ality between the rival Churches; which should reform the Justiciary of the country; which should establish and maintain order by the vigorous exercise of the ordinary powers of law; and which should develop in the Irish, what they so much wanted, respect for the law, by admistering it with the strictest integrity. The declaration of this new order was as honest as it was hopeful. It was certainly as honest as the terrified opposition which brought the new order to naught. The radical evils of Irish society, it may be conjectured, would not have yielded to any or to all of the methods of treatment proposed by the Whigs. But how much more satisfactory would it have been to-day had the insufficiency of the methods been a fairly ascertained fact, instead of a conjecture!

The three leading figures in the Administration established in Ireland to carry out the new regime were the Viceroy, Lord Mulgrave, afterwards Lord Normanby ; the Chief Secretary, Lord Morpeth; and Mr UnderSecretary Drummond.

The Viceroy, is described by Dr Madden* as, “in figure, accomplishments, habits, and talents, the nearest approximation ever witnessed to the ideal of an Hibernian Viceroy." He was amiable, generous, and even princely in his disposition. "Without a tenth part of the resources that former viceroys possessed; without the aid of the Irish aristocracy; he nevertheless, by his tact and skill, contrived to keep up one of the most showy and sparkling vice-royalties that ever gratified the local pride of the Dublin public, and the provincial tastes of the Irish gentry. He was gay, dashing, and brilliant, always setting something on foot to amuse and gratify the public, who were caught at first

"Ireland and its Rulers," vol. ii. p. 278. London, 1844.

sight' by his flashy and semi-military appearance, as he gracefully curvetted through the streets." His lordship had abundance of tact, suavity, courtesy-in short, of all the arts of society. "He was the politest statesman, the most gentlemanly governor, and the most urbane minister of his age." It is a fall from this to the highest tribute of all which is chaffingly paid to him, that he looked and bore himself like a true Milesian-" the very model of a superfine Paddy." The mental fibre was as Milesian as the physical contour and general bearing. "He was more sharp than masterly, more ready than profound." How far the truth may be hit in an account written in this fashion, it would be difficult to say. There is no doubt that Lord Mulgrave was personally highly popular in Ireland, and was an able man, though not a man of the highest order of ability. A triumphal procession over the country, in the course of which he liberated a considerable number of persons from the jails, and everywhere received ovations as the deliverer of the people, was in keeping with the character above depicted. It was an act of dexterous though questionable policy which, for a time, gave a favourable turn to the popular sentiments.

Lord Morpeth, who afterwards became Earl of Carlisle, is better known. He combined fair business talents with scholarly acquirements and literary tastes. Accomplished, able, and amiable, he was liked by the Irish at once as a man and a minister.

Mr Drummond was the subordinate of these noblemen, with which fact is connected the chief difficulty encountered in dealing with this portion of his life.

The three figures are touched off in a sentence by Dr Madden, in which he speaks of "the savoir faire of Lord Normanby, the virtue of Lord Morpeth, and

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the admirable powers and not less admirable virtue of the incomparable Drummond." The three are also brought together by Mr Shiel, in his speech on the passage of the Corn and Tariff Bills of 1846 (27th June 1846). Contrasting the Normanby administration with the Tory governments that followed and preceded it"I will show you," he said, that a government, conducted on different principles, has been productive of peace. Let yours and Lord Normanby's government be compared. Lord Normanby, beloved by the Irish people, was the Lord Lieutenant; the Chief Secretary, an object to all who knew him of affectionate respect, was Lord Morpeth. You, Mr Speaker, will pardon a breach of order, when, for the purpose of panegyric, it is almost sufficient to give utterance to a name--the Under Secretary was Mr Drummond-who, not born in Ireland, was more than an Irishman in his love of Ireland, and who, at his own and his last request, lies buried in the land for which he died of intellectual toil." Like the Viceroy, Drummond won popularity in Ireland, but in a different manner. The Irish, it has been said, knew not how they loved him till they lost him.

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The difficulty is to assign to the subordinate his cise part. Had the object of the Roden Committee of 1839 not been the virtual impeachment of the Irish government, this difficulty might not have existed. Before that committee Drummond was examined as to the whole course of the administration. Had the circumstances been different, his evidence might have afforded a means of discriminating between his own acts and those of his superiors. As it happened, the evidence was evoked in defence of his superiors, to whom he gave the credit of the administration. He

exhibited the reserve of a subordinate even in regard to measures known to have originated with himself. All that appears is, that he had brought under the notice of the Viceroy the state of matters for which the measures provided.

The means, I believe, exist of overcoming to some extent this difficulty; but the time has not yet come when they can be freely used. Avoiding doubtful questions, therefore, I shall confine myself to notorious facts, or such as are vouched by public documents. A measure of success can be attained even within these limits, in an attempt to justify by details the expressions of admiration of Drummond's abilities and self-devotion that have already found place in the histories of the time.

One thing which gave Drummond superior fitness for the duties which the new Irish government had undertaken, was an intimate knowledge of the country and the people. Both of these were well known to him. when he went to Ireland in 1835. Eleven years before he had, with Colby, traversed the whole land. In the years from 1824 to 1830 he had enjoyed special opportunities of studying the character and condition of the peasantry. Nearly the whole of the years 1827, 1828, and 1829 he spent in Ireland, passing the sum mer months in the country, and the winter months in Dublin. In town and country he must have been a frequent and interested listener to discussions on Irish politics. No one could be in Ireland in those years, when the whole land was profoundly agitated by the final struggles of the Catholics for liberty, without going back on the history of their long enslavement and gradual emancipation. We may be sure that Drummond did so. Animated as he was with strong

feelings in favour of popular claims, we need not ask which section of the Irish people had his sympathies.

The Survey afforded excellent opportunities of becoming acquainted with the peasantry. He availed himself of these, and got to know the people well. According to Dr Madden, no one ever knew them better. He says

"It was the rare union of thought and feeling, of a generous nature with a scientific mind, that won for Drummond the mingled admiration and esteem of so many of the best men of the two nations in Ireland. It was this union also that enabled him to acquire his unrivalled knowledge of every class in Ireland. It is possible that he may have been equalled, but he certainly never was surpassed in his knowledge of Irishmen considered in their social relations. Naturally a man of thought and observation, while in the earlier part of his life engaged in the Ordnance Survey, he had abundant opportunities for seeing the Irish character in all its native force. Lying on the mountain side at night in some savage wild of Antrim or Tyrone, with the stars over his head, and no vestiges of civilisation in the neighbourhood, he would draw out' the Irish peasants who came to the Engineers' station from motives of curiosity or the hope of chance employment. No Cockney impudence, no sneer of superiority, was ever visible in Drummond, as he listened to the vague and melancholy narration of some tale of suffering, in which, perhaps the faults of the complaining narrator were as manifest as those of the local tyrant whom he cursed. Unlike most of his companions, Drummond preferred to see the darker and more startling part of Irish character rather than its joyousness and levity. The jokes, and the funny stories, and the droll sayings, he left to be enjoyed by those who were pleased to think that the Irishman was only a fierce Joe Miller, with a furious brogue. He had an eye for nature, and liked to see the original character of the Irish-its wildness and romance, so congenial with the scenery of the Irish landscape its dark spirit of brooding over wrong-its savage spirit of revenge for personal injury or insult-its poetical sensibility and its preference for the illusive and the fanciful