THE Irish, though a national people-though proud of their country, which they, with much metaphorical justice, call the gem of the world'— and though warmly, sincerely, and earnestly anxious to promote the interests of Ireland, have a most extraordinary way of showing their patriotism. In almost every thing they contrast themselves with their more opulent sister, and, of course, where arts and manufactures, where trade and commerce, are concerned, suffer severely from the comparison. England appears not so much an object of emulation as of envy; they look upon themselves as unjustly excluded from her wealth and splendour; and while they lament, as it were, their less fortunate destiny, they never think of attaining, much less of surpassing, the proud, though somewhat gaudy, pre-eminence to which their neighbours have arrived. Like the Israelites who hung their harps upon the willows which grew in a strange land, and wept for Jerusalem, the people of Ireland look as if they were aliens from England, and seem to mourn less for the state of their own country, than for the absence of those things which Englishmen possess. They are taken with the mere show of the thing; they judge from deceitful appearance; and while, like an infatuated lover, they are enamoured with the tinsel, and flutter, and dress of an only object, they refuse to avert their eyes from the darling of their contemplation, and survey her rivals -and, in many points, perhaps her more attractive equals. If, instead of enumerating the vessels which arrive annually at the ports of Liverpool and London; if, instead of sighing over the amount of English imports and exports; and if, instead of wondering at the economy and variety of British manufactures, they were for once to overlook the island which intervenes between them. and the continent, and survey men and things in the civilized nations of Europe, : June, 1826.

they could scarcely fail to return from the mental excursion with higher notions of themselves, and more consciousness of being not altogether despicable. If trade and commerce. be desirable, they have them when compared with France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, &c. &c. in abundance: and if a superior knowledge in and existence of manufactures be considered essential to the well-being of a nation, they, in these things, surpass most of the polished nations of Europe. If education gives a kingdom superior claims to happiness or notoriety, Ireland ought to be happy and famous; and even if wealth, real personal and national property, be a thing to be proud of, the people of this country should not be afraid to come into open court and defend themselves. The misfortune is, that they never think of extending their vision over so wide a space. They are content to look through a magnifying glass, in which nothing appears but English wealth, English commerce, English consequence, and English grandeur. They never question the glory, the use, or the advantage of these attributes; but seeing them reflected, in a much inferior degree, at home, they sigh in despair, or sit inactively devoured by envy, while their conduct helps to aggravate the state of things of which they complain.

They order these things better in Scotland. Sawney's barren and beggarly country is, in his own estimation, and, by dint of his persevering impudence, in the estima tion of many foreigners, the finest country on the globe. Although there is more misery, more thieving, more immorality, and more bastardy among its two millions of inhabitants than among the seven millions in Ireland, a true Scot is never found to acknowledge these things, much less to admit that the land o'cakes is inferior, even in point of wealth, to any country in Europe. Whoever reads

21

their newspapers and magazines cannot fail to detect the little patriotic lies which nestle in every paragraph. England is recommended to copy and adopt all their rascally institutions; and is, from time to time, invited to follow the Scotch plan of banking, the Scotch plan of preaching, and the Scotch plan of administering justice. Their authors are models for English writers their books and reviews are superexcellent. They alone understand metaphysics and political economy. Their physicians and surgeons are much better than those of Dublin, although the latter study three times as long and cure ten times as many. Their newspapers, or their orators, never think of allowing any superiority to England; but they never fail, on certain points, to compare themselves with poor self-degraded Ireland. They draw up statements of imports and exports, and remark how far they are before Paddy; and our simple Editors insert these insidious paragraphs in the most conspicuous places, without a word by way of comment! They never think of retaliating; they never tell Sawney that half his population are much more distressed than the most miserable in Ireland; or that, notwithstanding all his boast about agriculture, &c. he cannot rear, on a surface equal to that of Ireland, enough of corn or potatoes to feed his two millions, while the province of Munster alone exports more grain than Scotland grows.

The gasconade of the Scot, though very reprehensible, is, in my opinion, preferable to our whine about want of capital, and the other cant phrases, which now are as familiar to us as household words.' In a national point of view, at least, the thing has told well. Scotland has been made respectable-her literature has a name--and her critics are allowed to decide on the merits of their neighbours. Her press is no longer a byword for scorn, and even her brogue and her barbarous history have been made things of fashion and of study. But, perhaps, the most singular thing in all this is, that England is directly made to support her press and contribute to her literature. Like the old man of the sea, Sawney has mounted upon the brawny shoulders

of John Bull; and, while he denies that he is a burthen, he pretends to see much further than his supporter.

