elegant profligacy in that region, whose very atmosphere was as fatal to manly independence, as it was to female purity. Ireland, thus abandoned by the heads of her noble families, deserted by her rank, her talent, her beauty, and her education, pouring out the "profits of the land to those who refunded nothing"-unhappy Ireland, during the whole of the reign of Charles II. exhibited the most deplorable picture of a country left a prey to strangers, to undertakers, to patentees, to delegated powers, and official despotism; and of a society which, false in its position, and divested of all those ties and combinations which bind man to man, was totally destitute of every element that confers the strength of political cohesion, and disseminates the advantages of moral civilization. In the midst of this anti-social chaos, every act of the legislature served to render the atoms of the system more jarring and discordant, until finally "the Act of Settlement," by unsettling every thing and rendering "confusion worse confounded," added insult to injury, and multiplied both the causes and the effects of absenteeism to the opulent of all sects. The country was now more than ever given up to a particular faction, which made its powerful stand on the heights of ascendancy, under the sanction of a king who, in a great degree, owed his life and throne to those whom that ascendancy was to reduce to slavery and ruin.* It was at this period, more than any other, that the stale devices of Catholic conspiracies and Popish plots were resorted to, as a means of startling a distant ignorant legislature into new acts of rigour, which, by crushing all that remained to be crushed, by forfeitures and penalties, was to elevate a factious minority of the nation to the supremacy of power and wealth.

The English Parliament, frightened, or pretending to be so, by the state of things in Ireland, published a proclamation "for the apprehension and prosecution of all Irish rebels," at a moment when Ireland had sealed by her best blood her devotion to the reigning dynasty; and the King, in the face of his pledged honour and royal promise, excluded from the act of indemnity (which was shortly after passed) more than two thirds of his Irish subjects, who had alone been faithful to him, when all else were false. While calumny and misrepresentation were thus working the destruction of Ireland abroad, there were none at home to "remonstrate," as in the time of Elizabeth and James; none to protect or vindicate the national character, or to raise the dark veil, which the cupidity of domestic and predatory enemies had dropped over the injuries, the worth, and the misfortunes of the country. It is still more lamentable to add, that some of the most illustrious of the absentees, who haunted the Court as dependants, or influenced the Cabinet as counsellors, found it their account to sanction these misrepresentations, and to perpetuate a state of things by which these noble rene

It is farther particularly notable that James, the friend and correspondent of Pope Clement VIII. and the special protector of the Irish Catholics, first established in Ireland a Protestant ascendancy in parliament, in obedience to the advice of the Lord Deputy Chichester. With the inconsistency which ever accompanies a want of principle, he occasionally amused himself at the expense of the very people he affected to favour. When Chichester made King James a present of a beautiful horse, his Majesty asked him if it were an Irish horse: on being answered in the affirmative, the King swore his favourite oath, "Then it must be a Papist," for he verily believed that all things produced in Ireland were Papists, even the very animals themselves.

**

gadoes were to be themselves the ultimate gainers. For it is the effect of absenteeship to harden the heart against all the precious sympathies of patriotism, and it has ever been the practice of absentees to magnify and circulate the rumour of those national disorders which arise in part out of their own desertion of their native land, and which they suppose might offer a reason, if not an excuse, for their abandonment of the soil and its interests. The times, however, changed with the men, and the short reign of the unfortunate bigot James II. was pregnant with new and important events for Ireland. At the first temporary turn of the scale in Irish politics, absenteeism, which could scarcely increase, certainly did not diminish. By this change, the nation at large gained little; and the mean ambition of the nobility, who accepted power and place without one feeling of patriotism or sympathy for the country, was soon nipped in the bud, and for ever blasted with the fortunes of the monarch, on whose favour it was foundedt. The Irish gentry supported the cause of despotism and bigotry in vain; and the impetuous imbecility of James served only to hasten that ruin, which public opinion had so deservedly prepared for him and his family. The mistaken adherence of the people to so bad a cause, was, however, in some measure redeemed by the disinterested fidelity with which they continued to serve that family in its adversity, which in prosperity had always repaid their services with ingratitude. It was the Irish (the ultra-royalists of all times) who, during the dark fortunes of the worthless protégé of the Bourbons, clung to him, when all else deserted him. They manned

None benefited more largely by these "plots of rebellion" than the House of Ormonde. "His Grace (says Lord Anglesey in his letter to the Earl of Castlehaven) his Grace (the Duke of Ormonde) and his family, by the forfeiture and punishment of the Irish, were the greatest gainers in the kingdom, and had added to their inheritance vast scopes of land, and a revenue three times greater than his paternal estate as it was before the Rebellion, and most of his increase was out of their estates who adhered to the peace of 1648, or served under His Majesty's ensigns abroad." In the anonymous and curious pamphlet "The Unkind Deserter," it is asserted that the Ormonde estate was but £7000. per annum before the civil wars in Ireland, and that in 1674 it was close upon £100,000. a year; which increase arose from the King's grants to him " of other men's estates," &c. &c. &c. The history of the last Rebellion in 1798, and of the Union, would furnish many anecdotes of a similar increase of the wealth of Irish families; not indeed by forfeitures (for the mode had passed), but by intriguing and bullying the government out of every place at its disposal, from a mitre to a cornetcy of dragoons,-by selling themselves and their country wholesale and retail (a vote upon a single stage of a question has been hired, like a job-carriage, by the night); by corrupt dabbling in every species of public work; in short, by every disgraceful practice of the fraudulent tradesman, the scheming adventurer, and the sturdy mendicant. The philosopher Kirwan was wont to quote a calculation he had made, that the money spent on carrying the Union, would have built a bridge from Howth to Holyhead.

