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of Ireland and the security and tranquillity of the should reserve to him the crowning mercy of such empire. an achievement. It would indeed be a fallacy and "The pope would no doubt be exceedingly a delusion to suppose that he, or any man, or any gratified if his authority were formally acknowl-set of men, could by any measures, however edged by the queen; and when this was done, politic or pacific, immediately dry up the ancient nothing is more certain than that we should find sources of weakness and disunion in that country; every disposition on his part to make its exercise it would be over sanguine to expect that Ireland harmonize with the temporal objects of our gov- should be at once and completely incorporated in feeling, as well as in law, with the rest of the empire; all that he can do is to lay the foundations, foundations broad and deep, on which a superstructure of conciliation and union may gradually be built."

ernment.

*

"When the rebellion broke out in Canada, we requested the pope to exert his authority with the Roman Catholic priests to induce them to assist us in quelling the disturbance; and his Holiness addressed a pastoral letter to them for that purpose, which was attended by the best effects."

of Ireland by England is a stock theme in all books or pamphlets upon Irish policy; many years since, Sydney Smith urged the payment of the Romish clergy, with a cogency of argument as well as of wit that would have settled the matter long ago had mere reason been allowed to settle

have proposed dealings with Irish Church property, from reduction to extinction. The book, however, is very able. It displays, indeed, the reading of a gentleman rather than the research of an historical inquirer, for Davies and Bacon are the most original authorities referred to; and occasional passages rather exhibit the writer, giving an artificial force and effect to this matter; still, the selection of historical illustrations is sufficient for the purpose, and the rhetorical passages are rare, though the work throughout seems to be the product of a pen accustomed to address the public. The whole subject is better digested, and the matter consequently closer and fuller, than the littérateur is in the habit of attaining to. There is, too, an air of quiet conviction about the views, with a self-possession and retenue, seldom displayed by the mere writer, as well as a perfect freedom of handling great affairs and great men without unduly depreciating them, rarely acquired except by a man of the world.

Except in the condensed exposition of the prac tice of the principal European states in dealing The fifth section is devoted to the future policy with religion, and the correlative proof that Irewhich our author deduces from the present and land is an exception to the civilized world, there the past and it substantially amounts to a pay- is no novelty in the course or conclusions of this ment of the Romish clergy, the acknowledgment volume. An historical review of the treatment of the pope, a reduction in the Irish Church Establishments-the "appropriation," in fact, which Mr. Ward discovered, and the whigs, after wearing till they wore it out, threw away. The principle of the appropriation, however "irreligious or sacrilegious," is greedily sanctioned by all parties when it is to put money in the purse of the landlords; it; whilst numbers, conspicuous for their position, as the author shows by reference to the various tithe-bills, &c. The difficulties arising from the prejudices of the British people and the interests of the clergy he does not disguise or deny; but he thinks them superable, and by Sir Robert Peel. "At such a crisis it is impossible not to turn with hope, amounting to expectation, towards Sir Robert Peel, and with confidence that whatever prejudices may still remain elsewhere unrooted, he, at least, will rise superior to them. Not one of all his predecessors in the high office he holds has ever rendered more important services to his country than he has now the opportunity of conferring upon her; and of all men he is the best fitted by character, by capacity, and by position, to accomplish the mighty task that is presented to him. He has already done enough to prove to the world that he is actuated by none of the ordinary motives of vulgar ambition. On a memorable occasion, he consented to make momentous and deeply-felt sacrifices to an overwhelming sense of public duty. The subsequent experience of fifteen years, and that intermediate study of the book of life which is the great instructor and adviser of statesmen, can hardly have failed to make him contemplate the discharge of his public obligations in a spirit more independent and more stern; and in a recent instance he evinced a firmness and decision, and a fearlessness of giving offence, equally indicative of his indifference to the possession of office and his resolution to retain it no longer than he was permitted to exercise the power it conferred according to his own judgment of what was most beneficial to the state. From the very beginning of his public career Sir Robert Peel may claim to be called a Reformer. He has, through the whole course of his political life, steadily, consistently, but cautiously, endeavored to correct abuses and errors, and to amend the laws, in order to improve the social condition of the country. Having without scruple freely canvassed his antecedent conduct, I may without scruple do justice to the purity of his motives, the sagacity of his views, and the good services he has performed but the best of those services will sink into insignificance in comparison with the pacification and reconciliation of Ireland, if Providence

