Pallade, substitua en sa place St. Patrick, l'ordonna Eveque et l'envoya precher la foi en Irlande." Mosheim, the German, says exactly the same thing; first calling the personage in dispute Succathus, and then adding that Celestine changed his name into Patrick. I believe he is also authority for attributing that change to the fact of the admiring Pope having advanced Succathus to the patrician order-whence his new cognomen. To these evidences against Dr. Ledwich, Dr. O'Conner subjoins many more of equal importance. That learned antiquarian has found Patrick mentioned by the very ancient author of a Life of St. Gertrude; by Cummin; by Bede; and in the old antiphony of Binchar," which," says Dr. Lingard, "is still preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan-(No. 10. Lit. C.)-and contains but three hymns in honour of particular saints, the first of whom is St. Patrick; and though it displays little taste or ability, incontestably proves that he was then (in the sixth century) considered as the apostle of Ireland. "Audite, omnes amantes Dominus illum elegit, Hibernas inter gentes." So, still interchange your bland greetings of " God and Pawdhric bless you!" as you meet on every road-side, generous-hearted men of "the emerald set in the ring of the sea!" And still mount your shamrocks, and clatter your shillelaghs, upon each 17th of March, "while the world is a world!" There's Latin itself for it. In real earnest, Patrick's good works in Ireland are historically recorded. Mosheim, before mentioned, with many others, witnesses that he founded the Archbishoprick of Armagh. Bardic and traditionary lore add very pleasant, if not as authentic, accounts of him. In Miss Brooks's Relics of old Irish Poetry, he will constantly be found arguing theology with Ossian, or Oisin; the old blind poet displaying much obstinacy in his Pagan creed, and neither disputant good-humour, or good manners. In fact, they both scold and call names. One of the O'Hara family has imitated Miss Brooks's faithful translations, so far as to allow the story of his youthful rhyme, "The Celts' Paradise," to grow out of a similar discussion between them. It is unnecessary to remark on the anachronism of making the two characters contemporaneous. But the Irish peasant will assure you, at this day, that after a great deal of trouble and logic, Patrick ultimately prevailed on Oisin to have himself baptized; and such was the convert's perfect change on the occasion, from Pagan frowardness into Christian equanimity, that when the saint, in striking his crosier into the ground, in order to leave his hands free for the ceremony, happened to dart it through Oisin's foot, the old bard, thinking the accident part of what he was to endure, never uttered a groan, or made a remark, till all was over. From the same sources, or from others not more considerable, we learn why the shamrock was mounted in honour of the patron of Ireland by his present most gracious Majesty, upon the day of his public entry into his good city of Dublin. Patrick was explaining to a great king, and to the great king's most beautiful queen, and to their whole court, and, indeed, the greater part of their subjects, the doctrine of the Trinity, but not as successfully as St. Athanasius has explained it to the established church of these realms. In fact, the crabbed old Pagans began to shake their heads, and obstinately demurred to the numerical (Lord Norbury would say new-miracle) question; when the saint stooped down, (they were all in the open air,) plucked some trefoil, and by the simple demonstration of how one stalk ended in three leaves yet remained one and the same stalk still, convinced the most sceptical Druid that heard him. And the admiring living narrators of this veritable story applaud the apostle's ingenuity, and think his solution all that could have been desired by "Christian, Pagan, or man." That one of St. Patrick's many Herculean labours in Ireland was a general clearing-out of all the snakes, vipers, toads, and spitting spiders to be found in the country, every person knows; and the fact should not perhaps have here been glanced at, but for a reason. In 1641, a David Ruth was Roman-Catholic bishop of Ossory (as shall more fully be shown); and he appears, by respectable witnesses, to have been a learned and a clever man, (which shall also be shown). He wrote many books; amongst them, "Elucidationes in vitam sancti Patricii a Jocelino scriptam," at which, though he otherwise likes Dr. Ruth, Harris is angry; but no matter; the following is an extract from it : "It has been delivered to us by our ancestors, that Saint Patrick possessed the power of expelling serpents; and this was the universal opinion, not only of the people, but of the wisest and most discreet men of our nation, that by him our Island was freed from all venomous creatures; this do the hymns, the antiphons, and the offices sufficiently prove, the national annals record, the Latin writers declare; in this do the moderns, one or two excepted, confirm the testimony of the ancients; in this do foreigners and natives concur; in this manner do the Greek writers understand the 90th Psalm, of the subjection of