In James the Second's reign some of the measures were calculated to be of the greatest service to Ireland, and emanated from a wise and discreet minister, formerly attached to the Protestant interest, the second Earl of Clarendon. His in-, structions announced the intention of the legislature, or at least of the King, to introduce Catholics into the corporations, and invest them with magistracies and judicial offices; and he gave his opinion in favour of the legality of the measure, though contrary to an Act of Elizabeth. But the greatest evil which can occur to a reformation, is to have it undertaken by men of small capacity; as their best intentions are ever marred by their petulance and dulness. The folly with which James hurried on a change, and the injudiciousness of some of the proposed measures, caused his own ruin, and that of the unhappy country he made the principal scene of his egregious weakness and incapacity.

his navy, recruited his army, replenished his coffers, and took their stand around his person on their native soil; and when they saw him the first to fly, they still erected his torn standard, and rallied in his cause †, paying the penalty of their generous but misapplied devotion to a bigot and a tyrant, by utter ruin, and eternal exile. The outlawry and confiscations of 1688 drove near four thousand Irishmen of family into a dreary and perpetual absenteeism, and sent them to dole out for a pitiful hire, in the cause of oppression in other countries, the same valour, and the same spirit, which their fathers had displayed in support of the liberty of their own.

The sale of the estates of these unfortunate and involuntary absentees, under the authority of the English Parliament, changed a large portion of the Irish population, and introduced a new race of landed proprietors, whose interest it was to stay at home. The tide of absenteeship received a powerful check from the necessity of circumstances. Those Irish Catholics, who had escaped detection, or were exempt from suspicion, retired to their remote patrimonial domains, and sought safety in obscurity; hoping, by remaining peaceably at home, to escape the notice of a government which had sprung out of a revolution they had so lately opposed. The Protestants likewise found it their interest to remain the vigilant guardians of the new possessions they had recently acquired, and of the old, which they had so bravely protected. All parties were either impoverished or unsettled; and few had the means, if they had the desire, to remove from a scene of ferment and desolation, to one of security and enjoyment. For the Irish of any sect or race, there was then no resting-place.

While England gained every thing by a revolution, which she owed to the moral and political education acquired during a century of struggle for civil rights and religious freedom, Ireland lost nearly all she had left to lose through her deficiency in these endowments, resulting from many centuries of anarchy and misrule. The picture, sketched by a masterhand, of the condition of affairs at this singular epoch, is full of a fearful and melancholy interest. "By the total reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691," says Burke," the ruin of the native Irish, and in a great measure of the first race of the English, was completely accomplished. The new interest was settled with as solid a stability as any thing in human affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression which were made after the last event, were

*The Irish army under Tirconnel and Sarsfield made a most vigorous resistance against a superior and well-disciplined force; and Limerick, the last hold, was surrendered upon terms from which it appears that none more esteemed their valour and fidelity than King William himself.

+ When James, after his flight from the battle of the Boyne, arrived in Dublin, he had the ingratitude and ungraciousness to reflect upon the cowardice of the Irish. He reached the Castle late at night, and was met at its gates by the Lady Lieutenant, the beautiful Duchess of Tirconnel, "La belle Jennings" of Grammont's Memoirs. In return for the sympathizing respects which marked her reception, the King is said to have sarcastically complimented her upon the "alertness of her husband's countrymen." The high-spirited beauty replied, "In that, however, your Majesty has had the advantage of them all." The King, in fact, was among the first to arrive in the capital with the news of his own defeat.

They were estimated at the annual sum of two hundred and eleven thousand six hundred pounds.

manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke. They were not the effects of their fears, but of their security. They who carried on this system looked to the irresistible force of Great Britain for their support in their acts of power. They were quite certain that no complaints of the natives would be heard on this side of the water, with any other sentiments than those of contempt and indignation. Their cries served only to augment their torture. Machines which could answer their purposes so well must be of an excellent contrivance. Indeed, at that time, in England the double name of the complainants, Irish and Papists, (it would be hard to say singly which was the most odious,) shut up the hearts of every one against them. Whilst that temper prevailed in all its force to a time within our memory, every measure was pleasing and popular, just in proportion as it tended to harass and ruin a set of people who were looked upon as enemies to God and man; and, indeed, as a race of bigoted savages, who were a disgrace to human nature itself."*

In spite, however, of religious intolerancet and civil disqualificationof statutes which render commerce a crime, and laws which made industry penal; of abuses of power numerous under William, and quadrupled under the last of the Stuarts and the first of the Brunswicks, still something like a counterpoise was found to balance these political evils in the home residence of the educated gentry, and in the political bustle and activity of an Irish Parliament. As soon as the positive calamities of war and confiscation ceased, as soon as an approach was made to European habits and policy, and industry was permitted to find a scope and a reward for its exertions, the nation made a sudden and a rapid progress in civilization and comfort, simply through the efficiency of its own resources, and the demands of its own market. It was in vain that the talismanic words "Irishman" and "Papist" were employed to arm passion and prejudice against the country; it was in vain that commercial jealousy threw shackles round its infant manufactures. In spite of these and many other obstacles, the moral strength of a country

*Letter to Sir H. Langrish.

