M. DE BEAUMONT'S IRELAND.

Tan English reader, whose expectations of this work have been raised by the praises lavished on it, or its author, may be somewhat disappointed; for it is rhetorical in the French vein, disquisi- tions' on subjects which have been discussed to nausea, and the author has fallen into errors difficult for a foreigner to avoid when apeculating on a living people..

At the same time, it must be allowed to be a production of great merit. • Some of the evils of Ireland are set in a striking point of View; so that we see them, as well as their working, with more dis- tinctness than before ; the political institutions of the country, and heir effects, are clearly presented to the mind ; a brief and rapid exposition of Irish history is given ; and the whole is made as read- able as is possible with a worn subject. The style, though con- stantly touching the limits of good taste, and sometimes passing them, is effective and animating in no common degree.

The work opens with an historical introduction, which, dividing the subjects into four epochs, discusses each seriatim: the first em- braces the period from STRONGDOW'S invasion till HENRY the Eighth, during which Ireland was devastated by wars of conquest; the se- cond, from lIasirr to CROMWELL, involves the scars of religion; the third, from the Restoration to the days of GRATTAN, describes the religious persecution to which the Catholics were subjected under legal forms ; the fourth narrates, from the Declaration of Inde- pendence to Catholic Emancipation, the constitutional struggles of the aborigines for equality with their conquerors. • M. Ds BEAUMONT then proceeds to describe the external ap- pearance of Ireland, and the misery of its inhabitants ; investigating the causes which have produced it, the shapes of outrage in which the social disease displays itself, the political evils resulting from it, and the institutions by which the natives are oppressed. Ile next describes how Ireland has latterly resisted oppression by means of association under its various forms, which serves to introduce a pa- renthetical portrait of O'CONNELL ; and how Ireland tends to Demo- cracy through the Catholic clergy, the Presbyterian sect, the growth of a middle class, and the general state of political parties. In the next part of his work he discusses the three remedies which have been proposed for Ireland—public works, emigration, and the Poor-law; and, disapproving of them all, he puts forth his own— which is to abolish the Irish aristocracy, and to strengthen and cen- tralize the government of Ireland, sweeping away the Viceroyalty, and governing the country as if it were an English " county!' In the conclusion of his book, he considers the question, what will England do 'e—for he seems to entertain a judicious misgiving that his proposal to destroy a whole class of society is not very likely to succeed; and, after settling that the Tories will not carry out his plans, and that the Radicals are untried, he pins his hopes upon the Whigs " as the ruling party in Great Britain." Alas, good man! he might as well say that the hacks which draw a public coach are the "ruling party" as to the course of what is technically called "the fare. '

It seems the fate of all who offer panaceas for Ireland, to suggest schemes that are not merely impracticable, but impossible or absurd ; and M. DE BEAUMONT is not exempt from the pre-

vailing failure. Ile points out with considerable acuteness and ability, the separate difficulties in employing the surplus labour of Ireland by public works, or getting rid of it by emigration, or feeding it by poor-laws; though the more respectable authorities rather inclined to use these means conjointly, as a temporary re- lief, affording time for the effects of other measures. When

DE BEAUMONT, however, supposes that two or three millions of the peasantry are got rid of, and then triumphantly says it would

make no difference in the Irish peasantry, because the landlords would immediately raise their rents, he only shows how uncertain any conclusion must be which he draws upon economical subjects. He proceeds throughout upon the basis that the amount of rent is not fixed by the competition of tenants, but by the will of landlords : so that, in addition to the charges which can truly be

brought against the landowners of Ireland, our author, not perhaps in direct terms, but in substantial meaning, loads them with the opprobrium of the physical distress of the peasantry, and all the consequences which flow from it.

This strange misconception of an established law of political economy, or rather of nature, not only vitiates all his reasoning,

but is at the bottom of the scheme he 'has proposed for re- generating the country. The destruction of the aristocracy by means of a law (limited to Ireland) for the equal partition of estates, is merely a means to an end ; that end being • to render every tiller of the soil a proprietor*to turn the tenant peasantry into freeholders of the land they occupy. But, since M. DE BEAU- :40,NT rejects all idea • of confiscation,. and prefers waiting for the operation of time to effect this change, he ought to have seen that no calculable. tifne .ever make beggars heirs to estates. And

as he would not render the Irish cottiers freeholders by an agra:: rian law, and since nature, for a series of ages, will prevent the

