Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen, From the Earliest Times to the Present Period, Arranged in Chronological Order, and Embodying a History of Ireland in the Lives of Irishmen, Vol. 4
So far as the character of our own labours is concerned, we may unhesitatingly affirm, that, however, to the more intelligent discern ment of critical estimation, we may be found deficient in many of the endowments, acquired or natural, which our present employment may require, we have been scrupulously and anxiously true to the principle of impartial truth. We are far from setting up the absurd claim to be held exempt from the charge of error; but we may boldly insist on being allowed to have preserved the utmost indifference to the requisitions of party feeling on either side. The great and prominent parties into which Ireland has been for many ages unhappily divided, we have viewed, and shall continue to View, as men having by nature the same merits and demerits, placed in different situations and circum stances, and in each, acting with that mixture of crime and virtue, wisdom and folly, knowledge and ignorance, which belongs to the human character. Whatever may be their creed, or nation, or party, the mass of mankind is swayed by impulses and motives of no very high order. And, in accordance with this fact, we think it quite absurd for any party of the present day to insist upon the immaculate virtue of its political ancestry. The practical machinery of states always has been, and will be liable to be worked (in detail at least) by officials of no very extended views of public good, and chie?y actuated by the selfish impulses which are mostly uppermost in the mind of man. For this reason it is, that in troubled and barbarous eras, what ever may be the essential character of the ruling party, there must be a large mixture of injustice, crime, and malversation, found in the sinks and under-channels of official agency. The partisan of either side will always find ample matter for complaint and recrimination without departing from truth, further than 18 involved in one-sided statements.
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