Sound and strong his heart as biscuit, A lady in famed Cadiz city, Saw his handsome form and face; But a stranger-'twas a pity No acquaintance could take place. Still, however, she admired him, Wondering much who he could be; As a husband she desired him, If she thought he would agree. But the Captain bore the bell! Down she fell on the cold ground. Faint heart gains nor man nor woman. Unmoored, the vessel glides along, Solitude pervades my room Through the swiftly whirling crowds, Through the chambers of the deep, Mingling with, it rules their quires; Careful vigil then it keeps, Round his pillow as he sleeps. LETTER FROM GABRIEL SOUTH, ESQUIRE. S. MEIKLE. Cape Clear, September 30, 1823. Quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes ? Quem sese ore ferens? SIR,-I dare say you are the only Editor in the three Kingdoms, as these two great islands used to be called in the days of our grandfathers, who would not stare with inexpressible astonishment on receiving a letter from this sequestered spot. Not that it is without a reasonable share of that notoriety which belongs to all great capes or headlands, from the circumstance of affording a point of direction to the several vessels in whose course it happens to stand. Of my place of residence I can indeed say more than many persons of noble birth and high distinction; namely, that there is not a map of Europe, however small, in which it is not particularly specified, while their princely mansions, villages, and even towns, are passed over without notice. I cannot, however, speak very highly of the literary attainments of my insular associates, in number about 600, among whom, at this present writing, are but seventeen who can converse in the English tongue, and but three of us who can read and write, viz. the priest, the keeper of the light-house, and your humble servant. Yet remote as I am from you, and far removed as you appear to be from the wrangling discussions of our Irish politics, I know no one to whom I can with more satisfaction address a series of papers on our affairs. With your sentiments on general politics I entirely coincide. I rejoice at the success which your Magazine has met, and hail in it an auspicious omen of the revival of those true British feelings which had been for a while depressed, discountenanced, and almost sunk under the imposing speciousness of a false philosophy, assuming the garb of liberal sentiment, civic freedom, and universal philanthropy. The mask has been torn off its face, and the features of the monster appear in their native deformity. In every case of combination against his health or life, the British lion, often appearing inert and sluggish in the beginning, but wanting only to be roused, has, when he put forth his strength, never failed to defeat the machinations of his foes, whether internal or external. Of this remarkable fact your own experience will point out numerous instances.-May the justice of the observation be equally confirmed by the experience of all who will come after us! But our Irish affairs appear cut off from all effective sympathy. We are made a regular butt for the shooting off of Whig liberalism and Whig condolence. You see fellows writing about us as if we were people of different passions and affections from the rest of mankind. You hear orators, in Parliament and elsewhere, drunk or sober, as chance directs it, lamenting over the Helotism of Ireland, and the savage oppression of its rulers. But you neither see nor hear anything real or practical on the actual state of the country. We have got plenty of disquisitions on bottles and rattles, sufficient of investigations as to whether Sir John Newport has read the Bible enough to distinguish one ancient nation from another, an abundance of detail whether Sheriff Thorpe was correct or incorrect in likening the Marquis of Wellesley to the jack of trumps, and an overflowing measure of tropes and figures on the unheard-of oppression of not allowing Mr O'Connell to wear a gown of finer texture than that which envelopes the shoulders of Mr Brougham-of the true state of the country next to nothing. Through your pages, which have been at all times more attentive to Irish affairs than any of your contemporaries, I shall venture to make some observations-perhaps, if you so permit me, at some length. The advantages I possess, however highly to be rated in some respects, are yet such as will draw no envy on my head, as they are chiefly derived from what none of us is in a hurry to attain-length of life. Some of your contributors, sir, lay claim to this distinction, but the youthful blood which occasionally wantons in their productions, plucks the assumed coronal of grey hairs from their heads. In my case it is, I am sorry to say-but why should I be sorry to say that I have lived through a life of smooth and happy current ?-it is quite true. Though not altogether unacquainted with other countries, I have passed the greatest part of my time in this, where I have been neither unobservant nor inactive. The state of Ireland engages, and has for some time occupied, a considerable share of the attention of the sister island, particularly since the cessation of foreign alarms and continental warfare has enabled her to turn her thoughts, with more unremitted energy, on the important subject of domestic concerns; but, as I have already said, the picture presented to the view of England is partial, and clouded with passions and prejudices. There are, no doubt, many intelligent and welleducated Irishmen capable of doing justice to the subject, and amply qualified for the task, by the moderation of their sentiments and the liberality of their minds; but these very qualifications prevent the undertaking. Having no particular inducement to the labour, they remain quietly in the back-ground, leaving the field in the possession of clamo rous partizans and factious writers, with whom sober facts and simple truth are objects of very secondary importance. In compassionate consideration of Ireland's want of a veracious historian, an English gentleman did her the favour to visit her shores some years since, with the express purpose of supplying that deficiency, and possessing one capital qualification, a