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 RESCUED ESSAYS 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 PERCY NEWBERRY 
 
 " To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake ; and all 
 but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is 
 what each begins and perfects on himself." — Carlyle, Signs of the Times. 
 
 .RlEJ 
 
 "sis 
 
 PUBLISHED s BY 
 ae Leadenhall Prefs, Ltd : 50, Leadenhall Street, London, E.C. 
 
 Simpkin, Marshall. Hamilton, Kent 6~ Co., Ltd: 
 New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 743 £r= 745, Broadway.
 
 THE LEADENHAI.L PRESS, LTD: LONDON, EC. 
 (T. 4466)
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Louis-Philippe ... ... ... i 
 
 II. The Repeal of the Union ... ... 15 
 
 III. Legislation for Ireland ... 53 
 
 IV. Ireland and the British Chief Governor 71 
 V. Irish Regiments of the New ^Era ... 89 
 
 VI. Trees of Liberty ... ... 107 
 
 VII. Death of Charles Buller ... ... 115
 
 I. 
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE.
 
 "Europe lay pining, obstructed, moribund; quack- 
 ridden, hag-ridden, — is there a hag, or spectre of the 
 Pit so baleful, hideous as your accredited quack, were 
 he never so close-shaven, mild-spoken, plausible to 
 himself and others ? Quack-ridden : in that one word 
 lies all misery whatsoever. Speciosity in all depart- 
 ments usurps the place of reality, thrusts reality away ; 
 instead of performance, there is appearance of per- 
 formance. The quack is a Falsehood Incarnate ; and 
 speaks and makes and does mere falsehoods, which 
 Nature with her veracity has to disown." — Carlyle, 
 Chartism.
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 
 
 T T is not a light joy,* such as can express 
 itself in vain talk, in bluster, mockery, 
 and " tremendous cheers ; " it is a stern, 
 almost sacred joy, that the late news from 
 Paris excite in earnest men. For a long, 
 melancholy series of years past, there has 
 been no event at all to excite in earnest 
 men much other than weariness and dis- 
 gust. To France least of all had we been 
 looking, of late, for tidings that could 
 elevate or cheer us. Nor is the present 
 
 * Cp. Latter-Day Pamphlets, p. 1 6 : " Such a 
 spectacle, can we call it joyful? " — Ed.
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 
 
 terrible occurrence properly great or joyful, 
 as we say : it is very sad rather ; sad as 
 death and human misery and sin ; — yet 
 with a radiance in it like that of stars « 
 sternly beautiful, symbolic of immortality 
 and eternity ! 
 
 Sophist Guizot, Sham-King Louis- 
 Philippe, and the host of quacks, of obscene 
 spectral nightmares under which France 
 lay writhing, are fled. Burst are the stony 
 jaws of that enchanted, accursed living- 
 tomb ; rent suddenly are the leaden wrap- 
 pages and cerements : from amid the 
 noisome clamm and darkness of the grave, 
 bursts forth, thunder-clad, a soul that was 
 not dead, that cannot die ! Courage : the 
 righteous gods do still rule this earth. A 
 divine Nemesis, hidden from the base and 
 4
 
 LOUIS-rHILIPrE. 
 
 foolish, known always to the wise and 
 noble, tracks unerringly the footsteps of 
 the evil-doer ; who is Nature's own enemy, 
 and the enemy of her eternal laws, whom 
 she cannot pardon. Him no force of 
 policy, or most dexterous contrivance and 
 vulpine energy and faculty, will save : into 
 his own pit he, at last, does assuredly fall, 
 — sometimes, as now, in the sight and to 
 the wonder of all men. 
 
 Alas, that any king, or man, should need 
 to have this oldest truth, older than the 
 world itself, made new to him again, and 
 asserted to be no fable or hearsay, but 
 a very truth and fact, in this frightful 
 manner ! To the French nation and their 
 kings it has been very impressively taught, 
 under many forms, by most expensive 
 
 5
 
 LOUIS-PHILlrPE. 
 
 courses of experiment, for sixty years 
 back ; and they, it appears, and we, still 
 require new lessons upon it. 
 
 Very sad on all sides ! Here is a man 
 of much talent, of manifold experience in 
 all provinces of life, accepting the supreme 
 post among his fellow-men, and delibe- 
 rately, with steadfast persistence, for seven- 
 teen years, attempting his high task there, 
 not in the name of God, as we may say, 
 but of the Enemy of God ! On the vulpine 
 capabilities alone had Louis-Philippe any 
 reliance ; — not by appealing, with coura- 
 geous energy and patience, to whatever was 
 good and genuine and worthy round him 
 (which existed, too, though wide-scat- 
 tered, and in modest seclusion rather than 
 flagrant on the house-tops) ; not by heroic 
 6
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 
 
 appeal to this, but by easy appeal to what 
 was bad and false and sordid, and to that 
 only, has he endeavoured to reign. What 
 noble thing achieved by him, what noble 
 man called forth into beneficient activity by 
 him, can Louis-Philippe look back upon ? 
 None. His management has been a 
 cunningly-devised system of iniquity in. all 
 its basest shapes. Bribery has flourished ; 
 scandalous corruption, till the air was thick 
 with it, and the hearts of men sick. Paltry 
 rhetoricians, parliamentary tongue-fencers ; 
 mean jobbers, intriguers ; every service- 
 ablest form of human greed and low- 
 mindedness has this ' source of honour ' 
 patronized. For the poor French people, 
 who by their blood and agony bore him to 
 that high place, what did he accomplish ? 
 
 7
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 
 
 Penal repression into silence ; that, and too 
 literally nothing more. To arm the sordid 
 cupidities of one class against the bitter 
 unreasonable necessities of the other, and 
 to leave it so, — he saw no other method. 
 His position was indeed difficult : but he 
 should have called for help from Above, 
 not from Below ! 
 
 Alas, in his wide roamings through the 
 world, — and few have had a wider ramble 
 than this man, — he had failed to discover 
 the secret of the world, after all. If this 
 universe be indeed a huge swindle ? In 
 that case, supreme swindler will mean 
 sovereign ruler : in that case, — but not 
 in the other ! Poor Louis-Philippe ; his 
 Spanish marriages had just prospered with 
 him, to the disgust of all honourable hearts ; 
 8
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 
 
 in his Spanish marriages he felt that 
 he had at length achieved the topstone 
 which had consolidated all, and made the 
 Louis- Philippe system (cemented by such 
 bribery mortar, bound by such diplomatic 
 tie-beams) a miracle of architecture, when 
 the solid earth (impatient of such edifices) 
 gave way, and the Eumenides rose, and 
 all was blazing insurrection and delirium ; 
 and Louis-Philippe ' drove off in a 
 brougham ' or concern street-cab, ' through 
 the Barrier of Passy,' towards Night and 
 an avenging doom. Egalite Fils, after a 
 long painful life-voyage, has ended no 
 better than Egalite Pere did. It is a 
 tragedy equal to that of the sons of Atreus. 
 Louis-Philippe one could pity as well as 
 blame, were not all one's pity concentrated 
 
 9
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 
 
 upon the millions who have suffered by 
 his sins. On the French people's side, too, 
 is it not tragical ? These wild men in 
 blouses, with their faces and their hearts all 
 blazing in celestial and infernal lightning, 
 with their barricades up and their fusils in 
 their hands, — they are now the grandsons 
 of the Bastillers of '89 and the Septemberers 
 of '92 ; the fathers fought in 1830, they in 
 1848 are still fighting. To the third 
 generation it has been bequeathed by the 
 second and the first ; by the third genera- 
 tion the immense problem, still to solve, is 
 not deserted, is duly taken up. They also 
 protest with their heart's blood, against a 
 universe of lies, and say, audibly as with 
 the voice of whirlwinds, " In the name of 
 all the gods we will not have it so ! We 
 10
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 
 
 will die rather ; we and our sons and grand- 
 sons, as our fathers and grandfathers have 
 done. Take thought of it, therefore, what 
 our first transcendent French Revolution 
 did mean ; for your own sake and for 
 ours, take thought and discover it, and 
 accomplish it, for accomplished it shall and 
 must be, and peace or rest is not in the 
 world till then ! " 
 
 ' The throne was carried out by armed 
 men in blouses ; was dragged along the 
 streets, and at last smashed into small 
 pieces,' say the journals. Into small 
 pieces : let it be elaborately broken, pains 
 be taken that of it there remain nothing : — 
 " Begone, thou wretched upholstery phan- 
 tasm ; descend thou to the abysses, to 
 the cesspools, spurned of all men ; thou 
 
 II
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 
 
 art not the thing we required to heal us 
 of our unbearable miseries ; not thou, it 
 must be something other than thou ! " 
 So ends the ' Throne of Barricades ' ; and 
 so it right well deserved to end. Thrones 
 founded on iniquity, on hypocrisy, and 
 the appeal to human baseness, cannot end 
 otherwise. When Napoleon, the armed 
 Soldier of Democracy, as he has been 
 called, — who at one time had discerned 
 well that lies were unbelievable, that 
 nations and persons ought to strip them- 
 selves of lies, that it was better even to 
 go bare than "clothed with curses" by 
 way of garment ; when Napoleon, drunk 
 with more victory than he could carry, 
 was about deserting this true faith, and 
 attaching himself to Popes and Kaisers, 
 12
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 
 
 and other entities of the chimerical kind ; 
 and in particular had made an immense 
 explosion of magnificence at Notre-Dame, 
 to celebrate his Concordat (" the cowpox 
 of religion," la vaccine de la religion, as 
 he himself privately named it), he said 
 to Augereau, the Fencing-master who had 
 become Field- Marshal, " Is it not magnifi- 
 cent ? " " Yes, very much so," answered 
 Augereau : " to complete it, there wanted 
 only some shadow of the half-million men 
 who have been shot dead to put an end 
 to all that." 
 
 " All fictions are now ended," says M. 
 Lamartine at the Hotel de Ville. May 
 the gods grant it. Something other and 
 better, for the French and for us, might 
 then try, were it but afar off, to begin !
 
