A STORY OF ENGLAND."

UNTIL we met with the Story of England, we confess we were-un- aware of the extremes to which Irish nationalism, grown morbid under contumely and infuriated by restraint, can proceed in the search for its vengeance upon the hated Sassenach. To ransack the annals of a country for every.dark tale that has been whispered against the reputation of its people, to studiously avoid every creditable or glorious deed which the English nation has per- formed, to exhaust the vocabulary of insult and vituperation in A Story of England: a Narratioe of English Bistory from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. By T. D. Sullivan.

this malicious portraiture, and to palm off this monstrous and unscrupulous libel upon the Irish lower classes as a fair and im- partial narrative of the course of history in Great Britain, _such is the conduct which an Irish writer, who professes to speak in the interests of truth and justice, considers himself entitled to use towards his readers and towards the British public. "A hand-book of English History," says the preface of this deliberate fabrication, " free from the prejudices and partialities displayed in most works of the kind, appears to the writer of the following pages to be much wanted in Ireland. Nearry all the accessible works on that subject are so overlaid with the self-praise of the English nation, with depreciatory notices of other peoples, and with libels on the Catholic Church, as to be almost unreadable by Irishmen. The great crimes that blot the annals of England are usually glossed lightly over by the authors of those works E very. event, circumstance, and situation is made to minister to the vanity of

the English people From the tone in which the affairs of -other countries are usually referred to by English writers, one might suppose that England had never been invaded, conquered, and plundered ; that Englishmen had not been the veriest slaves of Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans ; and that the country had not been the scene of Royal quarrels, usurpation; and murders, racked by-horrible tyrannies and torn by civil wars." The special reason of the animus which the Irish writer is about to display is sufficiently explained in the following sentence :—" Thus the dis- orders alleged to have existed in Irelandat the time of its invasion by Henry IL are always referred to by English writers in such a strain of virtuous pity and indignation as to imply that nothing of the sort was ever known in their country, and that the condition of England at the time was one of peace, order, holiness, and happi- ness." No avenge, accordingly, such alleged misdescription, Mr. T. D. Sullivan proceeds to construct a history in which it is made to appearfthat the English nation ia.the lowest of all nations, not only in its present composition, but in its component parts from the beginning; that the British Celts were the most degraded and savage members of the Celtic race ; that though the average Teuton was a debased brute, the average Teuton was an angel of light, compared to that lowest of all Teutons the Anglo-Gascon, &c., &c. To show our readers that we do not exaggerate or overdraw, -we quote slew specimens :—

"Tus Barrows.

",Thexondition of the inhabitants of Britain previous to the invasion of their _country by the .Romans under Julius Caner was one of utter barbarism. Arts, laws, and learning had made considerable progress in lands not far remote from them ; in Gaul, on the one hand, some approach had been made to settled government ; in Ireland, on the other side, there had been kings and law-givers, poets, musicians, and arti- ficers for several centuries; but between these countries lay Britain in a state of savagery. . . . . Societies of men generally composed of the 'nearest relations, writes Sir James Mackintosh, had wives in common.

The early British costume was a rub of paint, while hundreds of years before this time the kings, chieftains, and common people in Ireland wore dresses of home-made woollen and linen cloth, the number of colours in which were regulated by legal enactment according to the rank of the wearer The British Druids delighted in human sacrifices That ancient awl

"Vox Saxows.

"Instead of organising and arming for self-defence, the Britons looked around to see from what other quarter they might procure a body of protectors. It occurred to-them that the Saxons, one of the most fierce and savage-nations of Northern Germany, were just the sort of men they wanted. The Saxons, says Gildas, were the most brutal and per-

fidious of all the German tribes Soon the Saxons learned to despise the weak and unwarlike people towards whom they were performing the part of protectors, and formed the design of making themselves masters of the land. One of their plans for effecting this purpose was thoroughly characteristic of their race. They invited about three hundred of the chief men of the -Britons to meet at a banquet at Stonehenge, sat down to table with concealed knives or daggers

called seaxas, and upon Hengist exclaiming, Nernst eoure sasses!' ' Out with your knives!' they drew upon the carousing Britons, and slew them all. Banquets of the same sort were often got up by the Anglo-Saxons of later times, in Ireland and elsewhere The religious ideas of the Saxons were of the most savage and revolting kind. Their gods were gods of lust, rapine,

and slaughter It was customary with the Anglo-Saxons at that time, and for hundreds of years afterwards, to sell men, women, and children of their own flesh and blood as slaves to whomsoever would buy them. Long subsequent to the establishment of Christianity in the country this disgusting traffic was carried on, notwithstanding the endeavours of the Church to root it out. Tacitus says, The selling of themselves or their children to slavery was always the practice among the Germanic nations, and was continued among the Anglo-Saxous.' Dr. Lingard says, ' The sale and purchase of slaves probably prevailed during the whole of the Anglo-Saxon period.' William of Malmesbury states that 'the Saxon, nobility were in the habit of selling their female servants to foreigners, and with them their own unborn progeny.'"

