British views on Irish national character, 1800–1846. an intellectual history1
1997; Routledge; Volume: 23; Issue: 5-6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s0191-6599(98)00002-3
ISSN1873-541X
Autores Tópico(s)Irish and British Studies
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes NOTES 1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a seminar at the University of Sussex on 8 May 1997. I wish to thank all those present, and particularly Brian Young, Richard Whatmore, and Donald Winch, for many valuable comments. R. D. Collison Black, Geo§rey Lloyd, and Donald Winch provided useful criticisms of an earlier draft. I also thank Andrew Cresswell for polishing up my writing. Usual disclaimers apply. The essay is part of a broader project, aimed at assessing the role played by notions of national character in pre-1914 European social sciences. The project has been carried on in conjunction with the Leverhulme Historical Political Economy Programme at the Centre for History and Economics of King’s College, Cambridge. 2. Those who, following the footsteps of L. P. Curtis, Jr., Anglo-Saxon and Celts. A Study of Anti-Irish Prejudice in Victorian England (Bridgeport, CT: 1968), have asserted the continuity of anti-Irish feeling have been opposed, in various ways, by S. Gilley, ‘English Attitudes to the Irish in England, 1780–1900’, in C. Holmes (Ed.), Immigrants and Minorities in British Society (London: 1978); D. G. Paz, ‘Anti-Catholicism, Anti-Irish Stereotyping, and Anti-Celtic Racism in Mid-Victorian Working-Class Periodicals’, Albion, XVIII (1986), pp. 601–616; and R. F. Foster, Paddy and Mr Punch. Connections in Irish and English History (London: 1993), pp. 171–194. 3. The paper being a survey of British educated opinion, the self-representation of Irishmen has been largely excluded. Yet the anonymity of review articles might have inadvertently re-introduced Irish views occasionally. No unpublished material (such as letters and diaries) has been considered, for my interest lies in the public discourse on the Irish and not in capturing personal sentiments. 4. For a random sample, see R. Bell, A Description of the Condition and Manners as well as of the Moral and Political Character, Education, & c. of the Peasantry of Ireland […] (London: 1804), esp. pp. 13–25, 34–35 (this is a collection of articles of unusually high literary quality, detail, and penetration); [J. W. Croker], A Sketch of the State of Ireland, Past and Present (London: 1808), pp. 27–37 (this work went through some twenty editions, and was republished in 1884); S. Barlow, The History of Ireland, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (2 vols., London: 1814), II, pp. 419–430; G. L. Smyth, Ireland: Historical and Statistical (3 vols., London: 1844–1849), III, pp. 14–33. For a general comment, see the perceptive essay of D. Kiberd, ‘Irish Literature and Irish History’, in R. F. Foster (Ed.), The Oxford History of Ireland (Oxford: 1992), pp. 230–281. 5. See D. Berman, ‘David Hume on the 1641 Rebellion in Ireland’, Studies, LXV (1976), pp. 101–112. Voltaire's attitude is also revealing of eighteenth-century hostility to the ‘religious fanaticism’ of Irish rebels: see G. Gargett, ‘Voltaire and Irish History’, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, V (1990), pp. 117–141. 6. For a comprehensive account, see J. T. Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fïor-Ghael. Studies in the Idea of Irish Nationality, its Development and Literary Expression Prior to the Nineteenth Century (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: 1986), esp. Chap. 2. The ‘transformation of the stereotypical Irishman in the period following the Restoration from a half-human savage into a ridiculous and contemptible gimcrack Englishman’ has been documented by D. Hayton, ‘From Barbarian to Burlesque: English Images of the Irish c. 1660–1750’, Irish Economic and Social History, XV (1988), pp. 5–31. But some Irish qualities already figure in Tudor literature: see D. B. Quinn, The Elizabethan and the Irish (Ithaca, N.Y.: 1966), pp. 89–90, 150–151. 7. A. Young, A Tour in Ireland 1776–1779 (2 vols., Dublin: 1970). 