 II. 
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION.
 
 " Poor Ireland ! And yet let no true Irishman, who 
 believes and sees all this, despair by reason of it. 
 Cannot he too do something to withstand the un- 
 productive falsehood, there as it lies accursed around 
 him, and change it into truth which is fruitful and 
 blessed ? Every man can and shall himself be a true 
 man : it is a great thing and the parent of great 
 things : as from a single acorn the whole earth might 
 in the end be peopled with oaks ! Every mortal can 
 do something : this let him faithfully do, and leave 
 with assured heart the issue to a Higher Power." — 
 Carlyle, Chartism.
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 "^O hear the loud and ever louder voice 
 of poor Ireland for many years back, 
 it must be clear that there is one thing 1 
 wanting to make that Ireland happy : total 
 disseverance from this Island ; perfect and 
 complete Repeal of the Union, as it is 
 called. If, some night, the Union could 
 be shorn asunder, repealed and annihilated 
 for ever, the next morning Ireland, with 
 no England henceforth to molest her, 
 would awake and find herself happy. The 
 Claddagh fishermen would straightway go 
 out and catch herring, no gun-brig now 
 c 17
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 needed to keep them from quarrelling, no 
 Quaker deputation to furnish them with 
 nets. Falsity of word, of thought, and 
 of deed, that morning, would become 
 veracity ; futility success ; loud mad bluster 
 would become sane talk, transacted at a 
 moderate pitch of voice, in small quantity 
 and for practical objects. Then should we 
 see ragged sluggardism darn its rags, and 
 everywhere hasten to become industrious 
 energy, ardent patient manfulness, and 
 successful skill : Jarlath had suddenly 
 become a mount of Gospel prophecy, John 
 of Tuam an Irish paraclete ; and generally 
 over the face of that island, first flower of 
 the earth and first gem of the sea, there 
 would be visible the valiant diligence of 
 human souls, ardent, patient, manfully 
 iS
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 strone ; and there would rise towards 
 Heaven that worship which is the wel- 
 comest and the eternally blessed, the sound 
 of wisdom where there was speech, and 
 manifoldly the inarticulate hum likewise of 
 wisdom (which means patient cunning of 
 hand and valiant strength of heart) where 
 there was work. Then were the finest 
 peasantry in the world, indeed a fine 
 peasantry ; and Ireland, first flower of the 
 earth, a place that might at least cease to 
 bother its neighbours, borrowing potatoes 
 from them ! A consummation devoutly to 
 be wished. 
 
 In truth, Ireland awakening that morn- 
 ing, with England totally dissevered from 
 her, would be a mighty pretty " nation," 
 likely to take a high figure among the 
 
 19
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 nations of the world. M. Ledru Rollin 
 could not desire a better Republic than 
 you had here, just getting under way : a 
 Republic ready to fraternise with him to 
 all lengths, and sure to be a great favourite 
 with her French sister. American Jona- 
 than too, I fancy his love for that nation 
 and that nation's love for him on further 
 practical acquaintance. " Considerable 
 water-privileges, I guess ; good land lots ; 
 
 a d d deal of white Chactaws, though : 
 
 — a country we could improve, I guess ! " 
 Yes, Jonathan ; I have no doubt you could. 
 " We would improve you," says Jonathan 
 to the Canadian Ha bi 'tans, " Oh, we 
 would improve you off the face of the 
 earth ! " 
 
 All this looks very mad on the part of 
 20
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 the sister Island ; and yet, alas, such is the 
 state of Ireland and Irish life, it has to be 
 owned they are not the worst citizens who 
 with mad sincerity proclaim " Repeal of 
 the Union " just now, and purchase pikes 
 and rifles to procure it with, at the ex- 
 pense of insurrection and at all other 
 expenses, that of their own lives included. 
 Not the worst Irish citizens they ; no, a 
 still worse sort are those not hitherto 
 attackable by any Attorney-General, who 
 sit still in the middle of all that, and say 
 " Peace, peace" to it all, as if it were or 
 could be peace. Ireland in the quiet 
 chronic state is still more hideous than 
 Ireland in the critical, even insurrectionary 
 state. No, that is not peace ; that of 
 a governing class glittering in foreign 
 
 21
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 capitals, or at home sitting idly in its 
 drawing-rooms, in its hunting-saddles, like 
 a class quite unconcerned with governing, 
 concerned only to get the rents and wages 
 of governing, and the governable un- 
 governed millions sunk meanwhile in dark 
 cabins, in ignorance, sloth, confusion, 
 superstition, and putrid ignominy, dying 
 the hunger-death, or, what is worse, living 
 the hunger-life, in degradation below that 
 of dogs. A human dog-kennel five millions 
 strong, is that a thing to be quiet over ? 
 The maddest John of Tuam, uttering in 
 his afflicted ghastly dialect (a dialect very 
 ghastly, made up of extinct Romish cant 
 and inextinguishable Irish self-conceit, and 
 rage, and ignorant unreason) his brimstone 
 denunciations, is a mild phenomenon 
 22
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 compared with some others that say 
 nothing. 
 
 That Lord John Russell* should feed 
 the Irish people, that in every hungry Irish 
 mouth Lord John Russell should have a 
 spoon with cooked victuals ready, this is 
 the enlarged Gospel according to him of 
 Tuam. One of the maddest gospels ; yet 
 not wholly without a tincture of meaning 
 at the bottom of it. John of Tuam does 
 at least say, there is no peace, there can be 
 no peace till this alter ; — John speaks true, 
 so far, though in a rabid manner, and like 
 one Irish Gospel Comforter. Not a hypo- 
 crite ; or if so, one whose hypocrisis have 
 grown into the very blood of him ; who is 
 a sacrosanct theological play-actor to the 
 * First Lord of the Treasury, 1848. — Ed. 
 
 23
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 very backbone ; and prophesies since he 
 must prophecy, through the organs of a 
 solemn mountebank and consecrated drug- 
 vendor, — patented by the Holy Father him- 
 self to vend Romish quack drugs, doing a 
 little, too, in Repeal nostrums, and now 
 reduced by just rage to prophesy: a situa- 
 tion enough of itself to drive one half 
 rabid ! 
 
 Meanwhile, it is evident, the sober part 
 of the world begin to get somewhat weary 
 of all that. 
 
 Several indolent members of Parliament, 
 and many indolent members of society, on 
 this side of the water, are beginning to 
 testify their willingness, for their part, to 
 gratify the Irish population by conceding 
 the demand for the Repeal. Since Ireland 
 24
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 wants but this to be happiness, say they, 
 why not allow her to be happy ? Of 
 happiness for England, or us, in this sublime 
 union with the sister island, God knows 
 there has been no overplus : our share in 
 the said happiness would sell at a light 
 figure in any market. To have our lands 
 overrun with hordes of hungry white 
 savages, covered with dirt and rags, full 
 of noise, falsity, and turbulence, deranging 
 every relation between rich and poor, feed- 
 ing the gibbets all along our western 
 coasts, submerging our population into the 
 depths of dirt, savagery, and degradation :* 
 here is no great share of blessedness that 
 we should covet it and go forth in arms 
 
 * Cp. Chartism, ch. iv. "He is the sorest evil 
 this country has to strive with," etc. — Ed. 
 
 25
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 to vindicate it. Nor are the gentry of 
 Ireland, such as we find them, with formid- 
 able whiskers and questionable outfit on 
 the spiritual or economical side, drinking 
 punch, fortune hunting, or playing roulette 
 at Brighton, Leamington, or other places 
 of resort, such an entrancingly beautiful 
 addition to our own washed classes that 
 we would go to war for retaining posses- 
 sion of them. If the gods took all these 
 classes bodily home, and left us wholly 
 bereaved of them for ever and a day, it 
 is a fixed popular belief here, this poor 
 island could rub on very much as before. 
 The rents of Ireland spent in England, — 
 alas, not even the spending of the rents 
 fascinates us. The rents, it is to be 
 observed, are spent, not given away, not 
 26
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 a sixpence of them given, — nay, quite the 
 contrary ; part of the account, as many 
 poor tradesmen's books, and in debtor's 
 prisons many poor whiskered gentlemen, 
 can testify, is often left unpaid : — rents all 
 spent, we say ; laid out in purchase of 
 things marketable, eatable, enjoyable ; the 
 vital fact clearly being, that so long as 
 England has things for sale in the market, 
 she will (through the kindness of the gods) 
 find purchasers, Irish or non-Irish, and 
 even purchasers that will pay her the 
 whole account without need of imprison- 
 ment, it is to be hoped ! 
 
 Certainly, since the first invention of 
 speech, there never was in the heart of any 
 class of human beings a more e^re^ious 
 misunderstanding, than this of the felicity 
 
 27
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 of the English nation derives, has derived, 
 or is likely for some time yet to derive, 
 from union with the sister island. Not by 
 drinking - , cannibal-like, the blood and fat 
 of Ireland, has England supported herself 
 hitherto in this universe, but by quite 
 other sustenances and exertions. England 
 were a lean nation otherwise. Not with 
 any ecstasy of hope or of remembrance 
 does England contemplate this divine 
 happiness of union with the sister island. 
 England's happiness from that connection 
 would sell at a small figure. In fact, if 
 poor Bull had not a skin thicker than the 
 shield of Ajax, and a practical patience 
 without example among mankind, he would, 
 reading the Gospel-messages of Jarlath, 
 the debates of Confederation and Concilia- 
 28
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 tion halls, and sorrowfully thinking of his 
 many millions thrown into the black gulf 
 of turbulent hunger, these last few years, 
 when he could ill spare it, blaze up wholly 
 into unquenchable indignation, of tempera- 
 ture not measurable by Fahrenheit, and 
 lose command of himself for some time ! 
 
 Natural enough that several careless 
 members of Parliament and many careless 
 members of society should express them- 
 selves willing to concede the Repeal of the 
 Union, and make Ireland happy. Nay, I 
 venture to say, in spite of the present 
 extenuated state of finance, and pressure 
 of the income-tax, and unspeakable pres- 
 sures and extenuations of every kind, — 
 could any projecting Warner of the long 
 range be found who would undertake to un- 
 
 29
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 anchor the island of Ireland and sail fairly 
 away with it and with its populations and 
 possessions to the last torn hat that stops 
 a window-pane, and anchor them safe 
 again at a distance, say, of three thousand 
 miles from us, — funds to any amount would 
 be subscribed here for putting in imme- 
 diate activity such Warner of the long 
 range. Funds ? our railways have cost us 
 150 millions ; but what were all railways 
 for convenience to England in comparison 
 with this unanchoring of Ireland from the 
 side of her ? If it depended on funds, 
 such Warner of the long range might 
 have funds in sufficiency. To make the 
 National Debt an even milliard of pounds 
 sterling, which gives two hundred and odd 
 millions to the Warner operation, this, 
 .10
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 heavy as" it is, I should think one of the 
 best investments of capital ; and do not 
 doubt that it would be cheerfully raised in 
 this country for such an object. 
 
