d spaces of barbarism.
They forgot the lapse of time, and that time had since covered the graves
of the past with a living race, and was filling up the swamps of the
wilderness with the vigour and the passions of a new and glowing people.
They still governed on the guidance of the obsolete map, and continued to
administer a civilized nation with the only sceptre fit for barbarism--the
sword. By a similar misconception, while they declared the islands one
indivisible empire, they governed them on the principle of eternal
separation. No Irishman was ever called across the narrow strait between
the two countries, to take a share in the offices, or enjoy the honors of
England. Irish ambition, thwarted in its own country, might wander for
ever, like Virgil's unburied ghosts, on the banks of the Irish Channel,
without a hope of passing that political Styx. The sole connexion of the
islands was between Whitehall and the Castle--between power and
placemen--between cabinets and viceroys. It never descended to the level
of the nation. It was a slight and scarcely visible communication, a
galvanic wire, significant only at the extremities, instead of a public
language and human association--instead of a bond of heart with heart--an
amalgamation of people with people. Posterity will scarcely believe that
the neglect of unity should have so nearly approached to the study of
separation. Even the coin of the two countries was different in impress
and in value--the privileges of trade were different--the tenure of
property was different--the regulations of the customs (things which
penetrate through all ranks) were different--and a whole army of revenue
officers were embodied to carry on those commercial hostilities. The
shores of the "Sister Islands" presented to each other the view of rival
frontiers, and the passage of a fragment of Irish produce was as
impracticable as if it had been contraband of war.

It was Grattan who first broke down this barrier, and he thus rendered the
mighty service of doubling the strength of the empire; perhaps rendered
the still mightier service of averting its separation and its ruin. As the
nation had grown strong, it had grown sullen; its disgust was ripening
into wrath; and its sense of injury might speedily have sought its relief
in national revenge. And yet it is only justice to acknowledge that this
evil arose simply from negligence on the part of England; that there was
no design of tyranny, none