miracle greater than restoring a young, or even an old, lady to health. To strengthen the feeble, to make the bed-rid walk, to extract pains from rheumatic joints, are substantive goods, and they are injurious to no one; but to dry the swampy earth, and withhold the torrent, are much more important exertions of power; and they may operate very differently to different persons, giving plenty to some, and withdrawing abundance from others, according to the several crops and soils that diversify the land.'

If we refer to the past, we find the Protestants as fond of miracles as the Catholics. They had their voice in the wall' in the time of Mary; and Doctor Maxwell, Bishop of Kilmore, describes the ghosts of the Protestants drowned at Portadown bridge as 'sometimes having been seen day and night walking upon the river; sometimes brandishing their naked swords; sometimes singing psalms, and at other times shrieking in a most hideous and fearful manner.'

In the minor departments of superstition the English and Scotch are certainly nothing inferior to the Irish. Our readers, no doubt, remember the account of the Glasgow witch, given in the newspapers a few days back; and, at the last session in Dorsetshire, a man and his wife were convicted of wounding Elizabeth Parsons, whom they accused of killing, by her art, six horses and a fat pig. Neither is superstition confined to remote districts: it abounds in the metropolis, where such is the credulity of the people, that it carries them into scenes the most revolting. We have ourselves more than once seen females on the platform of the gallows, while the executioner passed the dead man's hand over their neck, that operation being considered a cure for wens. The police reports bear ample testimony to the existence of fortune-tellers; and no later than the 5th of March last the following advertisement appeared in the Times newspaper:

A child's caul to be sold: the price asked for it is fifteen pounds!”·

After this, we again say, let us hear no more of Irish superstition.

Barbarism.-The Romans described

all nations but their own as barbarous, so naturally is it for people to administer to their own vanity at the expense of their neighbours! Ireland has been peculiarly unfortunate in this respect; for, even at the time when banished Science found there an asylum and a congenial home, the barbarians of Europe looked upon her inhabitants as uncivilized. Anastasius, the librarian of the Roman see, called the learned Johannes Scotus a barbarian because he was a native of Hibernia; and Tasso, in his Jerusalem Delivered,' in enumerating those nations who sent auxiliaries to the Holy War, mentions even the uncivilized Irish. The same language continues to the present hour, but no where is it so prevalent as in England and Scotland. The Edinburgh Review' describes the Irish as savage, and seems to have borrowed the epithet from a cotemporary Scot, who says, they are the most ignorant, benighted, savage, and brutal peasantry in the world.' Mr. Black, of the

Morning Chronicle,' attributes the barbarism of the Irish to agriculture, and every newspaper of the day is continually harping on the barbarism of Ireland.

As we do not recollect to have ever seen civilization defined, it is impossible to say what is or is not barbarous; but Ireland, compared with the other nations of Europe, is certainly civilized. Sir Francis Burdett says, next to the French, they are the most polished people in Europe; and the other day he called them docile and respectful. Every stranger, who has visited them, acknowledges their shrewdness and curiosity, and crowds of testimonies establish their moral and religious feelings. To call these people, therefore, barbarous, is an abuse of terms; and we challenge their maligners to adduce a single proof in support of their common assertion. If they refer to Whiteboyism, we deny their inference; for, if that is an evidence of barbarism, it is equally applicable to England and Scotland. The disturbance in the south of Ireland, like the statue of Janus, is made, from selfish motives, to wear a double face. The Orangemen adduce it as a proof of the intractable nature of popery under a

