half of that invaluable, but we fear too much neglected, Institution-the National Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb.

"Our Lord appears to have felt peculiar compassion for persons visited with this affliction. When one was brought unto him that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech, Jesus took him aside from the multitude, and looking up to heaven-as if contrasting the miseries of this world with those bright regions where sorrow is unknown-he sighed, and said unto him, Ephphatha, that is, be opened." Before he performed the miracle, the whole past life of this isolated wanderer upon earth, and all the cheerless circumstances of one, so long cut off from the common charities and endearments of social converse, at once were

6

pictured to his imagination, and rushed like a torrent upon his heart. All this was known to his omniscient mind. But, alas! how can I adequately describe to you, or apprehend myself, the privations and sufferings of the deaf and dumb? If we have a sense which nature denies to them, they have a knowledge, to which we, happily for ourselves, are strangers. If we have lived in a region shut out from them, amidst concords of sweet sounds, and in a land where every breeze can waft instruction or pleasure to our ears; they have trod a silent desert, and penetrated into lone recesses, which none

but the deaf-mute can traverse.

"But it is my duty, as far as I can know it, to tell their sad tale of sorrow. And in doing so, it is equally my duty to bespeak, if I can, your sympathy for another class of sufferers, scarcely less pitiable than they: I mean the parents of children thus heavily afflicted. It is true, that in their case, as well as others, a woman, when she is delivered of her child, remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. The infant, for a time, returns to her smile for smile, and catches, with dawning intelligence, each token of affection from But too soon does the un

her eye.

happy doubt arise; too surely does the sad suspicion force its way through every fond effort to be still deceived; too soon does the agonizing certainty reach a mother's heart, that her child is not like other children; that the life she brought forth in pain, and is to preserve by watchfulness and care, will be but a burden to it, a grief and sorrow to herself. No morning salutation, nor sound of evening blessing-no mother's voice, or accents of a mother's love, will ever reach its

ears.

Instead of the delightful task of training up her child in wisdom as in stature, it will be hers to watch the silent process of a solitary being, growing as a root out of a dry ground."

And here we are compelled to cease. Some of our censors may, indeed, ask us why we ever began. They may deem that a performance of so purely religious a nature has no fitting place in our cabinet. We have no time to give them one-half the answers that crowd our mind. But we will just remind them of the peculiar circumstances of our depressed country-of its narrow circle of existing literature, which all (for its all is but little) demands that devoted attention and assistance which our Magazine was first organized to furnish. We confess it, in our affections and our efforts; and we are Irish-Irish thoroughly, both we would feel it a duty, we who are placed to hold unceasing vigil over Irish literature, to examine, be it for praise or censure, a volume of commentary on the epic of Goody Two Shoes, which had appeared in our native land, in preference almost to a new poem of Wordsworth, or a posthumous novel of Scott. How much more, then, a work whose religious character certainly does not prevent it from being highly creditable to the reputation of our national intellect. In the crowded literary mart of England it is indeed necessary, or at least convenient, that every species of intellectual commodity should have its own register, and that distinct records should be preserved of the produce of every different domain of thought. But with us the case is sadly otherwise: here the progress of mental imaccordingly we are always glad to have provement is miserably impeded; and it in our power to encourage it in every department, whether secular or spiritual, where it endeavours to advance. And even if this were not so, even if necessity did not force upon us in Ireland this catholicity of feeling in our literary tastes, a work of the character of that before us calls for our notice. We are not, indeed, accustomed to criticise a book of devotional exercises, or a collection of pious aspirations. But God forbid that we should consider the subject of religion in its highest sense as proscribed from

our pages. And here is a work which, with that enlarged spirit of contemplation which genuine Protestantism fosters, is philosophical no less than religious, appeals to reason as well as to faith, and thus invites the attention of all who are disposed to exercise their

rational faculties, and are wise enough to think it no intolerable drawback upon the invitation that they happen to be asked to exercise them upon the most momentous subject that can engage the intellect of man.*