 The sadder is the reflection that such an 
 operation is impossible, for ever forbidden 
 by the laws of gravitation and terrestrial 
 cohesion ; and, alas, that without such 
 operation, Repeal of the Union is also im- 
 possible. Impossible this too, my poor 
 English and Irish friends ; forbidden this, 
 too, by the laws of the universe just at 
 present, and not to be thought of in these 
 current centuries. I grieve to say it ; but 
 so the matter is : flatly forbidden by the 
 laws of the universe in these current 
 centuries, and not to be ventured upon as 
 an investment by any person whose capital
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 of money, logic, rhetoric, wind-eloquence, 
 influence, courage, strength, old soda-water 
 bottles, or other animal or spiritual posses- 
 sion is precious to him. In fact, if capital 
 seek investment in such matters, let it 
 rather invest itself in the Warner operation 
 first. That is the preliminary operation, 
 and will be the handsomer. There it will 
 bring mere distraction of itself; arith- 
 metical zero on the day of settlement, and 
 not frightful minus quantities. 
 
 For, alas ! poor English and Irish 
 friends, do you not see these three things, 
 more or less clear even in your own poor 
 dim imagination ? 
 
 i. That Ireland is inhabited by seven 
 or eight millions, who unfortunately speak 
 a partially intelligible dialect of the Eng- 
 32
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 lish language, and having a white skin 
 and European features, cannot be pre- 
 vented from circulating among us at dis- 
 cretion, and to all manner of lengths and 
 breadths. 
 
 2. That the island of Ireland stretches 
 for a length of some three hundred miles 
 parallel to that of Britain, with an Irish 
 Channel everywhere bridged over by ships, 
 steamers, herring - busses, boats, bomb- 
 ketches, length of said bridge varying from 
 six hours to one hour ; so that, for prac- 
 tical purposes, it lies as if in contact, 
 divided only by a straight ditch, and till 
 the Warner operation be completed, cannot 
 by human art be fenced out from us, but 
 is unfortunately we till then. 
 
 3. That the stern Destinies have laid 
 
 d 33
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 upon England a terrible job of labour in 
 these centuries and will inexorably (as their 
 wont is) have it done : a job of labour 
 terrible to look upon, extending super- 
 ficially to the Indies and the Antipodes 
 over all countries, and in depth, one knows 
 not how deep ; for it is not cotton-spinning 
 and commercing merely; it is (as begins 
 to be visible) governing, regulating, which 
 in these days will mean conquering dragons 
 and world-wide Chimeras, and climbing as 
 high as the zenith to snatch fire from the 
 gods, and diving deep as the nadir to fling 
 devils in chains ; — and it has been laid 
 upon the poor English people, all this ; a 
 heavier, terribler job of labour than any 
 people has been saddled with in these 
 generations ! Conquering Anarchy; which 
 34
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 is not conquerable except by weapons 
 gained in Heaven's armoury, and used in 
 battles against Orcus ; — so that we may 
 say of him that conquers it as the Italians 
 say of Dante, " Eccovi Fuotn did stato 
 aW inferno!''' Truer this than you 
 suppose. 
 
 Under which circumstances, consider 
 whether on any terms England can have 
 her house cut in two and a foreign nation 
 lodged in her back-parlour itself ? Not in 
 any measure conceivable by the liveliest 
 imagination that will be candid ! England's 
 heavy job of work, inexorably needful to 
 be done, cannot go on at all unless her 
 back- parlour too belong to herself; with 
 foreign controversies, parliamentary elo- 
 quences, with American sympathisers, 
 
 35
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 Parisian imeutiers, Ledru Rollins, and 
 a world just now fallen into bottomless 
 anarchy, parading incessantly through her 
 back-parlour, no nation can go on with any 
 work. I put it to the Conciliation Hall 
 itself, to any Irish Confederation that will 
 be candid. The candid Irish Confedera- 
 tion admits that such is really the fact ; 
 that England's work will be effectually 
 stopped by this occupation of her back- 
 parlour ; and furthermore that they, the 
 Irish Confederations, mean it so — mean to 
 stop England's work appointed her by the 
 so-called Destinies and Divine Providences. 
 They, the Irish Confederations, and finest 
 peasantry in the world, armed with pikes, 
 will stop all that ; and prove that it is not 
 divine providence at all, but Diabolic
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION, 
 
 Accident, and a thing which they, the 
 finest peasantry in the world, can stop. 
 And so they will make the experiment, it 
 seems ; and certainly if the finest peasantry 
 can conquer and exterminate this poor 
 nation of England, they will bar the way 
 to her Progress through the Ages, relieve 
 her of her terrible job of work, Repeal the 
 Union, and do several other surprising 
 things. So stands the controversy at 
 present. 
 
 If the darkness of human creatures in 
 a state of just or unjust frenzy were not 
 known to be miraculous, surely we might 
 pause stupent over such a reading of the 
 Heavenly omens on the part of any 
 creature. The chance Ireland has, with 
 her finest peasantry, to bar the way of 
 
 37
 
 THE RErEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 England through the Ages, seems small 
 in the extreme. 
 
 Lord Morpeth* tries to demonstrate that 
 Ireland herself will be ruined without the 
 Union ; that if it really would make Ireland 
 happy, he would concede the Repeal with 
 pleasure ; but that it will not and there- 
 fore he cannot. I go farther than his 
 Lordship, and say that though it made 
 Ireland never so happy, it could not be 
 conceded even in that impossible con- 
 tingency. Ireland and her happiness, it 
 should with all clearness be made known 
 to unreasonable noisy men, is a small 
 matter compared with Britain's and 
 Ireland's nobleness, or conformity to the 
 
 * See a speech by Lord Morpeth on the " Union," 
 in Hansard, 3 S., vol. 98, p. 215. — Ed. 
 
 3s
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION, 
 
 eternal law — wherein alone can " happi- 
 ness" either for Britain or Ireland be 
 found. Ireland very much misunderstands 
 her own importance at present. Ireland 
 looks at herself on the map, in the popula- 
 tion returns, and finding a big blot there, 
 rashly supposes that she is an immense 
 element in the sum of British Power. 
 Which is much the reverse of the fact. 
 Deduct what we may call Teutonic Ireland, 
 Ulster and the other analogous regions ; 
 leave only the Ireland that clamours for 
 Repeal at present, and in spite of its size 
 on the map and in the population returns, 
 we must say that its value hitherto 
 approaches amazingly to zero, so far as 
 Britain is concerned. Not out of the 
 Tipperary regions did the artillery that 
 
 39
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION, 
 
 has subdued the world and its anarchies 
 and its devils and wild dog-kennels pro- 
 ceed hitherto. No, it was out of other 
 regions than Tipperary, by other equip- 
 ments than are commonest in Tipperary, 
 that England built up her social constitu- 
 tions, wrote her literature, planted her 
 Americas, subdued her Indias, spun her 
 cotton webs and got along with her 
 enormous job of work so far. This is 
 true, and Tipperary ought to be made to 
 know this, and even will be made to know 
 it, — by terrible schooling if mild will not 
 serve. 
 
 For it behoves men to know what is 
 
 fact in their position ; only by rigorously 
 
 conforming to that, can they have the 
 
 Universe on their side, and achieve any 
 
 40
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 prosperity whatever.* With fact against 
 you, with the whole Universe and Eternal 
 Laws against you, what prosperity can you 
 achieve ? Munster meetings, O'Connell 
 eloquence, and Mullaghmast caps, cannot 
 change the state of the fact, cannot alter 
 the laws of the Universe ; not a whit ; the 
 Universe remains precisely what it was 
 before the Mullaghmast cap took shape 
 among; the head-^ear of men. 
 
 Ireland counts some seven, or five, or 
 three millions of the finest repealing 
 peasantry ; but it ought to remember that 
 the British Empire already enumerates as 
 its subjects some hundred and fifty millions. 
 To such an extent have the gods appointed 
 
 * Cp. Latter Day Pamphlets, " To prosper in this 
 world," etc.— En. 
 
 41
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 it to rule in this planet at this date. There 
 is no denying it. Over so many mortals 
 does Great Britain at this epoch of time 
 preside, and is bound by laws deeper than 
 any written ones to see how it will care 
 for them. That is her task among the 
 Nations ; a heavy and tremendous, but 
 a great and glorious one ; to which not I 
 and some public journalists and clerks in 
 Downing Street, but the mute voice of the 
 Eternal is calling her : to do that task is 
 the supreme of all duties for her, and by 
 the help of God and all good citizens, to 
 every one of whom it is of awful divine 
 import withal, she will try to do it. If 
 Tipperary try to obstruct England in this 
 terrible enterprise, Tipperary, I can see, 
 will learn better, or meet a doom that 
 42
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 makes me shudder. Conquer England ; 
 bar the way of England ? About as 
 rationally might a violent-tempered starved 
 rat, extenuated into frenzy, bar the way of 
 a rhinoceros. The frantic extenuated 
 smaller animal cannot bar the way of the 
 other ; can but bite the heels of the 
 other, till it lift its broad hoof, squelch 
 the frantic smaller animal, and pass inevi- 
 tably on. 
 
