Part 7 (2/2)

By a very late act, they are also enabled to contract at three-halfpence per perch per annum from the first making of a road, for keeping it in repair, which before could not be done without a fresh presentment.

Arthur King, Esq. of Moniva, whose agriculture is described in the preceding minutes, and who at that time represented the county of Galway, was the worthy citizen who first brought this excellent measure into parliament: Ireland, and every traveller that ever visits it ought, to the latest time, to revere the memory of such a distinguished benefactor to the public. Before that time the roads, like those of England, remained impa.s.sable, under the miserable police of the six days' labour.

Similar good effects would here flow from adopting the measure, which would ease the kingdom of a great burthen in its public effects absolutely contemptible; and the tax here, as in Ireland, ought to be so laid, as to be borne by the tenant whose business it is at present to repair.

Upon the imperfections of the Irish system I have only to remark, that juries should, in some cases, be more ready than they are to grant these presentments. In general, they are extremely liberal, but sometimes they take silly freaks of giving none, or very few. Experience having proved, from the general goodness of the roads, that abuses cannot be very great, they should go on with spirit to perfect the great work throughout the kingdom; and as a check upon those who lay out the money, it might perhaps be advisable to print county maps of the presentment roads, with corresponding lists and tables of the names of all persons who have obtained presentments, the sums they received, and for what roads. These should be given freely by the jurymen, to all their acquaintance, that every man might know, to whose carelessness or jobbing the public was indebted for bad roads, when they had paid for good ones. Such a practice would certainly deter many.

At 11,042,642 acres in the kingdom, 140,000 pounds a year amounts to just threepence an acre for the whole territory: a very trifling tax for such an improvement, and which almost ranks in public ease and benefit with that of the post-office.

SECTION III.--Manners and Customs.

Quid leges sine moribus, Vana proficiunt!

It is but an illiberal business for a traveller, who designs to publish remarks upon a country to sit down coolly in his closet and write a satire on the inhabitants. Severity of that sort must be enlivened with an uncommon share of wit and ridicule, to please. Where very gross absurdities are found, it is fair and manly to note them; but to enter into character and disposition is generally uncandid, since there are no people but might be better than they are found, and none but have virtues which deserve attention, at least as much as their failings; for these reasons this section would not have found a place in my observations, had not some persons, of much more flippancy than wisdom, given very gross misrepresentations of the Irish nation. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I take up the pen on the present occasion; as a much longer residence there enables me to exhibit a very different picture; in doing this, I shall be free to remark, wherein I think the conduct of certain cla.s.ses may have given rise to general and consequently injurious condemnation.

There are three races of people in Ireland, so distinct as to strike the least attentive traveller: these are the Spanish which are found in Kerry, and a part of Limerick and Cork, tall and thin, but well made, a long visage, dark eyes, and long black lank hair. The time is not remote when the Spaniards had a kind of settlement on the coast of Kerry, which seemed to be overlooked by government. There were many of them in Queen Elizabeth's reign, nor were they entirely driven out till the time of Cromwell. There is an island of Valentia on that coast, with various other names, certainly Spanish. The Scotch race is in the north, where are to be found the feature which are supposed to mark that people, their accent and many of their customs. In a district near Dublin, but more particularly in the baronies of Bargie and Forth in the county of Wexford, the Saxon tongue is spoken without any mixture of the Irish, and the people have a variety of customs mentioned in the minutes, which distinguish them from their neighbours. The rest of the kingdom is made up of mongrels. The Milesian race of Irish, which may be called native, are scattered over the kingdom, but chiefly found in Connaught and Munster; a few considerable families, whose genealogy is undoubted, remain, but none of them with considerable possessions except the O'Briens and Mr. O'Neil; the former have near twenty thousand pounds a year in the family, the latter half as much, the remnant of a property once his ancestors, which now forms six or seven of the greatest estates in the kingdom. O'Hara and M'Dermot are great names in Connaught, and O'Donnohue a considerable one in Kerry; but I heard of a family of O'Drischal's in Cork, who claim an origin prior in Ireland to any of the Milesian race.

The only divisions which a traveller, who pa.s.sed through the kingdom without making any residence could make, would be into people of considerable fortune and mob. The intermediate division of the scale, so numerous and respectable in England, would hardly attract the least notice in Ireland. A residence in the kingdom convinces one, however, that there is another cla.s.s in general of small fortune--country gentlemen and renters of land. The manners, habits, and customs of people of considerable fortune are much the same everywhere, at least there is very little difference between England and Ireland, it is among the common people one must look for those traits by which we discriminate a national character. The circ.u.mstances which struck me most in the common Irish were, vivacity and a great and eloquent volubility of speech; one would think they could take snuff and talk without tiring till doomsday. They are infinitely more cheerful and lively than anything we commonly see in England, having nothing of that incivility of sullen silence with which so many Englishmen seem to wrap themselves up, as if retiring within their own importance. Lazy to an excess at work, but so spiritedly active at play, that at hurling, which is the cricket of savages, they shew the greatest feats of agility. Their love of society is as remarkable as their curiosity is insatiable; and their hospitality to all comers, be their own poverty ever so pinching, has too much merit to be forgotten. Pleased to enjoyment with a joke, or witty repartee, they will repeat it with such expression, that the laugh will be universal. Warm friends and revengeful enemies; they are inviolable in their secrecy, and inevitable in their resentment; with such a notion of honour, that neither threat nor reward would induce them to betray the secret or person of a man, though an oppressor, whose property they would plunder without ceremony. Hard drinkers and quarrelsome; great liars, but civil, submissive, and obedient. Dancing is so universal among them, that there are everywhere itinerant dancing-masters, to whom the cottars pay sixpence a quarter for teaching their families. Besides the Irish jig, which they can dance with a most luxuriant expression, minuets and country-dances are taught; and I even heard some talk of cotillions coming in.