"WHO ever expected knowledge of Ireland from an Englishman? They know more of Siberia or Caffreland than they do of their next door neigh bours." Such is the answer of the dispirited and ill-used Protestant, elicited half in indignation, half in apology, for the repeated injuries and insults heaped upon him by his brethren of England, at the instigation of that gang of traitors whom he knows, by long and bitter experience, to have succeeded, by audacious falsehood and sneaking plausibility, in rendering even the noblest feelings of the British people the instruments of their own seditious and murderous designs. Such is also the exhortation employed by the popish ringleaders to encourage their vassals in their career of crime, by the assurance that it will be easy to persuade the people of England that all their exertions to destroy every stay of British connexion are nothing but the noble effusion of the love of liberty, and a desire to enjoy the blessings of the English constitution. The systematic, bold, and ready audacity with which those traitors turn to the destruction of British interests in Ireland, that ignorance of the true state of this country, which is so general, in the sister kingdom, and of which, we blush for our species when we say it, many of our fashionables actually affect to be proud, would be truly surprising, were we not aware of that perfect discipline by which the Romish church communicates to the dullest of her votaries the results of the talents of the most able, and secures that all in their several vocations shall, whether consciously or otherwise, aid the accomplishment of her designs.

It has often been said, and is indeed an opinion too constantly enforced on the observation of the Irish people, of all parties, to be among them a matter of doubt, that Ireland has never been judiciously governed. It has been said that the policy of England has been as mischievous in its omissions as in its acts. It has been said that England has no real desire to improve Ireland to any greater extent than to render her a good recruiting station for her armies, or victualling office for her fleets. All this, and much more has been said by the popish population, influenced by their instinctive and innate hatred of the English name; and by the Protestant under the feeling of disgust at the patronage held out by English policy to those who have revelled, are revelling, and are determined yet more to revel, in the prostration of the religion and the destruction of the property and lives of his kinsmen and fellow-christians. All this has been said; but all this is not strictly true.

"What!" our English readers will exclaim, "is this all you can say in answer to such charges?" No, this is not all we intend to say in the defence of our English brethren. We have indeed denied a part of the accusation, though well aware how small a part that is, compared with that which is too woefully true to admit of question in the mind of any one acquainted with the past history, or present state of our unhappy island. But, while we admit the facts of misgovernment, while we attribute them, in many instances, to motives in the breasts of individuals at least as bad as any of which the British nation is accused, yet we would

stand up to vindicate that nation in general from any participation in those motives, we would advance, in excuse of her omissions, that many of them were caused by despair at the ill success of her acts, and we would account for the mischievous results of those acts by endeavouring to demonstrate that they originated, not in a desire to promote discord, to encourage superstition, error, and crime, and to retard civilization, but in a vain desire to reconcile things essentially at variance, and in a mistaken attempt to apply to Ireland the principles of English government, before she had by any preparatory process been qualified to receive them.

If our brethren on the other side of the channel would but consider what little hope there would have been of their attaining the advanced state in which they are now, if their present system and principles of social organization had been suddenly forced on their ancestors at the period of the wars of York and Lancaster, they will see how idle the task is of persisting in treating the savage, superstitious papistry of Ireland, as if they were educated, loyal, civilized yeomanry.

Much of the mismanagement of Ireland, which has now gone on for so many generations as to make it seem as if the kingdom possessed an especial and intrinsic talent for misery, may be traced to its situation, not as rendering such a situation of things necessary, but as inducing the errors in which the evil originated.

When we say that it is our opinion that much of the mistaken policy adopted towards Ireland has been induced by her situation, we would be understood to mean, that her close propinquity to England has prevented her being treated like a colony, when in fact, her separation by the sea, and the circumstances of her original junction with Great Britain, made it as necessary to apply the colonial policy to Ireland, as to Canada or Australia. What is the difference then of our colonial and domestic policy? Precisely this. In our colonies we maintain our footing at first by a powerful standing army; we make laws suited to the circumstances of the colony; we examine the character and habits of the natives; if we have any hope of render

ing them good subjects, we instantly apply the whole influence of government to root out their superstition, to improve their ideas of comfort, and to induce regular habits, to encourage manufactures, to diffuse education, and above all, and as a principal means of attaining all this, to enforce a strict obedience to the laws; and when we have brought them to a complete conformity to English habits and laws, we then, but not sooner, begin to think of admitting them to British privileges.