8. I use the expression ‘Protestant Ascendancy’ to describe Irish Protestants, more especially Anglicans and landlords. See J. Hill, ‘The Meaning and Significance of “Protestant Ascendancy”, 1787–1840’, in Ireland after the Union (Oxford: 1989), pp. 1–22, and J. Kelly, ‘Eighteenth-Century Ascendancy: a Commentary’, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, V (1990), pp. 173–187. However convenient is the term, it nonetheless conceals significant differences in Ireland's ruling class: see J. Spence, ‘The Philosophy of Irish Toryism, 1833–1852’ (PhD thesis, University of London: 1991). 9. See G. I. T. Machin, The Catholic Question in English Politics 1820 to 1830 (Oxford: 1964). 10. R. Musgrave, Memoirs of the Different Rebellions in Ireland (3rd edn., 2 vols., Dublin: 1802), quotation from p. xiv. On Musgrave, see J. R. Hill, ‘Popery and Protestantism, Civil and Religious Liberty: the Disputed Lessons of Irish History 1690–1812’, Past and Present, XXXVI (1988), pp. 126–129. Many conservative accounts of the 1798 rebellion on both sides of the water hardly mention the Dissenters’ role; see for instance A. Alison, History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution (vols. 1–2, 1833; 6th edn., 10 vols., Edinburgh: 1844), III, pp. 692–706. 11. J. Millar, ‘Review of the Government of Ireland’, in An Historical View of the English Government (4th edn., 4 vols., London: 1812), IV, pp. 7–9, 49–52. The stadial view of Irish manners is traceable to Hume's History as well, but buried under gloomy depictions of Irish atrocities. 12. Jeffrey's review is in Edinburgh Review (henceforth ER), III (1803), pp. 154–181 (esp. 165–168); Mill's account of the Irish Question is in ER, XXI (1813), pp. 340–364. See J. Clive, Scotch Reviewers. The ‘Edinburgh Review’, 1802–1815 (London: 1957), pp. 177–179. I note in passing that, owing to the stadial environmentalist tenets applied to both cases, Irish character shows a basic similarity to Hindu character as depicted by Mill in History of British India. Mill's Hindus are passionate, imaginative, ‘sharp and quick of intellect’, but also indolent and passive: The History of British India (3 vols., London: 1817), I, pp. 312–315. According to Mill, national character essentially results from climate, government, and religion. Mill had already dealt with Irish affairs: see the ‘Preface by the translator’ and the ‘copious notes’ in C. Villers, An Essay on the Spirit and Influence of the Reformation of Luther […] Translated, and Illustrated with Copious Notes, by James Mill, Esq. (London: 1805). 13. See D. Hume, ‘Of National Characters’, in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (Indianapolis: 1987), pp. 197–215. Other texts by Hume stress the relevance of ‘sympathy’ in this regard. 14. J. Mackintosh, ‘Wakefield's Ireland’, ER, XX (1812), p. 352; and see II (1803), pp. 398–402 (Smith); VIII (1806), pp. 311–336 (Hallam); VIII (1806), pp. 116–124 (Macvey Napier); XI (1807), pp. 116–144 (Jeffrey); XXXIV (1820), pp. 320–338 (Smith); XLVI (1827), pp. 433–470 (Jeffrey). Smith in particular wrote regularly on Irish affairs: see P. Virgin, Sydney Smith (London: 1994). Bentham too subscribed to the Edinburgh Review interpretation: J. Bentham, Principles of the Civil Code, in id., Works, ed. J. Bowring (11 vols., Edinburgh: 1843), I, p. 317. 15. I am quoting from ‘On the State of Ireland’, in E. A. Wrigley and D. Souden (Eds), The Works of Thomas Robert Malthus (8 vols., London: 1986), IV, pp. 23–43, esp. 40–42 (originally in ER, XII (1808), pp. 336–355). Malthus also wrote a second article on Ireland, here on pp. 47–67. For Malthus and his critics on Ireland, see D. Winch, Riches and Poverty (Cambridge: 1996), pp. 341–344. For an evaluation from the point of view of economic history, see C. O’ Gráda, ‘Malthus and the Pre-Famine Economy’, in A. E. Murphy (Ed.), Economists and the Irish Economy from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day (Dublin: 1984), pp. 75–95, and esp.79–80. 16. See for instance J. R. MacCulloch, ‘Ireland’, ER, XXXVII (1822), pp. 60–109 and esp. pp. 95–96; N. Senior, ‘Ireland’, ER, LXXIX (1844), pp. 189–266 and esp. pp. 205–209 (on the genesis of this article, endorsed by all Whig leaders, see P. H. Gray, ‘British Politics and the Irish Land Question, 1843–1850’ (PhD thesis, University of Cambridge: 1992), pp. 61–65). The heated exchange between MacCulloch and Sadler on the size of Irish population is of little interest to us—the relevant texts are M. T. Sadler, Ireland;its Evils, and their Remedies (London: 1828), and J. R. MacCulloch, ‘Sadler on Ireland’, ER, XLIX (1829), pp. 300–317. 