generous, discriminating woman we know in the world, has been the advocate of its injured population; has made us love those we might have hated, had we read nothing but histories, and the newspapers. But Miss Edgeworth has shown us such an honest, humorous, kind-hearted, faithful people, so capable of fortitude, and of improvement, so injured and so neglected, that we cannot but look and hope with impatience for the time, when government shall be gracious to these afflicted subjects; when great landholders shall be protectors of those who dwell upon their soil; when industry shall be rewarded and education diffused; and when the high ard the powerful shall bestow upon the humble and helpless, what is due from man to his fellow man, how wide soever be the disparity between them. Florence Macarthy is a very tiresome book; upon the whole, it requires some patience and perseverance to read it. There is nothing to make us laugh; nobody to admire, nobody to enjoy. “Ennui," "Castle Rackrent," the " Absentce" are too good for the interest of this successor, we feel the force of a remark of Savary est introduction. The most benevolent, the French traveller, to this effect:"It appears to me when I survey the globe, that man uniformly frustrates the gifts of nature; and that in proportion as his wants are prevented, and his senses are regaled by the elements around him, his necessities are increased by his indolence, and his perceptions blunted by apathy." The latter part of this general observation cannot apply to the Irish; but the former is undoubtedly true. And though the truth is admitted that diminished enjoyment is observed amidst the most ample natural means of comfort and happiness over all the world, it does not follow that this paradoxical fact arises directly and inevitably from external nature; but that where the primitive native is most favoured, he is the most satisfied; that contented with his lot, he has not the same vigour which effort produces in other men of less happy climes; that their wants tempt them to encroach upon his inheritance; that their power of invasion and violence is greater, and his power of resistance is less; that these wants and this prevailing power, tempt to aggression and injustice, and that ease and comparative weakness, necessarily submit; that a short-sighted policy on the part of conquerors, induces them to extort what they can from their dependents, and that these dependents consequently become heartless, degenerate, and exasperated; that the progressive nature of human affairs makes tyranny more and more oppressive, and the subjects of it more and more degraded. This is almost all that we know of those beautiful countries to which nature has been most indulgent-they have been latest in the history of civilization. South-America, British India, all European dependencies, have the same character with some differences in the degrees of misery and debasement. We love and pity Ireland; it is a country of fine associations. Goldsmith, and Burke, and Thomas Moore were born in Ireland, and there, amidst all the ignorance and want, "Pallas has set her name." We have been made acquainted with Ireland within a few years by the happi Florence Macarthy does not appear in the first volume, and we do not know for a long time who he, or she is; for we learn that the name Florence is indiscriminately given to either sex, and that a certain lord of a great house now ruined, or extinct, once bore the appellation Florence Macarthy. The first scene is the entrance of a ship into Dublin harbour; it was distinguished by the name of "It Librador" (the Liberator,) and had been in foreign service, but now bore its peaceful course to a peaceful port, and carried in it two voyagers; one its commander, the other, a passenger from Plymouth; who were mutually unknown, yet mutually interested in each other. The master of the vessel was addressed by the crew as "the Commodore:" the passenger had announced himself by the name of De Vere. The appearance of these gentlemen, and the style of their conversation is described in the following passages; "The Commodore was still in the very prime of life and flower of manhood; and as each lovely feature of the Irish shore a little of conventional mannerism about gradually developed itself, and arose bright him-though his elegant and thorough bred and fresh from the mists of the morning air was wholly unmarked by the overupon his eager gaze, he presented, in his charged fashioning of any country, yet, to own person, an image that denoted the in- those acquainted with the first class of Britention of the Creator, when he made man tish distinction, he was easily cognizable in supreme above all, to reign over his fair accent, dress, air, and physiognomy, as an Englishman of rank and fashion, the homme creation. comme il faut of the highest circles. "He stood erect, his arms so folded as to give to his square chest and shoulders a peculiar muscularity