myrtles. The frescoed arcades are brilliant with the poetic legends of
the church of Toledo, among which are St. Leocadia refusing to
sacrifice to Jupiter, and Santa Casilda, a Moorish princess converted
to the faith, visiting the Christians in her father’s dungeons. Around
the gate of the Niño Perdido is painted the legend from which it
derives its name, similar to that of St. Hugh of Lincoln. This “lost
child” was of Christian parentage, and kidnapped in 1490 by the Jews,
who carried him to La Guardia. On Good Friday they took him to a
neighboring cave and made him undergo all the tortures of the Passion,
finally crucifying him at the ninth hour, at which time his blind
mother, who was at a distance, is said to have suddenly recovered her
sight. His heart was torn out and wrapped up with a consecrated Host,
as if from some dim sense of the connection between the Sacred Heart
and the Holy Eucharist, and sent by a renegade to the Jews of Zamora.
In passing through Avila he entered the cathedral, and, while
pretending to pray, the people were surprised to see rays of light
issue from his person. They thought he was a saintly pilgrim, and
reported the occurrence to the holy office. He was questioned, and,
his replies being unsatisfactory, was arrested and convicted of being
accessory to the crime.
On the Plaza Zocodover once took place the bull-fights and other
public spectacles of Toledo. It has always been a market-place, and,
above the arcades, is the chapel of the Christo de la Sangre, where
Mass used to be said for the benefit of the market-men, who could thus
attend to their devotions without leaving their stalls.
It is on the Plaza Zocodover you may make the pleasant acquaintance of
“a most sweet Spaniard, the comfit-maker of Toledo, who can teach
sugar to slip down your throat a million of ways,” and by none easier
than what is called the _eel_ of Toledo, which could not have been
surpassed in Shakspere’s time――a most delicious compound of
sweet-meats, fashioned like a huge eel, which is sold coiled up in a
box. If the famous eels of Bolsena are to be compared with those of
Toledo, it is not surprising that, as Dante implies, they even tempted
Pope Martin the Fourth, particularly if he had been recently
subjected, like us, to the “divine diet” of the Fonda de Lino!
There are numerous charitable institutions at Toledo, due to the
munificence of its great prelates, who, if they had immense revenues,
knew how to spend them like princes of the church. Cardinal Mendoza
spent enormous sums on the magnificent hospital of Santa Cruz, which
is now converted into a military academy. Here the cross, which the
cardinal triumphantly placed on the captured Alhambra in 1492, and
which forms the device on his arms, is everywhere glorified. This
hospital is noted for its unrivalled sculptures of the Renaissance,
particularly those of the grand portal, which is really a jewel of
art. The discovery of the True Cross by St. Helena is appropriately
the chief subject. The beautiful _patio_ is surrounded by Moorish
galleries which, as well as the staircases, are sculptured. On all
sides are the Mendoza arms, with its motto composed by an angel: _Ave
Maria, gratia plena_. The rooms have fine Moorish ceilings. The church
is peculiar in shape, being in the form of a Mendoza cross, with four
long arms of equal length. The right transept is now used for
gymnastic exercises, and the left one as a school-room. On the wall
still hangs the portrait of its great founder, expressive of lofty
purpose. He was familiar with the din of camps, as well as with the
peaceful duties of charity, and does not look out of his element in
this military school. The building is a grand monument to his memory,
and one of the wonders of Toledo.
The hospital of St. John the Baptist was built by Cardinal de Tavera
in the sixteenth century, and in so magnificent a style as to make
people reverse the murmuring of Judas and say: “To what purpose is
this waste? And why hath all this money been given to the poor?” The
tomb of the beneficent prelate, sculptured by Berruguete, is in the
centre of the nave. It is in the _cinque-cento_ style. At the corners
stand some of the virtues that adorned his life: Prudence, with a
mirror and mask; Justice, with scales; Fortitude, with her tower; and
Temperance, pouring water from a vase. Over the tomb still hangs the
cardinal’s hat, after three hundred years.
In front of this hospital is a small promenade, ornamented with rude
statues of the old Gothic kings. Keeping on, outside the city walls,
we passed tower after tower of defence at the left, while at the right
lay the Vega, where are still some remains of an old Roman
amphitheatre. At length we came to the ruined palace of Roderick, the
last of the Goths, built by good King Wamba of more pleasant memory.
In a niche is a rough statue, purporting to be Don Roderick himself,
looking where he has no business to look――down on the baths of
Florinda. An immense convent beyond towers up over the walls, like a
prison with its grated windows, that are dismal from without, but
which command an admirable view over the valley of the Tagus, along
whose banks rise steep cliffs like palisades, with here and there an
old Moorish mill. Just below, the river is spanned by St. Martin’s
bridge with its ancient fortifications. On the rough hills beyond are
numerous _cigarrales_, or country-seats. There is something wild and
melancholy about the whole scene. The river itself rushes on in a
fierce, ungovernable manner, as if it had never come under the
influences of civilization. It comes from the palæontologic mountains
of Albarracin, and flows on hundreds of miles, disdaining all
commercial appliances, in lonely, lordly grandeur, till lost in the
Atlantic. Its current is clear, green, and rapid, though poets sing it
as the river of the golden waves. Don Quixote tells of four nymphs who
come forth from its waters and seat themselves in the green meadow to
broider their rich silken tissues with gold and pearls, referring to
Garcilasso de la Vega, the poet-warrior of Toledo, who says:
“De cuatro ninfas, que del Tajo amado
Salieron juntas, acantar me ofresco.…”
Farther up the river are a few Arab arches of the palace of Galiana, a
heroine of ancient romance. She was the daughter of King Alfahri, who
gave her this rural retreat, and embellished it in every possible way.
The young princess was of marvellous beauty, and generally lived here
to escape from her numerous suitors, among whom was Bradamante, a
gigantic Moorish prince from Guadalajara. This redoubtable wooer
endeavored, but in vain, to soften her heart. He only served to keep
his rivals in check. At length a foreign prince, none other than the
mighty Charlemagne himself, came to aid her father in the war against
the King of Cordova. He was at once captivated by the beauty of
Galiana, and, as she showed herself by no means insensible to his
advances, he soon ventured to ask her hand in marriage. To dispose of
Prince Bradamante, he challenged him to a private combat, and struck
off his head, which he offered to the bride-elect. This obstacle
removed, the wedding soon took place, and Galiana was triumphantly
carried to France. Some pretend Charlemagne never crossed the Ebro,
but we have unlimited faith in the legend, on which numberless songs
and romances are based, and sold to this day by blind men on the
public squares of Toledo.
One of the attractions of Toledo is Santa Maria la Blanca, an ancient
Jewish synagogue in the style of the mosque of Cordova, which, after
many vicissitudes, has become a Catholic church. The name is derived
from the ancient legend of Our Lady _ad nives_――of the snow――which led
to the foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, and is evidently
popular in Spain from the number of churches bearing the name. That at
Toledo is very striking from the horse-shoe arches, one above the
other, supported by octagon pillars with curiously-wrought capitals.