We have thus far spoken of the book from internal evidence. There are intimations abroad that its importance is derived from the time of its appearance and the position of its author. The Morning Post regards its advent as the sign of some new treason to the Protestant cause on the part of Peel; whilst the Morning Chronicle holds that it is the production of a Conservative of station who speaks the opinions of other Conservatives. How much of this is well-founded, time will show; but the probable station of the author gives an interest to some of the facts which he intermingles with his narrative, as they contain what the elder Disraeli would call "materials for secret history." Sending the reader to the volume for polemics, we shall take our extracts from these more anecdotical passages in reference to the passing of Catholic Emancipation.

ANOTHER SILLINESS OF GEORGE THE FOURTH.

There is not a doubt that, if they [Peel and Wellington] had followed their own inclinations and consulted their own merely personal interests, they would have resigned, and left the Whigs to carry out the measure [Catholic Emancipation] they had so long labored to promote: but they

against the bill and its authors; and he went so far as to desire a person high in his intimacy and confidence to tell all his household that he wished them to vote against it; a command which the individual to whom it was given was, fortunately, too prudent to obey. If his majesty's ill-humor had been confined within the walls of his palace, and had there evaporated, it would not have much signified; but as the time drew near when the irrevocable step was to be taken of proposing the relief bill to parliament, he exhibited very alarming symptoms of a disposition to waver and draw back.

soon found that the work could only be done by themselves, and that they must either expose the country to enormous danger or undertake a task full of difficulty and humiliation, which could not fail to expose them to the bitterest obloquy and reproach, to the disruption of old friendships and connexions, and every sort of unpopularity. They at once flung aside all personal and selfish considerations. They did not hesitate to sacrifice their own characters for consistency; and, what was a still greater sacrifice, they did not scruple to adopt the means and expedients (repulsive as they must have been) by which alone success could be insured. The first thing to be done was to impart On the 3d of March, it was generally known their designs to the king; and having obtained that the bill was in the greatest jeopardy; and his consent, to conceal them from the rest of the nothing could exceed the consternation which preworld. The king was in the highest degree dis- vailed among the friends of government and emangusted at the intimation; but he declared that he cipation. On Sunday, the king sent for the would only give his consent upon the condition of chancellor, pretended that he had not been aware their all remaining in office, and themselves carry-of all the provisions of the bill, said that the ing the measure through Parliament; and to this, securities did not satisfy him, and he would not therefore, they made up their minds to submit. consent to it. The chancellor could do nothing He also required that the matter should be revealed with him; so, instead of returning to town, he to no human being out of the cabinet; well know-proceeded to Strathfieldsaye, where the Duke of ing the personal annoyance to which he should be Wellington was gone to receive the judges; there exposed if it once got wind. The ministers also he arrived at three in the morning, and communiwere aware that it was essential to prevent a No-cated to the duke what had passed. On Monday, Popery agitation being got up in England; and they were therefore fully agreed with his majesty on this point.

The sole chance of resisting the Liberal party, conjoined with Peel, Wellington, the official Tories, and the Tory advocates of Emancipation, was in rousing the Protestant masses of England, and then going to the country with "The King and No Popery." But the trouble was too great for the Sybarite; and, to save himself a little "personal annoyance," ," he proposed to cut off the supplies and soldiers of his own force. How the Great Captain must have inwardly chuckled at such stipulations for the plan of the campaign! Here is his majesty again.

