ders caught the national
contagion, and became, as the phrase went, _ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores_.

[Sidenote: The outward circumstances of the chiefs.]

[Sidenote: Inability of the English princes to maintain a standing
army.]

[Sidenote: Spasmodic character of their administration.]

The explanation of this disastrous phenomenon lay partly in the
circumstances in which they were placed, partly in the inherent
tendencies of human nature itself. The Norman nobles entered Ireland as
independent adventurers, who, each for himself, carved out his fortune
with his sword; and, unsupported as they were from home, or supported
only at precarious intervals, divided from one another by large tracts
of country, and surrounded by Irish dependents, it was doubtless more
convenient for them to govern by humouring the habits and traditions to
which their vassals would most readily submit. The English government,
occupied with Scotland and France, had no leisure to maintain a powerful
central authority; and a central disciplinarian rule enforced by the
sword was contrary to the genius of the age. Under the feudal system,
the kings governed only by the consent and with the support of the
nobility; and the maintenance at Dublin of a standing military force
would have been regarded with extreme suspicion in England, as well as
in Ireland. Hence the affairs of both countries were, for the most
part, administered under the same forms, forms which were as ill suited
to the waywardness of the Celt, as they met exactly the stronger nature
of the Saxon. At intervals, when the government was exasperated by
unusual outrages, some prince of the blood was sent across as viceroy;
and half a century of acquiescence in disorder would be followed by a
spasmodic severity, which irritated without subduing, and forfeited
affection, while it failed to terrify. At all other times, Ireland was
governed by the Norman Irish, and these, as the years went on, were
tempted by their convenience to strengthen themselves by Irish
alliances, to identify their interests with those of the native chiefs,
in order to conciliate their support; to prefer the position of wild and
independent sovereigns, resting on the attachment of a people whose
affections they had gained by learning to resemble them, to that of
military lords over a hostile population, the representatives of a
distant authority, on which they could not rely.

[Sidenote: Peculiar feature of the Irish