Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry Part 1

Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry.

by Thomas Davis.

INTRODUCTION.

In the present edition of Thomas Davis it is designed to offer a selection of his writings more fully representative than has. .h.i.therto appeared in one volume. The book opens with the best of his historical studies--his masterly vindication of the much-maligned Irish Parliament of James II.[1] Next follows a selection of his literary, historical and political articles from _The Nation_ and other sources, and, finally, we present a selection from his poems, containing, it is hoped, everything of high and permanent value which he wrote in that medium. The "Address to the Historical Society" and the essay on "Udalism and Feudalism," which were reprinted in the edition of Davis's Prose Writings published by Walter Scott in 1890, are here omitted--the former because it seemed possible to fill with more valuable and mature work the s.p.a.ce it would have taken, and the latter because the cause which it was written to support has in our day been practically won; Udalism will inevitably be the universal type of land-tenure in Ireland, and the real problem which we have before us is not how to win but how to make use of the inst.i.tution, a matter with which Davis, in this essay, does not concern himself.

The life of Thomas Davis has been written by his friend and colleague, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, and an excellent abridgment of it appears as a volume in the "New Irish Library." In the latter easily available form it may be hoped that there are few Irishmen who have not made themselves acquainted with it. It is not, therefore, necessary to deal with it here in much detail. Davis was born in Mallow on October 14th, 1814. His father, who came of a family originally Welsh, but long settled in Buckinghamshire, had been a surgeon in the Royal Artillery.

His mother, Mary Atkins, came of a Cromwellian family settled in the County Cork. It does not seem an altogether hopeful kind of ancestry for an Irish Nationalist, and his family were, as a matter of fact, altogether of the other way of thinking. But the fact that his great-grandmother, on the maternal side, was a daughter of The O'Sullivan Beare may have had a counteracting influence, if not through the physical channel of heredity, at least through the poet's imagination. As a child, Davis was delicate in health, sensitive, dreamy, awkward, and pa.s.sed for a dunce. It was not until he had entered Trinity College that the pa.s.sion for study possessed him. This pa.s.sion had manifestly been kindled, in the first instance, by the flame of patriotism, but how and when he first came to break loose from the traditional politics of his family we have no means of knowing, unless a gleam of light is thrown on the matter by a saying of his from a speech at Conciliation Hall:--"I was brought up in a mixed seminary,[2]

where I learned to know, and knowing to love, my countrymen."

At the University he sought no academic distinctions, but read omnivorously. History, philosophy, economics, and ethics were the subjects into which he flung himself with ardour, and which, in after days, he was continually seeking to turn to the uses of his country. By the time he had left College and was called to the Bar (1837) he had disciplined himself by thought and study, and was a very different being from the dreamy and backward youth described for us by the candid friends of his schooldays. A dreamer, indeed, he always was, but he had learned from Bishop Butler, whom he reverenced profoundly and spoke of as "the Copernicus of ethics," that there is no practice more fatal to moral strength than dreaming divorced from action. Some concrete act, some definite thing to be done, was now always in his mind, but always, it may be added, as the realisation of some principle arrived at by serious and accurate thinking. He had acquired clear convictions, his powers of application were enormous, he had a boundless fertility of invention, and was manifestly marked out as a leader of men. It is interesting to go through the pages of Davis's Essays and to note how many of his practical suggestions for work to be done in Ireland have been taken up with success, especially in the direction of music and poetry, of the Gaelic language, and of the study of Irish archaeology and the protection of its remains. But a new Davis would mark with keener interest the many tasks which yet remain to be taken in hand.

His connection with the Bar was little more than nominal; from the beginning, the serious work of his life seemed destined to be journalism. After some experiments in various directions, he, with Gavan Duffy and John Blake Dillon, during a walk in the Phoenix Park in the spring of 1842, decided to establish a new weekly journal, to be ent.i.tled, on Davis's suggestion, _The Nation_. Its purpose, which it was afterwards to fulfil so n.o.bly, was admirably expressed in its motto, taken from a saying of Stephen Woulfe: "To create and foster public opinion in Ireland, and to make it racy of the soil." Davis's was the suggestion of making national poems and ballads a prominent feature of the journal--the feature by which it became best known and did, perhaps, its most impressive, if not its most valuable, work. His "Lament for Owen Roe," which appeared in the sixth number, worked in Ireland like an electric shock, and woke a sleeping faculty to life and action. Henceforth Davis's public life was bound up with the _Nation_.

Into this channel he threw all his powers. What kind of influence he exerted from that post of vantage the pages of this book will tell.

