"It may be remarked that remnants of this ancient custom, in

perhaps a modified form, still exist in the May-fires lighted in

the streets and suburbs of Dublin, and also in the fires lighted on

St. John's Eve in all other parts of Ireland. The _Tinne Eigin_ of

the Highlands, of which Dr. Martin gives the following account, is

probably a remnant of it also, but there is no instance of such

fires being lighted in towers or houses of any description:--

"'The inhabitants here (Isle of Skye) did also make use of a fire

called _Tin Egin_ (_i.e._), a forced Fire, or Fire of necessity,

which they used as an Antidote against the _Plague_ or _Murrain_ in

cattle; and it was performed thus: All the fires in the Parish were

extinguish'd, and eighty-one marry'd men, being thought the

necessary number for effecting this Design, took two great Planks

of Wood, and nine of 'em were employed by turns, who by their

repeated Efforts rubb'd one of the Planks against the other until

the Heat thereof produced Fire; and from this forc'd Fire each

Family is supplied with new Fire, which is no sooner kindled than a

pot full of water is quickly set on it, and afterwards sprinkled

upon the people infected with the Plague, or upon cattle that have

the Murrain. And this, they all say, they find successful by

experience.'--_Description of the Western Islands of Scotland_

(second edition), p. 113.

"As authority for Miss Beaufort's second assertion, relative to the

Tower of Thlachtga, etc., we are referred to the _Psalter of Tara_,

by Comerford (p. 41), cited in the _Parochial Survey_ (vol. iii.,

p. 320); and certainly in the latter work we do find a passage in

nearly the same words which Miss Beaufort uses. But if the lady had

herself referred to Comerford's little work, she would have

discovered that the author of the article in the _Parochial Survey_

had in reality no authority for his assertions, and had attempted a

gross imposition on the credulity of his readers."

Mr. D'Alton relies much on a passage in _Cambrensis_, wherein he says

that the fishermen on Lough Neagh (a lake certainly formed by an

inundation in the first century, A.D. 62) point to such towers under

the lake; but this only shows they were considered old in Cambrensis's

time (King John's), for Cambrensis calls them _turres ecclesiasticas_

(a Christian appellation); and the fishermen of every lake have such

idle traditions from the tall objects they are familiar with; and the

steeples of Antrim, etc., were handy to the Loch n-Eathac men.

One of the authorities quoted by all the Paganists is from the _Ulster

Annals_ at the year 448. It is--"Kl. Jenair. Anno Domini cccc.xlº.viiiº.

ingenti terrae motu per loca varia imminente, plurimi urbis auguste muri

recenti adhuc reaedificatione constructi, cum l.vii. turribus

conruerunt." This was made to mean that part of the wall of Armagh,

with fifty-seven Round Towers, fell in an earthquake in 448, whereas

the passage turns out to be a quotation from "Marcellinus"[38] of the

fall of part of the defences of Constantinople--"Urbis Augustae!"

References to towers in Irish annals are quoted by Mr. D'Alton; but

they turn out to be written about the Cyclopean Forts, or low stone

raths, such as we find at Aileach, etc.

---------------------------------------------------------------

[38] Author of the _Life of Thucydides_.--C.P.M.

CELESTIAL INDEXES.

Dr. Charles O'Connor, of Stowe, is the chief supporter of the

astronomical theory. One of his arguments is founded on the mistaken

reading of the word "_turaghun_" (which he derives from _tur_, a tower,

and _aghan_, or _adhan_, the kindling of flame), instead of

"_truaghan_," an ascetic. The only other authority of his which we have

not noticed is the passage in the _Ulster Annals_, at the year 995, in

which it is said that certain Fidhnemead were burned by lightning at

Armagh. He translates the word celestial indexes, and paraphrases it

Round Towers, and all because _fiadh_ means witness, and _neimhedh_,

heavenly or sacred, the real meaning being holy wood, or wood of the

sanctuary, from _fidh_, a wood, and _neimhedh_, holy, as is proved by a

pile of _exact_ authorities.

Dr. Lanigan, in his ecclesiastical history, and Moore, in his general

history, repeat the arguments which we have mentioned. They also bring

objections against the alleged Christian origin, which we hold over;

but it is plain that nothing prevailed more with them than the alleged

resemblance of these towers to certain oriental buildings. Assuredly if

there were a close likeness between the Irish Round Towers and oriental

fire temples of proved antiquity, it would be an argument for identity

of use; and though direct testimony from our annals would come in and

show that the present towers were built as Christian belfries from the

sixth to the tenth centuries, the resemblance would at least indicate

that the belfries had been built after the model of Pagan fire towers

previously existing here. But "rotundos of above thirty feet in

diameter" in Persia, Turkish minarets of the tenth or fourteenth

centuries, and undated turrets in India, which Lord Valentia thought

like our Round Towers, give no _such_ resemblance. We shall look

anxiously for exact measurements and datas of oriental buildings

resembling Round Towers, and weigh the evidence which may be offered to

show that there were any Pagan models for the latter in Ireland or in

Asia.

Mr. Windele, of Cork, besides using all the previously-mentioned

arguments for the Paganism of these towers, finds another in the

supposed resemblance to THE NURRAGGIS OF SARDINIA, which are tombs or

temples formed in that island, and attributed to the Phoenicians. But,

alas, for the theory, they have turned out to be "as broad as they're

long." A square building, 57 feet in each side, with bee-hive towers at

each angle, and a centre bee-hive tower reaching to 45 or 65 feet high,

with stone stairs, is sadly unlike a Round Tower!

The most recent theory is that the Round Towers are

HERO-MONUMENTS.

Mr. Windele and the South Munster Antiquarian Society started this, Sir

William Betham sanctioned it, and several rash gentlemen dug under

towers to prove it. At Cashel, Kinsale, etc., they satisfied themselves

that there were no sepulchres or bones ever under the towers, but in

some other places they took the rubbish bones casually thrown into the

towers, and in two cases the chance underlying of ancient

burying-grounds, as proofs of this notion. But Mr. Petrie settles for

this idea by showing that there is no such use of the Round Towers

mentioned in our annals, and also by the following most interesting

account of the cemeteries and monuments of all the races of Pagan

Irish:--

HISTORY OF THE CEMETERIES.

"A great king of great judgments assumed the sovereignty of Erin,

_i.e._, Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles.

Erin was prosperous in his time, because just judgments were

distributed throughout it by him; so that no one durst attempt to

wound a man in Erin during the short jubilee of seven years; for

Cormac had the faith of the one true God, according to the law; for

he said that he would not adore stones, or trees, but that he would

adore Him who had made them, and who had power over all the

elements, _i.e._, the one powerful God who created the elements; in

Him he would believe. And he was the third person who had believed

in Erin before the arrival of St. Patrick. Conchobor MacNessa, to

whom Altus had told concerning the crucifixion of Christ, _was the

first_; Morann, the son of Cairbre Cinncait (who was surnamed Mac

Main), was the second person; and Cormac was the third; and it is

probable that others followed on their track in this belief.

"Where Cormac held his court was at Tara, in imitation of the kings

who preceded him, until his eye was destroyed by Engus

Gaibhuaiphnech, the son of Eochaidh Finn Futhairt: but afterwards

he resided at Acaill (the hill on which Serin Colaim Cille is at

this day), and at Cenannas (Kells), and at the house of Cletech;

for it was not lawful that a king with a _personal_ blemish

should reside at Tara. In the second year after the injuring of his

eye he came by his death at the house of Cletech, the bone of a

salmon having stuck in his throat. And he (Cormac) told his people

not to bury him at Brugh (because it was a cemetery of Idolaters),

for he did not worship the same God as any of those interred at

Brugh; but to bury him at Ros-na-righ, with his face to the east.

He afterwards died, and his servants of trust held a council, and

came to the resolution of burying him at Brugh, the place where the

kings of Tara, his predecessors, were buried. The body of the king

was afterwards thrice raised to be carried to Brugh, but the Boyne

swelled up thrice, so that they could not come; so that they

observed that it was 'violating the judgment of a prince' to break

through this testament of the king, and they afterwards dug his

grave at Ros-na-righ, as he himself had ordered.

"These were the chief cemeteries of Erin before the Faith (_i.e._,

before the introduction of Christianity), viz., Cruachu, Brugh,

Tailltin, Luachair, Ailbe, Oenach Ailbe, Oenach Culi, Oenach

Colmain, Temhair Erann.

"Oenach Cruachan, in the first place, it was there the race of

Heremon (_i.e._, the kings of Tara) were used to bury until the

time of Cremhthann, the son of Lughaidh Riabh-n-derg (who was the

first king of them that was interred at Brugh), viz., Cobhlhach

Coelbregh, and Labhraidh Loingsech, and Eocho Fedhlech with his

three sons (_i.e._, the three Fidhemhna--_i.e._, Bres, Nar, and

Lothoe), and Eocho Airemh, Lughaidh Riabh-n-derg, the six daughters

of Eocho Fedhlech (_i.e._, Medhbh, and Clothru, Muresc, and

Drebrin, Mugain, and Ele), and Adill Mac Mada with his seven

brothers (_i.e._, Cet, Anlon, Doche, _et ceteri_), and all the

kings _down_ to Cremhthann (these were all buried at Cruachan). Why

was it not at Brugh that the kings (of the race of Cobhthach down

to Crimthann) were interred? Not difficult; because the two

provinces which the race of Heremon possessed were the province of

Gailian (_i.e._, the province of Leinster), and the province of

Olnecmacht (_i.e._, the province of Connaught). In the first place,

the province of Gailian was occupied by the race of Labhraidh

Loingsech, and the province of Connaught was the peculiar

inheritance of the race of Cobhtach Coelbregh; wherefore it

(_i.e._, the province of Connaught) was given to Medhbh before

every other province. (The reason that the government of this land

was given to Medhbh is because there was none of the race of

Eochaidh fit to receive it but herself, for Lughaidh was not fit

for action at the time.) And whenever, therefore, the monarchy of

Erin was enjoyed by any of the descendants of Cobhthach Coelbregh,

the province of Connaught was his _ruidles_ (_i.e._, his native

principality). And for this reason they were interred at Oenach na

Cruachna. But they were interred at Brugh from the time of

Crimthann (Niadh-nar) to the time of Loeghaire, the son of Niall,

except three persons, namely, Art, the son of Conn, and Cormac, the

son of Art, and Niall of the Nine Hostages.

"We have already mentioned the cause for which Cormac was not

interred there. The reason why Art was not interred there is

because he 'believed,' the day before the battle of Muccramma was

fought, and he predicted the Faith (_i.e._, that Christianity would

prevail in Erin), and he said that his own grave would be at Dumha

Dergluachra, where Treoit [Trevet] is at this day, as he mentioned

in a poem which he composed--viz., _Cain do denna den_ (_i.e._, a

poem which Art composed, the beginning of which is _Cain do denna

den_, etc.). When his (Art's) body was afterwards carried eastwards

to Dumha Dergluachra, if all the men of Erin were drawing it

thence, they could not, so that he was interred in that place

because there was a Catholic church to be afterwards at the place

where he was interred (_i.e._, Treoit _hodie_). because the truth

and the Faith had been revealed to him through his regal

righteousness.

"Where Niall was interred was at Ochain, whence the hill was called

Ochain, _i.e._, _Och Caine_, _i.e._, from the sighing and

lamentation which the men of Erin made in lamenting Niall.

"Conaire More was interred at Magh Feci in Bregia (_i.e._, at Fert

Conaire); however, some say that it was Conaire Carpraige was

interred there, and not Conaire Mor, and that Conaire Mor was the

third king who was interred at Tara--viz., Conaire, Loeghaire, and

* * *

"At Tailltin the kings of Ulster were used to bury--viz., Ollamh

Fodhla, with his descendants down to Conchobhar, who wished that he

should be carried to a place between Slea and the sea, with his

face to the east, on account of the Faith which he had embraced.

"The nobles of the Tuatha De Danann were used to bury at Brugh

(_i.e._, the Dagda with his three sons; also Lughaidh and Oe, and

Ollam, and Ogma, and Etan, the Poetess, and Corpre, the son of

Etan), and Cremhthann followed them because his wife Nar was of the

Tuatha Dea, and it was she solicited him that he should adopt Brugh

as a burial-place for himself and his descendants, and this was the

cause that they did not bury at Cruachan.

"The Lagenians (_i.e._, Cathair with his race and the kings who

were before them) were buried at Oenach Ailbhe. The Clann Dedad

(_i.e._, the race of Conaire and Erna) at Temhair Erann; the men of

Munster (_i.e._, the Dergthene) at Oenach Culi, and Oenach Colmain;

and the Connacians at Cruachan."