 Let Irish Patriots seek some other 
 remedy than repealing the Union; let all 
 men cease to talk or speculate on that, 
 since once for all it cannot be done. In 
 no conceivable circumstances could or 
 durst a British minister propose to concede 
 such a thing : the British minister that 
 proposed it would deserve to be impeached 
 
 43
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 as a traitor to his high post, and to lose his 
 worthless head. Nay, if, in the present 
 cowardly humour of most ministers and 
 governing persons, and loud insane babble 
 of anarchic men, the traitorous minister did 
 consent to help himself over the evil hour 
 by yielding to it and conceding its mad 
 demand, — even he, whether he saved his 
 traitorous head or lost it, would have done 
 nothing towards the Repeal of the Union. 
 A law higher than that of Parliament, as 
 we have said, an Eternal Law proclaims 
 the Union unrepealable in these centuries. 
 England's work whatever her ministers be, 
 till all her citizens likewise cease, requires 
 to be done. While a British citizen is left, 
 there is left a protestor against our country 
 being occupied by foreigners, a repealer of 
 
 44
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 the Repeal. Not while British men walk 
 erect in this island can Ledru Rollins, 
 American sympathisers, Parisian organisa- 
 teurs, and an anarchic canaille, be left at 
 rifle practice in the other. Never, in my 
 opinion ; clearly never. And so were 
 Repeal conceded, Repeal would at all 
 moments, by night and by day, cry irre- 
 pressibly to be revoked ; and one day 
 would get itself revoked, — perhaps in a 
 final way that time ! The rhinoceros is 
 long-suffering, thick of skin, entirely in- 
 disposed to severe methods at present ; 
 but the frantic smaller animal should not 
 drive him quite to extremities either, but 
 bethink himself a little. 
 
 True, most true, the wretched Irish 
 populations have enough to complain of, 
 
 45
 
 THE RErEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 and the worst traitors against their country 
 are they who lie quiet in such a putrid 
 lazar-house ; but it is not England alone, 
 as they will find, that has clone or does 
 them mischief; not England alone or 
 even chiefly, as they will find. Nor indeed 
 are their woes peculiar, or even specifically 
 different from our own. We too in this 
 island have our woes ; governing classes 
 that do not in the least govern, and work- 
 ing classes that cannot longer do without 
 governing : woes almost grown unbearable, 
 and precisely in a less degree those of 
 Ireland are in a greater. But we study 
 to bear our woes till they can be got 
 articulated in feasible proposals; we do not 
 think to rush out into the street and knock 
 men down with our shillelagh will be the 
 46
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 way of healing them. We have decided 
 by an immense majority to endure our 
 woes, and wait for feasible proposals ; to 
 reserve barricades, insurrections, revolu- 
 tionary pikes to the very last extremity. 
 Considerable constitutional and social im- 
 provements have been made in this island ; 
 really very considerable ; — but what is re- 
 markable, by pikes and insurrection not 
 one of them hitherto. No, our Civil War 
 itself proceeded according to Act of Par- 
 liament : let all things, even death and 
 battle, be done decently, done in order ! 
 By feasible proposals, and determination 
 silently made up, wrought out in long dark 
 silent struggles into conformity with the 
 laws of fact, and unalterable as the same, 
 — by these nobler methods and not by in- 
 
 47
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 surrectionary pikes and street barricades 
 has England got along hitherto ; and 
 hopes that henceforth they, too, may suffice 
 her. In which nobler methods we earnestly 
 invite all Irish reformers to join us, pro- 
 mising them that no feasible proposal of 
 theirs but shall be one of ours too, and 
 that in fact our adventure and theirs, 
 whether it have to persuade Repeal into 
 silence or trample it into annihilation, is 
 one and the same. 
 
 So the case stands thus. Ireland at this 
 moment and for a good while back, has 
 been admitted and is practically invited to 
 become British ; to right its wrongs along 
 with ours, to fight its battles by our 
 side and take share in that huge destiny 
 along with us, Will it ; can it ? One 
 48
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 does not know. The Cherokees, Sioux, 
 and Chactaws had a like invitation given 
 them, in the new continents two centuries 
 ago. "Can you, will you, O Noble Chactaws, 
 looking through superficial entanglements, 
 estrangements, irritating temptations, into 
 the heart of the matter, join us in this 
 heavy job of work we Yankee Englanders 
 have got to do here ? Will you learn to 
 plough the ground, to do carpentering, and 
 live peaceably, supporting yourselves peace- 
 ably in obedience to those above you ? If 
 so you shall be of us, we say, and the 
 gods say. If not ! " Alas ! the an- 
 swer was in the negative ; the Chactaws 
 would not, could not ; and accordingly the 
 Chactaws, " in spite of two hundred acts 
 of legislation in their favour at divers 
 E 49
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 times," are extinct ; cut off by the inex- 
 orable gods. It is a lesson taught every- 
 where ; everywhere in these days of 
 Aborigines Protection Societies and Exeter 
 Hall babble, deserving to be well learned. 
 Noisy, turbulent, irreclaimable savagery 
 cannot be " protected ; " it is doomed to be 
 reclaimable or to disappear. The Celt of 
 Connemara, and other repealing finest 
 peasantry, are white and not black ; but it 
 is not the colour of the skin that determines 
 the savagery of a man. He* is a savage 
 who in his sullen stupidity, in his chronic 
 rage and misery, cannot know the facts of 
 this world when he sees them ; whom 
 suffering does not teach but only madden ; 
 who blames all men and all things except 
 the one only that can be blamed with 
 SO
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 advantage, namely himself ; who believes, 
 on the hill of Tara or elsewhere, what is 
 palpably untrue, being himself unluckily 
 a liar, and the truth, or any sense of the 
 truth, not in him ; who curses instead of 
 thinks and considers ; brandishes his toma- 
 hawk against the laws of Nature, and 
 prevails therein as we can fancy and can 
 see ! Fruitless futile insurrection, continual 
 sanguinary broils and riot that make his 
 dwelling-place a horror to mankind, mark 
 his progress generation after generation ; 
 and if no beneficient hand will chain him 
 into wholesome slavery, and, with whip on 
 back or otherwise, try to tame him and 
 get some work out of him, — Nature her- 
 self, intent to have her work tilled, has 
 no resource but to exterminate him as she 
 
 5i
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 
 
 has done the wolves and various other 
 obstinately free creatures before now ! 
 These are hard words, but they are 
 true. 
 
 52
 
 III. 
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND.
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 T ORD JOHN RUSSELL has before 
 Parliament, or in due time will have, 
 two small Bills for improved Registration 
 of Voters in Ireland ; and a third for some 
 slight loan, only another million or less, to 
 Irish Landlords, if they will behave well: 
 but what has become of the Sale of 
 Encumbered Estates Bill for Ireland ? 
 Surely in the front rank, and as a pre- 
 liminary to all other bills, the minister 
 was bound to have got that bill passed. 
 It is the preliminary and foundation- 
 
 55
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 stone of all other Irish arrangements 
 whatsoever. 
 
 By the Poor-law Bill, now passed into 
 law,* and struggling to get itself passed 
 everywhere into practice as a fact, it has 
 been, so to speak, solemnly declared, That 
 there are to be no more starvations in 
 Ireland; that 'the white European man, 
 with his ten cunning fingers at his shake- 
 bones and miraculous head on his 
 shoulders,' is no more to perish for want 
 of guidance towards work and sustenance 
 of food ; that such inhuman tragedy, the 
 most scandalous the sun now sees, is not 
 to be transacted any more in Ireland, or in 
 any land of ours. That Irish wealth, which 
 means Irish strength and wisdom and 
 
 * Passed in 1S34. 4 & 5 Will. IV. c. 76.— Ed. 
 56
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 resource, shall not continue to play such 
 tricks in the governance of Irish indigence 
 and resourceless ignorance ; but that it 
 shall straightway cease from such, for 
 neither God nor man can stand it any 
 longer. That, in a word, the Irish 
 aristocracy, if it will preserve its land 
 much longer, shall rapidly come home from 
 foreign capitals, cease drinking punch and 
 playing roulette at Bath or Leamington, 
 dismount from its idle hunting-saddles, 
 descend from its idle drawing-rooms into 
 the neighbouring hunger-cabins ; and see 
 how on these terms it will manage Irish 
 poverty, for on these terms only can or 
 shall it be managed henceforth. 
 
 By this new Poor-law, speaking a small 
 piece of everlasting Justice in Chancery 
 
 57
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 dialect for once, it has been declared, That 
 the land of Ireland is the mother of all 
 Irishmen; and that no Irishman not 
 doomed to it by some judge or law, shall 
 die starved in future. That, accordingly, 
 the aristocracy have now before them a 
 really tremendous task of work ; a task 
 criminally left undone, unattempted, for so 
 many generations, and which has now 
 accumulated till it seeks its fellow in the 
 world ! That nevertheless it is their task, 
 and with fearful limitations of time too ; — 
 and that they have not a minute to lose ! 
 That verily this is it : If the millions die, 
 the units cannot and shall not be left living. 
 That they are all in one boat now ; that 
 according to the steerage of the said boat, 
 shall they all swim or else all sink. It 
 
 53
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 is the everlasting law of Heaven ; and 
 much do all good citizens rejoice that it 
 has, at length, become the express law of 
 Earth as well. 
 
 So that Irish landowners, who are the only 
 considerable class of wealthy Irishmen, are 
 now also brought to book, even as Irish 
 lackalls are ; and the inexorable Destinies 
 inquire of them too, " Is there any wisdom 
 in you, any heroism in you, that you can 
 deal with this chaotic heap of vice and 
 misery, of darknesses, injustices, — in one 
 word, of long-continued falsities, acted, 
 spoken, thought ? If so, it shall be well ; 
 if not so, it shall be ill and ever worse. 
 Hands to the work ; and now, then, or 
 else literally never ! " 
 
 Whether Irish landlords understand 
 
 59
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 completely that this inexorable just law, 
 long valid in Heaven, has gone forth 
 against them on Earth too, I do not quite 
 know ; but guess rather that many of them 
 still idly think, It cannot be possible but 
 the old use-and-wont will still somehow 
 strive to continue. They will get out of 
 it, or beneflcient British legislation will get 
 them out of it by some official sleight-of- 
 hand ; they will fall back on the English, 
 make it an imperial calamity ; — on the 
 whole, can the laws of Nature suddenly 
 change ? Somehow or other, certainly to 
 Heaven, the old use-and-wont will continue! 
 — Such, I rather think, is their idle computa= 
 tion hitherto : but if so, I rejoice to discern 
 that such computation is fallacious quite, 
 in all parts of it ; a broken reed, upon 
 60
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 which if a man lean, it will run into his 
 hand. 
 