There are lace-like wheels along the frieze of the nave, and the roof
is of cedar――a tree sacred to the Jews, and which they say only came
to perfection in the Garden of Eden. In their epitaphs we often read:
“He is gone down to the Garden of Eden, to those who are amongst the
cedars.”
The Transito is another old synagogue, which was erected in the days
of Don Pedro the Cruel by Samuel Levi, his wealthy treasurer. The
architects were probably Moors, for it is decorated in the style of
the Alhambra. It consists only of one nave, but this is richly
ornamented. Along the walls are Hebrew inscriptions, said to be in
part from the Psalms, and partly in praise of Samuel Levi. His praises
were not on the lips of the people, however. On the contrary, he was
very obnoxious to them on account of his exorbitant taxes, and when
put to the torture by Don Pedro, he was by no means regretted. The
Jews were specially detested at Toledo. It is said they opened the
city to the Moors, and subsequently to the Christians, and were
faithful to neither party. When expelled in 1492, this building was
given to the Knights of Calatrava.
The church of San Juan de los Reyes was built in 1476 by Ferdinand and
Isabella in gratitude for a victory over the Portuguese. It is now a
parish church, but was first given to the Franciscans, whose long
knotted cord is carved along the frieze. It is magnificently situated
on a height overlooking the Tagus. An immense number of chains are
suspended on the outer walls, taken from Christian captives in the
dungeons of the Alhambra. These glorious trophies were brought from
Granada in 1492, and cannot be regarded without emotion. It is
said――but who can believe it?――that some of them were recently used by
the authorities to enclose a public promenade, to save the expense of
buying new ones――a most odious piece of economy, of which Samuel Levi
himself would not have been guilty. The portal of this church is a
beautiful example of the Plateresco style, exquisite as goldsmith’s
work, with its fretted niches and sculptured shields. The building,
though only intended for a conventual church, is of grand proportions
and richly ornamented. The emblems of Ferdinand and Isabella, with
other heraldic devices, are sculptured amid delicate foliage around
the royal gallery, and over the high altar Cardinal Mendoza is painted
at the foot of the cross.
The cloisters adjoining, of the florid Gothic style, are exquisitely
beautiful. They are built around a pleasant court, which has a
fountain in the centre, and a profusion of orange-trees and myrtles.
The niches of the arcades are peopled with saints, and the columns and
arches covered with an endless variety of acanthus leaves, lilies,
bellflowers, ivy, holly, and even the humbler vegetables, carved with
a skill that reminded us of Scott’s well-known lines:
“Thou wouldst have thought some fairy’s hand
Had framed a spell, when the work was done,
And changed the willow wreaths to stone.”
The convent has been sequestered, and the Gothic refectory of the
friars is now the public museum. Near by was the palace of Cardinal
Ximenes, who was a member of the Franciscan Order.
To say nothing about the swords of Toledo would be almost like leaving
the hero out of the play. Spanish weapons have been renowned from
ancient times. Titus Livius and Martial mention them. Cicero alludes
to the _pugiunculus Hispaniensis_. Gratius Faliscus, a friend of
Ovid’s, speaks, in particular, of the _Cultrum Toledanum_ which
hunters wore at their belts:
“Ima Toledano præcingunt ilia cultro.”
Swords continued to be fabricated at Toledo in the time of the Gothic
kings. Their broad, two-edged swords were probably the type of the
_alfanjes_ of the Moors, which we see in the paintings in the
Alhambra. The kings of Castile accorded special privileges to the
corporations of _espaderos_, such as exemption from taxes on the steel
they used. This was brought from the Basque provinces, about a mile
from Mondragon.
“Vencedora espada,
De Mondragon tu acero,
Y en Toledo templada.”
――“Sword victorious, thy steel is from Mondragon, but tempered at
Toledo.”
The most ancient Toledan sword-maker known is a Moor called _Del Rey_,
because Ferdinand the Catholic stood as godfather at his conversion.
His mark was a _perrillo_, or little dog, which was so famous that Don
Quixote speaks of it. But the swords of Spain were in general renowned
all over Europe in the middle ages. Froissart speaks of the short
Spanish dagger with a wide blade. We know by Shakspere how much this
weapon was prized in England. It was a trusty Toledo blade Othello
kept in his chamber.
The great blow to the sword manufactory of Toledo was the introduction
of French costumes in the seventeenth century, in which swords were
dispensed with. Carlos III. resolved to revive this industry, and
erected the present fabric on the right shore of the Tagus, more than
a mile from the city. The swords are inferior in quality and lack
their former elegance of form. They participate in the degeneracy of
those who wield them. Spain, once noble, chivalrous, and of deep
convictions, has lost its fine temper and keenness of thrust. The raw
material out of which such wonders were wrought in the old days
remains still, however, in the people as in the country. It only needs
a return to old principles of faith and honor on the part of the
ruling classes to prepare the way for a new Spanish history, more
glorious and more advantageous to the world at large than even Spain
has ever known.
[190] It was M. Hérouard, a French refugee, employed at the
military academy at Toledo as professor of French, who,
hunting one day, in 1858, among the hills of Guarrazar,
found a fragment of a gold chain that was glittering in the
sun, and, digging, discovered the crowns that have been so
much admired at Paris, and which are even more valuable for
their historic interest than for the gold and precious
stones. Later researches have brought others to light, but
smaller in size, that are now in the Armeria at Madrid.
ENGLISH RULE IN IRELAND.
No one can pass from England into Ireland without being struck by the
contrast in the condition of the two countries――a contrast so marked
and absolute that it is revealed at the first glance, and in lines so
bold and rigid that it seems to have been produced by nature itself.
In England there is wealth, thrift, prosperity; in Ireland, poverty,
helplessness, decay. Into the great heart of London, through arteries
that stretch round the globe, the riches of the whole earth are
poured. Dublin is a city of the past, and, in spite of its imposing
structures, impresses us sadly. The English cities are busy marts of
commerce or homes of comfort, luxury, and learning. The Irish towns
are empty, silent, decayed. Into England’s ports come the ships of all
the nations; but in Ireland’s hardly a sail is unfurled. There the
chimneys of innumerable factories shut out with their black smoke the
light of heaven; here the Round Tower or the crumbling ruin stands as
a monument of death. England is over-crowded; in Ireland we travel for
miles without meeting a human being; pass through whole counties from
which the people have disappeared to make room for cattle. Freedom is
in the very air of England: the people go about their business or
pleasure in a sturdy, downright way, and in a conscious security under
the protection of wise laws; in Ireland we cannot take a step without
being offended by evidences of oppression and misrule. The people are
disarmed and unprotected, guarded by a foreign soldiery, the servants
of an alien aristocracy.
To what causes must we ascribe this wide difference in the condition
of two islands, separated by a narrow strip of sea, with but slight
dissimilarity of climate, and governed ostensibly for now nearly seven
hundred years by the same laws?
