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and therefore her answer to him is without any arrangement The same excuse must suffice for the desultory observations we shall make upon this lady's publication.

The first sensation of disgust we experienced at Mrs. Trimmer's book, was from the patronizing and protecting air with which she speaks of some small part of Mr. Lancaster's plan. She seems to suppose, because she has dedicated her mind to the subject, that her opinion must necessarily be valuable upon it; forgetting it to be barely possible that her application may have made her more wrong, instead of more right. If she can make out her case, that Mr. Lancaster is doing mischief in so important a point as that of national education, she has a right, in common with every one else, to lay her complaint before the public; but a right to publish praises must be earned by something more difficult than the writing sixpenny books for children. This may be very good; though we never remember to have seen any one of them; but if they be no more remarkable for judgment and discretion than parts of the work before us, there are many thriving children quite capable of repaying the obligations they owe to their amiable instructress, and of teaching, with grateful retaliation, the old idea how to shoot.'

In remarking upon the work before us, we shall exactly follow the plan of the authoress, and prefix, as she does, the titles of those subjects on which her observations are made; doing her the justice to presume that her quotations are fairly taken from Mr. Lancaster's book.

of vice; if the associates of youth pour contempt on
the liar; he will soon hide his head with shame, and
most likely leave off the practice.'-(p. 24, 25.)
The objection which Mrs. Trimmer makes to this
passage, is that it is exalting the fear of man above the
fear of God. This observation is as mischievous as it
is unfounded. Undoubtedly the fear of God ought to
be the paramount principle from the very beginning of
life, if it were possible to make it so; but it is a feel-
ing which can only be built up by degrees. The awe
and respect which a child entertains for its parent and
instructor, is the first scaffolding upon which the sa-
cred edifice of religion is reared. A child begins to
pray, to act, and to abstain, not to please God, but to
please the parent, who tells him that such is the will
of God. The religious principle gains ground from the
power of association and the improvement of reason;
but without the fear of man,-the desire of pleasing,
and the dread of offending those with whom he lives,
it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
cherish it at all in the minds of the children. If you
tell (says Mr. Lancaster) a child not to swear, be
cause it is forbidden by God, and he finds everybody
whom he lives with addicted to that vice, the mere
precept will soon be obliterated; which would acquire
its just influence if aided by the effect of example.-
Mr. Lancaster does not say that the fear of man ever
ought to be a stronger motive than the fear of God, or
that, in a thoroughly formed character, it ever is: he
merely says, that the fear of man may be made the
most powerful mean to raise up the fear of God; and
nothing, in our opinion, can be more plain, more sen-
sible, or better expressed, than his opinions upon these
subjects. In corroboration of this sentiment, Mr. Lan-
caster tells the following story:-