from becoming such by inheritance, it follows that they must bug

the land they are to till in the millennium. But how the seven mit.; lions are to raise the many more millions necessary to parclia'isi the fee-simple of all Ireland, our author has omitted to explain, Strictly analyzed, the project to remove the distresses of Ireland must begin by giving every Irish soul nearly twenty pounds sterling, reckoning the rental of the country at 6,000,0001., and supposing an estate to be worth something more than twenty years' purchase. In other words, lie would cure the miseries of Ireland by making her paupers rich. Where a scheme is so obviously unfounded, it is needless to enter into its details. It would be almost unnecessary to point out its weaknesses, were its basis better. But one glaring defect is that

which Lord JOHN RUSSELL conceives a beauty of the glaring Bina:. its operation ages hence. Allow M. DE BEAUMONT any natural effects

he pleases, and throw him Fortunatus's wishing-cap into the bar- gain, still so many generations must elapse before the great estates of Ireland could be broken down to the requisite fragments, that his plan would illustrate our homely proverb, "while the grass grows the steed starves." What party could be got to advo- cate such a scheme, for such a distant object, supposing it had a shadow of feasibility about it ? and what party could carry it, when the Lords will not allow the slightest relaxation in the law of primogeniture to guard against manifest injustice ?

Nor are remedies of such a remote and speculative character necessary. We trust that the first faint glimmer of a bright day- dawn for Ireland is visible, in the improvement of her people—the only mode by which improvement of any kind can be rendered per., manent or effective. A change of this kind must of necessity be very very slow, after centuries of turbulence, ignorance, and oppres- sion, with all ;heir interminable reactions. But if we read rightly, some approach to this desirable change is visible, though the symptoms may be exceedingly slight. M. Dr, Brat:stoles marks one of them when he records the progressive formation of a middle class. Mr. CHAMBERS, in his close and specific letter on Ireland,* adduces further evidence, in the greater cleanliness of the people, the improvement in the public vehicles, and the more active and business-like appearance of the streets. The statements of others countenance the fact of the rise of a middle class possessing more of the steady and anti-humbug feelings of the middle classes in Britain. And public events seem to point to the same con- clusion. The failure of O'CONNELL'S late attempts at agitation are not traceable, we opine, to any satisfaction of the people with their condition, or to any absence of gratitude towards their leader, but to a detection of the tricks he was practising upon them. This thoughtful, and therefore, in the long • run, the more influential. amongst his followers, have had sense enough to perceive that his last two or three projects for excitement during the recess, were not probable means to accomplish 'tangible ends, but schemes to keep alive a delusion for Ministerial purposes. The Precursor and its kindred plans have raised shouts, but very little more ; and one of the first signs indicative of a determination to resist oppression and enforce respect from oppressors, is the power of self-judgment and resistance to the wiles of demagogues. It will be readily understood from what we have said of M. DB BrstmoNT's Ireland, that quotation can convey no idea of its qua- lities, except as regards style. In the extracts we are about to take, the reader must bear this qualification in mind, and draw no further critical conclusions from any of the following passages. The first, though probably coloured by the necessities of rhetoric, is a striking picture of

THE IRISII CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT.

The Protestant religion is a sign both of fortune and power. Not only is the Catholic poor and the Protestant rich, but each seems to think that such is the natural condition of both ; the Catholic accepts his humble destiny, sad the Protestant places implicit confidence in his pride of place. The latter, in his relations with the Catholics, displays some of that superiority which Euro- peans in the colonies exhibit to persons of colour who retain traces of their African descent.

The Protestant is not only a descendant of conquerors, the inheritor of their glory and of their power, established by seven centuries of domination, he be- lieves himself of a race superior to that of the Irish ; and as in Ireland religion marks the race, Protestantism is regarded as a species of nobility. This opinion, it is true, grows weaker every day ; but sufficient traces of it remain in the mutual relations between Protestants and Catholics to allow of its escaping notice.

The Catholic of Ireland is in that dubious state in which a freed-man finds himself when first delivered from servitude, and who makes his first essay of liberty, obliged suddenly to change the manners of a slave, that no longer suit him, for the deportment of a free man, which is as yet unknown. In spite of fact and right, he still regards as his master the person who has been so. Vainly does he protest, by external acts, against this inward sentiment : the cry of conscience, depraved by former servitude, gives him the lie within his own. bosom ; and sometimes the grossness and insolence which he displays in assert- ing his equality with the Protestant, serve iu reality only to place him below the latter.