17. Senior, ‘Ireland’, pp. 196–209. For an assessment of the economists’ approach to Ireland, see the classic study by R. D. Collison Black, Economic Thought and the Irish Question (Cambridge: 1960). 18. The public subsidy of Catholic priests was advocated by many as a necessary precondition of any education scheme. 19. All the quotations are from S. Smith, ‘Ireland’, ER, XXXIV (1820), pp. 334–335. 20. J. R. MacCulloch, A Dictionary, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical (2 vols., London: 1841–1842), II, pp. 35–52 and esp. pp. 48–50. 21. N. W. Senior, ‘Relief of Irish Distress in 1847 and 1848’ (ER, 1849), in Journals, Conversations and Essays Relating to Ireland (2 vols., London: 1868), I, p. 230; see also in the same article pp. 212–216, 236. Senior bitterly observed that ‘we must allow the [Irish] people an amount of free action, which we know they will abuse, because worse evils even than that abuse will be produced if we restrain it’, and cited as examples the franchise, the liberty of the press, and the trial by jury (p. 215). Senior's familiarity with national character issues is evidenced by his ‘France, America, and Britain’ (ER, 1842), in Historical and Philosophical Essays (2 vols., London: 1865), I, pp. 1–139. 22. See the book by the London barrister, G. Cooper, who toured Ireland in 1799: Letters on the Irish Nation (London: 1800). See also J. C. Curwen, Observations on the State of Ireland (2 vols., London: 1818). Curwen was a Cumbrian businessman and MP. 23. See for instance Curwen, Observations, Passim (and I, pp. 171–172, on Irish women); Mr & Mrs S. C. Hall, Ireland: its Scenery, Character, & c. (3 vols., London: 1841–1843), esp. II, pp. 314–315, on Irish women (but consider that, while Mr Hall was English, Mrs Hall was Irish); [J. Grant], Impressions of Ireland and the Irish (2 vols., London: 1844), esp. II, pp. 183–185. 24. See for instance Hall, Ireland, esp. I, pp. 33–47; An English Traveller, A Visit to the Wild West, or, a Sketch of the Emerald Isle (London: 1843); Grant, Impressions. 25. The work rapidly gained a reputation for objectivity and knowledgeability. Edward Wakefield (1774–1854) was a farmer at Romford and later a land agent in London. His mother was the Quaker philanthrophist, traveller, and writer Priscilla; and one of Edward's sons was the Edward Gibbon Wakefield mentioned below. Edward was a long-standing friend of Mill and Place and was employed by Ricardo as his land agent. 26. E. Wakefield, An Account of Ireland, Statistical and Political (2 vols., London: 1812), I, pp. 262–263. 27. I discern three elements in his strategy. First, he does not identify Catholics exclus ively with peasants, as most authors implicitly or explicitly do. On the contrary, he stresses the existence, social relevance, and loyalty of other groups (the ‘gentlemen of landed property’ and the middle-class graziers). Second, Wakefield reverses the direction of influence between Catholic priests and their flocks: in contrast to Musgrave, the latter control the former. Third, Wakefield tends to speak of a compre hensive and truly ‘national’ Irish character, i.e. inclusive of all classes and faiths. Although he mentions the ‘character of industry and enterprise’ which marks the people of Ulster in sharp contrast with the rest of the country, he also extends the range of the usual stereotype. Typical negative characteristics like garrulousness, prodigality, ‘thoughtless habits’, violence, impetuosity, vanity, and a propensity to extremes—in short, a ‘want of restraint upon their passions’—are seen to be shared by Protestants and Catholics alike. Wakefield, An Account of Ireland, II, pp. 542–566 (the point on the dependence of the priests was taken up by many), 571, 794–797, 805–806. 28. G. A. A. Dealtry and J. T. Coleridge, ‘The Church in Ireland’, Quarterly Review (hereafter QR), XXXI (1825), p. 523. 29. See for instance QR, LXVI (1832), pp. 390–410; and LV, (1835), pp. 35–73. Moderate Tories often shared the environmentalist perspective: one of those was Sadler, Ireland, pp. 17–18. 30. I have been quoting from H. Townsend, ‘The Irishman, I’, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (hereafter BM), XIV (1823), pp. 544, 549. 