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Meanwhile, the cauldron of Irish affairs was perpetually flaring up with some fresh ingredient that was cast into it. In the beginning of 1829, Lord Anglesey's recall excited, in different ways, both Catholics and Protestants, and tended to make the Duke's intentions more ambiguous than ever. The correspondence which led to that recall was itself caused by the unfortunate course of keeping the Lord-Lieutenant in the dark. He was, not unnaturally, provoked with the duke's want of confidence; while, without intending it, the free and frank expression of his opinions embarrassed the duke and exasperated the king. It was the king himself who vehemently insisted upon the recall of Lord Anglesey, though the duke took all the responsibility and odium of that in asure upon himself. Such were the difficulties and the personal differences which this long course of mystification unhappily produced, and which continued up to the eve of the meeting of Parlia

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the duke went himself to Windsor, and told the king plainly that it was too late now to recede, and if his majesty made any more difficulties he would instantly resign. The king began whimpering, said he thought the duke would never desert him in any circumstances; but, finding him totally deaf to his appeals ad misericordiam, told him he would take a day to consider of his final determination, and communicate it to him. The government considered themselves out, and thought everything was at an end: meanwhile, the king sent to Lord Sidmouth, and proposed to him to come and help him to overthrow the bill, and set the Duke of Wellington and O'Connell at defiance. Eldon's " young master" did not inspire the confidence which his old master might have doneLord Sidmouth would not trust him; he refused, saying to his confidants, that he would have done it for the father, but could put no reliance in the son.

THE LAST LITTLENESS.

But

When the Duke of Wellington made up his mind to carry the Catholic question, he wisely resolved to do it completely, to give unqualified emancipation, and not to trouble himself about securities; at the same time he was beset with difficulties which it required all his authority, and no small tact and management, to surmount. He had to gain over the king and the Tory party, and to reconcile both to the measure which of all others they most abhorred. His object was to give satisfaction to the Catholics, and at the same time to make the concession as palatable as he could to his royal master and his own friends. Of all living men he most thoroughly knew George the Fourth but, whatever may have been his personal opinion of the king, he had a profound reverence for his office; and he probably felt that he was not entitled to deal in a very peremptory manner with prejudices which he had himself only so lately discarded. It may be presumed that it was for these reasons he condescended to humor the king in his angry and ungracious mood. The king could not raise his mind to the height of the great argument, nor wisely give the assent,

which he dared not withhold, in a frank and gracious spirit. On the contrary, he became peevish and querulous, made his reluctance notorious to the whole world, gave all the trouble he could to his ministers, and, instead of courting the popularity which he might easily have obtained from the Irish, was bent upon gratifying his spiteful and vindictive feelings by the exclusion of O'Connell from the seat he had won; and it was the king himself who insisted that the clause in the act should be so worded as to render the Clare election null and void. To this miserable revenge, this kick at the living lion, it was unfortunately thought worth while to consent.

From the Spectator MRS. NORTON'S CHILD OF THE ISLANDS. WHо shall say that Blue Books are useless?seeing that they furnish materials for fiction, and illustrations for poetry. Writers of yore, who wished to strike out a new line of composition, had to look about them upon life, and learn what Reynolds calls the art of seeing nature." But "that great primum mobile of all human affairs, the barrister of six years standing," has superseded these necessities of personal effort. The Report of a Commission of Inquiry, with Appendixes from A to Z, gives us a short cut to various classes of life, which our predecessors had to find Out for themselves. Miners, milliners, factory children, agricultural laborers, and paupers, are exhibited, at least in their modes of living. The statists, the most unimaginative of men, are the cause of imaginative works in others; and if the reporters be permitted to go on as they are going, we shall soon have the physical as well as the moral diseases of felons laid before the world. No doubt, in these succedanea for experience, we miss the life with all its variety of character and its counteracting circumstances, even should these be, unhappily, nothing more than the hardness induced by wretchedness, or the drawbacks upon comfort arising from recklessness, sloth, and vice. But this is an evil inseparable from second-hand knowledge: one can only have it in the gross.

The Child of the Islands, the nominal hero of Mrs. Norton's poem, is the baby Prince of Wales: but he serves to little other purpose than the plot of Mr. Bayes. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, with an opening and conclusion, are the divisions of the poem; and in each there is some allusion to the prince-as to his worldly advantages, for example, that he will not feel the cold of winter-or a graceful intimation that he cannot escape the common lot of humanity-or elegant descriptions of what is possibly the palatial life of modern heirs-apparent; mingled with many loyal but not gross or fulsome aspirations for his future prosperity, virtue, and happiness. The real character of The Child of the Islands, however, is a series of outpourings upon the condition of the poor. Mrs. Norton says, (indeed she proves, by reprinting some letters to the Times newspaper of the date of 1841,) that she entertained these philanthropical views before they became the fashionable talk, and in some cases possibly the fashionable cant but first appearance in literature forestalls an after comer; and the repetition of the subject, in a similar strain of feeling, from Jerrold and Dickens down to scribes innumerable, has deprived it of some force and freshness. Beyond the feminine character of the writer's mind, with

