(A laus uueq-མ Pཔདཔ-པ-་ nation always in extremes; you will hardly find any thing worse than their bad men, or better than their good ones.) Now, nothing can be more dangerous than these superlative degrees of character. Considering the constitution of poor human nature, it is easy to see which extreme will predominate, unless the utmost are and attention are bestowed to give the vehement tempers right direction. But as the reverse of this has unfortunately VOL. V. New Series. 34 Cottage Dialogues among the Irish Peasantry. By Mary Leadbeater. With Notes and a Preface, by Maria Edgeworth, author of Castle Rackrent, &c. [From the British Review.] (A. ONE of our oldest statistical writers gives the following compendious but expressive description of the Irish. They are, says he, "Gens in omnes affectus vehementissima; quorum malis nusquam prejores, et bonis meliores vix reperias." nation always in extremes; you will hardly find any thing worse than their bad men, or better than their good ones.) Now, nothing can be more dangerous than these superlative degrees of character. Considering the constitution of poor human nature, it is easy to see which extreme will predominate, unless the utmost care and attention are bestowed to give the vehement tempers a right direction. But as the reverse of this has unfortunately VOL. V. New Series. 34 been the lot of Ireland for some centuries, as a melancholy course of neglect for ages, (to use no stronger term,) has, till within these few years, obscured her glorious destinies, we cannot be surprised at the pictures which successive writers, who have had opportunities of judging from personal observation, have drawn of her degraded state. In 1566 a countryman and contemporary gives the following account of the Irish of his time. He describes them as warlike, patient of fatigue and hunger, but preferring indolence and liberty to every thing else; ignorant, credulous, and superstitious in the highest degree, remarkably fond of music, feasting, and merriment. He particularly notices a class of men, very numerous at that time, who travelled over the country at night for the purpose of committing robberies, whose depredations were attended with cruelty, and whose occupation was not considered dishonourable. Whenever they set out on an expedition, they prayed to God that they might be successful in obtaining plunder; and when obtained, they considered it as a gift from him. Another Irish writer, in 1584, states that something like the feudal system existed there at that time; that they were constantly harassed by the number of quarrels in which they were engaged; that robberies were committed every night; the laws were extremely defective, and ill executed; the people very fond of whiskey, extraordinarily hospitable, good-natured and generous, their credulity great, and their reverence toward the priests extreme. Two centuries afterwards, although in the interval mankind in other parts of Europe had made more rapid strides than were ever witnessed in arts, civilization, and commerce, the situation of the Irish peasantry was found but little improved. A countryman and eye witness thus describes their state as he found it in 1780-90. At this period a considerable degree of improvement indeed had taken place in the cultivation and the manufactures of many parts of Ireland; but no corresponding amelioration had reached the peasantry. In no part of Ireland were the people so vitious as in those counties which were supposed to have been most civilized, in places which abounded with land speculators, rich graziers, and tithe jobbers; for no pains having been taken to improve the moral condition of the people, they retained all the vices of their more barbarous state, but had lost its simplicity, and had engrafted the depravity of civilization on the ferocity of savage life. The Irish legislature, until the octen. nial bill, which passed about this time, scarcely attended at all to the state of their peasantry. No community of interests, nor reciprocity of benefits, no kind of confidence or goodwill existed between them. "To legislate for the dregs of the people, to render palatable the measures adopted against them,”—to endeavour to convince them that such measures were intended for their real benefit, was a condescension to which the parliament of Ireland, (where seats were held for life,) seldom stooped. It has been the policy of every wise government to improve the condition of the mass of the people, that they might have an interest in the defence and preservation of the state. A principle directly the contrary always prevailed in Ireland; and the effects which it produced can easily be traced to the cause. Much of the old system of manners still continued in 1780—90, particularly in the interior and mountainous parts of the coun try. At a wedding feast they would sing and listen to the most plaintive ditties, and if they had drunk any whiskey would whine and weep over some woful story: but at a wake (i. e. an assemblage of men and women round the corpse of a deceased neighbour,) although they went for the avowed purpose of weeping over the dead body; yet in the very room where it was laid out they would spend the night in boisterous mirth, coarse jests, and all kinds of sports and gambols that were calculated to excite laughter; with intervals of five or six minutes every hour of a dreadful howl under pretence of joining in a general lamentation. Whenever whiskey was introduced into any of their meetings, intoxications and quarrels were the inevitable consequence. They were credulous in the highest degree, believed that old women could charm all the butter out of the milk of a neighbouring cow, and add it to their own; bought as sacred relics, possessed of great virtue, bits of old wood, &c. which itinerant mendicants carried about. They were implicitly obedient to their priests both in matters civil and religious, and placed no less implicit faith in every thing they said, however absurd and monstrous. In taking an oath, they considered it sacred if taken on a piece of iron. They knew nothing of the bible, and were equally unacquainted with the principles of moral rectitude. Their moral character, therefore, of course, depended upon the circumstances under which they lived. In some places, simple, harmless, generous, and bene. volent; in others, selfish and depraved :-but being universally ignorant, they were consequently universally indolent. Such was their state described between the years 1780 and 1790. In order to bring the account down to the present time, we shall make a short extract or two from a work written about four years ago by an Irish gentleman, whose style, no less than his matter, proves his perfect acquaintance with the writings of Tacitus. "The peasantry of Ireland are generally not exclusively of the Roman Catholic religion, but utterly and disgracefully ignorant. Of four millions, the probable population, one million, perhaps, can write and read; of this million three fourths are protestant and pro |