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are, in fact, in a worse state. With respect to the history of the Arabians and Japanese, they are barely ignorant; but, with respect to Ireland, almost all they know, is wholly untrue. They give full faith and confidence to some of the most extravagant and romantic stories that ever were ushered on the world, to delude and deceive mankind, under the prostituted name of histories.

The terrific tales that are recorded of the events of the Civil war of 1641, have sowed, and still continue to sow, a copious seed of the most vulgar and rancorous prejudices in the mind of man against his fellow-man, which have sprouted forth with most pernicious luxuriance, and soured in his breast the sweet milk of human kindness towards those with whom he is in daily habits of association. These prejudices are too generally prevalent in the British do

minions.

NEW POINTS ESTABLISHED.

I submit to the consideration of the reader the several points which I have laboured, and I trust successfully, to establish. That they are of vital importance, and, if proved, invalidate a large portion of the history of Ireland, as narrated by Temple, Borlase, Carte, Warner, Leland, Hume, and others, will appear obvious, on a slight perusal. This circumstance entitles them to a sober, serious consideration. It is not, by any means, pretended, that they are discussed systematically, in the order in which they are here arranged. The proofs are dispersed throughout the work; and, notwithstanding their want of arrangement, cannot, I hope, fail to satisfy every candid mind.

I. That the statement given by Temple, Clarendon, Warner, Leland, and all the other writers on the affairs of Ireland, that the Irish, for forty years previous to the insurrection of 1641, enjoyed a high de gree of peace, security, happiness, and toleration, is as base and shameful a falsehood as ever disgraced the pages of his tory, and is no more like the real state of the case, than the history of St. George and the dragon is like the true history of England. For

II. That, during this period, there was hardly a Catholic in the kingdom who was secure in the possession of his property, or in the exercise of his religion. And

III. That, during the same period, the Irish were plundered by the government of nearly a million of acres of their lands, in the most wicked, unjust, and perfidious manner; and by rapacious individuals, to an extent beyond calculation.

IV. That O'Conolly's pretended discovery of a conspiracy is one unvaried strain of perjury.

V. That there was no conspiracy for a general insurrection in Ireland, on the 23d October, 1641.

VI. That the basis on which rests the the Irish, is a tissue of the most gross and story of the pretended bloody massacre by palpable falsehood and perjury. On the contrary,

VII. That the massacres perpetrated on the Irish, by St. Leger, Monroe, Tichbourne, Hamilton, Grenville, Ireton, and Cromwell, were as savage as ferocious, as brutal, and as bloody, as the horrible feats of Cortez or Pizarro, Attila, or Genghis Khan; and particularly, that history prethan Ireton's butcheries in the cathedral sents nothing more shocking or detestable of Cashel, and Cromwell's in Drogheda.

VIII. That the Irish government issued a blood-thirsty and detestable order to slaughter "all men able to bear arms, in places where the insurgents were harboured," without any discrimination between the innocent and guilty; that the Long Parliament enacted an ordinance, "forbidding quarter to be given to any Irishman taken prisoner in England;" and that those cruel and wicked edicts were carried into operation.

pation of the Irish, a general confiscaIX. That the scheme of a general extirtion of their estates, and a new plantation of the country, was most seriously entertained, and for some time acted upon, by the Irish rulers and their officers.

X. That the idea of a cessation of hostilities, whereby the Irish might escape from this projected plan of extirpation, excited as universal an alarm in England and Ireland, as if the established religion and government were to be wholly overturned.

XI. That the Irish government left noto goad the Irish to resistance, and to exthing barbarous, cruel, or wicked, undone, tend the insurrection throughout the kingdom, for the purpose of enriching themselves and their friends by confiscations.

XII. That if the Irish insurgents of 1641 deserved to be stigmatized as traitors and rebels, then were the English revolutionists of 1688, the Americans of 1776, and the French of 1789, traitors and rebels of the very worst possible kind; as their grievances bore no more proportion to those of the Irish, than the gentle Schuyl kill to the impetuous Mississippi, the hill of Howth to the peak of Teneriffe, or Lake Erie to the Atlantic Ocean.