Davis was naturally a member of O'Connell's Repeal a.s.sociation, but took no prominent part in its proceedings, except on one momentous occasion on which we must dwell for a while. The debate was on the subject of Peel's Bill for the establishment of a large scheme of non-sectarian education in Ireland. Of this measure Sir Charles Duffy writes:--

"A majority of the Catholic Bishops approved of the general design, objecting to certain details. All the barristers and country gentlemen in the a.s.sociation, and the middle cla.s.s generally, supported it. To Davis it was like the unhoped-for realization of a dream. To educate the young men of the middle cla.s.s and of both races, and to educate them together, that prejudice and bigotry might be killed in the bud, was one of the projects nearest his heart. It would strengthen the soul of Ireland with knowledge, he said, and knit the creeds in liberal and trusting friendship."[3]

But O'Connell, though he had previously favoured the principle of mixed education, now saw a chance of flinging down a challenge to the "Young Irelanders" from a vantage-ground of immense tactical value. He threw his whole weight against the proposal, taunted and interrupted its supporters, and seemed determined at any cost to wreck the measure on which such high hopes had been set. The emotion which Davis felt, and which caused him to burst into tears in the midst of the debate, seemed to some of his friends at the time over-strained. But he was not the first strong man from whom public calamities have drawn tears; and a.s.suredly if ever there were cause for tears, Davis had reason to shed them then. More, perhaps, than any man present, he realised the fateful nature of the decision which was being made. He knew that one of the governing facts about Irish public life is the existence in the country of two races who remain life-long strangers to each other. Catholic and Protestant present to each other a familiar front, but behind the surface of each is a dark background which in later life, when a.s.sociations, and often prejudices, have been formed, the other can rarely penetrate and rarely wishes to do so. It was Davis's belief that if the young people of Ireland were to be permanently segregated from childhood to manhood in different schools, different universities, where early friendships, the most intimate and familiar of any, could never be made, and ideas never interchanged except through public controversy, the barrier between the two Irish races would be infinitely difficult to break down, and no scheme of Irish government could be conceived which would not seem like a triumph to one of them and bondage to the other. The views of the Young Irelanders did not prevail, and Ireland as a nation has paid the penalty for two generations, and will probably pay it for many a day to come. It may, of course, be argued that religious interests are paramount, and that these are incompatible with a scheme of mixed education. This is not the place to debate such a question, nor can anyone quarrel with a decision arrived at on such grounds. But let it be arrived at with a clear understanding of the certain consequences, and let it be admitted that when Davis saw the wreck of the scheme for united education he felt truly that a long and perhaps, for many generations, irretrievable step was being taken away from the road to nationhood.

But after this despondent reflection, let us cheer ourselves by setting the proud and moving words with which Duffy concludes his account of the transactions in the _Life of Davis_:--

"I have not tacked to any transaction in this narrative the moral which it suggests; the thoughtful reader prefers to draw his own conclusions. But for once I ask those to whom this book is dedicated to note the conduct of Catholic young men in a mortal contest. The hereditary leader of the people, sure to be backed by the whole force of the unreflecting ma.s.ses, and supported on this occasion by the bulk of the national clergy--a man of genius, an historic man wielding an authority made august by a life's services, a solemn moral authority with which it is ridiculous to compare the purely political influence of anyone who has succeeded him as a tribune of the people--was against Thomas Davis, and able, no one doubted, to overwhelm him and his sympathisers in political ruin. A public career might be closed for all of us; our journal might be extinguished; we were already denounced as intriguers and infidels; it was quite certain that, by-and-by, we would be described as hirelings of the Castle. But Davis was right; and of all his a.s.sociates, not one man flinched from his side--not one man. A crisis bringing character to a sharper test has never arisen in our history, nor can ever arise; and the conduct of these men, it seems to me, is some guarantee how their successors would act in any similar emergency."

The year 1845 was loaded with disaster for Ireland. It saw the defeat of the Education scheme; it saw the advancing shadow of the awful calamity in which the Repeal movement, the Young Irelanders, and everything of hope and promise that lived and moved in Ireland were to perish--and it saw the death of Thomas Davis.

He had had an attack of scarlet fever, from which he seemed to be recovering, but a relapse took place--owing, perhaps, to incautious exposure before his strength had returned--and, in the early dawn of September 15th, he pa.s.sed away in his mother's house. The years of his life were thirty-one; his public life had lasted but for three. His funeral was marked by an extraordinary outburst of grief and affection, which was shared by men of all creeds, all cla.s.ses, all political camps in Ireland.