Now, had this been our policy regarding Ireland? In one part of the kingdom, James the First put in operation somewhat of this system of civilization ; he introduced a great body of persons, thoroughly trained to British principles and habits, and he instituted such a system of laws and regulations as, even in the imperfect manner in which they were acted on by the shortsighted and selfish colonists, succeeded in rendering that part of Ireland, which was, till then, by far the most savage and the most hostile to England, not only the most civilized, educated, and peaceful, but actually that portion which at this day supports the connexion of the two islands. It may indeed with truth be said of that sovereign, the weaknesses and eccentricities of whose character are more remembered than his virtues and wise political designs, that he effected more to forward and secure the power and glory of England than any other prince, except Edward the First. Edward saw that it would be impossible for England ever to attain a first rank among empires, while hostile and independent nations occupied different parts of the same island; he therefore applied himself, not perhaps in the most just and honorable manner, to reduce Scotland and Wales, and in a great degree succeeded in laying the foundation at least of a future consolidation of the empire. The Reformation did more to complete this work, however, than even the accession of the house of Stuart to the English throne, or the birth of Edward the Second. In the time of James men had become better acquainted, not only with geography, but with the effect upon nations of their relative geographical position. He accordingly, with that sound wisdom and high sense of duty, which seemed so confined to acts

of importance as not to prevent him from rendering himself, in trifles of daily life, one of the most ridiculous and contemptible of modern sovereigns, perceived, that as Ireland became more populous, and nations became better acquainted with, and more capable of acting on, each other, it was absolutely necessary that Ireland should be reduced to a conformity with England in religion, manners and laws, in order to prevent its being rendered an instrument in the hand of the enemies of England, by which to divide her strength and waste her resources. James felt that there was no alternative between Ireland being a mainstay of strength, or a constant thorn in the side, increasing in proportion as its resources were developed, and the superstition of its natives was increased and made more dangerous by a false system of education. He, therefore, applied himself boldly to the root of the evil; he attacked the enemy at first in his citadel, and he chose the most barbarous portion of the kingdom for the experiment. The peaceful, moral, religious, and civilized province of Ulster, that part of Ireland, the British character of which has reduced the foes of English connexion, the popish agitators, to derive their sole hopes of ruining Great Britain, and extirpating true religion, from the bold and crafty attempt to render England the author of her own destruction, and to induce her to put into their hands the keys of the citadel which they despaired to take by open force; that province which presents almost the only spot where social order, tranquillity, and the Protestant faith, the cause and the sure accompaniment of both, now raise their heads, was the offspring of the policy of James the First. Had that system been executed up to his intentions, and extended to the whole island, the power of the empire would be at this moment doubled, and its tranquillity secured. James looked on Ireland as a British colony, the close proximity of which only rendered it more urgently necessary to pursue towards it a colonial policy, until every vestige of distinction, not in rights and privileges, but in religion, habits, and feelings between the two countries, should be absolutely extinct. He knew by experience that while a slight

difference in their views upon church government, did not prevent two portions of a Protestant state from acting together in the most sincere harmony for the public good; yet that so utterly incompatible were the doctrines of Popery, even though veiled and modified so as to present their fairest front, not only with the existence of any real community of feeling with Protestant England, but even with the very principles and nature of British liberty and laws, but that he felt that the influence of their superstition must be broken down before any substantial improvement in the state of the island could be hoped for. The course of policy then which James considered necessary to attain the great object of tranquillizing Ireland, and which he in part executed with such success, was not that of conferring on the natives all the privileges of British Protestants, encouraging and endowing national colleges to propagate superstitious idolatry, and removing all inducement to conform to the religion, habits and principles of the rest of the empire, but that of implanting such a mass of Protestants as, should ensure peace; and by a union of example, influence, and religious education, inducing conformity among the natives. It would have endangered the head of "Steenie" himself, to have proposed to that prince the establishment of a Maynooth seminary, as a means of infusing British principles and loyalty into his colony.

