Every nation has its idiosyncrasy, proceeding from race, religion, laws, institutions, climate, and other circumstances; and this idiosyncrasy may be the key of its history.  In Ireland three or four nationalities are bound together in one body politic; and it is the conflict of their several idiosyncrasies which perplexes statesmen, and constitutes the main difficulty of the Irish problem.  The blood of different races is mingled, and no doubt greatly modified by ages of intercourse.  But religion is an abiding force.  The establishment of religious equality in Ireland is a glorious achievement, enough in itself to immortalise any statesman.  It is a far greater revolution than was effected by the Emancipation Act, and more to the credit of the chief actor; because, while Mr. Gladstone did spontaneously what he firmly believed to be right in principle.  Sir Robert Peel did, from necessity, what he as firmly believed was wrong in principle.  But no reasonable man expected that the disestablishment of the Church would settle all Irish questions; in fact, it but clears the way for the settlement of some of the most important and urgent.  It makes it possible for Irishmen of every creed to speak in one voice to the Government.  Their respective clergy, hitherto so intent on ecclesiastical claims and pretensions, will no longer pass by on the other side, but turn Samaritans to their bleeding country, fallen among the thieves of Bigotry and Faction.  There are many high Protestants—­indeed, I may say all, except the aristocracy—­who, while firmly believing in the vital importance of the union of the three kingdoms, earnestly wishing that union to be real and perpetual, cannot help expressing their conviction that Ireland has been greatly wronged by England—­wronged by the legislature, by the Government, and most of all by the crown.  In no country in the world has loyalty existed under greater difficulties, in none has it been so ill requited, in none has so much been done as if of set purpose to starve it to death.  In the reign of Elizabeth the capricious will of a despotic sovereign was exerted to crush the national religion, while the greatest military exploits of her ablest viceroys consisted of predatory excursions, in which they slaughtered or carried away the horses and cattle, burned the crops and houses, and laid the country waste and desolate, in order to create famines for the wholesale destruction of the population, thus spoiled and killed as a punishment for the treason of their chiefs, over whom they had no control.

In the reigns of James I. and Charles I. there was a disposition among the remnant of the people—­

    To fly from petty tyrants to the throne.