XIII. That there is a striking contradiction between the facts and inductions of Carte, Warner, Leland, and nearly all the other writers of Irish history.

XIV. That, in the Anglo-Hibernian histories of Ireland, there is so much error

and

and falsehood, established beyond the possibility of doubt or denial, that they are utterly unworthy of credit.

XV. That the seventeenth century, in the British dominions, was characterized by a succession of forged plots, resting on the basis of flagrant perjuries, and calco lated to sacrifice the lives and property of the innocent, and enrich malefactors of the worst kind.

XVI. That the Irish code of laws, whose pretended object was "to prevent the growth of Popery," was intended to gratify all the basest passions of human nature, in violation of public faith, honour, justice, and humanity; and that it orgaized as tyrannical an invasion of liberty, and as piratical a depredation on property, and was covered by as base a cloak of hypocrisy, as the annals of the world can produce.

I fondly flatter myself, I repeat, that the proofs I have adduced fully establish the whole of these points. But, should I be too sanguine in this expectation, I still trust that I shall secure the assent

of liberal and ingenuous minds to all the essential ones. Against the fortresses of fraud and imposture I have brought a battery of eight-and-forty pounders, which can hardly fail to demolish them. The arsenals of enemies, some of them most envenomed, have furnished all the cannon. The laborious and unwearied research for them, and their mere disposition and arrangement, are all the merit I claim.

My heart swells with a glow of satisfaction and pride, that I can come before the critical world, with a defence of Ireland, resting on the names of Spencer, Davies, Coke, Tempic, Borlase, Clarendon, Rushworth, Nalson, Carte, Warner, Leland, Baker, Orrery, &c. nearly all of whom were open or concealed enemics of that country and its unfortunate inhabitants. It may seem extraordinary, that there is on the list the name of the wretched Temple, who was SO far ashamed of his own spurious work, that he endeavoured, but in vain, to suppress it; but it is the peculiar felicity of this undertaking, that it may be fairly said to this father of all the imposture,"By thy words thou shalt be condemn'd;" for, were all the other authorities, cited in this work, totally annihilated, there is enough in this legendist to demolish the fabric of fraud and deception, in the erection of which so much time, and such varied talents, have been prostituted, for a hundred and fifty years past. Having undertaken the delightful task of vindicating the country of Swift, Parnell, Goldsmith, Sterne, Farquhar,

Burke, Flood, Curran, Grattan, Montgomery, and a long and bright galaxy of such illustrious characters;-a coun

try whose natives, notwithstanding the countless blessings bestowed on them by Nature, in local situation, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate, have been for ages doomed to pine in the most abject poverty, wretchedness, and idleness, at home;-but abroad, in every region and every clime of the known world, have displayed the brightest energies of the human character, in all the varied walks of life ;-a country which has furnished almost every nation in Christendom with statesmen and warriors, driven from their native soil by lordly despotism, rampant injustice, and religious intolerance ;—a country which has produced the men on whom the destinies of Europe have recently depended, in the field and in the cabinet;—a country the most calumniated, and among the most oppressed, in the world: having as fair a field to explore as ever courted the exertions of any writer, in any age or any country, I most deeply regret, and sincerely apologize for, the want of judgment which led me to appear precipitately before the public, without that degree of elaboration which the importance of the subject demanded.

THE MASSACRE AT DROGHEDA.

The English, for two hundred years, have commemorated, with horror against the Dutch, the massacre at Amboyna; the statement of the atrocity of which bears the strongest marks of gross exaggeration and falsehood: for, who can allow himself to believe the tale, that "the tortured wretches were forced to drink water till their bodies were distended to the utmost pitch, and then caused to disgorge the water, and the process repeated;" that they "were burned, from the feet upwards, in order to extort the confession of a conspiracy" that "the nails of their fingers and toes were torn off" or, finally, that "holes were made in their breasts, and the cavities filled with inflammable matter?" No man of common sense can pay a moment's attention to it. Yet this is the precise story, as it stands recorded. A rancorous hostility prevailed between the Engfish and the Dutch; and it is by no means improbable, that the conspiracy charged upon the former by the latter, was real, and that the conspirators were justly and regularly punished. All the rest of the story, I repeat, has the most manifest and palpable appearance of exaggeration and embellishment, contrived for the pur

pose

pose of rendering the Dutch odious. This is the more probable, from a consideration of the lying spirit of that age, of which I have given so many striking instances.