serpents, &c. therein promised unto the saints-Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under thy feet."" The question here grows serious; and since the good Saint of green Erin really achieved this summary ejectment of all vipers and all "venomous creatures" (the Orange species came after his time) out of his adopted country, well may Irishmen of the present day be allowed to exclaim, in the words of one of their old ballads "Oh, he's wanted again in our Island! Our nate little, tight little Island!" Although another of their songs, manufactured in "the black north," is not so much in earnest on this useful miracle of their patron as was Doctor David Ruth: "Saint Patrick was a gintleman, He came of dacent people, Och! my blessings on Saint Patrick's fist, He gave these frogs and toads a twist, And he banish'd them for ever!" To part decorously, as one ought to do, from St. Patrick, it is to be noticed that he was the first who introduced the Roman letter, and alphabetic arrangement, into Ireland. He also framed, conjointly with his most eminent brother-priests, and the most celebrated Druidical bards, a new code of laws, denominated Seanchus Moer, or the great antiquity; and this code, like many preceding ones, was published. Sir John Davis, indeed, and others, assert that the primitive Irish had no written laws, and that the judgments of their Brehons were regulated by traditionary precedents and statutes, rather than by known records. of such. But Saint Osimard, Joseline, and Cambrensis Eversus (an authority treated respectfully by Dr. Lingard), affirm, that many written collections of old Irish laws existed in their own times. And Roddy, an Irish antiquarian, is said to have removed the doubts of Sir Richard Cox by putting into his hands an ancient Irish law-book. JOHN BULLISM. THERE is nothing in the manners of the age more conspicuous than the overweening complacency of John Bull upon all topics in which a comparison is made by a foreigner to his disadvantage. Honest John will grumble heartily enough at his own domestic errors and irregularities, but he will not suffer the stranger "within his borders" to whisper a syllable about them. Just or unjust, he will not submit to correction from without, any more than he will accept a benefit from such a quarter if he can help it. He wonders at the stupidity of other nations, and cannot understand what right they have to exclude his manufactures from their ports; but he looks upon his own refusal of their handy-work as a paramount act of his own authority, at which he thinks they have no right to cavil. He has not the faculty of putting himself in the place of a stranger, or a rival, in judging upon a question, and therefore is hardly ever impartial in his decisions. It is curious, too, that he has at times a consciousness of being on the wrong side of the argument, and his shifts to escape conclusions terminating inevitably to his disadvantage, often place him in the most unlucky predicaments. Logic, of a pure species, we can hardly expect from one so imbued with prejudices, notwithstanding his goodnature. He frequently first begs the question, next makes a positive affirmation of what is untrue, and lastly, draws a conclusion most monstrous. I was lamenting the other day to a City acquaintance, the very representative of John Bull, rubicund, short-breathed, grossly fat, and excellently well tempered, that we should have no summer, that the clouds over London seemed more dense than ever I had observed them. "Oh for a day or two of the cloudless South of France!" I observed. A groan followed from my friend, and a guttural intonation of voice as from the recess of a cavern heaving forth "Hum! devilish good things!-I differ from you. Clouds are blessings, Sir; your foreigners are melted to skin and bone for want of them. Clouds are a god-send, Sir, in the summer. How else should we walk to Change in June at noon-day?—Not at all too cloudy for me, Sir." "We have enough of them in winter, Mr. Scrip," I observed. "Ay, but now they are useful. They are a glorious umbrella, Sir. Under your blue skies you are melted, burnt up. This is a happy country, Sir, to have clouds in summer. None of your flaring blue skies, they are all one colour except now and then a white rag or two seeming to be stuck upon them to dry. Mr. Varnish, the artist, observed the other day that such as are now above us are pittoresque, fine, noble, dark masses rolling round the cross of St. Paul's, and that your foreign skies are all sameness, and the air too light. England for ever, Sir !" "But they are giving us a deluge of rain!" "So much the better," replied my friend Scrip; "the dust is kept down, and there is less need of watering the streets." "But the harvest, Mr. Scrip?" "We shall have the ports open, my dear fellow, and business will follow let the worst happen. A cloudy English sky for me, come what may!" Farther remark was useless, and I changed the subject to the Price Current, perfectly aware at the same time that my friend and myself were of one opinion upon the point at issue, but that his "John Bullism" would not allow him to acknowledge the truth. The Bench has constantly exhibited