SECTION VII. DESIDERATA BOOKS, Or brief Catalogue of Desirables for the Native Irish population. HAVING endeavoured to collect every particular which might serve to be of use in forming some fixed opinion as to what is so much wanted for this long-neglected people, I may now be permitted to say-How meagre is the history of the past compared with what it ought to have been in such a country as this! In a country so near, and which ought to have been so much more dear to every British subject, how melancholy the reflection that centuries are embraced, and that, after so long a period, such upon the whole is the present condition of above three millions of our fellow-subjects! Is it possible, it may be asked, is it true, that these people, in their successive generations, have thus breathed away their existence and died, in a country which, as to its natural position, has been reposing in the very lap of Great Britain, and nominally united to it for more than six hundred and fifty years? So it should seem; and would that with the sombre review of the past, here also terminated the prevalence of those things which make the aspect sombre. Meanwhile let it not be imagined by any one, that a retrospect such as this, however painful, is impolitic, unprofitable, or vain. Nothing as to Ireland, and particularly her aborigines, can be more incumbent. Let us the more value the example left us by the discerning few, in whose hearts it was to have enlightened and elevated a people so often and so long left out of all calculations, meet and necessary for their present comfort and their future good. Let there be no false delicacy now to whisper that we should be tender of prejudices which were grounded upon political expediency-an expediency which has proved so hollow and foolish in itself; weak as to its professed end, nay so injurious withal every hour of its continuance to the immortal interests of so many generations. It is indeed a very easy thing for us now to dwell upon what has been called the back-ground, or dark side, of the picture with regard to Ireland, though I envy not the man who is capable of doing so without feelings either of sympathy or selfreproach. But no-let us no more contend, nor blame For what can this avail, or does it befit the lips of their countrymen, to whom we can say as to all things else, and at any period-" And what hast thou which thou hast not received? and why glory as if thou hadst not received it ?" What would the rest of this kingdom have been if left without books-without learning—without an intelligible ministry? So far from being surprised at any thing said of this people, and there have been many things said which are not correct, my astonishment is that they are to be found in their present condition, destitute and deplorable as it confessedly is. Naturally shrewd, and so far as natural education goes, superior in quickness of perception to any peasantry of the empire—often cheerful, under circumstances which in others would have induced habitual melancholy-retaining a buoyancy of mind under frequent extremity, and so susceptible of gratitude for disinterested kindness—there are none who know them thoroughly who would not say " And I have loved them better still, even in extremity of ill." It would be easy too to repeat the fine things which have been said about the circulation of bank-notes, which being in English, have proved an incentive to those who see them and ever possess any, to acquire our language!—to talk of the people being said to be ashamed of their native tongue, and desirous of acquiring ours—a shame which, if it ever existed in some of the baser sort, like a Sunday's coat is laid aside as soon as you turn your back, or they return home, where Irish holds on to sustain the tear and wear of their thoughts. No, let us hear no more of the glory of extending the English tongue in these districts in the manner hitherto proposed or pursued. Man, it is true, is a creature impatient of his end; but in a course which it is above the power of kings as conquerors to pursue; where we are called to contend with sympathies of our nature so strong, and in which there is no crime; to contend with an invincible attachment to the first sounds the tongue was taught by a mother to express, let us see and understand that no feeble enactment of ours can ever reach the case. The path marked out for us is straight forward and easy; it has the sanction of Heaven, and any other devised with reference to an inferior not to say purblind policy, will prove just as inefficient as it has done hitherto. In human works, though labour'd on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; That other use' in the present instance will certainly prove to be the extension of the English language, as far and as fast as it can be extended. Let us proceed then no longer with faltering steps or slownor with a scanty or meagre policy, whether it regards the proclamation of the divine word in the language spoken by the people-the circulation of the Scriptures in Irish and some other useful books, or the very best and most expeditious mode of teaching the people to read. At the same time I ought to remark, that when a case like the present is made out and