W IRELAND AND ENGLAND. E believe that there never was a time since Ireland and England were ruled by one sovereign more favourable than the present, to any reasonable and well considered scheme for the benefit and advancement of Ireland. This arises from many convergent causes. History has laboured and not wholly in vain, to show us in its true light the cruelty and greed of which for some six hundred years that unhappy island became the victim. We feel that we owe her a signal reparation. We are not careful to defend the conduct of our ancestors in this matter, nay, there is some risk that in the sincerity of our repentance, we may do less than justice to the English side of the question. All our predispositions are against ourselves. We put Ireland in the scale, weigh her against Scotland, and ask why it is that wounds so deep and envenomed have been entirely healed in the one case, and scarcely even cicatriced in the other. What ought to have been the pacification of Ireland should, according to dates, have preceded by fifty years the pacification of Scotland; but Scotland has been one with England for at least a century, while as to Ireland we have not yet done with the question whether she should be united to us at all. With every desire to take as much of the failure as is reasonably possible upon ourselves, we cannot fairly throw the blame upon our own Parliament during the last fifty years. Catholic emancipation, the establishment of education for the poor, far in advance of anything that was done at that time for England, the grant to Maynooth, the undenominational colleges, the abolition of the Protestant establishment in Ireland, the Bill giving compensation to small tenants in case of eviction, the Bill for intermediate education, and the Bill of this Session for placing Catholics in a still better position as regards university training, bear witness at least to the sincere desire of both parties in the State to do real though tardy justice to the claims of Ireland. Nor, indeed, is this desire, though we believe it to be thoroughly genuine among the best minds of both parties, the result of sentiment alone. As things stand, the support of the extreme Irish party is a matter of the utmost consequence to either side. A little temper, a little tact, a little consideration for the feelings and interests of others, are all, as it would seem, that is necessary in order to secure for Ireland every benefit that it is in the power of legislation to bestow. By what inexplicable fatality does it come to pass that Ireland delights to select as her leaders men who seem born for no other purpose than to stand between her and the THE LAMENT OF LIBANIUS.1 Cogito, ergo sum periturus. Nimium vobis Humana propago Visa potens, Superi, propria hæc si dona fuissent. Two things I view with ever keen surprise- While we, alas, though fashioned in the womb, We gaze, we strain our eyes, we seem to see LIONEL A. TOLLEMACHE. Libanius, one of the most eminent of the later Pagans, was the guide, philosopher, and friend of the Emperor Julian. He was therefore in, yet not of, a more or less Christian society, whose morality he practised, but whose faith and hope he did not share. Some readers will feel an historical, if not a personal, interest in reflecting for a moment on the dreary sense of isolation and on the restless murmurings akin to those contained in this Lament, to which such a man with such surroundings was assuredly not a stranger. W IRELAND AND ENGLAND. E believe that there never was a time since Ireland and England were ruled by one sovereign more favourable than the present, to any reasonable and well considered scheme for the benefit and advancement of Ireland. This arises from many convergent causes. History has laboured and not wholly in vain, to show us in its true light the cruelty and greed of which for some six hundred years that unhappy island became the victim. We feel that we owe her a signal reparation. We are not careful to defend the conduct of our ancestors in this matter, nay, there is some risk that in the sincerity of our repentance, we may do less than justice to the English side of the question. All our predispositions are against ourselves. We put Ireland in the scale, weigh her against Scotland, and ask why it is that wounds so deep and envenomed have been entirely healed in the one case, and scarcely even cicatriced in the other. What ought to have been the pacification of Ireland should, according to dates, have preceded by fifty years the pacification of Scotland; but Scotland has been one with England for at least a century, while as to Ireland we have not yet done with the question whether she should be united to us at all. With every desire to take as much of the failure as is reasonably possible upon ourselves, we cannot fairly throw the blame upon our own Parliament during the last fifty years. Catholic emancipation, the establishment of education for the poor, far in advance of anything that was done at that time for England, the grant to Maynooth, the undenominational colleges, the abolition of the Protestant establishment in Ireland, the Bill giving compensation to small tenants in case of eviction, the Bill for intermediate education, and the Bill of this Session for placing Catholics in a still better position as regards university training, bear witness at least to the sincere desire of both parties in the State to do real though tardy justice to the claims of Ireland. Nor, indeed, is this desire, though we believe it to be thoroughly genuine among the best minds of both parties, the result of sentiment alone. As things stand, the support of the extreme Irish party is a matter of the utmost consequence to either side. A little temper, a little tact, a little consideration for the feelings and interests of others, are all, as it would seem, that is necessary in order to secure for Ireland every benefit that it is in the power of legislation to bestow. By what inexplicable fatality does it come to pass that Ireland delights to select as her leaders men who seem born for no other purpose than to stand between her and the THE LAMENT OF LIBANIUS.1 Cogito, ergo sum periturus. Nimium vobis Humana propago Visa potens, Superi, propria hæc si dona fuissent. Two things I view with ever keen surprise — We gaze, we strain our eyes, we seem to see LIONEL A. TOLLEMACHE. 1 Libanius, one of the most eminent of the later Pagans, was the guide, philosopher, and friend of the Emperor Julian. He was therefore in, yet not of, a more or less Christian society, whose morality he practised, but whose faith and hope he did not share. Some readers will feel an historical, if not a personal, interest in reflecting for a moment on the dreary sense of isolation and on the restless murmurings akin to those contained in this Lament, to which such a man with such surroundings was assuredly not a stranger. W IRELAND AND ENGLAND. E believe that there never was a time since Ireland and England were ruled by one sovereign more favourable than the present, to any reasonable and well considered scheme for the benefit and advancement of Ireland. This arises from many convergent causes. History has laboured and not wholly in vain, to show us in its true light the cruelty and greed of which for some six hundred years that unhappy island became the victim. We feel that we owe her a signal reparation. We are not careful to defend the conduct of our ancestors in this matter, nay, there is some risk that in the sincerity of our repentance, we may do less than justice to the English side of the question. All our predispositions are against ourselves. We put Ireland in the scale, weigh her against Scotland, and ask why it is that wounds so deep and envenomed have been entirely healed in the one case, and scarcely even cicatriced in the other. What ought to have been the pacification of Ireland should, according to dates, have preceded by fifty years the pacification of Scotland; but Scotland has been one with England for at least a century, while as to Ireland we have not yet done with the question whether she should be united to us at all. With every desire to take as much of the failure as is reasonably possible upon ourselves, we cannot fairly throw the blame upon our own Parliament during the last fifty years. Catholic emancipation, the establishment of education for the poor, far in advance of anything that was done at that time for England, the grant to Maynooth, the undenominational colleges, the abolition of the Protestant establishment in Ireland, the Bill giving compensation to small tenants in case of eviction, the Bill for intermediate education, and the Bill of this Session for placing Catholics in a still better position as regards university training, bear witness at least to the sincere desire of both parties in the State to do real though tardy justice to the claims of Ireland. Nor, indeed, is this desire, though we believe it to be thoroughly genuine among the best minds of both parties, the result of sentiment alone. As things stand, the support of the extreme Irish party is a matter of the utmost consequence to either side. A little temper, a little tact, a little consideration for the feelings and interests of others, are all, as it would seem, that is necessary in order to secure for Ireland every benefit that it is in the power of legislation to bestow. By what inexplicable fatality does it come to pass that Ireland delights to select as her leaders men who seem born for no other purpose than to stand between her and the |