To those mistaken notions of the Irish people, which have so sadly depreciated the country in the estimation of foreigners, must be attributed the comparative insignificance in which the Irish metropolis has remained. The Dublin cockneys have no St. Paul's, or Calton Hill, to which they are in the habit of associating any thing local or national. They cannot be said to pride themselves upon any particular object in this city; and, though their spacious streets exhibit many a goodly equipage, and their mimic court many a scene of festivity and grandeur, they turn away from these things with a kind of sickly loathing, because they are not equal to the pride and pomp of the English court, and are inferior to the splendid vehicles which throng Pall Mall, where courtiers crowd, once a year, to the levee. Carlisle bridge is a fine bridge, but it is nothing compared to Waterloo; and the Liffey is pretty enough between its really beautiful quays, but then it is not covered with shipping like the Thames or the Medway. With a jaundiced eye, they see every thing about them discoloured; and, though their Bank-once the Senate Houselooks like a thing transported, in all its pristine beauty, from Athens to College Green; and, though their University, and Post-Office, and Custom House, are superior to any thing of the same kind in London, they take no pride in them, because they habitually regard every thing nativeexcept themselves as inferior to what England can produce. When the king was here we sighed for the lamp of Aladdin, that we might erect an appropriate residence for his majesty during his visit, and have a place wherein he might sojourn at a future time. Being no enchanters a subscription was opened, meetings here held, and speeches made, never dreaming all the time that Cariton Palace, St. James's Palace, and Buckingham House, were mere hovels compared with the ancient and venerable Castle of Dublin. In fact nine-tenths of the people would not believe this, even at the present day, so opposite is it to all their

pre-conceived notions of kingly grandeur and English magnificence. Goldsmith, I think, in his Citizen of the World,' relates a story of a traveller who bewailed the humiliation of his condition, because he was only seated on an ass, while a gay cavalier rode before him on a more stately quadruped. Luckily he averted his head; and, on seeing the thousands who, trudged behind him on foot, he acquired a higher notion of himself, and thought that there were worse things in this world than being obliged to ride upon a donkey. My townsmen would do well to imitate his example; and if, instead of considering every thing amongst them only in reference to the same things in London-to which Dublin ever must bear but a remote affinitythey were to compare their metropolis with Lisbon, Madrid, Warsaw, Naples, Vienna, or any of the other chief cities of continental nations, they would see that there is no real cause to consider themselves behind the rest of Europe in point of elegance or civilization. If Dublin wants a native senate, so do the majority of kingdoms; and, though the resident gentry are neither very numerous nor very wealthy, still they are quite as opulent as the aristocracy of most countries, with the exception of France. Besides, they should not forget that the western worldto which they look with so much admiration has neither lords nor baronets dowagers nor lady-lieutenants.

The evils which grow out of this sickly state of public opinion, this degrading propensity to under-value every thing Irish, are of incalculable magnitude. They spread like a mildew over the tendrils of public virtue, and blight them as they bud. The activity, not only of the nation but of individuals, is bound down to the earth by imaginary cords, while the absence of noble daring strengthens the notion of Ireland being worthless, and of her people being deficient in moral energy. These imputations are as common as they are unjust; for, the truth is, every thing here is impossible, because nothing is attempted. We do not want the spirit of adventure, but our city abounds with those croakers of which Franklin complains, who do nothing but go

about promising discomature to all enterprise. Unhappily, public opinion is on their side; and, like vulgar prophecies, these prognostications tend to their own fulfilment. Look at our press as an illustration. Our people are all educated, and a taste for reading is abroad; yet, notwithstanding all this-and notwithstanding that we have five thousand clergymen of different denominations and as many lawyers and doctors, remarkable for the extent and elegance of their acquirements-our press is far behind even that of Glasgow! This does not arise from the want of resident talent; for the best articles in the London and Edinburgh periodicals are written by men living in Dublin; and, on close inspection, it will be found that there are, at this moment, twice as many literary men, of unquestionable abilities, residing in Ireland as in Scotland. These want neither patriotism nor industry; but, the truth is, we stand in need of a Jeffrey, who should collect into one focus the scattered rays of genius, which now shed a brilliant but unprofitable light upon the country, and give them a useful and national direction.