31. Quotations from D. Robinson, ‘Ireland’, BM, XV (1824), p. 280; and id., ‘On What General Principles Ought Ireland to be Governed?’, BM, XXV (1829), p. 63. 32. Robinson, ‘Ireland’, pp. 272, 274, 276, 291. On the one hand, Robinson's criticism of the absentees went as far as advocating the confiscation of their land (see ‘On What General Principles Ought Ireland to be Governed?’, pp. 56–57); on the other, his antipathy towards the Irish populace surfaces in various contexts (see e.g. his ‘Notes on the United States of America’, BM, XXIV (1828), esp. pp. 626–627). 33. Basically, Blackwood's turned from politics to literature as its prevailing interest. After 1829, there appeared a notable article by the historian Alison: ‘Ireland’, XXXIII, pp. 66–87, 223–242, 338–357, 561–582, and XXXVI, pp. 747–767. Thomas De Quincey contributed a few articles about Irish parliamentary politics in the 1840s. 34. ‘Occisio, combustio, devastatio’: the whole history of Ireland is comprised in these three words, according to Southey: ‘The Roman Catholic Question in Ireland’, QR, XXXVIII (1828), pp. 535–598 (quotation from p. 543). Perhaps also ‘Ireland: its Evils and their Remedies’, QR, XXXVIII (1828), pp. 53–84, is by Southey. More moderate views on the Irish are expressed in id., The Life of Wesley (2 vols., 2nd ed., London: 1820), II, pp. 256–263. On Southey, see D. Eastwood, ‘Robert Southey and the Meanings of Patriotism’, Journal of British Studies, 31 (1992), pp. 265–287, and M. Storey, Robert Southey.A Life (Oxford: 1997). 35. I have been drawing from W. Sewell, ‘Romanism in Ireland’, QR, LXVII (1840), pp. 117–171, and esp. pp. 120–121; id., ‘Sketches of the Irish Peasantry’, QR, LXVIII (1841), pp. 336–376, and esp. pp. 350, 369–370, 340. Another article by Sewell in the QR is ‘Romish Priests in Ireland’, LXVII (1841), pp. 541–591. 36. As regards another important review, the radical Westminster, there is very little to report. The Irish Question seems to have held no special interest. I just mention the review's stern opposition to the introduction of a poor law to Ireland in the late 1820s and early 1830s. Instead, the British and Foreign Review was in favour of the measure, as various articles by the Irish MP Fitzstephen French in the 1837 issue demonstrate. 37. In a late specimen of historical environmentalism, Charles Greville wrote: it is impossible ‘to form a fair and impartial judgement upon Irish affairs… without knowing, and keeping studiously in view, the whole course of Irish history’; earlier events are in fact ‘linked with succeeding transactions in an unbroken chain of connection’. [C. C. F. Greville], Past and Present Policy of England Towards Ireland (London: 1845), p. 14. 38. See Lord J. Russell, The Government of Ireland. The Substance of a Speech Delivered in the House of Commons on Monday, April 15th, 1839 (London: 1839), esp. p. 16, where the theme of Irish character is tackled. On Russell and Ireland, see now D. A. Kerr, ‘A Nation of Beggars?’ Priests, People, Politics in Famine Ireland, 1846–1852 (Oxford: 1994). 39. I am referring to B. Hilton, The Age of Atonement. The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought (Oxford: 1988). 40. T. Chalmers, ‘Evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons on the Subject of a Poor Law for Ireland’ (1832), in id., Dr. Chalmers and the Poor Laws, G. Kerr and G. Chalmers Wood (Eds) (Edinburgh: 1911), pp. 63–235. For Chalmers’ view of the Irish, see T. Chalmers, The Doctrine of Christian Charity Applied to the Case of Religious Differences (Glasgow: 1818), pp. 40–42. 41. Hilton, The Age of Atonement; P. Mandler, ‘Tories and Paupers: Christian Political Economy and the Making of the New Poor Law’, Historical Journal, XXXIII (1990), pp. 81–103. See also A. M. C. Waterman, Revolution, Economics and Religion.Christian Political Economy, 1798–1833 (Cambridge: 1991). 42. N. W. Senior, A Letter to Lord Howick, on a Legal Provision for the Irish Poor (London: 1831). The 1833 commission, presided over by Richard Whately, opposed a poor law on the usual moral grounds but viewed the flaws in the Irish character as due to the lasting effects of the penal laws. ‘Third Report from His Majesty's Commissioners for Inquiring into the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland’, Parliamentary Papers, XXX (1836), pp. 7–8. 