 Even so : and all of us thank God for 
 the merciful destruction of the potato 
 (much as we love that tragic vegetable 
 when well boiled) ; and, in pious silence, 
 worshipping the decrees of Heaven, per- 
 ceive that with the potato rotten, Irish 
 existence can no longer, by any human 
 cunning, be maintained in the hideous 
 quiet chronic state, but will either begin 
 to base itself on God's justice, or con- 
 tinue insurrectionary till all end together. 
 By no official sleight-of-hand can Irish 
 landlordism continue idly glittering, and 
 Irish pauperism idly dying, henceforth. 
 No, we discern, with inexpressible thank- 
 fulness so far, that all must either die 
 
 61
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND, 
 
 together, or else all live together ; nay, now 
 that, with the potato rotten, this critical 
 crucial experiment (a true experimentum 
 cruris) has actually begun, and cannot, by 
 human cunning and all the red-tape of the 
 world, be prevented from going on ever 
 more rapidly, and getting to its decision. 
 Decision, " Yes, we have wisdom enough, 
 and shall live;" or decision, "No, we 
 have not wisdom enough, and must depart 
 and give place to others that have : " one 
 or the other is rapidly coming, and now 
 inevitable. 
 
 But now surely, if in these circumstances 
 there is any law indisputably needful, and 
 pressingly called for as the preliminary of 
 everything, it is this, That the Irish land- 
 lord should instantly be brought into free 
 62
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND, 
 
 contact and unlimited power of manipula- 
 tion, and action and reaction with his 
 land; that he should enter on his stern 
 crucial experiment, with at least the possi- 
 bility of trying to get through it ! At 
 present, what with mortgages, debts, en- 
 cumbrances, what with leases, sub-leases, 
 leases for lives, leases for terms and other 
 inextricable leases, contracts and covenants, 
 — the Irish landlord stands indeed looking 
 at all his land, but with his hands tied 
 from touching great part of it. Landlords, 
 nominally of ,£10,000 a year rent, do not 
 command more than ^1000; over the 
 remaining £"9000 they have no more com- 
 mand than I : that is the situation of the 
 Irish landlord. A crueller situation with 
 such a law of Heaven and of Earth now 
 
 63
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 hanging over him, is hardly conceivable. 
 Swiftly, instantly, should Government 
 emancipate any and every true Irish land- 
 lord, bent to try this terrible problem, from 
 such an inconceivably absurd position. 
 Swiftly, instantly, should this bill, all 
 manner of needful bills to facilitate the 
 sale of encumbered estates, — to bring a 
 man into contact with the chaotic problem 
 he has got, or at once to absolve him from 
 it, — be passed through Parliament. 
 
 Nay, if this bill and other bills would 
 not do, a swift Special Commission of 
 twelve just men, — a just lawyer one of 
 them, just husbandmen, tenants, landlords, 
 just men experienced in the business, the 
 other eleven, — should be named swiftly, to 
 serve as a summary, conclusive General 
 64
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND, 
 
 Jury for Ireland, in regard to this matter ; 
 and in the name of God to settle it, as 
 justly as they could, and above all things 
 soon. The case warrants it, such a plan 
 even as the latter ; but I do not think the 
 minister will adopt that ! No ; — and in 
 fact, the circumstance that no Irish land- 
 lord yet complains, aloud to the world, 
 that while the new Poor-law is in action, 
 and their crucial experiment begun, this 
 other law to untie their hands and let 
 them have at least a possibility, remains 
 unpassed, — is rather remarkable ; and ex- 
 cites the sad surmise that our Irish land- 
 lord friends do not at heart believe in the 
 critical nature of their position, but idly 
 think, official sleight-of-hand will still serve 
 them, and old use-and-wont will somehow 
 F 65
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 be got to go on as heretofore. In which 
 delusive thought does the minister perhaps 
 encourage them, encourage himself? A 
 flattering unction indeed, and very com- 
 fortable, laid softly on the soul ; but what 
 will the cost of it be, thinks this minister ? 
 I can compare him only to the steersman 
 encouraging his fellow-rowers to continue 
 idle, and not bale the sinking boat ! " The 
 waves will not swallow her," he intimates ; 
 "sleight-of-hand, and the broad back of 
 England, will still bear her up ! " 
 
 What does the minister mean by listen- 
 ing to money-lenders, mortgagees, steward 
 attorneys, or any class of creatures, and 
 not hastening through with this bill, these 
 bills, that special commission itself, or 
 whatever else will straightway bring the 
 66
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 Irish landlord into practical contact with 
 his land ? Is it, as some surmise, that the 
 Irish landlords themselves, menaced by- 
 attorney mortgagees, object, and threaten 
 to go into opposition ? " Oh, dorit think 
 of baling the boat, then ; sit quiet ; I 
 wouldn't for the world distress you, friends : 
 nay, you will overset us if you make a stir, 
 
 and then ! " — Madder neglect of leeis- 
 
 lation than the want of this measure to 
 follow in the rear of the other, is not seen 
 even in the British Parliament at present. 
 
 Alas, in disorganic Ireland itself there 
 struggle (as everywhere in Creation and 
 even in Chaos) organic filaments, — which, 
 even in a British Parliament, a Chief 
 Governor could endeavour to spin together ! 
 Ireland itself is not without some similitude 
 
 67
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 of the Two Aristocracies, hitherto the 
 vital element in all human societies, and 
 likely henceforth to be so when societies 
 again become human : a Governing Class, 
 or a rich aristocracy of Landlords, and 
 a Teaching Class, or a poor aristocracy of 
 Priests. Sore defaced from their just 
 shape, both of those classes ; yet capable, 
 both, of being dealt with by the British 
 Parliament, — to unspeakable profit, both, 
 if well dealt with. His Lordship, even in 
 the depths of the most complex officiality, 
 is not quite without resources ; no living 
 man anywhere ever was. Resources far 
 superior, it may be hoped, to this of 
 passing registration bills for Ireland, and 
 polishing the electoral suffrage into its 
 last finish of perfection there ! Or if he 
 68
 
 LEGISLATION FOR IRELAND. 
 
 is, — the world should, with all speed, be 
 made aware of the alarming fact, and asked 
 what steps it will take in consequence. 
 Steps must be taken, and that soon. 
 These weeks and months are precious, 
 are perhaps priceless ; rushing swiftly, — 
 every one asks, Whitherward ? The rapids 
 of Niagara, after a while, become too 
 rapid ; and then there is no oaring or 
 steering ! 
 
 69
 
 IV. 
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH 
 CHIEF GOVERNOR.
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH 
 CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 HP HE Easter recess having ended, and 
 Parliament happily got together again, 
 Lord John Russell comes forward with 
 his remedial measures for Ireland. A 
 most proper duty surely. He has put 
 down pike-rioting, open and advised in- 
 cendiary eloquence, and signified to Ireland 
 that her wrongs are not to be redressed 
 by street-barricades just at present ; an 
 act for which all sane men, Irish and 
 English, applaud him. But this act done, 
 the question rises, more naked and irre- 
 
 73
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 pressible than ever : By what means, then, 
 are Irish wrongs to be redressed ? Fifty 
 thousand armed soldiers, — in red coats or 
 in green, there are said to be about 
 so many, — here is prohibition of Repeal 
 treason, but here is no cure of the disease 
 which produces Repeal treason, and other 
 madnesses and treasons among us. Here 
 is still no indication how the Irish popu- 
 lation is to begin endeavouring to live on 
 just terms with one another and with us, — 
 or, alas, even how it is to continue living 
 at all. 
 
 Of a truth remedial measures are very 
 needful : for Ireland's sake, and indeed 
 for Britain's, which is indissolubly chained 
 to her, and is drifting along with her and 
 by reason of her, close in the rear of her, 
 74
 
 Ireland and the British chief governor. 
 
 towards unspeakable destinies otherwise. 
 Our co-partnery being indissoluble, and 
 the " Warner operation " lately spoken 
 of* impossible, it is to ourselves also of 
 the last importance that the depths of 
 Irish wretchedness be actually sounded ; 
 that we get to the real bottom of that 
 unspeakable cloaca, and endeavour, by 
 Heaven's blessing, with all the strength 
 that is in us, to commence operations 
 upon it. Purified that hideous mass must 
 be, or we ourselves cannot live! More 
 stringent than O'Connell eloquence, or 
 O'Brien pike-manufacture, the law of 
 Nature itself makes us now, in every fibre, 
 participant of Ireland's wretchedness. 
 Steam-passage from Ireland is occasionally 
 * See p. 30. 
 
 75
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 as low as fourpence a head. Not a 
 wandering Irish lackall that comes over 
 to us, to parade his rags and hunger, and 
 sin and misery, but comes in all senses as 
 an irrepressible missionary of the like to 
 our own people ; an inarticulate prophet 
 of God's justice to Nations ; heralding to 
 us also a doom like his own. Of our 
 miseries and fearful entanglement, here 
 in Britain, he, the Irish lackall, is by far 
 the heaviest ; and we cannot shake him 
 off. No, we have deserved him : by our 
 incompetence and unveracity — by our 
 cowardly, false, and altogether criminal 
 neglect of Ireland — by our government 
 of make-believe and not of truth and 
 reality, so long continued there, we have 
 deserved him ; and suddenly, by the aid 
 76
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 of steam and modern progress of the 
 sciences, we have got him. The irre- 
 pressible missionary and God's messenger 
 to us, I say, is this one, he ! A strange 
 sight, and one that gives rise to thoughts — 
 " The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and 
 the children's teeth are set on edge." 
 He comes to us to revenge his country ; 
 and he does revenge it. The mad cry 
 of Repeal you can put down, — change it 
 into another as mad, or less, or still more 
 mad ; but him you cannot put down. 
 
 For Britain's sake itself, if Britain is to 
 continue habitable much longer, Ireland 
 must actually attain remedial measures, — 
 and of a kind we have not been much used 
 to, for two centuries back, in this country. 
 We have been a little idle, in respect of 
 
 77
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 Irish remedial measures, for two centuries 
 back ! In fact, ever since Oliver Crom- 
 well's time* we have done little but 
 grimace and make-believe, and sham a 
 kind of governing there : attaching our- 
 selves to any entity or sham that would 
 help us along from year to year ; imagining 
 (miserable criminals that we have been !) 
 that falsities and injustices, well varnished, 
 would do instead of facts and continuous 
 performance according to the eternal laws, 
 — as if not a God had made Ireland and us, 
 but a Devil, who could quote Scripture on 
 occasion ! And now it has all come down 
 upon us ; and we welter among it, on the 
 
 * Compare this passage with that commencing 
 " Ever since that cumus mirabilis of 1660," etc., in 
 Shooting Niagara. — Ed. 
 