the graceful illustrations of poetry and the music of verse, there is not much of novelty in The Child of the Islands. The images are many of them taken from the sources we have indicated: for instance, the youthful trapper in the mine shut out from the light of heaven; the miseries of the sempstresses; and the wretches congregating in winter under the trees in Hyde Park, to which several leading articles in the Times called public attention The more original topics, if not equally obvious, are almost as general property: the contrast between the splendors of London fashion and the squalidness of London want; various domestic pictures in the different grades of life; landscapes adapted to the four seasons of the year; with episodes according to circumstancesthus a fall of snow in " Winter" leads, from an English churchyard and the sorrows its deaths have occasioned, to the disastrous retreat from Cabul. These kinds of incidents and images are freely mixed with reflections; and, varied by the continual recurrence of the leading theme of the rondo, the Prince of Wales, form the matter of The Child of the Islands.

There

Topics so common to the literature of the times, and a plan so arbitrary and inartificial, can have little intrinsic power. The interest of the work must arise from its workmanship and the merit of this is great, in several points of view. Ease and finish of diction prevail throughout, with much beauty of thought and imagery, and a spirited style. The sentiment of the woman is everywhere, with its home feelings, its proneness to pity, and its readiness to decide upon the first impression from the first single view, without regard to the truism that "much may be said on both sides." Considered as a work of fashion, it may be pronounced the poem of the season. Regarded in a more critical aspect, the execution has deficiencies analogous to those of its matter. is seldom much that is absolutely fresh in the images, little very striking or original in the stylenothing which fixes the reader and impresses him with the idea that he is in the power of a mastermind. The poem is written in the Spenserian stanza; and though the imitation of Byron is not glaring, we are frequently reminded of Childe Harold, especially in the numerous reflections that follow the examples of the misery of the poor, or the inequalities of fortune, or for that matter the inevitable laws of nature but the half-wailing, half-pompous gloom, which was appropriate enough to the misanthropical Childe, is not so well adapted to the themes of Mrs. Norton. Perhaps, too, the style is somewhat too diffuse no single stanzas can be called weak, yet the general impression is rather one of weakness.

This, however, is not visible in any single passage, or perhaps in any single section; and several sittings at intervals would be the best plan of perusal. How it will read in that mode, we will indicate by a couple of topics, rather long, but complete in themselves. The first is from "Hyde Park;" but the particular subject relates chiefly to the homeless outcasts, whose case excited so much attention when first noticed.

LONDON OUTCASTS.

Betwixt the deathly stream and Tyburn Gate
Stand withered trees, whose sapless boughs

have seen
Beauties whose memory now is out of date,
And lovers on whose grave the moss is green!

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And equipages form'd for luxury; While rosy children, young and innocent, Dance in the onward path, and frolic with content.

But when the scattered leaves on those wan boughs

Quiver beneath the night-wind's rustling breath;

When jocund merriment, and whisper'd vows, And children's shouts, are hush'd, and still as death

Lies all in heaven above and earth beneath; When clear and distant shine the steadfast stars, O'er lake and river, mountain, brake and heath,

And smile, unconscious of the woe that mars The beauty of earth's face, deform'd by Misery's scars;

What see the old trees THEN? Gaunt, pallid forms

Come, creeping sadly to their hollow hearts, Seeking frail shelter from the winds and storms, In broken rest, disturb'd by fitful starts;

There, when the chill rain falls, or lightning darts,

Or balmy summer-nights are stealing on, Houseless they slumber, close to wealthy

marts

And gilded homes: there, where the morning sun That tide of wasteful joy and splendor look'd upon.

There the man hides whose better days are dropp'd

Round his starvation, like a veil of shame; Who, till the fluttering pulse of life hath stopp'd, Suffers in silence, and conceals his name: There the lost victim, on whose tarnish'd fame A double taint of Death and Sin must rest,

Dreams of her village home and parents' blame,

And in her sleep, by pain and cold opprest, Draws close her tatter'd shawl athwart her shivering breast.

