/////y^//// ///V///V/ /////.J 
 
 / 
 
^-« 
 
 ■^^m ay^j^i^.jC'^^ ^^ 
 
 l/. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 IRELAND 
 
 HAREIET MARTINEAIT. 
 
 EEFRINTEB FROM TUB 'DAILY NEWS.' 
 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN CHAPMAN, 142, STEAND. 
 1852. 
 
ms^u^QK 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 JOHN EDWARD TAYLOE, LITILE QUEEN STREET, 
 Lincoln's inn fields. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 These Letters were communicated to the ' Daily News' 
 during my journey in Ireland this last autumn. A 
 reprint of them, as a volume, has been asked for, and 
 I now obey the call. My readers will take them for 
 what they are — a rapid account of impressions received 
 and thoughts excited from day to day, in the course 
 of a journey of above 1200 miles. I have thought 
 it best not to alter them, either in form or matter. 
 There would be no use in attempting to give anything 
 of the character of a closet -book to letters written 
 sometimes in a coffee-room, sometimes in the crowded 
 single parlour of a country inn, — now to the sound of 
 the harp, and now to the clatter of knives and forks, 
 and scarcely ever within reach of books; therefore 
 have I left untouched what I wrote, even to the no- 
 tices of passing incidents as if they were still present, 
 and references to a future alreadv fulfilled. 
 
 M196859 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 The issue of the Letters in this form enables me to 
 render one acknowledgment which I was rather uneasy 
 not to be able to make at the time — an acknowledg- 
 ment of my obHgations to the members of the Dublin 
 Statistical Society and of the Belfast Social Inquiry 
 Society, whose tracts, before interesting to me by my 
 own fireside, were of high value in my journey, by di- 
 recting my observation and inquiries. They not only 
 taught me much, but put me in the way to learn more. 
 When I had the honour of meeting Professor Hancock 
 in Dublin, and told him how freely I was using his 
 ideas in my interpretation of Irish affairs, he made 
 me heartily welcome to all such materials as might be 
 found in his tracts, saying that all that any of us want 
 is that true views should spread, for the benefit of 
 Ireland. He can afford to be thus generous ; and I, 
 for my part, must request my readers to ascribe to 
 him, and the other economists of those societies, 
 whatever they may think valuable in my treatment of 
 economical questions in this volume ; the rest is the 
 result of my own observation, inquiry, and reflection, 
 on the way. 
 
 H. M. 
 
 The Knoll, Ambleside, 
 
 December 20M, 1852. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 Page 
 LETTER I. 
 
 LOUGH FOYLE AND ITS ENVIRONS ... 1 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 WEST OF ULSTER WEEDS — LONDON COMPANIES 
 
 TEMPLEMOYLE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL . . 8 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 THE DERRY AND COLERAINE RAILWAY PRODUCE 
 
 AND TRAFFIC OF THE DISTRICT — BEAUTIFUL 
 
 SCENERY WHAT CAN PUBLIC WORKS DO FOR 
 
 IRELAND? 17 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 THE LINEN MANUFACTURE — FLAX GROWING AND 
 
 DRESSING 25 
 
 LETTER V. 
 AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENT IN ULSTER . . 34 
 
r 
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 Pape 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 IRELAND DYING OF TOO MUCH DOCTORING — THE 
 
 ' TENANT eight" QUESTION .... 41 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 HOW IRELAND IS TO GET BACK ITS WOODS . . 49 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 LEINSTER — IRISH INDUSTRY — RELIGIOUS FEUDS 57 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 THE WOMEN 65 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 RAILWAY FROM DUBLIN TO GALWAY — BOG OF 
 
 ALLEN 73 
 
 LETTER XL 
 GALWAY 82 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 CONNEMARA 92 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 THE fEOPLE AND THE CLERGY . . . . iUl 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 ENGLISH SETTLERS IN THE " WILDS OF THE 
 
 west" . . . . . . . . lUlJ 
 
CONTENTS. TU 
 
 Page 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 ACHILL 117 
 
 LETTER XVL 
 THE WILDS OF EERIS 126 
 
 LETTER XYIL 
 CASTLEBAR — PAUPERS EMIGRANT FAMILY . 134 
 
 LETTER XTTII. 
 IRISH LANDLORDS AND IRISH POTATOES . . 142 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 LANDLORDS, PRIESTS, AND VOTERS . . .150 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 THE WORKHOrSES 157 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 KILLARNEY 166 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 THE RIVAL CHURCHES 173 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 FROM KILLARNEY' TO YALENTIA — DINGLE BAY — 
 
 CAHIRCIYEEN 181 
 
 LETTER XXIY. 
 VALENTIA 189 
 
vm CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 PRIESTS AND LANDLORDS — NEW FEATURES OF 
 
 IRISH LIFE 19G 
 
 LETTER XXVL 
 EMIGRATION AND EDUCATION .... 205 
 
 LETTER XXVn. 
 THE PEOPLE AND THE TWO CHURCHES . .212 
 
LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 LOUGH FOYLE AND ITS ENVIRONS. 
 
 August 10, 1852. 
 Travellers usually enter Ireland by Dublin; and 
 Dublin being a good deal like other large cities, and 
 having the varied population of a capital, there is so 
 little that is distinctive at the first glance, that the 
 strange^, exclaims, " I thought I was in Ireland ; but 
 where are the Paddies ?^^ The Paddies, and the true 
 signs of the times in Ireland, may be better seen by 
 dropping into the island at almost any other point of 
 the coast. Eor some reasons, it may be well to begin 
 by steaming into Lough Foyle, and landing at the 
 famous old Derry, whose prefix of " London^' seems 
 rather an impertinence when one is fairly among the 
 Paddies. It is true that, by entering Ireland from 
 this point, the traveller's attention is first given to 
 districts of country which have for centuries been ma- 
 naged by Englishmen, and largely peopled by Scotch, 
 — it is true that the lands of the great London 
 
» LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 corporations cannot be taken as specimens of Irish 
 tillage and management; but it may be well to see, 
 in the first instance, what the Irish peasantry can be 
 and can do in a region where the peculiarities of land 
 proprietorship in Ireland are suspended or extin- 
 guished. It may be well to see first some of the most 
 prosperous parts of the country, in order to carry else- 
 where the hope that the use of similar means may 
 produce a similar prosperity. There are quite enough 
 of the Catholic peasantry dwelling on the lands of 
 the London Companies to give the stranger a good 
 study of the Paddies, and moreover to show what the 
 relations of the " mere Irish" may be with the resi- 
 dents of Enghsh and Scotch descent. 
 
 After entering Lough Toyle at Portrush, we were 
 struck by the extent of cultivation on both shores. 
 Pields, green or tinged with the yellow of the harvest 
 mouth, divided by hedgerows into portions somewhat 
 too small for good economy, stretched over the rising 
 grounds which swell upwards from the Lough. Here 
 and there are labyrinths of salmon-nets, marking the 
 fisheries of the Companies. Then follows an odd 
 spectacle — a low embankment and railway, apparently 
 through the water, near the south-east shore, enclosing 
 an ugly expanse of mud or shallow water. There was 
 a company established in London a good many years 
 ago for the purpose of reclaiming large extents of 
 land from the bed of Lough Poyle ; and this is the 
 point which the operations of that company have 
 reached, — or, as we fear we must say, where they have 
 for the present stopped. The undertaking cannot be 
 
LOUGH FOYLE AND ITS ENVIRONS. 3 
 
 called a failure. By the terms made with the Pish- 
 mongers' Company, that corporation was to have 500 
 acres of the reclaimed land; and of this 250 acres 
 have been cropped for five years, and have proved 
 fertile to the last degree. This bit of experience has 
 proved useful. Looking towards the Lough from any 
 high ground for miles inland, one sees level tracts of 
 a peculiar yellow or brownish soil. These are the 
 ^^ dob lands," retrieved from the shallow waters. An- 
 tiquarians and naturalists are of opinion that this 
 method of procedure is simply a continuation of what 
 has been done for many ages, by natural or artificial 
 means. The lieaps or mounds of gravel, earth, and 
 stones wliich are found scattered over the bog districts 
 which are stripped of peat are called " derries;" and 
 here, once upon a time, flourished clumps of oaks, 
 rearing their heads over the forests of firs wliich filled 
 up the intermediate spaces. Below the roots of the 
 bog firs, now dug out for sparkling fuel in the rich 
 man's house, and for torches or candles in the poor 
 man's cabin, are evidences that the waters once co- 
 vered all the low grounds, and that the habitable 
 portions of the whole district were only the rising 
 grounds and " derries," wliich were so many islands 
 and promontories stretching out into a world of wa- 
 ters. Thus the changes going on are not new, though 
 proceeding more rapidly continually. The reclama- 
 tion is not only from the Lough. The bog is inces- 
 santly lessening. Two thousand acres have been 
 brought under tillage on the estates of one of the 
 London Companies. There is plenty of lime in the 
 
 B 2 
 
4 LETTEES FROM lEELA^D. 
 
 district, and the Lough furnislies any amount of sea 
 shells for the carriage. As the peat is cleared off, the 
 subsoil is fertilized by these means, and presently 
 repays cultivation. To the farmers whose lands lie 
 alons: rivers and railwavs it must answer well to im- 
 port coal, and spare for more profitable works the 
 labour hitherto spent on cutting and dr}'ing peat ; but 
 the people who live in the mountains, away from 
 means of transport, will doubtless burn peat, and 
 nothing else, till the bogs are wholly exhausted, — a 
 period which seems already within sight. 
 
 After passing the salmon-nets we came upon a fine 
 tract of woodland, on the north-west shore of the 
 Lough, where it stretches down from the ridge of the 
 low hills to the very seaweeds which the tide washes 
 up. Some good houses peep out from among the 
 trees. It was not till we had travelled some distance 
 inland that we learner] to appreciate that tract of 
 woodland. The woods have shrunk and disappeared 
 over whole districts where formerly they were che- 
 rished for the sake of the large exportation of staves, 
 and use of timber which took place under the old 
 timber duties. When the demand for staves died off, 
 and even the Companies found that their own car- 
 penters could put down floors for them as cheaply by 
 buying foreign timber as by employing labour in fell- 
 ing and seasoning their own trees, there was, for a 
 time, a somewhat reckless consumption of wood. But 
 now the process of planting is going on vigorously ; 
 and the last ten years have made a visible change. Li 
 the moist lauds the alder flourishes, attaining a size 
 
 I 
 
LOUGH FOYLE AND ITS ENVIRONS. O 
 
 wliich we never before saw. Larch and fir abound, 
 and great pains are taken with oak plantations. Huge 
 stacks of bark for the tanners may be seen here and 
 there ; and the wood is readily sold as it is felled. 
 
 The changes in the productions and exports are 
 worth notice. Formerly there was much linen ma- 
 nufacture here ; but that is over : Belfast seems to 
 have absorbed it. A good deal of flax is grown^ and 
 sold to Belfast; but the clack of the loom is scarcely 
 heard. Again, there was a great exportation of pigs 
 and pork prior to 184^6 ; but the potato-rot has almost 
 put an end to pig-keeping. Scarcely any cured pork 
 is sent out. Live cattle are an article of increasing 
 export, — the fat to Liverpool, and the lean to various 
 parts for fattening. Almost all the oats and other 
 grain raised are now exported, the people finding it 
 answer to sell their oats, and eat Indian meal, which 
 they import from America. One consequence of this 
 is a marked improvement in their health. The dis- 
 gusting diseases which attended upon an almost ex- 
 clusive oaten diet have disappeared; and certainly 
 a more healthy-looking population than that about 
 Newtown-Limavady we do not remember to have 
 seen. There is a large export of butter, eggs, and 
 fowls. On the whole, the change is visible enough 
 from the old manufacturing to the modern agricul- 
 tural population; and it is very interesting to the 
 observation of an English visitor. 
 