The explanation given universally by English writers, with the tone
with which one is accustomed to affirm axiomatic truths, is based upon
the dissimilarity of the two peoples in natural character and in
religious faith. The Irish, they say, are by nature discontented,
idle, and thriftless, and their religion is in fatal opposition to
liberty and progress. The subject is worthy of our attention. Ireland
is an anomaly in European history. Just at the time when the other
Christian nations, after overcoming the divisions and feuds of a
barbarous age, were settling down into the unity which renders
harmonious development possible, the seed of perpetual discord and
never-ending strife was planted ineradicably in her soil. Three
hundred years of almost incessant warfare with the Dane had left her
exhausted and divided, an easy prey to the Norman barons, who
introduced into her national life a foreign blood and an alien
civilization.
From that day to the present time Ireland’s fate has been the saddest
of which history has preserved the record. There has been no peace, no
liberty, no progress. Opposing races, contrary civilizations, and
opposite religions have clashed in such fierce and bloody battles that
we could almost fancy the furies of the abyss had been let loose to
smite and scourge the doomed land. Mercy, justice, all human feelings
have been banished from this struggle, which has been one of brute
force and fiendish cunning. Whatever the stronger has been able to do
has been done; and there is no good reason for believing that England,
in her dealings with Ireland, has ever passed one just law or
redressed one wrong from a humane or honorable motive. From the
conquest to the schism of Henry VIII., a period of nearly four
centuries, the English colonists, entrenched within the Pale and
receiving continually reinforcements from the mother country, formed a
nation within a nation, always armed and watching every opportunity to
make inroads upon the possessions of the native princes, who were not
slow to return blow for blow. There was no security for life or
property; the people were left to the mercy of barons and kings, to be
robbed and pillaged or butchered in their broils. Nothing could be
more inhuman than English legislation in Ireland during these four
centuries, unless it be English legislation in Ireland during the
three centuries which followed. Henry II. confiscated the whole
island, dividing the land among ten of his chief followers; though
they were able to hold possession of but a small part of the country.
In the legal enactments and official documents of this period the term
habitually used to designate the native population is “the Irish
enemy.” They were never spoken of except as “the wild Irish,” until,
as an English writer affirms, the term “wild Irish” became as familiar
in the English language as the term wild beast. They were denied the
title of English subjects and the protection of English law. An act,
passed in the reign of Edward II., gave to the English landlords the
right to dispose of the property of their Irish dependents as they
might see fit. All social and commercial intercourse with the “Irish
enemy” was interdicted. An Irishman if found talking with an
Englishman was to be apprehended as a spy and punished as an enemy of
the king; and the violation of an Irishwoman was not a crime before
the law. Even exile was not permitted as a mitigation of this misery;
for a law of Henry IV. forbade the “Irish enemy” to emigrate. There is
no exaggeration in the address which the people of Ireland sent to
Pope John XXII.:
“Most Holy Father,” they say, “we send you some precise and truthful
information concerning the state of our nation, and the wrongs which
we are suffering, and which our ancestors have suffered from the kings
of England, their agents, and the English barons born in Ireland.
After having driven us by violence from our dwellings, from our fields
and our ancestral possessions――after having forced us to flee to the
mountains, the bogs, the woods, and caves to save our lives――they
cease not to harass us here even, but strive to expel us altogether
from the country, that they may gain possession of it in its entire
extent. They have destroyed all the written laws by which we were
formerly governed. The better to compass our ruin, they have left us
without laws.… It is the opinion of all their laymen, and of many of
their ecclesiastics, that there is no more sin in killing an Irishman
than in killing a dog. They all maintain that they have the right to
take from us our lands and our goods.”
In the second period of English rule in Ireland, to the war of races
was added a war of religion, in which the “Irish enemy” became the
“Popish idolater.” To kill an Irishman was no sin, and to exterminate
idolatrous superstition was a mission imposed by Heaven upon the
chosen people to whom the pure faith of Christ had been revealed.
Then began the series of butcheries, devastations, famines,
exterminations, and exiles which have not yet come to an end. The
horrors of these three centuries have not been written; they can never
be rightly told, or even imagined. Ireland was not only conquered, but
confiscated.
Elizabeth confiscated 600,000 acres of land in Munster after the
revolt of the Earl of Desmond; her successor, James I., confiscated a
million acres in Ulster. Charles I. confiscated 240,000 acres in
Connaught, and would have confiscated the whole province had he been
able to obtain possession of it. Under the Commonwealth 7,708,237
acres were confiscated. William of Orange confiscated 1,060,000 acres.
And in these confiscations we have not included the lands of the
church, which were all turned over to the Establishment. The atrocity
of England’s Irish wars is without a parallel in the history of
Christian nations. Women and children were murdered in cold blood;
priests were burned to death; churches were pillaged and set on fire;
towns were sacked and the inhabitants put to the sword; men and youths
were put on shipboard, carried into mid-ocean, and deliberately thrown
into the sea. Others were sold as slaves in the Barbadoes. Whatever
could serve as food for man was destroyed, that famine might make way
with all who escaped the sword. Spenser, the poet, who visited Ireland
after the revolt of the Earl of Desmond, in the reign of Elizabeth,
has left us a description of the condition of that province as he saw
it: “Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came, creeping
forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they
looked like anatomies of death; they spake like ghosts crying out of
their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could
find them; yea, and one another soon after, inasmuch as the very
carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they
found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a
feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; that in
short space there were none almost left; and a most populous and
plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast.”[191]
Lord Gray, one of Elizabeth’s lieutenants, declared towards the end of
her life that “little was left in Ireland for her Majesty to reign
over but carcasses and ashes.”
Cromwell’s wars were even more cruel, and left Ireland in a condition,
if possible, more wretched still. Half the people had perished; and
the survivors were dying of hunger in the bogs and glens in which they
had sought refuge from the fury of the troopers. Wolves prowled around
the gates of Dublin, and wolf-hunting and priest-hunting became
important and lucrative occupations. But it is needless to dwell
longer upon this painful subject. Let us remark, however, that it
would be unjust to hold Elizabeth or Cromwell responsible for these
cruelties. They but executed the will of the English people, who still
cherish their memories and justify these outrages. No English ruler
ever feared being called to account for harshness or tyranny in
dealing with Ireland. The public opinion of the nation considered the
extirpation of the Irish as a work to be done, and applauded whoever
helped forward its consummation. This much we may affirm on the
authority of Protestant witnesses. “The favorite object of the Irish
governors,” says Leland, “and of the English Parliament was the utter
extirpation of all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland.”
“It is evident,” says Warner, “from the Lords-Justices’ last letter to
the Lieutenant, that they hoped for an extirpation, not of the mere
Irish only, but of all the English families that were Roman
Catholics.”