ANCHORITE TOWERS.

Because Simon Stylites lived in a domicile, sized "scarce two cubits,"

_on_ a pillar sixty feet high, and because other anchorites lived on

pillars and in cells, Dean Richardson suggested that the Irish Round

Towers were for hermits; and was supported by Walter Harris, Dr.

Milner, Dr. King, etc. The _cloch angcoire_, or hermit's stone, quoted

in aid of this fancy, turns out to be a narrow cell; and so much for

the hermits!

The confusion of

TOURS AND TOWERS

is a stupid pun or a vulgar pronunciation in English; but in Irish gave

rise to the antiquarian theory of Dr. Smith, who, in his _History of

Cork_, concludes that the Round Towers were penitential prisons,

because the Irish word for a penitential round or journey is _turas_!

THE PHALLIC THEORY

never had any support but poor Henry O'Brien's enthusiastic ignorance

and the caricaturing pen of his illustrator.

We have now done with the theories of these towers, which Mr. Petrie

has shown, past doubt, to be either positively false or quite unproved.

His own opinion is that they were used--1, as belfries; 2, as keeps, or

houses of shelter for the clergy and their treasures; and 3, as

watch-towers and beacons; and into his evidence for this opinion we

shall go at a future day, thanking him at present for having displaced

a heap of incongruous, though agreeable, fancies, and given us the

learned, the most exact, and the most important work ever published on

the antiquities of the Ancient Irish Nation.

THE IRISH BRIGADE.

When valour becomes a reproach, when patriotism is thought a prejudice,

and when a soldier's sword is a sign of shame, the Irish Brigade will

be forgotten or despised.

The Irish are a military people--strong, nimble, and hardy, fond of

adventure, irascible, brotherly, and generous--they have all the

qualities that tempt men to war and make them good soldiers. Dazzled by

their great fame on the Continent, and hearing of their insular wars

chiefly through the interested lies of England, Voltaire expressed his

wonder that a nation which had behaved so gallantly abroad had "always

fought badly at home." It would have been most wonderful.

It may be conceded that the Irish performed more illustrious actions on

the Continent. They fought with the advantages of French discipline and

equipment; they fought as soldiers, with the rights of war, not

"rebels, with halters round their necks"; they fought by the side of

great rivals and amid the gaze of Europe.

In the most of their domestic wars they appeared as divided clans or

abrupt insurgents; they were exposed to the treachery of a more

instructed, of an unscrupulous and a compact enemy; they had neither

discipline, nor generalship, nor arms; their victories were those of a

mob; their defeats were followed by extermination.

We speak of their ordinary contests with England from the time of

Roderick O'Connor to that of '98. Occasionally they had more

opportunities, and their great qualities for war appeared. In Hugh (or,

rather Aodh) O'Neill they found a leader who only wanted material

resources to have made them an independent nation. Cautious, as became

the heir of so long a strife, he spent years in acquiring military

knowledge and nursing up his clan into the kernel for a nation; crafty

as Bacon and Cecil, and every other man of his time, he learned war in

Elizabeth's armies, and got help from her store-houses. When the

discontent of the Pale, religious tyranny, and the intrigues and

hostility of Spain and Rome against England gave him an opening, he put

his ordered clan into action, stormed the neighbouring garrisons,

struck terror into his hereditary foes, and gave hope to all patriots;

but finding that his ranks were too few for battle, he negotiated

successfully for peace, but unavailingly for freedom; his grievances

and designs remained, and he retired to repeat the same policy, till,

after repeated guerillas and truces, he was strong enough to proclaim

alliance with Spain and war with England, and to defeat and slay every

deputy that assailed him, till at last he marched from the triumph of

Beal-an-ath Buidhe[39] (where Marshal Bagenal and his army perished) to

hold an almost royal court at Munster, and to reduce the Pale to the

limits it had formed in the Wars of the Roses; and even when the

neglect of Spain, the genius of Mountjoy, the resources and intrigues

of England, and the exhaustion and divisions of Ireland had rendered

success hopeless, the Irish under O'Ruarc, O'Sullivan, and O'Doherty

vindicated their military character.

From that period they, whose foreign services, since Dathi's time, had

been limited to supplying feudatories to the English kings, began to

fight under the flags of England's enemies in every corner of Europe.

The artifices of the Stuarts regained them, and in the reign of Charles

the First they were extensively enlisted for the English allies and for

the crown; but it was under the guidance of another O'Neill, and for

Ireland,[40] they again exhibited the qualities which had sustained

Tyrone. The battle of Benburb affords as great a proof of Irish

soldiership as Fontenoy.

But it was when, with a formal government and in a regular war, they

encountered the Dutch invader, they showed the full prowess of the

Irish; and at the Boyne, Limerick, Athlone, and Aughrim, in victory or

defeat, and always against _immensely superior numbers and armaments_,

proved that they fought well at home.

Since the day when Sarsfield sailed the Irish have never had an

opportunity of refuting the calumny of England which Voltaire accepted.

In '98 they met enormous forces resting on all the magazines of

England; they had no officers; their leaders, however brave, neither

knew how to organise, provision, station, or manoeuvre troops--their

arms were casual--their ignorance profound--their intemperance

unrestrainable. If they put English supremacy in peril (and had Arklow

or Ballinahinch been attacked with skill, that supremacy was gone),

they did so by mere valour.

It is, therefore, on the Continent that one must chiefly look for Irish

trophies. It is a pious and noble search; but he who pursues it had

need to guard against the error we have noticed in Voltaire, of

disparaging Irish soldiership at home.

The materials for the history of the Irish Brigade are fast

accumulating. We have before us the _Military History of the Irish

Nation_, by the late Matthew O'Conor. He was a barrister, but studied

military subjects (as became a gentleman and a citizen), peculiarly

interested himself in the achievements of his countrymen, and prepared

materials for a history of them. He died, leaving his work unfinished,

yet, happily sufficiently advanced to offer a continuous narrative of

Irish internal wars, from Hugh O'Neill to Sarsfield, and of their

foreign services up to the Peace of Utrecht, in 1711. The style of the

work is earnest and glowing, full of patriotism and liberality; but Mr.

O'Conor was no blind partisan, and he neither hides the occasional

excesses of the Irish, nor disparages their opponents. His descriptions

of battles are very superior to what one ordinarily meets in the works

of civilians, and any one reading them with a military atlas will be

gratified and instructed.

The value of the work is vastly augmented by the appendix, which is a

memoir of the Brigade, written in French, in 1749, and including the

War Office orders, and all the changes in organisation, numbers, and

pay of the Brigade to that date. This memoir is authenticated thus:--

"His Excellency, the Duke of Feltre, Minister of War, was so kind

as to communicate to me the original memoir above cited, of which

this is a perfect copy, which I attest.

"DE MONTMORENCY MORRES (Herve),

"Adjutant-Commandant, Colonel.

"Paris, 1st September, 1813."

To give any account of the details of Mr. O'Conor's book we should

abridge it, and an abridgment of a military history is a catalogue of

names. It contains accounts of Hugh O'Neill's campaigns and of the wars

of William and James in Ireland. It describes (certainly a new chapter

in our knowledge) the services of the Irish in the Low Countries and

France during the religious wars in Henri Quatre's time, and the

hitherto equally unknown actions abroad during Charles the Second's

exile and reign.

The wars of Mountcashel's (the old) Brigade in 1690-91, under St. Ruth

in Savoy, occupy many interesting pages, and the first campaigns of the

New Brigade, with the death of Sarsfield and Mountcashel, are carefully

narrated. The largest part of the work is occupied with the wars of the

Spanish succession, and contains minute narratives of the battles and

sieges of Cremona, Spire, Luzzaca, Blenheim, Cassano, Ramilies,

Almanza, Alcira, Malplaquet, and Denain, with the actions of the Irish

in them.

Here are great materials for our future History of Ireland.

---------------------------------------------------------------

[39] See Mitchel's _Life of Hugh O'Neill_, and Meehan's _Flight of

the Earls_. Dublin: Duffy & Sons.

[40] Owen Roe, who defeated Monro, 1646.

THE SPEECHES OF GRATTAN.[41]

Of the long line of Protestant patriots Grattan is the first in genius,

and first in services. He had a more fervid and more Irish nature than

Swift or Flood, and he accomplished what Swift hardly dreamed, and

Flood failed in--an Irish constitution. He had immeasurably more

imagination than Tone; and though he was far behind the great Founder

of the United Irishmen in organising power, he surpassed him in

inspiration. The statues of all shall be in our forums, and examples of

all in our hearts, but that of Grattan shall be pre-eminent. The

stubborn and advancing energy of Swift and Flood may teach us to bear

up against wrong; the principles of Tone may end in liberation; but the

splendid nationality of Grattan shall glorify us in every condition.

The speeches of Grattan were collected and his memoirs written by his

son. The latter is an accessible and an invaluable account of his life;

but the speeches were out of print, not purchasable under five or six

guineas, and then were unmanageably numerous for any but a professed

politician. Mr. Madden's volume gives for a trifle all Grattan's most

valuable speeches, with a memoir sufficient to explain the man and the

orator.

On the speeches of Grattan here published we have little to say. They

are the finest specimens of imaginative eloquence in the English, or in

any, language. There is not much pathos, and no humour in them, and in

these respects Grattan is far less of an Irishman, and of an orator

too, than Curran; but a philosophy, penetrating constitutions for their

warnings, and human nature for its guides--a statesman's (as

distinguished from an antiquarian's) use of history--a passionate scorn

and invective for the base, tyrannical, and unjust--a fiery and copious

zeal for liberty and for Ireland, and a diction and cadence almost

lyrical, made Grattan the sudden achiever of a Revolution, and will

make him for ever one of the very elements of Ireland.

No other orator is so uniformly animated. No other orator has

brightened the depths of political philosophy with such vivid and

lasting light. No writer in the language except Shakespeare has so

sublime and suggestive a diction. His force and vehemence are

amazing--far beyond Chatham, far beyond Fox, far beyond any orator we

can recall.

To the student of oratory Grattan's speeches are dangerously

suggestive, overpowering spirits that will not leave when bid. Yet,

with all this terrible potency, who would not bask in his genius, even

at the hazard of having his light for ever in your eyes. The brave

student will rather exult in his effulgence--not to rob, not to mimic

it--but to catch its inspiration, and then go on his way resolved to

create a glory of his own which, however small, being genuine, shall

not pale within its sphere.

To give a _just_ idea of Grattan's rush and splendour to anyone not

familiar with his speeches is impossible; but _some_ glimmer may be

got by one reading the extracts we shall add here. We shall take them

at random, as we open the pages in the book, and leave the reader,

untaught in our great orator, to judge, if chance is certain of finding

such gems, what would not judicious care discover! Let him use that

care again and again.

"Sir, we may hope to dazzle with illumination, and we may sicken

with addresses, but the public imagination will never rest, nor

will her heart be well at ease; never! so long as the parliament of

England exercises or claims a legislation over this country: so

long as this shall be the case, that very free trade, otherwise a

perpetual attachment, will be the cause of new discontent; it will

create a pride to feel the indignity of bondage; it will furnish a

strength to bite your chain, and the liberty withheld will poison

the good communicated.

"The British minister mistakes the Irish character; had he intended

to make Ireland a slave he should have kept her a beggar; there is

no middle policy; win her heart by the restoration of her right, or

cut off the nation's right hand; greatly emancipate, or

fundamentally destroy. We may talk plausibly to England, but so

long as she exercises a power to bind this country, so long are the

nations in a state of war; the claims of the one go against the

liberty of the other, and the sentiments of the latter go to oppose

those claims to the last drop of her blood. The English opposition,

therefore, are right; mere trade will not satisfy Ireland--they

judge of us by other great nations, by the nation whose political

life has been a struggle for liberty; they judge of us with a true

knowledge and just deference for our character: that a country

enlightened as Ireland, chartered as Ireland, armed as Ireland and

injured as Ireland, will be satisfied with nothing less than

liberty.

"Impracticable! impracticable! impracticable! a zealous divine will

say; any alteration is beyond the power and wisdom of parliament;

above the faculties of man to make adequate provision for 900

clergymen who despise riches. Were it to raise a new tax for their

provision, or for that of a body less holy, how easy the task! how

various the means! but when the proposal is to diminish a tax

already established, an impossibility glares us in the face, of a

measure so contrary to our practices both in church and state."

