Those who hold with him will say it is for the better; an observer of another sort will urge that it is for the worse: but, for good or bad effects in the Irish character, his religion has had an immense weight; and the fidelity with which he has clung to it is touching and noble, whether the effect be sad or otherwise.

The merriment and wit of the Kelts is great. It is sudden, full of life and ingenuity. It seems natural to them, and more especially to the lower orders. Any one who has spent some weeks in Ireland will be ready to own that he has heard more witty turns of expression, more lively repartees, and more good-natured jokes, than would fill a jest-book. It is not only the matter of these repartees-for of that class the jokes chiefly consist-but the manner of them that is so excellent. The Irish have the true essence of wit: they perceive a likeness between distant and incongruous objects. Their wit has perhaps more feeling and poetry in it than any other wit in the world. But witty persons are not always successful. The dull man knows that he is laughed at, and yet carries the day. A tyrant is never slain by epigrams, nor put to death by puns, and Paddy is by far too piteous and too good-natured to slay those people whom his wit has rendered ridiculous. Therein he differs from the French Kelt.

But the Irishman has his cruel side, and a very cruel one it is. He cannot be said to be utterly deceitful, because he probably always has a certain mental reservation, and very likely never intends to be faithful to any one but his chief, his clansman, or his priest. When he murders his landlord-if

he ever does do so; for it is said that strangers are employed to do that deed of blood-he probably considers him as an interloper, a stranger; for the Keltic ideas of property are very different from those of the Saxon. Still there is an awful amount of cruelty in the Keltic nature. As the Welsh Kelt mutilated the bodies of the slain after the defeat of Mortimer's army; as Frenchwomen, and even ladies, have taken a horrible pleasure in witnessing bloody executions; so in the massacres by O'Neil, in those at Wexford in '98, and in many another scene, we find a detestable and ghoullike cruelty peeping out, which seems inherent in the race. It is told of two French gentlemen that they fought a duel, wherein one purposely cut off the nose of his adversary, a very handsome man. Struck with horror, the wounded man dropped his sword and rushed to pick up the late ornament of his face, when his opponent, with the grin of a fiend, ground it to a shapeless mass with the heel of his boot. Cruel as this is, the Irish Kelt exceeds the French one. Dermot, the ally of Strongbow, the invading English Earl, says Giraldus Cambrensis, " was a tall, strong man, warlike and daring, with a voice hoarse with shouting in battle, desiring to be feared rather than loved; an oppressor of the noble, a raiser up of the low, tyrannical to his own people, and detested by strangers." Here is a perfect picture of an Irish chief. And what did he do to show his greatness? After a victory a soldier threw at his feet a heap of heads. Dermot clapped his hands with delight, and, seizing a head by the hair and ears, which he recognised as that of an enemy, he tore off

part of the nose and lips with his teeth. No cannibal could have done a more brutal act. We must not object that this was in barbarous times. Ireland had been then long the seat of learning. The Anglo-Norman Strongbow, a meek, calm, calculating gentleman, brave and courteous as covetous, would never have thus polluted himself. But even now the Irish will do it. In our London or Liverpool police-courts we often find an Irish man or woman spitefully disfiguring an antagonist, and the very act of biting off the nose or the ear is of frequent occurrence. In contradistinction to such brutalities, a fair stand up fight of Englishmen, who hit only on the face and chest, who strike no foul blow, and never hit a man when he is down, is chivalry itself. In the Irish rebellion men were buried up to their chins, and their heads bowled at. No parallel can excuse these cases. The race, in fact, loves extremes; and, in its poetry, brutality is absolutely put forward as strength. No man curses like an Irishman. "Our army," says Uncle Toby, swore terribly

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in Flanders;" but what was that swearing to such a little burst of poetic cursing as this by Tom Davis, a very promising and charming writer, who died too early:

“Did they dare, did they dare to slay Owen Roe O'Neil?

Yes, they slew with poison him whom they feared to meet with steel.

May God wither up their hearts! May their blood cease to flow!

May they walk in living death, who poison'd Owen Roe."

The language is positively awful: it is strong, no doubt; but

real strength should be in action. Strong words too often proceed from weak brains.

That England, years ago, governed Ireland badly, and with a cruel, because a mistaken policy, is quite true: that she governs her well now, and exhibits to her the most untiring kindliness, is just as true. The two islands can never be separated, and "Repeal” is a vain and, we hope, a dying dream. But sad as has been the lot of Ireland, that of England has not been one entirely of delight. The Island of the Saints has been ever a trouble to the richer, more industrious, and more persevering people. The Edinburgh Review declared that her absence would be better than her presence :"So great and so long has been the misgovernment of Ireland, that we verily believe the empire would be much stronger if everything was open sea between England and the Atlantic, and if skates and codfish swam over the fair land of Ulster." The amount in taxes which the government and sustenance of authority, and of the people, too, in Ireland, has cost John Bull, would, if counted up, amount to three times the value of any advantage he has derived from her. It is a common delusion with the Irish to say that they have fought all England's battles. This, in the first place, is untrue. Before she had any Irish in her armies, England had proved herself a regal and a conquering nation; and, again, if Irish blood has been shed for England, it has been shed against her. One Irish brigade turned the tide of victory against us at Fontenoy, and the kings of France had always their Irish and Scotch mercenaries to gall us. England has, moreover,

only just recently been threatened with invasion from the Irish brigade which has been fighting so tremendously in America. Badly as England may have governed the sister country, she has paid for it, not only in repentance, but in trouble, dissension, treasure, and blood.

But what is wanted to be established is this fact-that poor Paddy is, for good or evil, an essentially original nature, full of great genius, invention, brain-power, and with sufficient industry to do well. Ireland should not be the victim amongst nations; and that she is so is really partly her own fault. Moderation, persistence, legal meetings, and fair fighting, would gain her all she desires or has desired. But her sons cannot agree amongst themselves, and they will not unite for common good. If anybody ever comes in for more than ordinary curses, it is that Irishman who proposes to win a greatness for his country in an ordinary peaceable way. He is an anti-Irish Irishman, and a 66 Saxon" or "cursed Norman" is better far than he :

"One slave alone on earth you'll find through Nature's universal plan,

So lost to virtue, dead to shame-the anti-Irish Irishman."

What then must one do? What can be done for Ireland? All that we can suggest is kindliness, plain honest speaking, no flattering, and firmness. England must be the friend of Ireland, and, like a friend, speak sharply when needed. The land is the land of contradictions-sublime generosity and a cringing meanness, faith and scepticism, love and hatred,