The first and leading error, to which may be traced a great part, at least, of the mismanagement of this country, is the supposition that its mere proximity to Great Britain is in itself sufficient to render its natives qualified to enjoy British privileges, and fit to be trusted with legislative powers; and that the qualifications requisite to persons to be endued with political influence, arises from numbers or local situation, rather than from moral character as a class of society. The modes in which this theory has been brought to bear injuriously on the welfare of Ireland, are too numerous to be detailed: but the result has been, that the English people-those at least who took any interest in Irish affairshave been alternately labouring to raise a noble superstructure without a

foundation, or viewing with despair that failure of their most philanthropic theories, which they attributed to some fatality which forbid the improvement of the island, or as we shall take the liberty of calling it, the colony, instead of perceiving that it was no more than the necessary result of the weak and unstatesmanlike project of producing civilization by acting as if the people were actually already civilized, and engrafting all the powers conferred by the constitution on loyal and trust worthy citizens, upon persons labouring under the darkest thraldom of superstition, and inflamed by the most deep-rooted hatred of every thing connected with those whom they viewed as tyrannical conquerors and excommunicated heretics. It must be remembered that the effect of every such attempt was two-fold. The acts of England were those of an external power, but of that power which originally planted the colony. The colonists themselves were necessarily acquainted with the true state of things, while they were also most deeply involved in the result of such experiments, the failure of which, while it encouraged the natives, disgusted and alienated the colonists. From this theory have resulted the concessions made successively by England to Irish agitators, the total failure of which in inducing anything like gratitude or loyalty, and their direct effect in raising their demands, and increasing the audacity of their protegés, has greatly surprised the English people; who yet seem carefully to close their eyes to the somewhat humiliating recollection, that every single fact that has occurred, was clearly, coolly, and demonstratively pointed out to them so long since as the first introduction of the fatal measure of popish emancipation into parliament. They then turn round, and, with the greatest calmness, say to us, You, Irish, are most unreasonable, you are always fighting among yourNow this is, as we Irish" say, really too bad. The phrase "you Irish" is in itself an illustration of the whole policy of Great Britain towards this country. They planted us here as a colony, for the purpose of supporting their power, not with the help of, but directly in opposition to, the desperate, treacherous, and restless hatred of those

selves."

natives, whose national feelings and political creed alike forbid the possibility of any reconciliation to, or toleration of British connexion. They sent us over here, not merely to control, but to reform these natives; in short, they planted the colony for the express purpose of retaining and improving Ireland; and on the avowed understanding that the duty and value of the colonists was to consist in their bringing the natives to a conformity with the new system. Such was the purpose, the plain, wise, rational, and necessary purpose, for which the English nation colonized Ireland with English, Scotch, and Welch; and yet no sooner are these said colonists convicted, not, be it remembered, of murdering the natives, not even of persecuting them, but actually of differing from them, of not having assimilated to those very superstitions, manners, feelings, and principles, the extirpation of which was the very object of our mission. Then forth flows from all corners of the mother country a torrent of righteous indignation against our intolerant bigotry and tyrannical exclusiveness, and we hear ourselves confounded with the native savages in the reproachful exclamation-" You Irish are always differing among yourselves." This exclamation is followed by soothing encouragement to the recusant natives, and by laws enacted in their favor; and to all succeeds the sage and philosophic expression of surprise, why the reformation should have failed in Ireland?

This is a light, and we would even, when comparing it with the actual details, consider a favourable view of the policy pursued towards Ireland by Great Britain, yet, monstrous as this must seem, we would unhesitatingly repeat, that while too much indifference has been displayed towards the real interests of Ireland, and too much indolence has been allowed to prevent them from acquiring practical acquaintance with the true state of their country, and from examining their own theories with sufficient care, yet that our English brethren have in many of these mischievous errors been actuated by the very best and most generous principles of their nature, and the most sincere and disinterested philanthropy, and desire to fulfil their duty and to benefit