Her history is written in her face:

The bloom hath left her cheek, but not from age;

Youth, without innocence, or love, or grace, Blotted with tears, still lingers on that page; Smooth brow, soft hair, dark eyelash, seem

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And many a wretch forlorn, and huddled group Of strangers met in brotherhood of woe, Heads that beneath their burden weakly stoop, Youth's tangled curls, and Age's locks of

snow,

Rest on those wooden pillows, till the glow Of morning o'er the brightening earth shall pass; And these depart, none asking where they go; Lost in the World's confused and gathering

mass,

While a new slide fills up Life's magic-lantern glass.

The following, though not new in its' essential idea, is far from hacknied; and it offers an example of one of the proper functions of poetrythe personification of a general principle.

IGNORANCE IN THE DOCK.

The criminal is in the felon's dock:

Fearful and stupified, behold him stand! While to his trial cold spectators flock,

And lawyers grave, and judges of the land. At first he grasps the rail with nervous hand, Hearing the case, which learnedly they state,

With what attention ignorance can command: Then, weary of such arguing of his fate, Torpid and dull he sinks, throughout the long debate.

Vapid, incomprehensible to him

The skilful pleader's cross-examining wit; His sullen ear receives, confused and dim,

The shouts of laughter at some brilliant hit, When a shrewd witness leaves the biter bit. He shrinks not, while the facts that must prevail Against his life unconscious friends admit; Though Death is trembling in the adverse scale, He recks no more than if he heard the autumn gale Oh Eloquence, a moving thing art thou!

Tradition tells us many a mournful story Of scaffold-sentenced men, with noble brow, Condemn'd to die in youth, or weak and hoary, Whose words survived in long-remembered glory!

But eloquence of words the power hath not (Nor even their fate, who perish'd gaunt and gory)

To move my spirit like his abject lot, Who stands there, like a dog new-sentenced to be

shot!

Look, now! Attention wakes, with sudden start,

The brutish mind which late so dull hath been! Quick grows the heavy beating at his heart!

The solemn pause which rests the busy scene, He knows, though ignorant, what that must

mean

The Verdict! With the Jury rests his chance! And his lack-lustre eye grows strangely keen, Watching with wistful, pleading, dreadful glance,

Their consultation cease, their Foreman slow ad

vance.

His home, his hopes, his life, are in that word!! His ties! (for think ye not that he hath ties?) Alas! Affection makes its pleading heard Long after better sense of duty dies, Midst all that Vice can do to brutalize. Hark to the verdict-" Guilty!"-All are foes!" Oh, what a sight for good, compassionate eyes,. That haggard man, as, stupified with woes, Forth from the felon's dock a wretch condemn'd he goes!

From the Examiner.

A Fragment on the Irish Roman Catholic Church. By the late REV. SYDNEY SMITH. Longman & Co.

WHAT Sydney Smith said of Mackintosh is now to be said of Sydney Smith.

"When I turn from living spectacles of stupidity, ignorance, and malice, and wish to think better of the world, I remember my great and benevolent friend Mackintosh. * If he had

been arrogant and grasping; if he had been faithless and false; if he had been always eager to strangle infant genius in its cradle; always ready to betray and to blacken those with whom he sat at meat, he would have passed many men, who, in the course of his long life, have passed him."

There was no anecdote of himself which Sydney Smith had a juster pride in relating, than the dialogue ending with Lord Stowell's remark, Oh Mr. Smith! you would have been a much richer man if you had come over to us! Of course he would have been a much richer man. He would have been a bishop. The tories are not afraid of making a pamphleteer a bishop; even when pamphleteer means libeller, as it meant in the days of Addison.

Sydney Smith's pamphleteering meant no such thing. It was keen to enliven and exalt, but never to malign and vituperate. It was generous, earnest, healthy. It set itself against the frauds, inanities, and absurdities, which pass current in the world. It raised the hue-and-cry after cant, pretension, and quackery. But, not being malignant, it was not dull enough to be decorous. "He cannot be a Christian who wrote the Tale of a Tub," said a decent whig of a hundred years ago: "and your Majesty must be sure that the man you would make a bishop is a Christian." So Swift died Dean of St. Patrick's, and Sydney Smith Canon of St. Paul's.

