national party has been without a leader and without a stimulus. Yet, so far from subsiding, disloyalty in Ireland is probably as extensive, and is certainly as malignant, as at the death of O'Connell, and in many respects the public opinion of the country has palpably deteriorated. O'Connell taught an attachment to the connection, a loyalty to the Crown, a respect for the rights of property, a consistency of Liberalism, which we look for in vain among his successors; and that faith in moral force and constitutional agitation which he made it one of his greatest objects to instil into the people has almost vanished with the failure of his agitation.

The causes of this deep-seated disaffection I have endeavoured in some degree to investigate in the following essays. To the merely dramatic historian the history of Ireland will probably appear less attractive than that of most other countries, for it is somewhat deficient in great characters and in splendid episodes; but to a philosophic student of history it presents an interest of the very highest order. In no other history can we trace more clearly the chain of causes and effects, the influence of past legislation, not only upon the material condition, but also upon the character of a nation. In no other history especially can we investigate more fully the evil consequences which must ensue from disregarding that sentiment of nationality which, whether it be wise or foolish, whether it be desirable or the reverse, is at least one of the strongest and most enduring of human passions. This, as I conceive, lies at the root of Irish discontent. It is a question of nationality as truly as in Hungary or in Poland. Special grievances or anomalies may aggravate, but do not cause it, and

they become formidable only in as far as they are connected with it. What discontent was felt against the Protestant Established Church was felt chiefly because it was regarded as an English garrison sustaining an anti-national system; and the agrarian difficulty never assumed its full intensity till by the Repeal agitation the landlords had been politically alienated from the people.

The evils of the existing disloyalty are profoundly felt in both nations. Nature and a long and inextricable union of interests have made it imperatively necessary for the two countries to continue under the same rule. No reasonable man who considers their relative positions can believe that England would ever voluntarily relinquish the government of Ireland, or that Ireland could ever establish her independence in opposition to England, unless the English navy were utterly shattered. Even in the event of the dissolution of the Empire, Irish separation could only be achieved at the expense of a civil war, which would probably result in the massacre of a vast section of the Irish people, would drive from the country much of its intelligence and most of its capital, and would inevitably and immediately reduce it to a condition of the most abject misery. Nor would any class suffer more than the class by which revolutions are usually made. For poor men of energy and talent, the magnificent field of Indian and colonial administration, which is now thrown open to competition, offers a career of ambition incomparably surpassing in splendour that which any other European nation can furnish; and Irishmen have fully availed themselves of it. Though their country is but a small one, it now plays no inconsiderable part

among men; for while Irish emigration is leavening the New World, Irish administrators under the British Crown are organising in no small degree the empires or the republics of the future. All this noble career for talent and enterprise would be destroyed by separation; every element of Irish greatness would dwindle or perish; the energies of the people, confined to the narrow circle of a small and isolated State, would be wasted in petty quarrels, sink into inanity, or degenerate into anarchical passions.

These would be the consequences of the separation of Ireland from the British Empire. That such a severance is almost impossible may be readily admitted; but still, in a great European convulsion, Ireland might be a serious danger to England. Even in time. of peace its discontent necessitates a heavy military expenditure, and the emigration from its shores is multiplying enemies to England through the New World. In foreign policy it is a manifest source both. of weakness and discredit. For many years English Liberals have made it a main principle of their foreign policy to advocate the settlement of all disputes between rulers and their subjects in accordance with the desires of the latter; and the fact that in a portion of their own country the existing form of government is notoriously opposed to the wishes of the people supplies their adversaries with an obvious answer. In home politics, the presence in Parliament of a certain number of members who are alienated from the general interests of the Empire, and actuated by a spirit out of harmony with that of the constitution, is a serious danger; and it acquires additional gravity as parties disintegrate or tend to equilibrium. It

lowers the tone of Liberalism, leads to unnatural coalitions and surprises, and is a constant temptation to rival leaders to purchase this support by unworthy concessions. Apart from the possible horrors of rebellion, the mere existence of a widespread disloyalty restricts the flow of capital which is essential to the full development of Irish resources; and the direction of so large an amount of the enthusiasm of the country in opposition to the law, and the diversion of much more into sectarian channels, vitiates and debases all political life. At the same time a constant fever of political agitation is sustained. For a long time it was the custom to send to Ireland officials who were utterly inexperienced, or who, on account of their characters, would have been tolerated nowhere else. This system, which O'Connell compared to that of country barbers making their apprentices take their first lessons in shaving upon a beggar, and which in the last century elicited a very striking protest from Lord Northington,' can hardly be said to continue, but an equally mischievous one remains. The Irish difficulty has an irresistible attraction to party leaders who desire to raise some question that may embarrass or displace a Ministry-to theorists who have crotchets to display or political experiments to try-to revolutionists who wish to set in motion some subversive policy which they think may eventually be extended to

1 When appointed Lord-Lieutenant in 1783, he wrote to Fox: 'I must confess that it is a very wrong measure of English government to make this country their first step in politics, as it usually has been; and I am sure men of abilities, knowledge, business, and experience ought to be employed here, both in the capacity of Lord-Lieutenant and Secretary, not gentlemen taken wild from Brookes's to make their début in public life.'-Lord Russell's Life of Fox, vol. ii. p. 23.

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England. Writers who have never even crossed the Channel, and who are totally unacquainted with the practical working of Irish institutions and with the character of the people, dogmatise on the subject with the utmost confidence, and throw in fresh brands of discord at every period of crisis. More perhaps than anything else, the country needs repose, but, in addition to its own elements of anarchy, a torrent of irritating extraneous influences is constantly agitating it.

The three great requisites of good government for Ireland are that it should be strong, that it should be just, and that it should be national. It should be strong as opposed to that miserable system which resists. every measure of popular demand as long as the country is quiet, and then concedes it without qualification as the prize of disloyalty and crime, and which has made it a settled maxim among Irishmen that the favours of the Government are bestowed upon every class in direct proportion to the dangers that are apprehended from it. It should be just as opposed to that system which at one time leans wholly to Catholics or to tenants, and at another time wholly to Protestants or to landlords, which will suffer an illegal procession in one province that would be rigidly repressed in another, and which subordinates all questions of patronage or principle, and even in some instances the very execution of the laws, to the exigencies of party politics. By such systems the respect for law has been fatally weakened, and their abandonment is the first condition of political health. But, in addition to this, it appears to me to be perfectly evident, from the existing state of public opinion in Ireland, that no Government will ever command the real affection and loyalty of the people which is not in