Historique, pp. 15-207.

[10] "On ne saurait considérer attentivement l'Irlande, étudier son
histoire et ses révolutions, observer ses moeurs et analyser ses lois,
sans reconnaître que ses malheurs, auxquels ont concouru tant
d'accidents funestes, ont eu et ont encore de nos jours, pour cause
principale, une cause _première_, radicale, permanente; et qui domine
toutes les autres; cette cause, c'est une mauvaise _aristocratie_." 1 De
Beaumont, 'L'Irlande,' deuxième partie, p. 228. The only objection which
may be fairly taken to De Beaumont's language, though not to his
essential meaning, is, that the words he uses occasionally suggest the
idea that he attributes some special vice of nature, so to speak, to the
landed classes in Ireland, whilst there is, of course, no reason to
suppose that the original Norman invaders of Ireland were a whit worse
than the Normans they left behind them in England, or that the
Cromwellian settlers did not possess the virtues which distinguished
Puritan soldiers. What De Beaumont really means is that the aristocracy,
or landed gentry, have been from first to last placed in a false
position, which has led to their exhibiting the vices, with few of the
virtues, of aristocratic government.

[11] Compare 1 De Beaumont, 'L'Irlande Sociale,' &c., pp. 253-256.

[12] See Dicey, 'Law of the Constitution' (Second Edition), pp. 181-210;
and compare 1 De Beaumont, 'L'Irlande Sociale,' &c., pp. 253-299.

[13] Cromwell's reputation as a statesman suffers even more than that of
most great men from the indiscriminating eulogy of admirers. The merit
of his Irish policy was not his severity to Catholics, but his equity to
Protestants. If he did not acknowledge the equality of man, he at any