 From the site of the new Cathohc chapel on the estates 
 of the fishmongers' Company a wide view is obtained, 
 extending from the high lands of Donegal on the other 
 
6 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 shore of the Lough to the Coleraine mountains. 
 Within this space the divisions of the soil indicate 
 pretty accurately the classes of its inhabitants. After 
 the Eebellion, the victors drove the Catholics into 
 the mountains, and the alluvial lands — all that was 
 fertile and valuable — were taken possession of by the 
 English and the Scotch Presbyterians. The arrange- 
 ment was so marked and decisive that the mountain- 
 eers are called " Irish^' to this day. Por a long 
 time past the " Irish" have been creeping down into 
 the low grounds. At first, the Protestants emigrated 
 in a much greater proportion than the Catholics ; and 
 a Protestant farmer often left a Catholic substitute in 
 his farm. Now, the Catholics are beginning to emi- 
 grate in much greater numbers ; but, as the Protes- 
 tants go on emigrating also, so that the total popula- 
 tion is in course of reduction, there is more and more 
 room left in the low country for the mountaineers, 
 who find themselves able to come down, and hold 
 their ground among the thriving Presbyterians. "We 
 find here little or nothing of the feuds which divide 
 the two classes in too many places. We find, on the 
 Fishmongers' property, schools where children of all 
 faiths sit side by side on their benches, as their respec- 
 tive pastors do in their committee-room. The priest, 
 the clergyman, and the Presbyterian minister act to- 
 gether, on the National system, in perfect harmony. 
 Some zealous young priests awhile ago insisted that 
 the CathoUc children should read the Douay version 
 of the Scriptures. The clergyman and agent wisely 
 consented, stipulating only that it should be the 
 
LOUGH FOYLE AND ITS ENVIRONS. 7 
 
 Douay version, without note or comment. It was 
 presently found inconvenient to use it; the priests 
 declared that really the difference to the children was 
 so small as not to compensate for the inconvenience, 
 and they themselves proposed to return to the use of 
 the accustomed books. No Ribbon Society exists 
 among the Catholics in this neighbourhood ; and no- 
 thing seems to be needed in the way of precaution 
 but a little watchfulness against infection brought by 
 navvies and other strangers, and a careful impartiality 
 between Catholics and Protestants in matters of busi- 
 ness, and moderation in spirit and language on poli- 
 tical matters, on the part of official men and magis- 
 trates. "We find a Company building a handsome 
 Catholic chapel, and their agent presenting its painted 
 window ; we find the gentry testifying that, while the 
 Protestants are certainly the more industrious people, 
 the Catholics are more honest and the women more 
 chaste, — Tacts which are attributed to the practice of 
 confession by those who are best aware of the evils 
 belonging to that practice. On the whole, CathoHc 
 servants are preferred as far as the mere domestic 
 work is concerned ; that is, the female servants are 
 Catholics. But it is not denied that the very safest— 
 those who are living, and have lived for thirty years, 
 on good terms with all their neighbours — do feel 
 safer for having Protestant men-servants. There is 
 enough of distrust — not of individual neighbours, but 
 of the tyranny of secret organization — to make even 
 the securest prefer for men-servants persons who are 
 out of the reach of such organization. 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 WEST or ULSTER— WEEDS— LONDON COMPANIES— 
 TEMPLEMOYLE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 
 
 Augiist 11, 1852 
 By the time we had left Londonderry two miles be- 
 hind us, we thought we had seen more weeds in a 
 quarter of an hour than in any whole day of our lives 
 before. In every little field of oats — thin, scattered, 
 stunted oats — there were long rows and wide par- 
 terres of wild marigold ; a pretty flower enough, but 
 out of place in a corn-field. As for the turnips, they 
 were as modest as the violet, hiding themselves under 
 the shadow of bolder growths of weeds. The wretched 
 potatoes, black, withering, and offensive, seemed to 
 have poisoned and annihilated every growth witliin 
 their boundaries; but in every enclosed pasture the 
 weeds had their revenge. This is a proud country 
 for the ragwort. In every pasture, as far as we could 
 see, it grew knee-high, presenting that golden harvest 
 which may please the eye of an infant, but which 
 saddens the heart of a well-wisher to Ireland. The 
 stranger is assured, as to the marigold, that it is not 
 a sign of the worst state of the land ; that, when the 
 
ESTATES OP THE LONDON COMPANIES. 9 
 
 land is getting exhausted, the marigold comes first, 
 and after it the poppy. He is told, as to the ragwort, 
 that it is a sign of the land being good, — that bad 
 land wiH not grow it : no great consolation, where it 
 usurps every other growth. It takes up all the potash 
 in the soil, one is told ; and on it goes, taking up the 
 potash, for anything that anybody seems to care. In 
 one case alone we saw pains taken about it : from 
 a corner of a field two men had removed a heavy 
 cart-load, which they were going to add to a manure- 
 heap. 
 
 At a distance of five miles from Derry there is a 
 settlement which looks, from a little way off, neat and 
 prosperous. That is the beginning of the Grocers' 
 estates. A few miles further, there is an enclosure 
 which challenges observation at once. It contains a 
 plantation, chiefly of fir and larch, drained in a style 
 which mak^ one ask whom it belongs to. It is the 
 beginning of the Fishmongers' property. These Lon- 
 don Companies remember that Westminster Abbey 
 and Westminster Hall were built with oak from this 
 county; and they are disposed to enable a future 
 generation to build immortal edifices of oak from this 
 district. The outlying fir plantations are only a token 
 of the interest taken by the Companies in restoring 
 the woods of Ulster. For some miles forward the 
 marigold scarcely appears, only peeping out humbly, 
 low down in the corn; and the ragwort is nearly 
 confined to tlie fences, — till, once more, both burst 
 upon us again in full glory, in the neighbourhood of 
 cottages whose thatch is sinking in or dropping off, 
 
 B 3 
 
10 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 and of puddles covered with green slime. AVe are 
 now on an estate which lies between the lands of two 
 of the Companies. What we have said of it is enough. 
 What we saw shows that the influence of the Compa- 
 nies, great though it be, is not all-powerful in im- 
 proving the cultivation of the land in their neigh- 
 bourhood. The people who live under that rotten 
 tliatch, and beside those green ponds, dwell in sight 
 of the slated cottages and the heaps of draining-tiles 
 of the Fishmongers. The agent of the Fishmongers 
 hopes to live to see every cottage on their estates 
 slated ; and then, as now, we suppose, men will be 
 botching their thatch on that wretched intermediate 
 laud, just as if there was no slate-quarry within an 
 easy walk. 
 
 Seeing these things, certain anecdotes about Irish 
 tillage recurred to our minds. We remembered hav- 
 ing heard of the delighted surprise of a farmer who 
 had scribbled or shovelled his field four inches deep, 
 and thought he had dug it, at being shown that a 
 rich loamy soil lay six inches deeper, — a mine of 
 wealth which he had never opened. We remembered 
 having heard of the reviving spirits of some despairing 
 peasants when shown how easily they might raise 
 cabbages in the place of their perishing potatoes. We 
 remembered how some who had agreed to try turnips, 
 and had duly sown their seed, actually cried when 
 their instructor began thinning the rows, and said 
 he was robbing them ; and how they got no turnips 
 bigger than radishes, llcmcmbering and seeing these 
 things, wo inquired about the state and prospects of 
 
 I 
 
TEMPLEMOYLE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 11 
 
 agricultural instruction, and particularly about the 
 Templemoyle School. The Templemoyle School was 
 within reach, and we went to see it. Vie wish that 
 everybody who cares for Ireland would do the same. 
 
 This Agricultural Training School was instituted 
 in 1826 by the North- West of Ireland Agricultural 
 Society. The land belongs to the Grocers^ Company ; 
 and that and other companies, and a few of the neigh- 
 bouring gentry, supported the school till it could 
 maintain itself. It is now self-supporting; but 
 great good would arise from its being more generally 
 noticed — more abundantly visited — and its merits be- 
 ing more generously acknowledged. A strong inter- 
 est about it was excited in England by Mr. Thack- 
 eray's report of it in his ^ Irish Sketch-book;' and 
 there have been more recent notices of it in reviews 
 of that book ^d elsewhere ; but it appears to us to 
 deserve a more steady interest and observation than it 
 has met with. One asks what Lord Clarendon was 
 about, that he never honoured Templemoyle with the 
 slightest notice, while in every other way promoting 
 the great cause of agricultural instruction in Ireland. 
 He never came, nor sent, nor was known to make the 
 slightest inquiry about the institution, during the 
 whole course of liis government, while exerting him- 
 self in the most excellent manner to send out instruc- 
 tors from the National Board and through private 
 efforts. Perhaps he and others thus paid their com- 
 pliment to the great companies of Ulster, leaving it to 
 be supposed that whatever was under the care of the 
 corporations must necessarilv flourish. But there is 
 
12 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 no kind of effort which is not stimulated by sympathy 
 — no cause which is not the stronger for apprecia- 
 tion ; and it might be a benefit to the whole country 
 if its due place of honour were given to Templemoyle. 
 Public attention seems to be almost entirely absorbed 
 by the plan of sending out instructors from the Na- 
 tional Board. That plan is good, and the service 
 rendered has been very great ; but the Board farms 
 are of a much smaller extent than that of Temple- 
 moyle, which comprehends seventy-two acres ; and the 
 Teoiplemoyle course of training must be the more 
 enlarged of the two, in proportion to the superiority 
 of its field of experiment. The institution has sent 
 out men who have written valuable agricultural books. 
 It has sent out surveyors and civil engineers of merit, 
 masters of agricultural schools, an editor of an agri- 
 cultural newspaper, and land-stewards and agents, 
 besides all its farmers and instructors in agriculture. 
 The ' Quarterly Eeview' has complained of this as a 
 practical failure, insisting that all the pupils shall be 
 agricultural instructors, and nothing else, except by 
 some rare accident. But, whatever may be thought 
 of this, we have here a proof of the extent and depth 
 of the education given, — an education wliich enables 
 the pupils to be not mere common farmers, but scien- 
 tific managers of the land. 
 
 By inquiry, we found the state of the case to be 
 this, in regard to the missionary view of the institu- 
 tion. There are beds for seventy pupils; and the 
 place was overflowing before the famine reduced the 
 means of the whole farming class. The number now 
 
TEMPLEMOYLE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 13 
 
 is fifty-eight. Since the occupation of a large part of 
 the missionary field by Lord Clarendon's instructors, 
 there has been an increased tendency in the Temple- 
 moyle students to emigrate. No one can wonder at 
 this, for they must feel themselves better quahfied to 
 succeed as emigrants than most of their neighbours 
 who go out ; and they do not like the prospect — so 
 common for the last few years — of sinking at home. 
 Now, therefore, during the present rush of emigra- 
 tion, about one-third of the pupils go with the stream. 
 Natural as tliis is, it is a pity. The institution is not 
 intended for the training of emigrants ; but we own 
 we do not see how it is to be helped, while every class 
 of the population pelds up a large proportion of its 
 numbers to the colonies or to the United States. Of 
 the remaining t^o-thirds, about half are believed to 
 go home to their fathers' farms, or to settle on one of 
 their own, or to follow other occupations, while the 
 rest become, under one name or another, agricultural 
 missionaries. In 1850 there were three hundred and 
 two who were cultivating their own or their parents' 
 farms. To us it appears that these young men are 
 missionaries of a secondary order. To us it appears 
 that the scientific^ cultivation of tliree hundred farms 
 throughout the length and breadth of Ii-eland must 
 be nearly as efficacious in the improvement of agri- 
 culture as any amount of instruction that could be 
 given by lectures and itinerant practice, by the same 
 number of men. "We must remember how the influ- 
 ence of a resident improver spreads through his neigh- 
 bourhood, and how it is deepened and expanded by the 
 
14 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 circumstance of residence. If, therefore, taking the 
 number of students at sixty -three on the average, and 
 the course at three years (though it is sometimes four, 
 and even five), and allowing one-tliird of those who 
 leave each year to emigrate, we have, as the result of 
 the Templemoyle training, seven in a year who go 
 forth through the country as agricultural missionaries, 
 and seven more to settle down as scientific farmers, 
 or managers of the land in one way or another. If 
 this is not approved, or if vexation is felt at a small 
 sprinkKng of shopkeepers and clerks coming out of 
 the institution, those who recommend the pupils must 
 take more care to ensure the devotion of their candi- 
 dates to agricultural pursuits. The pay, too, is very 
 low — only £10 a year; and it may easily happen that 
 a place is occasionally given as a charity, or to some 
 hopeless youth who has never succeeded elsewhere. 
 But the very small amount of misconduct — the ex- 
 treme rarity of expulsion — proves that there cannot 
 be much of this kind of abuse. 
 