We were wrong in saying there was no humour in Grattan. Here is a

passage humorous enough, but it is scornful, rhetorical humour:--

"It does not affect the doctrine of our religion; it does not alter

the church establishment; it does not affect the constitution of

episcopacy. The modus does not even alter the mode of their

provision, it only limits the quantum, and limits it on principles

much less severe than that charity which they preach, or that

abstinence which they inculcate. Is this innovation?--as if the

Protestant religion was to be propagated in Ireland, like the

influence of a minister, by bribery; or like the influence of a

county candidate, by money; or like the cause of a potwalloping

canvasser, by the weight of the purse; as if Christ could not

prevail over the earth unless Mammon took him by the hand. Am I to

understand that if you give the parson 12s. in the acre for

potatoes and 10s. for wheat, the Protestant religion is safe on its

rock? But if you reduce him to 6s. the acre for potatoes and wheat,

then Jupiter shakes the heavens with his thunder, Neptune rakes up

the deep with his trident, and Pluto leaps from his throne! See the

curate--he rises at six to morning prayers; he leaves company at

six for evening prayer; he baptises, he marries, he churches, he

buries, he follows with pious offices his fellow creature from the

cradle to the grave; for what immense income! what riches to reward

these inestimable services? (Do not depend on the penury of the

laity, let his own order value his deserts.) L50 a year! L50! for

praying, for christening, for marrying, for churching, for burying,

for following with Christian offices his fellow-creature from

cradle to grave; so frugal a thing is devotion, so cheap religion,

so easy the terms on which man may worship his Maker, and so small

the income, in the opinion of ecclesiastics, sufficient for the

duties of a clergyman, as far as he is connected at all with the

Christian religion.

* * * * *

"By this trade of parliament the King is absolute; his will is

signified by both houses of parliament, who are now as much an

instrument in his hand as a bayonet in the hands of a regiment.

Like a regiment we have our adjutant, who sends to the infirmary

for the old and to the brothel for the young, and men thus carted,

as it were, into this house, to vote for the minister, are called

the representatives of the people! Suppose General Washington to

ring his bell, and order his servants out of livery to take their

seats in Congress--you can apply this instance.

"It is not life but the condition of living--the slave is not so

likely to complain of the want of property as the proprietor of the

want of privilege. The human mind is progressive--the child does

not look back to the parent that gave him being, nor the proprietor

to the people that gave him the power of acquisition, but both look

forward--the one to provide for the comforts of life, and the other

to obtain all the privileges of property."

But we have fallen on one of his most marvellous passages, and we give

it entire:--

"I will put this question to my country; I will suppose her at the

bar, and I will ask her, Will you fight for a Union as you would

for a constitution? Will you fight for that Lords and that Commons

who, in the last century, took away your trade, and, in the

present, your constitution, as for that King, Lords, and Commons

who have restored both? Well, the minister has destroyed this

constitution; to destroy is easy. The edifices of the mind, like

the fabrics of marble, require an age to build, but ask only

minutes to precipitate; and as the fall of both is an effort of no

time, so neither is it a business of any strength--a pick-axe and a

common labourer will do the one--a little lawyer, a little pimp, a

wicked minister the other.

"The Constitution, which, with more or less violence, has been the

inheritance of this country for six hundred years--that _modus

tenendi parliamentum_, which lasted and outlasted of Plantagenet

the wars, of Tudor the violence, and of Stuart the systematic

falsehood--the condition of our connection--yes, the constitution

he destroys is one of the pillars of the British Empire. He may

walk round it and round it, and the more he contemplates the more

must he admire it--such a one as had cost England of money millions

and of blood a deluge, cheaply and nobly expended--whose

restoration had cost Ireland her noblest efforts, and was the

habitation of her loyalty--we are accustomed to behold the kings of

these countries in the keeping of parliament--I say of her loyalty

as well as of her liberty, where she had hung up the sword of the

Volunteer--her temple of fame as well as of freedom--where she had

seated herself, as she vainly thought, in modest security and in a

long repose.

"I have done with the pile which the minister batters, I come to

the Babel which he builds; and as he throws down without a

principle, so does he construct without a foundation. This fabric

he calls a Union, and to this, his fabric, there are two striking

objections--first it is no Union; it is not an identification of

people, for it excludes the Catholics; secondly, it is a

consolidation of the Irish legislatures--that is to say, a merger

of the Irish parliament, and incurs every objection to a Union,

without obtaining the only object which a Union professes; it is an

extinction of the constitution, and an exclusion of the people.

Well! he has overlooked the people as he has overlooked the sea. I

say he excludes the Catholics, and he destroys their best chance of

admission--the relative consequence. Thus he reasons, that

hereafter, in course of time (he does not say when), if they behave

themselves (he does not say how), they may see their subjects

submitted to a course of discussion (he does not say with what

result or determination); and as the ground for this inane period,

in which he promises nothing, and in which, if he did promise much,

at so remote a period he could perform nothing, unless he, like the

evil he has accomplished, be immortal. For this inane sentence, in

which he can scarcely be said to deceive the Catholic, or suffer

the Catholic to deceive himself, he exhibits no other ground than

the physical inanity of the Catholic body accomplished by a Union,

which, as it destroys the relative importance of Ireland, so it

destroys the relative proportion of the Catholic inhabitants, and

thus they become admissible, because they cease to be anything.

Hence, according to him, their brilliant expectation: 'You were,'

say his advocates, and so imports his argument, 'before the Union

as three to one, you will be by the Union as one to four.' Thus he

founds their hopes of political power on the extinction of physical

consequence, and makes the inanity of their body and the nonentity

of their country the pillars of their future ambition."

We now return to the memoir by Mr. Madden. It is not the details of a

life meagre for want of space, and confused for want of principles, as

most little biographies are; it is an estimate--a profound one--of

Grattan's original nature, of the influences which acted on him from

youth to manhood, of his purposes, his principles, and his influence on

Ireland.

Henry Grattan was twenty-nine years of age when he entered on politics,

and in seven years he was the triumphant leader of a people free and

victorious after hereditary bondage. He entered parliament educated in

the meta-physical and political philosophy of the time, injured by its

cold and epigrammatic verse and its artificial tastes--familiar with

every form of aristocratic life from Kilkenny to London--familiar, too,

with Chatham's oratory and principles, and with Flood's views and

example. He came when there were great forces rushing through the

land--eloquence, love of liberty, thirst for commerce, hatred of

English oppression, impatience, glory, and, above all, a military

array. He combined these elements and used them to achieve the

Revolution of '82. Be he for ever honoured!

Mr. Madden defends him against Flood on the question of Simple Repeal.

Here is his reasoning:--

"It is an easy thing now to dispose of the idle question of simple

repeal. In truth, there was nothing whatever deserving of attention

in the point raised by Mr. Flood. The security for the continuance

of Irish freedom did not depend upon an English act of parliament.

It was by Irish _will_ and not at English pleasure that the new

constitution was to be supported. The transaction between the

countries was of a high political nature, and it was to be judged by

political reason, and by statesmanlike computation, and not by the

petty technicalities of the court of law. The revolution of 1782, as

carried by Ireland, and assented to by England (in repealing the 6th

George the First), was a political compact--proposed by one country,

and acknowledged by the other in the face of Europe; it was not (as

Mr. Flood and his partisans construed the transaction) of the nature

of municipal right, to be enforced or annulled by mere judicial

exposition."

This is unanswerable, but Grattan should have gone further. The

Revolution was effected mainly by the Volunteers, whom he had inspired;

arms could alone have preserved the constitution. Flood was wrong in

setting value on one form--Grattan in relying on any; but both before

and after '82 Flood seems to have had glimpses that the question was

one of might, as well as of right, and that national laws could not

last under such an alien army.

Taken as military representatives, the Convention at the Rotunda was

even more valuable than as a civic display. Mr. Madden censures Grattan

for having been an elaborate neutral during these Reform dissensions;

but that the result of _such_ neutrality ruined the Convention

proves a comparative want of power in Flood, who could have governed

that Convention in spite of the rascally English and the feeble Irish

Whigs. Oh, had Tone been in that council!

In describing Grattan's early and enthusiastic and ceaseless advocacy

of Catholic liberty, Mr. Madden has a just subject for unmixed eulogy.

Let no one imagine that the interest of these Emancipation speeches has

died with the achievement of what they pleaded for; they will ever

remain divinest protests against the vice and impolicy of religious

ascendency, of sectarian bitterness, and of bigot separation.

For this admirable beginning of the design of giving Ireland its most

glorious achievement--the speeches of its orators--to contemplate, the

country should be grateful; but if there can be anything better for it

to hear than can be had in Grattan's speeches, it is such language as

this from his eloquent editor:--

"Reader! if you be an Irish Protestant, and entertain harsh

prejudices against your Catholic countrymen, study the works and

life of Grattan--learn from him--for none can teach you better how

to purify your nature from bigotry. Learn from him to look upon all

your countrymen with a loving heart--to be tolerant of infirmities

caused by their unhappy history--and, like Grattan, earnestly

sympathise with all that is brave and generous in their character.

"Reader! if you be an Irish Catholic, and that you confound the

Protestant religion with tyranny, learn from Grattan that it is

possible to be a Protestant and have a heart for Ireland and its

people. Think that the brightest age of Ireland was when Grattan--a

steady Protestant--raised it to proud eminence; think also that in

the hour of his triumph he did not forget the state of your

oppressed fathers, but laboured through his virtuous life that both

you and your children should enjoy unshackled liberty of

conscience.

"But reader! whether you be Protestant or Catholic, or whatever be

your party, you will do well as an Irishman to ponder upon the

spirit and principles which governed the public and private life of

Grattan. Learn from him how to regard your countrymen of all

denominations. Observe, as he did, how very much that is excellent

belongs to both the great parties into which Ireland is divided. If

(as some do) you entertain dispiriting views of Ireland, recollect

that any country containing such elements as those which roused the

genius of Grattan never need despair. _Sursum corda_. Be not

disheartened.

"Go--go--my countrymen--and, within your social sphere, carry into

practice those moral principles which Grattan so eloquently taught,

and which he so remarkably enforced by his well-spent life. He will

teach you to avoid hating men on account of their religious

professions or hereditary descent. From him you will learn

principles which, if carried out, would generate a new state of

society in Ireland."

---------------------------------------------------------------

[41] "The Select Speeches of the Right Hon. Henry Grattan. To which

is added his Letter on the Union, with a Commentary on his Career

and Character." By Daniel Owen Madden, Esq., of the Inner Temple.

Dublin: James Duffy, 1845. 8vo, pp. 534.

MEMORIALS OF WEXFORD.

'Twixt Croghan-Kinshela and Hook Head, 'twixt Carnsore and Mount

Leinster, there is as good a mass of men as ever sustained a state by

honest franchises, by peace, virtue, and intelligent industry; and as

stout a mass as ever tramped through a stubborn battle. There is a

county where we might seek more of stormy romance, and there is a

county where prospers a shrewder economy, but no county in Ireland is

fitter for freedom than Wexford.

They are a peculiar people--these Wexford men. Their blood is for the

most part English and Welsh, though mixed with the Danish and Gaelic,

yet they are Irish in thought and feeling. They are a Catholic people,

yet on excellent terms with their Protestant landlords. Outrages are

unknown, for though the rents are high enough, they are not unbearable

by a people so industrious and skilled in farming.

Go to the fair and you will meet honest dealing, and a look that heeds

no lordling's frown--for the Wexford men have neither the base bend nor

the baser craft of slaves. Go to the hustings, and you will see open

and honest voting; no man shrinking or crying for concealment, or

extorting a bribe under the name of "his expenses." Go to their farms

and you will see a snug homestead, kept clean, prettily sheltered (much

what you'd see in Down); more green crops than even in Ulster; the

National School and the Repeal Reading-room well filled, and every

religious duty regarded.

Wexford is not all it might be, or all that, with more education and

the life-hope of nationality, it will be--there is something to blame

and something to lament, here a vice sustained, and there a misfortune

lazily borne; yet, take it for all in all, it is the most prosperous,

it is the pattern county of the South; and when we see it coming

forward in a mass to renew its demand for native government, it is an

omen that the spirit of the people outlives quarrels and jealousies,

and that it has a rude vitality which will wear out its oppressors.

Nor are we indifferent to the memories of Wexford. It owes much of its

peace and prosperity to the war it sustained. It rose in '98 with

little organisation against intolerable wrong; and though it was

finally beaten by superior forces, it taught its aristocracy and the

government a lesson not easily forgotten--a lesson that popular anger

could strike hard as well as sigh deeply; and that it was better to

conciliate than provoke those who even for an hour had felt their

strength. The red rain made Wexford's harvest grow. Theirs was no

treacherous assassination--theirs no stupid riot--theirs no pale

mutiny. They rose in mass and swept the country by sheer force.