The feeling against the Irish was even stronger than against the
church, so that the English seemed to feel a kind of pleasure in the
adherence of the Celtic population to the old faith, since it widened
the chasm between the two races. They really made no serious efforts
to convert the Irish to Protestantism. They neglected to provide them
with instructors capable of making themselves understood. They put
forth no Protestant translation of the Bible in the Irish language,
but contented themselves with setting up a hierarchy of archbishops,
bishops, and rectors whose lives were often scandalous, and who, as
Macaulay says, did nothing, and for doing nothing were paid out of the
spoils of a church loved and revered by the people. Some justification
for the extermination of the Irish race would be found in the fact
that those who perished were only papists. War, famine, confiscation,
and exile had, by the close of the seventeenth century, either
destroyed or impoverished the native and Catholic population of
Ireland. The land was almost exclusively in the hands of Protestants,
who had also taken possession of all the cathedrals, churches, and
monasteries which had escaped destruction. The Catholics, reduced to
beggary, were driven from the towns and, as far as possible, from the
English settlements into the bleak and barren hills of Connaught. In
many instances the confiscated lands had been given to Englishmen or
Scotchmen, with the express stipulation that no Irish Catholic should
be employed by them, even as a common laborer. In this extremity the
Irish people were helpless. Every line along which it was possible to
advance to a better state of things was cut off. Their natural leaders
had been driven into exile or reduced to abject poverty; their
spiritual guides had been murdered or banished; or if any had escaped
their pitiless persecutors, a price was set upon their heads, and they
led the lives of outlaws, unable to administer the sacraments even to
the dying, except by stealth.
All their institutions of learning had been destroyed; and England
permitted no instruction except in the English tongue――which the Irish
neither spoke nor were willing to speak――and in Protestant schools,
from which she knew the Catholics were necessarily shut out. They not
only had nothing, but were in a condition in which it was impossible
that they should acquire anything. Indeed, the little security which
was still left them to drag out a miserable existence was found
precisely in their utter helplessness and wretchedness. They could no
longer be plundered, for they had nothing; they could not be butchered
in battle, for they were powerless and without weapons; and so their
persecutors paused, not, as the poet says, to listen to their sad
lament, but from sheer contempt and indifference, thinking it no
longer worth while to take notice of their hapless victims.
Three-fourths of the population of the island were nevertheless still
Irish Catholics; and in spite of the persistent efforts to drive them
all beyond the Shannon, the moment the violence of persecution abated
large numbers showed themselves in other parts of the country,
especially in the province of Munster. It was at this time, and to
meet any danger that might arise from the mingling of the Irish
Catholics with the Protestant colonists, that the Penal Code was
enacted, by which the entire population that still held to the ancient
faith was deprived of all rights and reduced to the condition of
helots and pariahs. This Code, the most inhuman ever contrived by the
perverted ingenuity of man, was the work of the Irish Parliament,
which, it is almost needless to say, represented only the Protestants
of Ireland. Violence had done its work; the Catholic Irish had been
reduced to a condition as wretched as it is possible for man to suffer
and live; and now the form of justice and the semblance of law are
invoked to make this condition perpetual. Suddenly, and for the first
time, the Protestants of Ireland seem animated with religious zeal for
the conversion of the Catholics. The extermination of the Irish race
was abandoned as hopeless; and, indeed, there seemed to be no good
ground for believing that a people who had survived the wars, famines,
and exiles by which Ireland had been drained of its population during
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries could be extirpated. Nothing
remained, therefore, but to convert them. This was the pretext with
which men sought to hide the monstrous iniquity of the penal laws. All
bishops and monks were ordered to quit Ireland before the 1st of May,
1698, under pain of imprisonment and transportation; and, in case they
should return, they were to suffer death. Heavy fines were imposed
upon all who harbored or concealed the proscribed ecclesiastics; and
rewards were offered for their discovery or apprehension. Care was
taken at the same time to exclude all foreign priests. By thus cutting
off from Ireland the fountain-source of orders and ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, it was confidently expected that in a few years the
Catholic priesthood would cease to exist there, and that the people,
left without priests or sacraments, would have no alternative but to
become Protestants. Every exterior sign of Catholic worship was
suppressed, and it was tolerated only as a hidden cult, whose
ceremonies were performed with bated breath, clandestinely in cabins
and unfrequented places. Whatever appealed to the heart or the
imagination was condemned. The steeple that pointed to heaven; the
bell whose religious tones thrilled with accents of a world of peace;
the cross that told of the divinity that is in suffering and sorrow;
the pilgrimages in which the people gathered to cherish sacred
memories and to do homage to worthy deeds and noble lives, were all
proscribed. And even the poor huts in which it was possible to offer
the Holy Sacrifice were carefully watched by the officers of the law,
as to-day, in the great cities, places of infamy are put under the
surveillance of the police.
Having suppressed the hierarchy and shorn the Catholic religion of its
splendor, the rulers of Ireland next proceeded to adopt measures by
which every imaginable inducement to apostasy was held out both to the
clergy and the laity. An annual pension, first of twenty, then of
thirty, and finally of forty pounds sterling was offered to all
priests who should abandon their religion. Whether or not they
accepted this bribe was held to be of small importance, as their ranks
were rapidly thinned by death, and precautions had been taken that the
vacancies should not be refilled.
The Catholic people were placed in a position like that of the Forty
Martyrs, who were exposed naked on the frozen lake, surrounded by warm
baths and comfortable houses, which they could enter by renouncing
their faith. The deepest and holiest instincts of human nature were
appealed to against the most sacred convictions which man is capable
of holding. If the father wished to educate his child, schools
abounded, but he could enter them only by abandoning his religion. He
was not, indeed, forced to send his children to these Protestant
schools, but it was made impossible for him to send them to any other.
His tyrants went farther. They spared no pains to make it impossible
that an Irish Catholic should learn anything even by stealth. All
Catholic schoolmasters were banished from Ireland, and, in case of
return, were to suffer death.
The law made express provision for the money necessary to defray the
expenses of transporting these obnoxious persons. Nay, it went yet
farther. There were schools on the continent of Europe to which a few
Irish children might possibly find their way. This danger was foreseen
and met. An act was passed prohibiting Catholics from sending their
children across the Channel without special permission, and the
magistrates were authorized to demand at any time that parents should
produce their children before them. Beyond this it was not possible to
go. All that human enactments can do to degrade the mind of a whole
people to a state of brutish ignorance was done. And let us remark
that this applied not to the Irish only, but to all Catholics who
spoke the English language. The English government took from them
every opportunity of knowledge, made it criminal for them to know
anything; and then they were denounced by English writers almost
universally as the foes of learning and as lovers of ignorance. We
know of no harder or more cruel fate in all history, nor of a more
striking example of the injustice of the world towards the church.
Even here in the United States we Catholics are still suffering the
consequences of this unparalleled infamy. But we have hardly entered
on the subject of the Penal Laws: we are as yet on the threshold.
The enforced ignorance of the Irish Catholics was but a preparation
for innumerable other legal outrages. From all the honorable careers
of life they were mercilessly shut out――from the army; the navy, the
magistracy, and the civil service. That a Catholic was not permitted
to become an educator we have already seen. As little was he allowed
to perform the functions of barrister, attorney, or solicitor. He
could neither vote nor be elected to office. Shut out from all public
life, from every liberal profession, disfranchised, ignorant,
despised, was anything else needed to make the Irish Catholic the most
wretched of men? His land had been confiscated, he had been robbed; he
was a beggar; but might he not hope gradually to lift himself out of
the degradation of his poverty? To regain ownership of the soil was
out of the question. He was disqualified by law, which, however,
permitted him to become a tenant――not to do him a favor, but solely
for the benefit of the landlord, to whose arbitrary will he was made a
slave. This is but half the truth. The iniquity of the law mistrusted
the rectitude of human nature even in an Irish landlord. He was
therefore compelled to be unjust to his tenant; to give him but short
leases; to force him to pay at least two-thirds of the value of the
produce of his farm; to punish him for improving his land by
augmenting the rent; and, lest there should be any doubt as to the
seriousness of these barbarous enactments, a premium was offered for
the discovery of instances of their violation in favor of Catholic
tenants. The landlord was not allowed to be just, but he was free to
be as heartless and inhuman as he pleased. His tenants had no rights,
they belonged to a despised race, they professed an idolatrous
religion, and their extermination had been the cherished policy of the
English government for six hundred years. If there was no hope here
for the Irish Catholic, might he not, with better prospects, turn to
commercial or industrial pursuits?
