80 wandering through the world, he preference for our northern crofter, with his hard features and hard broad dialect, who would as soon turn Papist as touch his hat to the well-dressed stranger, or call him derful flow of animal spirits which agreeable fellow in prosperity than in the Milesian bubbles up through in adversity. Of all the peasevery pressure of external adver- antry one comes in contact with in sity. There are conditions, how ever, with which even his animal spirits cannot contend, and among these are a long contest with hunger, and the additional ills that flesh inherits from passing repeated winters in rags. Of all the lands it ever happened to me to sojourn in, that inhabited by the easy, hearty, thoughtless sons of Erin was, during my peregrinations among them more than twelve years ago, the most dismal. The feeling with It will sound cynical beside such which it oppressed me was not an admission, to acknowledge merely that caused by the general squalor and hard struggle with the world which one feels in the sordid back slums of a great city. There, indeed, you see that the people have a hard fight for existence - your honour," in answer to a that they may not in the end suc- question tossed at him with a tourceed and that if they do, the vi- ist's insolence; yet that preference tality they achieve is hampered with I cannot help entertaining, though the condition of privation, of suffer- its object chills one after the genialings, and of a general exclusion from ity of the peasantry in sister Ireall the respectable amenities that land. Hard and ungenial as the make life enjoyable to the comfort- crofter peasant may be, he is of our able classes. Still it is felt that own race-our own flesh and blood, these are people who will rub on, as it were; while the other is a and that, though there will be ca- stranger, pleasant to meet in the sualties among them many more journey through life, but not one than those which statistics allow as with whom it is quite satisfactory the average meted to mankind in to establish permanent relations; general they are close to where and the serious part of the affair the elements of comfort and happi- is, that he is equally an alien to ness abound, and are not precluded his own countrymen of the upper from all chance of participation in class. them. But the Ireland of the time I allude to was so wide a sea of misery that it seemed shoreless and hopeless a people, in the mass, absolutely losing all hold on the means of subsistence, and seeming likely, unless the whole social or ganisation took a sharp turn, to rot, as it were, off the surface of the earth. - Yes, there it is; we are one people bere, some well off and others poor, and shifting up and down throughout, with no great gulf fixed in any part of our social system. But you cannot go through Ireland without feeling that there are two nations there; and the feeling is not an unpleasant one to the tourist, if his own consequence and convenience The turn was taken, and the are all he thinks of in the matter, new road had been for years fol- for he belongs to the superior nalowed before my last visit. Hence tion. Never do we feel the existit happened that, for all the ence of this division into two Irishman's reputation for carry- nations so distinctly as when Irish ing a light heart through every- gentlemen speak in vindication of thing, I found him a much more the Irish peasantry, in consequence, perhaps, of some blunt expression landlords treat their tenantry; and of censure by an inhabitant of this it is not easy to get them to realise island. No doubt, our tourists are an agricultural system the boast of insufferable dogs in the way they which is that the tenant is comturn up their noses at all things pletely independent of the landnot in precise conformity with their lord that each is expected to make stereotyped existence, at home, or in the best and the hardest bargain he well-adjusted touring districts. But can; while, if liberality in outlay none of their petulant insolence and allowances be going, it is nearly conveys the deep meaning imparted as likely to come from a rich tenant in an Irish gentleman's rebuke of dealing with a poor landlord, as any prejudicial remark they may from the other side. But things are happen to make on the Irish com- changing rapidly, and the phramon people. You feel at once that seology which so completely suborwhatever you have said cannot dinates one portion of the populapossibly concern the Irish gentle- tion to the other will pass with it. man, or his family, or his caste. If If the higher classes will then speak you have spoken in words of de- less kindly of the lower, they will preciation, he may contradict you, speak more respectfully, as of those but it would be with little more of not so far off from the level of their kindred indignation than if you own position. Already I have heard had attacked the scenery, the me- it favourably augured of the Irish thod of farming, or the breed of peasantry, that they are beginning cattle. I was going to have said occasionally to exhibit discontent. that the Irish gentleman would de- This looks, no doubt, like a parafend the peasantry from your re- doxical blessing; but the term is proaches much as an English or not here used for the purpose of Scotch gentleman might his domes- expressing the diseased feeling of tics; but that would not hit the vague generic discontent brought spirit of the condition quite accu- in by long sufferings, and by hardrately, nor indeed can I expect it to ships and inflictions for which there be understood by one who has not seems no specific remedy. The paid some attention to it on his more wholesome discontent referown part. So far, however, might red to is the parent of remedy a comparison with Our affluent it is the protest against sitting householder defending his domes- down inertly in the midst of evils tics from censorious charges apply, and imperfections which exertion that to animadversions on the Irish can remedy. It does not excite the peasantry all the vindications of rustic to the burning of his neighfered will be in the direction of bour's ricks or the shooting of the certifying their docility as a sub- landlord, but it disinclines him to ordinate caste; that they are really put up with a bad