But suppose the story of "the massacre of Amboyna" true; suppose all those horrid deeds were really perpetrated: ten thousand such scenes would fall in calculably short of the sufferings inflicted on the Irish in the Desmond war, or the insurrection of 1641; and, in truth, the whole legend fades into insignifi. cance, compared with the single fact of the butchery at Drogheda.

The

Let any candid, fair, and honourable Englishman, therefore, lay his hand ou his heart, and say whether he can justify himself for censuring an Irishman for mourning over the melancholy story of his country's sufferings; for vindicating her character; and for attempting to remove the mountains of obloquy and abuse with which wicked men have overwhelmed her for centuries? Englishman feels deeply for the honour of his country. Why should he condemn, why should he not rather applaud, the same feeling in an Irishman? Has not an Irishman, like an Englishman, senses, affections, passions? Is he not fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as" an Englishman? "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not" defend ourselves?

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THE MASSACRE OF 1641.

Sir William Petty, the ancestor of the Lansdowne family, laid the foundation of a princely fortune, by the depredations perpetrated on the Irish, after the insurrection of 1641. Of course, he had no temptation to swerve from the truth in their favour; on the contrary, it was his interest, equally with the other possessors of the estates of the plundered Irish, to exaggerate their real crimes, and to lend the countenance of his reputation to their pretended ones. Hence his testimony,on this ground, and as a cotemporary, cannot, so far as it tends to exonerate those upon whose ruin he raised his immense estate, be excepted against by the enemies of the Irish. We will there fore freely cite him in the ease; and the reader will at once perceive to what an extent delusion has been carried, on this subject.

He states the agregate of the Protes MONTHLY MAG, No. 336.

tants who perished in eleven years, to
have been 112,000; of whom "two-thirds
were cut off by war, plague, and famine."
It is obvious to the meanest capacity,
if, of 112,000, the whole number that
fell in that space of time, two-thirds
were cut off by war, plague, and famine,
that those who fell out of war, in eleven
years, were only 37,000.
We hope to
prove, that even this statement, so com-
paratively moderate, is extravagantly
beyond the truth. But, admitting it to
be correct, what a wonderful difference
between 37,000 in cleven years, and the
hundreds of thousands in a few months,
that make such an appalling figure in
the various "tales of terror," imposture,
and perjury, so feelingly narrated by
Temple, Borlase, Clarendon, May, Ba-
ker, Frankland, Rapin, Leland, and all
their coadjutors! Does not the credit
of their tales, when thus brought to the
test of the talisman of truth, disappear;
and,

"Like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a trace behind?"

Here a remarkable trait, which, as we have stated, characterizes Irish history beyond that of any other, displays itself. The writers are not merely at variance with each other, but with themselves; and there is as much discrepancy between different portions of each history, as between that history and truth. We have seen Carte, Leland, Clarendon, and Warner, convict Carte, Leland, Clarendon, and Warner, of most egregious errors, to use no harsher term; and the reader must have perceived, that our sole reliance, for refutation of their misstatements, has been almost altogether on themselves.

In like manner, we shall satisfactorily prove, that Sir William Petty confutes himself, beyond the power of redemp

tion.

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He bequeathed to posterity some statistical tables, which throw considerable light on this subject. They are very meagre, it is true; but, meagre as they are, we believe there are no others: at all events, we know of none; and must therefore avail ourselves of them.

He informs us, that the population of Ireland, in 1641, was 1,466,000; and that the relative proportion of the Protestants to the Catholics, was as two to eleven; of course it follows, that the population was thus divided; about 1,241,000 Roman Catholics, and 225,000 Protestants.