Nor in their sinking fortunes is there anything to blush at.

Scullabogue was not burned by the fighting men.

Yet nowhere did the copper sun of that July burn upon a more

heart-piercing sight than a rebel camp. Scattered on a hill-top, or

screened in a gap, were the grey-coated thousands, their memories mad

at burned cabins, and military whips, and hanged friends; their hopes

dimmed by partial defeat; their eyes lurid with care; their brows full

of gloomy resignation. Some have short guns which the stern of a boat

might bear, but which press through the shoulder of a marching man; and

others have light fowling-pieces, with dandy locks--troublesome and

dangerous toys. Most have pikes, stout weapons, too; and though some

swell to hand-spikes, and others thin to knives, yet, for all that,

fatal are they to dragoon or musketeer if they can meet him in a rush;

but how shall they do so? The gunsmen have only a little powder in

scraps of paper or bags, and their balls are few and rarely fit. They

have no potatoes ripe, and they have no bread--their food is the worn

cattle they have crowded there, and which the first skirmish may rend

from them. There are women and children seeking shelter, seeking those

they love; and there are leaders busier, feebler, less knowing, less

resolved than the women and the children.

Great hearts! how faithful ye are! How ye bristled up when the foe came

on, how ye set your teeth to die as his shells and round-shot fell

steadily; and with how firm a cheer ye dashed at him, if he gave you

any chance at all of a grapple! From the wild burst with which ye

triumphed at Oulart Hill, down to the faint gasp wherewith the last of

your last column died in the corn-fields of Meath, there is nothing to

shame your valour, your faith, or your patriotism. You wanted arms, and

you wanted leaders. Had you had them, you would have guarded a green

flag in Dublin Castle a week after you beat Walpole. Isolated,

unorganised, unofficered, half-armed, girt by a swarm of foes, you

ceased to fight, but you neither betrayed nor repented. Your sons need

not fear to speak of Ninety-eight.

You, people of Wexford, almost all Repealers, are the sons of the men

of '98; prosperous and many, will you only shout for Repeal, and line

roads and tie boughs for a holiday? Or will you press your

organisation, work at your education, and increase your political

power, so that your leaders may know and act on the knowledge that,

come what may, there is trust in Wexford?

THE HISTORY OF TO-DAY.

From 1793 to 1829--for thirty-six years--the Irish Catholics struggled

for Emancipation. _That_ Emancipation was but admission to the

Bench, the Inner Bar, and Parliament. It was won by self-denial,

genius, vast and sustained labours, and, lastly, by the sacrifice of

the forty-shilling freeholders--the poor veterans of the war--and by

submission to insulting oaths; yet it was cheaply bought. Not so

cheaply, perchance, as if won by the sword; for on it were expended

more treasures, more griefs, more intellect, more passion, more of all

which makes life welcome, than had been needed for war; still it was

cheaply bought, and Ireland has glorified herself, and will through

ages triumph in the victory of '29.

Yet what was Emancipation compared to Repeal?

The one put a silken badge on a few members of one profession; the

other would give to all professions and all trades the rank and riches

which resident proprietors, domestic legislation, and flourishing

commerce infallibly create.

Emancipation made it possible for Catholics to sit on the judgment

seat; but it left a foreign administration, which has excluded them,

save in two or three cases, where over-topping eminence made the

acceptance of a Judgeship no promotion; and it left the local

Judges--those with whom the people have to deal--as partial, ignorant,

bigoted as ever; while Repeal would give us an Irish code and

Irish-hearted Judges in every Court, from the Chancery to the Petty

Sessions.

Emancipation dignified a dozen Catholics with a senatorial name in a

foreign and hostile Legislature. Repeal would give us a Senate, a

Militia, an Administration, all our own.

The Penal Code, as it existed since 1793, insulted the faith of the

Catholics, restrained their liberties, and violated the public Treaty

of Limerick. The Union has destroyed our manufactures, prohibits our

flag, prevents our commerce, drains our rental, crushes our genius,

makes our taxation a tribute, our representation a shadow, our name a

by-word. It were nobler to strive for Repeal than to get Emancipation.

Four years ago the form of Repeal agitation began--two years ago, its

reality. Have we not cause to be proud of the labours of these two

years? If life be counted, not by the rising of suns, or the idle

turning of machinery, but by the growth of the will, and the progress

of thoughts and passions in the soul, we Irishmen have spent an age

since we raised our first cry for liberty. Consider what we were then,

and what we have done since. We had a People unorganised--disgusted

with a Whig alliance--beaten in a dishonourable struggle to sustain a

faction--ignorant of each other's will--without books, without song,

without leaders (save one), without purposes, without strength, without

hope. The Corn Exchange was the faint copy of the Catholic Association,

with a few enthusiasts, a few loungers, and a few correspondents.

Opposite to us was the great Conservative party, with a majority

exceeding our whole representation, united, flushed, led by the

craftiest of living statesmen, and the ablest of living generals. Oh,

how disheartening it was then, when, day by day, we found prophecy and

exhortation, lay and labour, flung idly before a distracted People! May

we never pass through that icy ordeal again!

How different now! The People are united under the greatest system of

organisation ever attempted in any country. They send in, by their

Collectors, Wardens, and Inspectors, to the central office of Ireland,

the contributions needed to carry on the Registration of Voters, the

public meetings, the publications, the law expenses, and the

organisation of the Association; and that in turn carries on

registries, holds meetings, opens reading-rooms, sends newspapers, and

books, and political instructions, back through the same channel; so

that the Central Committee knows the state of every parish, and every

parish receives the teaching and obeys the will of the Central

Committee.

The Whig Alliance has melted, like ice before the sun, and the strong

souls of our people will never again serve the purposes of a faction.

The Conservative party, without union and without principle, is

breaking up. Its English section is dividing into the tools of

expediency and the pioneers of a New Generation--its Irish section into

Castle Hacks and National Conservatives.

Meantime, how much have the Irish people gained and done? They have

received and grown rich under torrents of thought. Song and sermon and

music, speech and pamphlet, novel and history, essay and map and

picture, have made the dull thoughtful and the thoughtful studious, and

will make the studious wise and powerful. They have begun a system of

self-teaching in their reading-rooms. If they carry it we shall, before

two years, have in every parish men able to manufacture, to trade, and

to farm--men acquainted with all that Ireland was, is, and should

be--men able to serve The Irish Nation in peace and war.

In the teeth, too, of the Government we held our meetings. They are not

for this time, but they were right well in their own time. They showed

our physical force to the Continent, to ourselves, to America, to our

rulers. They showed that the people would come and go rapidly,

silently, and at bidding, in numbers enough to recruit a dozen armies.

These are literal facts. Any one monster meeting could have offered

little resistance in the open country to a regular army, but it

contained the materials--the numbers, intelligence, and obedience--of a

conquering host. Whenever the impression of their power grows faint we

shall revive them again.

The toleration of these meetings was the result of fear; the

prosecution of their chiefs sprung from greater fear. That prosecution

was begun audaciously, was carried on meanly and with virulence, and

ended with a charge and a verdict which disgraced the law. An illegal

imprisonment afforded glorious proof that the people could refrain from

violence under the worst temptation; that their leaders were firm; and,

better than all, that had these leaders been shot, not prisoned, their

successors were ready. Such an imprisonment served Ireland more than an

acquittal, for it tried her more; and then came the day of triumph,

when the reluctant constitution liberated our chiefs and branded our

oppressors.

This is a history of two years never surpassed in importance and

honour. This is a history which our sons shall pant over and envy. This

is a history which pledges us to perseverance. This is a history which

guarantees success.

Energy, patience, generosity, skill, tolerance, enthusiasm created and

decked the agitation. The world attended us with its thoughts and

prayers. The graceful genius of Italy and the profound intellect of

Germany paused to wish us well. The fiery heart of France tolerated our

unarmed effort, and proffered its aid. America sent us money, thought,

love--she made herself a part of Ireland in her passions and her

organisation. From London to the wildest settlement which throbs in the

tropics or shivers nigh the Pole, the empire of our misruler was shaken

by our effort. To all earth we proclaimed our wrongs. To man and God we

made oath that we would never cease to strive till an Irish nation

stood supreme on this island. The genius which roused and organised us,

the energy which laboured, the wisdom that taught, the manhood which

rose up, the patience which obeyed, the faith which swore, and the

valour that strained for action, are here still, experienced,

recruited, resolute.

The future shall realise the promise of the past.

THE RESOURCES OF IRELAND.[42]

Bishop Berkeley put, as a query, could the Irish live and prosper if a

brazen wall surrounded their island? The question has been often and

vaguely replied to.

Dr. Kane has at length answered it, and proved the affirmative.

Confining himself strictly to the _land_ of our island (for he does not

enter on the subjects of fisheries and foreign commerce), he has proved

that we possess _physical_ elements for every important art. Not that

he sat down to prove this. Taste, duty, industry, and genius prompted

and enabled him gradually to acquire a knowledge of the physical

products and powers of Ireland, and his mastery of chemical and

mechanical science enabled him to see how these could be used.

Thus qualified, he tried, in the lecture-room of the Dublin Society, to

communicate his knowledge to the public. He was as successful as any

man lecturing on subjects requiring accurate details could be; and now

he has given, in the volume before us, all his lectures, and much more.

He then is no party pamphleteer, pandering to the national vanity; but

a philosopher, who garnered up his knowledge soberly and surely, and

now gives us the result of his studies. There was undoubtedly a good

deal of information on the subjects treated of by Dr. Kane scattered

through our topographical works and parliamentary reports, but that

information is, for the most part, vague, unapplied, and not tested by

science. Dr. Kane's work is full, clear, scientific, exact in stating

places, extent, prices, and every other working detail, and is a manual

of the whole subject.

In such interlaced subjects as industrial resources we must be content

with practical classifications.

Dr. Kane proceeds in the following order:--First, he considers the

_mechanical_ powers of the country--viz., its fuel and its water

powers. Secondly, its _mineral_ resources--its iron, copper, lead,

sulphur, marble, slates, etc. Thirdly, the agriculture of the country

in its first function--the raising of food, and the modes of cropping,

manuring, draining, and stacking. Fourthly, agriculture in its

secondary use, as furnishing staples for the manufacture of woollens,

linens, starch, sugar, spirits, etc. Fifthly, the modes of carrying

internal trade by roads, canals, and railways. Sixthly, the cost and

condition of skilled and unskilled labour in Ireland. Seventhly, our

state as to capital. And he closes by some earnest and profound

thoughts on the need of industrial education in Ireland.

Now, let us ask the reader what he knows upon any or all of these

subjects; and whether he ought, as a citizen, or a man of education, or

a man of business, to be ignorant of them? Such ignorance as exists

here must be got rid of, or our cry of "Ireland for the Irish" will be

a whine or a brag, and will be despised as it deserves. We must know

Ireland from its history to its minerals, from its tillage to its

antiquities, before we shall be an Irish nation, able to rescue and

keep the country. And if we are too idle, too dull, or too capricious

to learn the arts of strength, wealth, and liberty, let us not murmur

at being slaves.

For the present we shall confine ourselves to the subjects of the

mechanical powers and minerals of Ireland, as treated by Dr. Kane.

The first difference between manufactures now and in _any_ former

time is the substitution of machines for the hands of man. It may

indeed be questioned whether the increased strength over matter thus

given to man compensates for the ill effects of forcing people to work

in crowds; of destroying small and pampering large capitalists, of

lessening the distribution of wealth even by the very means which

increases its production.

We sincerely lament, with Lord Wharncliffe, the loss of domestic

manufactures; we would prefer one housewife skilled in the distaff and

the dairy--home-bred, and home-taught, and home-faithful--to a factory

full of creatures who live amid the eternal roll, and clash, and

glimmer of spindles and rollers, watching with aching eyes the thousand

twirls and capable of but one act--tying the broken threads. We abhor

that state; we prefer the life of the old times, or of modern Norway.

But, situated as we are, so near a strong enemy, and in the new highway

from Europe to America, it may be doubted whether we can retain our

simple domestic life. There is but one chance for it. If the Prussian

Tenure Code be introduced, and the people turned into small

proprietors, there is much, perhaps every, hope of retaining our

homestead habits; and such a population need fear no enemy.

If this do not come to pass, we must make the best of our state, join

our chief towns with railways, put quays to our harbours, mills on our

rivers, turbines on our coasts, and under restrictions and with

guarantees set the steam engine to work at our flax, wool, and

minerals.