Without, for the present, taking a larger view of this question, it
will be sufficient to consider the restrictions placed upon Catholics
in this matter. Commerce and manufacture were controlled by municipal
and trading corporations of which no Irish Catholic could be a member.
This of itself, at a time when monopoly and privilege were everywhere
recognized, gave to Protestants the entire business of the country.
Prohibitory laws were therefore not needed. But no security could lull
to rest the fierce spirit of the persecuting Protestant oligarchy. A
Catholic could not acquire real estate; he could not even rent land,
except on ruinous terms; he could not exercise a liberal profession or
fill a public office; he was unable to engage in commerce or
manufacture; he had no political rights, no protection from the law;
and, to make all this doubly bitter, his masters were at once the
enemies of his race and his religion. This, one would think, ought to
have been enough to satisfy the worst of tyrants. But it is of the
nature of tyranny that the more it oppresses, the more it feels the
necessity of inflicting new wrongs upon its victims. Every motive that
incites men to activity and labor had been taken from the Catholics,
and yet their oppressors, with the cowardice which naturally belongs
to evil-doers, were still fearful lest some of them might, by chance
or good fortune, acquire wealth enough to lift them above the
immediate necessities of life. A universal threat was therefore held
over all who possessed anything. A Catholic was not allowed to own a
horse worth more than five pounds; any Protestant in the kingdom might
take the best he had by paying him that sum. Whenever it was deemed
necessary to call out the militia, the law declared all horses
belonging to Catholics subject to seizure; and twenty shillings a day
for the maintenance of each troop was levied on the papists of the
country. Whenever property was destroyed, the law assumed that the
Catholics were the offenders, and they were forced to indemnify the
owners for their loss. They were taxed for the support of the
government, in which they were not allowed to take part and from which
they received no protection; for the maintenance of the Established
Church, in which they did not believe and which was already rich with
the spoils of the Catholic Church.
No Catholic was permitted to marry a Protestant; and the priest
assisting at such marriage was punished with death. No Catholic could
be a guardian; and to the agonies of death this new pain was added:
that the dying father foresaw that his children would be committed to
Protestants, to be brought up in a religious faith which had been the
unclean source of all the ills that had befallen him and his country.
The law held out a bribe to Catholic children to induce them to betray
their parents, and put a premium on apostasy.
This inhuman Code was not framed at one time, nor was there found in
its enactments any system or unity of purpose, other than that which
is derived from the hate of the persecutor for his victim. To this
blind fury whatever helped to crush and degrade the Catholic people of
Ireland seemed just.
Though it seems almost incredible, it is nevertheless certain, that
the execution of these laws was worse than the laws themselves. The
whole intent of the legislators being directed to the extermination or
perversion of the Irish Catholics, the fullest license was granted to
the caprice and cruelty of individuals. The Catholic had no
protection. If he sought to defend himself, he was forced to employ a
Protestant lawyer, who could bring his case only before a Protestant
judge, who was obliged to submit it to a Protestant jury. In these
circumstances recourse to the law was worse than useless. The great
landed proprietors were accustomed to deal out justice with a high
hand. They had prisons in their castles, into which, for or without
cause, they threw their helpless dependents; and whenever these
outrageous proceedings were complained of, the grand juries threw out
the indictments. To horsewhip or beat the poor Catholics was a
frequent mode of correction, and they were even deliberately murdered
without any fear of punishment. This we have upon the authority of
Arthur Young, whose testimony is certainly above suspicion; and he
adds that the violation of their wives and daughters was not
considered an offence. If the great lord met them on the road, his
servants were ordered to turn their wagons and carts into the ditch to
make room for his carriage; and if the unfortunate wretches dared
complain, they were answered with the lash. For a Catholic to bring
suit against his Protestant persecutor would have been at once most
absurd and most dangerous.
The religious fanaticism which had inspired the Penal Code lost its
honesty and earnestness amid these frightful excesses. The tyrant is
degraded with his victim, and crimes committed in the name of
religion, if they begin in sincerity, end in hypocrisy. Even the poor
honesty of blind zeal vanishes, and selfishness and hate alone remain.
This is the sad spectacle which Ireland presents to our view after the
first fury of persecution had spent itself. The dominant class grew
indifferent to all religion, and, having ignominiously failed to make
any impression on the faith of the Catholics, connived at their
worship.
But as zeal grew cold, self-interest became more intense. So long as
the Catholics remained in poverty and helplessness no notice was taken
of them; but the moment they acquired anything which could excite the
cupidity of a Protestant, the law was appealed to against them. The
priest, who, according to the Code, incurred the penalty of
transportation or hanging for saying Mass, could violate this article
with impunity, provided he possessed nothing which might serve as a
motive for denouncing him. The laws against Catholic worship were kept
upon the statute-book, chiefly because they served as an ever-ready
and convenient pretext for robbing Catholics. Another end, too,
scarcely less important, was thereby gained. The Catholics, even when
left in peace, lived in continual fear, knowing that any chance spark
would be sufficient to light the flames of persecution. In this way it
was hoped that the martyr-spirit in them would give place to the
spirit of the slave; and this hope was not altogether delusive. Since
there was a kind of security in remaining in abject poverty, in
lurking in secret places, in speaking only with bated breath, and in
showing the most cringing servility in the presence of their masters,
the Catholics came by degrees to look upon this servile condition as
their normal state, and hardly dared even hope for a better. We may
remark that this is another instance in which the Catholic Church is
held responsible for the work of Protestants. Protestant England has
enslaved Catholic Ireland; has for centuries put forth the most
heartless and cunningly-devised efforts to extinguish in the Irish
Catholics every noble and free aspiration of the human heart; and then
she has turned round and appealed to the world, with the cant which is
twin-born with hypocrisy, to bear witness that Ireland is in fetters
because the Catholic Church is opposed to liberty; and the world, in
whose eyes success is ever the highest and the best, has smiled
approval.
Is it, then, possible that six hundred years of hereditary bondage, of
outlawry, of want and oppression, should produce no evil effect upon
the character of a people, however nobly endowed by God? Are we to
expect industry when every motive that incites men to labor is absent?
How can he who is forbidden to possess anything be provident? Or is it
not natural that the hopelessly wretched should grow desperate,
reckless of their deeds or their consequences?
Great misfortunes, like great successes, try men as nothing else can.
