but I pledge myself not to teach my own. I you do not stir a single step; you educate pledge myself (and if I deceive you, desert me, alike the swineherd and his hog; and then, and give me up) to confine myself to those when a man of real genius and enterprise points of Christianity in which all Christians rises up, and says, Let me dedicate my life to agree. To which Mrs. Trimmer replies, that, this neglected object; I will do every thing but in the first place, he cannot do this; and, in that which must necessarily devolve upon you the next place, if he did do it, it would not be alone; you refuse to do your little, and compel enough. But why, we would ask, cannot Mr. | him, by the cry of infidel and Atheist, to leave Lancaster effect his first object? The prac- you to your ancient repose, and not to drive tical and the feeling parts of religion are much you, by insidious comparisons, to any system more likely to attract the attention and provoke of active utility. We deny, again and again, the questions of children than its speculative that Mr. Lancaster's instruction is any kind of doctrines. A child is not very likely to put impediment to the propagation of the docany questions at all to a catechising master, trines of the church; and if Mr. Lancaster and still less likely to lead him into subtle and was to perish with his system to-morrow, these profound disquisition. It appears to us not boys would positively be taught nothing; the only practicable, but very easy, to confine the doctrines which Mrs. Trimmer considers proreligious instruction of the poor, in the first hibited would not rush in, but there would be years of life, to those general feelings and an absolute vacuum. We will, however, say principles which are suitable to the estab- this in favour of Mrs. Trimmer, that if every lished church, and to every sect; afterwards, one who has joined in her clamour, had lathe discriminating tenets of each subdivision boured one-hundredth part as much as she has of Christians may be fixed upon this general done in the cause of national education, the basis. To say this is not enough, that a child clamour would be much more rational, and should be made an Antisocinian, or an Antipe- much more consistent, than it now is. By livlagian, in his tenderest years, may be very ing with a few people as active as herself, she just; but what prevents you from making him is perhaps somehow or another persuaded that so? Mr. Lancaster, purposely and intention- there is a national education going on in this ally, to allay all jealousy, leaves him in a state country. But our principal argument is, that as well adapted for one creed as another. Be- Mr. Lancaster's plan is at least better than the gin; make your pupil a firm advocate for the nothing which preceded it. The authoress peculiar doctrines of the English church; dig herself seems to be a lady of respectable opiround about him, on every side, a trench that nions, and very ordinary talents; defending shall guard him from every species of heresy. what is right without judgment, and believing In spite of all this clamour you do nothing; what is holy without charity. PARNELL AND IRELAND." [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1807.] I ever a nation exhibited symptoms of downright madness, or utter stupidity, we conceive these symptoms may be easily recognized in the conduct of this country upon the Catholic question. A man has a wound in his great toe, and a violent and perilous fever at the same time; and he refuses to take the medicines for the fever, because it will disconcert his toe! The mournful and folly-stricken blockhead forgets that his toe cannot survive him;-that if he dies, there can be no digital life apart from him; yet he lingers and fondles over this last part of his body, soothing it madly with little plasters, and anile fomentations, while the neglected fever rages in his Historical Apology for the Irish Catholics. By WILLIAM PARNELL, Esq. Fitzpatrick, Dublin, 1807. +I do not retract one syllable (or one iota) of what I have said or written upon the Catholic question. What was wanted for Ireland was emancipation, time and justice, abolition of present wrongs; time for forgetting past wrongs, and that continued and even justice which would make such oblivion wise. It is now only difficult to tranquillize Ireland, before emancipation it was impossible. As to the danger from Catholic doctrines, I must leave such apprehensions to the respectable anility of these realins. I will not meddle with it. | entrails, and burns away his whole life. If the comparatively little questions of Establishment are all that this country is capable of discussing or regarding, for God's sake let us remember, that the foreign conquest which destroys all, destroys this beloved toe also. Pass over freedom, industry, and science-and look upon this great empire, by which we are about to be swallowed up, only as it affects the manner of collecting tithes, and of reading the liturgy-still, if all goes, these must go too; and even, for their interests, it is worth while to conciliate Ireland, to avert the hostility, and to employ the strength of the Catholic population. We plead the question as the sincerest friends to the Establishment;-as wishing to it all the prosperity and duration its warmest advocates can desire,-but remembering always, what these advocates seem to forget, that the Establishment cannot be threatened by any danger so great as the perdition of the kingdom in which it is established. We are truly glad to agree so entirely with Mr. Parnell upon this great question; we admire his way of thinking; and most cordially