 The situation of the establishment is beautiful. The 
 house stands near to the top of a steep hill, looking 
 down upon a wooded glen, and abroad over the rich 
 levels stretching to the Lough, and over the Lough to 
 the mountains of Donegal and the grand Coleraine 
 rocks. The path to the front door rises tlu'ougli gar- 
 den, nursery-ground, and orchard; and behind the 
 house and offices the land still rises till it overlooks 
 the whole adjacent country. The soil and aspect 
 are unfavourable. To the young men it is certainly 
 the pursuit of farming under dilUculties ; but this is 
 
TEMPLEMOYLE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 15 
 
 better for them than success coming too easily. The 
 price given for the land was 10 s. the statute acre, and 
 the value is now at least doubled. Besides feeding 
 the whole estabhshment, the produce brings in a 
 yearly increasing profit. We have said how low is 
 the payment by the pupils. Yet, within ten years, 
 there have been additions of new dormitories, an in- 
 firmary, washing-rooms, a museum of models of farm- 
 ing implements, an improved cow-house, and an ex- 
 cellent house for sheep, the introduction of which, with 
 all modern improvements in the management of them, 
 is an important new feature in the education given. 
 The land is divided into nine portions, five of which 
 aie regularly tilled on the five-shift rotation, and the 
 other on the four-shift. Every part of the work is, 
 sooner or later, done by the hands of each pupil, the 
 only help hired being for the drudgery, which would 
 be mere waste of time when once learned. From the 
 first attempt to plough a furrow or set a fence, to the 
 highest skill in judging of stock at fairs and markets, 
 the pupils are exercised in the whole of their art. 
 The art being pursued during one half of the day, 
 the other half is given to the science. The mathe- 
 matical master is superintending the studies in school 
 and class-rooms, wliile the agricultural master is in 
 the fields and yards with the other half of the pupils. 
 The cows and pigs are fine, and the sheep a source of 
 both pride and profit. Lectures on agricultural che- 
 mistry are given, of course ; and some members of 
 the establishment visit the great agricultural shows in 
 aU parts of the kingdom, to keep up with the world 
 
16 LETTERS FROM IRELA^•D. 
 
 in the knowledge and use of all discoveries and imple- 
 ments. 
 
 There seems to be nothing wanting, as far as the 
 visitor can see, but the presence of a matron, or the 
 occasional visits of ladies, to see to the opening and 
 cleaning of windows, and some domestic niceties; 
 and we emphatically declare the encouragement of a 
 wider notice and appreciation of this highly important 
 institution a matter of national concern. It would 
 be renovated and cheered for ever if Prince Albert, 
 with his interest in agricultural improvement, would 
 pay it a visit. And why not ? In some one of her 
 healthful and pleasant cruises, the Queen "will surely, 
 sooner or later, visit the famous old Derry, to whose 
 stout heroic loyalty once upon a time she owes her 
 crown. May she come soon ! and then Prince Albert, 
 and perhaps the Queen herself, will remember that 
 Templemoyle is only six miles from Derry, and Avill 
 go over and see the crops, and the maps, and the mu- 
 seum, and the joyful students, and will leave certain 
 prosperity behind them. 
 
17 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 THE DERRY AND COLERAINE RAIL^Y AY— PRODUCE AND 
 TRATriC OF THE DISTRICT— BEArTIFUL SCENERY— 
 WHAT CAN PUBLIC WORKS DO FOR IRELAND ? 
 
 August 13, 1852. 
 The impression which every day's observation streng- 
 thens in the traveller's mind is, that tiU the agricul- 
 ture of Ireland is improved, little benefit can arise 
 from the large grants which have been, and still are, 
 made for pubhc works. If pubUc works winch are 
 designed to open up markets for produce should sti- 
 mulate the people to the improvement of production, 
 it will be a capital thing ; but, till some endence of 
 this appears, there is something melancholy in the 
 spectacle of a great apparatus which does not seem to 
 be the result of any natural demand. We saw yes- 
 terday nearly the whole Line of the intended railway 
 from Coleraine to Derry. If we had looked no fur- 
 ther than the line, it would have been an imposing 
 and beautiful spectacle ; but we saw other things which 
 sadly marred the beauty of it. 
 
 Much of the benefit of this railway will depend on 
 
18 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 whether the Bann river can be made navigable from 
 Lough Neagh to the ocean. Lough Xeagh supplies 
 a vast body of water to the beautiful river Bann ; and 
 its shores ought to supply a great amount of produce. 
 With railways from Belfast and Carrickfergus meet- 
 ing at Antrim^ and running round to where the Baim 
 issues from the Lough^ large districts will be put into 
 communication with the sea at the north, if only 
 the difficulty of the bar at the mouth of the Bann can 
 be got over. Money is granted for building two 
 piers. Some wise men assure us that they will be 
 effectual ; wliile other wise men consider the opening 
 of the navigation to be a hopeless matter. A small 
 harbour has been made secure for little vessels at Port- 
 rush; and those who despair of the mouth of the 
 Bann, wish that something more extended and effec- 
 tual had been done at Portrush. AYhoever may be 
 right, and whoever wrong about this, there is to be a 
 railway from Coleraine to Londonderry : and, as there 
 is one in progi-ess between Londonderry and Ennis- 
 kiRen, the circuit will, by the help of existing rail- 
 ways, be almost complete. 
 
 This Coleraine railway was originated, with sanguine 
 expectations, by a company, a few years ago. Not only 
 was the traffic expected to be great, but a grand scheme 
 of reclaiming 20,000 acres of land from Lough Poyle 
 was connected with it. These 20,000 acres, at a rent 
 of £3 per acre, were to yield a revenue of £60,000, 
 on the security of which money to any extent might 
 be raised. Already however there has been a Go- 
 vernment grant of £70,000, and the proprietors are 
 
THE DERRY AND COLERAINE RAILWAY. 19 
 
 believed to have spent £200,000 of their own, while 
 there is, of course, no prospect of money coming in 
 at present, however well the project may answer here- 
 after. A great sweep was made out over the surface 
 of Lough Foyle to comprehend the 20,000 acres. 
 Then, as it was not supposed that the railway could 
 be strong enough to meet the tides, it was carried 
 nearer inshore, and an embankment was carried over 
 the original line for as far as it went. The railw;ay 
 works proceeded, the embankment has stopped, and it 
 is understood, though not officially declared, that it 
 mR not be resumed. If so, the main source of anti- 
 cipated profit is cut ofiP, and the shareholders' gains 
 must depend, not on the sale or letting of the re- 
 claimed land, but on the railway traffic. This must 
 be vexatious enough to the shareholders, and espe- 
 cially if what is said be true, that the railway is, after 
 all, strong enough to have borne the stress of the 
 outer line of waters. 
 
 Before it has well left the Lough, the railway will 
 receive the flax of the country-people for Coleraine. 
 The people are cutting the flax at this time, and some 
 are steeping it, as the traveller'' s nose informs him, 
 from point to point on his road. As for the growing 
 flax, a novice might be excused for carrying away 
 the news that the flax has a yellow flower, and is now 
 in bloom, so abundantly is the wild marigold inter- 
 mixed with the crop. Li other fields the lads and 
 lasses are pulling the flax, — some few skilfully, the 
 greater number unskilfuUy, — and making their hand- 
 fuls into sheaves. Others are lavinar them in the 
 
20 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 turbid water, and keeping the bundles down with 
 stones ; while some, again, are taking the plant out 
 of tlie ditches, and spreading it to dry. The traveller 
 is told that various new methods of preparing flax 
 have been tried, and that the old ways are found to 
 be the best. Time will show whether they are right 
 in throwing away the seed altogether, and in spreading 
 their processes over a period of time which embraces 
 many risks. If they are right, then the new railway 
 will carry plenty of flax to Coleraine. 
 
 It has been hoped that it would carry plenty of 
 potatoes, as well as cattle, butter, eggs, and fowls, to 
 Derry for exportation. The fowls are indeed abund- 
 ant, — pecking about on the mud-floors of the cottages, 
 under the shelter of the peat-heap, which is handy to 
 the fire. The cows are, for the most part, in good 
 plight, either led about by a child, or tethered in a pas- 
 ture, as even a single sheep may here and there be 
 seen to be. We heard of one cow, properly considered 
 a great marvel, which yielded 174 lbs. of butter per 
 week — that is, from 37 to 40 quarts of milk daily — for 
 a considerable time. It is true, she was exhausted, 
 and had to be killed, after this feat; but there seems 
 to be little doubt that the cows in this region do flou- 
 rish, and afford a profit. Hence appears the wisdom 
 of some of the Companies in gradually abolishing the 
 small pursuit of weaving, which used to go on in 
 whole rows of cottages by the roadside, where no 
 such wretched cabins are now to be seen. The Com- 
 panies have paid for the emigration of the inhabitants ; 
 have removed their cabins, and put good gardens in 
 
THE POTATO ROT. 21 
 
 the place of them ; and the flax which was woven hero 
 is now all sent to Coleraine. 
 
 And the potatoes — what of them ? Alas ! there 
 is a dismal story to tell. "Where the stench of the 
 steeping flax intermits, now comes that of the rot- 
 ting potatoes. At the point where the new railroad, 
 coming from the Lough, passes under the bold head- 
 land of the Coleraine rocks — a noble headland, 1300 
 feet high — there is a plain, stretching out to the mar- 
 gin of the waves. It fills up the wide space between 
 Lough Foyle, the Coleraine rocks, and the sea. We 
 were told, rather to our surprise, that it is the largest 
 plain in Ireland. This is the plain to which we owe 
 the Drummond light. Lieutenant Drummond, en- 
 gaged in the trigonometrical survey of Ireland, and 
 desiring to obtain for the base of his triangle the vast 
 space from this plain to the Scotch islands, and know- 
 ing that the Paps of Jura are \asible in clear weather 
 from the crest of the rocks, was stimulated to devise 
 the most brilliant light that could be had, to shine 
 from the Scotch to the Irish heights. Hence the in- 
 vention of the Drummond Hght, — a benefit which, 
 whether practically great or not, is almost forgotten 
 in comparison with the more heart-moving services 
 which that gallant man afterwards rendered to Ireland 
 at the cost of his life. This plain consists of a soil 
 which is, throughout, fit to be a valuable manure. It 
 is called sand, but it is whoUy composed of commi- 
 nuted shells. It is in great request by some agri- 
 culturists, who understand their business ; and pota- 
 toes, grown in breadths which are deeply trenched. 
 
22 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 extend almost to the margin of the tide. The potato- 
 rot had hardly been known before in this neighbour- 
 hood. In 1846, and ever since, specimens of failure 
 were very rare. But this year the visitation has come. 
 There was scarcely a green patch to be seen yesterday 
 as we passed over this plain. We need not describe 
 the mournful spectacle of the people, here and there, 
 forking up the roots to see if any could be saved, 
 and elsewhere leaving the whole growth to its fate. 
 They can hardly be blamed for having planted pota- 
 toes, so many years of impunity ha\dng appeared to 
 warrant the venture; but, as to other parts of Ire- 
 land, it certainly appears as if men had had as broad 
 a hint as could be well given to leave off staking so 
 much on a crop which, from some unknown cause, 
 seems to require a suspension of its cultivation, till 
 either soil or root shall have become renovated by the 
 intermission. 
 
 Before the railway disappears behind the rocks, it 
 mW have received, from the inland roads, oats, a little 
 barley, and less wheat. Then, for a space of some 
 miles, it can hardly receive any products but fish. 
 The beauty of the region is so extreme that the 
 stranger thinks little of anything else. Below the 
 noble crowning precipices stretches a steep green 
 slope which melts into the white sand of tlie beach. 
 In spring this slope is one gigantic primrose-bank, 
 wherever the woods allow the blossoms to be seen. 
 Then succeed blue-bells, and the roses of which attar 
 of roses is made. There is now a perfect -^vilderness 
 of bushes and trails, clustered with hips, which show 
 
23 
 
 what the blossoming must have been. The few houses 
 have fuchsias growing higher than the eaves ; and 
 the tall hedges are starred over with the blossoms of 
 the blue periwinkle. These are the sights wliich the 
 railway traveller will see, — every garden free from 
 blight, and something very like an eternal spring 
 reigning under the shelter of these crags. The m\Ttle 
 floui'ishes here, as in the south of Devonshire ; and 
 there is little but the roar of the Atlantic to mark 
 the presence of winter. Far away on the one hand 
 stretch the headlands of Donegal, on the other the 
 ranges of the Giant's Causeway ; while, as we have 
 said, Scotland is \-isible in clear weather. In every 
 chasm of the cliffs is a feathery waterfall, whose spray 
 is taken up and scattered in the sunlight by every 
 passing breeze. Further on come archways through 
 the limestone, and tunnels running into the black 
 rocks. At Coleraine the produce of the salmon-fish- 
 ery on the Bann will, of course, be received, and more 
 rural produce from the interior. 
 
 But how easy would it be to double or to treble 
 that produce! The Clothworkers' estates lie near 
 Coleraine, and really they seem scarcely better than 
 their neighbours. The absurd gate-posts, like little 
 round tents — the rusty iron, or broken wooden gates 
 — the fences which fence out nothing, but nourish 
 thistles, ragwort, and all seeds that can fly abroad 
 for mischief — the over-ripe oats, shedding their grain 
 for want of cutting, wliile the hay is still making — 
 the barley so cut as to shake it all manner of ways 
 — the stinking potato-fields — the men coming home 
 
24 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 from the weekly market tipsy and shouting, — the 
 cabins with windows that will not open, and doors 
 that apparently will not shut, — ^these are mischiefs 
 for which nobody in particular may be exactly re- 
 sponsible, but which make us ask of how much use 
 railways and harbours and reclamation of land can 
 be, so long as people cannot bring out its wealth 
 from the soil which is actually under their feet and 
 hands. If, as some people hope, the railways \vill 
 improve the tillage, it will be, as we said before, a 
 capital thing. Let us hope and watch for it. 
 