Protestant government, and the Catholic aristocracy as an instance of the impolicy of penal laws. Both these are wrong; for Whiteboyism is nothing more than a rural combination, similar to combinations among English artisans, and for precisely the same purpose-the advantage of the combinators. It commenced first in the North, and has continued in the South, because the causes in which it originated have been perpetuated in that province; namely, systems injurious to the poorer peasantry. At present we have not room to enter at large in proof of this statement; but whoever examines the question impartially will come to the conclusions we advance. Occasionally, Whiteboyism may, though we are not aware of it, have been mixed up with politics, as Radicalism was, some years ago, blended with all the proceedings of manufacturers; but that greater atrocities, or acts of greater barbarism, have been committed by the Munster peasantry than by the British workmen, we deny. Compare the judicial proceedings in Ireland with the evidence given before the Committee on the combination laws, and say, which indicate more determined wickedness, or extensive depravity? The proceedings in Munster are blazoned forth with the utmost industry, not unfrequently fabricated, and always exaggerated; while we scarcely hear any thing of the number of unfortunate creatures who have had life extinguished or made miserable from the effects of vitriol thrown in their face by combinators. The English journalists are really very absent; for, while they are adducing Marshal Rock in proof of Irish barbarism, they forget the Nottingham Captain, and frame-breaking, some years ago. Whiteboyism, in fact, has existed as long in England as in Ireland, though its operations have been directed to different ends.

contains a population less than that of a small Irish county, exhibited from June to April last fifteen homicides; and yet it enjoys a special corps of gens d'arms, as Ireland does her constables. ·(Times, April 29, 1824.) In other countries, and in England not less than elsewhere, homicides and

plundering often proceed from sordid rapacity, from the meanest and most despicable passions-they are robbers turned assassins. But murders in Ireland are connected with rights violated, power abused, authority perverted. The outrages of the Irish are the re-action of intense and reiterated enormities; of conquest and spoliation, civil and ecclesiastical; of a new church and an idle clergy, consuming the income of the original priesthood, and the industry of a mighty population;-of laws, vexatious and unjust, administered partially, and still more iniquitous in their execution than their enactment. Even now magistrates are convicted of converting the worst laws to their own fell purpose, and policemen are arraigned amongst the most daring criminals. Amidst all these provoking horrors, war-rents are exacted, and tithes are increased as prices decline

tithes are increased without any return of service, and rack rents levied by the underlings of absentees, to be wasted in a foreign land. The excesses of the Irish arise from conquest-conquest repeated, conquest continued according to the Spanish proverb, the thread leads to the ball.'

dicorum.

and generosity-the sun shines not on a more benevolent people, nor on a more forgiving. They want gall to supply what one old divine called wholesome animosity to the eternal enemies of their

country.

Immorality. Here we challenge inquiry, satisfied that it must terminate in acknowledging the Irish the most moral people on the globe. We make no exceptions, and defy contradiction. There is,' says the "Morning Chronicle," a great paucity of English crime. We scarcely hear of a highway robbery in Ireland, and stealing is of rare occurrence, notwithstanding the unsettled state of the country.

Compare,' says our author, the criminal state of the two countries: in England, those committed from 1810 to 1817 amounted to 47,950, and from 1817 to 1824, to 93,000; and what was Mr. Peel's answer? That the commitments were declining, being in 1819 14,224, and 1823, 12,263.—(Times, June 10, 1824.) Compare these and the calendar of Ireland, and remark the offences charged as crimes in this penal land. In 1873, in eight counties on which the insurrection act had been inflicted, 1,707 men were imprisoned; 271, or a sixth, were convicted; and 75, or a fourth of that sixth, were punished, and their crime was, being out of their houses between sunset and sunrise in winter.'

According to the third report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the state of the police of the metropolis, out of three parishes in the city of London, consisting of 9,924 houses, and 59,050 inhabitants, there were 360 brothels and 2000 common prostitutes, thus making every 28th house a moral nuisance, and every 58th woman a street-walker. Lest we should be considered as invidious, we shall not quote from a late report on the poor-laws, respecting female chastity in the country parts of England, as the following paragraph from the Cheltenham Journal' will serve our purpose.

On Thursday last, a woman was exhibited for sale in this town; but being considered a "bad lot," no purchaser was found for such a bargain, and she was driven home, with other unsaleable stock, (it being market-day,) unsold.'

