to reign in his stead with the title of Queen Regent, until her daughter, now three years old, shall attain the age of eighteen, and assume the sceptre as Isabella II. But the people and the priests like not a woman's rule, and desire instead, that of Don Carlos, brother of the late king. It is hardly necessary to apprize those acquainted with the political history of modern Europe, that by the ancient laws of Spain, a female might be the sovereign that the Bourbons who obtained the Spanish throne at the beginning of the eighteenth century, brought with them the Salic law, which continued until 1798, when Charles IV. fearing that he would die with only daughters surviving him, obtained its repeal. But his son Ferdinand, who he then feared was about to die, did not die, but lived, and he had other sons, who also lived. So the old king seemed to forget that he had had the Salic law repealed, and when fifteen years afterwards, a collection of the laws of the kingdom was made by his order, the Salic law appeared at the head of them. Now when his son Ferdinand perceived that he, Ferdinand the King, was likely to 'die, having no child but one, and she a daughter, he caused the revocation of the Salic law, which never had been formally rescinded, to be republished as the law of the land, by virtue of which his daughter, and not his brother, was to succeed to his throne.

Thus do matters stand, and standing thus the Queen Regent claims the guar

dianship of the crown for her daughter, and Don Carlos claims it for himself as his lawful right. Already all the elements of civil war are gathering into fearful clouds, portentous of bloody strife. The queen holds the capitol, but many important places in the provinces have risen for Carlos, and the Biscayans cry long live our lord the King Carlos V." while the executive at Madrid acknowledges Isabella II. and the Queen mother as Regent. What France will do in the question, or whether she will interfere at all, remains at the time of our writing, an undecided question. What England will do, no one asks, so generally is it understood, that Lord Palmerston will indolently await his orders from France, and then act, or refrain from acting, accordingly. But in all probability the flame of civil war will soon light upon the peninsula, from Lisbon to the Pyrennees, and in that case, all Europe may chance to catch some of the sparks.

Altogether, as we said at the beginning of this our brief discourse there is a most undeniable prospect of trouble and disturbance at home and abroad. The political horizon, turn where we will, lowers most portentously. But have we not these clever fellows, the Whigs, at the helm, to steer us out of all difficulties? To be sure we have; but for ourselves, not having a place or pension, or expecting any, we had rather trust in God, and a good conscience.

IRELAND,-disastrous Ireland! How long will it be the opprobrium of British legislation! We fear much,-if present courses be only a little longer persevered in, until it has proved the bane of the British empire.

Our object is not to declaim, or even to expostulate against the pernicious mispolicy which has converted a source of strength into a source of weakness, and made a country, fertile even to prodigality, and containing eight millions of a hardy and intelligent population, a fearful incumbrance, subtracting from the power and influence, instead of a noble addition to the greatness of England. The calamity is now too imminent, and too tremendous, to leave us either the leisure or the inclination to recriminate upon those by whom it has been occasioned ;-and all that remains is, to point out, as clearly as we can, the present condition of the country, adverting briefly to the causes which have brought it into that condition, and indicating, to the best of our ability, the means by which its evils may be removed.

The measure of '29 commenced a new era in Ireland. The moral and political resources of the country were thenceforward transferred, from the wealthy and the educated, into the hands of its physical population,-a population under the influence of seditious leaders, exasperated by a long continued struggle for what they deemed their rights, and obtaining those rights, VOL. II.

not as a boon from an indulgent government, but as the reward of successful agitation.

Had the cabinet by whom the emancipating bill was passed continued in power, it is our opinion that they would have seen the necessity of taking such measures respecting Ireland as might have effectually coerced the disturbers. But, in giving power to others, they parted with it themselves. The great party by whom they were supported separated from them in anger, and they were unable to make any effectual resistance to the combined hostility with which they were assailed. Thenceforward the Whigs became ascendant; and their ascendancy was soon fearfully visible in the convulsion of the empire.

Agitation was now legitimated as one of the ordinary resources of government, and the prerogatives of the monarch unsparingly employed in undermining the stability of the throne, And here, perhaps, it is right to distinguish between the motives by which the present and the former government were actuated, in their adoption of those pseudo-liberal measures which have proved so disastrous to the country. The Duke of Wellington and his associates were led, most mistakenly, to believe that emancipation would have been a means of tranquillizing Ireland; and although they knew well the risk they ran of giving fatal offence to their steadiest friends, yet they

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resolved to do so rather than halt in a course which they imagined would conduce to the public weal. Their liberality as a government was all against their interest as a party. Not so that of the Whigs. This body have always considered their interest as a party as of more importance than any other consideration; and their liberal measures, as they are called, were all intended as the purchase of popular support, by means of which their power might be perpetuated. Hence, the Reform Bill, by which, in a word, the constitution of England has been so essentially changed, that the relation between the governors and the governed has been almost reversed; by which the House of Commons has been filled by the representatives of a fierce democracy, while the sovereign and the nobles tremble at their nod.

But it is in Ireland that the effects of Whig ascendancy have, as yet, been chiefly felt. The emancipating bill having left nothing, in the shape of political benefit, to be conceded to the Roman Catholics, the only indulgence which could be granted to them was, a permission to enter upon a crusade against the Established Church, and to persecute its righteous and unoffending clergy. This has been done until their property has been put under a kind of popular sequestration, and they have themselves become outlaws in their native land.

Indeed, from the moment the emancipating bill passed into a law, the destruction of the Irish Church might have been predicted: nor were there wanting those who foresaw that a course of policy would thenceforward be pursued which must endanger the continuance of the connexion between Great Britain and Ireland. This was the natural consequence of the triumphant entrance into parliament of a body of men, who were the creatures of popular violence, and who could maintain their station as legislators only by the most slavish submission to the dictates of the mob. Accordingly, in all measures adopted towards this country, not English interest but Irish antipathy was consulted. We do not mean by English interest that which is peculiarly advantageous to the one country, at the expense of the other, but that which is calculated for the mutual benefit of both countries,

and for cementing the connexion between them; and this, we maintain, was either designedly or grossly overlooked in all the recent measures of government, as they respected either the disturbances or the improvement of Ireland.

It is not easy to form an accurate estimate of the loss which the Protestant community has sustained by the suppression of charter schools, and by closing the doors of the Foundling Hospital. The latter establishment had been brought under a system of the most admirable rules and regulations at the very period when it was resolved to discontinue the grant for its support. It was fully capable of sending, annually, one thousand well principled and educated individuals into the community. The charter schools, the abuses of which might have been easily remedied, must have been able to furnish a much larger number; and their combined influence would have powerfully contributed to people the country with a loyal population. Both establishments were naturally disliked by those whose antianglican machinations they were likely to counteract; and their suppression is not the only instance in which the minister, either weakly or wickedly, consulted the prejudice of the factious at the expense of the well-being of the empire.

Nor was it alone by the suppression of establishments which were calcu lated to augment the ranks of loyalty in the humbler classes, that the fatal mispolicy of the present government has shewed itself. One by one the institutions and the offices, which furnished each a corps of devoted adherents to British connection, have disappeared. The principal officers belonging to the custom-house, the treasury, the excise and the stamp offices, have all been transferred to England; and even the inmates of the old hospital at Kilmainham, for decayed and wounded soldiers, are about to share the same fate. Thus, the country is deprived at the same time of the expenditure by which its poverty was alleviated, and which inade some sort of compensation for the drain caused by its absentees, and of the loyalty which would have served as a counterpoise and a check to the hourly increasing violence of angry repealers.