25 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 THE LINEN MANUFACTURE— FLAX GROWING AND 
 DRESSING. 
 
 Augtcst 17, 1852. 
 The linen manufacture is the one only manufacture 
 which has ever fairly taken root in Ireland. Having 
 come in when the Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes 
 sent a crowd of ingenious foreigners into our islands, 
 and having now attained such perfection that, if only 
 the patterns were as good as the fabric, the damasks 
 of Belfast would cover all the royal dinner-tables in 
 Eui'ope, this manufacture may be regarded as the one 
 great unmixed good in the industrial aspect of Ireland. 
 If the population employed in it were not originally, 
 and are not yet, the Celtic, so much as the descendants 
 of the Scotch, there seems to be every inclination to 
 extend it among the inhabitants of other parts of Ire- 
 land ; and the services of the Celtic cultivators being 
 required to furnish the flax, the benefits of the manu- 
 facture are as thoroughly Irish as could be desired. 
 When Lord Clarendon obtained a grant of £1000 a 
 year for the Elax Improvement Society of Ireland, it 
 was under the engagement that the money should 
 
26 LETTERS FEOM IRELAND. 
 
 not be spent in Ulster, but wholly in promoting the 
 growth of flax in the western and southern parts of 
 the island. It was supposed that Ulster could take 
 care of itseK, every farmer who chose to grow flax 
 being near the great market of Belfast, and sure of 
 selling all that he could possibly raise, if the quality were 
 good. It is estimated that no less flax is wanted than 
 the produce of 500,000 acres to supply the demand 
 of the manufacturer, while not more than 60,000 
 acres are growing flax in any one year. This means 
 that an inferior flax is supplied to the United Kingdom 
 from abroad, while there seems to be no reason why 
 Ireland should not yield all that is wanted, except 
 some very few of the finest sorts from Belgium. So 
 much for the demand. 
 
 As the flax imported from Eussia and other coun- 
 tries is, for the most part, inferior to the Irish, it ap- 
 pears that the natural advantages for flax- growing in 
 Ireland must be all-sufficient. Is it a remunerative 
 crop to the grower? The present eagerness about 
 flax-growing in England shows that this question is 
 in the way of being completely answered : and the re- 
 ports of English flax-growers seem all to agree that, 
 under proper management, it is about as lucrative 
 a business — that of flax-growing — as any man can 
 now follow — short of gold- digging. "\Ye hear of -a 
 profit of £10, of £18, of £25, per acre, and even a 
 good deal more, while assured that flax is not an ex- 
 haustive crop. Now, if this be true, or the half of 
 it, what a prospect is opened for Ireland ! She is 
 the special grower of a product of this extraordinary 
 
CULTIVATION OF FLAX. 27 
 
 value ; and, with all the advantages of that special 
 qualification, she may expand — she is even solicited 
 to expand — her cultivation of flax to eightfold what 
 it is now, to meet the manufacturing demand of to- 
 day, — without anticipating the increase which is sure 
 to take place. It seems as if a resource like this 
 might fill up an abyss of distress, — as if a harvest like 
 this might reconcile the cultivators to a surrender 
 (temporary or permanent) of the treacherous potato. 
 With these facts (or, at least, authorized statements) 
 in view, we have observed the flax- grounds all the 
 way from Londonderry to Belfast ; or rather to within 
 a few miles of Belfast, for the fog which hung over 
 the district as we entered it was so dense as to allow 
 nothing to be seen beyond the road, for some little 
 distance round the city. 
 
 Flax appears to us to stand third, as to extent of 
 cultivation, among the crops we have seen ; but we 
 are not certain that turnips may not come before it. 
 There can be no doubt of oats coming first, and po- 
 tatoes next. The oat-crop is as good this year as it 
 can be under such imperfect care as the Irish farmer 
 bestows. The potatoes are little better than a putrid 
 mass of waste. As for the flax, the climate and soil 
 must be suitable, or Irish flax would not bear the 
 name it does. The first requisite as to the manage- 
 ment is that the ground sliould be well drained and 
 subsoiled. The roots of the flax go down two feet, 
 and they must have air and a loosened soil : tliis they 
 certainly have not, as a matter of course, or in any 
 systematic way. Flax should never follow roots im- 
 
 c 2 
 
28 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 mediately ; and it should be grown only once iu eight 
 or ten years, we are told by the experienced ; but there 
 are some farmers who grow it after potatoes, and 
 much oftener than once in eight years. The soil 
 should be pulverized and cleared of weeds, and 
 levelled till it is Hke a lad/s parterre ; but no soil in 
 Ireland, as far as we have yet seen, is so treated : and, 
 not satisfied with leaving the native weeds in all their 
 rankness, the farmers are tempted by the low price 
 of Eussian flax-seed to buy it in preference to home- 
 saved seed, offered even under the highest sanctions, 
 though the Eiga seed contains invariably a very large 
 proportion of weeds. The crops should be weeded 
 when about two inches high, and, as careful foreigners 
 tell us, once or twice afterwards; but here the flax 
 crops are, at this moment, as gay with a dozen varie- 
 ties of weeds as the oats and the pasture-fields. The 
 lower part of the stalk is thus choked up and dis- 
 coloured and weakened for want of air and sunshine, 
 besides the soil being exhausted by the weeds, and the 
 steeping and dressing injured by their intrusion. And 
 no less a sum than £300,000 a year is spent in the 
 purchase of foreign seed, while the farmers of Ulster 
 lose the whole of their own seed. At the end of the 
 first ten years of the existence of the Eoyal Tlax 
 Society, it was computed that the waste, from the 
 throwing away of the seed, amounted in that time 
 to £2,000,000. The farmers say that the fibre would 
 be spoiled if the plant were allowed to ripen its seed ; 
 that, if pulled at the proper time for the fibre, the 
 gatheiing of the seed would cost more than it would 
 
CULTIVATION OP FLAX. 29 
 
 be worth for the feeding of cattle. The answers to 
 these objections are of a practical sort. The seed is 
 advanced enough to ripen of itself, and to produce 
 excellent crops, if the plant is allowed to grow, not 
 too long, but till the stalk is two-thirds yellow ; and 
 if the grower will sell his crop to the preparers, in- 
 stead of preparing it himself, they will take care of 
 the seed. These are facts abundantly proved by ex- 
 perience. It is also proved that one-fifth of the ground 
 will grow seed to sow the whole; and that if the 
 grower will not try the more economical plan of saving 
 all the seed, it would answer better to him to let one- 
 hfth of his fibre grow too woody than to buy weeds 
 from Riga. There must be bad management some- 
 where when Ireland grows flax and loses the seed, 
 while England is growing flax for the sake of the seed. 
 Xext comes the pulhng. The ground being too 
 often uneven, the roots do not come up " square ;" 
 and, the farmer^s family of all ages turning out to the 
 work, some of it is ill done, the roots not coming up 
 "close,"'^ and the stalks of different lengths being laid 
 together. The steeping is done in pools or ditches. 
 If the water be soft and favourable, well and good. 
 If there be not enough of one kind of water, the pro- 
 duce of the same rood of ground may present as many 
 different values as there are pools or ditches used. 
 The process depends on so many accidents that it is 
 all a chance whether the steeping will take six days 
 or six weeks. Then comes the spreading, with all 
 the liabilities of letting the flax he too long, or 7iot 
 long enough; and then the same risk, all belonging 
 
30 LETTERS FROM IRET.AXD. 
 
 to uncertainty of weather, about its standing in the 
 stook or shock. When the beethng and dressing are 
 done, and the flax is brought to market, the farmer 
 finds that he gets Qs. where the patentees of Schenck^s 
 system get 95., though no farmer sells his best crop 
 to Schenck's patentees. 
 
 Some of this waste, vexation, and loss arise from bad 
 farming, evidently enough ; but much also proceeds 
 from the want of division of employments. The time 
 was when, in England, the farmer^s family prepared, 
 spun, and wove their own wool and flax, and wore their 
 own homespun ; and it would be merely a continua- 
 tion of this old practice — merely an ignoring of the 
 manufacturing sytem — if the Ulster farmers grew and 
 prepared their flax for family wear. But they claim 
 precedence in flax-growing ; they claim to supply the 
 manufacturers of Belfast who are to weave table-cloths 
 for all royal dinner-tables ; and if they are to do this, 
 they must study and obey the requirements of the 
 manufacturing system. They must learn to see that 
 it cannot but answer best to them to devote their care 
 to the improvement of their crop, and to sell it to 
 establishments where the steeping and other prepara- 
 tion is done on scientific principles, and with the cer- 
 tainty which science alone can give. 
 
 There are about eighteen establishments under 
 Schenck's patent in Ireland. The one we saw is in 
 the neighbourhood of Belfast. The others are scat- 
 tered over every part of Ireland where flax is grown ; 
 but the effect they have produced is as yet scarcely 
 perceptible — so wedded arc the cultivators to their old 
 
CULTIVATION OF FLAX. 31 
 
 methods. When the Government grant was obtained 
 by Lord Clarendon for growing flax in the west 
 and south, people asked what was the use of it while 
 the cultivators could have no market for their crops. 
 The answer was that there must be a clubbing to- 
 gether to set up scutching-mills, which are reckoned 
 to save 16s. Sd. per acre over hand-scutching. In 
 distressed districts however hand-scutching was en- 
 couraged, for the sake of the increased employment 
 of labour. As might have been expected, it was found 
 impossible to continue the business on so false a prin- 
 ciple. The privileged encroached on their privilege. 
 The best workers turned out only 6 lbs. per day, and 
 some no more than 2 lbs. Where the patent process 
 is fairly set up, a market is provided ; the remunera- 
 tion becomes a regular trading matter; and, if the 
 system could be extended to embrace the pri^^leges 
 offered by the times, a very considerable portion of 
 Ireland's poverty might be abohshed. At present, as 
 we have said, scarcely any impression is made on the 
 flax-growers of Ireland. 
 
 Under Schenck^'s patent, — of American origin, and 
 established nearly four years in the neighbourhood of 
 Belfast, — the steeping is done in vats, by means of 
 steam-pipes, and with water of the best quality. The 
 process occupies from one day to four or five ; but it 
 can never fail of complete success. The same cer- 
 tainty attends aU the processes. It was at once found 
 that £170 worth of labour saved £1200 worth of 
 seed. That which is ripe enough is sown : the rest 
 is sold for cattle-food. The first vear nobodv would 
 
32 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 sell the proprietors any flax ; and now they can obtain 
 it only within a range of eight or ten miles round 
 Belfast, and they are sure of not obtaining the best. 
 It is only when the farmer is doubtful of his crop that 
 he offers it for sale. The second year the proprietors 
 obtained a good deal, paying for it by the acre. Now 
 they obtain more still, and buy it by the ton, which 
 suits them better than having to watch the cropping 
 of the produce they have bought. But the quality is 
 so variable, — often from mere unskilfulness on the 
 part of the grower, — that they long for the time when 
 they shall be able to make their own requisitions as 
 to the quahty of the article in which they deal. 
 
 The question is — a question of unspeakable im- 
 portance — will that time come before it is too late 
 to secure this natural branch of industry to Ireland ? 
 There are some who fear and believe that other coun- 
 tries will be too quick for her, and that she will miss 
 this much of her possible salvation. Look at the 
 facts again, and say if this be likely. Ireland pays 
 away £300,000 a year for seed which she merely 
 wastes at home. She grows flax (on the whole very 
 badly) on only 60,000 acres; whereas there is a de- 
 mand, addressed peculiarly to her, for the produce of 
 500,000 acres. This is no new-fangled product, but 
 exactly that which has been her own for centuries. 
 At the same moment with the demand arises a new 
 and sound method of avoiding the risks and losses 
 of the old unskilled method of treatment. Under all 
 this incitement, she has no opponents, but the off'er 
 of every possible assistance. 
 
CULTIVATION OF FLAX. 33 
 
 What follows ? That if she misses her advantage, 
 the world will say she deserves no pity. It does not 
 follow that the world will be right in saying so. Some 
 who look deeper may feel that she is more to be pitied 
 than ever ; for there must be some dreadful mischief 
 at work to paralyse action in so plain a case. If such 
 a painful spectacle should be seen as the flax cultiva- 
 tion passing from Ireland to some other soil, it will 
 be owing to the same causes, whatever they may be, 
 which deprave Irish agriculture generally to a lower 
 point than can be seen in almost every other country 
 in Europe. What those causes are, we shall better 
 understand when we have looked beyond the province 
 of Ulster, 
 
 c 3 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENT IN ULSTER. 
 