In the lowest depths of misery we are apt to forget that there is a
lower deep. For ourselves, the more we study the history of the Irish
people, and compare their character with the wrongs which they have
suffered, the more wonderful does it seem to us that they should have
remained superior to fate. If they have not wholly escaped the evil
influences of the worst of all tyrannies, nothing, at least, has been
able to destroy their purity, their hopefulness, their trust in God,
and belief in the final triumph of right. They are, in our eyes, the
highest example of the supremacy of the soul, of the invincible power
of faith; the most striking proof of a divine Providence that watches
over the destiny of nations. It will not be thought out of place to
quote here the words of a Protestant historian who, in his old age,
seems to regret the impartiality and generous love of unpopular truth
which characterized his earlier manhood.
“Such,” says Mr. Bancroft, “was the Ireland of the Irish――a conquered
people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon and did not fear to
provoke. Their industry within the kingdom was prohibited or repressed
by law, and then they were calumniated as naturally idle. Their
savings could not be invested on equal terms in trade, manufactures,
or real property, and they were called improvident. The gates of
learning were shut on them, and they were derided as ignorant. In the
midst of privations they were cheerful. Suffering for generations
under acts which offered bribes to treachery, their integrity was not
debauched. No son rose against his father, no friend betrayed his
friend. Fidelity to their religion――to which afflictions made them
cling more closely――chastity, and respect for the ties of family
remained characteristics of the down-trodden race.”[192]
So long as there was question of oppressing and impoverishing the
Irish Catholics the Protestant Ascendency received the hearty approval
and efficient co-operation of the English government. But there was
danger lest these Irish Protestants, possessing a country of the
richest natural resources, should come to compete with England in the
markets of the world.
There are few countries in the world so fertile as Ireland. About
one-half of the island consists of a fat soil, with a chalky sub-soil,
which is the very best of soils. The richness and beauty of her
meadows were celebrated by Orosius as early as the fifth century. The
climate is milder than that of England; the scenery more varied and
lovely. The frequent rains clothe the fields with perpetual verdure.
From her wild mountains gush numerous rivers, which, as they flow into
the sea, form the safest and most capacious harbors, while in their
rapid course they develop a water-power, available for purposes of
manufacture, unsurpassed in the world. This water-power of Ireland has
been estimated by Sir Robert Kane at three and a half millions of
horse power. The country abounds in iron ore, and three centuries ago
Irish iron was exported to England. Geologists have counted in the
island no less than seven immense beds of both anthracite and
bituminous coal; and of turf, the heating power of which is half that
of coal, the supply is inexhaustible. The soil is most favorable to
the growth of the beet-root, from which such large quantities of sugar
are made in France and Belgium. The flax and hemp, as is well known,
are of the best quality, and the fineness of Irish wool has long been
celebrated. The rivers and lakes abound in trout and salmon and pike;
and the fisheries alone, if properly managed, might become the source
of enormous wealth. Were it not that, in the designs of Providence,
the most cunningly-devised plans, when conceived in iniquity, defeat
themselves, the English statesmen would have perceived that the most
efficacious means for bringing about the result at which the policy of
England, in its relations with Ireland, had always aimed, would have
been the encouragement of Irish commerce and manufactures. No benefit
could have accrued, from such a course, to the Catholic population,
which was not only disfranchised, but rendered incapable by law of
acquiring or possessing wealth.
Had the descendants of the Scotch and English settlers planted by
Elizabeth, James, and Cromwell been permitted or encouraged to develop
the natural resources of the country, they would not only have grown
strong, but opportunities of remunerative labor and hope of gain would
have attracted new settlers, and in this way Ireland would have been
filled with Protestants, whose loyalty would have been firmly secured
by this wise and conciliating policy. The agitations which rendered
some amelioration of the condition of the Catholics unavoidable as
part of a general system would not have taken place; the strength of
the Protestant Ascendency would have grown with increasing numbers and
wealth; exile would have remained the only refuge of the Catholic
remnant from misery and death; and Ireland to-day might be as
Protestant as was Ulster in the reign of Charles I.
But no motive of religion or humanity has ever influenced the policy
of the English government when there was question of English
interests. The desire of acquiring wealth or the necessity of
defending one’s possessions are, in the opinion of Englishmen, the
only sufficient reasons for going to war.
“Even in dreams to the chink of his pence
This huckster put down war.”
It was not to be expected that Ireland, with her harbors and rivers,
her fertile fields and unnumbered flocks, would be permitted to tempt
capital to her shores or to stimulate enterprise. Nothing seemed more
shocking to the English traders and manufacturers than the thought of
having to compete in the home and foreign markets with the products of
Irish industry. It was deemed intolerable that this nest of popery,
this den of ignorance and corruption, should be dealt with in the same
manner as England. The Parliament was therefore called upon to “make
the Irish remember that they were conquered.”
England had assisted the Protestants of Ireland to crush the
Catholics; she had for this purpose placed at their service her
treasures, and her armies; and now the Irish Protestants were
required, in evidence of their gratitude, to sacrifice the commercial
and industrial interests of their country to English jealousy.
At the end of the seventeenth century the manufacture of woollen
stuffs had attained to considerable importance in the southern
provinces of Ireland. The superiority of the Irish broadcloths,
blankets, and friezes was recognized, and it was therefore resolved
that they should no longer be manufactured. The Lords and Commons, in
1698, called upon William III. to protect the interests of English
merchants; and his majesty replied in the well-known words “I shall do
all that in me lies to discourage the woollen manufacture of Ireland.”
Accordingly, an export duty of four shillings in the pound was laid on
all broadcloths carried out of Ireland, and half as much on kerseys,
flannels, and friezes. This, in fact, was equivalent to a prohibition,
and the ruin of the Irish woollen manufactures which followed was not
an unforeseen, but the directly intended, consequence of this measure.
The linen manufacture, since there were at the time no rival English
interests, was opposed only in an indirect way by offering large
bounties for the making of linen in the Highlands of Scotland,
bounties on the exportation of English linen, and by imposing a tax of
30 per cent. on all foreign linens, with which most of the Irish
linens were classed.
Still other measures were needed for the complete destruction of Irish
commerce and industry. The _Navigation Laws_ forbade all direct trade
between Ireland and the British colonies; so that all produce intended
for Ireland had first to be unloaded in an English port. The Irish
were not allowed to build or keep at sea a single ship. “Of all the
excellent timber,” said Dean Swift in 1727, “cut down within these
fifty or sixty years, it can hardly be said that the nation hath
received the benefit of one valuable house to dwell in, or one ship to
trade with.” The forests of Ireland, which so greatly added to the
beauty of the country, were felled and carried to England to build
ships which were to bring the wealth of the world into English ports.
Even the Irish fishery “must be with men and boats from England.”