The chastity of Irish females is proverbial; and, in proof of the delicacy of the poorer classes, quote the following from a work by VOL. I.-No. 3.

we

no means favourable to the Irish character:

Laugh at me as you may, I cannot but think that there is, among the lower orders of Irish, a delicacy of feeling which rank in England. It is not-it cannot be is not generally to be met with in the same refinement; for, on that point, we dare not enter into rivalship with you; but, if it be not refinement, it certainly very much resembles it, and produces the same effect upon the manners. There is a laughing, blushing modesty about the young women, which is pleasing from its very artlessness; often seeks in vain to imitate. There is, and which, in the upper ranks, affectation too, a degree of decency, a personal re

serve, which I have never met with in the English peasant.'-Letters from the Irish Highlands.

Idleness. This charge is so absurd. that we shall not attempt to add any thing to the reasoning of our author. It is said that the Irish are idle; and what people in bondage, from the Jews in Egypt, to the negroes in the West Indies, ever gratified their taskIrish are idle. Could they pay such masters? But it is false that the rents, tithes, and imposts, where there is little capital or encouragement, and where the greater part of the produce is transmitted to absentees, and be idle? There is, besides, direct evidence for the intensity of their exertions. In a report of a committee of the House of Commons, published last year, it is stated, that the Irish people are most anxious to work; that they worked for the smallest pittance-for mere subsistence; and that, when able to obtain labour by contract, they frequently exert themselves to the injury of their health. Such are they at home, while in England they mix in every occupation during the harvest, replenish the manufactories of Glasgow, Manchester, &c. with able hands, and in London they outdo the severest drudges. Passing abroad, they swell the tide of industry and enterprise in the United States; and in the newborn countries of the South, in the second and third generation after their exile, they, with O'Higgins, confirm liberty and the republic.'

Poverty. The Irish peasantry, respecting lodging and food,' says Mr. Ensor, 'have been misrepresented. One would really imagine, in reading

Р

accounts concerning them, that they were lower in the scale of being than the people of the Andaman islands, or the wild boy caught at Caune in France, who preferred nakedness and acorns to the best clothing and the greatest luxuries. Indeed, it would appear from some hasty sketches, that the native Irish resembled certain toads, whose skins, according to naturalists, split longitudinally, at which time the animal pulls off half his coat with one foot, which delivers it to the other, and this to the mouth. Having devoured this portion, the other half suffers the same process, which is swallowed also, the coat of the last year thus furnishing a repast for the present.'

Our author, however, seems to fall into the general opinion respecting the poverty of the Irish; and here we are obliged to differ with him. The Irish farmers, merchants, and manufacturers, compared with those of England, are certainly poor; but wealth is a relative term, and must be estimated by place and circumstances. Capital is not so deficient in Ireland as has been supposed, and the absence of manufactures can easily be accounted for from other causes than want of money. It is not, however, denied, but that shopkeeping in Ireland is quite as lucrative as in England; and the whole onus of the charge of poverty is laid on the peasantry. That thousands in Ireland are in abject poverty we don't mean to deny; but to the statement that the whole of the Irish peasantry are in a state of famine or misery we give an unqualified contradiction. In no nation of the world is poverty an exotic; and the poor of Ireland, compared with those of England, are assuredly not miserable. In the latter, a million souls, at least, subsist every day in the year on the poorrates; and we perfectly agree with the author of a recent pamphlet, entitled Plain Truths,' that those who talk of the extreme wretchedness of the Irish peasantry do not know them. Let me not,' says he, be charged with speaking paradoxically, when I say (and I say it upon a long and intimate acquaintance with the people) that, except when a rare failure of the potatoe crop occasions real famine in the country, I do believe

that the Irish peasantry have more pleasurable enjoyment than the English; and that, for one who has not a sufficiency of wholesome food in that island, scores die of starvation in the metropolis of the British empire.'