The two great mechanical powers are fire and water. Ireland is nobly

endowed with both.

We do not possess as ample fields of flaming coal as Britain; but even

of that we have large quantities, which can be raised at about the same

rate at which English coal can be landed on our coast.

The chief seats of flaming coal in Ireland are to the west of Lough

Allen, in Connaught, and around Dungannon, in Tyrone. There is a small

district of it in Antrim.

The stone coal, or anthracite, which, having little gas, does not

blaze, and, having much sulphur, is disagreeable in a room, and has

been thought unfit for smelting, is found--first, in the Kilkenny

district, between the Nore and Barrow; secondly, from Freshford to

Cashel; and thirdly, in the great Munster coal country, cropping up in

every barony of Clare, Limerick, Cork, and Kerry. By the use of vapour

with it, the anthracite appears to be freed from all its defects as a

smelting and engine coal, and being a much more pure and powerful fuel

than the flaming coal, there seems no reason to doubt that in it we

have a manufacturing power that would supply us for generations.

Our bogs have not been done justice to. The use of turf in a damp state

turns it into an inferior fuel. Dried under cover, or broken up and

dried under pressure, it is more economical, because far more

efficient. It is used now in the Shannon steamers, and its use is

increasing in mills. For some purposes it is peculiarly good--thus, for

the finer ironworks, turf and turf-charcoal are even better than wood,

and Dr. Kane shows that the precious Baltic iron, for which from L15 to

L35 per ton is given, could be equalled by Irish iron smelted by Irish

turf for six guineas per ton.

Dr. Kane proves that the cost of fuel, even if greater in Ireland, by

no means precludes us from competing with England; he does so by

showing that the cost of fuel in English factories is only from 1 to

1-1/2 per cent., while in Ireland it would be only 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 per

cent., a difference greatly overbalanced by our cheaper labour--labour

being over 33 per cent. of the whole expense of a factory.

Here is the analysis of the cost of producing cotton in England in

1830:--

Cotton wool L8,244,693 or per cent. 26.27

Wages 10,419,000 " 33.16

Interest on capital 3,400,000 " 10.84

Coals 339,680 " 1.08

Rent, taxes, insurance,

other charges, and profit 8,935,320 " 28.65

---------- ------

L31,338,693 100.00

In water-power we are still better off. Dr. Kane calculates the rain

which falls on Ireland in a year at over 100 billion cubic yards; and

of this he supposes two-thirds to pass off in evaporation, leaving

one-third, equal to nearly a million and a half of horse-power, to

reach the sea. His calculations of the water-power of the Shannon and

other rivers are most interesting. The elements, of course, are the

observed fall of rain by the gauge in the district, and the area of the

catchment (or drainage) basins of each river and its tributaries. The

chief objection to water-power is its irregularity. To remedy this he

proposes to do what has increased the water-power on the Bann

five-fold, and has made the wealth of Greenock--namely, to make

mill-lakes by damming up valleys, and thus controlling and equalising

the supply of water, and letting none go waste. His calculations of the

relative merits of undershot, overshot, breast, and turbine wheels are

most valuable, especially of the last, which is a late and successful

French contrivance, acting by pressure. He proposes to use the turbine

in coast mills, the tide being the motive-power; and, strange as it

sounds, the experiments seem to decide in favour of this plan.

"The turbine was invented by M. Fourneyron. Coals being abundant,

the steam engine is invented in England; coals being scarce, the

water-pressure engine and the turbine are invented in France. It is

thus the physical condition of each country directs its mechanical

genius. The turbine is a horizontal wheel furnished with curved

float-boards, on which the water presses from a cylinder which is

suspended over the wheel, and the base of which is divided by

curved partitions, that the water may be directed in issuing, so as

to produce upon the curved float-boards of the wheel its greatest

effect. The best curvature to be given to the fixed partitions and

to the float-boards is a delicate problem, but practically it has

been completely solved. The construction of the machine is simple,

its parts not liable to go out of order; and as the action of the

water is by pressure, the force is under the most favourable

circumstances for being utilised.

"The effective economy of the turbine appears to equal that of the

overshot wheel. But the economy in the turbine is accompanied by

some conditions which render it peculiarly valuable. In a

water-wheel you cannot have great economy of power without very

slow motion, and hence where high velocity is required at the

working point, a train of mechanism is necessary, which causes a

material loss of force. Now, in the turbine the greatest economy is

accompanied by rapid motion, and hence the connected machinery may

be rendered much less complex. In the turbine also a change in the

height of the head of water alters only the power of the machine in

that proportion, but the whole quantity of water is economised to

the same degree. Thus if a turbine be working with a force of ten

horses, and that its supply of water be suddenly doubled, it

becomes of twenty horse-power; if the supply be reduced to

one-half, it still works five horse-power; whilst such sudden and

extreme change would altogether disarrange water-wheels, which can

only be constructed for the minimum, and allow the overplus to go

to waste."

Our own predilection being in favour of water-power--as cheaper,

healthier, and more fit for Ireland than steam--gave the following

peculiar interest in our eyes:--

"I have noticed at such length the question of the cost of fuel and

of steam power, not from my own opinion of its ultimate importance,

but that we might at once break down that barrier to all active

exertion which indolent ignorance constantly retreats behind. The

cry of 'What can we do? consider England's coal-mines,' is answered

by showing that we have available fuel enough. The lament that

coals are so dear with us and so cheap in England, is, I trust, set

at rest by the evidence of how little influential the price of fuel

is. However, there are other sources of power besides coals; there

are other motive-powers than steam. Of the 83,000 horse-power

employed to give motion to mills in England, 21,000, even in the

coal districts, are not moved by fire, but by water. The force of

gravity in falling water can spin and weave as well as the

elasticity of steam; and in this power we are not deficient. It is

necessary to study its circumstances in detail, and I shall

therefore next proceed to discuss the condition of Ireland with

regard to water-power."

Dr. Kane proves that we have at Arigna an _inexhaustible_ supply

of the richest iron ore, with coals to smelt it, lime to flux it, and

infusible sand-stone and fire-clay to make furnaces of on the spot. Yet

not a pig or bar is made there now. He also gives in great detail the

extent, analysis, costs of working, and every other leading fact as to

the copper mines of Wicklow, Knockmahon, and Allihies; the lead, gold,

and sulphur mines of Wicklow; the silver mines of Ballylichey, and

details of the building materials and marbles.

He is everywhere precise in his industrial and scientific statements,

and beautifully clear in his style and arrangement.

Why, then, are we a poor province? Dr. Kane quotes Forbes, Quetelet,

etc., to prove the physical strength of our people. He might have

quoted every officer who commanded them to prove their courage and

endurance; nor is there much doubt expressed even by their enemies of

their being quick and inventive. Their soil is productive--the rivers

and harbours good--their fishing _opportunities_ great--so is their

means of making internal communications across their great central

plains. We have immense water and considerable fire power; and, besides

the minerals necessary for the arts of peace, we are better supplied

than almost any country with the finer sorts of iron, charcoal, and

sulphur, wherewith war is now carried on. Why is it, with these means

of amassing and guarding wealth, that we are so poor and paltry? Dr.

Kane thinks we are so from want of industrial education. He is partly

right. The remote causes were repeated foreign invasion, forfeiture,

and tyrannous laws. Ignorance, disunion, self-distrust, quick

credulity, and caprice were the weaknesses engendered in us by

misfortune and misgovernment; and they were then the allies of

oppression; for, had we been willing, we had long ago been rich and

free. Knowledge is now within our reach if we work steadily; and

strength of character will grow upon us by every month of perseverance

and steadiness in politics, trade, and literature.

---------------------------------------------------------------

[42] _The Industrial Resources of Ireland_, by Robert Kane, M.D.,

Secretary to the Council of the Royal Irish Academy, Professor of

Natural Philosophy to the Royal Dublin Society, and of Chemistry to

the Apothecaries' Hall of Ireland. Dublin: Hodges & Smith, 21

College Green.

THE VALUATION OF IRELAND.

The Committee of 1824 was but meagrely supplied with evidence as to

foreign surveys. They begin that subject with a notice of the Survey of

England, made by order of William the Conqueror, and called the

Doomsday Book. That book took six years to execute, and is most

admirably analysed by Thierry.

The following is their summary account of some modern surveys:--

"In France the great territorial survey or _cadastre_ has been in

progress for many years. It was first suggested in 1763, and after

an interval of thirty years, during which no progress was made, it

was renewed by the government of that day, and individuals of the

highest scientific reputation, MM. Lagrange, Laplace, and Delambre,

were consulted with respect to the best mode of carrying into

effect the intention of government. Subsequent events suspended any

effectual operations in the French _cadastre_ till the year 1802,

when a school of topographical engineering was organised. The

operations now in progress were fully commenced in 1808. The

principle adopted is the formation of a central commission acting

in conjunction with the local authorities; the classification of

lands, according to an ascertained value, is made by three resident

proprietors of land in each district, selected by the municipal

council, and by the chief officer of revenue. 'In the course of

thirteen years, one-third only of each department had been

surveyed, having cost the state L120,000 per annum. At the rate at

which it is carried on, it may be computed as likely to require for

its completion a total sum of L4,680,000, or an acreable charge of

8-3/4d.' The delay of the work, as well as the increase of expense,

seem to have been the result of the minuteness of the survey, which

extends to every district field--a minuteness which, for many

reasons, your committee consider both unnecessary and inexpedient

to be sought for in the proposed Survey of Ireland.

"The survey of Bavaria is of modern date, but of equal minuteness.

It is commenced by a primary triangulation, and principal and

verification bases; it is carried on to a second triangulation,

with very accurate instruments, so as to determine 'all the

principal points; the filling up the interior is completed by a

peculiar species of plane table; and in order to do away with the

inaccuracies of the common chain, the triangulation is carried down

on paper to the most minute corners of fields.' _The map is laid

down on a scale of twelve inches to the mile, or

one-five-thousandth part of the real size; and as it contains all

that is required in the most precise survey of property, it is used

in the purchase and sale of real estates._

"The cadastre of Savoy and Piedmont began in 1729, and is stated to

have at once afforded the government the means of apportioning

justly all the territorial contributions, and to have put an end to

litigations between individuals, by ascertaining, satisfactorily,

the bounds of properties.

"The Neapolitan survey under Visconti, and that of the United

States under Heslar, are both stated to be in progress; but your

committee have not had the means of ascertaining on what principles

they are conducted."

The committee adopted a scale for the maps of six inches to a statute

mile, believing, apparently with justice, that a six-inch scale map, if

perfectly well executed, would be minute enough for buyers and sellers

of land, especially as the larger holdings are generally townlands, the

bounds of which they meant to include. And, wherever a greater scale

was needed, the pentagraph afforded a sufficiently accurate plan of

forming maps to it. They, in another point, _proposed_ to differ from

the Bavarian Survey, in omitting field boundaries, as requiring too

much time and expense; but they stated that barony, parish, and

townland boundaries were essential to the utility of the maps. They

also seemed to think that for private purposes their utility would much

depend on their being accompanied, as the Bavarian maps were, by a

memoir of the number of families, houses, size, and description of

farms, and a valuation. And for this purpose they printed all the

forms. The valuation still goes on of the townlands, and classes of

soil in each. The Statistical Memoir has, unfortunately, been stopped,

and no survey or valuation of farms, or holdings as such, has been

attempted. We would _now_ only recall attention to the design of the

Committee of 1824 on the subject.

They proposed to leave the whole Survey to the Board of Ordnance, and

the Valuation to Civil Engineers.

The Valuation has been regulated by a series of Acts of Parliament, and

we shall speak of it presently.

The Survey commenced in 1826, and has gone on under the superintendence

of Colonel Colby, and the local control of Captain Larcom.

The following has been its progress:--First, a base line of about five

miles was measured on the flat shore of Lough Foyle, and from thence

triangular measurements were made by the theodolite and over the whole

country, and all the chief points of mountain, coast, etc.,

ascertained. How accurately this was done has been proved by an

astronomical measurement of the distance from Dublin to Armagh (about

seventy miles), which only differed four feet from the distance

calculated by the Ordnance triangles.

Having completed these large triangles, a detailed survey of the

baronies, parishes, and townlands of each county followed. The field

books were sent to the central station at Mountjoy, and sketched,

engraved on copper, and printed there. The first county published was

Derry, in 1833, and now the townland survey is finished, and all the

counties have now been engraved and issued, except Limerick, Kerry, and

Cork.

