Irishmen, are further impelled to sympathize strongly with their females, and to yield to the empire of analogous passions, by their metaphysically directed imagination.

All women, considered as such, are inclined to give their imagination that direction: that is, they are more solicitous to read the naked feelings of the heart of the person whom they observe, than to study them in the effect that they produce, when they express themselves by outward signs; though, proportionably to the distinction of imagination prevailing in their country, they, more or less, aid themselves in deciphering the language of those feelings, by fixing their attention on the varieties of the soul's expression, as it gleams through the external figure.

When, therefore, the imagination of a people universally flows towards metaphysical objects, it is easy to conceive that men and women should have the more inducement to a similar occupation of their thoughts, and that they should have greater facility in comprehending each other's manner of viewing all subjects, connected with the study of human nature. Subjects of this nature always did, and always will, principally attract the attention of women.

A metaphysically directed imagination naturally has a tendency to arrest the thoughts of its possessor on the observation of isolated, unconnected facts; for it disposes him to study the mental constitution of every person who passes in review before him, with as intense an interest, as if his ultimate aim in doing so, were, simply, to become acquainted with it.

However, men disdain allowing their thoughts to be immersed in detailed observations on the character of individuals. They seek to generalize their remarks on it, and to extract from them principles concerning the mental constitution of mankind, and the mode of dealing with them. In thus moving, from detailed observations on individuals, towards general maxims touching the nature of the government suited to mankind, the men of the various countries in which imagination is metaphysically disposed, probably stop finally at very different terms, leaving more or less behind them the point whence they originally started. Some may be more inclined to consider human nature abstractly, and to investigate the method of

preserving a great nation, by means of a good public government, in a flourishing state.

Others may like to study it more concretely in the persons of their neighbourhood, and to meditate on the civil or municipal laws by which their prosperity would be best secured.

The ambition of some may incline them, when they reflect on their relations with mankind, ardently to desire either that themselves in particular, or their country in general, may attain to a very triumphant pre-eminence over other individuals or countries. While others may be diverted, in consequence of the want of ambition, and on account of having a sociable temper, from forming any very enterprising desire to aggrandize either themselves or their country.

The mind of Irishmen-as I have already remarked in the second part,-proceeds, I believe, as little beyond the point, at which the character of each individual is the object most present to the thoughts, as that of any men whatever.--Though it be capacious, so as commonly to amuse itself by vast contemplations on the ways of great nations, yet does it settle, almost exclusively, with real interest, on matters concerning particular, familiarly known, societies. It thinks much more of a joyous life amidst a circle of acquaintance, than of ambitious views relatively either to public or private interests.

These distinctive features of the disposition of Irishmen, tend to render it singularly responsive to that of their females: the faults, in consequence, of the two sexes, present, in Ireland, a peculiar analogy. Both are tempted, by a metaphysically bent imagination, to apprehend what passes in a neighbour's mind, with a vivacity, a suspicious dread of its sentiments, and a desire arbitrarily to model them, which often kindle in them a fiery ill will. In both, imagination, not sufficiently occupied by studying the naked feelings of mankind, lies in a great measure idle, and is tempted into a wild unsettled, capricious mode of acting. By forming, in both, sometimes transitory, sometimes durable alliances with their ambition to shine in society, it seduces them into picturing to themselves the effect which they produce in it, when they ought merely to be occupied in giving to their genuine, art

less sentiments, a just expression, and it sometimes so grievously misleads them, as to cause them to triumph in the thought of the exhibition that they are making, when, perhaps, it is one which renders them ridiculous in the eyes of spectators.

CHAPTER II.

NO IMPORTANT AMELIORATIONS CAN BE EFFECTED IN THE CHARACTER OF IRISHMEN, UNLESS THAT OF IRISHWOMEN BE PROPORTIONALLY IMPROVED ALONG WITH IT.

The peculiar ease with which the Irish of either sex can justly appreciate, by sympathy, the feelings of the other, and the sociability of their temper, urgently demand that any attempt which may be made to form, respectably, the character of the men of the country, should refer to a plan, arranged for the purpose of producing, a proportionate improvement in that of the women.