 73
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 edge of huge perils : and we must alter it, 
 or prepare to perish. Surely, if ever for 
 any country in the world, remedial measures 
 are needed for Ireland now ! 
 
 The remedial measures propounded, or 
 to be propounded, for Ireland, by the 
 British Chief Governor, in this crisis, are — 
 what does the reader think? — first, a 
 bill for improved Registration of Irish 
 County Voters ; secondly, a bill for im- 
 proved ditto in Irish Municipalities ; and 
 — and nothing else at all for the present : 
 these for the present are the remedial 
 measures contemplated by the British Chief 
 Governor, on behalf of Ireland. 
 
 How it may pass in Parliament, this 
 first attempt at discharge of governor's 
 duty and debt towards subjects dying for 
 
 79
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 want of governing, we do not know ; but 
 certainly out of Parliament, the attempt 
 does seem almost surprising. Rather a 
 lean instalment, you would say, of the big 
 debt due ; probably among the leanest in- 
 stalments towards so enormous a liqui- 
 dation ever offered by any son of Adam ! 
 Extension of the electoral suffrage, — good 
 Heavens, what will that do for a country 
 which labours under the frightfullest im- 
 mediate want of potatoes ? Potatoes, 
 possibility of work that will procure 
 potatoes, or a substitute for that sad root, 
 and enable the electors to sustain them- 
 selves alive : there lies the awful prime 
 necessity for Ireland just now. Towards 
 that goal first of all, and not as yet towards 
 any other, does Ireland, from the depths of 
 80
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 its being, struggle and endeavour. Ex- 
 tension of the suffrage ? Could the Chief 
 Governor, in his beneficence, extend the 
 suffrage through municipalities and counties, 
 through villages and parishes, so that not 
 only all the men of Ireland, but all the 
 women and children, and even all the oxen 
 and asses and dogs of Ireland, should be 
 asked their vote, and taught to give it 
 with the exactest authenticity and the last 
 finish of constitutional perfection, — of what 
 avail would all that be ? Not that course, 
 I should say, leads towards work and 
 potatoes ; but rather it leads directly away 
 from it. Not by extending the electoral 
 or other suffrage, but by immensely curtail- 
 ing it (were the good method once found), 
 could a constitutional benefit be done, there 
 G Si
 
 Ireland and the British chief governor. 
 
 or here ! Not who votes, but who or what 
 is voted for, what is decided on : that is 
 the important question ! Constitutional 
 men are by no means aware of it yet ; but 
 the real truth, in a private way, is, that 
 no fool's vote, no knave's, no liar's, no 
 gluttonous greedy-minded cowardly per- 
 son's (rich or poor), in a word, no slave 's 
 vote, is other than a nuisance, and even 
 the chief of nuisances in its kind, be it 
 given where, when, or in what manner 
 it like ! That is the everlasting fact of 
 the matter ; true to-day as it was at the 
 beginning of the world, — and only over- 
 looked (for reasons) in certain confused 
 heavy-laden periods, which by their nature 
 are either fatal or else transitory. Consti- 
 tutional men, I believe, will gradually 
 82
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 become aware of this ; and once well dis- 
 cerning it, will find a whole unelaborated 
 world of practical reform, on that unex- 
 pected side, of curtailing the suffrage 
 again ! * 
 
 In brief, his Lordship's bill for improved 
 Registration of Irish County Voters, which 
 is said to be good of its sort, and bill for 
 improved ditto in Irish Municipalities, 
 which has not yet come into the light, do, 
 to impartial extra-parliamentary persons, 
 seem as strange a pair of bills as ever were 
 propounded on such an occasion. Our 
 impious Irish Tower of Bade/, built high 
 for centuries now against God's command- 
 ment, having at last, with fateful shudder 
 
 * Cp. Shooting Niagara, p. 223 : "For example, I 
 expect, as almost the first thing," etc. — Ed. 
 
 8*
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 through every stone of it, cracked from top 
 to base ; and bending now visible to every 
 eye, and hanging in momentary peril of 
 tumbling wholly, and of carrying our own 
 dwelling-place along with it, — will his 
 Lordship, with these two exquisite White- 
 chapel needles, bring the imminent bulging 
 masonries, the big beams and deranged 
 boulders, into square again ? These, it 
 appears, are \i\s first crowbars ; with these 
 he means to begin and try ! 
 
 Is his Lordship not aware, then, that 
 the Irish potato has, practically speaking, 
 fallen extinct ; that the hideous form of 
 Irish so-called "social existence" sustained 
 thereby, has henceforth become impos- 
 sible ? That some new existence, deserv- 
 ing a little more to be called "social," will 
 84
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 have to introduce itself there ; or worse, 
 and ever worse, down to some nameless 
 worst of all, will have to follow ? That 
 accordingly a real government, come from 
 where it can, is indispensable for the human 
 beings that inhabit Ireland ? That on the 
 whole, real government, effective guidance 
 and constraint of human folly by human 
 wisdom, is very desirable for all manner 
 of human beings ! That, in fine, the King 
 of the French drove lately through the 
 Barrier of Passy in a one-horse chaise ? 
 And furthermore that Europe at large has 
 risen behind him,* to testify that it also 
 will, at least, have done with sham govern - 
 
 * Cp. Lalter-Day Pamphlets, p. 5 : " Close follow- 
 ing which, as if by sympathetic subterranean elec- 
 tricities, all Europe exploded," etc. — Ed. 
 
 85
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 ment, and have either true government or 
 else none at all ? These are grave facts ; 
 and indicate to all creatures that a new 
 and very ominous sera, for Ireland and for 
 us, has arrived. 
 
 Ireland, which was never yet organic 
 with other than make-believe arrangement, 
 now writhes in bitter agony, plainly dis- 
 organic from shore to shore ; its perennial 
 hunger grown too sharp even for Irish 
 nerves. England has her Chartisms, her 
 justly discontented workpeople countable 
 by the million ; repressed for the moment, 
 not at all either remedied or extinguished 
 by the glorious ioth of April, for which 
 a monument is to be built. No ; and 
 Europe, we say, from Cadiz to Copen- 
 hagen, has crashed together suddenly into 
 86
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR, 
 
 the bottomless deeps, the thin earth rind, 
 wholly artificial, giving way beneath it ; 
 and welters now one huge Democracy, 
 one huge Anarchy or Kinglessness ; its 
 <( kings" all flying like a set of mere play- 
 actor kings, and none now even pretending 
 to rule, and heroically, at his life's peril, 
 command and constrain. Does our Chief 
 Governor calculate that England, with such 
 a Chartism under deck, and such afire-ship 
 of an Ireland indissolubly chained to her, 
 beaten on continually by an anarchic 
 Europe and its all-permeating influences 
 and impulses, can keep the waters on those 
 terms ? By her old constitutional methods, 
 of producing small registration bills, much 
 Parliamentary eloquence, and getting the 
 supplies voted, — in which latter point it 
 
 87
 
 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF GOVERNOR. 
 
 would seem now, owing to increase of Par- 
 liamentary eloquence, the Chief Governor 
 finds difficulties ? Is it by such alchemy 
 that he will front the crisis ? A Chief 
 Governor of that humour, at the present 
 juncture, is surely rather an alarming 
 phenomenon ! 
 
 88
 
 V. 
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE 
 NEW ^RA.
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE 
 NEW JERA* 
 
 \liTlLh his Lordship go along with us 
 in the following practical reflection, 
 and anticipation of what can be from what 
 is ; which ought to prove consolatory to 
 governors of men, in such universal down- 
 break as now threatens in Ireland and 
 elsewhere ? Much is possible for the 
 governor of men ; much has been possible, 
 when he tried it with a true dead-lift effort, 
 
 * Compare this Essay with the speech of the British 
 Prime Minister in Latter-Day Pamphlets, No. i, "The 
 Present Time." — Ed. 
 
 9t
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW JERA. 
 
 feeling that he must do it! — Here, visible 
 far off on the edge of our horizon, seems 
 to be some actual peak or headland of the 
 country of the Future ; which is already 
 looming vaguely in the general eye ; and 
 which, I think, the helmsman everywhere 
 will have to take note of, and intently 
 steer towards, before long ! A small 
 fraction of that huge business called " Or- 
 ganization of Labour," which is of infinite 
 concernment and of vital necessity to all 
 of us, — though numerous Louis- Blancs, 
 Owen-Fouriers, Luxemburg Commissions, 
 and I know not what sad set of sooth- 
 sayers, with their dreams of Fraternity, 
 Equality, and universal Paradise-made- 
 easy, throw it into discredit for the 
 moment. Let us look steadily, and see 
 92
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW .ERA. 
 
 whether the thing is not now partly visible 
 even to the naked eye ? 
 
 The unemployed vagrant miscellaneous 
 Irish, once dressed in proper red coats, 
 and put under proper drill-sergeants, with 
 strict military law above them, can be 
 trained into soldiers ; and will march to 
 any quarter of the globe and fight fiercely, 
 and will keep step and pas-de-charge, and 
 subdue the enemy for you, like real 
 soldiers, — none better, I understand, or 
 few, in this world. Here is a thing 
 worth noting. The Irish had always, from 
 the first creation of them, a talent for indi- 
 vidual fighting : but it took several thou- 
 sand years of effort, before, on hest and 
 pressure of clearest Necessity, the indis- 
 pensable organic concert got introduced 
 
 93
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW .ERA. 
 
 into the business, and they could be taught 
 to fight in this profitable military manner. 
 Several thousand years of faction-fights, 
 pike-skirmishes, combustions, private duels 
 by shillelagh, by dirk and fist, and still 
 feller methods ; and indeed it was only 
 comparatively in the late centuries, long 
 posterior to King Rufus and William of 
 Ipres, that the Irish fighting talent was 
 got regimented, and these inestimable ad- 
 vantages (maintenance of public order 
 and government authority, no less) could 
 be educed from it. And what taming and 
 manipulation it took ; how many agonistic 
 struggles on the part of sergeant, con- 
 queror, legislator, pacificator, wolf-subduer, 
 howsoever the Organizing Man was named, 
 ■ — long generations of multiform agonistic 
 94
 
 Irish regiments of tiie ne\v MrA. 
 
 struggle, managed in a more or less heroic, 
 and at last in a successful manner, — the 
 gods and the forgotten William of Ipres 
 alone know. But it was done, accom- 
 plished ; and we see it now before us, and 
 bless the unknown heroes and forgotten 
 benefactors for it. 
 
