an harp being shattered, men wrote
an epitaph upon the wind. Experience has abundantly proved the folly of
such theories. Measured by mere chronology, a little more than seventy
years have passed since the Union, but famine and emigration have
compressed into these years the work of centuries. The character,
feelings, and conditions of the people have been profoundly altered. A
long course of remedial legislation has been carried, and during many
years the national party has been without a leader and without a
stimulus. Yet, so far from subsiding, disloyalty in Ireland is probably
as extensive, and is certainly as malignant, as at the death of
O'Connell, only in many respects the public opinion of the country has
palpably deteriorated. O'Connell taught an attachment to the connection,
a loyalty to the crown, a respect for the rights of property, a
consistency of Liberalism, which we look for in vain among his
successors; and that faith in moral force and constitutional agitation
which he made it one of his greatest objects to instil into the people
has almost vanished with the failure of his agitation."[27]

Few Irish Nationalists have drawn a weightier indictment against the
Union than this. After a trial of seventy years, Mr. Lecky sums up the
case against the Union in these pregnant sentences:--

"The Imperial Parliament allays no discontent, and attracts no
affection;" "The genuine national enthusiasm never flows in the channel
of imperial politics;" the people have "an utter scepticism about
constitutional means of realizing their ends," and are imbued with "a
blind, persistent hatred of England." Worse still, neither the material
progress of the country, nor the education of the people, has
reconciled them to the Imperial Parliament. Indeed, their disloyalty has
increased with their prosperity and enlightenment. This is the story
which Mr. Lecky has to tell. But why are the Irish disloyal? Mr. Lecky
shall answer the question.

"The causes of this deep-seated disaffection I have endeavoured in some
degree to investigate in the following essays. To the merely dramatic
historian the history of Ireland will probably appear less attractive
than that of most other countries, for it is somewhat deficient in great
characters and in splendid episodes; but to a philosophic student of
history it presents an interest of the very highest order. In no other
history can we trace more clearly the chain of causes and effects, th