“Pergite Pierides! Go it, Lemprière!” here broke in that boisterous Frank, who, I regret to say, has an ubiquitous ear, and a consequent power of joining the conversation from any distance, and when you least expect him. “What are you two mythological bloaters driving at?”
“Francis,” I replied, reprovingly, “your mind, a feeble one at best, is unhinged by success and whiskey. Calm yourself, and go to bed.”
But he only crowed like a cock.
“The fact is,” resumed my Irish friend, “we are too near a great country ever to be great ourselves, and are too proud, unhappily, to perform on violin No. 2.”
“You won't be angry with me,” I said, “if I doubt your ability, under the most favourable circumstances, ever to play a first fiddle in the Monster Concert of Nations. You may let me say so, for I love the Irish. I should be disloyal to friendships, which I value dearly, forgetful of a thousand merry-makings enhanced by Irish humour, and of many a sorrow relieved by Irish sympathy, if I did not speak well of Irishmen, to say nothing of the interesting fact, that, on several delightful occasions, I have been in love with your sweet Irish girls. But if I have read your history aright, you have never, nationally, shown any ambition or aptitude to hold a prominent place.”
“Confound your impudence,” he answered, “did you never read in that self-same history, that Ireland was once 'the school of Europe,' 'Insula Sanctorum,' and I don't know what, before those Danish ruffians destroyed the monasteries,—from the purest and most pious motives, doubtless, like your own dear Henry VIII.!”
“I have read,” I rejoined, “that a Scotch gentleman (for 'Saint Patrick was a gentleman,' if ever there was one) preached Druidism out of this country, and gave you, in its place, the blessings of a heaven-sent faith; and I know, furthermore, that Irishmen, such as Sedulius, your poet, and your Saints, Columbkill, and Aidan, and Finian, and Cuthbert, names known and beloved through Christendom, have been ever esteemed and honoured among the champions of our holy religion; but I am speaking of Ireland politically, and maintain, that, even in the brighter epoch, of which you treat, say from the fifth to the ninth century, Ireland, socially and generally, was in a state of trouble and disquietude. Indeed it would seem from your history that until a recent period, which (I say it with all reverent earnestness) may God prolong, you have either been repelling invaders, or fighting among yourselves, or both, ever since Partholan, the sixth in descent from Magog, Noah's second son, took Ireland, with his thousand men. Why, even in what you would consider a period of profound peace, you have been about as orderly as a lot of schoolboys, when the master is absent, or a pack of young hounds, who have got away from their huntsman; and suggest in every phase of your existence, the stern remark of your greatest Irishman,1 'Ireland is to be governed only by an army.' L'Empire, c'est l'Epée!” 2
1 Wellington.
2 Punch's version of Louis Napoleon's words, “L'Empire,
c'est la Paix”
“You seem to think,” he said, “with another illustrious countryman of mine, Mr. John Cade, that 'then are we in order, when most out of order,' and that Ireland, like the lady in the farce, 1 only 'glories in her topsy-turvy-tude;' but when you speak of the schoolmaster being abroad, do you not in great measure account for eccentricities, repeating that grand enigma, 'What makes treason reason, and Ireland wretched?' and answering, 'absent T.' Collisions and explosions may be looked for on the Rail, when they, who should be its Directors, never come near the line; and in my opinion the best thing that could happen to Ireland would be the revival of the Act against non-residence which was made in 1379.” 2
1 The King's Gardener.
2 Moore's History of Ireland, vol. iii., p. 113.