Delayed for a time by the attack of Hardinge, many literary and private friends were gratified by his visit to Ireland the following year. He looked fondly to her improvement—to her advances, notwithstanding recent misbehaviour, to a higher grade of civilization in industry and commerce. Discontent and rebellion had been actively at work since he had last crossed the Channel, and left their usual fruits behind—the country and social organization at a standstill—latent and not always veiled hatreds between classes of society—a subdued but not quiet populace—and the probability, soon proved by the event, of these starting once more into active hostility.
Poor Ireland had not yet recovered her sanity. The maddest of all projects—that of casting of alliance with England to become if successful inevitably the slave of France and more especially of Rome—still lingered among her bolder but unwise spirits. The meteor of a republic gleamed in the horizon; the emblems of power danced before the deluded eye of men of ambition, who fancied themselves patriots without the elements of common capacity for such affairs; nor could they be convinced of inherent weakness and unfitness for self-government till rebellion proved it impossible. In one class, the mistake might be accounted for by the unquestionable supremacy which success must have given to the Roman Catholic body. But that Protestant gentlemen should be so blinded to the results—their own certain persecution and degradation—made them the laughing-stock of Europe—the greatest of simpletons, or the maddest of maniacs.