1. Mr. Lancaster's Preface.-Mrs. Trimmer here contends, in opposition to Mr. Lancaster, that ever since the establishment of the Protestant Church, the education of the poor has been a national concern in this country; and the only argument she produces in village near London, where he has a school of the class A benevolent friend of mine,' says he, who resides at a support of this extravagant assertion, is an appeal to called Sunday Schools, recommended several lads to me for the act of uniformity. If there are millions of Eng-education. He is a pious man, and these children had the lishmen who cannot spell their own names, or read a advantage of good precepts under his instruction in an emsign-post which bids them turn to the right or left, is inent degree, but had reduced them to very little practice. any answer to this deplorable ignorance to say, As they came to my school from some distance, they were here is an act of Parliament for public instruction? permitted to bring their dinners; and, in the interval be o show the very line and chapter where the King, tween morning and afternoon school hours, spent their time Lords, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, or ground adjoining the school-room. In this play-round the with a number of lads under similar circumstances in a playlained the universality of reading and writing, when, boys usually enjoy an hour's recreation; tops, balls, races, enturies afterwards, the ploughman is no more capa or what best suits their inclination or the season of the ble of the one or the other than the beast which he year; but with this charge, “Let all be kept in innocence." drives? In point of fact, there is no Protestant coun- These lads thought themselves very happy at play with try in the world where the education of the poor has their new associates; but on a sudden they were seized and been so grossly and infamously neglected as in Eng- overcome by numbers, were brought into school just as and. Mr. Lancaster has the high merit of calling the him to the police office. Happening at that time to be people in the street would seize a pick-pocket, and bring public attention to this evil, and of calling it in the within, I inquired, "Well, boys, what is all this bustle best way, by new and active remedies; and this un- about?""Why, sir," was the general reply, "these lads Candid and feeble lady, instead of using the influence have been swearing." This was announced with as much she has obtained over the anility of these realms, to emphasis and solemnity as a judge would use in passing oin that useful remonstrance which Mr. Lancaster has sentence upon a criminal. The culprits were, as may be begun, pretends to deny that the evil exists; and when supposed, in much terror. After the examination of witnesses and proof of the facts, they received admonition as you ask where are the schools, rods, pedagogues, to the offence; and, on promise of better hehaviour, were primers, histories of Jack the Giant-killer, and all the dismissed. No more was ever heard of their swearing; yet usual apparatus for education, the only things he can it was observable, that they were better acquainted with produce is the act of uniformity and common prayer. the theory of Christianity, and could give a more rational 2. The Principles on which Mr. Lancaster's institu- answer to questions from the scripture, than several of the tion is conducted. Happily for mankind,' says Mr. boys who had thus treated them, on comparison, as constaLancaster, it is possible to combine precept and bles would do a thief. I call this,' adds Mr. Lancaster, practice together in the education of youth: that pub-practical religious instruction, and could, if needful, give many such anecdotes.'-(p. 26, 27.) lic spirit, or general opinion, which gives such strength to vice, may be rendered serviceable to the cause of All that Mrs. Trimmer has to observe against this virtue; and in thus directing it, the whole secret, the very striking illustration of Mr. Lancaster's doctrine, beauty, and simplicity of national education consists. is, that the monitors behaved to the swearers in a very Suppose, for instance, it be required to train a youth rude and unchristianlike manner. She begins with be to strict veracity. He has learned to read at school: ing cruel, and ends with being silly. Her first obserhe there reads the declaration of the Divine will re-vation is calculated to raise the posse comitatus against specting liars: he is there informed of the pernicious Mr. Lancaster, to get him stoned for impiety; and effects that practice produces on society at large; and then, when he produces the most forcible example of he is enjoined, for the fear of God, for the approbation the effect of opinion to encourage religious precept, of his friends, and for the good of his school-fellows, she says such a method of preventing wearing is too never to tell an untruth. This is a most excellent pre- rude for the gospel. True, modest, unobusive relicept; but let it be taught, and yet, if the contrary gion-charitable, forgiving, indulgent Christianity, is practice be treated with indifference by parents, the greatest ornament and the greatest blessing that teachers, or associates, it will either weaken or de- can dwell in the mind of man. But if there is one stroy all the good that can be derived from it: But if character more base, more infamous, and more shockthe parents or teachers tenderly nip the rising shoots ling than another, it is him who, for the sake of some

This punishment is objected to on the part of Mrs Trimmer, because it inculcates a dislike to Jews, and an indifference to dying speeches! Toys, she says, given as rewards, are worldly things; children are to be taught that there are eternal rewards in store for them. It is very dangerous to give prints as rewards, because prints may hereafter be the vehicle of indecent ideas. It is, above all things, perilous to create an order of merit in the borough school, because it gives the boys an idea of the origin of nobility, especially in times (we use Mrs. Trimmer's own words) which furnish instances of the extinction of a race of ancient nobility, in a neighbouring nation, and the elevation of some of the lowest people to the highest stations. Boys accustomed to consider themselves the nobles of the school, may in their future lives, form a conceit of their own merits (unless they have very sound principles), aspire to be nobles of the land, and to take place of the hereditary nobility.'

