were two of his party, men moderate in their opinions, and of note, who had descanted upon two Irish measures. In the House of Lords, Lord Monteagle, in the Commons, Mr. Wyse had propounded these specifics. That of the first was to extend the endowment of Maynooth, that of the last was to establish academies for the middle classes on a liberal system. The premier, casting about for measures, seized upon these. They were the very things for him: they were proposed by his opponents, who could not therefore attack him if he adopted them. They would be popular in Ireland, where they would be received as concessions, would awaken hopes and lull agitation. Nor was England likely to reject them. Education was now popular. The priests had vast influence; many thought terms might be made with them. It was easy to represent that this policy would raise the character of the priests and improve the people. This stroke was therefore resolved on, and it was regarded by the Premier as a master-stroke. In one respect it was so it was sure to succeed in parliament and to ride over the session. Men would believe that something was doing for that troublesome part of the empire, Ireland; and that some how or other measures were in progress which would tranquillize it. This policy was resolved on before the end of the last session. Sir James Graham's announcement of a vigorous line of policy was thrown over, and the Premier putting aside his wiser and more courageous colleague, entered on the course which he had laid out for himself.

It was a course, however, open to two objections. The strength of public opinion in England was not sufficiently considered. Sir Robert Peel expected that his party in the House would follow him, as the members of a party dislike to oppose their leaders. In this he was correct. He forgot, however, the effects of reform and the influence of public opinion; the public sentiment was sound and not to be misled. The policy of the government was therefore generally unpopular in England. There was another blunder. In borrowing the suggestions of Lord Monteagle and Mr. Wyse, the government adopted two measures which were not only distinct from each other, but opposed. We agree with the Quarterly Review and with Lord John Russell, that the Maynooth Bill if it had any value, was valuable as one of a series of measures. We can understand a statesman holding the opinion that Ireland ought to be governed through the priesthood, that the proper course, therefore, is to establish their ascendancy. We think this a shallow policy, as well as a vicious one. It has been often tried, and it has as often failed. It has been tried in our own day by Louis Philippe, and his government have this

session proclaimed its failure. It is much more certain to fail in England than in France. Still it has a show of reason, and that show imposes on some reasoners, as it has done on our acute contemporary. But the only possible defence of the Maynooth Bill is, that it is the precursor of this system of policy. Lord Monteagle recommended it as such. But the government, while they adopted the recommendation, seemed to forget the reason, and presented their Maynooth measure as complete and adequate. In this the Quarterly Reviewer proves that they are utterly

wrong.

Nor was this all. Having pirated the measure of Lord Monteagle, they proceeded to appropriate that of Mr. Wyse. Sir James Graham compliments Mr. Wyse upon his sagacity. He tells us, that it was to his inspiration that government owed the happy thought of the Irish College Bill. But the ludicrous part is, that the College Bill and the Maynooth Bill are types of two different systems, and are at open war with each other. You may follow one course, but you cannot steer on both. Lord Monteagle and the Quarterly Reviewer would govern Ireland through the priests, but Mr. Wyse is the champion of an opposite system. He is the Vice-President of the Central Society of Education, the organ of the philosophical liberals. His associates are Dr. Bowring and Mr. Simpson, not advocates certainly of priestcraft. His school is one which is jealous of religion in education, and which maintains government schools in preference to those of the Church. They give a place to religion, but it is a small place, and priestly ascendancy they repel. Mr. Wyse's scheme of Irish academies was formed on that principle. It was to have the neutral tint in religion, open to all sects, but where none should rule; but that system was of all imaginable systems the most offensive to the Roman Catholic priests. It is the very antipodes of their views. Mr. Wyse, however, is honest, and adheres with honourable tenacity to his opinions. He knows that they are unpopular with his countrymen. He advocates them as true. They are no new views of his; he urged them on the House under the Whig government, which found it impossible to adopt them.

It could not have done so without giving offence to the priesthood and to the party of Mr. O'Connell; it therefore put aside these views, and in order to silence them put Mr. Wyse in office. It was open, undoubtedly, to any government to take up the views of Mr. Wyse, as that of Sir R. Peel has done; but they ought to have known that in adopting these, they were entering on a wholly different system from that recommended by Lord Monteagle. If their wish was to conciliate the Irish people, and to govern them through the priests, nothing could be more

absurd than to introduce the College Bill in the same breath with the Maynooth Bill; with the one to give the priests a buffet, with the other a bribe; first a treaty, and then a cartel of hostilities. It might be right to adopt Mr. Wyse's system, to educate the people out of the trammels of the priests; or right to take Lord Monteagle's system, to buy the priests, and through them the people. It could not be right to do both. There is no way of explaining why both were done, except on the principle which we have stated, that without any scheme of his own for Ireland, Sir R. Peel borrowed the suggestions of his opponents, and in this case has taken them from two opposite systems. This ill-starred conjunction reads us at least one great lessonthat the highest talent, the longest experience, the most consummate skill, are vain without moral qualities to guide them. Had Sir Robert Peel been devoid of ability, he would never have awakened our hopes. If he had had moral courage, he would not have disappointed them. It is the result of a policy prescribed by an unmanly fear of others, and catching at temporary expedients, that it follows no principle, gains no party; is not even coherent in its errors, and the State does not profit by its vices, because they are blunders.

