the district surveyor, for their use, in case they do not accompany him to the spot where he obtains work, or that he does not voluntarily allow them a maintenance. But the labourer's family would generally migrate with him to the place of his employment. An Irish hovel is easily run up anywhere, and is of almost infinite capacity; and this migration, as we have observed, is most desirable on all accounts.

Such is the brief outline of the kind of poor-law, which we think best fitted to the circumstances of Ireland. It would be imperative only so far as requiring employment to be provided for all who are willing and able to work for their maintenance, and would leave the quantity and mode of relief for the infirm and aged to the humanity and discretion of the county boards. Composed as these would be of, and elected by, the principal landowners of the county from whom the poor-rate would chiefly be raised, it is not probable that they would exceed the limits of prudence and necessity in their disbursements, or that they would omit to keep the strictest watch over the proceedings of their agents and of the local committees. At the same time they would be held responsible by public opinion for preventing any extreme sufferings in individual cases of misery, and for mitigating the pressure of general distress occasioned by epidemics or failure of crops.

We do not think that this legalized charity would prove a heavy burden on the land of Ireland. On the contrary, we are convinced that the judicious and methodical employment on public works or private improvements of all the stock of labour, now allowed to run to waste in that country, must prove to its landlords the key to a treasure of wealth, the certain means of increasing, in an extraordinary degree, the value of their property, and instead of a ruinous burden (in which light they have unfortunately been led to view it by the blundering confusion of the original poor-law of England with its recent and local abuses) a benefit of immense and immediate value. With respect to the interests of Ireland at large, we consider such an enactment, for the employment of the idle and the relief of the diseased and famishing, to be not only called for as a measure of justice—as a legal acknowledgment of a natural right-not only expedient as a measure of policy to prevent rebellion-but as affording the only means for setting in motion the vast amount of productive power which now lies torpid and useless in the bosom of that island-for giving the starting impulse to the process by which its great natural resources will, after the machine is once fairly set a-going, spontaneously develop themselves-for opening the door to the introduction and employment of the overflowing abundance of English capital-and for giving rise to a new and reciprocal de

mand

mand in either country for the produce of the other, to an extent which it is perhaps impossible to overrate. In one word, a common poor-law is essential in order to complete the Union, to bring into life and action the vast natural advantages to both countries of that great measure-and by closely interweaving their interests, by making the welfare of the one essentially to depend on that of the other, to render the compact for ever indissoluble by force or faction.

ART. V.—1. A Letter to Lord Howick on Commutation of Tithes, and a Provision for the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland. By Nassau William Senior, Esq. Second Edition.

8vo.

1831.

2. History of the Civil Wars of Ireland. By W. C. Taylor, Esq., A. B., of Trin. Coll., Dublin. Edinburgh. (2 vols. 12mo., published in Constable's Miscellany.) WHETHER the Union between Great Britain and Ireland

can be much longer profitably preserved, is a question which reflecting men have of late begun to propose, with some misgivings as to the answer. Projects of legislation for the sister country' have been so signally, it would seem so disgracefully, defeated, the hopes of charity have experienced so repeated and cruel blights, that, among many political speculators, apprehensions have made themselves felt, such as may have a serious and, we trust, a salutary influence on their future deliberations. All men, of all parties, are now ready to acknowledge, that hitherto our government of Ireland has been conducted on very mistaken principles; and there are some who affirm, that there is an element in the character of our Hibernian fellow-subjects or in their circumstances, a peculiarity, as yet unobserved, which, until it has been detected and neutralised, will disconcert every endeavour to effect their amalgamation with us. Thus, interest has connected itself with questions, which, until of late, had not been seriously propounded-Is Ireland to be retained in connexion with Great Britain? if she be, by what means shall the connexion be improved? if not, how shall the consequences of separation be rendered least disastrous?

That separation is an object earnestly desired by a strong and resolved party in Ireland, is a truth which cannot rationally be disputed. Neither is it now denied, that there prevails in that country an antipathy to British connexion, which has grown on the very concessions by which we had hoped to appease it. England, however, is not without many friends by whom, if need were, the efforts of a hostile faction would be strongly opposed; and

those

those among us who take a sanguine view of things, appeal to the array of wealth and consequence which appeared to champion the act of legislative union, in the early part of the past year. But even this appeal is not without its disheartening accompaniment. It reminds us of the disorder which rendered such a demonstration of strength necessary. It reminds us, also, of the portentous OMISSION which, in our judgment, left a very imposing catalogue of names destitute of force, if not authority; and, on the whole, causes us to question, whether the proceedings of last year in Ireland do not rather prove the progress which the cause of Repeal' has made, than display adequate power to resist it.

