صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

points in which it is inferior in civilization. Want of unity in feeling and interest among the people,-irritability, violence, and revenge,want of comfort and cleanliness in the lower orders, -habitual disobedience to the law,-want of confidence in magistrates,-corruption, venality, the perpetual necessity of recurring to military force,-all carry back the observer to that remote and early condition of mankind, which an Englishman can learn only in the pages of the antiquary or the historian. We do not draw this picture for censure, but for truth. We admire the Irish,-feel the most sincere pity for the state of Ireland,—and think the conduct of the English to that country to have been a system of atrocious cruelty and contemptible meanness. With such a climate, such a soil, and such a people, the inferiority of Ireland to the rest of Europe is directly chargeable to the long wickedness of the English Government.

A direct consequence of the present uncivilized state of Ireland is, that very little English capital travels there. The man who deals in steam-engines, and warps and woofs, is naturally alarmed by Peep-of-Day Boys, and nocturnal Carders; his object is to buy and sell as quickly and quietly as he can; and he will naturally bear high taxes and rivalry in England, or emigrate to any part of the Continent, or to America, rather than plunge into the tumult of Irish politics and passions. There is nothing which Ireland wants more than large manufacturing towns, to take off its superfluous population. But internal peace must come first, and then the arts of peace will follow. The foreign mánufacturer will hardly think of embarking his capital, where he cannot be sure that his existence is safe. Another check to the manufacturing greatness of Ireland, is the scarcity-not of coal-but of good coal, cheaply raised; an article in which (in spite of papers in the Irish Transactions) they are lamentably inferior to the English.

Another consequence from some of the causes we have stated, is the extreme idleness of the Irish labourer. There is nothing of the value of which the Irish seem to have so little notion as that of time. They scratch, pick, daudle, stare, gape, and do any thing but strive and wrestle with the task before them. The most ludicrous of all human objects, is an Irishman ploughing.

A gigantic figure-a seven foot machine for turning potatoes into human nature, wrapt up in an immense great coat, and urging on two starved ponies, with dreadful imprecations, and uplifted shillala. The Irish crow discerns a coming perquisite, and is not inattentive to the proceedings of the steeds. The furrow which is to be the depositary of the future crop, is not unlike, either in depth or regularity, to those domestic furrows

which the nails of the meek and much-injured wife plough, in some family quarrel, upon the cheeks of the deservedly-punished husband. The weeds seem to fall contentedly, knowing that they have fulfilled their destiny, and left behind them, for the resurrection of the ensuing spring, an abundant and healthy progeny. The whole is a scene of idleness, laziness, and poverty, of which it is impossible, in this active and enterprising country, to form the most distant conception; but strongly indicative of habits, whether secondary or original, which will long present a powerful impediment to the improvement of Ireland."

The Irish character contributes something to retard the improvements of that country. The Irishman has many good qualities: He is brave, witty, generous, eloquent, hospitable, and open-hearted; but he is vain, ostentatious, extravagant, and fond of display-light in counsel-deficient in perseverancewithout skill in private or public economy-an enjoyer, not an acquirer-one who despises the slow and patient virtues-who wants the superstructure without the foundation-the result without the previous operation-the oak without the acorn and the three hundred years of expectation. The Irish are irascible, prone to debt, and to fight, and very impatient of the restraints of law. Such a people are not likely to keep their eyes steadily upon the main chance, like the Scotch or the Dutch. England strove very hard, at one period, to compel the Scotch to pay a double Church;-but Sawney took his pen and ink; and finding what a sum it amounted to, became furious, and drew his sword. God forbid the Irishman should do the same; the remedy, now, would be worse than the disease: But if the oppressions of England had been more steadily resisted a century ago, Ireland would not have been the scene of poverty, misery, and distress which it now is.

The Catholic religion, among other causes, contributes to the backwardness and barbarism of Ireland. Its debasing superstition, childish ceremonies, and the profound submission to the priesthood which it teaches, all tend to darken men's minds, to impede the progress of knowledge and inquiry, and to prevent Ireland from becoming as free, as powerful, and as rich as the sister kingdom. Though sincere friends to Catholic emancipation, we are no advocates for the Catholic religion, We should be very glad to see a general conversion to Protestantism among the Irish; but we do not think that violence, privations, and incapacities, are the proper methods of making proselytes. Such then is Ireland at this period,—a land more barbarous than the rest of Europe, because it has been worse treated and VOL. XXXIV. No. 68.

Y

more cruelly oppressed. Many of the incapacities and privations to which the Catholics were exposed, have been removed by law; but, in such instances, they are still incapacitated and de-. prived by custom. Many cruel and oppressive laws are still enforced against them. A ninth part of the population engrosses all the honours of the country; the other nine pay a tenth of the product of the earth for the support of a religion in which theydo not believe. There is little capital in the country. The great and rich men are called by business, or allured by pleasure, into England; their estates are given up to factors, and the utmost farthing of rent extorted from the poor, who, if they give up the land, cannot get employment in manufactures, or regular employment in husbandry. The common people use a sort of food so very cheap, that they can rear families, who cannot procure employment, and who have little more of the comforts of life than food. The Irish are light-minded-want of employment has made them idle-they are irritable and brave -have a keen remembrance of the past wrongs they have suffered, and the present wrongs they are suffering from England. The consequence of all this is, eternal riot and insurrection, a whole army of soldiers in time of profound peace, and general rebellion whenever England is busy with other enemies, or off her guard! And thus it will be while the same causes continue to operate, for ages to come,—and worse and worse as the rapidly increasing population of the Catholics becomes more and

more numerous.

