cogency of the inferences deducible from this incident. There is one point of view in which it may be regarded, that ought not to be overlooked. In the present state of printing, and the open, unreserved communication between nations, fraud and falsehood can hardly flatter themselves to escape detection. This consideration must have powerful operation to circumscribe and restrain them, and was almost wholly unknown in former times, when of course the inducements to fraud and perjury were so far greater than they are at present.

The application remains, and can hardly fail to have been anticipated by the reader. Notwithstanding the slenderness of the temptation to perjury, and the absolute certainty of detection, it was, we see, flagrantly committed in this case. What a lesson on history generally-but more especially on Irish history! What dependence, under this view of the materials from which history is formed, can be placed on the accounts of the affairs of that nation, which are wholly ex parte-where the temptations were so enormous, (being nothing less than the fee simple of millions of acres) where detection was so difficult, and where numberless palpable perjuries are on record?

NOTES ON CHAPTER I.

▲ P. 17. New Conspiracies.] It is far from extravagant to state, that at various periods, wholly exclusive of the rebellion of 1641, millions of acres of the soil of Ireland have been forfeited for pretended plots and conspiracies, which were a never-failing source of rapine upon, and oppression of, the natives. In a future chapter, I shall state some of them in detail. Nothing could exceed the wickedness of the contrivers, except the clumsiness of the contrivances. Anonymous letters, dropped in the castle of Dublin, accusing of treason noblemen and gentlemen of large estates, were one of the principal levers by which this machinery of plots and conspiracies was put into operation.

B P. 17. Manifest forgeries were received as solid proofs.] This line, a fair description of the histories of Ireland, ought to be prefixed, as a motto, to four-fifths of them, as a necessary admonition, a sort of beacon, equivalent to "Traveller, beware." Never, since the world was formed, did "manifest forgery," fraud, and perjury prevail to such an extent, as in the evidence taken to establish the Irish massacre, as it is termed; never were "manifest forgeries" so readily received as "solid proofs." The speci mens I shall lay before the reader, must convince

the most sceptical, that this massacre is perfectly on a level, for truth and probability, with the Arabian Nights Entertainments, or the aunciente travayles of John Mandeville, yclept the knight of lying memory. The astonishing feature in this affair is, that Leland, thus convinced of the existence of these "manifest forgeries," should himself, through a large portion of his history, receive those very "manifest forgeries" as "solid proofs."

© P. 19. Anniversary sermons.] For above a century and a half, the talents of numbers of clergymen of the established church in Ireland have been in requisition, to perpetuate and increase the rancour and hostility that are instilled from the cradle into the tender minds of the different denominations of Protestants against their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, which they carry from the cradle to the grave, many of them across an ocean three thousand miles in extent. The store-house, whence are derived these incendiary weapons, has been the "thirty-two volumes" of depositions, in which, according to Dr. Leland, “manifest forgeries were received as solid proofs." If "blessed be the peace makers," surely the sowers of discord must be accursed.

D P. 19. Rode rough-shod.] This refers to the barbarous and piratical code, enacted for the purpose of "preventing the growth of Popery,"

a system admirably calculated to oppress and impoverish, as well as to brutalize and demoralize, the mass of the nation, and enslave them to the aristocracy or oligarchy that ruled the land. A chapter or two shall be devoted to the development of this system.

FP. 20. Few, even of the learned, know this fact respecting Milton, which displays such an awful disregard of truth, as attaches an eternal blot on his memory. The reader may readily conceive what poignant distress was excited by the discovery of a procedure so diametrically opposite to the general character of Milton, whom we are taught, from infancy, to regard as ranking among the best of men. But, after all, it only adds one to the numberless proofs already before the world, of the fallibility of human nature, and evinces that he was but a mere man, and, so far as respects this case, either grossly deceived, or a gross deceiver;-there is no other alternative and a liberal examination will more readily incline us to place in the latter than in the former class, the man who could, in cold blood, to pander to the purposes of a party, intimate an opinion, that there were above six hundred thousand Protestants massacred in Ireland, at a period when the whole population was not many more than a million, and when the Protestants were but as two to eleven of the Roman Catholics.5 Ainsi va le monde.

5 Petty, 18.

GP. 20. It is easier to conjecture.] This sentence exhibits a manifest dereliction of the duty of an historian. Warner had before him the plain fact, that the mass of testimony was doubled or trebled by the admission of hearsay evidence, "what this body heard another body say:"6 and there was no difficulty in ascertaining the object, which the historian ought to have stated. This object was to criminate the Catholics, sacrifice them on gibbets, and confiscate their property. That this was Dr. Warner's "conjecture," cannot be doubted. The phraseology admits of no other construction. But it is merely insinuated, in a manner unworthy of so very respectable an historian.

HP. 22. Attended with more difficulty.] This difficulty requires explanation. The power and influence of the oligarchy in Ireland, which triumphantly styles itself, "the Protestant ascendency," have been erected on the basis of the frauds of this portion of the history of Ireland, whereby they have been enabled to enslave, oppress, and destroy their fellow subjects at their pleasure and "Great is the Diana of Ephesus," whenever the "craft was in danger," by any serious effort to dispel the mists of prejudice, they have spared neither pains nor expense to counteract the Godlike purpose. Their most sacred maxim, like that of all other oppressors, has been -Divide et impera.

• Warner, ubi supra,