specimens of this kind of patriotic dissimulation. We have heard from the seat of Justice boxing justified, provided the hits are fair, upon the ground that it prevents the adoption of the knife and dagger, which are constantly used in all foreign States, according to the Judges learned in the laws, but in little besides, it would seem! It is this praiseworthy mode of combat alone that makes our navy and army so distinguished, and qualifies one Englishman for uniformly beating five Frenchmen at one time, and often more! Some of the "learned in the law" have been known to extol the courage of British highwaymen, and urge the manner in which they went boldly up to their prey, as a proof of the surpassing game of the lower class of Englishmen, and an illustration of the spirit that conquered at Blenheim and Malplaquet. Waterloo, however, was fought since this distinguished race of "gentlemen" became extinct; and I suppose the boxers have supplied their places, although it must be granted they are a degree below Turpin and Abershaw in the heroism of their calling. Bull-baiting, dog-fighting, and cock-matches, are justified by honest John from being ancient sports of the country, preferable to foreign innovations, and tending to accustom the high and low vulgar to hardihood. Besides, who'd have the peasantry dance round the trees with the country lasses until sunset, and thus imitate Frenchmen, instead of taking a cheerful glass of Hodgkin's for the benefit of the revenue, and betting upon White-headed Bob and Black-muzzled Bill of St. Giles at their approaching "scratch?" "My dear fellow," said one of the Boulogne exiles, which place is now a colony of English renegades for all sorts of reasons-" My dear fellow, do you know we have introduced some of our manly' sports among the people at Boulogne; we have got some tolerable dog-fights, a bull-bait now and then, and we shall try and get up a French boxing-match. It will do them good to stop their cursed chattering, fiddling, and dancing with the women. We shall make men of them before we have done." It is as easy to remove a mountain as convince John Bull that any thing good, except Cogniac and Port wine, can come from the Continent of Europe. French women are all light characters; German mere fishwomen. All foreign customs are bad in the lump, and there is no city in the world that has a single good thing in it but London. The peace has done wonders in removing the prejudices of the travelling part of our population. A dinner at Very's may be surpassingly good, French wine exquisite, and the people agreeable to a particular class of persons; but your downright John Bull, who has no notion of eating beyond a beefsteak at Dolly's, and porter or port wine for drink, looks with contempt upon other viands, except it be a Michaelmas goose or a turkey at Christmas. No one will say he has not a right to do this; but the worst is, that his "John Bullism" leads him to anathematize all who do not think in his particular way, and still more to do it to their faces. If you commend an edifice, the climate, in short any thing belonging to a foreign country, he tells you to go and live there. In short, it is considered a species of insult in "John Bullism" to speak the truth, if it be any thing commendatory of a foreigner, his manners, or country. Irishmen too must not be put upon an equality of any sort with himself. In his view, Pat is a foreigner, and ought to feel honoured by British protection. The National Debt was attacked the other day by a gentleman well versed in finance at a dinner where I was present, as leading to bankruptcy in case of a new war, and he mentioned the flourishing state of America and France in this respect. He was stopped short by a little fiery gentleman on the opposite side of the table with the exclamation, "Pooh, nonsense, Sir, the National Debt is one of the best things in England. Where should we place our idle cash if there were no funds? The debt increases the industry of the country to pay the taxes necessary for meeting the interest. It makes people work, Sir, and keeps business alive. The debt is a glorious thing, Sir, which foreigners have not the brains to comprehend." On the following day to that when this conversation occurred, the person who had been so rudely interrupted put the following maxims of "Bullism" into my head. "As no one disputes the many good qualities of honest John," said he, "it becomes a duty to lessen his bad ones, if possible, and to get him to substitute truth for prejudice in his decisions. His worst quality is his inveterate obstinacy, and the next his pride. Clodhopper as he is, he refuses to be taught but in the reverse mode in which teaching in general is practised. I therefore reckon upon his good sense for detecting his fallacies, and place before him his own maxims, and my life for it he will soon begin to see their absurdity." Maxim I. Every thing in England, no matter how it gets there, is better than any thing out of it. A British sloe is better than a Portugal grape. II. Every innovation, change, or novelty, no matter whether it be useful or not, which is a departure from old English custom, should be put down. |