The incursions of the Danes afford the excuse for fresh invectives against the detested Saxons. The Danes, indeed, we are told,

might be truly said to have "just asgood a right to the Land" as the Saxons.

" SAXONS AND BANKS.

"Finding themselves unable to check the progress of these terrible foreigners by warlike means, the Esglish had-recourse to the-cowardly and slavish expedient of purchasing peace from them with sums of

money Finding that the payment of money to their oppressors was no cure for the evils of which they complained, the English now bethought themselves of another scheme for reducing their troublesome visitors to a condition of quietude. It consisted in secretly preparing and suddenly executing a massacre of every Danish man, woman, and child within the shores of England. A. rising of the entire people against their invaders—a bold resolve to war against them thence- forward to the death—these things would have been perfectly fair, right, and proper. The Anglo-Saxon monarch and his soldiers and hie people contemplated nothing so manly and legitimate It was customary with the Danes to bathe themselves in the sea, or in the lakes and rivers, at least once a week. This habit seemed very absurd and extravagant to the Saxons, who were a dirty race. These mercenaries had attained such a height of luxury, according to the old-English writers,' says Hume, that they combed their hair once a day, bathed themselves once a week, changed their clothes frequently.' But this bathing habit of the Northman was now to supply an opportunity for accomplishing their destruction. On Sunday, the Feast of St. Brice, November 13, 1002, while the Danes were engaged in their ablutions, naked and unarmed, the Saxons, according to a preooncerted arrangement, mailed upon them and fell to the work of slaughter. Soon the rivers ran red with their blood ; and the waves lapping many a smooth-beach and aholtered cove of the shores of England were tinged by the warm life-current ehhing from the veins of brave men. Such as wore not caught in the water were butchered wherever they were found,—in-their homes, in the streets, and in the churches, whither many of them ,fled for safety. Children had their brains dashed out against the walls; men who were able to struggle for their lives were speedily despatched, but others were subjected to prolonged and cruel tortures before they were deprived of life ; and the women fared worst of all. Cowards are always cruel, and never were more horrible cruelties devised and prac- tised than those which the uprisen Saxons inflicted on the people whom they had taken unawares. When the multitude found themselves masters,' writes an English historian, they proceeded to new barbarities ; digged holes in the ground, and put Danish women in them up-to the waist, and set fierce mastiffs upon them, which cruelly tore off their breasts.'" In other passages the writer of this systematic libel on the English nation applies himself to the task of exciting the religious prejudices of his readers against the country of his fierce detestation :— "Priests and monks were the only instructors of kings, nobles, and people, the only teachers of faith and morals, the only humanness of society, the only correctors of the savage passions and brutal practices of the age. They had in England shard time of it, especially among the Anglo-Saxon masses of the people, whose excessive animalism rendered them of all races the least receptive of Christian doctrine, and the least submissive to Christian discipline. Wilder and braver people, races with more real fire and dash in their nature, accepted the Gospel with alacrity, gave themselves enthusiastically to its service, and have ever since remained faithful to the laws and obedient to the authority of the Church which led them out of the darkness of paganism ; but to the stolid .and sensual Anglo-Saxons, the purity and self-denial inculcated by the Founder of Christianity, and taught by his apostles and their successors, were always repugnant ; they never gave to such. teachings a hearty interior assent, or pat them thoroughly and generally in practice. Even among the religious communities formed by those people there was always a steady drift in the direction of ease and com- fort and worldly gratification ; and the whole course of English history shows on the part of the majority of the nation a deep-seated objection to the placing of any sort of restraint upon their passions. To that objection they have.given forcible expression by various revolts, seces- sions, and ',reformations' ealeulated to procure for themselves the 'liberty' which they most highly value."

It might have been expected that a writer who affects to represent national feeling and to support national independence mould have, at least, allowed his anti-English sentiments to slumber,. in presence of the spectacle afforded by the gallant soldiers of the hapless Harold, defending their native soil against the adventurers and mercenaries of the Continent, banded under the banners of 1V il- liam the Norman. Not so, however ; and the issue of the battle of Hastings is celebrated with concealed satisfaction. We are told that "The night before the battle was spent very differently in the two camps. The Normans prayed, confesaed their sins to the priests who had come over with the expedition, and chanted litauies to the Blessed Virgin and the saints. The English, in accordance with their coarser nature, feasted, swilled beer, shouted rude songs, and endeavoured to make themselves merry." The combat is related with unfeeling scorn :—

"The English entrenchments were forced, the gates of the palisades were burst open, and in through the breach poured the victorious Frenchmen. Right and left they cut down the terror-stricken English, whose unwieldly battle-axes were poor weapons in so close a contest. Through the very thickest of the strife a little band of Norman knights pressed forward to where the royal standard of England wwwwviog in the air. King Harold, sore wounded and nearly blind, an arrow having pierced his right eye, still stood beneath it, with a chosen body of English nobles grouped about him. A few flashes of opposing stee4 few vigorous thrusts of French lance., and down went Barold and,his Englislunen on the ground, to rise no wore."