43. I have tangentially dealt with this topic in R. Romani, ‘The America of the Economists and the Smithian Legacy: English and French Political Economy Confronted by United States Growth, 1815–1860’, History of Economic Ideas, V (1997), pp. 47–85. 44. I am referring to the series of articles on colonization issues which Merivale published in the Edinburgh Review since 1839. On Merivale see D. Winch, Classical Political Economy and Colonies (London: 1965), p. 132. 45. E. G. Wakefield, A View of the Art of Colonization (London: 1849), pp. 84, 175. Travellers in the United States often sketched an unflattering image of Irish immi grants; see for instance F. Marryat, A Diary in America with Remarks on its Institutions (1839; New York: 1962), pp. 395–396. 46. T. De Quincey, The Logic of Political Economy (Edinburgh: 1844), p.146 footnote (but the whole comparison between the Swiss and the Irish, pp. 143–149, is interesting). Cf. D. Fitzpatrick, ‘“A Peculiar Tramping People”: the Irish in Britain, 1801–1870’, in W. E. Vaughan (Ed.), A New History of Ireland, V, Ireland Under the Union, I, 1801–1870 (Oxford: 1989), pp. 623–661. It is worth mentioning that G. Cornewall Lewis’ official Report on the State of the Irish Poor in Great Britain (London: 1836), depicted the immigrants as ‘the most efficient workmen’, p. 79. 47. This imprecision was fully recognized by the middle of the century: see C. Bolt, Victorian Attitudes to Race (London: 1971), pp. ix–x. 48. The distinction is put forward by M. Banton, Racial Theories (Cambridge: 1987), pp. 1–64. 49. See in particular J. MacCulloch, The Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland (4 vols., London: 1824), IV, pp. 250–298. Among his critics, I mention [J. Browne], A Critical Examination of Dr.MacCulloch's 0Work on the Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland (Edinburgh: 1825), and T. Price, An Essay on the Physiognomy and Physiology of the Present Inhabitants of Britain (London: 1829). Robert Knox's The Races of Men (1850) marked the end of a widely observed truce between Saxons and Celts. Cf. R. Horsman, ‘Origins of racial Anglo-Saxonism in Great Britain before 1850’, Journal of the History of Ideas, XXXVII (1976), pp. 387–410. G. Chalmers, Caledonia: or, a historical and topographical account of North Britain (1807–1826; 8 vols., Paisley: 1887–1902), vols. I and II. For a comment, see some scattered remarks in C. Kidd, Subverting Scotland's Past: Scottish Whig Historians and the Creation of an Anglo-British Identity, 1689–c.1830 (Cambridge: 1993), esp. chap. 11, and also T. P. Peardon, The Transition in English Historical Writing1760–1830 (New York: 1933). C. O’ Halloran, ‘Golden Ages and Barbarous Nations: Antiquarian Debate on the Celtic Past in Ireland and Scotland in the Eighteenth Century’ (PhD thesis, Univer sity of Cambridge: 1991), is a good introduction to the debate. 50. S. Turner, The History of England from the Norman Conquest, to the Accession of Edward the First (London: 1814), pp. 240, 242. 51. Price, An Essay on the Physiognomy and Physiology, p. 103. 52. The Scottish origin of the Ulstermen originated a character fit to business, argued Inglis, which has made all the difference between the North and the rest of Ireland; in those wealthier areas, Catholics too enjoy wellbeing thanks to higher wages and continuous employment: Henry D. Inglis, Ireland in1834 (2 vols., London: 1834), II, pp. 212–218, 251, 267, 324. Cf. Black, Economic Thought and the Irish Question, p. 157. 53. See, e.g., R. M. Martin, Ireland Before and After the Union with Great Britain (London: 1843), pp. 189–194, where the self-help precepts of the Bible were contrasted with the various ‘excuses for idleness’ offered by Catholicism. Martin wrote also Ireland, as it Was,—Is,— and Ought to Be (London: 1833). 54. T. C. Foster, Letters on the Condition of the People of Ireland (London: 1846). In 1836, Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal published a long article which praised Ireland and the Irish, depicted as ‘stout and willing labourers’ (‘A Few Days in Ireland’, V, issues 249–256). Ten months later, the same writer reported that talks with local landlords had convinced him that the Irishman's many faults, which the writer now emphasized, came from ‘something which lies deep in the constitution of the Celtic race’: ‘A Few More Days in Ireland’, VI (1837), issues 298–302. 