108 MISGOVERNMENT OF IRELAND.-GAME LAWS. GAME LAWS, THE first object of a good government is not that rich men should have their pleasures in perfection, but that all orders of men should be good and happy; and if crowded covies and chuckling cock-pheasants are only to be procured by encouraging the common people in vice, and leading them into cruel and disproportionate punishment, it is the duty of the government to restrain the cruelties which the country members, in reward for their assiduous loyalty, have been allowed to introduce into the game laws. [E. R. 1823.] MISGOVERNMENT OF IRELAND. So great, and so long has been the misgovernment of Ireland, that we verily believe the empire would be much stronger, if every thing was open sea between England and the Atlantic, and if skates and cod-fish swam over the fair land of Ulster. [E. R. 1820.] CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT MARRIAGES. THE Catholics marry upon means which the Protestant considers as insufficient for marriage. A few potatoes and a shed of turf, are all that Luther has left for the Romanist; and, when the latter gets these, he instantly begins upon the great Irish manufacture of children. But a Protestant belongs to the sect that eats the fine flour, and leaves the bran to others; he must have comforts, and he does not marry, till he gets them. -[E. R. 1820.] PIG-STYES TO PALACES.-IRISH PLOUGHMAN. 109 PIG-STYES TO PALACES. ALL degrees of all nations begin with living in pigstyes. The king or the priest first gets out of them; then the noble, then the pauper, in proportion as each class becomes more and more opulent. Better tastes arise from better circumstances; and the luxury of one period is the wretchedness and poverty of another.[E. R. 1820.] AN IRISH PLOUGHMAN. 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 muchinjured 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.[E. R. 1820.] 110 ENGLISH PLOUGHMAN.-THE IRISH CHARACTER. AN ENGLISH PLOUGHMAN. A PLOUGHMAN marries a ploughwoman because she is plump; generally uses her ill; thinks his children an incumbrance; very often flogs them; and, for sentiment, has nothing more nearly approaching to it than the ideas of broiled bacon and mashed potatoes.-[E. R. 1806.] THE IRISH CHARACTER. 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 perseverance without 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. - [E. R. 1820.] GRATTAN.- ENGLISH TYRANNY TO IRELAND. 111 GRATTAN. the 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 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. [E. R. 1810.] ENGLISH TYRANNY TO IRELAND. ENGLAND seems to have treated Ireland much in the same way as Mrs. Brownrigg treated her apprenticefor which Mrs. Brownrigg is hanged in the first volume of the Newgate Calendar. Upon the whole, we think 112 IRISH PERSECUTIONS.-RELICS. the apprentice is better off than the Irishman: as Mrs. Brownrigg merely starves and beats her, without any attempt to prohibit her from going to any shop, or praying at any church, her apprentice might select; and once or twice, if we remember rightly, Brownrigg appears to have felt some compassion. Not so Old England, who indulges rather in a steady baseness, uniform brutality, and unrelenting oppression. — [E. R. 1824.] - IRISH PERSECUTIONS. FOR Some centuries after the reign of Henry II. the Irish were killed like game, by persons qualified or unqualified. Whether dogs were used does not appear quite certain, though it is probable they were, spaniels as well as pointers; and that, after a regular point by Basto, well backed by Ponto and Cæsar, Mr. O'Donnel or Mr. O'Leary bolted from the thicket, and were bagged by the English sportsman. — [E. R. 1824.] RELICS. ENGLAND is almost the only country in the world (even at present), where there is not some favourite religious spot, where absurd lies, little bits of cloth, feathers, rusty nails, splinters, and other invaluable relics, are treasured up, and in defence of which the whole population are willing to turn out and perish as one man. [E. R. 1824.] - MAC'S AND O's. THERE are not a few of the best and most humane Englishmen of the present day, who, when under the |