and breadth of outline. His fine bust, indicating extraordinary strength, would have been almost, disproportioned to his stature, which rose not much above the middle height; but that the loftiness of his air, and the freedom of his carriage, conferred an artificial elevation on his figure, and corrected what might be deemed imperfect in his actual structure. His large eyes were rather deep set than protuberant; and their glances, rather sidelong than direct, flashed from beneath his dark impending brows, like the vivid lightnings which fringe the massive vapours of a tropical atmosphere. His mouth had a physiognomy of its own; it was what the eye is to other faces; and the workings of the netber lip, in moments of emotion, indicated the influence of vehement passions habitu ally combatted, though rarely subdued. The expression of his countenance was more intellectual than gracious, and calculated to strike, rather than to please. But his rare and singular sinile (a smile so bland it might well have become even a woman's lip) wholly changed its character; and the full displayed teeth, of splendid whiteness, produced perhaps even too strong a con trast with a complexion, which southern suns, and climes of scorching ardour, had bronzed into a dark, deep, but transparent olive. No tint, no hue, warmed or varied this gloomy paleness, save when the tide of passion, rushing impetuously from the heart, coloured, for a moment, with a burning erimson, the livid check; and then, as promptly ebbing back to its source, left all cold, pale, and dark as before. "From his accent or manner it would have been difficult to assign him to any particular country. He seemed rather to belong to the world; one of those creatures formed out of the common mould, whom nature and circumstances combine and fit for deeds of general import and universal interest. Neither could the term gentility be appropriately applied to an appearance which had a character beyond it. He might have been above or below heraldic notices and genealogical distinctions, but he was evidently independent of them." The figure and face of Mr. De Vere, though infinitely interesting, were less striking than the person of the Commodore. Mr. De Vere's was of a "stamp and character more assignable to a "There was, however, in the countenance and modes of this distinguished young stranger, something more than the mere characteristics of country and rank:-a sort of fantastic pensiveness, a real or affected abstraction, a something imaginative and ideal, in his manière d'être, that indicated great eccentricity, if not eminent peculiarity of mind. He seemed a compound of fancy and fashion; a medium between the consciousness of rank, and the assumption and possession of genius, which placed him out of the common muster-roll of society; something escaped from it by chance, and vain of standing aloof, untractable to its laws, and therefore believing himself beyond them. In his conversations with the Commodore, he spoke in paradox, had systems out of the common scale, and theories of alembicated refinement. An ideologist, in the fullest sense of the word; in his philosophy, he talked as one who believed that "nothing is, but thinking makes it so :" and occupied by an ideal presence, he affected to live distinct and independent of all human interests. The structure of his fine head was such as physiognomists assign to superior intellect; and the precise arrangement of its glossy auburn curls left it difficult to decide whether its fanciful and fashionable possessor was more fop or philosopher, dandy or poet. His valet de chambre, a Frenchman, presided with invariable punctuality at his toilette twice a-day, when the uncivil elements did not interfere with such arrangements; and the rest of his time was spent in musing, reading Spencer's "Fairy Queen," and "State of Ireland," and occasionally conversing with the commander of the vessel, who seemed to inspire him with sentiments of curiosity and admiration, not usual to his ordinary habits of feeling. As he now stood beside him at the helm, or rather leaned in a recumbent attitude, with a half-closed book in his hand, his attention seemed not to be given to the beautiful coast scenery, which, endowed with at least the charm of novelty, was now breaking on his view; for his up-turned glance, giving him the inspired air of one " commercing with the skies," seemed to pursue the gradual disappearance of the morning star, as an object superiorly attractive in proportion as it was remote and fleeting. After a long silence mutually preserved, he withdrew his dazzled eyes from the reddening effulgence of the heavens, and addressed his companion by observing: "There is to me a singular attraction in the aspect of an unknown firmament, for it tells of distance from scenes, and objects long marked by sameness, and distinguished fered services of one of the poorer class only by satiety." "It tells, too,' replied the