest. This comparative weakness, indeed, was the first cause of Ireland's misery

A GOOD History of Ireland is still a desideratum in our literature; and would not only be interesting, we think, but invaluable. There are accessible materials in abundance for such a history; and the task of arranging them really seems no less inviting than important. It abounds with striking events, and with strange revolutions and turns of fortune -brought on, sometimes by the agency of enterprising men,-but more frequently by the silent progress of time, unwatched and Unquestionably, in the main, England has unsuspected, alike by those who were to suf- been the oppressor, and Ireland the victim; fer, and those who were to gain by the result.-not always a guiltless victim, and it may In this respect, as well as in many others, it is as full of instruction as of interest,—and to the people of this country especially, and of this age, it holds out lessons far more precious, far more forcible, and far more immediately applicable, than all that is elsewhere recorded in the annals of mankind. It is the very greatness of this interest, however, and the dread, an 1 the encouragement of these applications, that have hitherto defaced and even falsified the record that have made impartiality almost hopeless, and led alternately to the suppression and the exaggeration of sufferings and atrocities too monstrous, it might appear, in themselves, to be either exaggerated or disguised. Party rancour and religious animosity have hitherto contrived to convert what should have been their antidote into their aliment, and, by the simple expedient of giving only one side of the picture, have pretty generally succeeded in making the history of past enormities not a warning against, but an incitement to, their repetition. In telling the story of those lamentable dissensions, each party has enhanced the guilt of the adversary, and withheld all notice of their own; -and seems to have had it far more at heart to irritate and defy each other, than to leave

*It may be thought that this should rather have been brought in under the title of History: But the

the second, her long separation. She had been too long a weak neighbour, to be easily admitted to the rights of an equal ally. Pretensions which the growing strength and intelligence of the one country began to feel intolerable, were sanctioned in the eyes of the other by long usage and prescription;—and injustice, which never could have been first inflicted when it was first complained of, was yet long persisted in, because it had been long submitted to with but little complaint. No misgovernment is ever so bad as provincial misgovernment-and no provincial misgov. ernment, it would seem, as that which is exercised by a free people,-whether arising from a jealous reluctance to extend that proud distinction to a race of inferiors, or from that inherent love of absolute power, which gives all rulers a tendency to be despotic, and seeks, when restrained at home, for vent and indemnification abroad.

The actual outline of the story is as clear as it is painful. Its most remarkable and most disgusting feature is, that while Religion has been made the pretext of its most sanguitruth is, that I have now omitted all that is properly nary and atrocious contentions, it has been, historical, and retained only what relates to the ne- from first to last, little else than a cover for cessity of maintaining the legislative and incorpo- the basest cupidity, and the meanest and most rating union of the two countries; a topic that is unprincipled ambition. The history which purely political and falls, I think, correctly enough concerns the present times, need not be traced under the title of General Politics, since it is at this farther back than to the days of Henry VIII. day of still more absorbing interest than when these observations were first published in 1827. If at that and Queen Mary. Up to that period, the petty time I thought a Separation, or a dissolution of the and tyrannical Parliaments of the Pale had, union, (for they are the same thing,) a measure not indeed, pretty uniformly insulted and des to be contemplated but with horror, it may be sup- pised the great native chiefs among whom the posed that I should not look more charitably on the bulk of the island was divided-but they had proposition, now that Catholic emancipation and also feared them, and mostly let them alone. Parliamentary reform have taken away some, at least, of the motives or apologies of those by whom At that era, however, the growing strength it was then maintained. The example of Scotland, and population of England inspired it with a I still think, is well put for the argument: And bolder ambition; and the rage of proselytism among the many who must now consider this ques- which followed the Reformation, gave it both tion, it may be gratifying to some to see upon what occasion and excuse. grounds, and how decidedly, an opinion was then The passions, which formed upon it, by one certainly not too much dis- led naturally enough to hostilities in such cirposed to think favourably of the conduct or the pre-cumstances, were industriously fostered by tensions of England. the cold-blooded selfishness of those who

two separate countries, allied only, but not incorporated, the weaker should not be degraded, and the stronger unjust. The only remedy is to identify and amalgamate them throughout-to mix up the oppressors and the oppressed-to take away all privileges and distinctions, by fully communicating them,— and to render abuses impossible, by confounding their victims with their authors.