perfect confidence in his own ability. His ability to write a book was indeed very apparent; for after a short sojourn in what was to him a strange country, and to which, had he still remained in it, he would be a stranger, he did certainly put forth two huge quarto volumes, of what he was pleased to call a Political and Statistical Account of Ireland. To this I may perhaps hereafter advert, particularly as I find it used as the unquestioned text-book of the philosophers of Constable's Review, the Scotsman newspaper, and other deep speculators on Irish affairs. At present my purpose is to give you some sketches, for I do not pretend to write a formal history, of the actual state of this country and its inhabitants, on the correctness of which I think you may depend; because, though not divested of prejudices and prepossessions, I am altogether exempt from the agitations of party animosity, sectarian rancour, the irritation of disappointed hopes, or the animosities attending the pursuits of honour or emolument. For this degree of self-commendation you will be the more disposed to give me credit, when I tell you that the merit I claim is founded on my incapacity to mix in the animating pursuits of youth. I have no wish for more than I possess. I take an interest, indeed, in the welfare of my friends and the prosperity of my country; but the coolness of age, and the distance from which I view the bustling scenes of life, enable me to regard these scenes with comparative indifference, and, as far as other circumstances will permit, to paint them with fidelity. I shall endeavour to avail myself of the Horatian precept, of using a style "modo tristi sæpe jocoso," somewhat-" longo sed intervallo"-on the plan of your own audaciously original publication. But I shall not intrude on your space with farther introductory remarks, and conclude this preliminary letter by wishing you every success, and subscribing myself as, Sir, Your most obedient, humble servant, THE IRISHMAN. No. I. PAMPHLETS ON IRELAND. DURING the late session of Parliament, our Irish affairs obtained a surpassing degree of attention. More hours, I believe, were wasted on us than on all the other topics of Parliamentary investigation. The effect on the House of Commons was, that everything connected with us was voted a bore of unendurable magnitude. No sooner had the voice of Sir Robert Heron been heard from the chair, announcing" that the House had resolved itself into a committee, to take into consideration the conduct of the High Sheriff of Dublin," than there GABRIEL SOUTH. was a general flight, leaving the arena in the possession of those, who, I may say, were almost professionally engaged, reinforced occasionally, towards the end of the evening, by those choicer spirits, who had screwed themselves to the sticking place by the sti mulant of the jolly god. I am afraid that a similar satiety has seized on the British public-that a kind of Hiberno-phobia prevails, very unfavourable to my design of giving a series of articles on our concerns. Yet when so many take pen in hand on the same subject, may not I too roll my tub Observations on Ireland. By the Earl of Blessington, 8vo. London, Longman and Co. 1822. Views of Ireland. By J. O'Driscoll, Esq. 2 vol. 8vo. London, Longman and Co. 1823. as busily, perhaps you may say as unprofitably, as Diogenes himself? I believe the easiest way to come at the consideration of my subject, and to accomplish my design of speaking truth and common sense about my country, is to devote a paper to the exposure of the falsehoods and follies now fashionably current on that head. I shall take them of the freshest water, the latest impression. I speak not, of course, of newspapers, which are for the most part mere organs of party, and very convenient receptacles for the good or ill humour of their supporters. They furnish a daily supply of light food for the public palate, which habit has now rendered indispensably necessary, and which, whether wholesome or noxious, never fails to find consumers. The compositions to which I refer are of much higher pretension; professing to be works of superior intelligence, of men divested of all illiberal prejudices, intimately acquainted with the state of Ireland, competent to prescribe to the legislature a cure for all her ills, and kind enough to communicate it. I have lately seen a pamphlet, written by a patriotic Irish nobleman, with the good-natured purpose of explaining to his Excellency the Marquis Wellesley the nature of the country he was coming to govern, and the measures he ought to pursue. The acute mind of the noble Marquis may perhaps have derived useful knowledge from instruction so generously communicated. If so, his Excellency has been more fortunate than I; the only inference I was able to draw being, that his Lordship would have been better employed in cultivating his Irish estate, and improving his tenantry, than in writing political rhapsodies in London. One observation, however, deserves notice. In enumerating the raw materials of profitable trade in Ireland, his Lordship mentions granite, (I suppose for its rarity,) which he earnestly recommends to the citizens of Dublin as superexcellent stuff for staircases, because, as he was credibly informed by a person whom he had reason to think a competent judge of such matters, it will resist fire. This, indeed, was a notable discovery. Another political pamphlet, if I may, without degradation, bestow such a name on two octavo volumes, published by John O'Driscoll, Esq., and offered at the price-a modest and encouraging one-of fifteen shillings per vol., has more recently fallen under my view. If I spend more time in the consideration of this book, than it is, in any point of view, worth, you must excuse me. It is brought out under the patronage of a great Whig nobleman, a vast Irish absentee proprietor; and really, as a fair representative of its class, shews how such things are usually written. I perceive, too, that some London periodical-I forget whichgives it some praise, as exhibiting Irish feeling and talent; and I had heard it considerably extolled for the beauty of its composition, even by those who disapproved of its doctrines; and, though likely