in Ireland. These facts certainly prove the excellency of their dispositions, and their unwillingness to resist or overturn the established government. I am far from wishing to insinuate any thing to the contrary of this. But it is surely very possible for a people to refrain from open hostilities against the government of their country, nay, to abhor the idea of forcibly opposing its measures, and, at the same time, to feel rather cold in its support. These historical facts, so honourable to the Irish character, sufficiently demonstrate, what all will readily admit, that it is very possible to make the Irish people become the best of all subjects; while they also shew that the catholics of Ireland, who, as some suppose, should never be trusted, may be managed with the greatest facility, and may be rendered firm friends to the British constitution.

In the third place, the example of the English, during several centuries, had a tendency to corrupt and debase the character of the Irish. The Highlanders had no other examplę to imitate than that of their chieftain, and the dependents who formed his court; unless, indeed, we refer to those bright patterns of glorious heroism which the songs of the bards continually impressed on their mind.* Surrounded by the

* See a subsequent part of this chapter.

bulwarks of their native hills, they lived in careless independence, and scarcely ever saw Clann nan Gall,* whom they despised, except when they descended from them for the richer booty of the plains.

The condition of the Irish was very different. They, since the period in which their country was first invaded by the English, became subject to the perpetual annoyance of enemies, by whom they were viewed as an inferior order of beings, and by whom, therefore, they were treated with injustice and cruelty. They soon learned to exercise the same ferocity on a people by whom they were slain with impunity, at least, who paid a very inconsiderable fine as the price of their life. They adopted a mode of reasoning certainly not illogical, and which seems to have been followed by most other nations in their circumstances. They were oppressed and plundered by a band of adventurers, who rendered their superiority in military skill only subservient to the destruction of an inoffending people; they naturally concluded, therefore, that every means by which they could extirpate such tyrants, or by which they could inflict that justice which their crimes had merited, and for which the English laws made no provision,†

* The sons of the Strangers.

† See a subsequent chapter..

was not only lawful, but highly patriotic and expedient. Hence their judgment and feelings were in some degree perverted; hence the shocking atrocities and violations of solemn engagements with which, towards their enemies, they have been chargeable; and hence the ferocity which their character must necessarily have assumed, from the perpetual scenes of carnage and of blood, of murder and of perfidy, in which they were involved.

Whatever may have been the character of the Irish previous to the conquest of Ireland by Henry II. it is very probable, that it was similar to that of the Highlander of the same period. As to the moral changes that have taken place since, the English must bear no inconsiderable share of the blame. For allowing that the colony of that nation which settled in Ireland, were more civilized than the natives of the country of which they took possession, still, the animosities which they awakened, and the examples of cruelty, rapaciousness, and unprincipled ambition which their conduct exhibited, had a tendency to extinguish even those virtues, to which, in most situations, the savage and barbarian may fairly lay claim. Indeed, civilization, as the term is usually employed, has often, by its vices, and the superior power which it affords, of doing evil as well as doing

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good, rendered barbarians still more barbarous, and the inhabitants of the wilderness and the wood still more savage and degraded. In the present case, whatever may be thought of the comparative civilization either of the English or the Irish, at the period to which I refer; no doubt can be entertained of the pernicious effects which their mutual hostilities, and massacres, continued for so long a time, produced on their moral character.

These effects, for very obvious reasons, have been more permanent in their operation, among the native Irish, than on the Anglo-Hibernians. The latter, by education, by the progress of knowledge and civilization, and by their acquaintance with the language of Britain, have, of course, largely participated in that advancing improvement and moral elevation by which Britain is distinguished; while the former have laboured under many disadvantages, have been secluded by their language, their antipathies, and their religion, from the benign influence of the same salutary circumstances, and have been prevented by the singularly unfortunate peculiarities of their situation from relinquishing those parts of their character that are merely adventitious, and from fully developing those more amiable features that are truly natural.

In the fourth place, the national poetry of

the Irish, about three centuries ago, seems.to have undergone a considerable change for the worse; which incident, though of itself it may appear trivial, becomes important when it is connected with other circumstances; and especially when it is considered, that the national poetry of the Celtic tribes had a vast influence on their habits of thinking and action.

To those who are in general acquainted with the customs of these tribes, it is unnecessary to say, that the order of the bards was held by them in the highest veneration,-that it was liberally supported by every chieftain; and that its influence, because it was intellectual, in many instances was superior to that of the chief himself. Their soft or sublime effusions, which powerfully touched the passions, while they made the heart of the fiercest warrior glow with emotions of tenderness and love, or animated and roused with resistless energy to the combat, were regarded not merely as the inspirations of genius, but as the still loftier conceptions of beings whose minds were under the peculiar impulse of superior power. And who, indeed, in their situation, indulging the same enthusiasm, confined to the same pleasing but mournful images of the past, and dwelling on the same fair and beautiful visions of the future, while enjoying the delightful rapture,