Commodore, of remoteness from objects, precious by interest or habit. The cross of the south, first seen in tropical climates, draws tears to the eyes of the Spanish seamen, its image recalling remembrances of his distant country.' "Remembrances of country, however, are usually the finger-posts to ennui. One wears out every thing in one's own country before one leaves it; and, therefore, it is left. Country! all countries are alike: little masses of earth and water, where some swarms of human ants are destined to creep through their span of ephemeral existence; coming, they know not whence; going, they know not where." "These little masses of earth and wa ter,' said the Commodore, are therefore precious and important to the ants that creep on them; and each little hill is dear to the swarm that inhabits it, as much from that very ignorance as from interest.' "After a short pause, Mr. De Vere resumed: "Can you not credit, then, the exist ence of a creature placed by nature or circumstances beyond the ordinary pale of humanity, shaking off his poor estate of man,' scarcely looking upon that spot called earth, with human eyes, nor herding with his species in human sympathy; one so organized, so worked on by events and thwarted in feelings, so blasted in his bud of life, as to stand alone in creation; matchless, or at least unmatched; whose joys, whose woes, whose sentiments and passions, are not those of other men, but all his own, beyond the reach of affection, or the delusions of hope?' "A being thus constituted,' rejoined the Commodore, could not be man. He who wants the appetites and passions common to all men, with the sympathies and affections that spring from them, is something better or worse, angel or demon-but he is not man.' "You deny, then, the possibility of such an existence ? "Nay; madmen may fancy such a combination, poets feign it, or vain men affect it; but it has no real existence in nature or society. Man is always man; and he who pretends to be more, is rarely placed by nature at the head of his species; he is, in fact, usually less.' "Before Mr. De Vere could reply, a question from a sailor interrupted the conversation, which was one of many held in the same tone and spirit." Afterwards follow some sketches of Irish character, and of the Irish metropolis, that may interest. When the travellers with their servants had landed on the pier, they were accosted by the prof waiting for work, who afterwards became their guide into the city, and who is made to represent a numerous portion of unfortunate Irishmen. "He was leaning, and had been leaning since the dawn, against one of the posts of the pier, and had watched the approach of Il Librador idly and patiently for more than an hour, partly for the gratification of his curiosity, and partly in the hope of earning some trifle by going for a vehicle, or by carrying into the town luggage for the passengers. There is scarcely any place so lonely, or hour so unseasonable, at which some one of these genuine lazzaroni of the Irish metropolis may not be found lounging away time, between hope and idleness, in the enjoyment of doing nothing, or the vague expectation of having something to do. "Miserably clad, disgustingly filthy, squalid, meagre, and famished; the petitioner for employment had yet humour in his eye, and observation in his countenance. Occasionally ready to assist and always prompt to flatter, he did neither gratuitously. Taunt and invective seemed the natural expression of his habit; for though debasingly acquiescent to a destiny which left him without motive for industry, in a country where industry is no refuge from distress, he yet preserved the vindictiveness of conscious degradation; and there was frequently a deep-seated sincerity in his curse, which was sometimes wanting to his purchased benediction. Idleness had become the custom of his necessity; aed his wants were so few, that a trifling exertion would supply them. Yet he sought early and late for employment; for he had probably wants more urgent than his own to satisfy." This poor fellow, like others of his vo cation in happier countries, "broke his fast" by a potation of whiskey, thus consuming, by anticipation, part of the gains of the ensuing day. It is much to be regretted that no efficient remedy can be devised for this evil of all lands, where the possibility of it exists: perhaps it can only be found by rendering its unhappy subjects intelligent enough to make them understand and feel that their wants and distresses are incalculably augmented by the very relief they seek. The good nature and kind affections of the poor, as well as their wretched state, and the general decay of Dublin, are pretty well described in the walk of the strangers to their resting-place, the hotel: "The two travellers now followed their guide with difficulty through collected heaps of mud and filth. The very air they breath ed was infected by noxious vapours, which the morning