 August 18, 1852. 
 While all Ulster is noisy with outcries and contro- 
 versies on the subject of tenant-right — while some of 
 the elections are a public scandal, and political quar- 
 rels run high — there is a society modestly at work 
 which, if properly supported, might do more for the 
 benefit of the population than all the politicians in 
 the province, with all their din. Professor Hodges, 
 who fills the amcultural chair in the Queen's CoUesre 
 at Belfast, is the main support of the Chemico- Agri- 
 cultural Society of Ulster. He is the society's chemist, 
 he lectures, and he superintends the preparation of its 
 journal. 
 
 We have given some account of how the tillage of 
 the province appears to a stranger. We must have 
 conveyed some impression of the crying need of know- 
 ledge, of consultation among landowners and farmers, 
 of union to obtain information about the latest im- 
 provements, and so on. Bearing this in mind, and 
 remembering also that this society is universally 
 ])raised where it is noticed at all, — that it sits apart 
 
AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENT. 35 
 
 altogether from political quarrels, and is allowed on 
 all hands to be much needed and a pure benefit, 
 what may be supposed to be the degree of support it 
 receives ? 
 
 Last year's report informs us that the annual sub- 
 scriptions amounted to £182. 5^. 6^. Well may 
 English newspapers and Irish advocates describe such 
 means as " ridiculously small." Dr. Hodges' ' Les- 
 sons on Chemistry in its application to Agriculture' 
 is used as a text-book in all the rural schools of the 
 National Board; he carries on an extensive corre- 
 spondence with associations, British and foreign ; and 
 the Journals of this society are known to have given 
 a great impulse to agriculture in L-eland. One of 
 the most zealous members is Mr. Andrews, the first 
 Irish pupil of Mr. Smith of Deanston, and the man 
 who subsoiled the first bit of Irish ground in 1833. 
 Yet " some of the larger landed proprietors have not 
 renewed their subscriptions;" the amount received 
 for advertisements last year was three guineas, and, 
 as we have said, the subscriptions amounted to only 
 £182. hs. Qcl, though sixty-five new members had 
 joined. 
 
 What does this mean ? English men of business 
 would say at once that the Ulster people do not "oish 
 for agricultural improvement. And why do they not 
 wish for it ? Because, as the residents tell a stranger, 
 it would do them no good. And why ? How should 
 a better method of tillage do them no good ? To this 
 there are many answers. 
 
 We hear most about old habits. It is an old habit 
 
36 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 of the Irish— even in Ulster, where they say they are 
 half Scotch — to like division of lands, and not to like 
 division of labour. The most zealous improvers can 
 get nothing done thoroughly well that they do not 
 effect with their own hands. Mr. Andrews himseK 
 cannot get his corn so stacked as that the ears do not 
 hang out from the eaves to the base. Every labourer 
 wants to be doing everything, — if possible on his own 
 account ; and he stands, in comparison with the Lin- 
 colnshire labourer, like the old nail-maker described 
 by Adam Smith, who forged every separate nail, in 
 comparison with the nail-cutter of the present day, 
 who can supply more in a few hours than our whole 
 nation formerly could in many months. The great 
 Companies have steadily set their faces against a sub- 
 division of farms which should bring back the old 
 evil of every tenant being a Jack-of-all-trades on a 
 deteriorating patch of ground ; but it needs to be on 
 the spot to learn what difficulty they have in carrying 
 out tlieir own steady determination. The agent finds 
 that where the tenant and his sous cannot divide the 
 land, they secretly divide the produce; it is only by 
 a painful interference with family arrangements, that, 
 in certain cases, a virtual subdivision of farms can be 
 prevented. Tenants who would do this have not 
 attained to any desire for improvement in the science 
 and practice of agriculture. Tliese are the men who 
 ask what chemistry can possibly have to do with their 
 business; and who hold, with regard to the land, 
 that "whatever is is best." 
 
 Such men would however be displaced in a trice 
 
AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENT. 37 
 
 by better farmers, if there were not obstacles to men 
 becoming better farmers. The obstacles are, that, in 
 the present state of the law, the tenant has no lease, 
 or none that he can depend on ; he has often no capi- 
 tal, being stripped of it by the process of entering 
 upon his farm; and his pohtical have been, till re- 
 cently, no less striking than his legal discourage- 
 ments. The difficulty of obtaining vahd leases from 
 the owners of encumbered estates in Ireland has been 
 fatal to the good cultivation of land. In Scotland 
 the law gives the priority to a farming lease over every 
 other claim whatever ; and Lothian farmers would as 
 soon think of squatting as of sitting down on any 
 farm without the security of a long lease, — of nine- 
 teen years at the shortest. They will have nothing 
 to do with leases of lives, because their operations 
 proceed on a basis of calculation and foresight; and 
 they bar accidents, as far as men of business can. 
 When they are sure of their nineteen, or thirty-one, or 
 more years, up rises their tall chimney ; their steam- 
 engine begins to pant, their subsoil to come up, their 
 stagnant waters to run off, their money to disappear 
 in the soil, and their hopes to stretch forward over a 
 score or two of years, and embrace a compensating 
 average of seasons. Their land becomes a perfect 
 food manufactory ; a perfect treat to the eye of the 
 veriest old square-toes, who fidgets at the sight of a 
 weed, and cannot sleep for the thought of a hole in a 
 fence. If the landlord thinks it right to guard against 
 the exhaustion of the land during the last years of the 
 lease, this is managed by simply prescribing the course 
 
38 LETTEES FROM IRELAND. 
 
 of cultivation during those years. But the ordinary 
 case is, that the relation answers too weD to both par- 
 ties to allow either to wish to part, and in that case 
 it is the tenant's interest to keep up the quality of 
 the land tlu-oughout the period. Yery different is the 
 case of the Irish tenant. During all the long period 
 that estates have been growing more encumbered, it 
 has cost him more and more to ascertain the validity 
 of a lease, till he gives the matter up. The law has 
 given the preference to every claimant over him ; so 
 that, after all his pains, the mortgagee might at any 
 moment step in between him and his landlord, and 
 claim his farm. And then, up to 1832, a sort of 
 honour was paid to tenants for lives above tenants for 
 terms of years, the first being admitted to the fran- 
 chise, and the other class being excluded from it. All 
 this is now^ rectified : but the prejudice in favour of 
 the chance tenure remains for awhile. In 1S32 the 
 franchise was extended to leaseholders for terms of 
 years; and in 1850 the better principle was intro- 
 duced of proceeding on the value of the holding, in- 
 stead of regarding the form of contract between land- 
 lord and tenant. But tlie notion of the superior dig- 
 nity of a tenancy for lives is not worn out yet ; and 
 thus, even where leases exist, the least secure kind 
 arc preferred to those which admit of steady calcula- 
 tion and foresight. Agricultural science and art are 
 not likely to be very ardently pursued amidst such a 
 state of afiairs. A tenant is not very likely to lock up 
 his capital in buildings, and sow it in the soil, when he 
 cannot reckon on remaining long enough to recover it. 
 
AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENT. 39 
 
 But he seldom has capital. A Scotch landowner 
 takes care to ascertain that the candidate for his farm 
 has the means to do it justice. The Irish candidate 
 may perhaps present himself with a handful of money, 
 when he applies for the land; but the outgoing 
 tenant is sm-e to strip him of it by claims for improve- 
 ments. In Ireland it is the tenant who builds the 
 dwelling and everything else : the landlord lets the 
 bare land. The outgoing tenant is under the strongest 
 temptations to lay on his charges well. TTe are all apt 
 to over-estimate our own doings and our own posses- 
 sions — very honestly. Every old lady who has house 
 property chafes at any mention of deterioration, and 
 estimates her property liigher, instead of lower, every 
 year. Much more may the outgoing tenant overrate 
 the value of what he has done and spent on the farm 
 which he mourns over leaving ; and the intense com- 
 petition for farms removes all check upon him. Ea- 
 ther than miss the farm, candidates will vie with each 
 other in paying _his price ; and the successful compe- 
 titor enters, spending his capital upon his predeces- 
 sor's so-called improvements, so as to have no means 
 left for instituting any of his own. And he cannot 
 borrow capital for the conducting of his business, as 
 the Scotch farmer and every other man of business 
 may. In the hope that some remedy for this hard- 
 sliip will soon be provided, we may content ourselves 
 with saying now, that the law surrounds the Irish 
 tenant with such difficulties, that he not only loses 
 commercial credit by proposing to conduct his busi- 
 ness with borrowed capital, but it may cost as much 
 

 40 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 pains, expense, and uncertainty, to olfer or obtain se- 
 curity for a loan of £50, as to ascertain the title of a 
 large estate. How would a Scotch farmer, or a Man- 
 chester manufacturer, or a London merchant, get on 
 with his business, if he were thus precluded from 
 raising the means for carrying on his operations ? 
 
 And who can wonder at the depressed condition 
 of agriculture under laws, customs, and habits of 
 mind like these ? Where is good tillage to come from, 
 and what is to be its reward, under so thankless a 
 system ? It seems very creditable, considering all this, 
 that sixty-five new members should have joined the 
 Chemico-Agricultural Society last year. It alibrds 
 good promise of what the desire for improvement may 
 become in the days of safe leases and command of 
 farming capital. And these days may not be far ofi'. 
 The Attorney-General for Ireland has declared his 
 intention of proposing a reform analogous to that of 
 the Scotch law of eighty years ago, — a reform by which 
 the power of secure leasing shall be largely extended, 
 and by which a lease shall have priority over an en- 
 cumbrance, instead of the reverse. Then the world 
 may have an opportunity of seeing whether there are 
 natural causes which prevent the agriculture of Ire- 
 land from being as good as that of the Lothians. At 
 present the fields in many parts of Ulster are but too 
 Hke the crofts of the highlands and islands of Scot- 
 land. 
 
41 
 
 LETTER YI. 
 
 IRELAND DYING OF TOO :\nJCH DOCTORING— THE 
 "TENANT RIGHT" QLTISTION. 
 
 August 20, 1852. 
 There is something very striking, and not a little 
 pathetic (to a stranger, at least), in the complaints of 
 the suffering Irish that they are neglected, — that a 
 Httle more law would save them, if they could only 
 get it, but that the Imperial Parliament will not make 
 laws for Ireland ; while, all the time, the observer sees 
 that the woes of Ireland arise, to a very great extent, 
 from overmuch law. In the days of the Eepeal agi- 
 tation every repealer had visions of getting a law for 
 this, that, or the other object, never doubting that, 
 in the first place, he should get the desired law from 
 the Irish parliament, and that, in the next, the law 
 would do all he wanted. It never entered his head 
 that he was pining under too many specifics already ; 
 and that his welfare would be found, if at all, in 
 committing himself to general laws, through a release 
 from those which were impoverishing his life in all 
 directions. He was like the hypochondriac, who 
 thinks he wants more physic, and again more ; where- 
 
42 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 as what he needs is to " throw physic to the dogs/' 
 and commit himself to the fresh air, cold water, and 
 cheerful sunshine, which are shed abroad for all. It 
 is not always easy, or even possible, to draw a sharp 
 line of distinction between general laws of society, and 
 those which are special ; and, again, between the spe- 
 cial laws which are rendered still necessary by former 
 states of society, and those which may be consi- 
 dered done with, and therefore ready to be abolished. 
 But there is one thing quite certain, and that is, that 
 no new special law should be made without well-as- 
 certained occasion — without occasion so decided as to 
 command the assent of nearly the whole of the think- 
 ing and informed portion of society. If this be ad- 
 mitted, what ought to be done about this great ques- 
 tion of Tenant Eight in Ireland ? 
 
 Few of us can forget that when O'Connell found 
 the repeal movement getting past his management, 
 he allowed the people to anticipate whatever blessed 
 consequences they chose from the acquisition of re- 
 peal; he always said, in a general way, that when 
 they had got repeal they could get anything else they 
 liked. AYhat they most wanted was " fixity of te- 
 nure;" so they asked him whether repeal would give 
 them fixity of tenure, and he said it would. There 
 is no doubt that the popular meaning of the phrase 
 was that every man who held a bit of land should hold 
 it for ever — himself and his posterity after him — on 
 the payment of a certain rent, when the seasons allowed 
 him to pay. Before Lord Devon's Commission, the 
 "almost universal topic of complaint" was the " want 
 
TENANT RIGHT. 43 
 
 of tenure/' as the witnesses expressed their trouble. 
 O'Counell has long been in his grave ; the Repeal 
 agitation has died away ; Lord Devon's Commission 
 is now only occasionally quoted ; but we find Ulster 
 ringing with cries about tenure, and, among other 
 cries, we find one for " fixity of tenure,'' which the 
 poorer cultivators beheve to be uttered by their best 
 friends. Let no one hastily suppose that fixity of 
 tenure and security of tenure mean the same thing. 
 As the stranger sees the matter, security of tenure 
 must be obtained by doing away with a good deal of 
 law ; but fixity of tenure would require new law, and 
 a terrible deal of it. 
 