recommend his work to the attention of the public. The general conclusion which he attempts to prove is this; that religious sentiment, however perverted to bigotry or fanaticism, has always a tendency to moderation; that it seldom assumes any great portion of activity or enthusiasm, except from novelty of opinion, or from opposition, contumely and persecution, when novelty ceases; that a government has little to fear from any religious sect, except while that sect is new. Give a government only time, and, provided it has the good sense to treat folly with forbearance, it must ultimately prevail. When, therefore, a sect is found, after a lapse of years, to be ill disposed to the government, we may be certain that government has widened its separation by marked distinctions, roused its resentment by contumely, or supported its enthusiasm by persecution. ceased was an Irishman, and that therefore defendant had a right to kill him;-and upon the proof of Hibernicism, acquittal followed of course. When the English army mustered in any great strength, the Irish chieftains would do exterior homage to the English Crown; and they very frequently, by this artifice, averted from their country the miseries of invasion: but they remained completely unsubdued, till the rebellion which took place in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, of which that politic woman availed herself to the complete subjugation of Ireland. In speaking of the Irish about the reign of Elizabeth, or James the First, we must not draw our comparisons from England, but from New Zealand; they were not civilized men, but savages; and if we reason about their conduct, we must reason of them as savages. "After reading every account of Irish history," (says Mr. Parnell,) "one great perplexity appears to remain: How does it happen, that, from the first invasion of the English, till the reign of James I., Ireland seems not to have made the smallest progress in civilization or The particular conclusion Mr. Parnell attempts to prove is, that the Catholic religion in Ireland had sunk into torpor and inactivity, till government roused it with the lash: that even then, from the respect and attachment, which men are always inclined to show to-wealth? wards government, there still remained a large body of loyal Catholics; that these only decreased in number from the rapid increase of persecution; and that, after all, the effects which the resentment of the Roman Catholics had in creating rebellions had been very much exaggerated. In support of these two conclusions, Mr. Parnell takes a survey of the history of Ireland from the conquest under Henry, to the rebellion under Charles the First, passing very rapidly over the period which preceded the Reformation, and dwelling principally upon the various rebellions which broke out in Ireland between the Reformation and the grand rebellion in the reign of Charles the First. The celebrated conquest of Ireland by Henry the Second, extended only to a very few counties in Leinster; nine-tenths of the whole kingdom were left, as he found them, under the dominion of their native princes. The influence of example was as strong in this, as in most other instances; and great numbers of the English settlers who came over under various adventurers, resigned their pretensions to superior civilization, cast off their lower garments, and lapsed into the nudity and barbarism of the Irish. The limit which divided the possessions of the English settler from those of the native Irish, was called the pale; and the expression of inhabitants within pale, and without the pale, were the terms by which the two nations were distinguished. It is almost superfluous to state, that the most bloody and pernicious warfare was carried on upon the borders--sometimes for something-sometimes for nothing-most commonly for cows. The Irish, over whom the sovereigns of England affected a sort of nominal dominion, were entirely governed by their own laws; and so very little connection had they with the justice of the invading country, that it was as lawful to kill an Irishman, as it was to kill a badger or a fox. The instances are innumerable, where the defendant has pleaded that the de "That it was divided into a number of small principalities, which waged constant war on each other; or that the appointment of the chieftains was elective; do not appear sufhcient reasons, although these are the only ones assigned by those who have been at the trouble of considering the subject: neither are the confiscations of property quite sufficient to account for the effect. There have been great confiscations in other countries, and still they have flourished: the petty states of Greece were quite analogous to the chiefries (as they were called) in Ireland; and yet they seemed to flourish almost in proportion to their dissensions. Poland felt the bad effects of an elective monarchy more than any other country; and yet, in point of civilization, it maintained a very respectable rank among the nations of Europe; but Ireland never, for an instant, made any progress in improvement till the reign of James I. "It is scarcely credible, that in a climate like that of Ireland, and at a period so far advanced in civilization as the end of Elizabeth's reign, the greater part of the natives should go naked. Yet this is rendered certain by the testimony of an eye-witness, Fynes Moryson. In the remote parts,' he says, 'where the English laws and manners are unknown, the very chief of the Irish, as well men as women, go naked in the winter time, only having their privy parts covered with a rag of linen, and their bodies with a loose