Some degree of education is also general, hedge schools, as they are called, (they might as well be termed ditch ones, for I have seen many a ditch full of scholars,) are everywhere to be met with where reading and writing are taught; schools are also common for men; I have seen a dozen great fellows at school, and was told they were educating with an intention of being priests. Many strokes in their character are evidently to be ascribed to the extreme oppression under which they live.

If they are as great thieves and liars as they are reported, it is certainly owing to this cause.

If from the lowest cla.s.s we rise to the highest, all there is gaiety, pleasure, luxury, and extravagance; the town life at Dublin is formed on the model of that of London. Every night in the winter there is a ball or a party, where the polite circle meet, not to enjoy but to sweat each other; a great crowd crammed into twenty feet square gives a zest to the _agrements_ of small talk and whist. There are four or five houses large enough to receive a company commodiously, but the rest are so small as to make parties detestable. There is however an agreeable society in Dublin, in which a man of large fortune will not find his time heavy.

The style of living may be guessed from the fortunes of the resident n.o.bility and great commoners; there are about thirty that possess incomes from seven to twenty thousand pounds a year. The court has nothing remarkable or splendid in it, but varies very much, according to the private fortune or liberality of disposition in the lord lieutenant.

In the country their life has some circ.u.mstances which are not commonly seen in England. Large tracts of land are kept in hand by everybody to supply the deficiencies of markets; this gives such a plenty, that, united with the lowness of taxes and prices, one would suppose it difficult for them to spend their incomes, if Dublin in the winter did not lend a.s.sistance. Let it be considered that the prices of meat are much lower than in England; poultry only a fourth of the price; wild fowl and fish in vastly greater plenty; rum and brandy not half the price; coffee, tea, and wines far cheaper; labour not above a third; servants'

wages upon an average thirty per cent. cheaper. That taxes are inconsiderable, for there is no land-tax, no poor-rates, no window tax, no candle or soap tax, only half a wheel-tax, no servants' tax, and a variety of other articles heavily burdened in England, but not in Ireland. Considering all this, one would think they could not spend their incomes; they do contrive it, however. In this business they are a.s.sisted by two customs that have an admirable tendency to it, great numbers of horses and servants.

In England such extensive demesnes would be parks around the seats for beauty as much as use, but it is not so in Ireland; the words deer-park and demesne are to be distinguished; there are great demesnes without any parks, but a want of taste, too common in Ireland, is having a deer-park at a distance from the house; the residence surrounded by walls, or hedges, or cabins; and the lawn inclosure scattered with animals of various sorts, perhaps three miles off. The small quant.i.ty of corn proportioned to the total acres, shows how little tillage is attended to even by those who are the best able to carry it on; and the column of turnips proves in the clearest manner what the progress of improvement is in that kingdom. The number of horses may almost be esteemed a satire upon common sense; were they well fed enough to be useful, they would not be so numerous, but I have found a good hack for a common ride scarce in a house where there were a hundred. Upon an average, the horses in gentlemen's stables throughout the kingdom are not fed half so well as they are in England by men of equal fortune; yet the number makes the expense of them very heavy.

Another circ.u.mstance to be remarked in the country life is the miserableness of many of their houses; there are men of five thousand a year in Ireland, who live in habitations that a man of seven hundred a year in England would disdain; an air of neatness, order, dress, and _proprete_, is wanting to a surprising degree around the mansion; even new and excellent houses have often nothing of this about them. But the badness of the houses is remedying every hour throughout the whole kingdom, for the number of new ones just built, or building, is prodigiously great. I should suppose there were not ten dwellings in the kingdom thirty years ago that were fit for an English pig to live in.

Gardens were equally bad, but now they are running into the contrary extreme, and wall in five, six, ten, and even twenty Irish acres for a garden, but generally double or treble what is necessary.