55. R. Cobden, ‘England, Ireland, and America’ (1835), in The Political Writings (London: 1878), pp. 25–27. George Chalmers combined the economic inferiority of both Catholicism and Celtism in An Historical View of the Domestic Economy of G.Britain and Ireland (Edinburgh: 1812), pp. 402–404. Cobden's point on the economic superiority of Protestant countries was accepted by G. Cornewall Lewis, ‘The Irish Church Question’, The London Review, II (1835), pp. 252–254, but much softened in a later reprint: G. Cornewall Lewis, On Local Disturbances in Ireland (London: 1836), pp. 387–391. Incidentally, the first essay in this book (‘Irish Disturbances’, pp. 1–340) is a detailed account of Irish agricultural violence along social and political lines. For a penetrating survey of pre-Weberian explanations of Protes tant economic superiority, see J. Viner, Religious Thought and Economic Society (Durham, N.C.: 1978), pp. 159–189. 56. Cobden, ‘England’, p. 31. 57. E. Hoon Cawley (Ed.), The American Diaries of Richard Cobden (New York: 1969), p. 125. Cobden's European Diaries 1846–1849 (Aldershot: 1994), show the same anti-Catholic bias. For a recent treatment, see N. C. Edsall, Richard Cobden Independent Radical (Cambridge, MA: 1986). 58. Cobden, ‘England’, pp. 28–30. 59. Quoted in J. Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: 1920), p. 93. 60. G. Combe, The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects (1828; 8th ed., Edinburgh: 1847), pp. 193–196, 256; id., A System of Phrenology (1825; 4th ed., 2 vols., Edinburgh: 1836), II, pp. 726–767. See S. Shapin, ‘Phrenological Knowledge and the Social Structure of Early Nineteenth-Century Edinburgh’, Annals of Science, 32 (1975), pp. 219–243. 61. G. Lyon, ‘Essay on the Phrenological Causes of the Different Degrees of Liberty Enjoyed by Different Nations’, Phrenological Journal, II (1824–5), p. 607. 62. ‘Cursory Remarks on Ireland’, Phrenological Journal, II (1824–5), pp. 161–177. 63. Combe, A System of Phrenology, II, p. 731. Yet Irish indolence is due to long periods of unemployment, Combe argues on p. 767, footnote. 64. ‘Cursory Remarks’, pp. 176–177. 65. He taught at the University and King's College, Aberdeen. In 1819 he was translated to Tron Church, Glasgow. In his Elements of Moral Philosophy, and of Christian Ethics (2 vols., London: 1826), I, pp. 499–500, industry is marked out as the most important virtue. Dewar also co-authored A Dictionary of Gaelic Language (Glasgow: 1831). 66. The one-volume work is divided into two parts, each with separate page numeration: for what is referred to in the text, see D. Dewar, Observations on the Character, Customs, and Superstitions of the Irish (London: 1812), I, pp. 21–85. Dewar identifies the following causes of Irish debasement: continual civil wars, minimal exchange between the higher and the lower classes, the bad example of the English settlers and their open contempt, political and civil oppression, the exclusive moral influence of the Catholic priests, and the unrewardedness of industrious effort. 67. Yet another Scot discussed at length the Irish need for education: see C. Anderson, Memorial on Behalf of the Native Irish (London: 1815), and id., Historical Sketches of the Native Irish and their Descendants (1828; 2nd ed., Edinburgh: 1830). 68. Dewar, Observations, I, pp. 30, 138; 156–157; II, p. 67. 69. Dewar, Observations, II, pp. 66–145. 70. Dewar, Observations, II, pp. 8, 13, 15. Dewar's polemical target is the idea that Irishmen are unsuited to moral improvement, that is to civilization (see pp. 112, 121, etc.). 71. Dewar, Observations, II, p. 128. 72. A. Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767; Edinburgh: 1966), esp. bk. VI; id., Principles of Morals and Political Science (2 vols., Edinburgh: 1792), I, pp. 214, 302; II, pp. 413–419; E. Burke, ‘Speech on Moving His Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies, March 22, 1775’, in Works (12 vols., London: 1854–1869), I, pp. 450–512. See also id., ‘A Letter to John Farr and John Harris, Esqrs., Sheriffs of the City of Bristol, on the Affairs of America. 1777’, in id. Speeches on the American War (Boston: 1898), esp. pp. 204–208. For this aspect of Burke's thought, see C. P. Courtney, Montesquieu and Burke (Westport, CT: 1975), esp. pp. 94–99, 102–103. 