By these and similar measures, commercial and industrial Ireland was
blotted out of existence, and even the possibility of her ever
entering into competition with England for the trade of the world
disappeared. The unjust legislation by which Irish industry was
repressed was not inspired by religious passion nor directed against
the Catholic population. Their condition was already so wretched and
helpless that it would have been difficult to discover anything by
which it could have been made worse. “The aboriginal inhabitants,”
says Macaulay――“more than five-sixths of the population――had no more
interest in the matter than the swine or the poultry; or, if they had
an interest, it was for their interest that the caste which domineered
over them should not be emancipated from all external control. They
were no more represented in the Parliament which sat at Dublin than in
the Parliament which sat at Westminster. They had less to dread from
legislation at Westminster than from legislation at Dublin.… The most
acrimonious English Whig did not feel towards them that intense
antipathy, compounded of hatred, fear, and scorn, with which they were
regarded by the Cromwellian who dwelt among them.”[193]
Molyneux, who at this time came forward as the champion of Ireland and
of liberty, demanded nothing for the Irish Catholics but a more cruel
slavery; and Dean Swift, who gained much popularity for his advocacy
of Irish rights, declared he would as soon think of consulting the
swine as the aboriginal inhabitants of the island.
Indisputable as the fact is that the Irish Catholics had no direct
interest in the contest in which the commerce and industry of their
country were destroyed, the consequences of the iniquitous policy of
England proved nevertheless most disastrous to them. Manual labor was
the only work which they were permitted to do, and there now remained
for them nothing but the tillage of the soil, either as
tenants-at-will or common laborers. Ireland was to supply England with
beef and butter, and the work of exterminating the Irish Catholics was
not to be pushed further than the exigencies of successful
cattle-grazing might demand. Society was constituted in the simplest
manner. There were but two classes――the possessors of the soil and the
tillers of the soil: the lord and the peasant; the master and the
slave; the Protestant and the Catholic; the rich man and the beggar.
There were but two kinds of human dwellings――the castle, with its high
walls and splendid park, and the mud cabin, in which it was impossible
that there should be anything but filth and rags. The multitude lived
for a few men, by whom they were valued as their horses or their dogs,
but not treated so humanly. A contrast more absolute has never
existed, even in the despotisms of Asia. The picture is revolting; it
cannot be contemplated even in imagination without loathing, or
thought of with any composure. It is a blot on humanity, an infamy
which no glory and no services can condone. Ireland was in the hands
of the worst class of men whom history has ever made odious――an
aristocracy which hated the land from which it derived its titles,
despised the people from whom it received its wealth, shirked the
duties and responsibilities imposed by its privileges, and used its
power only to oppress and impoverish the nation. The Irish people were
thus under the weight of a double tyranny――that of England and that of
their lords; and the fiend best knows which was the worst.
The Southern planter felt a kind of interest in his slaves――they were
his property; an Irish landlord felt no interest of any kind in the
people by whom he was surrounded. It was important that they should
remain slaves, beggars, and outcasts; that the chasm which separated
him from them should in no way be diminished; but for the rest he gave
no thought whether they starved or murdered one another or were
drowned in the deep. He spent most of his time in England, living in
luxury, leaving his estates to the care of brutal agents, who pleased
him the better the more cruel and grinding their exactions were.
English in origin and sympathy, Protestant in religion, there was no
bond of union between him and his people. He cared neither for the
country nor its inhabitants. He was unwilling to risk capital even to
improve his own lands; for he had no faith in the permanence of a
social and political state which was possible only because it outraged
the holiest and best instincts of mans nature. When it was proposed to
take steps to drain the bogs and bring the waste lands of Ireland
under cultivation, the Protestant party strenuously opposed the
measure, on the ground that this would be an encouragement to popery.
Nothing, therefore, was done either by the government or the landlords
to improve the soil or to introduce better methods of tillage. The
great proprietors, living in London, spending their time and fortune
in a life of pleasure and display, let out their estates to land
speculators, who were generally capitalists. These speculators sublet
them, in lots of several hundred or a thousand acres, to a class of
persons called middlemen, who divided them up into portions of five,
ten, or twenty acres, and rented them to the poor Catholics. By
neither the proprietors nor the speculators nor the middlemen was any
risk of capital made. The peasant was therefore compelled to rent his
little plot of ground, bare of everything――he found on it neither
dwelling nor stabling, nor implements of any kind. He had nothing
himself, and those whose interest it would have been to advance him
money were unwilling to risk a penny. All that he could do was to put
up a mud-cabin, and to get a wretched spade with which to begin work.
If by honest labor he could have looked forward to an improvement in
his condition, his lot would not have been altogether comfortless. The
pioneers who in this new world have led the army of civilization from
the Atlantic to the Pacific began life almost as poor as an Irish
peasant of the seventeenth or the eighteenth century; but for them no
law of man reversing nature’s first law made labor sterile. How was
the poor Irish Catholic, with but a few acres of ground, and without
the necessary means for proper cultivation, to pay the exorbitant rent
which was to support the landlord, the speculator, and the
middleman?――for upon him alone rested the burden of maintaining all
three in a life of ease and luxury. The soil refuses to satisfy the
unreasonable demands made upon it; the tenant finds that he is unable
to pay his rent; and without the least ceremony he and his wife and
children are turned upon the road. England having destroyed the
commerce and manufactures of Ireland, he can find nothing to do, and,
if he is unwilling to see his wife and children starve, he must beg.
And even beggary, with its frightful degradations, affords little
relief; for the rich spurn him and the poor have nothing to give. Few
words are needed to bring home to us the significance of this state of
affairs. We have only to recall the tragedy Which was enacted under
our eyes in 1849. In that one year _fifty thousand families_ were
turned upon the road to die; _two hundred thousand human beings_,
without shelter, without bread, sent up their piteous moan of hunger
and despair to God from the midst of a Christian nation, the richest
in the world. The terrible famine of 1847 and 1848, which was only an
unusually startling outbreak of an evil that has long been chronic in
Ireland, was not caused by excess of population. The country, if its
resources were properly developed, is capable of supporting a far
larger number of inhabitants than it has ever had. There were but
eight millions of people in Ireland in 1847, and it has been
conclusively proven that under favorable circumstances fifteen
millions would not be an excessive population. In fact, in the
so-called years of scarcity, when the people were dying, by thousands,
of starvation, the country produced enough to feed its inhabitants;
but they had to sell their wheat, barley, and oats to pay the rent,
and, the potato crop having failed, they had nothing to eat. In 1846
and 1847 enormous quantities of grain and live-stock were exported
from Ireland to England, and yet the people of Ireland were starving.
During the four years of famine Ireland exported four quarters of
wheat for every quarter imported. The food was in the country, but it
had to be sent to England to pay the rent of the landlords. The people
were starving, but that was no concern of these noble gentlemen, so
long as their rent was paid. The cry of hunger has rarely been hushed
in Ireland. All through the eighteenth century the people died of
starvation. In 1727 Boulter, the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh,
declared that thousands of families were driven from their homes by
hunger; and Dean Swift has given us an account of the condition in his
time of even the better class of tenants. “The families,” he says, “of
farmers who pay great rents live in filth and nastiness, upon
buttermilk and potatoes, without a shoe or stocking to their feet, or
a house as convenient as an English hog-sty to receive them.” In 1734
the famous Bishop Berkeley asked this question: “Is there on the face
of the earth any Christian and civilized people so destitute of
everything as the mass of the people of Ireland?” In 1741 the
cemeteries were too small for the burial of the multitudes who died of
hunger.
