SONNETS BY COUL GOPPAGH. MY PIPE! I speak not to the world; for, deeper far The light of this world shines not on him there, Save glimmering through the deeps that o'er him rollWan as the ray that trembles down the air From paly Hesperus,-upon his soul. Coy Mystery flings her sable cincture free, I. Once, yielding to a dream's deluding gladness, So changeful, full of light, and ever-coming, And left me to infold the empty air. Still, though the dream be gone, I see her stray II. Ah! spare me cruel spirit, for thy voice That wavers not, save when its pale may lie Where it doth linger; when its tones are low And whispering, they are like the summer sea- To answer with like sighs. Would! I might know To lay this beautiful deception far Beneath the ocean! for, by night and day, The sun, the moon, and every little star And passing cloud, o' the blue air that lies, Seem but to light and shade the deep springs of those eyes! SONNETS BY COUL GOPPAGH. I. Tell me, ye winds invisible, that know Or mourning wild at midnight; or where grieves II. For I behold the leafy poplars wrought The flowers that shake and sigh because of ye; All quiet thoughts wax dim, like stars on the ruffled seas. IRISII TRANQUILITY-PARLIAMENTARY RETURNS. On the motion of Sergeant Jackson, returus has been furnished to parliament of the amount of crime in Ireland, during the years 1836 and 1837. From the Standard and Times we take the following condensation of the results. The returns were of the reports of the police inspectors, and of the rewards offered in the Dublin Gazette. (From the Standard.) "The following is the amount of homi cides and crimes generally, month by month : 1836. July Homicides. Total Crimes. 17 509 10 861 14 22 690 Total six months 1 35$ Total, 1837 7477 229 "This, it is to be remembered, is the police report, which is a document of much less authority than the prison's report, and differs very materially from the latter. For example, the prison's report of 1836 gives the total number of homicides at 620; as it is not digested, like the police return, into months, we can only compare them by taking half their number, or 310, for the homicides, in the six months, commencing July, 1836, of which, but 105 are acknowledged in the police return. In the same way, the prisons' report gives a total of crimes, in 1836, of 23,891, the half of which, would be nearly 12,000, when the police report gives but 4251 for the latter half of 1836. "The half-year's homicides of 1837, as reported by the police, are 114; the halfyear's homicides for 1836, as reported by the same police, were but 105—an increase of just nine per cent. from year to year. Supposing the prison reports to maintain the same ratio, which is but reasonable, the actual homicides of 1837 will be found to approach 700; and we are gravely told that the continuance of these men in power is necessary to the peace of Ireland !!!' (From the Times.) "A return has been made, on the motion of Mr. Serjeant Jackson, of the rewards offered, by proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant, or Lord Justices of Ireland, for the discovery of the perpetrators of murders and other outrages, from the 1st of January, 1836, to the 12th of December, 1837,' of which the following is a brief summary. OFFENCES IN THE YEAR 1836. Supposed murders Homicide Burning houses, out-offices, &c. "But the above are only cases in which rewards have been offered by the Irish government. The parliamentary paper before us contains also a statement of the outrages reported to the constabulary-office as having occurred dring the past year. "These outrages are classed under four general heads:-offences against the person, offences against property, offences affecting the public peace, and other offences: and it is observable that although, as we have shewn above, rewards have been offered in 52 cases of murder, in 1836, the returns made by the Chief Constables in every case adopt, probably out of deference to a great Irish authority, the milder term of homicide. "We have, then, in this return, the following catalogue of crimes: OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON. Assaults with intent to murder 229 91 5 1756 Offered. Claimed and Paid. Murders 27* Assaults, of which the party assaulted died Other offences 27+ 226 110 69 684 Supposed murders For two of which rewards were claimed and paid. 606 . 1158 2853 "Now, with this exposure of a state utterly disgraceful to any country claiming to have the benefits of law and civilization in their hands, the apologists of ministers are imprudent enough to point to the Irish government as the redeeming merit of the Melbourne administration. Why, if all their other policy was as excellent as it is universally confessed to be the 'reverse, the progressive depravation of the state of Ireland, proved by the return before us (mark, their own return,) ought to cause the dismissal of the cabinet in twenty-four hours from its appearance. What are the excuses for such a horrid increase of crime? The Orange Lodges, which so long supplied an excuse, have ceased to exist nearly three years; the Orange processions and celebrations have been discontinued; under the happy operation of Lord Stanley's act tithe collisions' have been rendered so nearly impossible as to furnish no cases to the return. The causes of the evil are-Lord Mulgrave, and the system of a government who hold office at the pleasure of the criminals and their abettors." Our readers may take the trouble of comparing the evidence furnished by these returns with the delusive representations of Lord Mulgrave's celebrated specch. HIGH SHERIFFS. The government persevere in their course of disregarding the recommendation of the judges' list, and nominating persons not contained in it. In two instances this year they have gone further in superseding, on the eve of the assizes the gentlemen just appointed by themselves. In Sligo, Sir W. Parke, one of those gentlemen who has already appeared in our Memoranda as, preferring a complaint against