sun drew up from piles of putrid matter. The houses, between which they passed, were in ruins; the sashless windows were stuffed with straw; the unhinged doors exposed the dark and dirty stairs, which led to dens, still more dun and foul. Here, if "lonely misery retired to die," living wretchedness could scarcely find a shelter. Yet many a haggard face, many an attenuated form, marked by the squalor of indigence, and the harshness of vice, EVEN HERE evinced a crowded and superabundant population. The guide, who, as he proceeded through this disgusting suburb, saluted several among those whose idle curiosity had drawn them from their sties, betrayed a courtesy of manner curiously contrasted with his own appearance, and that of the persons he addressed. Every body was Sir, or Madam;' and the children were either Miss,' or 'Master,' or were saluted with epithets of endearment and familiarity. "Morrow, Dennis, dear, how is it with you?' Morrow, kindly, Mrs. Flanagan: I hope I see you well, ma'am.' 'Oh, you're up with the day, Mr. Geratty. How's the woman that owns you?' Here's a fine morning, Miss Costello, God bless it is your mother bravely, miss?' Eh! then Paddy, you little garlagh, why is'nt it after the cockles ye are the day, and the tide on the turn.' "While, however, he seemed occupied with an unwearied spirit of doing courtesies,' he occasionally threw his shrewd, but sunk en eye, over the persons he was conducting; and faithfully translating the expression of the Commodore's looks, he observed: "Och! its a poor place, Sir, sure enough; and no poorer room-keepers, your honour, than the Ringsend's, God help 'em, not even in the vaults, Sir.' "The vaults?' "Och! yes, indeed, the vaults under the fine new streets, Sir, that is'nt built, where there's nothing to pay; only in respect of being mightly moist. Wait a taste, your honour, till yez get an, Sir, and yez will see them swam out in great style, the craturs!' "And sure it is a most beautiful and sweet country,' read aloud Mr. De Vere, who had now found out the passage he had hitherto vainly sought in Spenser, and was treading a clear pathway as they left the miserable outlets of Ringsend and Irishtown behind them. A most beautiful and sweet country as any under the heavens, being stored throughout with many goodly rivers, with all sorts of fish, more abundantly sprinkled with many sweet islands, and goodly lakes, like little inland seas, that will carry even shippes upon their waters, building houses and shippes, so commoadorned with goodly woods, even fit for diously, as that if some princes in the world had them, they would soon hope to be lords of all the seas, and ere long, of all the world-also full of very good ports and havens opening into England, as inviting us to come into them, to see what excellent commodities that country can afford. Be sides, the soyle itself, most fertile, fit to yield all kind of fruit that shall be committed there unto; and lastly, the heavens most mild, though somewhat more moist than the parts towards the west.' land,' said the Commodore, as the peripa"So much for the Natural State of Iretetic student closed his book, to which the guide had given a very humourous attention. 'So much for the natural state. Behold the first groupings of its social, its political condition.' ed one of those long-laid out streets, whose As he spoke, they enterhouses, in the course of many years, have not advanced beyond the foundations.From the vaults, the thick smoke of burning straw or rubbish was emitted through holes, perforated in the pavement; while hordes of wretched and filthy creatures erept from beneath the dark roofs of their earthy dwellings, to solicit the charity of those who passed above them. One from among the number, who had been less alert in picking up some scattered small change, flung among them by the gentlemen, continued to run beside them, begging for a halfpenny to buy bread. It was a little shivering, half-naked girl, pretty, but filthy retreated, and a significant glance passed and emaciated. As the guide came up, she between them, which drove her at, once back to her den; but not before she had picked up a silver sixpence flung after her. "God bless your honour,' said the guide, in a tremulous voice, that's a greater charity than you think, Sir.' * * So "This is Merion Square, plaze your honour,' interrupted the guide, coming forSir John's* fountain, your honour. ward, where the quality lives. And there's beautiful! and cost a power! and would'nt get lave to build a taste of them, only he declared to God, and upon his honour, he never would allow a thimblefull of water to come out of them, in respect of a sup neday; a great job, by Jagers; why would'nt ver going in. And there they are to this they?' curious to observe, that the lowest classes of the * Sir J., afterwards Lord de B. It is population of Dublin are perfectly acquainted with the jobbing systems, under which all public transactions