Nothing is more rare than to find, with the Irish Catholic, a just apprecia-

tion of his actual condition : in his intercourse with Protestants, you will always find him take his ground too high or too low ; either, forgetting his emancipation, lie offers himself in an humble and obsequious attitude to his former master, or, intoxicated by the victory over his oppressors, lie is nut

to be their equal, but wishes to prove himself free by oppressing them in his turn.

WRETCHED IRELAND

Bursts upon your view everywhere. Misery, naked and famishing that misery which is vagrant, idle, and mendicant—covers the entire country ; it shows itself everywhere and at every hour of the day; it is the first thing you Addressed to the Spectator, and published onahe 24th August 1839 ; page

799.

•

see when you land on the Irish coast, and from that moment it ceases not to be present to your view ; sometimes under the aspect of the diseased display- ing his sores, sometimes under the form of the pauper scarcely covered by his was ; it follows you everywhere and besieges you incessantly; you hear its gtoans and cries in the distance; and if the voice does not excite profound pity, it importunes and terrifies you. This misery seems inherent to the soil, and one of its natural products ; like some of those endemic scourges that pol- lute the atmosphere, it blights every thing which approaches it, sumacs the rich man himself, who cannot, in the midst of his joys, separate himself from the miseries of the poor, and makes vain efforts to rid himself of the vermin which be has produced, and which cling to him. The physical aspect of the country produces impressions not less saddening. Whilst the feudal castle, after seven centuries, shows itself more rich and bril- liant than at its birth, you see here and there wretched habitations mouldering into ruin destined never to rise again. The number of ruins encountered in travelling through Ireland is perfectly astounding. I speak not of the pic- turesque ruins produced by the lapse of ages, whose hoary antiquity adorns a country—such ruins still beleng to rich Ireland, and are preserved with care as memorials of pride and monuments of antiquity; but I mean the premature ruins produced by misfortune, the wretched cabins abandoned by the miserable tenants, witnessing only to obscure misery, and generally exciting little inter- est or attention.

But I do not know which is the more sad to see, the abandoned dwelling, or that actually inhabited by the poor 'visional'. Imagine four walls of dried mud, which the rain, as it falls, easily restores to its primitive condition ; having for its roof a little straw or sonic sods, for its chimney a link cut in the roof, or very frequently the door, through which alone the smoke finds cm issue. One single apartment contains the father, mother, children, and sometimes a grandfather or grandmother ; there is no furniture in this wretched hovel ; a Single bed of hay or straw serves for the entire family. Five or six half-naked children may be seen crouched near a miserable fire, the ashes of which cover a few potatoes, the sole nourishment of the family. In the midst of all lies a dirty pig, the only thriving inhabitant of the place, for he lives in filth. The presence of the pig in an Irish hovel may at first seem au indication of misery ; on the contrary, it is a sign of comparative comfort. Indigence is still inure extreme in the hovel where no pig is to be found.

Not the from the cottage extends a little field of an acre or half an acre : it is planted with potatoes ; stones heaped on each other, with rushes growing through the interstices, serve it for a fence. This dwelling is very miserable, still it is not that of the pauper properly so called. I have just described the dwelling of the Irish firmer and agricultural labourer.

Perhaps one of the best and most powerful passages in the work is the exposition, naked and unencumbered by extraneous matter, of the workings of law in Ireland; which explains, and for the first time satisfactorily, the vast importance Irishmen attach to the nomination of judges. Passing over the preliminaries, we will take

THE TRIAL.

That day at length comes. A hundred or a hundred and fifty jurors have been summoned by the Sheriff; but, in the first place, with very few excep- tions, the Protestant Sheriff has chosen Protestant jurymen. Out of the hundred, twelve arc to be chosen to administer the law. The panel is called ; scarcely is the name of a Catholic juror pronounced, when he is peremptorily set aside by the Clerk of the Crown. The accused is given in charge to twelve Protestant jurors, for the most part rich persons, equally the enemies of his

rjo-, •••• IRS Ctrew TVICuiVeS 111

nuparnairry can ne espeeu, aeo s -

11•••-•

every one of his judges a religious or political adversary ? Who can believe that suck judges would be animated by the pure love of truth, which is the very first condition of justice ? And moreover, how many strange obstacles beset the judge in the trial over which he presides! Frequently in Ireland the accused, being of Celtic race, speaks a language which neither the judge nor jury, ury, being of English race, can comprehend; hence the necessity of em- ploying an interpreter, who translates to the judge the words of the prisoner, and to the prisoner those of the judge ; here, consequently, is a. prime source of