 There are some who desire that the proceeds of all 
 the lands should be lodged in the hands of some 
 central administration; and that, after aE pubhc ob- 
 hgations are discharged, the rest of the fund should 
 be distributed among those who tilled the ground. 
 We need not do more than state this opinion in pass- 
 ing. Another plan, more extensively talked about, 
 is that of converting the L-ish agriculturist into a pea- 
 sant-proprietor, by transferring to him the ownership 
 of the land, subject to a fixed rent. There are various 
 ideas about providing for the security of the rent ; but 
 the main point of the whole measure is to be, that the 
 transference of the land shall be made as difficult as 
 possible. There may be little use in pointing out to 
 those who would propose such a scheme as this that 
 it is simply a confiscation of property. They must 
 either have got over such a scruple, or have some 
 plan to propose about compelling the owners to sell 
 
44 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 their land to some who would submit to hold nominal 
 property on such terms. It may be more to the pur- 
 pose to remind these advocates of fixity of tenure, that 
 the great evil to be dealt with is the badness of the 
 tillage ; and that, by universal agreement, this unpro- 
 ductiveness is above everything owing to the difficulty 
 in the transfer of land, which obstructs agricultural 
 improvement. Once make the peasant-proprietor ir- 
 removeable — once place him beyond the. reach of sti- 
 mulus to learn, and improve and bestir himself, and 
 what a perspective of misery stretches before him and 
 all who can be affected by him ! What a tribe of 
 children and grand-children is swarming on the bit 
 of ground intended to support a single couple ur 
 family ! How, as means diminish, the land becomes 
 impoverished, till the whole concern goes to ruin al- 
 together ! The Flemish or Saxon peasant-proprietor 
 is the bond fide owner of the land he lives on. He has 
 not only fixity of tenure with a certain rent for ever, 
 but the soil is his very own, as the children say ; and 
 it requires all the complacency and affection which at- 
 tend the absolute possession of property in land to 
 enable the patient drudging Pleming, with his neat- 
 ness and his accuracy, and his long-established pas- 
 sion for independence, to rear his family first, and 
 then so to chspose of them as to preserve liis little 
 estate entu'e. We need spend no space in showing 
 what arc, in comparison, the chances of the Irish 
 peasant. 
 
 Next comes the scheme of which so much has been 
 lieard in Parliament and out of it — the scheme of a for- 
 
 I 
 
TENANT RIGHT. 45 
 
 matioii, under legal sanction, of a tribunal, appointed 
 by landlord and tenants, with the resource of an um- 
 pire, for arranging the terras of the letting of land, 
 and especially for determining the value of the im- 
 provements made, and to be left by the tenant. The 
 short answer given by the landlord party is, that they 
 do not wish it ; they do not choose to admit any in- 
 terference between themselves and their tenants. If 
 the case of the landlords were perfectly simple, nothing 
 could be more conclusive than their reply. If they 
 came into the market, Hke sellers in general, to seU 
 the use of their land to some one who wanted to buy 
 that use, no third party would be wanted here, any 
 more than in any other transaction of sale and pur- 
 chase. But, in such a case, the question of tenant right 
 — any question of tenure — could hardly have arisen at 
 all. There is a complication and embarrassment, which 
 has occasioned the proposition of a third party to the 
 business ; but it does not follow that the remedy will 
 be found in legalizing a third party at all. While 
 everybody seems bent on adding to the complication 
 — on heaping more law on the mass which is already 
 squeezing its vital juices out of the ground — it strikes 
 a stranger that an Irishman here and there is probably 
 right in proposing to undo some of this comphcation, 
 to take off some of this incubus of law. 
 
 The poor Irish say that the landowners made the 
 laws to suit their own purposes. This is very true ; 
 that is, the early law-makers in all countries were 
 landowners, and, as a matter of course, and without 
 meaning any particular harm, they made the laws to 
 
46 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 suit themselves. The poor Irishman now wants his 
 turn : he wants the chance to make some laws to suit 
 himself and his class. But that would be neither wise 
 nor good. Better set about abolisliing such as are 
 hurtful of the landlords' laws. One of the most hurt- 
 ful is that by wliich the existing owner of the land 
 is prohibited from entering into leasing obligations 
 which shall bind his successor. We have said enough 
 before about the contrast between the Scotch method 
 of leasing and the Irish practice of yearly tenancy. Free 
 the Irish owner from his inability to grant leases for 
 long terms ; free him from his inabihty to charge his 
 estate with farm-buildings and improvements, to be 
 paid for by the extension of the rent over a sufficient 
 term of years; free him from the inability to pledge 
 his estate for a due compensation for the tenants' im- 
 provements; release the landowner from these tram- 
 mels, and he will be in a condition to make a bargain 
 with a tenant for their mutual advantage. The land- 
 owner is surely sufficiently punished for his ancestors' 
 selfishness in law-making, — punished by his own re- 
 strictions before his posterity ; punished in being un- 
 able to meet his tenants like a free man ; punished in 
 seeing his land deteriorate from one five years to an- 
 other. It will not mend matters to punish him fur- 
 ther (if it could be done) by subjecting him forcibly 
 to' the orders of a tribunal who should hardly leave 
 him even the nominal owner, certaiidy not the master, 
 of his own estate. 
 
 There is no question of the fact that the practice of 
 tenant-right in Ulster has been a good thing, — good 
 
TENANT RIGHT. 47 
 
 for the cultivation of the soil. If the tenant could 
 not obtain the security of a lease, he has obtained the 
 next best thing he could get — the custom, sanctioned 
 by the landlords and their agents, that his improve- 
 ments, from the dwelling-house he built to the last 
 manure he put into the ground, should be paid for 
 by his successor. In the confidence of this repayment 
 he has tilled his land better than tenants in other parts 
 of Ireland have done. But when changes arise — when 
 the tenants improvements become depreciated in value 
 (Hke a merchant^'s stock under a commercial crisis), and 
 he calls upon his landlord to lower his rent because 
 the rent was calculated in proportion to the former 
 value of his tenant-right, then comes the quarrel, as 
 all Ulster has felt for two years past. Some land- 
 lords have reduced their rents, and largely; others 
 have declined, never having been aware, they say, that 
 the custom of tenant-right could lower rent. There 
 is no way of settling the dispute through the dispas- 
 sionate intervention of law ; for the law has restricted 
 the owner from making tenant right contracts with 
 his tenants otherwise than tacitly. The consequences 
 of this loose method of transacting business so import- 
 ant, and of turning into a sort of clandestine arrange- 
 ment the terms on which depends the smaU amount 
 of agricultural superiority which prevails in Ulster, 
 are that landlord and tenant are now at strife on the 
 most fatal subject about which men can quarrel in 
 Ireland ; and multitudes who know no better are cry- 
 ing out for all manner of new laws to coerce the land- 
 lord, while he would be but too happy to do what is 
 
48 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 best for both parties, if only he were disencumbered 
 of that heavy armour of law, under which he cannot 
 stir hand or foot, to help liimself or anybody else. 
 When men are allowed to manage their existing pro- 
 perty by the use of their present wits, it is sure to be 
 well managed; as long as they are compelled to treat 
 it according to the wits of former centuries, the whole 
 affair must be a sad jumble. Let the Scotch rule be 
 admitted in Ireland — the rule that the first object is 
 to secure the productiveness of the soil — and we shall 
 see a common ground provided, on which owners and 
 tenants can traffic. We shall see long leases, land- 
 lords' improvements in loving company with those of 
 the tenant, rich fields, full barns, and rising planta- 
 tions, with no smoke of the assassin's blunderbuss 
 curKng among the trees. 
 
49 
 
 LETTER YII. 
 
 HOW IRELAND IS TO GET BACK ITS WOODS. 
 
 August 23, 1852. 
 We have had the pleasure of seeing trees once more 
 — real woods ; and not merely such young plantations 
 as the Companies have made in Ulster. Till we were 
 passing through woodland again, enjoying the cool 
 light as it came tempered through a screen of beechen 
 foliage, we were not fully aware of the barrenness of 
 the country we had traversed. Erom the time we had 
 left the Coleraine rocks, we had scarcely seen a clump 
 of well-grown trees. On the high lands of the coast 
 near the Giant's Causeway, no one would look for 
 woods; but, turning inland from those heights, for 
 miles and miles over hill and dale there was nothing 
 to be seen but the brown, green, or yellow surface of 
 heath, root-crops, and harvest-fields. Some of the 
 slopes about the noble Eairhead show young planta- 
 tions of larch ; and the romantic valleys in which lie 
 Cushenden and Cushendall have some well-wooded 
 nooks and recesses. After that the dearth of trees is 
 really sad, even as far as Lord Eoden's property, near 
 Dundalk. If one asks why, the answer is that trees 
 
 D 
 
50 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 will not grow in Ireland. Nobody can believe this 
 who gives a moment^ s thought to the subject. Trees 
 grow very well wherever resident proprietors like to 
 live under the shelter of woods, and wherever estates 
 are kept in the hands of proprietors. Trees grew very 
 well when there was a good trade in timber and staves. 
 Trees grew very well when miles of forest were de- 
 stroyed to dislodge outlaws. Trees must certainly 
 have grown very well before the growth of the bogs ; 
 for the base of a bog is an almost continuous layer of 
 forest trees. Lord Eoden^s trees grow very well, and 
 Lord Downe's, and the Duke of Leinster's. Ireland 
 was certainly once covered, to a considerable extent, 
 with forests ; and we hope that there will be planting 
 enough in time to come to prove that trees will grow 
 in Ireland, much as they do in other green islands. 
 
 Trom the time that the Carlingford mountains come 
 into view, on the journey from Belfast to Dublin, the 
 scene becomes gay and smiling for an extent of many 
 miles. Some really good wheat-crops are seen here 
 and there. The pastures are as slovenly as possible ; 
 but there are fields of well-weeded turnips occasion- 
 ally, and even two or three of unspoiled potatoes. 
 We remarked here, and also further south, that where 
 the potatoes were worst the poppies flourished most. 
 In some cases, where the potato-stalks had almost 
 vanished in black decay, poppies and other weeds 
 seemed to usurp the whole field. We are far from 
 drawing a hasty conclusion that exliaustion of the soil, 
 such as is marked by the presence of poppies, is the 
 cause of the potato-rot; for we know that the best 
 
IRISH WOODS. 51 
 
 tillage has failed to avert the evil; but it is worth 
 notice that we have repeatedly seen a field of potatoes 
 yet green and promising, between well-kept fences, 
 and free from weeds, parted only by that fence from 
 a decayed expanse where cattle were going in and out 
 over the hedge, where slimy water stood in the ditch, 
 and the poppy, the marigold, and long purples made 
 the ground as gay as a carpet. 
 
 On approaching Dundalk, Lord Eoden's woods 
 present a fine background to the yellow oat and wheat 
 fields: and the opening of avenues from the road to 
 church, or house, or river, is a refreshment to the eye 
 after the coast-road of Antrim and the bleachfields 
 south of Belfast. Yet more smiling was a subsequent 
 day's journey which led us through the great plain of 
 Kildare. The heavy wheat-crops and rich oat-fields 
 made us feel that we were rapidly going southwards ; 
 and on the further side of Athy the belts of woodland, 
 extending for miles, reminded us amusingly of the 
 assurance we had so lately received, that wood would 
 not grow in Ireland. We asked how the large oaks, 
 the rows of elms, the spreading ash and beech, came 
 to be there ; and we were told that Lord Downers 
 woods were carefully kept up round his mansion (as 
 we saw by driving through the park), and that the 
 Duke of Leinster is a good landlord. 
 
 No doubt he is a good landlord ; and no doubt a 
 good landlord has some power over the growth of 
 wood on his estates. But there are facts open to the 
 knowledge of all, which show that the landlords are 
 not responsible for the decay of wood in Ireland — 
 
 D 2 
 
52 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 nor the tenants either. It is easy to say that men 
 are lazy; that Irishmen are particularly lazy; that 
 people will not look forward ; that the sale of wood 
 stripped the land, and that nobody remembered to 
 plant in proportion to the felHng ; that, as wood be- 
 came too scarce for fuel, men took to peat; and that 
 there is so much peat, that men don't care about wood ; 
 that they are so accustomed to see Ireland bare, that 
 they would not know their own country if they saw it 
 wooded. These things may be facts, but they are not 
 reasons. We are still unsatisfied as to the why of the 
 case. We know that it is a positive pleasure to the 
 landowner to plant ; and to the tenant too, in a minor 
 degree. We know that it is quite a peculiar enjoy- 
 ment to those who are concerned with land to put in 
 seedhngs and saplings, and shelter them, and foster 
 them, and admire their growth at six years old, 
 and begin to enjoy the profits of thinning after that 
 time, and reckon complacently the incomings from 
 year to year, and the permanent value added to the 
 estate by means so cheap and easy and pleasant as 
 planting. If, as Sir Eobert Kane tells us, during all 
 the consumption of wood, while there was still any to 
 fell no one planted, there must have been a reason for 
 it. When we consider what would have been the 
 difference in the resources of Ireland now if it had 
 been a well-wooded instead of a bare country, it appears 
 that the reason must be a very strange and a very 
 stringent one. 
 