H

From

From this conclusion there is no appeal. The whole number of Protestants in the island could not have exceeded 225,000. The supplies of people from England and Scotland, until after the final defeat, capture, condemnation, and death, of Charles I. were inconsiderable; and surely there does not exist a single man that can believe, that, out of 225,000, there could have been 112,000 destroyed, and the residue been able to baffle and defeat the insurgents, who comprised the great mass of the nation. It will therefore, we trust, be allowed, as an irresistible conclusion, that Sir Wm. Petty's calculation, although so far more moderate than any of the "tales of terror," is most extravagantly overrated, probably trebled or quadrupled; and must, of absolute necessity, be false.

This being the case with the lowest

of the calculations, what astonishment must be excited by Burton's 300,000, in a few months; Temple's 300,000, in less than two years; May's 200,000, in one month; Warwick's 100,000, in one week; or Rapin's 40,000, in a few days! Surely there is not, in the history of the world, any parallel case of such gross, palpable, shocking, and abominable deception. Can language be found strong or bold enough to mark the dishonour of those who knowingly propagated such falsehood, or the folly or neglect of those who adopted and gave it currency? Their names ought to be held up, as "a hissing and reproach," to deter others from following in their foul and loathsome track of calumny and deception.

[In this spirit Mr. Carey fills a volume of 506 pages; and, as our readers will observe, by his manner and matter, his work merits attention.]

NOVELTIES OF FRENCH LITERATURE.

M. QUATREMERE DE ROISSY has demonstrations, as with some people of

published at Paris, a volume under the title of Londres Pittoresque, or a panorama in miniature of London, with respect to its materiel and exterior. The following is a sample of the manner wherein the author characterises the English nation. With foreigners, the English are generally considered as haughty, reserved, and deficient in address and politeness. But there exist distinctions which require to be noticed here. The common people, properly so called, are blunt, and not without some tinge of brutality, which may be ascribed partly to their maritime habits, and much more to the manner wherein they assert and interpret their liberties. Young persons of every description, including such as have had the benefits of education, and even of the higher classes that have not travelled on the Continent, shew very little politeness to foreigners, or, at least, to the French. They value themselves too highly on their independence and freedom; and it Is among these chiefly that we are to look for the prejudices that islanders are chargeable with. On the other hand, the English, of a certain age and rank, and this includes a large proportion of the population, especially such as have travelled, or have acquired information from books or commercial intercourse, are possessed of affability, with an affectionate politeness, and but few prejudices. Their politeness does not appcar so much in manners and external

the Continent. As to the charge of haughtiness or innate pride, the English cannot easily bé exculpated. It seems to be inherent with them, from several causes; but it must be allowed that, out of their own country, all that hauteur dies away, and they seem only solicitous to court the good opinion of strangers, In general, their mien is grave and serious, occasionally pensive or absent.

The following passage of the same work gives some details relative to the interior of Carlton-house.

The outside is remarkable for nothing but its grand portico, of the Corinthian order. The interior contains objects of some importance; and our astonishment is excited to find it se spacious. The first story contains the saloons appropriated to splendor, formalities, and the occasions of state. The decorations, in general, consist of painted ceilings, gildings, glasses of great magnitude, all of English manufac ture; of crystal lustres, large and expanded; and more than all these, of Flemish paintings, many of which are very capital. There are fancy saloons, one with decorations and furniture wholly Chinese. Another is all in silver, or silver plate, with its paintings, stuffs, furniture, &c. This has been contrived to produce a delectable and brilliant effect on the eye. Many of the ornaments and furniture, such as bronzes, gilt metallic substances, porcelain, acajou, &c. are the productions of French

industry

jadustry. Among a number of curious objects distributed through these beautiful apartments, are two antique masterpieces of great value, sent as presents from Pope Pius VII. to the Prince. Here also we find a round table, of the porcelain of Sevres, with the beads of the most famous captains of antiquity round it, in cameos, imitating agate; this is a present from his Majesty Louis XVIII. The minor apartments are on the groundfloor, chiefly dining-rooms, closets, &c. with two galleries entitled to particular notice, one of which is very curious in the Moresque style; the other contains the library, and has some very superb paintings.

