arrayed against class, the poor against the rich, the lower orders
against the higher. The opposition in Ireland between the oppressed
and the oppressor is of a very different character, is we shall see
later. But the fact is, that the clan system, with all its striking
defects, had at least this immense advantage, that the clansmen did
not look upon their chieftains as "lords and masters," but as men
of the same blood, true relations, and friends; neither did the
heads of the clans look on their men as villeins, serfs, or chattels,
but as companions-in-arms, foster-brothers, supporters, and allies.
Hence the opposition which exists in our days throughout Europe
between class and class, has never existed in Ireland. Let a son
of their old chiefs, if one can yet be found, go back to them,
even but for a few days, after centuries of estrangement, and
they are ready to welcome him yet, as a loyal nation would welcome
her long-absent king, as a family would receive a father it esteemed
lost. We knowing what manner a son of a French McMahon was lately
received among them.

All hostility is reserved for the foreigner, the invader, the
oppressor of centuries, because, in the opinion of the natives,
these have no real right to dwell on a soil they have impoverished,
and which they tried in vain to enslave. This, at least, is their
feeling. But the sons of the soil, whether rich or poor, high or
low, are all united in a holy brotherhood. This state of things
they have preserved by the exclusion of feudalism.

IV. The Irish were right in not accepting from Europe what is
known as the "revival of learning;" at least, as carried almost
to the excess of modern paganism by its first promoters.