 Why tenants-at-will, or on a lease of lives, should 
 not incur the trouble and expense of planting, is 
 
IRISH WOODS. 53 
 
 obvious enough. By the law, as we have seen before, 
 the improvements go with the land, and the tenant has 
 no claim for compensation. According to the com- 
 mon law, the tenant cannot fell trees, because he is 
 entitled only to their fruit and shade, and the land- 
 lord cannot fell them, but by express agreement, be- 
 cause the tenant is entitled to their fruit and shade. 
 Even the power which the tenant once had, of felling 
 what wood he wanted for repairs, was taken away by 
 a statute passed in the Irish Parliament a few years 
 before the Union. The certainty of the total disap- 
 pearance of woods under a system like this was so 
 clear, that an act was passed in 1766, by which the 
 property of the trees planted was vested in the tenant 
 who planted them; but then, this tenant must have 
 a lease of Hves renewable for ever, or for above twelve 
 years unexpired. The much larger class of tenants, 
 with short leases or none at all, were left where they 
 were. Another act gave further scope about felling 
 to the smaller class of tenants, without affecting the 
 larger. By this latter act, passed in 1784, the tenant 
 who had more than fourteen years of his lease before 
 him might dispose of his own trees as he chose, if he 
 had registered them by affidavit within twelve months 
 of planting them. Considering the trouble and ex- 
 pense of this registering, and the small number of 
 tenants included under the permission, it is not very 
 wonderful that after seventy years from the passage of 
 that act, Ireland is stiU the bare country it is. 
 
 And how does the law work with res^ard to the 
 favoured class of tenants? There is a storv on 
 
54 LETTERS FROM IRELAZsD. 
 
 record which opens a curious scene to us. A tenant 
 on a long lease in a northern county planted exten- 
 sively, and registered his trees, in comphance with the 
 law. He believed them to be his own, and loved 
 them accordingly. He sheltered them, fostered them, 
 and gloried in them ; and they grew for a long course 
 of years. He paid rent for the ground they grew on 
 — and he did not grudge it, for he believed he was 
 growing a good property for his children. The time 
 came for a renewal of his lease. There was no diffi- 
 culty about that : both parties were willing to con- 
 tinue their relation, and the terms were readily agreed 
 upon. But then it came out that the trees could not 
 be made the property of the tenant for a future term. 
 The only lease which the law allowed the landlord to 
 give was one by wliich the tenant was subjected to 
 severe penalties for cutting a switch off any one of the 
 trees he had planted, and for whose standing-room he 
 had paid rent all these years. Either the trees must 
 go with the land, and become the landlord^'s property, 
 or the landlord must, by an act of liberality, purchase 
 the trees ; or the tenant must fell them before the ex- 
 piration of his lease — that is, in a few weeks. The 
 landlord was grieved. It was not convenient to him 
 to buy the trees, as an act of generosity. He could 
 not legally give them to the tenant, for that would 
 be alienating so much of the value of the estate. The 
 tenant could not believe this. He could not credit 
 that such could be the state of the law ; and he na- 
 turally supposed that the landlord wanted to make 
 the trees liis own by delay. The man waited till the 
 
IKISH WOODS. 55 
 
 last day that he could call the trees his own ; then he 
 called in everybody from far and near to help him ; 
 and the woods were felled and removed before night, 
 amidst the curses of the peasantry on the landlord's 
 name. They knew nothing about the law : they saw 
 an active improver desperately cutting down his own 
 beloved woods, to prevent their becoming his land- 
 lord's property ; and it would not have been easy to 
 convince them that the landlord had no desire to 
 possess them. In the Appendix to the Report of 
 Lord Devon's Commission, there is a narrative very 
 like this, except that it ended more happily. The 
 tenant was a well-informed man, who knew that his 
 landlord was not to blame; and it does not appear 
 that he cut down his trees. But when asked whether 
 it is likely that he should plant any more, "No," he 
 says, " I may grow furze, or heath, or brambles, but 
 I won't grow timber." 
 
 It is sad to see Ireland thus stripped of her ancient 
 resources. It is like seeing the disappearance of the 
 furniture of a sinking house. Not only is there pre- 
 sent poverty, but an exhaustion of future comforts. 
 Difficulty and embarrassment may be got through, 
 but the recovery from barrenness is so hard ! The 
 woods of Ireland have to be re-created ; and how, if it 
 is nobody's interest to plant, and there is difficulty and 
 expense at the very outset ? The suggestions made 
 by those who know best are, that if there be registra- 
 tion, it should be made to secure a property of such 
 duration to its proper owner for a longer term than 
 the current lease ; and that the law should give the 
 
56 LETTERS FROM IRELA^^). 
 
 property in woods to the occupier, as the supposed 
 planter, in the absence of any declaration or arrange- 
 ment to the contrary. Thus it would become the in- 
 terest of the tenant to plant, as it is usually the inter- 
 est of the proprietor that he should. If the proprietor 
 has any objections or special wishes about the matter, 
 he can arrange his terms in giving his lease. If the 
 island is ever to be re-clothed, and to begin to accu- 
 mulate a new capital of forest timber, it must be by 
 some such alteration in the law as this ; for nothing 
 can be done while the parties interested are kept in a 
 position of common and relative incapacity which 
 would be ludicrous if it were not far too sad for a 
 joke. 
 
57 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 LEINSTER— IRISH INDUSTRY— RELIGIOUS FEUDS. 
 
 August 26, 1852. 
 Bishop Berkeley would hardly hold to his notion of 
 the constitution of the Irish people, as regards their 
 repugnance to work, if he could now come back, and 
 give a fair study to Irish industry at home and abroad. 
 He set it down as a fact, that in Ireland " industry 
 is most against the natural grain of the people,^' and 
 theorized to his own satisfaction on their being "partly 
 Spanish and partly Tartars," and indolent, in virtue of 
 both descents. If he could revisit his earthly haunts, 
 he would find, in his American province, for instance, 
 Irishmen working as well as men need do, and grow- 
 ing as rich as men need be ; and at home he would 
 probably find men, women, and children much like 
 what they are elsewhere, working well when they en- 
 joy pay and hope, and dawdling over their business 
 when hungry and discouraged. "Why and how," 
 has been repeatedly said to us since we entered the 
 country, — " why and how should our labourers work 
 well while they are so ill paid ? Let the truth be 
 plainly stated, that our people are underpaid, or it 
 
 D 3 
 
58 LETTEBS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 may be ever so long yet before we learn that it an- 
 swers best to the employer to give good wages." We 
 are willing to state plainly the Kttle we have as yet 
 seen and learned about the quality of popular labour. 
 
 Three things are very striking to us under this head 
 — the heartiness of the labour where men are well paid, 
 — the languor of the labour where people are ill paid, 
 and the toil that people will undergo, under the sti- 
 mulus of hope, even where the gains are very small. 
 We have seen Irishmen working, with every muscle 
 and every faculty, in an establishment where the work 
 must be well done, where every man is paid according 
 to his merits, and where the wages are from 85. to 50<s. 
 per week. We have seen men and women lounging, 
 staring about them, and moving slowly (when they 
 moved at all), over outdoor work, the pay for which 
 was I5. a day for the ablest men, and M. for the in- 
 ferior men and the women. We have seen women 
 bending over their embroidery, as they do all day long, 
 and from week to week, inlying their needles without 
 respite, in the hope of making more than the ordinary 
 M. a-day. We have learned that in the neighbour- 
 hood of Dubhn women will walk five Irish miles for 
 fruit, and walk all the rest of the day to bring it back 
 and sen it, and be well pleased if they get l.:y. a-day — 
 satisfied if they get M. There seems to be no room 
 for a theory of constitutional indolence here. 
 
 And so we thought from as much as we could see 
 in passing of the harvest-\vork in the plain of Kil- 
 dare, and in a portion of Queen's County, last week. 
 What we saw that day certainly surprised and gratified 
 
IRISH INDUSTRY. 59 
 
 US, after what we had heard of the superiority of til- 
 lage, and of the quality of labour, in Ulster. We saw 
 the best crops that have come under our notice thus 
 far in Ireland, with the exception of two or three 
 favoured spots ; and the reapers and binders seemed 
 hearty about their business. They were, to be sure, 
 a strange-looking set of mortals, as we passed com- 
 pany after company of them in the yellow sunset light ; 
 the women hung round with rags that it was a marvel 
 to see and a mystery to understand ; and the men, some 
 gaunt, some stunted, some with flaming red beards, 
 some vnih shaggy black locks ; all bare-legged and all 
 ragged. But they had been working well, and the 
 cabins they were returning to (such of them as were 
 residents) are, according to all sound testimony, a very 
 great improvement upon the dwellings of the labourers 
 of forty years ago ; cleaner without and within, more 
 light and airy, and decent in every way. 
 
 So much improvement having taken place from na- 
 tural causes, in spite of singular troubles and difficul- 
 ties, there would be every hope of an accelerated pro- 
 gression if natural causes could work freely. It was as 
 lately as 1845 that the Report of the Land Occupation 
 Commission declared the condition of the labouring po- 
 pulation to be stationary or worse, while that of the 
 farming class had improved. Through the horrors of 
 famine, and the perils of the emigration of thousands of 
 the employing class, the condition of the labourer has 
 improved and is improving. But now, just when good 
 men's hopes are rising, occurs a difficulty, sorrow, and 
 danger which there is no seeing the end of. A new 
 
60 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 fierceness is infused into the religious strifes of the coun- 
 try. There is no use now in entering upon any discus- 
 sion about how this fresh exasperation arose. There is 
 no use now in inquiring whose fault it is. " It must 
 needs be that offences come; but alas! for those by 
 whom they come." It might be inevitable that new 
 and more deadly struggles between the two churches, 
 and among all churches, should occur ; but, for our 
 part, we had rather have cut off our right hand, and 
 have been smitten dumb, than have written or spoken 
 — as premier, priest, parson, or whatsoever else — a 
 single sentence that could tend to exasperate the re- 
 ligious hatred which is now making Ireland a disgrace 
 to the Christian name. 
 
 We have been wondering how much is known in 
 England of the subject which is exciting the deepest 
 interest here — the rapid course of conversion to Pro- 
 testantism in the West. We are told that a popu- 
 lation of 13,000 has been added to the Protestant 
 church (the evangelical section of it) quite recently, 
 on the west coast. We may have more to say about 
 this when we have been there ; and till then, we will 
 say no more of it. Our present business with this 
 question is as it affects the employment and condition 
 of the labourer — the distribution and recompense of 
 labour. 
 
 The last report of the Society for Protecting the 
 Rights of Conscience lies before us. It contains let- 
 ters which bear so late a date as the middle of last 
 June. The iVi'chbishop of Dublin is its president, 
 and its office-bearers are persons whose testimony 
 
THE PEOTESTANT CONVERTS. 61 
 
 would be regarded with respect by the whole of so- 
 ciety. The object of the association is to extend sup- 
 port (which means nothing more than bare mainte- 
 nance) to poor Protestant converts, who have become 
 the objects of priestly vindictiveness. A good deal of 
 money has been raised, but it is speedily exhausted, 
 and more is urgently requested. The Archbishop him- 
 self would excuse us and anybody for looking upon 
 this business with some suspicion at first. He is a 
 political economist, as well as a church dignitary ; and 
 he would commend, rather than censure, any reluc- 
 tance to espouse a scheme by which a charity fund is 
 applied to a creation of employments in favour of pro- 
 fessors of a particular faith. He is no doubt aware 
 that in cases of religious quarrel there are always igno- 
 rant and selfish persons who suppose there is some- 
 thing to be got by a new theological profession, and 
 who try to get it. Perhaps he may know of certain 
 parents of famiKes who have applied to the clergyman 
 to inquire what they shall get if they come to church 
 with their seven, or their five, or their ten children. 
 He knows enough of this aspect of the question not 
 to disapprove of an inquirer^s looking closely into the 
 matter, before giving his sympathy to this kind of 
 movement. He may also be aware that it takes some 
 time for EngUsh people to become able to believe what 
 the conduct of a Catholic priest in Ireland may be. 
 It was in a somewhat antagonistic mood of mind that 
 we took up this httle report : but before we had done 
 with it, we saw that there is really no choice for poHtical 
 economists, or anybody else, as to what shall be done. 
 