bargain, and not so bad when treated with con- makes him demand better drainage sideration that they do very well and improved outhouses. under judicious persons who know I have sometimes been inclined the way to manage them-that they to attribute it to their great diviare very susceptible to any attention sion into two nations or castes that they may receive-that they express a people naturally frank, hospitable, themselves so appropriately when and open-handed, should often apa kindness is conferred, and so pear to strangers suspicious and. forth. The leading consideration greedy. They seem as if they rewith benevolent Irish people, when quired ever to be on their guard they inquire about the social con- against some anticipated injury dition of other places, is to know or injustice. Travellers remark whether the rich are kind to the poor. They are specially solicitous about the vital question, how the that there is scarcely any country in Europe where it is so disagreeable to fall short of money in a neighbourhood where one happens to have no personal friends, as Ireland. There is a want of reliance on man being just to man, and the stranger might probably find that it is still more conspicuous when the Irish transact with each other than in their dealings with himself. One observes it in the very reluctance that there is to part with any purchased article of merchandise until the money is tabled, or is evidently just going to be so. Our friend the northern crofter, whose face and manner are as forbidding as his native mists and east winds, may probably begin to thaw a little to the stranger, especially if his inquiries show that he has orthodox views on eating off with turnips and the five-shift rotation. He may even be induced to leave the stilts, guide the stranger up the hill, and point out his course; and it is not impossible, if he observe some symptoms of regret concerning the distance of the nearest place of entertainment, that he may offer the wanderer a bannock and a bowl of milk. Should money, however, be proffered for such services, the red spot of anger will glow on his cheek, and he will return to more than his old hardness. One finds it otherwise in sister Ireland. I happened to have so miscalculated as to require to wait till some hours past midnight for a train at a rather comfortable-looking village, which owned a small public-house. The amount of sympathy which I received among the inhabitants was touchingly extensive, and would have reconciled me to my position if sympathy alone were sufficient to do so. Among other symptoms which it exhibited, every farmer in the neighbourhood was, I perceived, devotedly prepared to sit up with me during the night, drinking in the public-house at my expense. The kind-hearted creatures would not endure the thought that I should walk to the train when there was such a thing as a vehicle to be had; and when it was brought up, the driver was so careful to disabuse me of any notion of its being provided gratuitously, that he took care, before I stepped in, to get possession of the fare, amounting to, I think, about four times that of a London cab. In noticing the symptoms of a sudden and rapid stride onwards in prosperity, one sees, or imagines that he sees, marks of its youth in a sort of feebleness and superficiality in which it is distinct from the developments of old-established wealth. Travellers remarked similar characteristics in Scotland, when our coun try began to recover, in the middle of last century, from her long depression, and it is sometimes said that we have not even yet entirely got over it. In shops, hotels, and other places of public traffic, the exterior tone of the wealthier country was assumed while as yet there was not sufficient realised capital to back it, and, in short, realities did not answer to appearances. So I have thought that, to justify what tradesmen call "the dressing of the windows," the stock within an Irish shop would generally appear meagre. Wherever there is a concourse of tourists, sea-bathers, or other pleasure and health seekers of the upper orders in Ireland, hotels seem to abound; but he who seeks in them the ready supply of wholesome cheer to be found even in much less ambitious houses in England, will be grievously mistaken. In one of these fashionable pleasure towns, where was the Royal Hotel, the Victoria, the Crown, the Queen's, the Prince's, and a succession of the other next most dignified denominations after all royal terms had been exhausted, it happened that, there being brief time before I started for a train, I plunged into each and asked if I could get a slice of cold meat. No. Indefinite supplies were offered in the shape of expectant cookery, and perhaps, if I had had a quarter of a year instead of a quarter of an hour to spend in the fashionable watering-place, I might have been made comfortable. Yet, though it was the height of the season, and a place full of visitors There remains ever the question how the race obtained its type, and whether this may have been created, or at least enhanced, by external influences arising out of conflicts with other races. who were there avowedly to spend self-government, and at the same surplus money, I convinced myself time has shown that they are awkthat in no one larder of any of the ward hands at such an accomplishshowy and regally-named hotels ment. Race, of course, is the soludid there exist in the form of corned tion of the difficulty. There is the beef, ham, leg of mutton, or other self-governing race and the race variety, any one of the ordinary that must have a master, and Ireitems which come under the generic land belongs to the latter. The designation, so well appreciated by doctrine of the absolute qualities travellers, of "cold meat." On an- of races is a rather seductive and other little item of food, of import- dangerous one. It comes readily ance to the wayfarer, I have also to hand whenever any act of oppresfound a meagreness in Ireland. The sion or injustice has to be vindivillage bakehouse, with its fresh cated; and though it is scarcely posbiscuits, its rolls, and sometimes its sible to deny its influence, yet it is varieties of gingerbread and other as well not to draw practical infersweetened cakes, is unknown there, ences of a very conclusive character