confusion. This is not all; as every accused person in Ireland is looked upon as a victim by the people of his doss, that is to say, the lower ciders, false witnesses abound, and hence a new source of error is opened to the judge and jury. In the midst of this darkness it would be difficult, even with the best iuclinations, to be strictly just. How then will matters stand when love of justice is not the predominant passion? For my part, I have been present at many criminal trials in Ireland, and it is impossible to describe the painful feelings with which such a spectacle filled my mind. It is a sad truth, that, in every Irish court of justice, there are, as it were, two hostile encampments within sight of each other ; the accused on one side, the judge and jury on the other. Amongst the spectators, the people is for the seethed; the tribunal is supported by the soldiers, the constables, and the weal As, in Irelad, the aristocracy is engaged ill an open contost with the prattle, all that depends on the aristocracy, or sympathizes with it, conies to support it on this terrible field of battle, where the strong exterminate the weak in time name of justice and the laws. The prejudices and malevolent possums of which the accused is the object are displayed on every side ; they may be hearth in the accent of the judge, seen in the enlist:ens as well as the pessive- Bess of the jury; Vie very language of the counsel fur the defence reveals them. It is diffiettit to f'o'ntan idea of the tone of elMiCIIIpt and insolence in which the members of the Irish bar speak of the people' and the lower classes. Thus, in spite of the formalities of procedure—hi spite. of all the legal solemnises which surround the accused in the presence of Iris judge, there is an inward feeling that this is not a deliberation of judgment, bat a preparation of Vengeance. This lie of forms, prom equitable chastisement, but concealing a kind of vengeance, is endured ; but when the judge pronounces the terrible sentence of death, it might be deemed the signal bur a tierce engagement be- tween the party of the judge mei the party mat' the accused, were nut the court tilled with armed policemen, whose presence prevents the parties from coming to blows. In England, the magistrate sees in every accused person an unfortunate fellow citizen, a person charged with a crime of which he may be innocent, an Englishman invoking the sacred rights of the constitution. ln Ireland, the justices of the peace, the judges, and the jury, treat the accused as a kind of idolatrous savage, whose Violence inti9t be subdued, as an enemy that must be destroyed, as a guilty man destined beforehand to puitidnuent. In England, the penal laws mire sanguinary, the forms of proceeding are in sonic respects barbarous ; but the manners of the people are humane, the jury is clement, and the judge merciful. In Ireland the penal code is more sanguinary than that of England; all the bad principles of English legislation are practised, and the magistrate is as severe as the law.

THE DARK SIDE OF TILE MILESIAX.

To deny the vices of the Irish people, would be assuredIst to contradict all evidence. The Irishman is lazy, mendacious, intemperate, prompt to acts of violence. Ile has notoriously a sort of invincible aversion to truth. If it is neces- sary to make a disinterested choice between truth and falsehood, he will tell the lie. Thus he scarcely makes an assertion without supporting it by an oath; he accompanies every statement with " upon my honour," " upon my Word"—phrases familiar to those who habitually violate truth. His repugnance to work is no less singular: he performs generally without pleasure, care, or zeal, whatever he undertakes to execute, and for the most part he is idle. Many miserable Irishmen add much to their misery by their indolence ; a little industry and a little activity are alone wanting to alleviate their distress, but nothing can withdraw them front their apathy and care- lessness ; they scent contented with the mere display of their wretchedness, and to be almost insensible of their wants.

These are deplorable vices, but still more terrible remain. Violent and yin- dictive, the Irishman displays the most ferocious cruelty in his acts of ven- geance. We have seen bow the Irish tenant, who has been ejected from his firm, or whose stock has been seized for non-payment of rent, is led by re- venge to reprisals tainted with the most atrocious barbarity. The punishments which he invents in his savage fury cannot be contemplated without horror. Sometimes inceudiarisin and assassination arc not sufficient ; he inflicts linger- ing tortures on his victim. He is often as unjust as he is cruel in his rage, and wreaks vengeance for the wrongs he has suffered on persons totally inno- cent. He not only attacks the landlord or the clergyman on account of the harshness for which they alone are responsible, but his violence extends to the agent of the proprietor, to the new tenant, to the minister's proctor ; he some- times goes further, and carries off the wives and daughters of individuals, to punish husbands and fathers who are not themselves culpable.

A POLITICAL TIMM.