 Is organization to fight, the only organiza- 
 tion achievable by Irishmen under proper 
 sergeants ? There is the question ! For 
 example, the Irish have in all times shown, 
 and do now show, an indisputable talent 
 for spade-work, which, under slight mo- 
 difications, means all kinds of husbandry 
 work. Men skilled in the business testify 
 that, with the spade, there is no defter or 
 toucher worker than the common Irish- 
 man at presents None will live on 
 
 95
 
 Irish regiments of the new .era. 
 
 humbler rations, and bring a greater 
 quantity of efficient spade-work out of 
 him, than the vagrant unemployed and in 
 fact quite chaotic Irishman of this hour. 
 Here is a fact; really rather notable, and 
 such as invites meditation. For, like the 
 old fighting talent, this new delving talent, 
 being as yet quite chaotic, brings no 
 advantage whatever to the poor Irishman 
 possessor of it. Here he is, willing and 
 able to dig, as ever his ancestor was to 
 do faction-fighting or irregular multiform 
 duel : but him, alas, no William of Ipres, 
 or other sternly benign drill-sergeant, has 
 yet ranked into regiment ; clothed in 
 effectual woollen russet, or drab cotton 
 moleskin ; and bidden wisely : " Go 
 thither, that way not this, and dig swiftly 
 96
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW /ERA. 
 
 (pay and rations await thee) for that 
 object not for this. This will profit thee 
 and me ; that will not : dig there and 
 thus ! " Alas, no ; he wanders inorganic ; 
 and his fate at present, with nothing but 
 " supply and demand " buzzing round him, 
 and in his ear the inexorable doom- 
 summons, " Thou shalt die starved for all 
 thy digging talent," is the hardest of any 
 creature's, — and I should say, the unjustest. 
 Is there seen on this earth at present 
 other such fatal sight ? A whole world, or 
 nearly so, undug; a man with the skil* 
 fullest eagerest digging-talent, condemned 
 to die because none will show him 
 where to dig. There are many that have 
 leisure, money, sense ; but it is impossible, 
 they all cry ! Alas, the thrice-beneficial 
 ii 97
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW .ERA. 
 
 William of Ipres that will take up this 
 wandering spademan and turn him to 
 account, has not yet presented himself 
 among us. Nay, I hear it said every- 
 where that he is flatly an inconceivability ; 
 that the old fighting drill-sergeant, sternly 
 benign, did indeed prove successful and 
 unspeakably advantageous ; but that the 
 new pacific one, prayed for by some, is 
 mere madness, — nay, that there is a kind 
 of sin, allied to blasphemy and the other 
 unforgivable treasons against the Universe, 
 in so much as thinking of him, or, at least 
 publicly speaking of him. 
 
 Which opinion I must here take the 
 
 liberty, in my own name and that of as 
 
 many as will follow me, of mildly but 
 
 peremptorily and for evermore denying; 
 
 98
 
 IRtSII REGIMENTS OF THE NEW JE&A 
 
 Not so, my friends ; I take the gods to 
 witness that it is not so. In the name of 
 human nature, I protest that fighting is 
 not the only talent which can be regulated, 
 regimented, and by organization and 
 human arrangement be made, instead of 
 hideous, beautiful, beneficient, and of 
 indispensable advantage to us. Not the 
 only arrangeable, commandable, captain- 
 able talent, that of fighting ; I say that of 
 digging is another, and a still better. Nay, 
 there is no human talent whatever but is 
 capable of the like beneficial process, and 
 calculated to profit infinitely by it. As 
 shall be seen yet, gradually, in happier 
 days, if it please Heaven : for the future 
 work of human wisdom and human 
 heroism is discernible to be even this, Not 
 
 99
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW /ERA. 
 
 of fighting with and beating to death one's 
 poor fellow creatures in other countries, 
 but of regimenting into blessed activity 
 more and more one's poor fellow creatures 
 in one's own country, for their and all 
 people's profit more and more. A field 
 wide enough, untilled enough, God knows ; 
 and in which I should say, human heroism 
 and all the divine wisdom that is among 
 us, could not too soon, with one accord, 
 begin ! For the time presses ; the years, 
 and the days, at this epoch, are precious ; 
 teeming with either deliverance or 
 destruction ! 
 
 Yes, much is yet unready, put off till the 
 
 morrow ; but this, of trying to find some 
 
 spade-work for the disorganic Irish and 
 
 British spademan, cannot be delayed much 
 
 ioo
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW JERA. 
 
 longer. Colonels of field-labour, as well 
 as colonels of field-fighting, doubt it not, 
 can be found, if you will search for them 
 with diligence ; nay, I myself have seen 
 some such : colonels, captains, lieutenants, 
 down to the very sergeants and fifers of 
 field-labour, can be got, if you will honestly 
 want them, — oh, in what abundance, and 
 with what thrice-blessed results, could they 
 be " supplied " if you did indeed with due 
 intensity continue to " demand " them ! 
 And, I think, one regiment, ten regiments, 
 of diggers, on the Bog of Allen, would 
 look as well almost as ten regiments of 
 shooters on the field of Waterloo ; and 
 probably ten times as well as ten warships 
 riding in the Tagus, for body-guard to 
 Donna Maria da Gloria, at this epoch of 
 
 IOI
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW .ERA. 
 
 the world ! Some incipiency of a real effec- 
 tive regimenting of spademen is actually 
 a possibility for human creatures at this 
 time. Possible, I say, and even easier 
 than William of Ipres found his work ; 
 and it is pressingly needful withal, and 
 indeed practically indispensable before 
 long. Never can the mad cry of Repeal, 
 or some cry, equally mad, cease in Ireland ; 
 never can the world cease writhing and 
 moaning, in dull agony, in dark stifled 
 rage, till the disorganic perishing spademan 
 begin to get fairly in contact with his 
 spade-work : he cannot, and he even 
 should not, know a moment's loyal peace 
 till then. Some regimenting of spade- 
 work can, by honest life-and-death effort 
 long continued on the part of governing 
 102
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW ,ERA, 
 
 men, be done, and even must be done. 
 All Nations, and I think our own foremost, 
 will either pfet a bep-inninp- made towards 
 doing it, or die in nameless anarchies 
 before long ! 
 
 Do the governing persons of this 
 country, does our present respectable 
 Premier, consider that all this lies quite 
 beyond his province ; belongs to the field 
 of private benevolence, field of private 
 enterprise ; and that he and the British 
 Government have for their share, nothing 
 to do with it? Him also I must hum- 
 bly but positively answer, No ! It is 
 in his province withal ; and, if it be 
 essential to the ends of British society, 
 surely it is more in his province than in 
 any other man's. Alas, I know, or can 
 
 103
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW .ERA. 
 
 forgive in some measure, the shoreless 
 imbroglio of red-tape and parliamentary 
 eloquence in which he lives and moves 
 and has his sorrowful being ;— tape-thrums 
 high above him as the Heaven, and deep 
 below him as the Abyss ; and loud inane 
 eloquence (public-speaking transacted in 
 the hearing of twenty-seven millions, many 
 of whom are fools !) beating on him like- 
 wise, as a mad ocean, and every single 
 billow and every separate tape-thrum 
 singing merely, " Impossible, impossible 
 to do any real business here ! Nothing 
 but parliamentary eloquence possible 
 here ! " All this I know, or can fancy in 
 some measure, and sorrow over. Never- 
 theless, all this will not excuse an un- 
 fortunate British Premier. He stands at 
 104
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW JERA. 
 
 the summit of our society ; has with his 
 eyes open, and what real or imaginary views 
 he knows best, taken his station there ; 
 and to him inevitably do perishing British 
 subjects cry, — if not for help, yet for some 
 signal that somebody, somewhere, in some 
 manner should at least begin to try to help 
 them ! Decidedly they do ; and will, so 
 long as there is anything called by the 
 name of Government among us. To say, 
 " Impossible ! Good citizens, be obliging 
 enough to perish in peace : you see I have 
 no help ! " * alas, can that answer ever, 
 in the profoundest imbroglio of tape- 
 thrums, and loudest parliamentary elo- 
 
 * Cp. Latter-Day Pamphlets, p. 32 : " Surely to a 
 Chief Governor of England worthy of that high name," 
 etc. — Ed. 
 
 I°5
 
 IRISH REGIMENTS OF THE NEW /ERA. 
 
 quence of British Constitution, continue 
 to be available ? The perishing British 
 subjects do not think so, nor do I. Let 
 the British Chief Governor cry earnestly 
 from the abysses and the red-tape im- 
 broglios, whatever they may be : a Jonah 
 was heard from the whale's belly ; — and 
 he too, unless the Heavens help him to 
 some scheme or counsel, he and we are 
 lost! 
 
 106
 
 VI. 
 
 TREES OF LIBERTY.
 
 TREES OF LIBERTY. 
 
 (FROM MR. BRAMBLE'S UNPUBLISHED 
 
 Arboretum Hibernicum.) 
 
 A /T ANY Irishmen talk of dying, etc., 
 for Ireland, and I really believe 
 almost every Irishman now alive longs in 
 his way for an opportunity to do the dear 
 old country some good. Opportunities of 
 at once usefully and conspicuously "dying" 
 for countries are not frequent, and, truly, 
 the rarer they are the better; but the 
 opportunity of usefully if unconspicuously 
 living for one's country, this was never 
 
 IOQ
 
 TREES OF LIBERTY. 
 
 denied to any man. Before "dying" for 
 your country, think, my friends, in how 
 many quiet strenuous ways you might 
 beneficially live for it. 
 