were to profit by the result. Insurrections is in vain to hope that a provincial governwere now regularly followed by Forfeitures; ment should not be oppressive-that a deleand there were by this time men and enter-gated power should not be abused—that of prise enough in England to meditate the occupancy of the vast domains from which the rebel chieftains were thus first to be driven. From this period, accordingly, to that of the Restoration, the bloodiest and most atrocious in her unhappy annals, the history of Ireland may be summarily described as that of a series of sanguinary wars, fomented for purposes of Confiscation. After the Restoration, and down till the Revolution, this was succeeded by a contest equally unprincipled and mercenary, between the settlers under Cromwell and the old or middle occupants whom they had displaced. By the final success of King William, a strong military government was once more imposed on this unhappy land; under which its spirit seemed at last to be broken, and even its turbulent activity repressed. As it slowly revived, the Protestant antipathies of the English government seem to have been reinforced, or replaced, by a more extended and still more unworthy National Jealousy-first on the subject of trade, and then on that of political rights: -and since a more enlightened view of her own interests, aided by the arms of the volunteers of 1780, have put down those causes of op-awed into the degraded instruments of a dispression, the system of misgovernment has been maintained, for little other end, that we can discern, but to keep a small junto of arrogant individuals in power, and to preserve the supremacy of a faction, long after the actual cessation of the causes that lifted them into authority.

If any one doubts of the wretchedness of an unequal and unincorporating alliance, of the degradation of being subject to a provincial parliament and a distant king, and of the efficacy of a substantial union in curing all these evils, he is invited to look to the obvious example of Scotland. While the crowns only were united, and the governments continued separate, the weaker country was the scene of the most atrocious cruelties, the most violent injustice, the most degrading oppressions. The prevailing religion of the people was proscribed and persecuted with a ferocity greater than has ever been systematically exercised, even in Ireland; her industry was crippled and depressed by unjust and intolerable restrictions; her parliaments corrupted and over

tant court, and her nobility and gentry, cut off from all hope of distinction by vindicating the rights or promoting the interests of their country at home, were led to look up to the favour of her oppressors as the only remaining avenue to power, and degenerated, for the most part, into a band of mercenary advenThis is "the abstract and brief chronicle "turers;-the more considerable aspiring to the of the political or external history of the sister wretched honour of executing the tyrannical island. But it has been complicated of late, orders which were dictated from the South, and all its symptoms aggravated by the sin- and the rest acquiring gradually those habits gularity of its economical relations. The mar- of subserviency and selfish submission, the vellous multiplication of its people, and the traces of which are by some supposed to be growing difficulty of supplying them with yet discernible in their descendants. The food or employment, presenting, at the pre- Revolution, which rested almost entirely on sent moment, a new and most urgent cause the prevailing antipathy to Popery, required, of dissatisfaction and alarm. For this last of course, the co-operation of all classes of class of evils, a mere change in the policy of Protestants; and, by its success, the Scottish the Government would indeed furnish no ef- Presbyterians were relieved, for a time, from fectual remedy: and to find one in any degree their Episcopalian persecutions. But it was available, might well task the ingenuity of the not till after the Union that the nation was most enlightened and beneficent. But for the truly emancipated; or lifted up from the abgreater part of her past sufferings, as well as ject condition of a dependant, at once susher actual degradation, disunion, and most pected and despised. The effects of that dangerous discontent, it is impossible to deny happy consolidation were not indeed immedithat the successive Governments of England ately apparent; For the vices which had been have been chiefly responsible. Without pre-generated by a century of provincial mistending to enumerate, or even to class, the several charges which might be brought against them, or to determine what weight should be allowed to the temptations or provocations by which they might be palliated, we think it easier and far more important to remark, that the only secure preventive would have been an early, an equal, and complete incorporating Union of the two countries-and that the only effective cure for the misery occasioned by its having been so long delayed, is to labour, heartily and in earnest, still to render it equal and complete. It

government, the meannesses that had become habitual, the animosities that had so long been fostered, could not be cured at once, by the mere removal of their cause. The generation they had degraded, must first be allowed to die out-and more, perhaps, than one generation: But the poison tree was cut down-the fountain of bitter waters was sealed up, and symptoms of returning vigour and happiness were perceived. Vestiges may still be traced, perhaps, of our long degradation; but for, at least, forty years back, the provinces of Scotland have been, on the whole. but the North

luckily, succeeded but too well. As their own comparative numbers and natural consequence diminished, they clung still closer to their artificial holds on authority; and, exasperated by feeling their dignity menaced, and their monopolies endangered by the grow ing wealth, population, and intelligence of the country at large, they redoubled their efforts, by clamour and activity, intimidation and deceit, to preserve the unnatural advantages they had accidentally gained, and to keep down that springtide of general reason and substantial power which they felt rising and swelling all around them.