The tables of people of fortune are very plentifully spread; many elegantly, differing in nothing from those of England. I think I remarked that venison wants the flavour it has with us, probably for the same reason, that the produce of rich parks is never equal to that of poor ones; the moisture of the climate, and the richness of the soil, give fat but not flavour. Another reason is the smallness of the parks, a man who has three or four thousand acres in his hands, has not perhaps above three or four hundred in his deer-park, and range is a great point for good venison. Nor do I think that garden vegetables have the flavour found in those of England, certainly owing to the climate; green peas I found everywhere perfectly insipid, and lettuce, etc., not good. Claret is the common wine of all tables, and so much inferior to what is drunk in England, that it does not appear to be the same wine; but their port is incomparable, so much better than the English, as to prove, if proof was wanting, the abominable adulterations it must undergo with us.

Drinking and duelling are two charges which have long been alleged against the gentlemen of Ireland, but the change of manners which has taken place in that kingdom is not generally known in England.

Drunkenness ought no longer to be a reproach, for at every table I was at in Ireland I saw a perfect freedom reign, every person drank just as little as they pleased, nor have I ever been asked to drink a single gla.s.s more than I had an inclination for; I may go farther and a.s.sert that hard drinking is very rare among people of fortune; yet it is certain that they sit much longer at table than in England. I was much surprised at first going over to find no summons to coffee, the company often sitting till eight, nine, or ten o'clock before they went to the ladies. If a gentleman likes tea or coffee, he retires without saying anything; a stranger of rank may propose it to the master of the house, who from custom contrary to that of England, will not stir till he receives such a hint, as they think it would imply a desire to save their wine. If the gentlemen were generally desirous of tea, I take it for granted they would have it, but their slighting is one inconvenience to such as desire it, not knowing when it is provided, conversation may carry them beyond the time, and then if they do trifle over the coffee it will certainly be cold. There is a want of attention in this, which the ladies should remedy, if they will not break the old custom and send to the gentlemen, which is what they ought to do, they certainly should have a salver fresh. I must, however, remark, that at the politest tables, which are those of people who have resided much out of Ireland, this point is conducted exactly as it is in England.

Duelling was once carried to an excess, which was a real reproach and scandal to the kingdom; it of course proceeded from excessive drinking; as the cause has disappeared, the effect has nearly followed; not however, entirely, for it is yet far more common among people of fas.h.i.+on than in England. Of all practices, a man who felt for the honour of his country would wish soonest to banish this, for there is not one favourable conclusion to be drawn from it: as to courage, n.o.body can question that of a polite and enlightened nation, ent.i.tled to a share of the reputation of the age; but it implies uncivilised manners, an ignorance of those forms which govern polite societies, or else a brutal drunkenness; the latter is no longer the cause or the pretence. As to the former, they would place the national character so backward, would take from it so much of its pretence to civilisation, elegance and politeness of manners, that no true Irishman would be pleased with the imputation. Certain it is, that none are so captious as those who think themselves neglected or despised; and none are so ready to believe themselves either one or the other as persons unused to good company.

Captious people, therefore, who are ready to take an affront, must inevitably have been accustomed to ill company, unless there should be something uncommonly crooked in their natural dispositions, which is not to be supposed. Let every man that fights his one, two, three, or half-a-dozen duels, receive it as a maxim, that every one he adds to the number is but an additional proof of his being ill-educated, and having vitiated his manners by the contagion of bad company; who is it that can reckon the most numerous rencontres? who but the bucks, bloods, landjobbers, and little drunken country gentlemen? Ought not people of fas.h.i.+on to blush at a practice which will very soon be the distinction only of the most contemptible of the people? the point of honour will and must remain for the decision of certain affronts, but it will rarely be had recourse to in polite, sensible, and well-bred company. The practice among real gentlemen in Ireland every day declining is a strong proof that a knowledge of the world corrects the old manners, and consequently its having ever been prevalent was owing to the causes to which I have attributed it.

There is another point of manners somewhat connected with the present subject, which partly induced me to place a motto at the head of this section. It is the conduct of juries; the criminal law of Ireland is the same as that of England, but in the execution it is so different as scarcely to be known. I believe it is a fact, at least I have been a.s.sured so, that no man was ever hanged in Ireland for killing another in a duel: the security is such that n.o.body ever thought of removing out of the way of justice, yet there have been deaths of that sort, which had no more to do with honour than stabbing in the dark. I believe Ireland is the only country in Europe, I am sure it is the only part of the British dominions, where a.s.sociations among men of fortune are necessary for apprehending ravishers. It is scarcely credible how many young women have even of late years been ravished, and carried off in order (as they generally have fortunes) to gain to appearance a voluntary marriage.

These actions, it is true, are not committed by the cla.s.s I am considering at present; but they are tried by them, and acquitted. I think there has been only one man executed for that crime, which is so common as to occasion the a.s.sociations I mentioned; it is to this supine execution of the law that such enormities are owing. Another circ.u.mstance which has the effect of screening all sorts of offenders, is men of fortune protecting them, and making interest for their acquittal, which is attended with a variety of evil consequences. I heard it boasted in the county of Fermanagh, that there had not been a man hanged in it for two-and-twenty years; all I concluded from this was, that there had been many a jury who deserved it richly.

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