With respect to the houses in general, this writer states, that there are not above thirty in London that have a

court-yard and gates, wherein carriages may enter. In general, the houses consist of brickwork of three stories, and a floor under-ground for culinary purposes, &c. And thus, with the exception of a few spacious buildings that would be called hotels in Paris, the habitations of the noble, the rich, and private individuals, exhibit the semblance of a republican equality. The man of rank and fortune steps out of his coael, alights in the street, and passes on through no other vestibule than a housedoor, that would equally suit the most unaspiring citizen.

The interior of the houses affords all that comfortableness on which the English value themselves so highly. The paper hangings, however, are much in ferior to those in France, &c. &c.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

THE ATHENIAD; OR THE RAPE OF
THE PARTHENON.
An Epic Poem.

Written at Athens in the 647th Olympiad, and during the Time that Logotheti was one of the Archers of that celebrated City.

CANTO I.

With ready gold, he call'd men, carts, and cords,

Cords, carts, and men, rose to the baited words.
The ropes asunder rive the wedded stone,
The mortals labour, and the axles groan;
Hymettus echoes to the tumbling fane,
And shook the Acropolis, shakes all the plain,
From high Olympus gaz'd the gods afar,

ATHENIA's wrongs, O heavenly Muse, Indiguant gaz'd, that men their wrath should

The lofty theme deserves immortal verse.

Athenia, fairest of the mural fair,

Minerva's minion and peculiar care,

dare:

"Shall we (they cry,) behold our temples torn, And o'er the seas the Grecian relics borne ;

Saw from her sculptur'd throne with dire See yon Brucides glorious become,

dismay

Her sages perish, and her gods decay :
No joy she knew, but only grief refin'd,
When far-come trav'llers paus'd, and look'd
behind,-

Paus'd to indulge a sigh for glory past,
Or wond'ring look'd that stones so long should

last.

But Jove and Fate decreed that this should

cease,

And Mercury flies from Heaven to quench the pride of Greece.

On earth arriv'd, the form divine obscur'd, He seems a mortal wretch to arts inur'd, Cadav'rous, crafty, skill'd in tints and lines, A lean Italian master of designs; He sought Brucides, and Brucides found. "O Lord, (he cries,) My Lord, for taste renown'd,

What fame awaits you, were your lordship wise,
But prudence gains what Nature oft denies;
The Phidian sculptures, long-deserted, stand
Crumbling to dust amidst the wasted land.
Haste, save the relics, bear them to your home,
The lights of art for ages yet to come:
Awake, arise, fulfil your honour'd fate,
These sacred images will sell for plate."
Fir'd by the scheme, his way Brucides took;
And public tasks, and tricks of state forsook

Like the bold youth that fir'd th' Ephesian

dome ; [cried, No: by the Styx!" with rais'd right hand they Jove nodded, and the oath was ratified. Appall'd the heavens, and earth received the sign,

The sun eclips'd, conceal'd his face divine ;
The air lamented, and the clouds in tears,
Fill'd all the voyagers in Greece with fears;
Thieves of the dead, while grasping at the urn,
Scar'd by the showers, the scafiers return,
The rain-streams fill the graves, and antiqua-

ries mourn.

CANTO II.

Lo! smoothly wafted by the breathing gales, A ship with sacrilegious plunder sails, The coast of Neptune-favour'd Hydra past, And on the starboard green Especia cast; Cerigo rises in the distant view, And Maina's mountains stretching far and blue.

True to his trust, and wakeful on the steep, olus view'd afar the rippling deep, And by the sapience of his state divine, He knew the curs'd bark that stirr'd the ocean brine;

High on Tygetus' brow he sits alone,
And calls the winds around his cloudy throne,
The winds obey,-Sirocco came the first,
Pluto's dire son by Aria, desert-nurst,
H 2

Languid

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