We do not like parallels. There is commonly a strain in them, and the effort does not favor truth. Therefore we shall not compare the Drapier with Peter Plymley, however strong the resemblance we might find, in their pungency of wit and in their easy strength and transparent clearness of style. But there is so curious an identity in one of the later passages of the lives of these famous letter-writers, that we may be pardoned for adverting to it.

more commerce with persons of such prodigious
grandeur, who, I feared,. in a little time, would
expect me to kiss their slippers. It is happy for
me that I know the persons of very few bishops;
and it is my constant rule, never to look into a
coach; by which I avoid the terror that such a
sight would strike me with." In both instances,
as we have said, the bishops were worsted. Dean
and canon found themselves masters of the field,
while
the new Iscariots

Came headlong tumbling from their mitred cha

riots.

In a clever notice of Sydney Smith given by the Morning Chronicle, the opinion of á recent French critic was adopted, to the effect that "the characteristic of Sydney Smith's mind was a keen perception of the grotesque side of whatever was bad and unjust, and that his power lay in developing the constant relation which subsists between falsehood and absurdity." But surely the latter expression cannot be correctly employed. What is relation? "When the mind so considers one thing," says Locke, "that it does, as it were, bring it to, and set it by another, and carry its view from one to t' other; this is, as the words import, relation." Now falsehood cannot in any such sense be said to have relation with absurdity. They cannot be set by each other and compared; they cannot be separated. They are one. The absurdity is from the first inherent in the falsehood; and the art of Sydney Smith consisted in this, that he pushed the falsehood to disclosure of its absurdity. We take it to have been his highest art. In nothing was his mastery more apparent. Woe to the falsehood that he so pursued! All its shirking, shrinking, doubling, and evading, availed it not. Inevitable doom awaited it. It must confess the folly that was in it. It must give forth its Noodle's Oration.

But how beautiful were the serious moods of Sydney Smith. What a fine fulness and solidity they had drawn from the strength of justice, which we believe to have been the ruling sense of his mind; and tempered with the warmth of charity, of which no man had a larger share. What a picture is that in one of his sermons, where he described the village school and the tattered scholars, and the aged, poverty-stricken master teaching the mechanical art of reading or writing, and thinking he was teaching that alone, while in The bishops' bill of 1731 for subdividing large truth he was "protecting life, insuring property, livings into as many portions as the bishops should fencing the altar, guarding the throne, giving think fit, was a counterpart to the church com- space and liberty to all the fine powers of man, mission bill of 1836 for mutilating deans and chap- and lifting him up to his own place in the order of ters and trimming cathedrals to a Bloomfield creation." What a scene is that of the poor measure. And both bills were lost by the wit wretched prisoner on his trial, struggling against with which both were assailed. "Swift," says the agonies of his spirit, and the rudeness of his Sir Walter Scott, "thought he discovered a conceptions, and his awe of better dressed and scheme on the part of the prelates to impoverish better taught men, and the shame which the accuand degrade the body of the clergy, besides sub-sation had brought upon his head, and the sight of jecting them to the absolute dominion of their spiritual superiors;" and Sydney Smith, right or wrong, thought just the same. The Dean of St. Patrick's wrote to his friend Bishop Sterne; the Canon of St. Paul's wrote to his friend Archdeacon Singleton; and, till this hour, one may open the letter of the bishop, and mistake it for that of the archdeacon. Has not the voice of the earlier the very trick and accent of the later wit? Upon this open avowed attempt, in almost the whole bench, to destroy the church, I resolved to have no

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his parents and children gazing at him in court, for the last time perhaps, and after a long absence -asked, under the old criminal law, what he had to say in his defence, saying that he left it to his counsel, and told that his counsel could not be heard! "The mariner sinking in the wave does not want a helping hand more than does this poor wretch. But help is denied to all. Age cannot have it, nor ignorance, nor the modesty of women! One hard uncharitable rule silences the defenders of the wretched, in the worst of human

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