73. For the criticism of the ‘man of system’ in Scotland, see the scattered remarks in Winch, Riches and Poverty, esp. chap. 4. 74. Besides Chevalier's Lettres, the relevant texts here are G. de Staël, Considérations sur la Révolution Française (1818; Paris: 1983); ‘Avant-propos’, Le Censeur Européen, I (1817), pp. i–viii, and [C. Comte], ‘Considérations sur l’état moral de la nation française, et sur les causes de l’instabilité de ses institutions’, ibid., pp. 1–92; J. Michelet, Introduction àl’histoire universelle (1831), in P. Viallaneix (Ed.), Oeuvres complètes de Michelet (21 vols., Paris: 1971–1982), II, pp. 227–297, and id., Histoire de France (vols. I–II, 1833), bks. i–iv, in ibid., IV; A. Thierry, Histoire de la conquête de l’Angleterre par les Normands (2nd ed., 4 vols., Paris: 1826); A. Blanqui, Cours d’économie industrielle 1836–1837 (3 vols., Paris-Versailles: 1837–1839), esp. vol. I. As regards J. de Maistre, his most telling work is Etude sur la souveraineté (Lyon-Paris: 1924), also known as De la souverainetédu peuple. This work was written in 1794–1796 but published as late as 1870. Bonald too might be included, for national character was for him the outcome of traditional institutions only—democracies do not create any national character—and acted in practice as an independent and crucial force: L. G. A. Bonald, Théorie du pouvoir politique et religieux dans la société civile (1796), in id., Oeuvres complètes (3 vols., Paris: 1864), I, cols. 122–953, esp. 287–288, 419–452. 75. For this interesting figure of chemist, phrenologist and journalist, see R. Cooter, The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science.Phrenology and the Organization of Consent in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge: 1984), pp. 57–59. 76. In Spencer's book, institutions are a reflection of the moral evolution of men as social beings, and ‘national character’ essentially refers to the stages of that evolution. In the case of Ireland, all classes and groups are seen to exhibit the same traits of violence, improvidence, and bigotry: see H. Spencer, Social Statics (London: 1868), p. 255. Bagehot's text is a shorter and much lighter one. It may be placed at least loosely in a Burkean tradition. See J. Burrow, ‘Sense and Circumstances: Bagehot and the Nature of Political Understanding’, in S. Collini, D. Winch, and J. Burrow, That Noble Science of Politics (Cambridge: 1983), pp. 163–181. 77. As regards the French scenario, I refer to R. Romani, ‘All Montesquieu's Sons: the Place of “esprit général”, “caractère national”, and “moeurs” in French Political Philosophy, 1748–1789’, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, forthcoming. As for my comment on contemporary British attitudes, the debate which followed the 001Upublication of John Brown's complaint of luxury and effeminacy in 1757 is particularly indicative. Among the critics of Brown's Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times, those who pointed to the habits of the lower classes as truly representative were C. L. St., The Real Character of the Age (London: 1757); O. Ruffhead in The Monthly Review, XVIII (April 1758), pp. 354–374 (from which the quotation is taken, p. 367); [R. Wallace], Characteristics of the Present Political State of Great Britain (2nd ed., London: 1758), pp. 174–175, 204–206; some other critics simply alluded to what appeared as a commonplace view. As regards the Irish, Arthur Young maintained that it was ‘among the common people’ that one had to look for ‘a national character’, for ‘the manners, habits, and customs of people of considerable fortune, are much the same everywhere’: Young, A Tour in Ireland, II, p. 146. 78. T. Carlyle, ‘Signs of the Times’, in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (7 vols., London: 1888), II, pp. 230–252, esp. pp. 239, 242–244. 79. T. Carlyle, ‘Chartism’, in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, VI, p. 126. 80. T. Carlyle, Reminiscences of My Irish Journey in1849 (London: 1882), p. v. For his visits to Ireland, see F. Kaplan, Thomas Carlyle. A Biography (Cambridge: 1983), pp. 334–347. A merciful reference to the Irish peasants is in The French Revolution (Oxford: 1989), p. 442. 81. T. Carlyle, The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (3 vols., London: 1904),
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