paltry distinction in the world, is ever ready to accuse | needful a second time. It is also very seldom that a boy conspicuous persons of irreligion-to turn common in- deserves both a log and a shackle at the same time. Most former for the church-and to convert the most beau-boys are wise enough, when under one punishment, not to tiful feelings of the human heart to the destruction of transgress immediately, lest it should be doubled.'-(p. 47, 48.) the good and great, by fixing upon talents the indeli ble stigma of irreligion. It matters not how trifling and insignificant the acuser; cry out that the church is in danger, and your object is accomplished; lurk in the walk of hypocrisy, to accuse your enemy of the crime of Atheism, and his ruin is quite certain; ac quitted or condemned, is the same thing; it is only sufficient that he be accused, in order that his destruction be accomplished. If we could satisfy ourselves that such were the real views of Mrs. Trimmer, and that she were capable of such baseness, we would have drawn blood from her at every line, and left her in a state of martyrdom more piteous than that of St. Uba. Let her attribute the milk and mildness she meets with in this review of her book, to the conviction we entertain, that she knew no better-that she really did understand Mr. Lancaster as she pretends to understand him and that if she had been aware of the extent of the mischief she was doing, she would have tossed the manuscript spelling book in which she was engaged into the fire, rather than have done it.We think these extracts will sufficiently satisfy As a proof that we are in earnest in speaking of Mrs. every reader of common sense, of the merits of this Trimmer's simplicity, we must state the objection she publication. For our part, when we saw these ragged makes to one of Mr. Lancaster's punishments.and interesting little nobles, shining in their tin stars, When I meet,' says Mr. Lancaster, with a slovenly we only thought it probable that the spirit of emula boy, I put a label upon his breast, I walk him round tion would make them better ushers, tradesmen, and the school with a tin or paper crown upon his head.' mechanics. We did, in truth, imagine we had ob Surely,' says Mrs. Trimmer, (in reply to this,) 'sure-served, in some of their faces, a bold project for proly it should be remembered, that the Saviour of the curing better breeches for keeping out the blast of world was crowned with thorns, in derision, and that heaven, which howled through those garments in this is the reason why crowning is an improper punish-every direction, and of aspiring hereafter to greater ment for a slovenly boy!!!!

Rewards and Punishments.-Mrs. Trimmer objects to the fear of ridicule being made an instrument of education, because it may be hereafter employed to shame a boy out of his religion. She might, for the same reason, object to the cultivation of the reason ing faculty, because a boy may hereafter be reasoned out of his religion: she surely does not mean to say that she would make boys insensible to ridicule, the fear of which is one curb upon the follies and eccentricities of human nature. Such an object it would be impossible to effect, even if it were useful: Put an hundred boys together, and the fear of being laughed at will always be a strong influencing motive with every individual among them. If a master can turn this principle to his own use, and get boys to laugh at vice instead of the old plan of laughing at virtue, is he not doing a very new, a very difficult, and a very laudable thing?

When Mr. Lancaster finds a little boy with a very dirty face, he sends for a little girl, and makes her wash off the dirt before the whole school: and she is directed to accompany her ablutions with a gentle box of the ear. To us, this punishment appears well adapted to the offence; and in this, and in most other instances of Mr. Lancaster's interference in scholastie discipline, we are struck with his good sense, and delighted that arrangements apparently so trivial, really so important, should have fallen under the attention of so ingenious and so original a man. Trimmer objects to this practice, that it destroys temale modesty, and inculcates in that sex, an habit of giving boxes on the ear.

strength of seam, and more perfect continuity of cloth But for the safety of the titled orders we had no fear; nor did we once dream that the black rod which whipt these dirty little dukes, would one day be borne be fore them as the emblem of legislative dignity, and the sign of noble blood.

Order. The order Mr. Lancaster has displayed in the school is quite astonishing. Every boy seems to be the cog of a wheel-the whole school a perfect machine. This is so far from being a burden or con straint to the boys, that Mr. Lancaster has made it quite pleasant to them, by giving to it the air of mili tary arrangement; not foreseeing, as Mrs. Trimmer foresees, that, in times of public dangers, this plan furnishes the disaffected with the immediate means of raising an army; for what have they to do but to send for all the children educated by Mr. Lancaster, from the different corners of the kingdom into which they are dispersed, to beg it as a particular favour of them to fall into the same order as they adopted in the spelling class twenty-five years ago; and the rest is all

matter of course

Jamque faces, et Saxa volant,

The main object, however, for which this book is written, is to prove that the church establishment is in danger, from the increase of Mr. Lancaster's institutions. Mr. Lancaster is, as we have before observed, a Quaker. As a Quaker, he says, I cannot teach your Mrs. creeds; but I pledge myself not to teach my own. I pledge myself (and if I deceive you, desert me, and give me up) to confine myself to those points of Christianity in which all Christians agree. To which Mrs. When a boy gets into a singing tone in reading,' says Trimmer replies, that, in the first place, he cannot do Mr. Lancaster, the best mode of cure that I have hitherto this; and, in the next place, if he did do it, it would found effectual is by the force of ridicule.-Decorate the not be enough. But why, we would ask, cannot Mr. offender with matches, ballads, (dying speeches if needful;) Lancaster effect his first object? The practical and and in this garb send him round the school, with some boys the feeling parts of religion are much more likely to before him crying matches, &c., exactly imitating the dismal tones with which such things are hawked about London attract the attention and provoke the questions of chil streets, as will readily recur to the reader's memory. I be-dren, than its speculative doctrines. A child is not lieve many boys behave rudely to Jews more on account very likely to put any questions at all to a catechising of the manner in which they cry "old clothes," than be- master, and still less likely to lead him into subtle and cause they are Jews. I have always found excellent effects profound disquisition. It appears to us not only prac from treating boys, who sing or tone in their reading, in the ticable, but very easy, to confine the religious instrucmanner described. It is sure to turn the laugh of the whole