a brother magistrate, and testifying to its truth, while they afterwards acknowledged they knew nothing about it. The grand jury was, in an immense proportion, Roman Catholic. The high sheriff was fined by Mr. Justice Crampton, for having disobeyed the act of parliament in striking the grand panel. CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Most of our readers are no doubt aware of the peculiar circumstances connected with the Achill Protestant Mission, of the hostility it has provoked from Dr. Machale, and the indefatigable resistance to his persecution, offered by Mr. Nangle. Among other efforts to diffuse Protestantism through the neglected regions of the west of Ireland, Mr. Nangle adopted the plan of publishing a Protestant religious newspaper, called The Achill Herald. Its proprietors were regularly registered at the Stamp-Office; a distinctive die cast for it, and stamps is sued to it as to any other newspapers, when, unexpectedly, and after the paper had been some time in exist ence, capital expended, and subscriptions paid in advance on the faith of the continuance of the privilege, an order was suddenly issued prohibiting its transmission by post. Few perhaps of our readers were aware of the exis tence of such a power. It appears that the Whigs have contrived to smuggle through parliament this arbitrary enactment, and they have dared to act on it, because the Achill Herald is obnoxious to the priests. The following is the enactment : "I. Victoria, Cap. 34, Sect. 32 And be it enacted, that in all cases in which a question shall arise, whether a printed paper is entitled to the privileges of a newspaper or other publication hereby privileged, so far as respects the transmission thereof by the post under the post-office acts, the question shall be referred to the determination of the Postmaster-General, whose decision, with the concurrence of the Lords of the Treasury, shall be final." The arbitrary suppression of this journal is the first attempt to carry the despotic principles of Whiggery to the extent of a censorship of the press. COLONEL SHAW KENNEDY. March 23.-Colonel Shaw Kennedy, the inspector-general of the police force, has resigned. Our readers have not probably forgotten the circumstances connected with Mr. Gleeson and the magistrates of Carlow. Colonel Kennedy demanded the dismissal of this Mr. Gleeson, and on this gentleman being retained against his remonstrance, he resigned. We can now only chronicle an event full of alarm to every loyalist in Ireland. The resignation or rather dismissal of Colonel Kennedy, is the transfer of the control of the police force of Ireland to the hands of the priests. WOODWARD'S SERMONS. WE received with anticipations of pleasure, and we now transmit to our readers with cordial recommendation, this very interesting collection of discourses. Our "constant readers" are, indeed, aware that our customary regulatious do not permit us often to devote our pages to subjects of this class. We must be allowed peremptorily to declare, that we withdraw from these themes, not that we would banish them from our thoughts, or from our readers' thoughts-not that we blush to maintain in public what, we trust, we know how to prize in solitude; but that we would, through sincere respect for their dignity, and solicitude for their influence, commit them to their more special organs, and more practised, because more exclusive, advocates. Engaged struggling for great principles and high practice, in the midst of that anxious ferment which the genius of a free constitution generates, and must ever generate-busied in "the very thick and tumult of the time,”. we feel ourselves not qualified, as other men, for the discussion of these holier truths. Religion, the simplest of all things as clung to by the heart, is far from being the simplest of all things as contemplated by the intellect; and it is only the voice of sciolism or enthusiasm that could bid us rush with unprepared eyes into depths "dark with excessive light," or delude us into supposing, that, because we love the radiance, and are quickened by the heat, we are therefore capable of discussing the philosophy of these heavenly gifts, the mode of their operation, the details of their phenomena, with those who have spent their lives in the study. Besides this, there is a propriety in the definite arrangement of subjects and their places, which we are in this instance, above all others, disinclined to disturb. Constituted as the world now is, religion must, to a certain dcgree, insulate itself from all surrounding associations, and address mankind from its own elevated and solitary platform. The caprices of men must not be suffered too rudely to handle this august companion: there must be re serve in its familiarity, and in its kindest intimacies something of the condescension of a superior. For this purpose, it is fitting that itself, its services, its teachings, should stand apart,-not, indeed, from the affections of mankind, but from their outward proximity and contact. They are but poor students of human nature who do not recognise, in its present weaknesses, the abiding necessity of this principle!Religion, in the spirit of its Founder's prayer, is not, indeed, to be "taken out of the world," but it is to be "kept from the evil;" and, as much as may be, from that neighbourhood with evil, or folly, or even levity, which may reflect upon its majestic solemnities a shadow of the transient being that surrounds them. Hence religion fitly demands its selected temples, its conse crated grounds, its ministry set apart, its peculiar day, its peculiar seasons; and so, in like manner, it naturally adopts its own exclusive organs of instruction, repositories of knowledge, and channels of intercourse. Dedicated to a special purpose of holiness * Sermons on Various Subjects; with Three Lectures on the First Chapter of the Book of Ruth. By the Rev. Henry Woodward, A.M., Rector of Fethard, in the Diocese of Cashel. London: James Duncan, Paternoster-row. VOL. XI. 1838. |