reviewed, there is such a thing as hastening after a cure. Some scheme-one or two plans, as they are called, are devised by an individual more ardent than wise, and the idea prevails, that by some one grand wholesale remedy, which begins to be much talked of, the evils, all the evils are to be redressed-all the wants supplied in almost a given time; though in designs such as these, few things are so fatal as precipitancy or blind zeal. In looking over the present state of the Native Irish, as it refers to the design of these pages, there is happily at present but little call for much ingenuity of contrivance. The means which have been successful in other cases, only require to be applied; but calm intrepidity, constancy, and patience, with the exercise of kindness and love to the people, are indispensable. If these are possessed, at the same time the means involve, very different qualifications, in different individuals, and it is not by amalgamating all these that most benefit is to be expected. If independent of each other in themselves, let them so remain; and so independent are they, that three men may here be pressing towards the accomplishment of one end, and yet scarcely, perhaps never, exchange words. One man at his desk is patiently balancing the precise difference between two Irish synonymes, and is daily tasking himself to give nothing save an accurate and luminous translation of his author. The second is a schoolmaster, whose heart is in his employ. ment, and is mainly charmed by the progress of his pupils. While the third, if qualified for addressing his fellow-men on the things of God from his own book, has been fitted from on high, by Him who alone can qualify, and who alone doth give such gifts unto men. But a very few individuals, therefore, of requisite wisdom, in any one of these departments (though in a variety of independent spots), proceeding with ardour and patient perseverance, without printing or sitting down to report every thing that they accomplish, is all that is wanted here. Nor should a solitary individual feel discouraged: for what is the history which has just been read, if it is not that of a very few solitary individuals, ending occasionally in a heartfelt union which never rose above three or four? And, after all, amidst the various schemes of the day, " in all probability, the improvement of mankind is destined, under Divine Providence, to advance just in proportion as good men feel the responsibility for it resting on themselves, as individuals, and are actuated by a bold sentiment of independence, (humble at the same time, in reference to the necessity of a celestial agency,) in the prosecution of it."* In farther specifying what is now so much wanted and so desirable for the Native Irish, we shall follow the order of the three first sections, and therefore advert first to the subject of Irish printed books. * Foster's Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance, p. 259. BOOKS. It was the opinion of Dr Johnson, that if a man wished to be counted among the benefactors of posterity, he must add by his own toil to the acquisitions of his ancestors, and secure his memory from neglect by some valuable improvement. “ This,” he adds, 66 can only be effected by looking out upon the wastes of the intellectual world, and extending the power of learning over regions yet undisciplined; or by surveying more exactly our ancient dominions, and driving ignorance from the retreats where she skulks undetected and undisturbed. Every science has its difficulties, which yet call for solution before we attempt new systems of knowledge; as every country has its forests or marshes, which it would be wise to cultivate and drain, before distant colonies are projected as a necessary discharge of the exuberance of inhabitants." In the preceding pages the reader has had an opportunity of observing how little can be said on the subject of Irish printing, and it is hoped that a perusal of the narrative itself may suggest to many the appropriate remedies for such a state of things. At the same time, it may still be of service now to consider briefly the actual condition of this people so far as the art of printing is concerned. In doing this I have thought that it is nothing more than common justice to bring forward another Celtic population in contrast or comparison with the Native Irish, viz. the inhabitants of Wales. Here, in that part of England which lies nearest to Ireland, looking across St George's Channel, out of a population of about 720,000 are 600,000 to whom the Welsh is vernacular, or about a fifth, perhaps a sixth part of the Native Irish. Let us see how it has fared with them in comparison. To begin with the Scriptures. It is now two hundred and sixty years since the Welsh New Testament was first printed, and about two hundred and twenty-five years since the same volume was first printed in Irish. Again, the Bible complete in Welsh was printed in 1588-in the Irish not till about a century afterwards, viz. in 1686. Now let the reader observe, up to the year 1811, when the Irish Testament, though in the Roman character, was published, there had been a few hundred copies of the Irish New Testament circulated about the begin |