ful, and as rich as the sister kingdom. Though sincere friends to Catholic emancipation, we are no advocates for the Catholic religion. We should be very glad to see a general conversion to Protestantism among the Irish; but we do not think that violence, privations, and incapacities, are the proper methods of making proselytes.

Such, then, is Ireland, at this period,—a land more barbarous than the rest of Europe, because it has been worse treated and more cruelly oppressed. Many of the incapacities and privations to which the Catholics were exposed, have been removed by law; but, in such instances, they are still incapacitated and deprived by custom. Many cruel and oppressive laws are still enforced against them. A ninth part of the population engrosses all the honours of the country; the other nine pay a tenth of the product of the earth for the support of a religion in which they do not believe. There is little capital in the country. The great and rich men are called by business, or allured by pleasure, into England; their estates are given up to factors, and the utmost farthing of rent extorted from the poor, who, if they give up the land, cannot get employment in manufactures, or regular employment in husbandry. The common people use a sort of food so very cheap, that they can rear families, who cannot procure employment, and who have little more of the comforts of life than food. The Irish are light-minded-want of employment has made them idle-they are irritable and brave-have a keen remembrance of the past wrongs they have suffered, and the present wrongs they are suffering from England. The consequence of all this is, eternal riot and insurrection, a whole army of soldiers in time of profound peace, and general rebellion whenever England is busy with other enemies. or off her guard! And thus it will be while the same causes continue to operate, for ages to come,-and worse and worse as the rapidly increasing population of the Catholics becomes more and more numerous.

The remedies are, time and justice; and that justice consists in repealing all laws which make any distinction between the two religions; in placing over the government of Ireland, not the stupid, amiable, and insignificant noblemen who have too often been sent there, but men who feel deeply the wrongs of Ireland, and who have an ardent wish to heal them; who

will take care that Catholics, when eligible, shall be elected; who will share the patronage of Ireland proportionally among the two parties, and give to just and liberal laws the same vigour of execution which has hitherto been reserved only for decrees of tyranny, and the enactments of oppression. The injustice and hardship of supporting two churches must be put out of sight, if it cannot or ought not to be cured. The political economist, the moralist, and the satirist, must combine to teach moderation and superintendence to the great Irish proprietors. Public talk and clamour may do something for the poor Irish, as it did for the slaves in the West Indies. Ireland will become more quiet under such treatment, and then more rich, more comfortable, and more civilized; and the horrid spectacle of folly and tyranny, which it at present exhibits, may in time be removed from the eyes of Europe.

There are two eminent Irishmen now in the House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning, who will subscribe to the justness of every syllable we have said upon this subject; and who have it in their power, by making it the condition of their remaining in office, to liberate their native country, and raise it to its just rank among the nations of the earth. Yet the court buys them over, year after year, by the pomp and perquisites of office, and year after year they come into the House of Commons, feeling deeply, and describing powerfully, the injuries of five millions of their countrymen, and continue members of a government that inflicts those evils, under the pitiful delusion that it is not a cabinet question,-as if the scratchings and quarrellings of kings and queens could alone cement politicians together in indissoluble unity, while the fate and fortune of one-third of the empire might be complimented away from one minister to another, without the smallest breach in their cabinet alliance. Politicians, at least honest politicians, should be very flexible and accommodating in little things, very rigid and inflexible in great things. And is this not a great thing? Who has painted it in finer and more commanding eloquence than Mr. Canning? Who has taken a more sensible and statesmanlike view of our miserable and cruel policy, than Lord Castle

* Great merit is due to the Whigs for the patronage bestowed on Catholics.

VOL. I.-23

reagh? You would think, to hear them, that the same planet could not contain them and the oppressors of their country,― perhaps not the same solar system. Yet for money, claret, and patronage, they lend their countenance, assistance, and friendship, to the ministers who are the stern and inflexible enemies to the emancipation of Ireland!