The narrative goes on to relate that "as their efforts in arms were attended with little or no success, the English put their feeble heads together, and began to plot such another massacre as they had perpetrated on the Danes some sixty-five years before One would think the tremendous punishment which had been inflicted on the English people for their former piece of work in that line ought to have deterred them from ever again contemplating a similar atrocity ; yet a project according so thoroughly with the natural bent of the English mind was certain to suggest itself in such an emergency," &c., &c. For a few pages after this, it must be admitted that something like sympathy is shown for the unfortunate Saxons who groaned under the Norman yoke. The change is, however, only a change of tactics, in order to suggest to Irish farmers and schoolboys lessons easily applicable to recent events

Snob being the regard had for patriot saints and patriot priests by the invaders, we need hardly say how they dealt with patriot people. In their estimate, every Englishman who rose to right his native land was a rebel, a marauder, a criminal of the vilest kind ; he was an enemy of social order, an assailant of the rights of property, a revolutionist, an anarchist; he was called, in fact, by all those evil names which tyrants and plunderers are alwayeready to apply to men who dare offer any resistance to their proceedings Open resistance to the tyranny of the Normans was at an end, but desperate men occa- sionally lay in wait for them or for their followers in woods or thickets and nooks by the roadside. . . • . . Whereupon a tremendous cry went up from the Norman gentlemen. This was brigandage,' they said ; 'this was assassination. It was cowardly, it was shocking, it was shameful.' These marauders, they said, were wickedly armed against a lawful order of society ; ' they were 'seditious malcontents, robbers, and bandits. Their conduct sprang from their ',natural villany,' from the 'love of murder' which was inherent in their race. Many English- men left their country, and were no doubt howled after as the depart- ing demons of assassination and murder.' But let us not be deceived by those titles odious to the ear,' writes Thierry in his history ; 'they are those which in every country under foreign subjection have been borne by brave men who, though few in number, take up their abode in mountains and forests, leaving the cities to those who can brook slavery."

With another extract, which fully establishes the purpose of the writer to convert a quasi-historical narrative into a libel answer- ing the purposes of contemporary polemics, we may conclude :—

" There were no newspapers in those days to express the sentiments of the dominant race ; if there had been, it is quite easy to tell In what fashion their leading articles would ran what terms of hate and scorn, what floods of vile calumny they would pour out upon the native race. We can be at no loss to imagine what would be their style and purport while we have before us the publications of the English press in later years in reference to circumstahces much less alarming, and to people much less deserving of censure. One organ of Norman opinion, if such there had been, might have written as follows :—'It is a conspiracyagainst society which now prevails in England. Murder for no ascertainable cause is the recognised orderof things. Murder, merely because it is murder, is popu- lar Murder washes away all crimes, political and religions. Simply to shed innocent blood condones all offences against popular feeling, and England turns out as one man to protect and screen the murderer, merely because he is a murderer, from justice.' By merely substituting the word 'Ireland ' for ' England ' in the foregoing passage, the reader has before him an extract from a truculent and lying article published in the London Saturday Review, 30th September, 1862. Following up the parallel, let us say that another Norman ' organ ' might have written as follows So long as there are Englishmen who murder or attempt to murder their masters, so long there will be stout Normans who, by fair means or by foul, will carry the day, or send them to work and be honest across the ocean. We wish, of course, the animal could be tamed and kept at home, but it is of no use wishing when a whole race has an innate taste for conspiracy and slaughter.' This latter extract; similarly altered, becomes a portion of an article published in the Times, May 10th, 1859."

But why, it may be asked, has Irish sedition adopted this new form for its expression ? The answer is easy. Mr. T. D. Sulli- van, author of this piece of concentrated malice, is an editor of the Nation. The strictness of the Irish Press Law has not un- reasonably alarmed even the editors of the Nation, and as con- fiscation might so instantaneously follow the treason of a leading article, it has been resolved to retail the same teaching in another guise. From week to week, accordingly, every number of the Nation is accompanied by a further instalment of the Story of England, and the country is being flooded with incitements to disaffection, as mischievous as they are grossly false. We have always doubted the efficiency of coercive legislation, and this is a striking lesson in the ease with which it may be evaded. We regret it, however, a great deal more for the sake of Ireland than for that of England. We have often deplored the tone of too many English journals towards Ireland and the Irish. English injustice towards Ireland is, however, in a great measure, the expression of genuine ignorance and the result of gross misrepre- sentation. The Irish retort of Mr. T. D. Sullivan is misrepre- sentation palliated by no ignorance, and is of a nature to make us English believe that there has been, in our press, in its dealings with Ireland, no ignorance and no misrepresentation. Whatever poor excuses might have been made for an attack so ferocious in days that have happily passed away, it is not in the time of the Government which has passed the Irish Land Act and the Irish Church Act, and which has promised an Irish Education Act, that we should have looked for Mr. T. D. Sullivan's Story of England. The course of England, calumniated and insulted, is, however, clear, —to do right and to fear not. Irishmen will at length learn who are the true friends of Ireland,—the unscrupulous demagogue, or the practical statesman.