school upon the delinquent; it provokes risibility, in spite tion of the poor, in the first years of life, to those genof every endeavour to check it, in all but the offender. I have eral feelings and principles which are suitable to the seldom known a boy thus punished once, for whom it was established church, and to every sect; afterwards, the

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 modcration; that it seldom assumes any great portion of activity or enthusiasm, except from novelty of opinion, or frem opposition, contumely, and persecution, when novelty ceases; that a govemment 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 foliy with forbearance, it must ultimately prevail. When, therefore, a sect is found, after a lapse of years, to be ill disposed to the gover ment, we may be certain that government has widened its separation by marked distinctions, roused its resentment by contumely, or supported its enthusiasm by persecution.

discriminating tenets of each subdivision of Chris- | their interests, it is worth while to conciliate Ireland, tians may be fixed upon this general basis. To say to avert the hostility, and to employ the strength of this is not enough, that a child should be made an An- the Catholic population. We plead the question as tisocinian, or an Antipelagian, in his tenderest years, the sincerest friends to the Establishment;—as wishmay be very just; but what prevents you from making to it all the prosperity and duration its warmest ing him so! Mr. Lancaster, purposely and intention- advocates can desire,-but remembering always, what ally, to allay all jealousy, leaves him in a state as well these advocates seem to forget, that the Establishadapted for one creed as another. Begin; make your ment cannot be threatened by any danger so great as pupil a firm advocate for the peculiar doctrines of the the perdition of the kingdom in which it is estabEnglish church; dig round about him, on every side, lished. a trench that shall guard him from every species of heresy. In spite of all this clamour you do nothing; you do not stir a single step; you educate alike the wineherd and his hog-and then, when a man of real genius and enterprise rises up, and says, Let me dedicate my life to this object; I will do every thing but that which must necessarily devolve upon you alone; you refuse to do your little, and compel him, by the cry of Infidel and Atheist, to leave you to your ancient repose, and not to drive you, by insidious comparisons, to any system of active utility. We deny, again and again, that Mr. Lancaster's instruction is any kind of impediment to the propagation of the doctrines of the church; and if Mr. Lancaster was to perish with his system to-morrow, these boys would positively be taught nothing; the doctrines which Mrs. Trimmer considers to be prohibited would not rush in, but there would be an absolute vacuum. We will, however, say this in favour of Mrs. Trimmer, that if every one who has joined in her clamour, had labored one-hundredth part as much as she has done in the cause of national education, the clamour would be much more rational, and much more consistent, than it now is. By living with a few people as active as herself, she is perhaps somehow or another persuaded that there is a national education going on in this country. But our principal argument is, that Mr. Lancaster's plan is at least better than the nothing which preceded it. The authoress herself seems to be a lady of respectable opinions, and very ordinary talents; defending what is right without judgment, and believing what is holy without charity.

PARNELL AND IRELAND.*
VIEW, 1807.)
Historical Apology for the Irish Catholics. By William Par-
nell, Esquire. Fitzpatrick, Dublin, 1807.

