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In support of this hypothesis (namely, that the Irish are Jews) Mr. Hamilton has produced some very striking proofs. Thus, he shows that the fine linen, mentioned in Revelations as worn by those personages who are to gain a victory over the Beast, is an evident allusion to the staple manufacture of Ireland; while the "harps" which they bear are, no less evidently, intended to represent the provincial arms of Leinster, which have been (as Mr. O'Halloran tells us) a harp, or, strung, argent, in a field vert, ever since the landing of Heber and Heremon in Ireland, on the 17th day of Bel, or May, in the year of the world, according to the Hebrew computation, 2736.

The Irish being thus indisputably proved to be Jews, it is to be hoped that the Irish country gentlemen (now that their estates are beginning to illustrate the doctrine of Evanescent Quantities) will, when forced to take refuge in the arms of their brethren of Israel, find them considerate and compassionate, if it were for nothing but old consanguinity's sake.

With respect to the moral character of my ancestors in the times of Ollam Fodlah and Brian Boromhe, there is no doubt that, however suppressed or modified, it must have been pretty much the same that it is at present. The Great

Frederick used to say, that while the French fight for glory, the Spaniards for religion, and the English for liberty, the Irish are the only people in the world who fight for fun; and, however true this may be of my countrymen in general, there is no doubt of its perfect correctness as applied to the Rock Family in particular. Discord is, indeed, our natural element; like that storm-loving ani− mal, the seal, we are comfortable only in a tempest; and the object of the following historical and biographical sketch is to show how kindly the English government has at all times consulted our taste in this particular--ministering to our love of riot through every successive reign, from the invasion of Henry II. down to the present day, so as to leave scarcely an interval during the whole six hundred years in which the Captain Rock for the time might not exclaim,

66

Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?"

or, as it has been translated by one of my family:

Through Leinster, Ulster, Connaught, Munster,
Rock's the boy to make the fun stir!

CHAPTER II.

1172-1189.

Reign of Henry II.—Queues and Mustachios.-Attention to them by the Legislature.-Fine for killing a mere Irishman.-The O'Driscolls expensive killing.—English and Irish cursing each other.—Apostrophe to Tithes.

In the year 1180, and for some centuries after, if a man was caught in Ireland with his upper lip unshaven, he was held to be no true Englishman, and might be plundered without ceremony, or killed at a very trifling expense.

In the year 1798, under the government of Lords Camden and Castlereagh, if a man was caught in Dublin who had no queue, he was held, in the same manner, to be no true Englishman, and might be whipped, ad libitum, by any loyal gentleman who had one.

This shows, at least, how steadily the rulers of Ireland have persevered in their ancient maxims of policy, and what importance may be given to mustachios and tails by a government that will but for six hundred years set seriously about it. In the former period, of course the whiskers of the

Rock Family flourished, — persecution being to whiskers more nutritive than the best Macassar oil; and, in the latter period, Crops, as we all know, became so formidable as to require not only an army of twenty or thirty thousand men, but all Lord Cornwallis's good sense and humanity, to put them down again.

I have said that the penalty, in those times, for killing a mere Irishman was but small. Sometimes, however, the price was higher. Sir John Davies, in his Historical Relations, tells us of" one William, the son of Roger, who, among others, was, by John Wogan, Lord-Justice of Ireland, fined five marks for killing one O'Driscoll;"*-— this was an unusually extravagant mulct; and it would be a curious research for an antiquary to inquire why the O'Driscolls were so much more expensive killing than other people.

The following verses, addressed, I understand, to a certain personage, whose hatred of an Irishman is, at least, equal to his love of a guinea, come nearer, perhaps, to the sum at which, in the

* In the 4th of Edward II. R. de Wayleys was tried at Waterford for feloniously slaying John Mac Gillimorry. The prisoner confesses the fact, but pleads that " he could not thereby commit felony, because the deceased was a mere Irishman, and not of free blood, etc. etc.-See the Ele'ddress of Dr. Lucas on this subject.

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honey-moon of our English connexion, the life of a merus Hibernus" was valued :

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"Oh, hadst thou lived when every Saxon clown
First stabb'd his foe, and then paid half-a-crown;
With such a choice in thy well-balanced scale,
Say, would thy avarice or thy spite prevail?"

It was in such times, and under such laws, that my pugnacious progenitors first rose into repute, and began that career which, under the various names of Mere Irish, Rapparees, White-boys, etc., they have continued prosperously down to the present day.

It has usually been the policy of conquerors and colonists to blend as much as possible with the people among whom they establish themselves,to share with them the advantage of their own institutions, to remove all invidious distinctions that might recal the memory of their original invasion or intrusion,-in short, to sow in their new neighbourhood the seeds of future shelter and ornament, instead of perversely applying themselves to the culture of poison, and sitting down, like witches, with a plantation of night-shade around them.

Had our English conquerors adopted this ordinary policy, the respectable Family of the Rocks might never have been heard of; a few dozen re

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