There are many persons, who certainly have no prejudices against the Irish people, many true and loyal Irishmen even, who strongly object to the prominence given to the sorrows and sufferings of Ireland. They would have us forget the past and turn, with a countenance fresh and hopeful as that of youth, to the future. Sydney Smith, full of English prepossessions but an honest lover of liberty, who labored as earnestly and fearlessly as any man of his generation in behalf of the wronged and defenceless, could not restrain his impatience when he thought of the fondness with which Irishmen cling to old memories and sacred associations. In his opinion the object of all government is roast mutton, potatoes, claret, a stout constable, an honest justice, a clear highway, and a free chapel. “What trash,” he exclaimed, “to be bawling in the streets about the Green Isle, the Isle of the Ocean, the bold anthem of _Erin go bragh_! A far better anthem would be, Erin go bread and cheese, Erin go cabins that will keep out the rain, Erin go pantaloons without holes in them.” This may be very well, but we are persuaded that there is not an abuse or an evil in Ireland to-day which has not its roots in the remote past, or which can be understood or remedied without a knowledge of Irish history. The bold anthem of _Erin go bragh_, which so provoked Sidney Smith, is the thread that leads us through the labyrinth. It is because the Irish are not English that England is neither able nor willing to treat them justly; and if she has rendered herself guilty of the greatest social crime in all history, it is because she has clung for centuries with terrible obstinacy to a policy which left the people of Ireland no alternative between denationalization and extermination. When in England the national spirit dominated and absorbed the religious spirit, the Irish, who had so long maintained their separate nationality, adhered with invincible firmness to the old faith. This was imputed to them as a crime, and became the pretext for still more grievous persecutions. If they were resolved to be Irish and Catholic, England was not less resolved that they should be outlaws and beggars. They were to have no bread or potatoes, or cabins that would keep out the rain, so long as they persisted in singing the bold anthem and acknowledging the supremacy of the pope. The history of Ireland is in great part the history of her wrongs; for a long time to come, doubtless, it will be a history of suffering; and if those who write of her find that they are placing before their readers pictures of death, exile, persecution, beggary, famine, desolation, violence, oppression, and of every form of human misery, they are but describing the state to which her conquerors have reduced her.