No mourning, indeed, could be too deep for the withdrawal at such a moment of such a leader from the task to which he had consecrated his life. That task was far more than the winning of political independence for his country. Davis united in himself, in a degree which has never been known before or since, the spirit of two great originators in Irish history--the spirit of Swift and the spirit of Berkeley--of Swift, the champion of his country against foreign oppression; of Berkeley, who bade her turn her thoughts inward, who summoned her to cultivate the faculties and use the liberties she already possessed for the development of her resources and the strengthening of her national character. Davis's best and most original work was educative rather than aggressive. He often wrote, as Duffy says, "in a tone of strict and haughty discipline designed to make the people fit to use and fit to enjoy liberty." No one recognised more fully than he the regenerative value of political forms, but his ideal was never that of a millennium to be won by Act of Parliament--he was ever on the watch for some opportunity to remind his countrymen of the indispensable need of self-discipline and self-reliance, of toil, of veracity, of justice and fairness towards opponents. No one ever said sharper and sterner things to the Irish people--witness his articles on "Scolding Mobs," on "Moral Force," and on the attack upon one of the jurors who had convicted O'Connell at the State Trial.[4] But Davis could utter hard things without wounding, for, when all is said, the dominant temper of the man was love. That, and that alone, was at the very centre of his being, and by that influence everything that came from him was irradiated and warmed. He had, as an Irish patriot, unwavering faith, unquenchable hope; he had also, and above all, the charity which gave to every other faculty and attainment the supreme, the most enduring grace.

T. W. ROLLESTON.

--------------------------------------------------------------- [1] This work, with the inclusion of the full text of the more important of the Acts of the Parliament of James II., and with an Introduction by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, was reprinted from the _Dublin Monthly Magazine_ of 1843 by Mr. Fisher Unwin in 1891 as the first volume of the 'New Irish Library.' It is now out of print.

[2] Mr. Mongan's School on Lower Mount Street.

[3] "Life of Davis," p. 286.

[4] "Life of Davis," pp. 218, 219.

I. The Irish Parliament of James II.

PREFACE.

This enquiry is designed to rescue eminent men and worthy acts from calumnies which were founded on the ignorance and falsehoods of the Old Whigs, who never felt secure until they had destroyed the character as well as the liberty of Ireland.

Irish oppression never could rely on mere physical force for any length of time. Our enormous military resources, and the large proportion of "fighting men," or men who love fighting, among our people, prohibit it. It was ever necessary to divide us by circulating extravagant stories of our crimes and our disasters, in order to poison the wells of brotherly love and patriotism in our hearts, that so many of us might range ourselves under the banner of our oppressor.

Calumny lives chiefly on the past and future; it corrupts history and croaks dark prophecies. Never, from TYRCONNELL'S rally down to O'CONNELL'S revival of the Emanc.i.p.ation struggle--never, from the summons of the Dungannon Convention to the Corporation Debate on Repeal, has a single bold course been proposed for Ireland, that folly, disorder, and disgrace has not been foreboded. Never has any great deed been done here that the alien Government did not, as soon as the facts became historical, endeavour to blacken the honour of the statesmen, the wisdom of the legislators, or the valour of the soldiers who achieved it.

One of the favourite texts of these apostles of misrule was the Irish Government in King JAMES'S time. "There's a specimen," they said, "of what an Irish Government would be--unruly, rash, rapacious, and b.l.o.o.d.y." But the King, Lords, and Commons of 1689, when looked at honestly, present a sight to make us proud and hopeful for Ireland.

Attached as they were to their King, their first act was for Ireland.

They declared that the English Parliament had not, and never had, any right to legislate for Ireland, and that none, save the King and Parliament of Ireland, could make laws to bind Ireland.

In 1698, just nine years after, while the acts of this great Senate were fresh, Molyneux published his _case of Ireland_, that case which Swift argued, and Lucas urged, and Flood and Grattan, at the head of 70,000 Volunteers, carried, and England ratified against her will.

Thus, then, the idea of 1782 is to be found full grown in 1689. The pedigree of our freedom is a century older than we thought, and Ireland has another Parliament to be proud of.

That Parliament, too, established religious equality. It antic.i.p.ated more than 1782. The voluntary system had no supporters then, and that patriot Senate did the next best thing: they left the t.i.thes of the Protestant People to the Protestant Minister, and of the Catholic People to the Catholic Priest. Pensions not exceeding 200 a year were given to the Catholic Bishops. And no Protestant Prelates were deprived of stipend or honour--they held their incomes, and they sat in the Parliament. They enforced perfect liberty of conscience; nor is there an Act of theirs which could inform one ignorant of Irish faction to what creed the majority belonged. Thus for its moderation and charity this Parliament is an honour and an example to the country.

