The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-19 00:00:00

9 10 I

OUR PORTFOLIO.—No. IX

There is a very respectable article-in the last number of
the Quarterly Review, on Irish affairs and Irish character,
written in a generous spirit, on the whole complimentary,
and yet just, towards the inhabitants of the green isle. A
number of tableaux, descriptive of the national genius,
selected from the works of Carleton, the Rev. Caesar Otway,
Lady Morgan, and others, are interspersed, and it is evident
that the author is pretty well made up for his subject; but if
we are looking for something on which the mind may eventu-
ally rest—some foundation on which to build our hopes of
the country's regeneration, or sows, suggestion of means to
that end of which we must approve—we shall find ourselves
in no new predicament indeed; for tht.re is nothing new
under the sun, but just as we have felt .a thousand times
before, after reading dissertations on the questio vexate
what is to be done with Ireland ? The reviewer as.-
as a conceded point, that there is an idiosv”-
tution belonging to the Irish
them from the Anglo-Saxon race,
attempt in the way of government or improvein,..._
them, should be done with a suitable regard to that circuit.
stance. This is quite true, and certainly one of those fea.
tures of the country which has not been sufficiently attended
to at this side of the channel ; at the same time, so far as
• the reviewer is concerned, it is a truth by which he conducts
us to no practical result, or to none, at least, which we can
subscribe to as being of that character.
The genius of the Irish, he says, is clanish—disposed to
the authority of a feudal lord, and through their attachment
to a Kavanagh or an O'Brien, might be won, through the
affections, to an obedience to the laws, and a demeanour in
general conformable to the morale of our institutions, which
we should strive in vain to bring about by any system of rule
which addressed itself merely to the head. The same warmth
of temperament gives existence also to the devotional spirit,
and has presented a lever to the cunning artificers of the
Popedom, which they have worked with a degree of succ,
which only does not forbid all hope of remedy. Here
we shall allow, are two conditions in the state and -
the people eminently deserving of attp,,,:—

hich essentially disti

whatever

Here, then,
I genius of

who would avail himself of what is capable Of being usefully
directed in their natural character, and avoid the dangerous
error of introducing institutions among them uncongenial
with it; but we own we think more credit will be due to the
ingenious artist who will show us /tow to work a mine placed
in so difficult and unmanageable a position, than to the geo-
logist who merely informs us of its existence.
How is Ireland to be feudalised in the present age in order
that she may be trained according to natural propensities ?
For the last thirty or forty years the cry of all our philoso-
phers, quoad Hibernian, has been "assimilate, assimilate ;"
that is to say, give to Ireland fully, freely, and fairly, the
benefit of all your English institutions; put her on a par
with yourselves in every respect, and then, all cause of envy
being removed, she will become your most loving, tranquil,
and obedient sister. And now, after we have done all t h is—
after we have taken the philosopher's au pied de la lettres,
and obeyed them in all things, does the Quarterly start up
and tell us that we have been egregiously in error all through
—that the Irish is " feudal ." and that in order to fall in
with its inclinations, we should go back to the times of
William the Conqueror, and legislate for the country on the
principles of the feudal tenure—restore the influence of
baronial lords—encourage absentees to erect castles on tbei.
estates and fortify them—and, in a word, make Irei
happy by rendering her thoroughly barbarous! We c
not perceive at what other practical result them
aims. That it would be very much for the adv..
of Ireland that her absolute gentry should build houses ~
themselves, where they have them not already, and reside
occasionally upon their estates, we make no question at all;
the paradox of certain deep economists, that the people are
no worse for their non-residence, we were never acute
to comprehend. We grant the benefit which Ita .
derive from a resident proprietory, and, if there v
disturbing influences, the strong atta
which an indulgent and benevolent lan.
them might command from his tenantr,
but the writer referred to certainly omits to .
and expeditious process (unless what we hay.
for supplying the desideratum. We are thrown .
fore, upon the old lament, "absenteeism," and re,
nothing so much as of the magnitude of the evil.
possessed of an independence are not usually possesse
the same times uf..l'- ,y V— -- ' - "

d would

hment and devoted

_.—e, s, octently ..ne spirit of martyrun..
and dwell in a country which bears the name of not bet
perfectly safe, for the sake of doing goc
endeavouring to bring them into that col._
render a sojourn among them equally pleasant anu
and consequently the preparation of it for this purpose must
be brought about either by the general government or by
some other means. And this leads us to the other topic ad-
verted to by the Reviewer, namely, the religious tempera-
ment of the Irish people. He does not despair, it seems, of
their conversion ; but he shadows forth, rather dimly and
obscurely, it must be confessed, (as becomes a prophet,) the
sort of machinery which ought, and he says, will be here-
after employed for the purpose. He thinks that the attempt
to convert, or perhaps we should say. re-convert the Irish,
has not hitherto been made as it should he made, and that
although they have been, and are, frequently solicited to
leave the church of Rome, the true Catholic church, has not
been sufficiently indicated to them. By the true Catholic
church the Reviewer means the Church of England. He is,
however, mistaken in point of fact. The clergy of the esta-
blished church of Ireland have not been so very remiss as he
supposes. The claims of the Church of England to catho-
licity have been frequently put before the people; but it may
be true that the work of evangelizing the country has not
been taken up and prosecuted by the united church, in its
corporate capacity, so energetically as it should have been, or
to the extent at which the Quarterly darkly hints. On this
head W e make no remark. We shall merely say that we
shall be delighted to hear of any plan of operations being put
in motion that may be likely to hasten the redemption of the
Romanist people from the bondage of superstition. Many
of the more zealous of the Irish clergy have certainly con-
tented themselves, as we believe, with simply preaching the
gospel, without adverting much to the doctrine of anostolical

d to the people, or
[Edon which would

succession or any traditional supplement to scriptural autho-
rity ; and very many converts to the church have unques-
tionably been made by this primitive mode of proceeding, we
hope it may not he necessary to suspend it till the time for
revealing the Quarterly's grand secret shall arrive. The
Quarterly cannot mean that the Puseyites have some float-
ing notion of making an essay upon Ireland? Doctor Pusey
has lately been residing in the country ; he visited mass-
houses, and witnessed the ceremony of a young lady taking
the veil in a convent, joining devoutly in the prayers used nu
the occasion ; and he has been ever since involved in an epi,-
tolary warfare with a lioman Catholic priest of Dublin ; but
we can collect nothing from this circumstance that favours
the supposition to, which we allude. Meanwhile the firm
government of Lord de Grey is opening the way to every
enterprise of civilization, and let the attempt be what it
may, if it be one for good, it cannot but find facilities from
being preceded by so efficient and judicious an administra-
tion.