The Survey has also engraved a map of Dublin City on the enormous scale

of five feet to a statute mile. This map represents the shape and space

occupied by every house, garden, yard, and pump in Dublin. It contains

antiquarian lettering. Every house, too, is numbered on the map. One of

its sheets, representing the space from Trinity College to the Castle,

is on sale, as we trust the rest of it will be.

Two other sets of maps remain to be executed. First--maps of the towns

of Ireland, on a scale of five feet to a mile. Whatever may be said in

reply to Sir Denham Norrey's demand for a survey of holdings in rural

districts does not apply to the case of towns, and we, therefore, trust

that the holdings will be marked and separately valued in towns.

The other work is a general _shaded_ map of Ireland, on a scale of one

inch to the statute mile. At present, as we elsewhere remarked, the

only tolerable shaded map of Ireland is that of the Railway Commission,

which is on a scale of one inch to four statute miles. Captain Larcom

proposes, and the Commission on the Ordnance Memoir recommend, that

contour lines should be the skeleton of the shading. If this plan be

adopted the publication cannot be for some years; but the shading will

have the accuracy of machine-work instead of mere hand skill. Contours

are lines representing series of levels through a country, and are

inestimable for draining, road-making, and military movements. But

though easily explained to the eye, we doubt our ability to teach their

meaning by words only.

To return to the townland or six-inch survey. The names were corrected

by Messrs. Petrie, O'Donovan, and Curry, from every source accessible

in _Ireland_. Its maps contain the county, barony, parish, townland,

and glebe boundaries, names and acreage; names and representations of

all cities, towns, demesnes, farms, ruins, collieries, forges,

limekilns, tanneries, bleach-greens, wells, etc., etc.; also of all

roads, rivers, canals, bridges, locks, weirs, bogs, ruins, churches,

chapels; they have also the number of feet of every little swell of

land, and a mark for every cabin.

Of course these maps run to an immense number. Thus, for the county of

Galway there are 137 double folio sheets, and for the small county of

Dublin, 28. Where less than half the sheet is covered with engraving

(as occurs towards the edges of a county) the sheet is sold,

uncoloured, for 2_s._ 6_d._; where more than half is covered the price

is 5_s._

In order to enable you to find any sheet so as to know the bearings of

its ground on any other, there is printed for each county an index map,

representing the whole county on one sheet. This sheet is on a small

scale (from one to three miles to an inch), but contains in smaller

type the baronies and parishes, roads, rivers, demesnes, and most of

the information of general interest. This index map is divided by lines

into as many oblong spaces as there are maps of the six-inch scale, and

the spaces are numbered to correspond with the six-inch map. On the

sides of the index maps are tables of the acreage of the baronies and

parishes; and examples of the sort of marks and type used for each

class of subjects in the _six-inch_ maps. Uncoloured, the index map,

representing a whole county, is sold for 2_s._ 6_d._

Whenever those maps are re-engraved, the Irish words will, we trust, be

spelled in an Irish and civilised orthography, and not barbarously, as

at present.

It was proposed to print for each county one or more volumes,

containing the history of the district and its antiquities, the

numbers, and past and present state and occupations of the people, the

state of its agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, and what

means of extending these existed in the county, and its natural

history, including geology, zoology, etc. All this was done for the

town of Derry, much to the service and satisfaction of its people. All

this ought to be _as fully_ done for Armagh, Dublin, Cork, and every

other part of Ireland.

The commissioners recommend that the geology of Ireland (and we would

add natural history generally) should be investigated and published,

not by the topographical surveyors nor in counties, but by a special

board, and for the whole of Ireland; and they are right, for our

plants, rocks, and animals are not within civil or even obvious

topographical boundaries, and we have plenty of Irishmen qualified to

execute it. They also advise that the statistics should be entrusted to

a statistical staff, to be permanently kept up in Ireland. This staff

would take the census every ten years, and would in the intervals

between the beginning and ending of each census have plenty of

statistical business to do for parliament (Irish or Imperial) and for

public departments. If we are ever to have a registry of births, deaths

(with the circumstances of each case), and marriages, some such staff

will be essential to inspect the registry, and work up information from

it. But the history, antiquities, and industrial resources, the

commissioners recommend to have published in county volumes. They are

too solicitous about keeping such volumes to small dimensions; but the

rest of their plans are admirable.

The value of this to Ireland, whether she be a nation or a province,

cannot be overrated. From the farmer and mechanic to the philosopher,

general, and statesman, the benefit will extend, and yet so careless or

so hostile are ministers that they have not conceded it, and so feeble

by dulness or disunion are Irishmen and Irish members, that they cannot

extort even this.

We now come to the last branch of the subject--

THE VALUATION.

The Committee of 1824 recommended only principles of Valuation. They

were three, viz.:--

"Sec. 1. A fixed and uniform principle of valuation applicable

throughout the whole work, and enabling the valuation not only of

townlands, but that of counties to be compared by one common

measure. Sec. 2. A central authority, under the appointment of

government, for direction and superintendence, and for the

generalisation of the returns made in detail. Sec. 3. Local

assistance, regularly organised, furnishing information on the

spot, and forming a check for the protection of private rights."

Accordingly, on the 5th of July, 1825, an Act was passed requiring, in

the first instance, the entry in all the grand jury records of the

names and contents of all parishes, manors, townlands, and other

divisions, and the proportionate assessments. It then went on to

authorise the Lord Lieutenant to appoint surveyors to be paid out of

the Consolidated Fund. These surveyors were empowered to require the

attendance of cess collectors and other inhabitants, and with their

help to examine, and ascertain, and mark the "reputed boundaries of all

and every or any barony, half barony, townland parish, or other

division or denomination of land," howsoever called. The Act also

inflicted penalties on persons removing or injuring any post, stone, or

other mark made by the surveyors; but we believe there has been no

occasion to enforce these clauses, the good sense and good feeling of

the people being ample securities against such wanton crime. Such

survey was not to affect the rights of owners; yet from it lay an

appeal to the Quarter Sessions.

This, as we see, relates to _civil boundaries_, not _valuations_.

In May, 1820, another Act was passed directing the Ordnance officers to

send copies of their maps, as fast as finished, to the Lord Lieutenant,

who was to appoint "_one_ Commissioner of Valuation for _any_

counties"; and to give notice of such appointment to the grand jury of

every such county. Each grand jury was then to appoint an Appeal

Committee for each barony, and a Committee of Revision for the whole

county. This Commission of Valuation was then to appoint from three to

nine fit valuators in the county, who, after trial by the Commissioner,

were to go in parties of three and examine all parts of their district,

and value such portion of it, and set down such valuation in a parish

field book, according to the following average prices:--

"SCALE OF PRICES.

Wheat, at the general average price of 10s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Oats, at the general average price of 6s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Barley, at the general average price of 7s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Potatoes, at the general average price of 1s. 7d. per cwt., of

112 lbs.

Butter, at the general average price of 69s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Beef, at the general average price of 33s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Mutton, at the general average price of 34s. 6d. per cwt., of

112 lbs.

Pork, at the general average price of 25s. 6d. per cwt., of

112 lbs."

That is, having examined each tract--say a hill, a valley, an inch, a

reclaimed bit, and by digging and looking at the soil, they were to

consider what crop it could best produce, considering its soil,

elevation, nearness to markets, and then estimating crops at the

foregoing rate, they were to say how much per acre the tract was, in

their opinion, worth.

From this Parish Field Book the Commissioner was to make out a table of

the parishes and townlands, etc., in each barony, specifying the

average and total value of houses in such sub-divisions, and to forward

it to the high constable, who was to post copies thereof. A vestry of

twenty-pound freeholders and twenty-shilling cesspayers was to be

called in each parish to consider the table. If they did not appeal,

the table was to stand confirmed; if they did appeal, the grand jury

committee of appeal, with the valuation commissioner as chairman, were

to decide upon the appeal; but if the assessor were dissatisfied, the

appeal was to go to the committee of revision. The same committee were

then to revise the _proportionate_ liabilities of _baronies_, subject

to an appeal to the Queen's Bench. The valuation so settled was to be

published in the _Dublin Gazette_, and thenceforward all _grand jury_

and _parish_ rates and cesses were to be levied in the _proportions_

thereby fixed. But no land theretofore exempt from any rate was thereby

made liable. The expenses were to be advanced from the consolidated

fund, and repaid by presentment from the county.

It made the _proportionate_ values of parishes and townlands, pending

the baronial survey and the baronial valuation, to bind after revision

and publication in some newspaper circulating in the county; but

_within three years_ there was to be a second revision, after which

they were to be published in the _Dublin Gazette_, etc., and be final

as to the _proportions_ of all parish or grand jury rates to be paid by

all baronies, parishes, and townlands. It also directed the annexation

of detached bits to the counties respectively surrounding them, and it

likewise provided for the _use_ of the valuation maps and field books

in applotting the grand jury cess charged on the holders of lands, but

such valuation to be merely a guide and not final. From the varying

size and value of holdings this caution was essential.

Under this last Act the valuation has been continued, as every reader

of the country papers must have seen by Mr. Griffith's Notices, and is

now complete in twenty counties, forward in six, begun in two, and not

yet begun in Cork, Kerry, Limerick, or Dublin.

Mr. Griffith's instructions are clear and full, and we strongly

recommend the study of them, and an adherence to their forms and

classifications, to valuators of all private and public properties, so

far as they go. He appointed two classes of valuators--Ordinary

Valuators to make the first valuation all over each county, and Check

Valuators to re-value patches in every district, to test the accuracy

of the ordinary valuators.

The ordinary valuator was to have two copies of the Townland (or

6-inch) Survey. Taking a sheet with him into the district represented

on it, he was to examine the quality of the soil in lots of from fifty

to thirty acres, or still smaller bits, to mark the bounds of each lot

on the survey map, and to enter in his field book the value thereof,

with all the special circumstances specially stated. The examination

was to include digging to ascertain the depth of the soil and the

nature of the subsoil. All land was to be valued at its agricultural

worth, supposing it liberally set, leaving out the value of timber,

turf, etc. Reductions were to be made for elevation above the sea,

steepness, exposure to bad winds, patchiness of soil, bad fences, and

bad roads. Additions were to be made for neighbourhood of limestone,

turf, sea, or other manure, roads, good climate and shelter, nearness

to towns.

The following classification of soils was recommended:--

"ARRANGEMENT OF SOILS.

All soils may be arranged under four heads, each representing the

characteristic ingredients, as--1. Argillaceous, or clayey; 2.

Silicious, or sandy; 3. Calcareous, or limy; 4. Peaty.

For practical purposes it will be desirable to sub-divide each of

these classes:--

Thus argillaceous soils may be divided into three varieties,

viz.--clay, clay loam, and argillaceous alluvial.

Of silicious soils there are four varieties, viz.--sandy, gravelly,

slaty, and rocky.

Of calcareous soils we have three varieties, viz.--limestone,

limestone gravel, and marl.

Of peat soils two varieties, viz.--moor, and peat or bog.

In describing in the field book the different qualities of soils,

the following explanatory words may be used as occasion may

require:--

_Stiff_--Where a soil contains a large proportion, say one-half, or

even more, of tenacious clay, it is called stiff. In dry weather

this kind of soil cracks and opens, and has a tendency to form into

large and hard lumps, particularly if ploughed in wet weather.

_Friable_--Where the soil is loose and open, as is generally the

case in sandy, gravelly, and moory lands.

_Strong_--Where a soil contains a considerable portion of clay, and

has some tendency to form into clods or lumps, it may be called

strong.

_Deep_--Where the soil exceeds ten inches in depth the term deep

may be applied.

_Shallow_--Where the depth of the soil is less than eight inches.

_Dry_--Where the soil is friable, and the subsoil porous (if there

be no springs), the term dry should be used.

_Wet_--Where the soil or subsoil is very tenacious, or where

springs are numerous.

_Sharp_--Where there is a moderate proportion of gravel, or small

stones.

_Fine or Soft_--Where the soil contains no gravel, but is chiefly

composed of very fine sand, or soft, light earth without gravel.

_Cold_--Where the soil rests on a tenacious clay subsoil, and has a

tendency when in pasture to produce rushes and other aquatic

plants.

_Sandy or Gravelly_--Where there is a large proportion of sand or

gravel through the soil.

_Slaty_--Where the slaty substratum is much intermixed with the

soil.

_Worn_--Where the soil has been a long time under cultivation,

without rest or manure.

_Poor_--Where the land is naturally of bad quality.

_Hungry_--Where the soil contains a considerable portion of gravel,

or coarse sand, resting on a gravelly subsoil; on such land manure

does not produce the usual effect.

