IRELAND. NO. II. Man is a rational creature. Yet many men are incapable of reasoning. Some labor under a natural defect, and form a connecting link between the inferior and superior creation, as the zoophyte unites the vegetable with the animal world. They have no more sense than God has given them. The irrationality of others arises from ignorance, and want of cultivation. Their immortal mind may be likened to a mill-horse. Round and round they plod in their own narrow circle. All beyond is to them an unknown land. Lead them up to their wonted yoke, and they back into it as it were by instinct. Try them on any other, and the drudges will elevate their stiffened limbs in a ludicrous attempt to fling. They recognise only their own beaten track, and recoil from all paths that do not look precisely the same. Manageable enough in one sort of exercise, they are utterly stupid and intractable in every other. Nay, if you turn them about even in their own jog-trot orbit, they, having at least the capacity to perceive that the accustomed shoulder is not to the wheel, refuse to move. It will not do. You desperately leave them to their monodromy. This species of irrationality extends even to men of whom one would expect better things. They adopt an opinion, and cherish it, either because it is the opinion of the majority, or because, in a spirit of chivalry, or peradventure of interest, they choose to oppose rather than to follow the greater number. And having once cast in their lot with a party, they come by degrees to look with partial eyes, and to reason with partial understandings. Their vision is jaundiced, their minds are distempered, and they know it not. Or if at any time they are led to suspect that all is not right with them, the disagreeable suspicion is immediately banished, and the dogmatism of pride, or of selfishness, or of partizanship, triumphs. They grow hardened in error, and when you argue with them nay, even when you state to them matters of fact - you cannot overcome their obduracy. "You might as well attempt a quarry O' whinstone rock." To resume our equine metaphor, the racer has, with respect to one particular course, degenerated into a mere molendinary hack. A third set of mortals employ their reason somewhat more discursively, but without continuity. A demonstration which consists of only one step-a pure unincumbered syllogism—they can comprehend; but a series of steps a chain of reasoning is beyond their patience, or more probably beyond their grasp. Such personages usually arrogate to themselves the title of "prac tical men," just as in some countries every vendor of castor oil and cream of tartar dubs himself doctor. According to them, all thinkers who can themselves get, and require others to go, farther back than the proximate cause of an effect—the immediate antecedent of a consequent - who can do more than connect together a simple fact and an obvious inference — are theorists, dreamers, unfit for an every-day world. The limit of their own stunted powers is with them the boundary of reason. This kind of circumscribed rationality may be acquired and confirmed by evil habit. A man used to a petty mode of debate, seldom called to state and defend his sentiments in a full discussion - a discours raisonné — as the French term it, but merely answering, in brief sentences, some isolated argument of an adversary, dealing in such fragmentary controversy as we often see in the leading articles of provincial newspapers-indulg ing in such small and smart repartee as a soi-disant practical man, with invention on the rack, contrives to elaborate in the course of a day, acting as a running footman beside the chariot of party, to clear the road from stray obstacles, and help to raise a dust around the wheels, pampered by the possession of a factitious power, and either naturally ill-tempered and overbearing, or rendered so by his occupation-such a man soon becomes like a flea in a blanket, a thing disliked rather than dreaded, and leaps about from point to point that he may not be caught and crushed. He cannot move straight forward and continuously. His course is a series of nimble, artful dodgings. Yet in his irregular jumping, he manages to bite occasionally, and deposit just beneath the cuticle, a minute infusion from his venom bag. He is a troublesome varmint, and amazingly clever in his own conceit and in his own way. A fourth class of human beings resemble watch dogs chained to a kennel or confined to a court-yard. It matters not to them, provided they are fed, and now and then patted, whether they guard the castle of a thane, or the cave of a robber. They are staunch, faithful, ferocious animals. Let a footstep come near their lair, and forthwith their bristles rise, their eyes flash fire, and their bark splits the ear. They are retained and stationed for defence. This they have sense enough to know, and all the rest is rage. To the honest man and the rogue, they are equally hostile, if he is not one of their peculiar household. Any other will assuredly rouse their fury, whether he comes with ill intent, or with the benevolent purpose of putting things to rights, and even of purify. ing their own den. You cannot reason with them. To you they will not listen. From their masters, who encourage a ferocity they profit by, they will take even a good whipping with humility; but every man besides is barked at and bitten, should he merely approach their guarded precincts. You might apostrophize the creatures, and say, "stupid fellows, we do not intend to harm you, we would do you good, make you more comfortable, feed you with wholesome food, reform your superiors, benefit your whole establishment. Why do you tug your chain, and leap, and make such horrid din? peace, dogs, peace!" But no, we are not of their familiars. They hear us, and answer only with a growl. To provoke them would be capital sport to some people. We ourselves could find amusement in the exhibition of their cooped-up anger, but not of the most pleasant kind; and what might be to us a study or a pastime, would prove to many others an annoyance. The beings are verily a nuisance, an exceeding pestilent nuisance. There can be little sound repose in their vicinity. During darkness, they are most awake. It is their season and their element; and the vociferation they from time to time emit, leads timid folks to fear that evil is drawing nigh, when perhaps, the chief, or only evil, lurks within their own domain. And though, while dozing with canine dignity on their snout, or luxuriously grumbling over their favorite bone, or frightening their fellow servant grimalkin, when she ventures forth of the kitchen, they seem innoxious animals, yet one cannot help thinking of the mischief, which they, if let loose, would work, before getting knocked on the head, or being sent home howling with a pan at their heels. We have many examples of this rabid irrationality. But it is principally manifested in the support of factious schemes, in defence of dark crimes. which cannot otherwise be defended, in the maintenance of mysteries of iniquity which cannot otherwise be