Considerations on the Present State of Ireland: And on the Best Means of Improving the Condition of Its Inhabitants

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1822 - Ireland - 39 pages

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Page 8 - Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death ; they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves...
Page 8 - ... after, insomuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves ; and if they found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue there withal; that in short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast...
Page 32 - ... long wooing of wenches to yeeld to him, but where he came he tooke by force the spoyle of other mens love, and left but...
Page 33 - ... the scribe, as well as the chronicler and the pedagogue of his little circle ; he writes their letters, and derives from this no small degree of influence and profit, but he has open to him another source of deeper interest and greater emolument, which he seldom has virtue enough to leave unexplored. He is the centre of the mystery of rustic iniquity, the cheap attorney of the neighbourhood, and furnished with his little book of precedents, the fabricator of false leases and surreptitious deeds...
Page 31 - Irish, and so make his government seem plausible, as having all the Irish at his command: but he that comes after, will perhaps follow neither the one nor the other, but will dandle the one and the other in such...
Page 28 - We have known where the minister would seek in his cottage, him whose religious profession did not permit him to attend at church ; and having won his good will by a thousand little acts of kindness and good neighbourhood, for which the casualties of life are ever making room, would breathe the spirit, and cultivate the feelings, and instil the doctrines, which are not of the Church of England, or of the Church of Rome, but of the Church of Christ.
Page 36 - Sunday, mass is to be celebrated at two or more chapels, perhaps many miles asunder; no matter how bad the weather, the roaring torrent, or the broken way. The last mass and service are not finished till late in the day, and till then the priest is not permitted to touch food ; no matter though he is sick, old, or infirm. Can such a life of labour and exhaustion afford means or opportunity for the improvement of the people*?
Page 7 - Irenaeus: for by that which I have noted in all this your discourse, you suppose, that the whole ordinance and institution of that realmes government, was both at first, when it was placed, evill plotted, and also sithence, thorough other over-sights, came more out of square to that disorder which it is now come unto, like as two indirect lines, the further that they are drawne out, the further they goe asunder.
Page 33 - ... but he has open to him another source of deeper interest and greater emolument, which he seldom has virtue enough to leave unexplored. He is the centre of the mystery of rustic iniquity, the cheap attorney of the neighbourhood, and, furnished with his little book of precedents, the fabricator of false leases and surreptitious deeds and conveyances. Possessed of important secrets and of useful acquirements, he is courted and caressed; a cordial reception and the usual allowance of whiskey greets...
Page 33 - The country schoolmaster is independent of all system and control ; he is himself one of the people, imbued with the same prejudices, influenced by the same feelings, subject to the same habits ; to his little store of learning, he generally adds some traditionary tales of his country, of a character to keep alive discontent.

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