The _colours of soils_ may also be introduced, as brown, yellow,

blue, grey, red, black, etc.

Also, where applicable, the words steep, level, shrubby, rocky,

exposed, etc., may be used."

Lists of market prices were sent with the field books, and the amounts

then reduced to a uniform rate, which Mr. Griffith fixed at 2_s._ 6_d._

per pound over the prices of produce mentioned in the Act.

Rules were also given for valuation of houses, but we must refer to Mr.

Griffith's work for them.

COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF IRELAND.

While the Irish were excluded from English law and intercourse, England

imposed no restrictions on our trade. The Pale spent its time tilling

and fighting, and it was more sure of its bellyful of blows than of

bread. It had nothing to sell; why tax its trade? The slight commerce

of Dublin was needful to the comforts of the Norman Court in Dublin

Castle. Why should _it_ be taxed? The market of Kilkenny was guarded by

the spears of the Butlers, and from Sligo to Cork the chiefs and towns

of Munster and Connaught--the Burkes, O'Loghlens, O'Sullivans, Galway,

Dingle, and Dunboy--carried on a trade with Spain, and piracy of war

against England. How _could they_ be taxed?

Commercial taxes, too, in those days were hard to be enforced, and more

resembled toll to a robber than contribution to the state. Every great

river and pass in Europe, from the Rhine and the Alps to Berwick and

the Blackwater, was affectionately watched by royal and noble castles

at their narrowest points, and the barge anchored and the caravan

halted to be robbed, or, as the receivers called it, to be taxed.

At last the Pale was stretched round Ireland by art and force. Solitude

and peace were in our plains; but the armed colonist settled in it, and

the native came down from his hills as a tenant or a squatter, and a

kind of prosperity arose.

Protestant and Catholic, native and colonist, had the same

interest--namely, to turn this waste into a garden. They had not, nor

could they have had, other things to export than Sydney or Canada have

now--cattle, butter, hides, and wool. They had hardly corn enough for

themselves; but pasture was plenty, and cows and their hides, sheep and

their fleeces, were equally so. The natives had always been obliged to

prepare their own clothing, and therefore every creaght and digger knew

how to dress wool and skins, and they had found out, or preserved from

a more civilised time, dyes which, to this day, are superior to any

others. Small quantities of woollen goods were exported, but our

assertion holds good that in our war-times there was no manufacture for

export worth naming.

Black Tom Wentworth, the ablest of despots, came here 210 years ago,

and found "small beginnings towards a clothing trade." He at once

resolved to discourage it. He wrote so to the king on July 25th, 1636,

and he was a man true to his enmities. "But," said he, "I'll give them

a linen manufacture instead." Now, the Irish had raised flax and made

and dyed linen from time immemorial. The saffron-coloured linen shirt

was as national as the cloak and birred; so that Strafford rather

introduced the linen manufacture among the new settlers than among the

Irish. Certainly he encouraged it, by sending Irishmen to learn in

Brabant, and by bringing French and Flemings to work in Ireland.

Charles the Second, doubtless to punish us for our most unwise loyalty

to him and his father, assented to a series of Acts prohibiting the

export of Irish wool, cattle, etc., to England or her colonies, and

prohibiting the _direct_ importation of several colonial products

into Ireland. The chief Acts are 12 Charles, c. 4; 15 Charles, c. 7;

and 22 and 23 Charles, c. 26. Thus were the value of land in Ireland,

the revenue, and trade, and manufactures of Ireland--Protestant and

Catholic--stricken by England.

Perhaps we ought to be grateful, though not to England, for these Acts.

They plundered our pockets, but they guarded our souls from being

anglicised. To France and Spain the produce was sent, and the woollen

manufacture continued to increase.

England got alarmed, for Ireland was getting rich. The English lords

addressed King William, stating that "the growth and increase of the

woollen manufacture in Ireland had long been, and would be _ever_,

looked upon with great jealousy by his English subjects, and praying

him, by very strict laws, totally to prohibit and suppress the same."

The Commons said likewise; and William answered comfortably:--"I shall

do all that in me lies to discourage the woollen manufacture in

Ireland, and to encourage the linen manufacture there, and to promote

the trade of England."

He was as good as his word, and even whipped and humbugged the

unfortunate Irish Parliament to pass an Act, putting twenty per cent.

duty on broad and ten per cent. on narrow cloths--

"But it did not satisfy the English parliament, where a perpetual

law was made, prohibiting from the 20th of June, 1699, the

exportation from Ireland of all goods made or mixed with wool,

except to England and Wales, and with the licence of the

commissioners of the revenue; duties had been before laid on the

importation into England equal to a prohibition, therefore this Act

has operated as a total prohibition of the exportation."

There was nothing left but to send the wool raw to England; to smuggle

it and cloths to France and Spain, or to leave the land unstocked. The

first was worst. The export to England declined, smuggling prospered,

"wild geese" for the Brigade and woollen goods were run in exchange for

claret, brandy, and silks; but not much land was left waste. Our silks,

cottons, malt, beer, and almost every other article was similarly

prohibited. Striped linens were taxed thirty per cent., many other

kinds of linen were also interfered with, and twenty-four embargoes in

nineteen years straitened our foreign provision trade. Thus England

kept her pledge of wrath, and broke her promise of service to Ireland.

A vigorous system of smuggling induced her to relax in some points, and

the cannon of the Volunteers blew away the code.

By the Union we were so drained of money, and absentee rents and taxes,

and of spirit in every way, that she no longer needs a prohibitory code

to prevent our competing with her in any market, Irish or foreign. The

Union is prohibition enough, and that England says she will maintain.

Whether it be now possible to create home manufactures, in the old

sense of the word--that is, manufactures made in the homes of the

workers--is doubted.

In favour of such a thing, if it be possible, the arguments are

numberless. Such work is a source of ingenuity and enjoyment in the

cabin of the peasant; it rather fills up time that would be otherwise

idled than takes from other work. Our peasants' wives and daughters

could clothe themselves and their families by the winter night work,

even as those of Norway do, if the peasants possessed the little

estates that Norway's peasants do. Clothes manufactured by hand-work

are more lasting, comfortable, and handsome, and are more natural and

national than factory goods. Besides, there is the strongest of all

reasons in this, that the factory system seems everywhere a poison to

virtue and happiness.

Some invention, which should bring the might of machinery in a

wholesome and cheap form to the cabin, seems the only solution of the

difficulty.

The hazards of the factory system, however, should be encountered, were

it sure to feed our starving millions; but this is dubious.

A Native Parliament can alone judge or act usefully on this momentous

subject. An absentee tax and a resident government, and the progress of

public industry and education, would enable an Irish Parliament to

create vast manufactures here by protecting duties in the first

instance, and to maintain them by our general prosperity, or it could

rely on its own adjustment of landed property as sufficient to put the

people above the need of hazarding purity or content by embarking in

great manufactures.

A peasant proprietary could have wealth enough to import wrought goods,

or taste and firmness enough to prefer home-made manufactures.

But these are questions for other years. We wish the reader to take our

word for nothing, but to consult the writers on Irish trade:--Laurence's

_Interest of Ireland_ (1682); Browne's _Tracts_ (1728); Dobbs on

"Trade" (1729); Hutchinson's _Commercial Restraints_ (1779); Sheffield

on "Irish Trade" (1785); Wallace on "Irish Trade" (1798); the various

"Parliamentary Reports," and the very able articles on the same subject

in the _Citizen_.

Do not be alarmed at the list, reader; a month's study would carry you

through all but the Reports, and it would be well spent. But if you

still shrink, you can ease your conscience by reading Mr. John

O'Connell's Report on "The Commercial Injustices," just issued by the

Repeal Association. It is an elaborate, learned, and most useful tract.

NATIONAL ART.

No one doubts that if he sees a place or an action he knows more of it

than if it had been described to him by a witness. The dullest man, who

"put on his best attire" to welcome Caesar, had a better notion of life

in Rome than our ablest artist or antiquary.

Were painting, then, but a coloured chronicle, telling us facts by the

eye instead of the ear, it would demand the Statesman's care and the

People's love. It would preserve for us faces we worshipped, and the

forms of men who led and instructed us. It would remind us, and teach

our children, not only how these men looked, but, to some extent, what

they were, for nature is consistent, and she has indexed her labours.

It would carry down a pictorial history of our houses, arts, costume,

and manners to other times, and show the dweller in a remote isle the

appearance of countries and races of his cotemporaries.

As a register of _facts--as a portrayer of men, singly, or

assembled--and as a depicter of actual scenery, art is biography,

history, and topography taught through the eye.

So far as it can express facts, it is superior to writing; and nothing

but the scarcity of _faithful_ artists, or the stupidity of the

public, prevents us from having our pictorial libraries of men and

places. There are some classes of scenes--as where continuous action is

to be expressed--in which sculpture quite fails, and painting is but a

shadowy narrator.

But this, after all, though the most obvious and easy use of Painting

and Sculpture, is far indeed from being their highest end.

Art is a regenerator as well as a copyist. As the historian, who

composes a history out of various materials, differs from a newspaper

reporter, who sets down what he sees--as Plutarch differs from Mr.

Grant, and the Abbe Barthelemy from the last traveller in India--so do

the Historical Painter, the Landscape composer (such as Claude or

Poussin) differ from the most faithful Portrait, Landscape, or Scene

Drawer.

The Painter who is a master of composition makes his pencil cotemporary

with all times and ubiquitous. Keeping strictly to nature and fact,

Romulus sits for him and Paul preaches. He makes Attila charge, and

Mohammed exhort, and Ephesus blaze when he likes. He tries not rashly,

but by years of study of men's character, and dress, and deeds, to make

them and their acts come as in a vision before him. Having thus got a

design, he attempts to realise the vision on his canvas. He pays the

most minute attention to truth in his drawing, shading, and colouring,

and by imitating the force of nature in his composition, all the clouds

that ever floated by him, "the lights of other days," and the forms of

the dead, or the stranger, hover over him.

But Art in its higher stage is more than this. It is a creator. Great

as Herodotus and Thierry are, Homer and Beranger are greater. The ideal

has resources beyond the actual. It is infinite, and Art is

indefinitely powerful. The Apollo is more than noble, and the Hercules

mightier than man. The Moses of Michael Angelo is no likeness of the

inspired law-giver, nor of any other that ever lived, and Raphael's

Madonnas are not the faces of women. As Reynolds says, "the effect of

the capital works of Michael Angelo is that the observer feels his

whole frame enlarged." It is creation, it is representing beings and

things different from our nature, but true to their own. In this

self-consistency is the only nature requisite in works purely

imaginative. Lear is true to his nature, and so are Mephistopheles, and

Prometheus, and Achilles; but they are not true to human nature; they

are beings created by the poets' minds, and true to _their_ laws

of being. There is no commoner blunder in men, who are themselves mere

critics, never creators, than to require consistency to the nature of

us and our world in the works of poet or painter.

To create a mass of great pictures, statues, and buildings is of the

same sort of ennoblement to a people as to create great poems or

histories, or make great codes, or win great battles. The next best,

though far inferior, blessing and power is to inherit such works and

achievements. The lowest stage of all is neither to possess nor to

create them.

Ireland has had some great Painters--Barry and Forde, for example, and

many of inferior but great excellence; and now she boasts high

names--Maclise, Hogan, and Mulready. But their works were seldom done

for Ireland, and are rarely known in it. Our portrait and landscape

Painters paint foreign men and scenes; and, at all events, the Irish

people do not see, possess, nor receive knowledge from their works.

Irish history has supplied no subjects for our greatest Artists; and

though, as we repeat, Ireland possessed a Forde and Barry, creative

Painters of the highest order, the pictures of the latter are mostly

abroad; those of the former unseen and unknown. Alas! that they are so

few.

To collect into, and make known, and publish in Ireland the best works

of our living and dead Artists is one of the steps towards procuring

for Ireland a recognised National Art. And this is essential to our

civilisation and renown. The other is by giving education to students

and rewards to Artists, to make many of this generation true

representers, some of them great illustrators and composers, and,

perchance, to facilitate the creation of some great spirit.

Something has been done--more remains.

There are schools in Dublin and Cork. But why are those so neglected

and imperfect? and why are not similar or better institutions in

Belfast, Derry, Galway, Waterford, and Kilkenny? Why is there not a

decent collection of casts anywhere but in Cork, and why are they in a

garret there? And why have we no gallery of Irishmen's, or any other

men's, pictures in Ireland?