to be of that number, I was nevertheless pleased with the account. I felt fully prepared to welcome and applaud a rising star of Irish genius, although its lustre might be more calculated to dazzle than illumine. Dazzle it unquestionably did-not, however, like a first-rate star, but like a second-rate comet; for it contains an ill-defined nucleus of meaning, enveloped in a halo of verbiage encumbering what it is unable to adorn. I have every respect for the author's private and personal character, and speak only of his book, now public property, which every man is free to censure or approve according to his judgment. To me, I must confess, had I not been told it was a serious work, it would have seemed a burlesque on fine writinga Chrononhotonthologos turned politician. It is far from being agreeable to me to expose the absurdity of a writer of my own country; and were there nothing in the book reprehensible besides the style, it might wend its way to the "gulph of all human possessions" without any molestation on my part. But, in animadverting on the work, it is impossible to pass by a feature so remarkable, a defect so little to be expected in the present day, when so many models of just composition exist, and when, in almost every newspaper, are to be found well written paragraphs. In public declamation, pompous inanity has some chance to escape; flash succeeds flash so fast, that we have not time to analyze and examine; but the litera scripta has a more serious trial to undergo, and must abide the deliberate verdict of critical inquest and examination. I know no writer more peremptory, and yet more unfortunate, in his dicta, than the author of the two octavo volumes. His very preface begins with a false position, owing to the puerile affectation of saying old things in a new manner, and clothing trite meanings in florid diction. Alluding to the success of a few modern novels and poems, he says, "Fame and Fortune are the slaves which obey the master spirits of our time, whose choice it is to dwell in the enchanted regions of the imagination." Now the truth is, that Fame or Fortune, or both, are the very idols to which those masterspirits bow; they are the main incitements of honourable ambition, and instead of being slaves to men, the fact is that men are slaves to them. But Mr O'Driscoll is not just to himself in confining imagination to novelists and poets-his own book will shew that he knows how to employ it, not only in adorning facts, but in creating them. In the same kind of inflated diction he proceeds through many a page, using a profusion of words to express badly, what might perspicuously be unfolded in a few, a fault too often found, I am sorry to say, in the compositions of my countrymen. One of his subsequent affirmations I am the more willing to admit, because (as Pope observes of Longinus) he exemplifies it himself. "There is no country about which so much has been written, and so badly and imperfectly, as Ireland." Even this, however, is ill expressed-it should be, there is no country upon which so much has been written badly and imperfectly as Ireland; for unquestionably there are many countries on which much more has been actually written. Putting the fabulous history of Ireland, as it deserves, out of the question, perhaps there is no nation in Europe on which so little has been written. The substance of all which this gentleman has composed in elucidation of its state might, if written in plain English, be comprized in the fourth part of one of his own octavos. As it is, the appendix, particularly in the first volume, though apparently less, because the print is smaller, is in reality more than the book to which it is appended. And what do those appendices contain? Some tedious extracts from old documents, of no value but to the rakers into antiquity, Mr Grattan's obsolete philippic against tithes answered and refuted over and over, quotations from the dull quartos of Wakefield, the worst of all bad authorities, some brilliant observations of his own, and a few extracts from works already sufficiently appreciated. This superfluity of appendage, argues either a very short memory or an ignorance of the contents of his own volumes; for in his preface he thus speaks. "We have not valued numerous references, nor extensive details, nor a voluminous appendix. These might have had their use," in former times I suppose, "and we have not wholly neglected them!" No truly, unless you call dividing the book with them neglect. I cannot forbear quoting the remainder of the paragraph as a specimen of the author's peculiar manner, though it is simplicity itself, compared with other passages. "But our chief object was to convince-to persuade to give to the cause of Ireland, if we could achieve it, that interest which is created not by cold detail and barren documents," such as his appendices, " and a cheap parade of learning; but by those warm and living pictures, which as they can be painted only by him who feels, are calculated to seize on the feelings of others, and to convince the understanding, while they possess themselves of the heart. We do not say we have done this, but we would have done it." There is something in this which at first looks like meaning, but on consideration it eludes our grasp. His object, he says, was (is it should be,) to convince to persuade, but we are not told whom he is to convince, or of what they are to be persuaded. The cause of Ireland is a vague and indefinite expression; it conveys no distinct meaning, such as might be expected from a political philosopher, writing at his case in the quiet retreat of Lisnabrinny, and wishing to contribute his humble mite towards the improvement of his native country. Warm pictures, and addresses to the passions, are not the safest modes of convincing the understanding, particularly in that which of all sciences requires the clearest head and the coolest judgment, the science of legislation. The concluding sentence is neither sense nor English. The intended meaning, if I do not mistake it, is as follows. This it is my aim to accomplish, but I do not take upon me to say that I shall be successful. We is certainly a very improper designation of a single person, wri |