mantle. This I speak of my own experience; yet remembering that a Bohemian Baron coming out of Scotland to us by the north parts of the wild Irish, told me in great earnestness, that he, coming to the house of O'Kane, a great lord amongst them, was met at the door by sixteen women all naked, excepting their loose mantles, whereof eight or ten were very fair; with which strange sight his eyes being dazzled, they led him into the house, and then sitting down by the fire with crossed legs, like tailors, and so low as could not but offend chaste eyes, desired him to sit down with them. Soon after, O'Kane, | quence of this, a deep and irreconcileable ha the lord of the country, came in all naked, tred existed between the people within and except a loose mantle and shoes, which he put off as soon as he came in; and, entertaining the Baron after his best manner in the Latin tongue, desired him to put off his apparel, which he thought to be a burden to him, and to sit naked. "To conclude, men and women at night, going to sleep, lye thus naked in a round circle about the fire, with their feet towards it. They fold their heads and their upper parts in woollen mantles, first steeped in water to keep them warm; for they say, that woollen cloth, wetted, preserves heat, (as linen, wetted, preserves cold,) when the smoke of their bodies has warmed the woollen cloth.' "The cause of this extreme poverty, and of its long continuance, we must conclude, arose from the peculiar laws of property, which were in force under the Irish dynasties. These laws have been described by most writers as similar to the Kentish custom of gavelkind; and indeed so little attention was paid to the subject, that were it not for the researches of Sir J. Davis, the knowledge of this singular usage would have been entirely lost. "The Brehon law of property, he tells us, was similar to the custom (as the English lawyers term it) of hodge-podge. When any one of the sept died, his lands did not descend to his sons, but were divided among the whole sept: and, for this purpose, the chief of the sept made a new division of the whole lands belonging to the sept, and gave every one his part according to seniority. So that no man had a property which could descend to his children; and even during his own life, his possession of any particular spot was quite uncertain, being liable to be constantly shuffled and changed by new partitions. The consequence of this was that there was not a house of brick or stone, among the Irish, down to the reign of Henry VII.; not even a garden or orchard, or well fenced or improved field, neither village or town, or in any respect the least provision for posterity. This monstrous custom, so opposite to the natural feelings of mankind, was probably perpetuated by the policy of the chiefs. In the first place, the power of partitioning being lodged in their bands, made them the most absolute of tyrants, being the dispensers of the property as well as of the liberty of their subjects. In the second place, it had the appearance of adding to the number of their savage armies; for, where there was no improvement or tillage, war was pursued as an occupation. "In the early history of Ireland, we find several instances of chieftains discountenancing tillage; and so late as Elizabeth's reign, Moryson says, that 'Sir Neal Garve restrained his people from ploughing, that they might assist him to do any mischief."-(p. 98-102.) These quotations and observations will enable us to state a few plain facts for the recollection of our English readers. 1st. Ireland was never subdued till the rebellion in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 2d. For four hundred years before that period, the two nations had been almost constantly at war; and in conse without the pale. 3d. The Irish, at the accession of Queen Elizabeth, were unquestionably the most barbarous people in Europe. So much for what had happened previous to the reign of Queen Elizabeth: and let any man, who has the most superficial knowledge of human affairs, determine, whether national hatred, proceeding from such powerful causes, could possibly have been kept under by the defeat of one single rebellion; whether it would not have been easy to have foreseen, at that period, that a proud, brave, half-savage people, would cherish the memory of their wrongs for centuries to come, and break forth into arms at every period when they were particularly exasperated by oppression, or invited by opportunity. If the Protestant religion had spread in Ireland as it did in England, and if there never had been any difference of faith between the two countries,-can it be believed that the Irish, ill-treated, and infamously governed as they have been, would never have made any efforts to shake off the yoke of England? Surely there are causes enough to account for their impatience of that yoke, without endeavouring to inflame the zeal of ignorant people against the Catholic religion, and to make that mode of faith responsible for all the butchery which the Irish and English, for these last two centuries, have exercised upon each other. Every body, of course, must admit, that if to the causes of hatred already specified, there be added the additional cause of religious distinction, this last will give greater force (and what is of more conse. quence to observe, give a name) to the whole aggregate motive. But what Mr. Parnell contends for, and clearly and decisively proves, is, that many of those sanguinary scenes attributed to the Catholic religion, are to be partly imputed to causes totally disconnected from religion; that the unjust invasion, and the tyrannical, infamous policy of the English, are to take their full share of blame with the sophisms and plots of Catholic priests. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, Mr. Parnell shows, that feudal submission was readily paid to him by all the Irish chiefs; that the Reformation was received without the slightest opposition; and that the troubles which took place at that period in Ireland, are to be entirely attributed to the ambition and injustice of Henry. In the reign of Queen Mary, there was no recrimination upon the Protestants-a striking proof, that the bigotry of the Catholic religion had not, at that period, risen to any great height in Ireland. The insurrections of the various Irish princes were as numerous, during this reign, as they had been in the two preceding reigns,-a circumstance rather difficult of explanation, if, as is commonly believed, the Catholic religion was at that period the main spring of men's actions. In the reign of Elizabeth, the Catholic in.the pale regularly fought against the Catholic out of the pale. O'Sullivan, a bigoted Papist, reproaches them with doing so. Speaking of the reign of James the First, he says, "And now the eyes even of the English Irish" (the Ca tholics of the pale) "were opened; and they cursed their former folly for helping the heretic." The English government were so sensible of the loyalty of the Irish English Catholics, that they entrusted them with the most confidential services. The Earl of Kildare was the principal instrument in waging war against the chieftains of Leix and Offal. William O'Bourge, another Catholic, was created Lord Castle Connel for his eminent services; and MacGully Patrick, a priest, was the state spy. We presume that this wise and manly conduct of Queen Elizabeth was utterly unknown both to the Pastrycook and the Secretary of State, who have published upon the dangers of employing Catholies even against foreign enemies; and in those publications have said a great deal about the wisdom of our ancestors-the usual topic whenever the folly of their descendants is to be defended. To whatever other of our ancestors they may allude, they may spare all compliments to this illustrious Princess, who would certainly have kept the worthy confectioner to the composition of tarts, and most probably furnished him with the productions of the Right Honourable Secretary, as the means of conveying those juicy delicacies to an hungry and discerning public. In the next two reigns, Mr. Parnell shows by what injudicious measures of the English government the spirit of Catholic opposition was gradually formed; for that it did produce nowerful effects at a subsequent period, he does not deny; but contends only (as we have before stated), that these effects have been much overrated, and ascribed solely to the Catholic religion, when other causes have at least had an equal agency in bringing them about. He concludes with some general remarks on the dreadful state of Ireland, and the contemptible folly and bigotry of the English ;*-remarks full of truth, of good sense, and of political courage. How melancholy to reflect, that there would be still some chance of saving England from the general wreck of empires, but that it may not be saved, because one politician will lose two thousand a year by it, and another three thousand-a third a place in reversion, and a fourth a pension for his aunt!-Alas! these are the It would be as well, in future, to say no more of the revocation of the edict of Nantz. powerful causes which have always settleá the destiny of great kingdoms, and which may level Old England, with all its boasted freedom, and boasted wisdom, to the dust. Nor is it the least singular among the political phenomena of the present day, that the sole consideration which seems to influence the unbigoted part of the English people, in this great question of Ireland, is a regard for the personal feelings of the Monarch. Nothing is said or thought of the enormous risk to which Ireland is exposed,-nothing of the gross injustice with which the Catholics are treated,-nothing of the lucrative apostasy of those from whom they experience this treatment: but the only concern by which we all seem to be agitated is, that the King must not be vexed in his old age. We have a great respect for the King; and wish him all the happiness compatible with the happiness of his people. But these are not times to pay foolish compliments to Kings, or the sons of Kings, or to any body else: this journal has always preserved its character for courage and honesty; and it shall do so to the last. If the people of this country are solely occupied in considering what is personally agreeable to the King, without considering what is for his permanent good, and for the safety of his dominions; if all public men, quitting the common vulgar scramble for emolument, do not concur in conciliating the people of Ireland; if the unfounded alarms, and the comparatively trifling interests of the clergy, are to supersede the great question of freedom or slavery, it does appear to us quite impossible that so mean and so foolish a people can escape that destruction which is ready to burst upon them;-a destruction so imminent, that it can only be averted by arming all in our defence who would evidently be sharers in our ruin,-and by such a change of system as may save us from the hazard of being ruined by the ignorance and cowardice of any general, by the bigotry or the ambition of any minister, or by the well-meaning scruples of any human being, let his dignity be what it may. These minor and domestic dangers we must endeavour firmly and temperately to avert as we best can; but, at all hazards, we must keep out the destroyer from among us, or perish like wise and brave men in the attempt. METHODISM.