victualler, and a backer of prize-fighters, such
as they were fifty or sixty years ago, is no fit
representation of our Anglo-Saxon stock. Who
invented this pictorial libel? Judging from the
costume, it must have arisen within the present
century; but why are we to be any longer
bound by it? Perhaps it was intended as a
compliment to our stolid king, George the
Third, who dressed in a similar fashion, was
proud, above all other things, of being "a
Buckinghamshire farmer," and was certainly
not remarkable for either profundity or
brilliancy of intellect. But if so, the compliment
having been paid, and the Royal George in his
grave some three-and-forty years, I see no
reason why we should not select a better figure
for future use. Graziers, butchers, and licensed
victuallers are very good and useful men; but I
conceive they do not stand quite high enough for
the national ideal. In this figure, which is to do
duty as the visible Genius of our land, shall there
not be something of the vast, intellectual out-look
of Shakespeare, of Bacon, of Milton, of Newton,
and of Locke? Something of the statesmanship
of Alfred, of Cromwell, of Chatham, of Pitt,
and of Fox? Something of the patient science
of Watt, of Arkwright, of Cort, and of the
Stephensons? Something of the tempered and
religious courage of Hampden and Russell; of
Blake, Nelson, and Wellington? Something of
the ordered energy which has peopled the
continents and islands of the out-lying seas, and
which holds the countless multitudes of India
in the hollow of its hand? If it be impossible
to concentrate so much in a single face and
figure—to express the history of a thousand
years in one individual type—let us do without
a representative man altogether, as we have
done without "a star," of which M. Ledru
Rollin, writing of our "decadence" in 1850,
found no evidence in our moral and political
firmament. But, at any rate, let us get rid of
John Bull, who has given so much occasion to
foreigners to denounce us as a coarse, heavy,
and soulless race.

Does not the conventional Irishman, moreover,
require a little revision? The Irishman of
novels, of the stage, and of caricatures, I take
to be something after this fashion: A plump,
fleshy, dapper man, with a comical, puzzled, and
yet knowing face, clad in a blue dress-coat with
metal buttons, small-clothes, and blue worsted
stockings; light of foot, light of purse, and light
of heart; with a shillelagh twirled between the
fingers, which dainty little instrument is never
used in upholding the cause of the Pope by
breaking people's heads in the manner
described in a previous article, but is simply
employed in the rescue of distressed females, or for
purposes of hilarious emphasis and cheerful
eccentricity; fond of dancing; fond of love-making;
fond of fighting (but only as a kindly vent for
animal spirits); given to exclaiming "H'roo!"
and beaming at all times with happiness, good
humour, and fun. Now, I mentally empannel a
jury of respectable householders, and I call on
them to declare, upon their corporate honour,
how many Irishmen of that description they have
met with in the region of fact? Did they ever
meet one? The most prominent characteristic
in the popular conception of Hibernians is their
amazing cheerfulness—their quenchless sunniness
of soul—their unconquerable vivacity.
That is the collective opinion— the orthodox
ideal— the accepted type on all public occasions.
But what, O Householder Number One, is your
private and individual opinion? Declare to
us, Juryman Number Two, the results of your
personal experience. For myself, I have never
known more than one cheerful Irishman, and
he was a seaman, and seamen are always cheerful;
besides, having a sort of marine nationality,
which obliterates minor characteristics, and
makes them all alike. If I were called on
to create a typical Irishman, I should paint
him of a gloomy and saturnine cast, prone
to shedding tears, and to lamenting his destiny.
Study those hodmen returning in the evening
from their work at the new street or crescent.
How far do they answer to the jaunty, pleasant,
gay, delightful fellow, with whom Power made
us familiar on the stage, and Lever in the world
of fiction? The Irishman in his gentler moods
is not badly imaged by his own favourite figure
of a dishevelled maiden weeping over a harp;
in his fiercer moments, the war god of the
Ojibbeways might stand very fitly for him. In no
respect can I recognise the lineaments or
manners of Momus. And, indeed, it would be a
wonderful thing if I could. Let us confess with
shame that for nearly seven centuries we ruled
that island with no regard for anything but our
own interests; that for nearly seven centuries it
lay in the blight of ever-recurring famine and
chronic under-feeding; that rags, disease, and
ignorance, an absentee landed proprietary, and a
nationality proscribed, were for years the traditions
of its history, and are in some respects even
now the characteristics of its present, and the
depressing shadows of its future. True, the
Lombard peasant could laugh and sing under the alien
rule of Austria, and the Neapolitan lazzarone
could dance the tarantella and shake the bells of
his tambourine beneath the savage tyranny of
the Bourbons; but they had the wine of the
Southern sunshine in their veins—the happy
intoxication of Southern beauty all about
them. How can you expect the poor Irishman
to be light-hearted in a hut which lets
the weather in, with a coat which does likewise,
with a stomach that is never satisfied, a
soil that is always boggy, and a sky that always
rains?

Have we not made equally egregious
mistakes with respect to the French? The general
conception of a Frenchman is still, I believe,
very much the same as it was in the days of
Hogarth. Mounseer, according to English
notions, is a little meagre man, with a face like a
monkey, and a language of considerable affinity
to the chattering of apes; a great boaster—
which it must be confessed he is sometimes,
though the characteristic is not peculiar to
him; and a great coward—which he certainly