[Illustration: Earl of Harrington] [Sidenote: The spirit of nationalism] The selection of Lord Harrington was received with great disfavour in Dublin, where the formation of a national or patriotic party was almost an accomplished fact. Harrington had the misfortune to be viceroy when Charles Lucas was beginning his great campaign against the corruption {153} that existed in official circles in Dublin. Lucas, doctor and enthusiast, was a remarkable man. He was the creator of the idea that Ireland was a nation, and not the happy hunting-ground of Englishmen in search of pensions for themselves and their mistresses. He attacked the Dublin Corporation and all official Ireland, and, of course, the bureaucracy roused itself and crushed him for a time. Harrington, the viceroy, took a leading part in the persecution of Lucas, and succeeded in driving him from the country. Lucas did not return until 1761, but his fearless exposure of corrupt officialdom had its full effects during Harrington's tenure of office. It did more than this, for it aroused the latent intelligence of the masses, who began to think for themselves. They saw the best paid positions in the country monopolized by Englishmen--in many cases the office-holders were illiterate--and they realized the monstrous injustice of the custom that permitted the farming out of remunerative situations under the Government. Parliament had to move in the matter, and for the first time in the history of Ireland and England the viceroy and his Council had to be careful, when making or selling fresh appointments, not to do it too openly. Once Harrington was mobbed in the streets of Dublin because he was supposed to be in favour of the abolition of the Irish Parliament--the latter consisting of a body of men bought body and soul by the English Government, though in some cases the price had not been paid. These raised a protest against the exportation of salaries to {154} England for the use of men whose deputies did the work for starvation wages in Dublin. The viceroy fought with all the tenacity of the fanatic for the retention of the privileges of his class. The new tone of the Irish Parliament amazed, but did not frighten him; he ascribed their rebellion to a desire to play to the gallery, but when he discovered to his cost that even the beggars and the blackguards of the city howled their execrations after him in the street, he became aware of the painful fact that the viceroy was no longer a law unto himself. Lord Chesterfield had described the Irish Parliament in very severe terms. 'The House of Lords is a hospital for incurables,' he wrote, 'but the Commons can hardly be described. Session after session presents one unvaried waste of provincial imbecility.' That this opinion was not the outcome of his English birth and training he proved by his impartial judgments on other classes of Irishmen.