In 1778, while we were struggling for freedom from English tyranny,
Lord Nugent declared, in the House of Commons, that the people of
Ireland were suffering all the destitution and misery which it is
possible to human nature to endure. Nine-tenths of them earned no more
than fourpence a day, and had no nourishment but potatoes and water.
In 1817 the fever, brought on by hunger, attacked one million five
hundred thousand persons――nearly half of the entire population of the
country. In 1825, 1826, 1830, 1832, 1838, 1846 to 1850, and finally in
1860, 1861, and 1862, the melancholy cry of multitudes dying of hunger
was heard throughout the land. In 1843 Thackeray, travelling in
Ireland, declared that “men were suffering and starving by millions”;
and a little later we know from the most accurate statistics that more
than a million of the Irish people died of hunger within a period of
two years. The history of Ireland is, we are persuaded, the sublimest
and the saddest of all histories. It has never been written, and the
grandest of themes awaits the creative power that will give it
immortal life on the pictured page. It will be written in the English
language, and it will link the English name and tongue for all time
with the greatest social crime which one people ever committed against
another. In another article we hope, by the aid of the faint and
glimmering light that shines so fitfully in this blackness, to be able
to trace the doubtful and devious way along which this providential
race seems to be slowly rising into the promise of a better day. For
the present we shall conclude with a quotation from De Beaumont, whose
careful and conscientious studies on the _Social, Political, and
Religious Condition of Ireland_ we recommend to all who are interested
in this subject.
“I have seen,” he wrote in 1835, “the Indian in his forests and the
negro in chains, and I thought, in beholding their pitiable state,
that I saw the extreme of human misery; but I did not then know the
fate of poor Ireland. Like the Indian, the Irishman is poor and naked;
but he lives, unlike the savage, in the midst of a society which
revels in luxury, and adores wealth. Like the Indian, he is deprived
of every material comfort which human industry and the commerce of
nations procure; but, unlike him, he is surrounded by fellow-creatures
who are enjoying all that he is forbidden even to hope for. In the
midst of his greatest misery the Indian retains a kind of independence
which is not without its charm and its dignity. Destitute as he is,
and famishing, he is yet free in his wilderness; and the consciousness
of this freedom softens the hardships of life. The Irishman suffers
the same destitution without having the same liberty. He is subject to
laws, has all kinds of fetters; he dies of hunger, and is under rule;
deplorable condition, which combines all the evils of civilization
with the horrors known elsewhere only to the savage! Doubtless the
Irishman who has shaken off his chains, and still has hope, is less to
be pitied than the negro slave. Nevertheless he has to-day neither the
liberty of the savage nor the bread of the slave.”[194]
[191] “A View of the State of Ireland,” by Edmund Spenser.
[192] _History of the United States_, vol. v. chap. iv. p.
73.
[193] _History of England_, vol. v. p. 45.
[194] _L’Irlande: Sociale, Politique et Religieuse._ Par
Gustave de Beaumont, Membre de l’Institut. Tom. i. p. 222.
A MARCH PILGRIMAGE.
On Provence’ hills the touch of southern spring――
No laggard she with footstep faltering――
Awoke with sunny blessing drowsy earth,
Filled soft green glades with carollings of mirth.
In western lands, o’er turbulent seas afar,
Inclement March, with blustering notes of war,
Through naked trees whirled fruitless flowers of snow
All scentless drifting to the earth below.
Alike on Provence’ violet-studded fields,
And that bright land where loath fond winter yields,
Hung the gray shadow of a solemn Lent――
The church’s sorrow with spring’s promise blent.
Yet, breaking through the penitential shade,
With shining altars in glad white arrayed,
In those far, frosty lands the church’s voice
Bid, with all joyousness, her sons rejoice.
Through the deep, Lenten sadness of her song
Notes strong and jubilant swift poured along:
The long-hushed “Gloria” wond’ring echoes woke,
The angels’ chant the mournful silence broke.
Without, the wild and gusty whirls of snow;
Within, the throng of reverent knees bent low,
And faithful hearts, that from their dear green isle
Brought Patrick’s faith to make their new home smile――
In rich possession of the “Unknown God”;
Blessing the rivers and the prairies broad
With cities populous and cross-crowned spires,
And ever-kindling sanctuary fires.
So rose, exultant, on the bleak March day
The joyous notes across Lent’s sombre way:
Adoring souls, before the altar shrine,
Thanking for Patrick’s faith their Lord divine.
Not Provence’ blossoms such glad music woke
Though happy birds in spring-time laughter broke;
Veiled the sad altar in its purple pall,
And church and people, sorrow-laden all.
Yet joyful echoes from that western land
Spoke ’mid the lapsing waves on Nice’s strand;
Stirred, with the broken sweetness of that praise,
The heart of one who, through long busy days
Of years unresting, had with patience toiled,
With love and zeal, to keep his flock unsoiled
Amid the strong new world’s tumultuous life.
With such persuasion his wise words were rife
As if the grace of Savoy’s bishop-saint
Were his to loving guide the weak and faint;
As if, like Padua’s dear saint benign,
He bore the burden of the Child divine.
He saw afar his Irish children kneel,
The clinging reverence of their hearts reveal;
Longing with them his fervent prayer to pour,
He sought St. Honorat’s pine-girdled shore――
There treading where St. Patrick trod of old,
When gathered his young heart the words of gold
That should for heaven’s King a new realm win――
A faithful fold no wolf should enter in.
Here rose the chapel where the young saint prayed,
Here thoughtful paced he Lerins’ learnèd shade.
Ruined the abbey ’mid its olives rests,
Wide open all its doors to pilgrim guests――
Though still the chapel keeps its purpose old,
And Lerins’ vines and olives still enfold
A cloister shade where constant prayer ascends,
And Benedictine lore with labor blends.
Here, with all holy memories possessed,
With loving thoughts of that sea-severed West,
The pilgrim knelt――in that peace-shadowed place
Mingling his prayers with Ireland’s tearful race.
Kneeling afar at shrine his hand had raised,
While hearts, his lips had taught, St. Patrick praised,
In love, ’neath western clouds and Provence’ sun,
The Latin priest and Celtic flock were one.
O great St. Patrick! each day grows more wide
The realm thou winnest that thy Lord may bide,
A King revered on royal altar throne,
In patient love abiding with his own.
Pray thou that this beloved land of ours,
Strong in her youth and undeveloped powers,
One day with that true beauty may be crowned,
That girds thy island’s mournful brows around――
The beauty of true faith in Christ, her Lord,
Who in her lavish hands such wealth has poured:
Win thou for her great heart’s best heritage
The steadfast bearing of faith’s strongest age.
Oh! win her stars for beacon-light to guide
The restless wanderers from the Cross’s side,
Gracious in pure, unfaltering light arrayed――
The earthly shadow of the Heavenly Maid.
Pray that her hands be ever raised to bless
Meek hearts whose prayer wins her such comeliness;
Pray that her soul for evermore be free,
Signed with the chrism of true liberty.
SIX SUNNY MONTHS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.