+ Of this intolerance William stands in a great measure acquitted. His known liberality subjected him to the suspicions of the party who forged the penal statutes for Ireland, and who accused him of infidelity, because he was unwilling to become a persecutor. When left to act for himself, he exhibited a wisdom, wanting in the measures of those to whom he was occasionally obliged to submit. In his instructions to the commissioners in Scotland, dated 1689, he says expressly, "You are to pass an act establishing that church government which is most agreeable to the inclinations of the people."

To favour the English manufacturer, the exportation of the staple commodity and manufacture of Ireland (wool) was prohibited on pain of confiscation, imprisonment, and transportation!! It would be difficult to say whether the infamy or the absurdity of such legislation is the greatest; and indignation at the avarice of the lawgivers, is so largely mixed with contempt for their blind ignorance, that the pen pauses in its vituperation of measures which were so obviously their own punishment. Be it however remarked " en passant," that the framers of these laws were the aristocracy of England, the most educated and moral people then in existence; a striking proof of the perfect inadequacy of abstract principles of right and wrong to the good government of conduct. Force, and force alone, too generally makes right, in opinion, as well as in fact; and where the power to abuse exists, the will to injure and the sophistry to justify the injury, will never long be wanting.

always distinguished for the natural endowments of its population, rose superior to the cruel pressure of its political inflictions; and the domestic activity and intellectual improvement of the people-slow and limited as they appear, when compared with the advances of the sister kingdom-proceeded with a rapidity little short of miraculous, under so stultifying a system of legislation and government. It was then that the light of national genius concentrated its long-scattered rays to a point, and shining steadily from its proper focus, threw out those inextinguishable sparks of moral lustre,

"Which are wont to give

Light to a world and make a nation live."

It was then that the powerful collision of active, ardent, and energetic minds produced that brilliant burst of talent which, for something more than a century, flung over the political darkness of the land a splendour to which her struggles and her misfortunes served only to give a stronger relief and more brilliant effect. It was then that, after ages of mental depression, which the song of the Irish bard but deepened into a more poetical sadness,† the Irish intellect broke out, like the Irish rebellion, "threescore thousand strong," when none expected or were prepared for the startling and splendid irruption. The old mart of learning was re-opened to the erudite of Europe, as in those times, when if a sage was missing, it was said "emandatus est ad disciplinam in Hibernia;" and the rich stream of native humour which, like a caverned river, had hitherto "kept the noiseless tenor of its way," darkened by impending shadows, now rushed forth with the rapidity of a torrent, pure, sparkling, and abundant, at the first vent afforded to its progress. Science and philosophy now first raised their altars amidst the monkish monuments of an antiquated Institution, and benefited the world by theories and by experiments originated in a land where public opinion and private faith were still struggling under the ban of legal proscription. England then opened a running account with Ireland for dramatie contributions when her own resources had, by being too largely drawn upon, nearly become bankrupt§; and literary Europe stood in

"Have they any wit in their compositions? (says Spenser in speaking of the poetry of the Irish in his day.) Yea, truly I have caused divers of them to be translated unto me, that I might understand them; and surely they savoured of sweet wit and good invention, sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness to them."

"Oh wretched condition of our loved compatriots, the remains of a once happy people, steeped in blood and drenched in slaughter! Vain is your struggle for liberty, hapless crew of a bark long tempest-tossed, and now cast away for ever. What are we not wrecked on our own shores, and prisoners to the Saxons? Is not the sentence passed, and our excision foredoomed? How are ye fallen from the ancient glories of your native land! Power degraded into weakness, beauty to deformity, freedom into slavery, and the song of triumph into elegies of despair. Nial, of the nine hostages, look not down upon us, lest thou blush for thy captive Gadhelians. Conn, of the hundred battles, sleep in thy grass-grown tomb, nor upbraid our defeats with thy victories."-Oran (or song) of Ognive, the family bard of the last of the O'Neils.

Boyle, Berkeley, King, Dodwell, Leslie, Toland, Clayton (Bishop of Clogher), Molyneux (the friend of Locke the philosopher and champion of Irish independence), Helsham, Robinson, Macbride, Sullivan, Hutchinson, Abernethy, Harris, Keating, Leland, Kirwan, Young (Bishop of Clonfert) &c. &c.

§ Even so far back as the reign of James the First, Ireland began to furnish her uota to the English drama. But from the middle of the seventeenth century to