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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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aMe to ^ speak English , and are even under the necessity , to a certain extent , of speaking it daily . But to what does this extend , and what is its character ? It is often such as an Englishman can hardly understand ; and , after all , merely the language of barter or of business ; just so much as is necessary for maintaining an unavoidable intercourse with his employers or superiors . But •* is this English expressive of the thoughts , the opinions , the feelings of the man ? Not at all ; he has another medium , to which he
instantly flies ; and when his sentiments and feelings are to be heard , they may sound like a jargon in the ear of an Englishman , precisely as English sounds in his ear when so employed . These two men may plough in the same field , or drive the same machine ; they are brought into contact ; but as for interchange of sentiment and feeling , it is denied them . " The consequence i 3 , that in many districts of wide extent , the better educated , and what ought to be the influential classes , the gentry , the magistracy , the clergy , all other professional men , are separated by an insurmountable
barner from all effective or really beneficial communication with the great mass of the people . They may , perhaps , be able to drive an ordinary bargain , to transact their stated secular business , or even to maintain the daily intercourse of master and servant , in respect of such things as fall within the servant ' s stipulated employment ; but as to any thing deserving the name of conversation , any thing involving an appeal to passion or sentiment , any thing in the nature of advice , admonition , remonstrance , or persuasion , any thing affording scope for the exercise of a moral influence over the affections
and conduct , it must be immediately perceived that such an imperfect medium is altogether inadequate and unfit . It is scarcely necessary to add , that the number is still more limited of those to whom English is not vernacular , who are capable of understanding so as to profit by a set discourse or sermon addressed to them in that language . The consequence is , that this circumstance alone completely excludes the majority of the clergy from all spiritual intercourse with , or influence over , the bulk of their nominal parishioners .
What seems not a little remarkable is , that this anomalous situation of the Irish clergyman or gentleman has been very generally represented almost as a matter of indifference . " Dr . Woodward , the Bishop of Cloyne , after having stated that the difference of language is a very general ( and , where it obtains , an insurmountable ) obstacle to any intercourse with the people , adds very coolly in a note , ' If it be asked , why the clergy do not learn the Irish language , I answer , that it should be the object of government rather to take measures to bring it into entire disuse / Nay , though it is quite practicable to speak both English and
Irish with the utmost propr iety , the childish bugbear of an Irish accent was held over the head of any gentleman who should think of acquiring the Irish language . Even in Hardy ' s Life of Lord Charlemont , we find the following passage : * I have heard many gentlemen among us talk much of the great convenience to those who live in the country that they should speak Irish . It may possibly be so ; hut I think they should be such as never intend to visit England on pain of being ridiculous ; for I do not remember to have heard of any one man that spoke Irish , who had not the accent upon his tongue easily discernible to any English ear I * "
But for the proof exhibited in such passages as these , one would scarcely conceive it possible that any mind accustomed to reflection could be so inconsiderate , or so perverted by deeply-rooted prejudice , as to conceive it to be a matter of small importance whether those persons who are raised by
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Anderson * * Historical Sketches of the Native Irish . 251
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1831, page 251, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2596/page/35/
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