 Every patriotic Irishman (that is, by 
 hypothesis, almost every Irishman now 
 alive), who would so fain make the dear 
 old country a present of his whole life 
 and self, why does he not, for example — 
 directly after reading this, and choosing a 
 feasible spot — at least, plant one tree ? 
 That were a small act of self-devotion, 
 small but feasible. Him such tree will 
 never shelter. Hardly any mortal but 
 could manage that — hardly any mortal, if 
 he were serious in it, but could plant and 
 nourish into growth one tree. Eight 
 million trees before the present generation 
 no
 
 TREES OF LIBERTY. 
 
 run out, that were an indubitable acquisi- 
 tion for Ireland, for it is one of the barest, 
 raggedest countries now known : far too 
 ragged a country, with patches of beautiful 
 park and fine cultivation like shreds of 
 bright scarlet on a beggar's clouted coat — a 
 country that stands decidedly in need of 
 shelter, shade, and ornamental fringing, look 
 at its landscape where you will. Once, as 
 the old Chroniclers write, " A squirrel (by 
 bending its course a little, and taking a 
 longish leap here and there) could have 
 run from Cape Clear to the Giant's Cause- 
 way without once touching the ground ; " 
 but now, eight million trees, and I rather 
 conjecture eight times eight million would 
 be very welcome in that part of the 
 empire. Of fruit trees, though these too 
 
 1 1 1
 
 TREES OF LIBERTY. 
 
 are possible enough, I do not yet insist, 
 but trees — at least, trees. 
 
 That eight million persons will be per- 
 suaded to plant each his tree we cannot 
 expect just yet ; but do thou, my friend, 
 in silence go and plant thine — that thou 
 canst do ; one small duty, but a real one, 
 if among the smallest conceivable, and a 
 duty which henceforth it will be a sweet 
 possession for thee to have lying done. 
 Ireland for the present is not to be 
 accounted a pleasant landscape — vigorous 
 corn, but thistles and docks equally vigor- 
 ous ; ulcers of reclaimable bog lying black, 
 miry, and abominable at intervals of a few 
 miles ; no tree shading you, nor fence that 
 avails to turn cattle * — most fences merely, 
 
 * Cp. Carlyle's Reminiscences of my Irish Journey^ 
 1S49, under July 13: "Hedges mostly of gorse, not 
 112
 
 TREES OF LIBERTY, 
 
 as it were, soliciting the cattle to be so 
 good as not to come through — by no 
 means a beautiful country just now ! But 
 it tells all men how beautiful it might be. 
 Alas, it carries on it, as the surface of the 
 earth ever does ineffaceably legible, the 
 physiognomy of the people that have 
 inhabited it : * a people of holed breeches, 
 dirty faces, ill-roofed huts — a people of 
 impetuosity and of levity — of vehemence, 
 
 one of them will turn any kind of cattle, — alas, I 
 found that the universal rule in Ireland, not one 
 fence in five hundred that will turn. Even they are 
 almost all, and without attention paid." — Ed. 
 
 * Carlyle thus describes the country around 
 Limerick, in his diary (July 24, T849) : "Very ugly 
 this particular spot. How a man 'prints his image' 
 here on the face of the earth ; and you have beauty 
 alternating with sordid disordered ugliness, abrupt as 
 squares on the chess-board ! So, all over Ireland." 
 —Ed. 
 
 I II?
 
 TREES OF LIBERTY. 
 
 impatience, imperfect, fitful veracity. Oh 
 Heaven ! there lies the woe of woes, which 
 is the root of all. 
 
 " Trees of liberty," though an Abbe 
 wrote a book on them, and incalculable 
 trouble otherwise was taken, have not 
 succeeded well in these ages. Plant you 
 your eight million trees of shelter, shade, 
 ornament, fruit : that is a symbol much 
 more likely to be prophetic. Each man's 
 tree of industry will be, of a surety, his 
 tree of liberty ; and the sum of them, 
 never doubt of it, will be Ireland's. 
 
 114
 
 VII. 
 DEATH OF CHARLES BULLER.
 
 DEATH OF CHARLES BULLER. 
 
 A VERY beautiful soul has suddenly been 
 summoned from among us ; one of the 
 clearest intellects, and most aerial activities 
 in England, has unexpectedly been called 
 away. Charles Buller died on Wednesday 
 morning last, without previous sickness, 
 reckoned of importance, till a day or two 
 before. An event of unmixed sadness, 
 which has created a just sorrow, private 
 and public. The light of many a social 
 circle is dimmer henceforth, and will miss 
 long a presence which was always gladden- 
 ing and beneficient ; in the coming storms 
 
 n;
 
 DEATH OF CHARLES BULLER. 
 
 of political trouble, which heap themselves 
 more and more in ominous clouds on our 
 horizon, one radiant element is to be 
 wanting now. 
 
 Mr. Buller was in his forty-third year, 
 and had sat in Parliament some twenty 
 of those. A man long kept under by the 
 peculiarities of his endowment and position, 
 but rising rapidly into importance of *late 
 years ; beginning to reap the fruits of 
 long patience, and to see an even wider 
 field open round him. He was what in 
 party language is called a " Reformer " 
 from his earliest youth ; and never swerved 
 from that faith, nor could swerve. His 
 luminous sincere intellect laid bare to him 
 in all its abject incoherency the thing that 
 was untrue, which thenceforth became for 
 i iS
 
 DEATH OF CHARLES BULLER. 
 
 him a thing that was not tenable, that it 
 was perilous and scandalous to attempt 
 maintaining. Twenty years in the dreary, 
 weltering lake of parliamentary confusion, 
 with its disappointments and bewilder- 
 ments, had not quenched this tendency, 
 in which, as we say, he persevered as 
 by a law of nature itself, for the essence 
 of his mind was clearness, healthy purity, 
 incompatibility with fraud in any of its 
 forms. What he accomplished, therefore, 
 whether great or little, was all to be 
 added to the sum of good ; none of it to 
 be deducted. There shone mildly in his 
 whole conduct a beautiful veracity, as if 
 it were unconscious of itself; a perfect 
 spontaneous absence of all cant, hypocrisy, 
 and hollow pretence, not in word and act 
 
 119
 
 DEATH OF CHARLES BULLER. 
 
 only, but in thought and instinct. To a 
 singular extent it can be said of him that 
 he was a spontaneous clear man. Very 
 gentle, too, though full of fire ; simple, 
 brave, graceful. What he did, and what 
 he said, came from him as light from a 
 luminous body, and had thus always in it 
 a high and rare merit, which any of the 
 more discerning could appreciate fully. 
 
 To many, for a long while, Mr. Buller 
 passed merely for a man of wit, and certainly 
 his beautiful natural gaiety of character, 
 which by no means meant levity, was 
 commonly thought to mean it, and did for 
 many years hinder the recognition of his 
 intrinsic higher qualities. Slowly it began 
 to be discovered that, under all this many- 
 coloured radiancy and coruscation, there 
 1 20
 
 t)EATII OF CHARLES DULLER. 
 
 burnt a most steady light ; a sound, 
 penetrating intellect, full of adroit re- 
 sources, and loyal by nature itself to all 
 that was methodic, manful, true ; — in brief, 
 a mildly resolute, chivalrous, and gallant 
 character, capable of doing much serious 
 service. 
 
 A man of wit he indisputably was, what- 
 ever more among the wittiest of men. His 
 speech, and manner of being, played 
 everywhere like soft brilliancy of lambent 
 fire round the common object of the 
 hour, and was, beyond all others that 
 English society could show, entitled to the 
 name of excellent, for it was spontaneous, 
 like all else in him, genuine, humane, — the 
 glittering play of the soul of a real man. 
 To hear him, the most serious of men 
 
 121
 
 DEATH OF CHARLES BULLER. 
 
 might think within himself, " How beauti- 
 ful is human gaiety too ! " Alone of wits, 
 Buller never made wit ; he could be silent, 
 or grave enough, where better was going ; 
 often rather liked to be silent if per- 
 missible, and always was so where needful. 
 His wit, moreover, was ever the ally of 
 wisdom, not of folly, or unkindness, or 
 injustice ; no soul was ever hurt by it ; 
 never, we believe, never, did his wit 
 offend justly any man, and often have we 
 seen his ready resource relieve one ready 
 to be offended, and light up a pausing 
 circle all into harmony again. In truth, 
 it was beautiful to see such clear, almost 
 childlike simplicity of heart co-existing 
 with the finished dexterities, and long 
 experiences of a man of the world. Honour 
 
 122
 
 DEATH OF CHARLES BULLER. 
 
 to human worth in whatever form we find 
 it ! This man was true to his friends, 
 true to his convictions, — and true without 
 effort, as the magnet is to the north. He 
 was ever found on the right side ; helpful 
 to it, not obstructive of it, in all he 
 attempted or performed. 
 
 Weak health ; a faculty indeed brilliant, 
 clear, prompt, not deficient in depth either, 
 or in any kind of active valour, but wanting 
 the stern energy that could long endure to 
 continue in the deep, in the chaotic, new, 
 and painfully incondite — this marked out 
 for him his limits ; which, perhaps with 
 regrets enough, his natural veracity and 
 practicality would lead him quietly to 
 admit and stand by. He was not the 
 man to grapple, in its dark and deadly 
 
 12%
 
 DEATH OF CHARLES BULLER. 
 
 dens, with the Lerncean coil of social 
 Hydras ; perhaps not under any circum- 
 stances : but he did, unassisted, what he 
 could ; faithfully himself did something 
 — nay, something truly considerable ; — and 
 in his patience with the much that by him 
 and his strength could not be done let us 
 grant there was something of beautiful 
 too! 
 
 Properly, indeed, his career as a public 
 man was but beginning. In the office he 
 last held, much was silently expected of 
 him ; he himself, too, recognized well 
 what a fearful and immense question this 
 of Pauperism is ; with what ominous 
 rapidity the demand for solution of it is 
 pressing on ; and how little the world 
 generally is yet aware what methods and 
 124
 
 DEATH OF CHARLES BULLER. 
 
 principles, new, strange, and altogether 
 contradictory to the shallow maxims and 
 idle philosophies current at present, would 
 be needed for dealing with it ! This task 
 he perhaps contemplated with apprehen- 
 sion ; but he is not now to be tried with 
 this, or with any task more. He has fallen, 
 at this point of his march, an honourable 
 soldier ; and has left us here to fight along 
 without him. Be his memory dear and 
 honourable to us, as that of one so worthy 
 ought. What in him was true and valiant 
 endures for evermore — beyond all memory 
 or record. His light, airy brilliancy has 
 suddenly become solemn, fixed in the 
 earnest stillness of Eternity. There shall 
 we also, and our little works, all shortly 
 be. 
 
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