and it was only after long familiarity from it. with the fact that the reason for it occurred to me. Ireland is the country of potato-eaters - not of bread-eaters. Perhaps the phenomenon would not have struck me so forcibly as it did on my last The great social experiment I visit had I not come fresh from have referred to has for its object Saxony probably the cakiest the removal of the characteristic country in the world. It may be defects of the Celtic race-in other questioned, indeed, whether beer, words, the improvement of the tobacco, or sweetcake is the great- breed. At other times, and in est enemy to the health of the north- other countries, there have been ern Germans. The difficulty there mighty efforts to educate the peois to get possession of a morsel of ple, and there have also been great simple bread or biscuit; for even social revolutions intended to elewhen the baked commodity has the vate their position, but often endsimplest and plainest of aspects, its ing in the bitterest disappointment use will develop some red or yellow from their total inability to mainyolk of sweet stuff enclosed within tain an elevated position. The the crust like a fossil. How pleasant it would be to casual wanderers if each town in Ireland possessed just one of the cakehouses of which some dozen will be found in every village in northern Germany. work now going on in Ireland is different from both of these, and has so far an element of hopefulness in it, that it is not one of the schemes that have been tried and have failed. It is in reality a vast But these are very trifling mat- system of training rather than of ters when one remembers that now education of training in those in Ireland there is in progress one common vulgar qualifications and of the most portentous social experi- capacities which are the means ments that the world has ever wit- through which the inhabitants of nessed. In some countries the this island make themselves compeople govern themselves, or at fortable. least a considerable portion of them So far as I could judge, nothing govern the whole by what is called could be more skilfully adapted as a constitution. In other countries a remedy for the special deficiencies everything is managed for the peo- of the Irish than this training, so ple through a centralised authority. far as I saw it. We are apt to look Accident has made the Irish a por- at our neighbours' defects as they tion of a population accomplishing exhibit themselves in turbulence, restlessness, fickleness, and gene of Ireland, as conducted by the ral antagonism to the law, without rising generation, be not perfection, noting the minor disqualifications it will not be for want of teaching which place him in a false position. in the nature and uses of draining, A want of the practical is ever the manuring, rotation of crops, and, Irishman's fault or misfortune. He in short, the whole philosophy and is not a man of business. He does practice of agriculture. Nor is not know the best market in which this confined to precept and the to invest his labour, or whatever school-room. It is a fine sight that else he has to dispose of. When at Glencree, in the heart of the looking out for employment, he Wicklow mountains, and far from drifts towards some great public the corrupting influence of their work with a gregarious band of his companions, where the young cricountrymen, none of them having minals - if criminal at their age thought how individually he can they can be called-are passing onpush his own fortunes by the best ward, under the auspices of those investment of his individual ca- good kindly souls, the brethren of St. pacities. Even when educated, he Keverns, to a life so different from has not that minute inquisitiveness that they seemed to be fated to in` about matters bearing close upon the streets of Dublin. The estabhis personal interests. which dis- lishment itself is an epitome of tinguishes the Englishman, and still working society; for although it is more the Scotchman.. Upon the in the free open country, yet the wages given by such a house or in boys are not all, or beyond a due such a trade-of the places where proportion, trained to agricultural employment is desirable and un- labour. Of those who are so, the desirable upon all, in fact, that cheerful fruits already rise around constitutes the thoughts and the them in the conversion of the bleak talk of the ordinary British work- brown wilderness into a wide stretch man, he is profoundly ignorant. He of corn and pasture-surely the does not know places and names, most convincing evidence that can and the individualising of the peo be brought home to the young ple he has to do business with by vagabond of the beauty and value street and number is a mystery to of labour. Others, again, are trainhim. ed in carpentry, cabinet-making, and other mechanical trades; and though guided by religious brethren who have taken vows on certain points of asceticism, it is difficult to conceive a better forecast of the busy world in which they will have to mix and fight their way than this community of industrious boys. Whether or not it is to place them on a level with the hard-headed, self-relying Saxon, the immediate benefit to their individual fortunes cannot admit of question. In the national schools and elsewhere I could see the efforts to make the vast training system now in progress meet these special defects. Boys who would have to go into the world as mechanics, and girls who would have to seek situations as domestics or in manufacturing establishments, were taught how to address letters to different classes of persons, how to enter with them on the business on hand, with a number of other practical particulars adapted to helping peo- As a hard logical Protestant, I ple on in the world. Many of the have little relish for the dark shaschool-books issued by the Board dows and bright lights brought out of Education have an amount of by alternations of sin and penitence, the practical in them that appears of wrong and expiation. a little ludicrous to us who are are the elements, no doubt, of a accustomed to the child obtaining very picturesque life-such, for inall that sort of information at the stance, as the careers of the Bordomestic hearth. If the farming gias, Joanne of Naples, and Mary These |