Irishmen are furnished by nature with especial facilities for attaining to the perfection, humanly speaking, of their own character, while they seek to perfect that of their females.

Though imagination, in Irish men and women, endeavours, in the first instance, to cast a glance at the naked feelings of a neighbour's heart, yet, in so doing, she is naturally inclined to take in each a different posture, and to bestow attention on contrary ultimate views.

Irishwomen continue watchfully attentive to all that passes in the mind of the individual object of their attention, that they may get thoroughly acquainted with his, or rather her character. In the actual state of society, they think themselves much more entitled to scrutinize the mind of persons of their own sex than of the lordly one.*

Irishmen do not love to arrest their attention on the charac* Men are much more disposed by untaught nature than women, scientifically to examine the external appearance of the person whom they regard, and the mode in which it may serve for a vehicle to the expression of his mind, in order to attain to a knowledge of the laws of beauty or grace, as applicable to the human figure.

ter of an individual. They strive to extract, from their particular observations, general laws concerning what men ought to be.

Women,* by their close attention to remarks on individual character, are not naturally conducted to the discovery of those laws of order or morality, by which individuals in private life ought to be ruled. They must, no doubt, when they criticize their conduct, tacitly refer it to some standard of moral rectitude. Yet they have no unalterable standard of that kind, existing in their mind's eye. They merely make their censures relate to some indefinite, uncertain standard,—usually neither acknowledged by equity nor humanity, that their passions and prejudices furnish them with, just to serve a single occasion.

Their natural disposition does not so much impel them to try to discover, by observations on individuals, the principles of order by which mankind ought to be governed, as simply to acquire a knowledge of their own isolated character.

The plan, which Irishmen instinctively pursue, of seeking to elicit, from observations on the mind of individuals, the laws to which mankind are formed to submit, is a just one, provided it be fairly and sedately executed. But Irishmen are much too fiery, and too precipitate, in forming their opinions, sagaciously to act according to it. They undertake such a process, with a mind already prepossessed with the persuasion, that they are fully acquainted with the sentiments which the laws of justice and order require their countrymen to entertain; so that they consider themselves fully entitled to be the enemies of every one imbued with an opposite way of thinking.

In the mean while they are, far more than they are aware of, prone to let their wrath be kindled against the individual whom they suspect of viewing them with contempt or dislike. They can usually, however, conceal the part which their amour propre takes in determining them to regard a neighbour with complaisance, or with hostility; for they can find some pretext, suggested to them by the principles of which

* I mean ignorant ones, whose character has been little formed in the

society of men.

they proclaim themselves the champions, by which they can plausibly account for their resolution to behave to him as a friend or foe.

Irishmen, to soften and liberalize their sentiments towards one another, should habituate themselves, as do Irishwomen, to studying the character of the individuals of their acquaintance, in all those of their private relations that lie fairly open to their view; and under the system of things, which I now suppose to exist, many of those relations would invite the attention of friends and neighbours. I do not mean that such a study should prevent their acquiring, from instruction, a know ledge of the laws of their country: but I consider that they should obtain from it such a thorough sympathy with concrete human nature, as would lead them to perceive the feasibility of upholding the just reign of the laws, and yet allowing, to each person subject to them, a considerable latitude in the for mation of his public opinions.

Irishmen, when they consider the private character of an individual, are as remarkable for generously keeping in view every circumstance engaging them to judge him with liberality, as they are for their intolerance and violence, in condemning those who do not adopt their public code of opinions, Their dislike to censorious observations, or unbecoming euriosity, relatively to private character is such that, little attention as they, at present, bestow on the application of sound principles to discussions which regard it, they have taught, by sympathy with their feelings, most Irishwomen, much accustomed to the conversation of persons of the other sex, to exhibit a remarkable degree of kindness and rational enlargement of mind, in their comments on the conduct of a neighbour.

Were the state of things such as would draw the female Sex; and with it many of the relations of private life, much more under the eye of the public, Irishmen would take pleasure in discussing, in female society, many traits illustrative of the private character of individuals. They would do so with de licacy and dignity; for they would quickly learn to enact laws indicative of the bounds which, the sanctity of family retirement, the lapse of time, the freedom of action due to indivi