o have chosen the ecclesiastical state; from this now they are
completely barred.

Most fatal, most unjust policy! Had it been devised for the express
purpose of imbittering the feelings of the Irish Celt eternally against
the Saxon ruler, it could not have succeeded more effectually. The laws
of Draco were figuratively said to have been written in blood: how many
bloody deeds, at which men have stood aghast in horror and dismay, were
virtually enacted by the Statute of Kilkenny? The country-loving,
generous-hearted Celt, who heard it read for the first time, must have
been more or less than human, if he did not utter "curses, not loud, but
deep," against the framers of such inhuman decrees. If Englishmen
studied the history of Ireland carefully, and the character of the
Celtic race, they would be less surprised at Irish discontent and
disloyalty. An English writer on Irish history admits, that while "there
is no room to doubt the wisdom of the policy which sought to prevent the
English baron from sinking into the unenviable state of the persecuted
Irish chieftain, still less is there an apology to be offered for the
iniquity of the attempt to shut the great mass of the Irish people out
from the pale of law, civilization, and religion. The cruelty of
conquest never broached a principle more criminal, unsound, or
unsuccessful."[356] It is to be regretted that a more recent and really
liberal writer should have attempted this apology, which his own
countryman and namesake pronounced impossible. The author to whom we
allude grants "it sounds shocking that the killing of an Irishman by an
Englishman should have been no felony;" but he excuses it by stating,
"nothing more is implied than that the Irish were not under English
jurisdiction, but under the native or Brehon law."[357] Unfortunately
this assertion is purely gratuitous. It was made treason by this very
same statute even to submit to the Brehon law; and the writer himself
states that, in the reign of Edward I., "a large body of the Irish
petitioned for the English law, and offered 8,000 marks as a fee for
that favour."[358] He states that an Irishman who murdered an
Englishman, would only have been fined by his Brehon. True, no doubt;
but if an Englishman killed an Irishman, he escaped scot-free. If,
however, the Irishman was captured by the Englishman, he was executed
according to the English law. If a regulation had been made that the
Englishman should always be p