The remedies are, time and justice; and that justice consists in repealing all laws which make any distinction between the two religions; in placing over the government of Ireland, not the stupid, amiable and insignificant Noblemen who have too often been sent there, but men who feel deeply the wrongs of Ireland, and who have an ardent wish to heal them; who will take care that Catholics, when eligible, shall be elected; who will share the patronage of Ireland proportionally among the two parties, and give to just and liberal laws the same vigour of execution which has hitherto been reserved only for decrees of tyranny, and the enactments of oppression. The injustice and hardship of supporting two churches must be put out of sight, if it cannot or ought not to be cured. The political economist, the moralist and the satirist, must combine to teach moderation and superintendence to the great Irish proprietors. Public talk and clamour may do something for the poor Irish, as it did for the slaves in the West Indies. Ireland will become more quiet under such treatment, and then more rich, more comfortable, and more civilized; and the hor

rid spectacle of folly and tyranny, which it at present exhibits, may in time be removed from the eyes of Europe.

There are two eminent Irishmen now in the House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh and Mr Canning, who will subscribe to the justness of every syllable we have said upon this subject; and who have it in their power, by making it the condition of their remaining in office, to liberate their native country, and raise it to its just rank among the nations of the earth. Yet the Court buys them over, year after year, by the pomp and perquisites of office; and year after year, they come into the House of Commons, feeling deeply, and describing powerfully, the injuries of five millions of their countrymen,-and continue members of a Government that inflicts those evils, under the pitiful delusion that it is not a Cabinet Question,-as if the scratchings and quarrellings of Kings and Queens could alone cement politicians together in indissoluble unity, while the fate and fortune of one-third of the empire might be complimented away from one minister to another, without the smallest breach in their Cabinet alliance. Politicians, at least honest politicians, should be very flexible and accommodating in little things, very rigid and inflexible in great things. And is this not a great thing? Who has painted it in finer and more commanding eloquence than Mr Canning? Who has taken a more sensible and statesman-like view of our miserable and cruel policy, than Lord Castlereagh? You would think, to hear them, that the same planet could not contain them and the oppressors of their country,—perhaps not the same solar system. Yet for money, claret and patronage, they lend their countenance, assistance and friendship, to the Ministers who are the stern and inflexible enemies to the emancipation of Ireland!

Thank God that all is not profligacy and corruption in the history of that devoted people--and that the name of Irishman does not always carry with it the idea of the oppressor or the oppressed-the plunderer or the plundered the tyrant or the slave. Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time. What Irishman does not feel proud that he has lived in the days of GRATTAN? who has not turned to him for comfort, from the false friends and open enemies of Ireland? who did not remember him in the days of its burnings and wastings and murders? No Government ever dismayed him-the world could not bribe him-he thought only of Ireland-lived for no other object-dedicated to her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendour of his astonishing eloquence. He was so born, and

so gifted, that poetry, forensic skill, elegant literature, and all the highest attainments of human genius, were within his reach; but he thought the noblest occupation of a man was to make other men happy and free; and in that straight line he went on for fifty years, without one side-look, without one yielding thought, without one motive in his heart which he might not have laid open to the view of God and man. He is gone!-but there is not a single day of his honest life of which every good Irishman would not be more proud, than of the whole political existence of his countrymen,-the annual deserters and betrayers of their native land.

ART. III. An Account of Experiments for determining the Variation in the Length of the Pendulum vibrating Seconds at the principal Stations of the Trigonometrical Survey of Great Britain. By Captain H. KATER, F. R. S. From Phil. Transactions. London, 1819. Part III.

IT T is not long since we laid before our readers a detailed account of the experimerts made by Captain Kater, with a view to determine the length of a pendulum vibrating seconds in the latitude of London. We have now to direct their attention to a more extended investigation of the same careful observer, by which he has ascertained the length of a Seconds Pendulum, at the principal stations of the great survey of this Island.

It may be recollected, that this inquiry originated in a bill submitted to Parliament, for the general regulation of Weights and Measures, and fortunately thrown out in the House of Lords. We say fortunately,--because those who most readily admit the expediency of adopting some uniform system, will naturally be the first to reject a plan so crude and so ill calculated to attain that desirable object. One good, however, resulted from the discussion; an address was presented to the Crown, praying that instructions might be given for determining the length of a Seconds Pendulum in the latitude of London, as compared with the standard made for the House of Commons in 1758, known by the name of Bird's Parliamentary Standardfor ascertaining the variations in the length of the Pendulum at the different stations, and for comparing the standard measures with the ten-millionth part of the quadrant of the meridian, the basis of linear measure in France. In order to carry this purpose into effect, a Committee was appointed by the Royal

« السابقةمتابعة »