Thank God that all is not profligacy and corruption in the history of that devoted people--and that the name of Irishman does not always carry with it the idea of the oppressor or the oppressed--the plunderer or the plundered--the tyrant or the slave. Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time. What Irishman does not feel proud that he has lived in the days of GRATTAN? who has not turned to him for comfort, from the false friends and open enemies of Ireland? who did not remember him in the days of its burnings and wastings and murders? No government ever dismayed him--the world could not bribe him-he thought only of Ireland-lived for no other object--dedicated to her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendour of his astonishing eloquence. He was so born, and so gifted, that poetry, forensic skill, elegant literature, and all the highest attainments of human genius, were within his reach; but he thought the noblest occupation of a man was to make other men happy and free; and in that straight line he went on for fifty years, without one side-look, without one yielding thought, without one motive in his heart which he might not have laid open to the view of God and man. He is gone!--but there is not a single day of his honest life of which every good Irishman would not be more proud, than of the whole political existence of his countrymén,--the annual deserters and betrayers of their native land

SPRING GUNS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1821.)

The Shooter's Guide. By J. B. Johnson. 12mo. Edwards and Knibb.

1819.

WHEN Lord Dacre (then Mr. Brand) brought into the House of Commons his bill for the amendment of the game laws, a system of greater mercy and humanity was in vain recommended to that popular branch of the legislature. The interests of humanity, and the interests of the lord of the manor, were not, however, opposed to each other; nor any attempt made to deny the superior importance of the last. No such bold or alarming topics were agitated; but it was contended that, if laws were less ferocious, there would be more partridges-if the lower orders of mankind were not torn from their families and banished to Botany Bay, hares and pheasants would be increased in number, or, at least, not diminished. It is not, however, till after long experience, that mankind ever think of recurring to humane expedients for effecting their objects. The rulers who ride the people never think of coaxing and patting till they have worn out the lashes of their whips, and broken the rowels of their spurs. The legisla tors of the trigger replied, that two laws had lately passed which would answer their purpose of preserving game: the one, an act for transporting men found with arms in their hands for the purposes of killing game in the night; the other, an act for rendering the buyers of the game equally guilty with the seller, and for involving both in the same penalty. Three seasons have elapsed since the last of these laws was passed; and we appeal to the experience of all the great towns in England, whether the difficulty of procuring game is in the slightest degree increased?-whether hares, partridges, and pheasants are not purchased with as much facility as before the passing this act?-whether the price of such unlawful commodities is even in the slightest degree increased? Let the Assize and Sessions' calendars bear witness, whether the law for transporting poachers has not had the most direct ten

dency to encourage brutal assaults and ferocious murders. There is hardly now a jail-delivery in which some gamekeeper has not murdered a poacher-or some poacher a gamekeeper. If the question concerned the payment of five pounds, a poacher would hardly risk his life rather than be taken; but when he is to go to Botany Bay for seven years, he summons together his brother poachers-they get brave from rum, numbers, and despair-and a bloody battle ensues.

Another method by which it is attempted to defeat the depredations of the poacher, is by setting spring guns to murder any person who comes within their reach; and it is to this last new feature in the supposed game laws, to which, on the present occasion, we intend principally to confine our notice.

We utterly disclaim all hostility to the game laws in general. Game ought to belong to those who feed it. All the landowners in England are fairly entitled to all the game in England. These laws are constructed upon a basis of substantial justice; but there is a great deal of absurdity and tyranny mingled with them, and a perpetual and vehement desire on the part of the country gentlemen to push the provisions of these laws up to the highest point of tyrannical severity.

Is it lawful to put to death by a spring gun, or any other machine, an unqualified person trespassing upon your woods or fields in pursuit of game, and who has received due notice of your intention, and of the risk to which he is exposed?' This, we think, is stating the question as fairly as can be stated. We purposely exclude gardens, orchards, and all contiguity to the dwelling-house. We exclude, also, all felonious intention on the part of the deceased. The object of his expedition shall be proved to be game; and the notice he received of his danger shall be allowed to be as complete as possible. It must also be part of the case, that the spring gun was placed there for the express purpose of defending the game, by killing or wounding the poacher, or spreading terror, or doing any thing that a reasonable man ought to know would happen from such a proceeding.

Suppose any gentleman were to give notice that all other persons must abstain from his manors; that he himself and his servants paraded the woods and fields with loaded pistols and blunderbusses, and would shoot any body who fired at a partridge; and suppose he were to keep his word, and shoot