But, it is contended, the friends of British connexion have other reliance than on their personal influence and their numbers. They may trust to the operation of a principle whose efficacy is universally acknowledged. It is for the interest of Ireland to maintain the Union. It is for the interest of every country, so circumstanced as she is, to seek and cherish connexion with a great empire, in whose wealth and improvement the inferior member of the Union may fairly participate. This proposition, it is clear, may be true, while yet the encouragement derived from it shall be wholly delusive. The interest of a country' is but a vague expression; and, in some systems, does not comprise in its definition the comforts of the great mass of the people. The estimation, too, in which connexion with a superior country is held, must be modified by any peculiarities in the character and circumstances of those who are affected by it; and thus, it is very conceivable that the wealthy, and the enterprising, and the intellectual in Ireland, may regard connexion with Great Britain as the guarantee of their possessions, and an assurance of national or individual advancement, while yet their opinions shall have no authority over the judgments and passions of a very numerous body, who look forward to separation' as affording the only prospect of relief from grievances which may painfully oppress them. Whether this body is to be engaged by some effectual conciliation-to be convinced or coerced by argument or force-whether the friends ofconnexion' can be sustained by such support as shall enable them to disseminate more widely feelings of attachment to Great Britain-are questions on the due answering which the fate of the empire may be dependant;-and to consider them properly, it is necessary, in the first instance, to have a clear conception of the principal parties into which the population of Ireland is divided— the parties, we mean, at issue on the question respecting the Legislative Union.'

As a general principle, it might almost be anticipated, that the Protestants of Ireland would be found staunch friends of British

connexion, and that the Roman Catholics only would be the zealous champions of repeal.' This, however, would be too broad an assumption; religious opinions being, in many instances, indiscernible among the motives by which the contending parties are influenced. Where Protestants are numerous, they speak their sentiments freely, and these are such as we naturally would have expected; where they are thinly scattered, and surrounded by the professors of a hostile creed, it is not perhaps very unnatural to apprehend, that, if their habits of thinking are not altered, they will, at least, have become cautious in their mode of expression, and will be disinclined to advance opinions which they think can be of little moment to their cause, and may be very detrimental to their personal interests. We do not, therefore, in all cases, from the silence or even from the speeches of Protestants peculiarly circumstanced, infer honest attachment to the antiunion cause; but, at the same time, we are instructed by untoward occurrences, not to set down the Irish Protestant population as universally determined to maintain British connexion. It would be a more correct classification of parties were we to say, that the landed proprietary in Ireland, the higher order of the merchants, those who have prospered in the learned professions, are favourable to the principle of Union,'-that the artizans in the towns are desirous of Repeal,'-and that the rural population, in the humbler classes, throughout the southern and western provinces, are, so far as they have a political bias, adverse to Great Britain, and prepared, by their habits and poverty, to embrace any project of change which shall be recommended by approved and confederated advisers. To the neglect of this portion of the Irish people, and to the unregarded influences amidst which their minds have been permitted to be formed, we mainly attribute the unhappy estate of their country; nor, until some new and very improved system in their behalf be devised, can we regard hope as better than a delusion. A single peculiarity in the condition of their country may serve to render our apprehensions intelligible.

Any person minutely informed as to the ancient geography of Ireland, and well acquainted with its modern statistics, can readily satisfy himself that the men of Milesian name are to be found in those denominations of country, where, if he were guided by his remembrance of the Down Survey, or the Map of Ortelius, he would expect to meet them. On further inquiry, he would learn that many were living as tenants on their ancestors' estates, and that traditions were current among them of the grounds on which the property had changed masters. He would learn, too, that the modern proprietors had, in various instances, encouraged, by advantageous leases, the former possessors of their lands still

to

to occupy part of them, and so long as the remembrance of their forfeiture was recent, had, perhaps, behaved with a natural lenity in their capacity of landlords; and he would, most generally, see the descendants of this once-favoured tenantry sunk into a degree of wretchedness, in which every trace of prosperity was lost, except remembrance of the affluence from which they had declined. He must be a very unreflecting man, who does not see that people thus circumstanced demand a government of more than ordinary circumspection.

6

We have no disposition whatever to fatigue our readers or our selves with a rehearing of those arguments respecting the forfeited estates,' in which, at one period of our history, the adventurous and the cautious among politicians were wont to engage. We may observe at the same time, in passing, that the bigotry which dreaded a revival of dormant claims, was not a jot more irrational than the declamation by which it was discountenanced. It may, perhaps, be the truth that, were the existing settlement of property in Ireland disturbed, there would be found much uncer tainty and confusion in the allegations of new and rival pretenders; but they are ignorant of man who are not aware that the appreprehension of remote consequences has little power to abate the enthusiasm in which the mind broods over any cherished desire, and who could not understand that uncertainty itself, like that indistinctness which confessedly enhances the sublime, might be a medium through which the slighted titles should exercise a more commanding influence over lively and undisciplined imaginations. A vague persuasion of suffering wrong, a knowledge not accurate or extensive enough to ascertain the nature or degree of the injury sustained, may be effectual to produce and perpetuate irritation against that system by which supposed injury has been inflicted. Such a feeling should be very carefully watched and tended by those who would govern well. It induces a ready credence to insinuations and counsels which eventually may divorce morality from law. It causes legal possession to be looked upon as spoil; it distorts the aspect of constituted authority into the likeness of usurpation; it disposes the mind to regard civil obedience as a matter solely of prudential calculation, wherein security in life, liberty, or possession' may be hazarded as the stake which the game of conduct requires, but in which conscience and all man's higher interests are wholly unconcerned. That this perilous disposition has not been corrected, may with little difficulty be gathered from the history of the last half century, during which Ireland has never enjoyed in succession six tranquil years. In one or other of her provinces, under some fantastical name, announcing some impracticable object, and with no equivocal manifestations,

rebellion