While on the one hand they restored the estates plundered by the Cromwellians thirty-six years before, and gave compensation to all innocent persons--while they strained every nerve to exclude the English from our trade, and to secure it to the Irish--while they introduced the Statute of Frauds, and many other sound laws, and thus showed their zeal for the peaceful and permanent welfare of the People, they were not unfit to grapple with the great military crisis. They voted large supplies; they endeavoured to make a war-navy; the leading members allowed nothing but their Parliamentary duties to interfere with their recruiting, arming, and training of troops. They were no timorous pedants, who shook and made homilies when sabres flashed and cannon roared. Our greatest soldiers, M'Carthy and Tyrconnell, and, indeed, most of the Colonels of the Irish regiments, sat in Lords or Commons;--not that the Crown brought in stipendiary soldiers, but that the Senate were fearless patriots, who were ready to fight as well as to plan for Ireland. Theirs was no qualified preference for freedom if it were lightly won--they did not prefer 'Bondage with ease to strenuous liberty.'

Let us then add 1689 to our memory; and when a Pantheon or Valhalla is piled up to commemorate the names and guard the effigies of the great and good, the bright and burning genius, the haughty and faithful hearts, and the victorious hands of Ireland, let not the men of that time--that time of glory and misfortune--that time of which Limerick's two sieges typify the clear and dark sides--defiance and defeat of the Saxon in one, trust in the Saxon and ruin on the other--let not the legislators or soldiers of that great epoch be forgotten.

Thomas Davis.

July, 1843.

CHAPTER I.

A RETROSPECT.

How far the Parliament which sat in Dublin in 1689 was right or wrong has been much disputed. As the history of it becomes more accurately and generally known, the grounds of this dispute will be cleared.

Nor is it of trifling interest to determine whether a Parliament, which not only exercised great influence at the time, but furnished the enactors of the Penal Laws with excuses, and the achievers of the Revolution of 1782 with principles and a precedent, was the good or evil thing it has been called.

The writers commonly quoted against it are, Archbishop King, Harris, Leland; those in its favour, Leslie, Curry, Plowden, and Jones.[5] Of all these writers, King and Lesley are alone original authorities.

Harris copies King, and Leland copies Harris, and Plowden, Curry, and Jones rely chiefly on Lesley. Neither Harris, Leland, nor Curry adds anything to our knowledge of the time. King (notwithstanding, as we shall show hereafter, his disregard of truth) is valuable as a contemporary of high rank; Lesley, also a contemporary, and of unblemished character, is still more valuable. Plowden is a fair and sagacious commentator; Jones, a subtle and suggestive critic on those times.

If, in addition, the reader will consult such authorities as the Letters of Lord Lieutenant Tyrconnell;[6] the Memoirs[7] of James the Second by himself; _Histoire de la Revolution par Mazure_;[8] and the pamphlets quoted in this publication, and the notes to it, he will be in a fair way towards mastering this difficult question.

After all, that Parliament must be judged by its own conduct. If its acts were unjust, bigoted, and rash, no excuse can save it from condemnation. If, on the other hand, it acted with firmness and loyalty towards its king--if it did much to secure the rights, the prosperity, and the honour of the nation--if, in a country where property had been turned upside down a few years before, it strove to do justice to the many, with the least possible injury to the few--if, in a country torn with religious quarrels, it endeavoured to secure liberty of conscience without alienating the ultra zealous--and, finally, if in a country in imminent danger from a powerful invader and numerous traitors, it was more intent on raising resources and checking treason than would become a parliament sitting in peace and safety, let us, while confessing its fallibility, attend to its difficulties, and do honour to its vigour and intelligence.

Before we mention the composition of the Parliament, it will be right to run over some of the chief dates and facts which brought about the state of things that led to its being summoned. Most Irishmen (ourselves among the number) are only beginners at Irish history, and cannot too often repeat the elements: still the beginning has been made. It is no pedantry which leads one to the English invasion for the tap-root of the transactions of the seventeenth century.

Four hundred years of rapacious war and wild resistance had made each believe all things ill of the other; and when England changed her creed in the sixteenth century it became certain that Ireland would adhere to hers at all risks. Accordingly, the reigns of the latter, and especially of the last of the Tudors, witnessed unceasing war, in which an appet.i.te for conquest was inflamed by bigotry on the English side, while the native, who had been left unaided to defend his home, was now stimulated by foreign counsels, as well as by his own feelings, to guard his altar and his conscience too.

James the First found Ireland half conquered by the sword; he completed the work by treachery, and the fee of five-sixths of Ulster rewarded the "energy" of the British. The proceedings of Strafford added large districts in the other provinces to the English possessions. Still, in all these cases, as in the Munster settlement under Elizabeth, the bulk of the population remained on the soil. To leave the land was to die.