ern provinces of Great Britain. There are liberty, they felt that they could only mainno local oppressions, no national animosities. tain themselves in possession of it, by keepLife, and liberty, and property, are as secure in ing up that distrust and animosity, after its Caithness as they are in Middlesex-industry causes had expired. They contrived, thereas much encouraged, and wealth still more fore, by false representations and unjust laws, rapidly progressive; while not only different to foster those prejudices, which would otherreligious opinions, but different religious estab-wise have gradually disappeared-and, unlishments subsist in the two ends of the same island in unbroken harmony, and only excite each other, by a friendly emulation, to greater purity of life and greater zeal for Christianity. If this happy Union, however, had been delayed for another century-if Scotland had been doomed to submit for a hundred years more to the provincial tyranny of the Lauderdales, Rotheses, and Middletons, and to meet the cruel persecutions which gratified the ferocity of her Dalzells and Drummonds, and tarnished the glories of such men as Montrose and Dundee, with her armed conventicles and covenanted saints militant-to see her patriots exiled, or bleeding on the scaffold -her only trusted teachers silenced in her churches and schools, and her Courts of Justice degraded or overawed into the instruments of a cowardly oppression, can any man doubt, not only that she would have presented, at this day, a scene of even greater misery and discord than Ireland did in 1800; but that the corruptions and animosities by which she had been desolated would have been found to have struck so deep root as still to encumber the land, long after their seed had ceased to be scattered abroad on its surface, and only to hold out the hope of their eradication, after many years of patient and painful exertion?

Such, however, is truly the condition of Ireland; and such are the grounds, and such the aspect of our hopes for her regeneration. So far from tracing any substantive part of her miseries to the Union of 1800, we think they are to be ascribed mainly to its long delay, and its ultimate incompleteness. It is not by a dissolution of the Union with England then, that any good can be done, but by its improvement and consolidation. Some injury

it may
have produced to the shopkeepers of
Dublin, and some inconsiderable increase in
the number of the absentees. But it has shut
up the main fountain of corruption and dis-
honour; and palsied the arm and broken the
heart of local insolence and oppression. It
has substituted, at least potentially and in
prospect, the wisdom and honour of the British
Government and the British people, to the
passions and sordid interests of a junto of
Irish boroughmongers,—and not only enabled,
but compelled, all parties to appeal directly
to the great tribunal of the British public.
While the countries remained apart, the actual
depositaries of power were almost unavoida-
bly relied on by the general government for
information, and employed as the delegates
of its authority-and, as unavoidably, abused
the trust, and misled and imposed on their
employers. Having come into power at the
time when the Catholic party, by its support
of the House of Stuart, had excited against it
all the fears and antipathies of the friends of

Their pretence was, that they were the champions of the Protestant Ascendancy—and that whenever that was endangered, there was an end of the English connection. While the alliance of the two countries was indeed no more than a connection, there might be some truth in the assertion—or at least it was easy for an Irish Parliament to make it appear to be true. But the moment they came to be incorporated, its falsehood and absurdity should at once have become apparent. Unluckily, however, the incorporation was not so complete, or the union so entire, as it should have been. There still was need, or was thought to be need, of a provincial manage ment, a domestic government of Ireland;and the old wretched parliamentary machinery, though broken up and disabled for its original work, naturally supplied the materials for its construction. The men still survived who had long been the exclusive channels of communication with the supreme authority; and though other and wider channels were now opened, the habit of employing the former, aided by the eagerness with which they sought for continued employment, left with them an undue share of its support. Still more unluckily, the ancient practice of misgovernment had left its usual traces on the character, not only of its authors, but its victims. ual oppression had produced habitual disaffection; and a long course of wrong and contumely, had ended in a desperate indignation, and an eager thirst for revenge.

Habit

The natural and necessary consequences of the Union did not, therefore, immediately follow its enactment—and are likely indeed to be longer obstructed, and run greater hazard of being fatally intercepted, than in the case of Scotland. Not only is the mutual exasperation greater, and the wounds more deeply rankled, but the Union itself is more incomplete, and leaves greater room for complaints of inequality and unfairness. The numerical strength, too, of the Irish people is far greater, and their causes of discontent more uniform, than they ever were in Scotland; and, above all, the temper of the race is infinitely more eager, sanguine, and reck.

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