A little more prudence among the peasantry would render a failure of the potatoe crop impossible; and a little more care and management would render their habitations much more comfortable than the crowded abodes of the English labourers, where half a dozen families are often thrust into one house. Mr. Ensor is not correct in stating that rents are higher in Ireland than England; the reverse, considering the acreable difference, being the case, while the one has to pay rates and taxes unknown to the other. But this is a question of arithmetical computation, and does not depend upon this or that opinion. An estimate of produce and rent will immediately show that, with common industry, the Irish peasant can be independent and comfortable. This is the only way of arriving at the truth, and not by examining witnesses before committees of parliament; most of whom know as little about the state of the people as they do about the condition of the inhabitants of the Mogul Empire. On looking over a late report, we were astonished at the want of information evinced by natives of Ireland. We are aware how much may be owing to the influence of religion; but, when we find a whole people honest, moral, and cheerful, we cannot believe them to be living in protracted misery; for we are inclined to think, with Junius, that an extremely poor man, whatever may be his religion, is seldom honest, and we know he is never cheerful.

Having now, as far as our limits would permit, defended the people of Ireland from the imputations of their enemies and the admissions of their friends, we cannot conclude without earnestly recommending the work before us to the perusal of our readers. Mr. Ensor's style, though nervous, is not the most pleasing. He diverges too often from the subject immediately before him, and, in his eagerness to multiply facts and proofs, creates some confusion. This, however, is of very minor consideration,

THE BURIAL SCENE.

COME,' said my friend, as we hurried down stairs, there is no time to be lost; the funeral starts at one, and, if we delay, we shall probably miss the seats that have been reserved for us.' We moved briskly on, and, after turning through three or four narrow streets, reached the door of the House of Mourning.' Had we been at all astray as to the place, it would have been easily pointed out to us; a horde of idlers thronged the spot; the plume-crowned hearse stood there in solemn dignity, and the attendant carriages were busily gathering these would have served at any time as an indication of what was going on. The person whose remains we were now about to remove from among the living had been the wife of a wealthy shopkeeper. She had been lingering for two or three years; the physicians had, from nearly the beginning, declared her case to be hopeless; and what strengthened this opinion still more was, that she seemed thoroughly aware of it herself. All this had, in some measure, prepared her friends for the last melancholy trial. The approach of the 'grim destroyer' had been anticipated; and when he came at last his presence did not produce the effect that is common under other circumstances. This accounted to me also for the air of ease, I might almost say gaiety, which pervaded the room that had been set apart for the reception of the funeral folk.' A number of persons were assembled, and they were chatting in the most careless manner about ordinary matters; some of them talking over the news of the morning, others descanting on that

never-dying topic, the weather; and a few disputing, in an under tone, as to the distance which we had to travel. Scarfs and hatbands were distributing, and the knowing ones were busy in securing them: among those who were most eager in the work, three or four were particularly pointed out to me as regular funeral-hunters; characters who, on the strength of a slight acquaintance with the dead, or with the relatives of the dead, ventured, uninvited, to those houses where there was any expectation of what is termed givings out.' On the present occasion these folks had no cause to complain. One of them, I believe, missed the scarf and the hatband; but, if he was unfortunate in that point, he had an excellent opportunity of consoling himself for the loss. A large sideboard stood at the lower end of the room, and was literally sinking beneath the weight of saffron-cakes, and decanters filled with various sorts of wine. Those cheering ornaments of the sideboard were not allowed to remain there undisturbed. It was approaching the hour of lunch, and there were many quite ready for the call. One gentleman would taste the wine, just to set an example;' another had made

but a very dawny breakfast, and he would try a small slice of the cake, with a couple of glasses of the sherry, to keep the wind from his stomach;' a third refused, but took care afterwards to let himself be prevailed on. There were few who remained with lips entirely dry, at least I took care not to be among the number.

We were at length told that the hearse was about to move, and we all, of course, prepared to accompany