WORDS, WORDS, WORDS!
Ir the Irish are to be judged by their journalists,, no nation is more Swayed by trivialities. Their newspapers teem perpetually with solemnities and " toozy-moozy " amounting to ecstacy, and often about trifles that people of a soberer temperament would not think worth even mentioning. They are a new sort of Anti-Stoics, who deem it wise to be moved about everything, and as much moved as possible. We will take a few passing instances. Flags are things about which professional persons in many coun- tries are not ashamed to display a good deal of ludicrous emotion, sail a symbol were in itself sacred; but the sentimentality about bunting in Ireland must make even French Opposition journalists smile. It is the more laughable in that it seems all in earnest. From a poem in the last number of the Nation, by " The Celt," it appears that one present cause of grief to Ireland is the humilia- tion of the "Irish" flag. England and Scotland are content to have a share in the Union-jack ; but Ireland, we learn, is wo- stricken because its own flag does not override the whole- 44 Full often when our fathers saw the Red above the Green,
They rose in rude but fierce array, with sabre, pike, and skian; And over many a noble town, and many a field of dead, They proudly set the Irish Green above the English Red.
"But in the end, throughout the land, the shameful sight was seen, The English Red in triumph high above the Irish Green ; But well they died in breach, and field who, as their spirits fled, Still saw the Green maintain its place above the English Red.
"And they who saw, in after times, the Red above the Green, Were wither'd as the grass that dies beneath a forest screen ;
Yet often by this healthy hope their sinking hearts were fed,
That in some day to come the Green should flutter o'er the Red.
Sure 'Issas for this Lord Edward died, and Wolfe Tone sunk serene— Because they could not bear to see the Red above the Green ; And 'twits for this that Owen fought, and Sarsfield nobly bled— Because their eyes were hot to see the Green above the Red.
"And 'tis for this we think and toil, and knowledge strive to glean, That we may pull the English Red below the Irish Green, And leave our sons sweet liberty, and smiling plenty spread Above the land once dark with blood—the Green above the Red.
• • • •
" And, freely as we lift our hands, we vow our blood to shed
Once and for evermore to raise the Green above the Red!"
This stirring poem is set to the air of "Irish Molly 0,"—which is appropriate enough ; only the name of the air must be a misprint for "Irish Molly-coddle " ; "Molly-coddle" being a common nursery synonym for spoony, nincompoop, ninny, ninny-hammer, gaby, milksop, or cry-baby. Like most puling children, the Irish Molly before us is given to rage, and all because one bit of bunting must not go above another. He would evidently deluge the coun- try in blood to promote the desired kind of juxtaposition. He in- forms us, too, that the real object of all the Irish agitation is only to place "the green above the red." He must be "jolly green" indeed; and though that crusade to grasp supreme power for "the green" may obtain the sympathy of greenhorns generally, it is not likely to command the respect and concurrence of Europe. Perhaps the other word is also a misprint, and it should be "read; "The Celt" striving "for this"—namely, to place "the green above the read "—the dolt over the educated—Jack Cade above Lord Say. That, indeed, would be a much more intelligible purpose, and might command some sympathy with the opponents of popular education. Another sample. We lately remarked, that when Mr. O'Cost- WALT proposed to forgive to England the " surpliced ruffians" and other epithets of the Times some years ago, if England would for- give his use of the epithet "Saxon," there was no reciprocity in the bargain, England not being responsible for the freaks of the anonymous writer in the Times of that day. The Dublin Pilot solemnly vindicates the bargain; and reiterates, that" Saxon" is an honourable term,—as if we did not know that on this side of the water ! But Mr. O'CONNELL made it pass as the "short" for a host of vices and misdeeds which he imputed to the said Saxon ; and we objected to it, not for any direct injury which the word could do to the English nation—we had no such fear—but because it had such a remarkably morbid, maddening effect upon the Irish themselves. It was quite a pity to see the Liberator making game of his countrymen, and working them into a phrensy with repeat- ing " Saxon! Saxon !" it was like frightening and angering turkey- cocks with a red rag—a formidable scrap of" the red." The Pilot indeed imputes the most tangible effects to words, such as "sa- vages, ‘"surpliced ruffians," " dwmon priesthood," "electoral per- jurers," "representatives of Ribandmen" ; which it still repeats with extreme unction- 4, Under these epithets—through their spirit, and by their influence—the most demon Government that ever compromised one country, coerced another, and risked the connexion between both, was inflicted upon this empire. 