But what is the use of liberty, if it does not prevent tyranny? Be assured that it is still of the highest use : though it does not prevent oppression, it fixes its limits ; it is a weapon in the hands of the feeble, and if you see a people. unhappy, though in possession of liberty, you may well believe that without such liberty it would be more unhappy still. There is one circumstance which is too often forgotten. The miseries en- dured by a free people are known, because freedom publishes them ; whilst in the countries of pure despotism, nothing is known of the sufferings of the people. for the tyrant conceals them with the more care as they are the more frightful. TILE romp OF IRELAND.

The population of Ireland is reduced to miserable expedients for subsistence It imposes on itself the most cruel privations, which do not save it every year from enduring a famine more or less severe. It is fed on the worst of food; in spite of which it is exposed to periodical starvation. It has adopted the system best adapted to sustain the greatest number of inhabitants on the smallest possible territory. For it is a well-established economic truth, that the same extent of land which, planted with potatoes, would support twenty persons„ would not grow corn sufficient for more than four or five, and would, it employed as pasturage for cattle, not feed more than one inffividual. Ireland has ab- solutely renounced the use of bread and meat, to live entirely on potatoes. She has done more ; as amongst potatoes there arc some which multiply faster. than others, slue has taken as her food the lumpers, the least agreeable to the taste, but which are redeemed in the eyes of the Irishman by their prodigious- abundance.

The final reflections of :II. DL BEAUMONT contain an important political moral, eloquently expressed ; from which we extract a passage.

THE WORKINGS OF INJUSTICE.

There are occurring at this moment amongst the two greatest nations that ocean separates, two phienomena of the same nature, which deserve to engage the attention of the world.

The United States of North America are beyond contradiction time most for- "mats anon on earth: in no country are the conditions of society ;a Clr.,?..1 and so prospereffis no land advances so rapidly to the power coutiirred by wealth and industry ; ,nowhere is the progress of humanity so constant and so, extraordinary. Still, in the Midst of this marvellous prosperity, shining with so bright a splendour, a frightful stain appears ; this body, so young, so healthy, sn robust, hears a deep and hideous wound. The Cnitd, States possess slaves. Vainly in that Christian land do religion and humanity devote themselves with admirable virtue to hied this fearful evil : the leprosy is extending, it is blight:- mg pure institutions, it is poisoning the felicity of the present generation, and unready depositing the seeds of death in a body full of life. At the same time that the United States in America are nicking fruitless efforts to expel the Negro race from their bosom, because their slavery troubles and humiliates them, the nation which is probably the beat skilled in the art of governne it in Europe, England, exhausts herself in useless efforts to shake off

a nation she took six centuries to conquer, and struggles vainly under the mis;T:,s her slave.

And beet have these two nations reached situations so sad and so similar? By the ,:use roads—by n primary act of violence, followed in a long course of injustice. Am rite and England would indeed gladly abandon these pernicious paths, Allah tt•r:nunito in such trightn:1 abySSeS. But it is not so easy to escaite fix= the pen:id:els airl dark road which has so long been followed ; long deviations and ted:ons retracing of steps are necessary for such a purpose. When the solemn violations of morality and jeetice have bean continued for centuries, the deep perturbation which they have produced in moral order must endure long after they have ceased. It is not sufficient that the tyrant, who believed tyranny useful to his interests, should recognize leis error, in order that he shouhl escape the consequences of his iniquity. It does not depend on the greater or less intelligence of selfishness to suspend er prolong the responsibility • of its actions, Free, the 111Innent that oppre:.:ion has begun to exist, the op- pression has incurred the fatal penalty. This law is severe, but it is just and sublime; there is a happiness in recognizing that selfishness, injustice, and violence, bring with them retributions as infallible as their excesses. There are those who believe that individuals and nations are led by fatality to crime. The Opinion is finis z; it is injurious to humanity, which, by such a theory, cannot he acquitted of crime without being deprived of virtue. The crimes of nations, like those of individuals, are velentary, not necessary acts. There is nothing necessary but the consequence of crimes, nothing predestined • but theie expiation. It should be said, in fitirness to 31. DE Ilcatatoyr, that the judg- ment we have passed upon his book is passed upon it translated. But as Dr. TAYLOR states that he has only omitted some " long and minute explanations respecting the details of British law and ad-

ministration," we do not imagine any part has been curtailed which is necessary to the understanding of his plan. The number of

our quotations will enable the reader to judge for himself of the force of the translation, but it would have been well had more care been paid to the printing. In the text there arc frequent references- to notes which do not appear.