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 towards 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 pre(EDINBURGH RE- ceded 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 Ir ever a nation exhibited symptoms of downright very few counties in Leinster; nine-tenths of the whole madness, or utter stupidity, we conceive these symp. kingdom were left, as he found them, under the domitoms may be easily recognized in the conduct of this nion of their native princes. The influence of example country upon the Catholic question. A man has a was as strong in this, as in most other instances; wound in his great toe, and a violent and perilous and great numbers of the English settlers who came fever at the same time; and he refuses to take the over under various adventurers, resigned their premedicines for the fever, because it will disconcert his tensions to superior civilization, cast off their lower toe! The mournful and folly-stricken blockhead for- garments, and lapsed into the nudity and barbargets that his toe cannot survive him-that if he dies, ism of the Irish. The limit which divided the posthere can be no digital life apart from him; yet he sessions of the English settler from those of the lingers and fondles over this last part of his body, native Irish, was called the pale; and the expressions soothing it madly with little plasters, and anile fo- of inhabitants within pale, and uithout the pale, were mentations, while the neglected fever rages in his the terms by which the two nations were distinguishentrails, and burns away his whole life. If the comIt is almost superfluous to state, that the most paratively little questions of Establishment are all bloody and pernicious warfare was carried on upon that this country is capable of discussing or regard the borers-somet.mes for something-sometimes ing, for God's sake let us remember, that the foreign for nothing-most commonly for cows. The Irish, conquest, which destroys all, destroys this beloved over whom the sovereigns of England affected a sort toe also. Pass over freedom, industry, and science of nominal dominion, were entirely governed by their and look upon this great empire, by which we are own laws; and so very little connection had they about to be swallowed up, only as it affects the man. with the justice of the invading country, that it was ner of collecting tithes, and of reading the liturgy-as lawful to kill an Irishman, as it was to kill a still, if all goes, these must go too; and even, for

ed.

badger or a fox. The instances are innumerable, where the defendant has pleaded that the deceased was an Irishman, and that therefore defendant had a right to kill him ;-and upon the proof of Hibernicism acquittal followed of course.

*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 When the English army mustered in any great wrongs, and that continued and even justice which would strength, the Irish chieftains would do exterior homake such oblivion wise. It is now only difficult to tranquilize Ireland, before emancipation it was impossible. As mage to the English Crown; and they very frequentto the danger from Catholic doctrines, I must leave suchy, by this artifice, averted from their country the apprehensions to the respectable anility of these realms. I miseries of invasion: but they remained completely unsubdued, until the rebellion which took place in

will not meddle with it.

In the early history of Ireland, we find several instances beth's reign, Moryson says, that "Sir Neal Garve restrainof chieftains discountenancing tillage; and so late as Elizaed his people from ploughing, that they might assist him to do any mischief." (p. 98-102.)

the reign of Queen Elizabeth, of which that politic | armies; for, where there was no improvement or tillage, woman availed herself to the complete subjugation of war was pursued as an occupation. 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 wealth?

I.

These quotations and observations will enable us to state a few plain facts for the recollection of our Eng. lish 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 consequence of this, a deep and irreconcileable hatred existed between That it was divided into a number of small principali- the people within and without the pale. 3d, The Irish, ties, which waged constant war on each other, or that the at the accession of Queen Elizabeth, were unquestion appointment of the chieftains was elective, do not appear ably the most barbarous people in Europe. So much sufficient reasons, although these are the only ones assigned for what had happened previous to the reign of Queen by those who have been at the trouble of considering the Elizabeth: and let any man, who has the most superfi subject: neither are the confiscations of property quite sufficient to account for the effect. There have been great cial knowledge of human affairs, determine, whether confiscations in other countries, and still they have flour-national hatred, proceeding from such powerful causes, Ished: the petty states of Greece were quite analogous to could possibly have been kept under by the defeat of the chiefries (as they were called) in Ireland; and yet one single rebellion; whether it would not have been they seemed to flourish almost in proportion to their dis easy to have foreseen. at that period, that a proud, sensions. Poland felt the bad effects of an elective monar- brave, half-savage people, would cherish the memory chy more than any other country; and yet, in point of of their wrongs for centuries to come, and break forth civilization, it maintained a very respectable rank among the nations of Europe; but Ireland never, for an instant, into arms at every period when they were particularly made any progress in improvement till the reign of James exasperated by oppression, or invited by opportunity. If the Protestant religion had spread in Ireland as it It is scarcely credible, that in a climate like that of Ire-did in England, and if there never had been land, and at a period so far advanced in civilization as the ence of faith between the two countries,-can it be be differ. any end of Elizabeth's reign, the greater part of the natives lieved that the Irish, ill-treated, and infamously gov. shouli go naked. Yet this is rendered certain by the testi- crned as they have been, would never have made any mony of an eye witness, Fynes Moryson. "In the remote parts," he says, "where the English manners are un-efforts to shake off the yoke of England? Surely there known, the very chief of the Irish, as well men as women, are causes enough to account for their impatience of go naked in the winter time, only having their privy parts that yoke, without endeavouring to inflame the zeal of covered with a rag of linen, and their bodies with a loose ignorant people against the Catholic religion, and to mantle. This I speak of my own experience, yet remem- make that mode of faith responsible for all the butche ber that a Bohemian Baron coming out of Scotland to us by the north parts of the wild Irish, told me in great ear-ry which the Irish and English, for these last two cennestness, that he, coming to the house of O'Kane, a great turies, have exercised upon each other. Every body, lord amongst them, was met at the door by sixteen women of course, must admit, that if to the causes of hatred al all naked, excepting their loose mantles, whereof eight or ready specified, there be added the additional cause of ten were very fair; with which strange sight his eyes being religious distinction, this last will give greater force dazzled, they led him into the house, and then sitting down (and what is of more consequence to observe, give by the fire with crossed legs, like tailors, and so low as a name) to the whole aggregate motive. But what Mr. could not but offend chaste eyes, desired him to sit down Parnell contends for, and clearly and decisively proves, with them. Soon after, O'Kane, the lord of the country, came in all naked, except a loose mantle and shoes, which is, that many of these sanguinary scenes attributed to he put off as soon as he came in; and, entertaining the the Catholic religion, are to be partly imputed to canses Baron after his best manner in the Latin tongue, desired totally disconnected from religion; that the unjust inhim to put off his apparel, which he thought to be a burdenvasion, and the tyrannical, infamous policy of the Engto him, and to sit naked. isms and plots of Catholic priests. In the reign of lish, are to take their full share of blame with the soph 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 to the ambition and injustice of Henry. In the reign at that period in Ireland, are to be entirely attributed 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 va rious Irish princes were as numerous, during this a circumstance rather difficult of explanation, if, as reign, as they had been in the two preceding reignsis commonly believed, the Catholic religion was at that period the main spring of men's actions.