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1808.] THIS is the production of an honest man, possessed of a fair share of understanding. He cries out lustily (and not before it is time), upon the increase of Methodism; proposes various remedies for the diminution of this evil; and speaks his opinions with a freedom which does him great credit, and convinces us that he is a respectable man. The clergy are accused of not exerting themselves. What temporal motive, Mr. Ingram asks, have they for exertion? Would a curate, who had served thirty years upon a living in the most exemplary manner, secure to himself, by such a conduct, the slightest right or title to promotion in the church? What can you expect of a whole profession, in which there is no more connection between merit and reward, than between merit and beauty, or merit and strength? This is the substance of what Mr. Ingram says upon this subject; and he speaks the truth. We regret, however, that this gentleman has thought fit to use against the dissenters, the exploded clamour of Jacobinism; or that he deems it necessary to call into the aid of the Church, the power of intolerant laws, in spite of the odious and impolitic tests to which the dissenters are still subjected. We believe them to be very good subjects; and we have no doubt but that any further attempt upon their religious liberties, without reconciling them to the Church, would have a direct tendency to render them disaffected to to the State. Mr. Ingram (whose book, by the by, is very dull and tedious) has fallen into the common mistake of supposing his readers to be as well acquainted with his subject as he is himself; and has talked a great deal about dissenters, without giving us any distinct notions of the spirit which pervades these people-the objects they have in view-or the degree of talent which is to be found among them. To remedy this very capital defect, we shall endeavour to set before the eyes of the reader a complete section of the tabernacle; and to present him with a near view of those sectaries, who are at present at work upon the destruction of the orthodox churches, and are destined hereafter, perhaps, to act as conspicuous a part in public affairs, as the children of Sion did in the time of Cromwell. The sources from which we shall derive our extracts, are the Evangelical and Methodistical Magazines for the year 1807;-works which are said to be circulated to the amount of 18,000 or 20,000 each, every month; and which contain the sentiments of Arminian and Calvinistic Methodists, and of the evangelical clergymen of the Church of England. We shall use the general term of Methodism, Causes of the Increase of Methodism and Dissension. By ROBERT ACKLEM INGRAM, B. D. Hatchard. to designate these three classes of fanatics, not troubling ourselves to point out the finer shades, and nicer discriminations of lunacy, but treating them all as in one general conspiracy against common sense, and rational orthodox Christianity. In reading these very curious productions, we seemed to be in a new world, and to have got among a set of beings, of whose existence we had hardly before entertained the slightest conception. It has been our good fortune to be acquainted with many truly religious persons, both in the Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches; and from their manly, rational, and serious characters, our conceptions of true practical piety have been formed. To these confined habits, and to our want of proper introductions among the children of light and grace, any degree of surprise is to be attributed, which may be excited by the publications before us; which, under opposite circumstances, would (we doubt not) have proved as great a source of instruction and delight to the Edinburgh reviewers, as they are to the most melodious votaries of the tabernacle. It is not wantonly, or with the most distant intention of trifling upon serious subjects, that we call the attention of the public to these sort of publications. Their circulation is so enormous, and so increasing, they contain the opinions, and display the habits of so many human beings,-that they cannot but be ob jects of curiosity and importance. The common and the middling classes of the people are the purchasers; and the subject is religion,-though not that religion certainly which is established by law, and encouraged by national provision. This may lead to unpleasant consequences, or it may not; but it carries with it a sort of aspect, which ought to insure to it serious attention and reflection. It is impossible to arrive at any knowledge of a religious sect, by merely detailing the settled articles of their belief: it may be the fashion of such a sect to insist upon some articles very slightly; to bring forward others prominently; and to consider some portion of their formal creed as obsolete. As the knowledge of the jurisprudence of any country can never be obtained by the perusal of volumes which contain some statutes that are daily enforced, and others that have been silently antiquated: in the same manner, the practice, the preaching, and the writing of sects, are comments absolutely necessary to render the perusal of their creed of any degree of utility. It is the practice, we believe, with the orthu dox, both in the Scotch and English churches, to insist very rarely, and very discreetly, upon the particular instances of the interference of Divine Providence. They do not contend that the world is governed only by general laws,-Ꭰ |