are effected in that metropolis: they also discuss them with a mixture of humour and anger that is extremely characteristic.. "The gentlemen, in their way to their hotel, in Sackville-street, now passed through that line of the Irish metropolis, which brings within the compass of a coup d'œil some of the noblest public edifices and spacious streets to be found in the most leading cities of Europe. All, however, was still, silent, and void. The guide, walking parallel to the travellers, with his eye furtively glancing on them, evidently watched the effect which the beauty of his native city, (a beauty of which he was singularly proud,) made upon their minds; and when they had reached that imposing area, which includes so much of the architectural elegance and social bustle of Dublin, the area flanked by its silent senate-house, and commanded by its venerable university, he paused, as if from weariness, leaned his burthen against the college ballustrade, and drew upon the attention of the strangers, (who also voluntarily halted to look around them,) by observing, as he pointed to the right, That's the ould parliament-house, Sir. Why, then, there was grate work go ing on there oncet, quiet and aisy as it stands now, the cratur! grate work shure enough! and there's the very lamp-post I climbed up the night of the UNION. Och! then you'd think the murther of the world was in it: and so it was, shure enough-that's of Ireland, your honour; God help her. And from light to light, and long there we were, after, watching, ay, and praying too, and grate pelting, shurely, when they came out, the thieves that sould us fairly. And troth, if we'd have known as much as we know now, it isn't that a-way they'd have got off. And never throve from that hour, nor cared to cry the Freeman's," and the parliament debates not in it, nor counsellor Grattan. Och, the trade was ruined entirely; and from that day to this, never hawked the bit of paper, nor could raise a tinpenny, only just on errands, long life to your honours; and that's what the Union has brought us to; and sorrow paper they need print at all, at all, now, only in respect of the paying board, and counsellor Gallagher's iligant speeches.' "And what use is made of that magnificent building?' asked Mr. De Vere, who stood gazing upon it with evident admira tion. "What use is it they make of it? your honour; why then, sorrow a use in life, only a bank, Sir; the bank of Ireland; what less use could they make of it? And for all that,' added the guide, significantly, it cost a power to make it what it is.'" * * show-board, which designated its present public use and object. "The capital of Ireland, since the Union, has become a mere stage of passage to such of its great landholders as occasionally visit the kingdom for purposes of necessity.They consider this beautiful city only as a pendant to Holyhead; and take up their temporary lodging to await the caprice of wind and tide, in those mansions where a few years ago they spent a large part of their great revenues, drawn from their native soil. The bill that defrays the expense of a dinner at an inn, thus acquits their debt to the country from which they derive their all, which they dislike to visit, and are impatient to quit.' At the hotel the strangers learned that each was destined to the south of Ireland, and agreed to proceed in company, a part of their route. They departed, taking the way to their carriage through files of beggars, and traversing a contiguous country, where the population is divided between presumptive enemies and rebel subjects-subjects kept in awe by "an army of occupation," inhabiting numerous barracks conveniently stationed; and exhibiting a jail, on which was placed an object sufficiently expressive of a sanguinary government. "The Commodore, as he alighted, raised his eyes to the point at which the postillion's whip was directed, and beheld a human head, bleached and shining in the noon-day sun beam. Such are the objects still exhib. ited in Ireland, as monuments of times of terror, to feed the vindictive spirit of an irritated people; announcing triumph to one party, and subjection to another." The effects of this policy are rendered equally obvious, by considering either the actual state of its subjects, or by comparing their present condition with former periods. As the elder traveller turned *"It is very extraordinary that in this large and populous city, (Dublin,) there should be such an almost total want of good inns for the accommodation of travellers and strangers."A Letter from Ireland, by J. Bush, 1764. "Thirty years ago there was but one hotel in Dublin: nor was there occasion for more. The nobility and gentry came from their seats at once to their mansions in the capital. When, however, the seat of honourable ambition, and the means of raising a fortune and name, were removed to another kingdom, it is natural that the rank and talent of the country should emigrate." |