But no such man will bless our island. Scotchmen are all Caledonians; but Irishmen are Protestants or Catholics-helots or oppressorsnot Hibernians. They are too busy

the one in endeavouring to riseand the other in labouring to keep him down to think of any thing but immediate advantage; and, in the unhallowed confiict, the good of the country is forgotten or postponed. What the Catholic will do, the Protestant, or, at least, the exclusionist, will not; and what the one undertakes the other considers himself entitled to counteract. Under such circumstances a legitimate press can never flourish. Besides, the political degradation in which the great body of the people are kept fills the country with murmurs of discontent, embitters social intercourse, and disqualifies the public mind for contemplating any thing but political polemical controversies,

measures or

To the penal laws-worse in their remote and indirect consequences than in their immediate inflictionsis to be attributed the existence of

that disposition in Ireland, which militates against public good. Men, conscious of being oppressed, and smarting under daily insult and perpetual injustice, will not be persuaded that their country can soar above misrule, or that the energy of individuals, if well directed, could counteract the erroneous principles of government. In all their reasoning, they take no note of local circumstances, but come at once to a conclusion unfavourable to themselves. While this continues to be the case-and continue it will while there remains one link of the penal chain to clink against another the ephemeral and inflated declaimer, who appeals to the prejudices and the passions of the people, will possess more influence than the calm and dispassionate reasoner, who labours only to instruct. It is in vain to tell them, that by making themselves respectable, they will be acquiring a kind of equality with their neighbours, not less advantageous than a removal of legal restrictionswhich eventually it would effect-and that to be respectable in the eyes of others, they must learn to think well of themselves. They are too honest to practice deception; political artifices are foreign to their open and manly sincerity; and as they really believe that they are the most degraded, most miserable, and worst used people on the globe, they cannot bring themselves to suppose much less assert-that they are not what natives and foreigners have described them, even though this description be distorted and overcharged.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that Catholic politics predominate in Dublin, and that the new Association, which promises to remove the evils of which the people complain, is regarded with some attention? The Orange party, the half-licked members of which, under the auspices of the secretary, still linger like unburied ghosts about our public offices, is virtually defunct. The violence of the 'Mail' is a certain proof of its fallen condition; and though it sometimes give intimation of its imbecility in the north, the hand of death lies heavy upon it; for they who composed it had neither numbers nor talents to prolong its vicious exist

ence when even partially discountenanced by the Castle. Besides, the intelligence of the country, like native plants in the neighbourhood of exotics, has

grown around, and smothered them. They can put forth their sickly shoots only where all is barrenness and sterility, or when nurtured by the fostering care of vicious institutions, or more vicious inmates of public offices. Like all fallen bodies their descent becomes accelerated the further they depart from the eminence upon which they stood; and such is now their unpopularity, that even men of very dubious characters disclaim them. They sometimes, indeed, like an expiring man, make an abortive effort to recover breath; but the struggle, by its weakness only indicates, the near approach of dissolution.

The Catholic cause, at this moment, may be said to occupy, next to local distress, the public mind in Ireland, though it must be confessed that the people no longer manifest a chivalrous zeal in support of men and measures identified with their question. This apathy, however, is but thinly spread over the surface of the public mind, for it requires only an occasion to renew that intense interest which all classes took, twelve months since, in the proceedings of the Association. Relaxation, perhaps, was necessary, lest perpetual tension should weaken the energy of the people. The Catholic leaders seem to have been of this opinion; for if not, they acted with an impolicy not to be expected from men, who derived all their strength from public sympathy. In the first place, they latterly burst through the bond of union, which gave them influence and importance; and, in the next place, with a strange ignorance of human nature, they shut the public out from their deliberations. The fourteen days' proceedings almost fell unheard upon the public ear. None but subscribers of a guinea each were admitted, and thus the attendance was extremely limited. The orator' had no clue to passion;' empty benches emitted no grateful' cheers,' nor the less flattering 'hear-hear.'

6

No one cried God bless him;' and, as his declamation was to reach the public only through the medium of