The Art Union has done a great deal. It has helped to support in

Ireland artists who should otherwise have starved or emigrated; it has

dispersed one (when, oh when, will it disperse another?) fine print of

a fine Irish picture through the country, and to some extent interested

as well as instructed thousands. Yet it could, and we believe will, do

much more. It ought to have Corresponding Committees in the principal

towns to preserve and rub up old schools of art and foster new ones,

and it might by art and historical libraries, and by other ways, help

the cause. We speak as friends, and suggest not as critics, for it has

done good service.

The Repeal Association, too, in offering prizes for pictures and

sculptures of Irish historical subjects, has taken its proper place as

the patron of nationality in art; and its rewards for Building Designs

may promote the comfort and taste of the people, and the reputation of

the country. If artists will examine the rules by which the pictures,

statues, and plates remain their property, they will find the prizes

not so small as they might at first appear. Nor should they, from

interest or just pride, be indifferent to the popularity and fame of

success on national subjects, and with a People's Prizes to be

contended for. If those who are not Repealers will treat the

Association's design kindly and candidly, and if the Repealers will act

in art upon principles of justice and conciliation, we shall not only

advance national art, but gain another field of common exertion.

The Cork School of Art owes its existence to many causes.

The intense, genial, and Irish character of the people, the southern

warmth and variety of clime, with its effects on animal and vegetable

beings, are the natural causes.

The accident of Barry's birth there, and his great fame, excited the

ambition of the young artists. An Irishman and a Corkman had gone out

from them, and amazed men by the grandeur and originality of his works

of art. He had thrown the whole of the English painters into

insignificance, for who would compare the luscious commonplace of the

Stuart painters, or the melodramatic reality of Hogarth, or the

imitative beauty of Reynolds, or the clumsy strength of West, with the

overbearing grandeur of his works?

But the _present_ glories of Cork, Maclise and Hogan, the greater,

but buried might of Forde, and the rich promise which we know is

springing there now, are mainly owing to another cause; and that is,

that Cork possesses a gallery of the finest casts in the world.

These casts are not very many--117 only; but they are perfect, they are

the first from Canova's moulds, and embrace the greatest works of Greek

art. They are ill-placed in a dim and dirty room--more shame to the

rich men of Cork for leaving them so--but there they are, and there

studied Forde, and Maclise, and the rest, until they learned to draw

better than any moderns, except Cornelius and his living brethren.

In the countries where art is permanent there are great

collections--Tuscany and Rome, for example. But, as we have said

before, the highest service done by success in art is not in the

possession but in the creation of great works, the spirit, labour,

sagacity, and instruction needed by the artists to succeed, and flung

out by them on their country like rain from sunny clouds.

Indeed, there is some danger of a traditionary mediocrity following

after a great epoch in art. Superstition of style, technical rules in

composition, and all the pedantry of art, too often fill up the ranks

vacated by veteran genius, and of this there are examples enough in

Flanders, Spain, and even Italy. The schools may, and often do, make

men scholastic and ungenial, and art remains an instructor and refiner,

but creates no more.

Ireland, fortunately or unfortunately, has everything to do yet. We

have had great artists--we have not their works--we own the nativity of

great living artists--they live on the Tiber and the Thames. Our

capital has no school of art--no facilities for acquiring it.

To be sure, there are rooms open in the Dublin Society, and they have

not been useless, that is all. But a student here cannot learn anatomy,

save at the same expense as a surgical student. He has no great works

of art before him, no Pantheon, no Valhalla, not even a good museum or

gallery.

We think it may be laid down as unalterably true that a student should

never draw from a flat surface. He learns nothing by drawing from the

lines of another man--he only mimics. Better for him to draw chairs and

tables, bottles and glasses, rubbish, potatoes, cabins, or kitchen

utensils, than draw from the lines laid down by other men.

Of those forms of nature which the student can originally consult--the

sea, the sky, the earth--we would counsel him to draw from them in the

first learning; for though he ought afterwards to analyse and mature

his style by the study of works of art, from the first sketches to the

finished picture, yet, by beginning with nature and his own

suggestions, he will acquire a genuine and original style, superior to

the finest imitation; and it is hard to acquire a master's skill

without his manner.

Were all men cast in a divine mould of strength and straightness and

gallant bearing, and all women proportioned, graceful, and fair, the

artist would need no gallery, at least to begin his studies with. He

would have to persuade or snatch his models in daily life. Even then,

as art creates greater and simpler combinations than ever exist in

fact, he should finally study before the superhuman works of his

predecessors.

But he has about him here an indifferently-made, ordinary, not very

clean, nor picturesquely-clad people; though, doubtless, if they had

the feeding, the dress, and the education (for mind beautifies the

body) of the Greeks, they would not be inferior, for the Irish

structure is of the noblest order.

To give him a multitude of fine natural models, to say nothing of ideal

works, it is necessary to make a gallery of statues or casts. The

statues will come in good time, and we hope, and are sure, that

Ireland, a nation, will have a national gallery, combining the greatest

works of the Celtic and Teutonic races. But at present the most that

can be done is to form a gallery.

Our readers will be glad to hear that this great boon is about to be

given to Irish Art. A society for the formation of a gallery of casts

in Dublin has been founded.

It embraces men of every rank, class, creed, politics, and calling,

thus forming another of those sanctuaries, now multiplying in Ireland,

where one is safe from the polemic and the partisan.

Its purpose is to purchase casts of all the greatest works of Greece,

Egypt, Etruria, ancient Rome, and Europe in the middle ages. This will

embrace a sufficient variety of types, both natural and ideal, to

prevent imitation, and will avoid the debateable ground of modern art.

Wherever they can afford it the society will buy moulds, in order to

assist provincial galleries, and therefore the provinces are

immediately interested in its support.

When a few of these casts are got together, and a proper gallery

procured, the public will be admitted to see, and artists to study,

them without any charge. The annual subscription is but ten shillings,

the object being to interest as many as possible in its support.

It has been suggested to us by an artist that Trinity College ought to

establish a gallery and museum containing casts of all the ancient

statues, models of their buildings, civil and military, and a

collection of their implements of art, trade, and domestic life. A

nobler institution, a more vivid and productive commentary on the

classics, could not be. But if the Board will not do this of

themselves, we trust they will see the propriety of assisting this

public gallery, and procuring, therefore, special privileges for the

students in using it.

But no matter what persons in authority may do or neglect, we trust the

public--for the sake of their own pleasure, their children's profit,

and Ireland's honour--will give it their instant and full support.

HINTS FOR IRISH HISTORICAL PAINTINGS.

National art is conversant with national subjects. We have Irish

artists, but no Irish, no national art. This ought not to continue; it

is injurious to the artists, and disgraceful to the country. The

following historical subjects were loosely jotted down by a friend.

Doubtless, a more just selection could be made by students noting down

fit subjects for painting and sculpture, as they read. We shall be

happy to print any suggestions on the subject--our own are, as we call

them, mere hints with loose references to the authors or books which

suggested them. For any good painting, the marked figures must be few,

the action obvious, the costume, arms, architecture, postures

historically exact, and the manners, appearance, and rank of the

characters strictly studied and observed. The grouping and drawing

require great truth and vigour. A similar set of subjects illustrating

social life could be got from the Poor Report, Carleton's, Banim's, or

Griffin's stories, or, better still, from observation.

The references are vague, but perhaps sufficient.

The Landing of the Milesians.--Keating, Moore's Melodies.

Ollamh Fodhla Presenting his Laws to his People. Keating's,

Moore's, and O'Halloran's Histories of Ireland.--Walker's Irish

Dress and Arms, and Vallancey's Collectanea.

Nial and his Nine Hostages.--Moore, Keating.

A Druid's Augury.--Moore, O'Halloran, Keating.

A Chief Riding out of his Fort.--Griffin's Invasion, Walker, Moore.

The Oak of Kildare.--Moore.

The Burial of King Dathy in the Alps, his thinned troops laying

stones on his grave.--M'Geoghegan, "Histoire de l'Irlande" (French

edition), Invasion, Walker, Moore.

St. Patrick brought before the Druids at Tara.--Moore and his

Authorities.

The First Landing of the Danes.--See Invasion, Moore, etc.

The Death of Turgesius.--Keating, Moore.

Ceallachan tied to the Mast.--Keating.

Murkertach Returning to Aileach.--Archaeological Society's Tracts.

Brian Reconnoitring the Danes before Clontarf.

The Last of the Danes Escaping to his Ship.

O'Ruare's Return.--Keating, Moore's Melodies.

Raymond Le Gros Leaving his Bride.--Moore.

Roderick in Conference with the Normans.--Moore, M'Geoghegan.

Donald O'Brien Setting Fire to Limerick.--M'Geoghegan.

Donald O'Brien Visiting Holycross.--M'Geoghegan.

O'Brien, O'Connor, and M'Carthy making Peace to attack the

Normans.--M'Geoghegan, Moore.

The Same Three Victorious at the Battle of Thurles.--Moore and

O'Conor's Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores.

Irish Chiefs leaving Prince John.--Moore, etc.

M'Murrough and Gloster.--Harris's Hibernica, p. 53.

Crowning of Edward Bruce.--Leland, Grace's Annals, etc.

Edgecombe Vainly Trying to Overawe Kildare.--Harris's Hibernica.

Kildare "On the Necks of the Butlers."--Leland.

Shane O'Neill at Elizabeth's Court.--Leland.

Lord Sydney Entertained by Shane O'Neill.

The Battle of the Red Coats.--O'Sullivan's Catholic History.

Hugh O'Neill Victor in Single Combat at Clontibret.--Fynes Moryson,

O'Sullivan, M'Geoghegan.

The Corleius.--Dymmok's Treatise, Archaeological Society's Tracts.

Maguire and St. Leger in Single Combat.--M'Geoghegan.

O'Sullivan Crossing the Shannon.--Pacata Hibernia.

O'Dogherty Receiving the Insolent Message of the Governor of

Derry.--M'Geoghegan.

The Brehon before the English Judges.--Davis's Letter to Lord

Salisbury.

Ormond Refusing to give up his Sword.--Carte's Life of Ormond.

Good Lookers-on.--Strafford's Letters.

Owen Conolly before the Privy Council, 1641.--Carey's Vindiciae.

The Battle of Julianstown.--Temple's Rebellion, and Tichbourne's

Drogheda.

Owen Roe Organising the Creaghts.--Carte, and also Belling and

O'Neill in the Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica.

The Council of Kilkenny.--Carte.

The Breach of Clonmel.--Do.

Smoking Out the Irish.--Ludlow's Memoirs.

Burning Them.--Castlehaven's Memoirs.

Nagle before the Privy Council.--Harris's William.

James's Entry into Dublin.--Dublin Magazine for March, 1843.

The Bridge of Athlone.--Green Book and Authorities.

St. Ruth's Death.--Do.

The Embarkation from Limerick.--Do.

Cremona.--Cox's Magazine.

Fontenoy.--Do.

Sir S. Rice Pleading against the Violation of the Treaty of

Limerick.--Staunton's Collection of Tracts on Ireland.

Molyneux's Book burned.

Liberty Boys Reading a Drapier's Letter.--Mason's St. Patrick's

Cathedral.

Lucas Surrounded by Dublin Citizens in his Shop.

Grattan Moving Liberty.--Memoirs.

Flood Apostrophising Corruption.--Barrington.

Dungannon Convention.--Wilson, Barrington.

Curran Cross-Examining Armstrong.--Memoirs.

Curran Pleading before the Council in Alderman James's Case.

Tone's First Society.--See his Memoirs.

The Belfast Club.--Madden's U. I., Second Series, vol. i.

Tone, Emmet, and Keogh in the Rathfarnham Garden.

Tone and Carnot.--Tone's Memoirs.

Battle of Oulart.--Hay, Teeling, etc.

First Meeting of the Catholic Association.

O'Connell Speaking in a Munster Chapel.--Wyse's Association.

The Clare Hustings.--Proposal of O'Connell.

The Dublin Corporation Speech.

Father Mathew Administering the Pledge in a Munster County.

Conciliation.--Orange and Green.

The Lifting of the Irish Flags of a National Fleet and Army.

OUR NATIONAL LANGUAGE.

Men are ever valued most for peculiar and original qualities. A man who

can only talk commonplace, and act according to routine, has little

weight. To speak, look, and do what your own soul from its depths

orders you are credentials of greatness which all men understand and

acknowledge. Such a man's dictum has more influence than the reasoning

of an imitative or commonplace man. He fills his circle with

confidence. He is self-possessed, firm, accurate, and daring. Such men

are the pioneers of civilisation and the rulers of the human heart.