Unquestionably this policy has in Ireland done nothing but mischief. When it began, the agitation was nearly extinct. It is now vigorous. Mr. O'Connell and his party were then feeble, they are now strong. The prestige which had left them has returned to them, and the weakness which had fallen upon them has now passed to the government. If the blow to its popularity in England has been severe, not less strong has been the blow to its authority in Ireland; we have already shown how injurious this is to the progress of order; it was certain to increase crime, and accordingly crime has within the last six months fearfully extended itself. It was certain for the same reasons to increase party rancour, and to extend those party animosities which separate classes who should be combined. Our contemporary, the Spectator, has blamed the Irish Protestants for the revival of those combinations which it stigmatizes, as Orange societies. It represents the Protestants as struggling for ascendancy, and dissatisfied with the authority of the law; we commend to our contemporary the perusal of the facts we have cited, and the temperate evidence of Mr. Blacker. These facts prove that the Irish government is weak, and that there is a want of security for property and for life. In such a case the men who have a value for either must protect themselves. The Protestants combine, not because they wish for sectarian ascendancy, but because they wish for the maintenance of order. If our laws would

protect them, they would depend on the law; as these fail, they turn for safety to that which is their only resource, association for self-defence; on this ground we justify these combinations, and restricted to self-defence, we think them praiseworthy. The Irish Protestants would be fools or cowards if they did not resort to them. That the government have thought proper to stigmatize them, and whilst they tolerate associations for treason, condemn associations for the defence of order and law; this confirms the views we have given; this is a part of the same policy which it has been our duty to arraign.

We conclude that it becomes us to draw from this Irish policy two practical lessons; the one, of sympathy with those who in Ireland struggle for the maintenance of our common faith, and of that order without which civilization is a curse; the other, a lesson of warning. For assuredly the principles of Sir R. Peel's Irish policy are not of local application. The same mind which has traced them, applies them to English interests; the same compromise of principle, the same desertion of truth, the same dread of opponents, the same neglect of friends, guides and mars the ministerial tactics. That any principle can survive, that any institution can last under this process, we do not believe; and that the duty of those, who, though friends of improvement, are attached to our institutions, is an urgent one, we strongly feel. What that duty is, painful indeed but peremptory, we shall take an early occasion to show; and in the meanwhile we commit to calm but anxious consideration the lesson taught in that chapter of Irish policy which we have now set forth.

VOL. IV.-NO. VII.-OCT. 1845.

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NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS,

ETC.

1. Klose's Memoirs of the Pretender.

2. Costello's Tour through the Valley of the Meuse. 3. Rev. B. Harrison on the Rubric. 4. The Tiara and the Turban, by S. S. Hill, Esq. 5. Montgomery's Law of Kindness. 6. Biber's English Church on the Continent. 7. Life of the Rev. Robert Anderson. 8. Murray's Hand-book for Spain. 9. Mangan's German Anthology. 10. Whytehead's College Life. 11. English Churchwomen of the 17th century. 12. Minstrel Love. 13. Snow's Memorials of a Continental Tour. 14. Goode on Tract XC. 15. Girdlestone on the Dwellings of the Poor. 16. Miscellaneous Publications.

1.-Memoirs of Prince Charles Stuart (Count of Albany), commonly called the young Pretender; with Notices of the Rebellion in 1745. By CHARLES LEWIS KLOSE, Esq. In 2 vols. London: Colburn.

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to write a book on the life of the Pretender, which should be wholly devoid of interest to persons unacquainted with the details of that eventful history; and we doubt not that Mr. Klose's "Memoirs" will earn for him a high_reputation in Germany; but when a topic so familiar to every English reader is brought before the public in this country, we have a right to expect something in the materials or the execution which may lay claim to novelty, or which may attract us by the graces of composition. We must confess that Mr. Klose's work has disappointed us in these respects. The most vivid and romantic of histories is clothed in a heavy and inanimate style. We should not of course have expected the life-like portraiture which the master-hand of a Scott could alone produce; but we certainly think that the history of Charles Edward is one which cannot be undertaken with prospect of success by any writer who is not qualified by temperament and taste to enter into its peculiar character, and Mr. Klose is evidently not possessed of such qualifications. The work, which extends to two rather thick octavos, commences with a history of the Stuart family. The greater part of the remainder is occupied by an account of the insurrection of 1745. Some details referring to the earlier and later private life of this unfortunate Prince are introduced; and these are referred to by the author as lending special interest to his publication; but we cannot see that they have any particular