It will be recollected by most of our readers that
Mr. Thomas Carlyle was travelling in Ireland, lately, with Mr. Charles Gavan Duffy: we find the subjoined suggestion in the last number of the Nation; whose editor prefaces the contribution thus "A friend with a early, satirical face, flings in our way this banter upon 'Irish indolence.' Very well friend; we shame the Devil and print your libel. Fes et ab haste docerk If there be any seeds of truth in it, they will grow, when the chaff and wrappage only make manure for them."
The epithet " surly " somewhat throws us off the scent; for the countenance which is recalled to us by the writing, though deeply thoughtful and sometimes filled with a compassionate sternness, is never "surly." But the reader may judge of the authorship for himself; from the style. "Many Irishmen talk of dying, &c. for Ireland; and I really believe almost every Irishman now alive longs in his way for an opportunity to do the dear old country some good. Opportunities of at once usefully and conspicuously 'dying' for countries are not frequent, and, truly, the rarer they are the better; but the opportunity of usefully if unconspicuously living for one's country, this was never denied to any man. Before ' dying ' for your country, think, my friends, in how many quiet strenuous ways you might beneficially live for it. "Every patriotic Irishman (that is, by hypothesis, almost every Irishman now alive) who would so fain make the dear old country a present of his whole life and self; why does he not, for example-directly after reading this, and choosing a feasible spot-at least, plant one tree? That were a small act of self-devotion; small, but feasible. Him such tree will never shelter. Hardly any mortal but could manage that-hardly any mortal, if he were serious in it, but could plant and nourish into growth one tree. Eight million trees before the present generatipu„,
run out, that were an indubitable acquisition for Ireland: for it is one of the barest, raggedest countries now known; far too ragged a country, with petches of beautiful park and fine cultivation, like shreds of bright scarlet on a beggar's
clouted coat-a country that stands decidedly in need of shelter, shade, and orna mental fringing, look at its landscape where yen will. Once, as the old chroniclers write, a squirrel (by bending its course a little, and taking a longish leap here and there) could have ran from Cape Clear to the Giant's Causeway, witheut once touching the ground'; but now, eight million trees, and I rather conjectpre eight times eight million, would be very welcome in that part of the empire. Of fruit-trees, though these too are possible enough, I do not yet insist, but trees-rat least, trees. "That eight million persons will be persuaded to plant each his tree, we cannot expect just yet; but do thou, my friend, in silence go and plant thine-that thou canal do ; one most small duty, but a real one, if among the smallest conceivable,
and a duty which henceforth it will be a sweet possession for thee to have, dying, done. Ireland for the present is not to be accounted a pleasant landscape. Vigo rous corn, but thistles and docks equally vigorous; ulcers of reclaimable bog lying black, miry and abominable at intervals of a few miles; no tree sheding yen, nor fence that avails to turn cattle-most fences merely, as it were, soliciting.the cattle to be so good as not come through-by no means a beautiful conntry just now But, it tells all men how beautiful it might be. Alas, it carries on it, as the surface of this earth ever does ineffaceably legible, the physiognomy of the people that have inhabited it: a people of holed breeches, dirty faces, ill-roofed huts-a people of impetuosity and of levity-of vehemence, impatience, imperfect, fitful industry, imperfect, fitful veracity. Oh Heaven! there lies the wo of woes, which is the root of all.
"Trees of Liberty,' though an Abbe wrote a book on them, and incalculable trouble otherwise was taken, have not succeeded well in these age. Plant you
your eight million trees of shade, shelter, ornament, fruit: that is ikeymbol mach . more likely to be prophetic. Each man's tree of industry will lii, of a surety, Ms tree of liberty; and the sum of them, never doubt of it, will be Ireland's."
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