The Sun.
London, England, 1829-03-30 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

YESTERDAY IN IRELAND.—LoNnox, 1829.
Mr. Crowe, the author of these entertaining
and instructive volumes, is the same gentleman
who some few months ago published " To-clay
in Ireland," a work replete with local information
f every sort, and much and deservedly admired
for its very accurate sketches of Irish character.
The present tales, consisting of two, entitled
" Corramahon," and " The Northerns of
1798," profess to be a sequel of the foregoing
ones, and to illustrate Irish peculiarities of past
times on the same principle, and in the same
style, that the others show forth the national
habits and customs of the present. The plot of
Corramahon, which is the longest and most
characteristic tale of the present series, is some-
what hurried and desultory ; it is something to
the following effect :—A Major Roger O'Mahon,
(an Irishman every inch of him), the descend-
ant of a long line of illustrious ancestry, after
fighting for many years in the service of the Grand
Monarque (as Louis XIV. is usually styled),
feels a natural anxiety to return home to his
paternal roof Corramahon, and accordingly quits
France for that purpose, and arrives in Dublin
somewhere about the year 1713, at which pe-
riod the incidents of the tale are laid. After
staying in the Irish metropolis, of whose ex-
cited habits and peculiarities a slight but forcible
sketch is given, fbr a few days, he sets off for
Corramahon, which he finds in the possession
of hiS elder brother Ignatius. Here he contrives
to become acquainted (but not without many
misgivings) with the family of his house's
enemy, Sir Christopher Burton, a staunch bill
liberal Protestant, into whose hands the vas
domains of Corramahon have fallen. After a
variety of domestic adventures, which serve as
mere pegs to illustrate the state of Ireland at the
period of which Mr. Crowe treats, Major
O'Mahon is finally married to Anastasia Bur-
ton, the daughter of Sir Christopher, and
becomes, of course, as happy as most men
are under such circumstances. We have here,
we should premise, merely sketched the lead-
ing features of a tale which is full of incident
and underplot, all, however, tending visibly
to one end—the instruction of the English
reader, by placing before him the calami-
ties under which Ireland has always laboured
from an ungenerous Protestant ascendancy.
Viewed in this light alone, Mr. Crowe's tales
will richly repay perusal : they are a fine practi-
-1 cal answer to Mr. Sadler's plans for the regene-
ration of Ireland, and arc worth at least a dozen
bulky pamphlets on that subject. As far as
character is concerned, the work abounds in it.
We have first the two brothers, Ignatius and
Roger O'Mahon, the travelled and untravelled
Irish chieftains, put in fine contrast to each
other ; the Protestant society at Sir Christopher
Burton's; the admirably sketched low Irish
attorney, M'Crosky ; the wild Rapparee, Ulick
O'iNlore; the Protestant military dandy and
libertine, Major Willomore ; and last, not least,
the graceful and affecting character of that untu-
tored child of nature, Rachel O'Malion, daugh-
ter of the chief Ignatius. In addition to the dra-
matis posonce, the tale is replete with thought ;
shrewd practical observations, the result of deep
and varied reflection, abound ill every chapter,
and prove that its author, though he throws off
his aphorisms in a most unassuming, sententious,
and sometimes negligent manner, has it in his
power to add the character of philosopher and
metaphysician to that of novelist. We give the
following cursory hints, with which we must con-
clude our analysis, as a proof of the truth of our
remarks.

" The Chef and Rachel had by this time mounted.
Their fresh and impatient horses soon bore them to the
scene of joyous tumult; and the peering eyes of the be-
holders from the old port of Corramahon soon ceased to
distinguish them amongst the crowd of pursuers. Amongst
them, however, they were soon noticed, and by no means
with welcome. Party and religious bigotry were eve❑
there to poison the naturally frank and generous feelings of
the sporting-field. In the minds of the squirealty, small
and great, who followed the chace, the Papists were a de-
graded race, which, nevertheless, they felt compelled to
fear and to hate, more than to contemn. They knew that
the degradation under which the Catholics suffered was
merely the work of law and statute, and that these once
evaded, the naturally superior claims of the said Papists to
respect, both as more ancient in birth and more powerful
in right throughout the land, would cast them into the se-
cond place. And therefore the ruling Williamites regarded
the least infringement of the penal statutes in favour of
their enemies, as endangering at once their supremacy,
their dignity, and safety. The aim of the Protestant
party was to elevate themselves into the gentry of the na-
tion, and at the same time to sink the Catholics into the
serfs, as the Normans did with regard to the Anglo-
Saxons, and as the Francs had served the Gauls.
" The means by which the modern and self-entitled con-
querors of Ireland attempted this was borrowed, as well as
the policy itself, from those remote times. Then, the
possession of a horse was the characteristic of the noble :
the gentry were equestrian, the base-horn pedestrian. And
on this principle was introduced the law which forbade to
the use of Catholics any steed that could be applied to no-
bler uses than agriculture. This was one cf the many
modes, one too perfectly in unison with those chivalric
principles on which modern gentility is founded, that was
put in force not more than a century back to reduce the
Roman Catholics of Ireland to Helotism.
"As the use of fire-arms was at the same time denied
them, they were excluded from all means of rural and
gentle amusement. And for fear, it may be supposed,
lest this prohibition from manly exercises, should have the
effect of turning the attention of the degraded caste to the
cultivation of their minds, education, either abroad or at
home, was by other edicts as expressly denied them. The
natural consequences were, that Catholic youths became, in
many instances, such mean wretches as the heir of
O'lllahon, or else, if holding still to honesty and to their .'
native pride, they united these to an ignorance, a narrow-
ness, and a want of cultivation that rendered them barba-
rous, and tarnished even the national virtues. If the per-
secuted thus degenerated, the persecutors did no less so.
If mean submission, or barbarous vindictiveness was the
eternal lesson which circumstances instilled into those, in-
humanity, and bigotry, and prejudice were, by the same
circumstances, blended with the characters of these. For
history establishes no truth more fully than this, that
slavery debrutes the enslaver as much as the enslaved, and
that the forger of fetters always sinks morally to the rank
of him whom he compels to wear them."

FIRE AT CAMBERWELL.-INQUEST ON
THE BODIES.—An inquest was held on Saturday on the
bodies of the three unfortunate sufferers who fell victims
to this destructive fire. Verdict—" Accidental Death."

WHIST EXTRAORDINARY._A game at
whist was played a few evenings ago, at Brampton, the
singularity of which is worth recording :—The winners
scored eight by honours in the first and second deals, los-
ing the odd trick each deal ; the third deal they gained the
odd trick, the honours divided ; the fourth, fifth, and sixth
deals, they held four by honours each deal, (losing the odd
trick the fourth and fifth, and gaining the sixth deal,)
snaking twenty by honours held by one party in one game
before they could win it, although good players.—Lea-
mington Spa Courier.