maintained, in oppo. sition to true, uncompromising, heavenly freedom, and in upholding spurious, selfish, wild, and however poradoxical the epithet may appear, really enslaving liberalism. A fifth tribe of irrationals, are nearly allied to the last. Indeed they may be regarded as the plebs, the vulgus, of which the last are the grandees. Not being placed on special guard, they lounge about and run at large. They are not rendered habitually fierce by keeping, and you may pass by them with safety, and even have dealings with them, unless when they are gathered into packs by their whippers-in, and hounded on to baffle truth by clamor and violence. Then it is no joke to encounter a legion of these ferocious roarers. The voice of reason is like the voice of music, sweet and melodious, and heard afar amid the stillness of a calm forenoon, or lovely eve; but by din and discord it is overborne, it is silenced by the yelping of curs, the braying of donkeys, or the equally sensible bluster of tribe the fifth. St. Paul once addressed an assembly of his countrymen on the subject of his conversion. In the course of his speech he came to state, not a questionable opinion, but a simple fact, of which he had most certain personal knowledge, but which they were determined not to believe. Up to that point they gave him audience, and no farther. Then they lifted up their voices and cried, "Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live!" and as they cried they cast off their clothes and threw dust into the air!! Oh, rare mode of arguing! As old as our fallen race. Wrath and rubbish have long been employed to stifle truth, to darken its light, and to blacken its defenders. But is this sort of argument the more venerable on account of its antiquity? No, for it is not with mankind as with an individual man. Antiquitas seculi juventas mundi. We on whom the latter days of the world have come, ought to know better. We should improve by experience of the past, and remember that he who substitutes rage for reason, is at best a mono-maniac. We say at best, for the only alternative is, that he is a knave. On another occasion, the same great saint, "Scripture examples are as good as any," was laboring in his mission at Ephesus, along with certain companions. His arguments were powerful, and began to prevail. Self-interest, therefore, becoming alarmed, stirred up ignorance and error, and sent them ravening into "the forefront of the battle." Paul's appeals were met with uproar and outrage. The scene is so characteristic that we transcribe its climax. "Some cried one thing and some another; for the assembly was confused, and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together. And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander beckoned with the hand, and would have made his defence unto the people. But when they knew that he was a Jew," when they saw he was not one of themselves, "they all with one voice, about the space of two hours! cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" And these were civilized men-inhabitants of classic, gorgeous Ephesus! Priest-ridden slaves! Superstitious fools! Nose-led dupes! Interested hypocrites! Only think of the idiots bellowing for two mortal hours! What a hubbub! Look at them! What a sinking of men into mad dogs! Hurroo! Great is Diana of the Milesians - we mean Ephesians! This is demagogue's logic. We must not linger, however, on these preliminary sketches. They look like flourishes of our stylus, as if we were preparing for an onslaught. No such thing. We will be calm, dispassionate, just; and the reader will soon perceive, if he has not done so already, that our overture is quite appropriate to our opera. But before proceeding we must be indulged with one flourish more. We must describe yet one other section of mankind, to whom we can find no zoological comparison. We thought of the cuttle-fish. It is rather low in the scale for our purpose. No doubt it protects itself by diffusing a pitchy obfuscation through its element, and repelling its opponent by trying to involve him in dirt; and so far it resembles the men to whom we refer. But they are more wise and wicked than any of the flock of Proteus. Apropos, we have it. Proteus himself is our man, or devil, or what you will. He represents, at least in cunning, and metamorphosis, and terror, and unmanageableness, the persons now under consideration. Nam sine vi non ulla dabit præcepta, neque illum Verum, ubi correptum manibus vinclisque tenebis, They are the originators and abettors of error, the fathers of falsehood, and yet the loudest to pray heaven preserve honesty! answering demonstration with scandal, argument with abuse, fact with a sneer, truth with fiction, reproof with a nickname, lying even in accusing others of doing so, oppressing the mob, and yet the foremost to shout Liberty forever! More aristocratic than aristocrats, because upborne by a multitude that has been drugged into abject patience with unwonted flattery, and brutishly bends beneath a great man's car, to celebrate the ovation of his craft and their own sheepishness. These able and wily leaders work with the foregoing classes as their tools, and prey upon them as their victims. The naturally incapable they openly deceive; the millhorse men, with the dogs at large, they train; and of all the three they form the main body of their troops. The flea-in-blanket gentry are their skirmishers, the bull-dog bruisers are their heavy brigade, and their subalterns are the reduced Arabians, whom we pitied while we described them. With these forces they take the field: et quamquam veritas magna sit et prævalebit, yet their followers being mailed in truth-proof armor, long and stubbornly resist. When a breach is made in their ranks, the skirmishers open their irregular fire-the heavy brigade are hounded on-a dust is raised ὑπο ποσσὶ κονίσαλος 'ορνυτ' αέλλης darkness is diffused Exoritur clamorque virum clangorque tubarum— diversions are effected by false attacks, and dirt is discharged to begrime and disgust those opponents who have not been prepared for such warfare. These mud-volleys wonderfully revive the courage of the incapables, and the mill-horses; the voltigeurs pick up pellets for future use, and the watch-dogs howl in hideous concert with their allies, while the cunning leaders exult in their success, as Milton's celestial rebels did over the effects of their artillery. We have said that our prelude is in keeping with our theme. And how is it so? Because the man who speaks impartially of Ireland must encounter irrationality in all its shapes, and contend with party spirit in its utmost intensity of hatred, anger, craft, intolerance, and blindness. The subject is like the spear of Ithuriel, or Sir Percie Shafton's bodkin. You cannot take it in hand and touch with it an adversary, but up he springs a fiend armed at all points for combat; you cannot present it to his view but instantly his common sense and politeness give place to the very phrenzy of passion. If, therefore, we can portray the various forms of defective judgment and of partizanship; if we can de |