'Under the ittstigation of such epithets against Ireland—its religion, clergy, and people— it was that the Peel Government was intruded into power. It was this Go- vernment with its charter of epithets which gave us the Pennefathers, the Jacksoos, the Lefroys, the Littons, and other rather practical facts of their kind. These English epithets it was which gave us a Smith, a Green, a De Grey, a Lucas—and oh, ugliness to boot—a Brewster ! These English words gave us measures in keeping with the men. They gave us a country which, from being comparatively quiescent, became one raised to a state of what they call disturbance, but which we say was one of just and well-grounded discon- tent. They gave us witnesses, judges, jurors—and oh, such a kind of all! They gave us prosecutions without crime—legal decisions without law, and imprison- ment without trial—a projected massacre, and a garrisoned country filled with folly as well as fortresses. It was the English epithets which constituted the feels, and thew of the most mischievous description." Now conceive-the "public instrueter. "who. thinks that, you . can" do all this to a people simply by calling them "savages" I Haw- easy it would be thua to dispose of nations! We should but need; to call the French "cowards" to conquer them out of hand. By virtue of the same verbal onslaught, Imperial Russia, the "Great. Bear of the North," ought long ago to have dissolved into bear's grease at Is. the pot. Besides, the editor of the Pilot is mistaken, as to "the facts." It was not coarse language applied by news-- paper-writers to Ireland that brought PEEL into power, nor any Irish matter at all, but certain financial and political questions chiefly concerning England or the empire at large. Any English "printer's devil" knows that ; yet in one of the ablest Irish papers we find this extraordinary version of the history of 1841.
But the Irish writers also look abroad for their verbal grievances. A gentleman whose letters are published in the Nation is travelling in Wales; and he has found out a new grievance—that England has shown more favour to Wales than to Ireland in the orthography ot local names on the map I Most Welsh names, he says, are spelt accurately ; whereas Irish names are sadly mauled. This difference. he imputes in some way to the "firmness" of the Welsh. In illus- tration, this philological traveller quotes a dialogue between a Cock- ney and a Welsh shopman. The Welsh, as many know,pronounce the Li with a peculiar sound, which our Irishman only attempts to do-- scribe by saying that it was wrong to liken it to Thl : he might have said that it is as if the Welshman,just about to pronounce the letter L, were seized with a sneeze, which he would not wait to indulge, so that it half exploded in the utterance of the L. Now a Cockney, in whose mind "the green" seems to have predominated over "the read," went into a shop in Wales and asked, sic fertur, for a copy,, not of "The Maid of Llangollen," with two semi-sneezes, but for- " The Maid of Langolen," unsternutated. The shopman told him that it was called "Llangollen"; which the Cockney denied ; but the Welshman was "firm," and would not concede the sneezes. We are left to infer that the modern Pict conveyed a great moral. lesson to the Irish nation in that devotion to the native ruggedness of his tongue. These trivialities are paltry enough ; but the Irish writers make them national ; and English people should mercifully remember when they talk of their neighbours across St. George's Channel, that while hard language in England only recoils on him who uses it, it may chance to drive the whole editorial corps of Dublin into hysterics. In the genuine spirit of trifling, symbols are erected into realities, and are invested with a sort of primary importance. The habit, indeed, is more than a mere trick of journalism, though it now presents itself in that shape : bow deeply imbued with it the national character is, was shown in Mr. O'Coluseee's constant use of the word "Saxon," and in the importance which he attached to waiving that terrible weapon.
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