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-podze. 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 chanted 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 VI.; 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 feelings of mankind, was probably perpetuated by the policy of the chiefs. In the first place, the power of partitioning being lodged in their hands, 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

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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 And now the eyes even of the English-Irish' (the Catholics of the pale) were opened; and they cursed their former felly for helping the heretic.' The English government were so sensible of the loyalty of the Irish-English Catholics, that they intrusted them with the most confidential services. The Earl of Kildarc 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

✔METHODISM. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1808.)

Causes of the increase of Methodism and Dissension. By Robert Acklem Ingram, B. D. Hatchard. 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 Metho dism; 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 con. duct, 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 into lerant 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 disaf fected towards the State.

utterly unknown both to the Pastrycook and the Secretary of State, who have published upon the dangers of employing Catholics, 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 Honorable 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 powerful 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 powerful causes which have always settled 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 feel. ings 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 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 The sources from which we shall derive our extracts, his people. But these are not times to pay foolish are the Evangelical and Methodistical Magazines for compliments to Kings, or the sons of Kings, or to any the year 1807; works which are said to be circulated body else: this journal has always preserved its to the amount of 18,000 or 20,000 each, every month; character for courage and honesty; and it shall do so and which contain the sentiments of Arminian and to the last. If the people of this country are solely Calvinistic Methodists, and of the evangelical clergyoccupied in considering what is personally agreeable men of the Church of England. We shall use the to the King, without considering what is for his perma-term Methodism, to designate these three classes of nent good, and for the safety of his dominions; if all fanatics, not troubling ourselves to point out the finer public men, quitting the common vulgar scramble for shades, and nicer discriminations of lunacy, but treatemolument, do not concur in conciliating the people of ing them all as in one general conspiracy against comIreland; if the unfounded alarms, and the compara-mon sense, and rational orthodox Christianity. tively trifling interests of the clergy, are to supersede to be in a new world, and to have got among a set of In reading these very curious productions, we seemed the great question of freedom or slavery, it does appear to us quite impossible that so mean and 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 minis. ter, 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 anu 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.

*It would be as well, in future, to say no more of the revocation of the edict of Nantz.

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 the subject as himself; and has talked a great deal about dissenters, without giving us any distinct notion 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 or thodox 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.

beings, of whose existence we had hardly before enter tained 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 serions 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 inthey are to the most melodious votaries of the taber. struction and delight to the Edinburgh reviewers, as

nacle.

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 increasingthey contain the opinions, and display the habits of so many human beings-that they cannot but be objects of curiosity and importance. The common

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