&Z LETTERS FRO:jr IRELAND. 
 
 If the people are to be anything but mere slaves of 
 the priests, and if, being free, their lives are to be 
 saved, they must be employed and fed by their fellow- 
 members of the Church. It is a sad and a mischievous 
 necessity; but a necessity it appears to be. There 
 seems to be no doubt that the converts spoken of in 
 this report are hond fide converts, and that they have 
 made, and are making, very severe sacrifices for the 
 sake of their new faith. There is not the least appear- 
 ance of anything of the nature of a bribe having been 
 offered in any case; on the contrary, the funds are 
 insufficient to afford the merest rescue from starvation 
 to numbers who would at once be provided for and 
 favoured if they would go back under the yoke of the 
 priest. In one district, no one of 800 converts has 
 ever obtained one single day^s work from any CathoKc 
 farmer or landowner ; and the only alternative is work 
 afforded by the society or the workhouse. While the 
 converts were receiving 6^. a-day at farm-work and 
 frieze-making, their Catholic neighbours were earning 
 from 10^. to \8. M. In another district Protestant 
 fishermen were not allowed to enter Catholic boats. 
 Even when the owner would have employed a mixed 
 crew, the priest prohibited it, and was obeyed. The 
 priest went further, and told a CathoKc owner of a 
 boat that he would incur the curse of every priest 
 for ever if he did not dismiss two of his best men. 
 Catholics, because they had worked for a Protestant 
 employer; and the men were dismissed accordingly, 
 tliough engaged for the season. In such cases there 
 is nothing to be done, apparently, but to buy boats 
 
RELIGIOUS FEUDS. 63 
 
 and nets, and employ the outcasts. This has been 
 done at one place on the coast, where the priest finds 
 means to send a waverer to America, and where, while 
 the priest has taken 30^. from a woman for blessing 
 her sick cows, the converts are content with Qd. a-day, 
 and release from the tyranny of the priest. One wishes 
 however that the bodily release could go along with 
 the spiritual. We read, in this report, a case wherein 
 the priest was not content with persuading the land- 
 owner to turn out a family from their cottage if one 
 boy continued to go to church, but condescended to 
 lacerate the boy's face with his nails, and to lash him 
 with his whip, threatening him with a worse whipping 
 if he entered the church again. In' cases like these, 
 there seems no choice but to invent employments, and 
 tamper with the natural course of industry and its 
 rewards. 
 
 "When we go into some of those parts we shall endea- 
 vour to learn what are the state and prospects of indus- 
 try amidst these perturbing forces. Meantime, we are 
 of opinion that there is little to choose between the Ca- 
 tholic and the Protestant temper — taking society all 
 round. No priests in the country can be more ferocious 
 in their language than, for instance, a host of the shop- 
 men of Dublin — Protestants from Ulster. These young 
 men came from the north, often sadly ignorant — 
 scarcely knowing how to read and write. The shops in 
 the Irish towns open late, and close very early — at 6 or 
 7 o'clock. Too many of these young men spend their 
 evenings in idleness, probably at the public-house; 
 or, if reading, knowing of nothing better than a news- 
 
64 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 paper, as uewspapers are in Ireland. These are the 
 valiant host whom their disgusted employers some- 
 times hear talking greedily of " wading knee-deep in 
 Catholic blood/^ and so forth. The placards in DubHn 
 streets, with their tall type of vituperation, are painful 
 to the eyes of a stranger. It is a stranger's business 
 to read them; but it is an embarrassment to stand to 
 do so. It is a pain to overhear the talk of poor men 
 about the coercion they are subject to — whatever 
 amusement their native wit may infuse into the topic. 
 " By Jasus,'' said one poor man to another, the other 
 day, " I don't know where to look to for meself. The 
 priest says if I don't vote agin for his mimber, heTl 
 keep me out of heaven ; and me landlord says if I do, 
 he'll turn me out of me cabin on earth. What I'll do, 
 I don't know." " Thry the say," suggested his com- 
 rade. According to the report above referred to, the 
 priest and the land- (or water-) lord are to be found 
 there too. 
 
65 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 THE WOMEN. 
 
 August 27, 1852. 
 CoNSiDEEiNG that women's labour is universally un- 
 derpaid, in comparison with that of men, there is 
 something very impressive to the traveller in Ireland 
 in the conviction which grows upon liim, from stage 
 to stage, that it is the industry of the women which 
 is in great part sustaining the country. Though, in 
 one view, there is moral beauty in the case, the symp- 
 tom is a bad one. First, the men's wages are reduced 
 to the lowest point ; and then, capital turns to a 
 lower-paid class, to the exclusion of the men, wherever 
 the women can be employed in their stead. We 
 should be sorry to draw any hasty conclusions on a 
 matter of so much importance ; but, recalHng what 
 we have seen since we landed, we cannot but declare 
 that we have observed women not only diligently at 
 work on their own branches of industry, but sharing the 
 labours of the men in almost every employment that 
 we happen to have witnessed. As an economical 
 symptom, the employment of the least in the place of 
 the most able-bodied is one of the peculiarities which 
 
66 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 marks the anomalous condition of Ireland. The fa- 
 mine time was, to be sure, an exception to all rules ; 
 but the same tendency was witnessed before, and is 
 witnessed still. At that time, one of the London 
 Companies sent directions to their agent to expend 
 money to a certain amount, and on no account to 
 allow anybody on their estates to starve. The agent 
 determined to have a great piece of " slob" land dug, 
 — employing for this purpose one boy out of every 
 family of a certain number, with a staff of aged men 
 for overseers, to superintend and measure the work. 
 Spades, from a moderate to a very small size, were 
 ordered; and a mighty provision of wheaten cakes 
 was carried down to the place every day at noon. The 
 boys were earnest and eager and conscientious about 
 their engagement. They were paid by the piece, and 
 they worked well. Some little fellows, who were so 
 small that they had to be lifted up to take their wages, 
 earned 5<s. a week. They grew fat upon their wheaten 
 food, and their families were able to live on their 
 earnings ; and if the Company did not gain, they did 
 not lose. But it must have been a piteous sight to 
 see households supported by their children and gran- 
 nies, instead of by the strong arm of him who stood 
 between. The women were at work at the same time. 
 The women of Ireland so learned to work then that 
 it will be very long indeed before they get a holiday, 
 or find their natural place as housewives. 
 
 We do not say recover their place as housewives; 
 for there is abundance of evidence that they have not 
 sunk from that position, but rather risen from a lower 
 
THE WOMEN. 67 
 
 one than they now fill. Some years ago, the great 
 authority on Irish peasant life was Mrs. Leadbeater, 
 whose ' Cottage Dialogues' was the most popular of 
 Irish books till O'ConnelFs power rose to its height. 
 In the suspicion and hatred which he excited towards 
 the landlords, and the aristocracy generally, works 
 like Mrs. Leadbeater's, which proceed on the supposi- 
 tion of a sort of feudal relation between the aristocracy 
 and the peasantry, went out of favour, and have been 
 little heard of since. Elderly people have them on 
 their shelves however, and we know, through them, 
 what was the Hfe of the Irish peasant woman in the 
 early part of the century. We know how, too often, 
 the family lived in a mud hovel, without a chimney, 
 all grovelling on the same straw at night, and perhaps 
 with the pig among them ; and at meals tearing their 
 food with their fingers, and so forth. We know how 
 the women were in the field or the bog, while the 
 children were tumbling about in the manure at home. 
 Those who have been to Stradbally, Queen's County, 
 where Mrs. Leadbeater Kved, are aware of the ame- 
 lioration in cottage life produced by the efforts of her 
 daughter-in-law, by the introduction of domestic in- 
 dustry in the place of field labour. The younger 
 Mrs. Leadbeater taught fancy knitting to a bedridden 
 woman and her daughters, many years ago, for their 
 support. The example spread. Women came in from 
 the reaping and binding, — girls staid at home from 
 haymaking, and setting and digging potatoes. They 
 kept their clothes dry, their manners womanly, and 
 their cabins somewhat more decent. The quality of 
 
68 LETTERS FKOM IRELAND. 
 
 the work grew finer and finer, till now we see issuing 
 from the cabins of Stradbally the famed " Spider 
 Mitts," "Impalpable Mitts," "Cobweb Mitts," or 
 whatever else English and American ladies like to 
 call them. Upwards of two hundred women and girls 
 are employed in this knitting ; and people who knew 
 Stradbally thirty years ago are so struck with the im- 
 provement in the appearance of the place, that they 
 declare that the lowest order of cabins appears to them 
 to be actually swept away. 
 
 Stradbally is only one of many such places. In 
 every house of the gentry one now sees sofas, chairs, 
 screens, and fancy tables spread with covers of cro- 
 chet-work — all done by the hands of peasant women. 
 In the south and west, where the famine was sorest, 
 terrible distress was caused, we are told, by the sud- 
 den abolition of the domestic manufactures on which 
 a former generation was largely dependent. The 
 people used to spin and weave linen, flannel, and 
 frieze, which were carried to market, as were the 
 knitted stockings of Counaught. In the famine, the 
 looms and spinning-wheels disappeared, with all other 
 cabin property. It is very well that, when tliis had 
 once happened, the same manufactures should not be 
 restored, because they are of a kind surely destined 
 to destruction before the manufacturing system. The 
 knitting goes on ; and it may long go on, so superior 
 as knitted stockings are to woven ones in point of wear. 
 And a variety of fine works are going on, in wild 
 western districts, where the workwomen who produce 
 such beautiful things never saw a shrub more than 
 
THE WOMEN. 69 
 
 four feet high. In the south-west, lace of a really 
 fine quality is made in cabins where formerly hard- 
 handed women did the dirtiest work about the potato- 
 patch and piggery. Of the "hand-sewing/^ some 
 mention has been made before. We are assured at 
 Belfast — and it only confirmed what we heard in 
 Scotland — that no less than 400,000 women and girls 
 are employed, chiefly by the Glasgow merchants, in 
 " hand-sewing^^ in the Irish cabins. Their wages are 
 low, individually ; but it is a striking fact that these 
 women and girls earn fi'om £80,000 to £90,000 
 per week. It is a regular branch of industry, re- 
 quiring the labour of many men at Glasgow and 
 Belfast, to stamp the patterns on the musHn for the 
 women to work, and, again, to bleach it when it 
 comes in " green ^^ (that is, dirty — so dirty!) from 
 the hands of the needlewomen. They earn but Qd. 
 a-day, poor things ! in a general way, though at rare 
 times — such as the Exhibition season — their pay 
 amounts to 1*. ; but it must be considered that their 
 wear and tear of clothes is less than formerly, and that 
 there must, one would think, be better order preserved 
 at home. 
 
 So much for proper " women's work." But we 
 observe women working almost everywhere. In the 
 flax-fields there are more women than men pulling 
 and steeping. In the potato-fields it is often the 
 women who are saving the remnant of the crop. In 
 the harvest-fields there are as many women as men 
 reaping and binding. In the bog, it is the women 
 
70 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 who, at half wages, set up, and turn, and help to 
 stack the peat, — not only for household use, but for 
 sale, and in the service of the Irish Peat Company. 
 In Belfast, the warehouses we saw were more than 
 half peopled with women, engaged about the linens 
 and muslins. And at the flax-works, near the city, 
 not only were women employed in the spreading 
 and drying, but in the rolling, roughing, and finish- 
 ing, which had always till now been done by men. 
 The men had struck for wages ; and their work was 
 given to girls, at 8^. per day. 
 
 Amidst facts like these, which accumulate as we 
 go, one cannot but speculate on what is to be the 
 end ; or whether the men are to turn nurses and 
 cooks, and to abide beside the hearth, while the wo- 
 men are earning the family bread. Perhaps the most 
 consolatory way of viewing the case is that wliich 
 we are quite willing to adopt, — that, practically, the 
 condition of women, and therefore of their house- 
 holds, is rising. If there is something painful in 
 seeing so undue a share of the burdens of life thrown 
 upon the weaker sex ; and if we cannot but remem- 
 ber that such a distribution of labour is an adopted 
 symptom of barbarism ; still, if the cabins are more 
 decent, and the women more womanlike, it seems as 
 if the process of change must be, on the whole, an 
 advance. As to the way out of such a state of 
 things, it seems as if it must be by that path to so 
 many other benefits — agricultural improvement. The 
 need of masculine labour, and the due reward of it, 
 
 I 
 
THE WOMEN. 71 
 
 must both arise out of an improved cultivation of the 
 soil ; and it is not easy to see how they can arise in 
 any other way. 
 
 While tliinking and speaking of cabin life^ it oc- 
 cui's to us to notice the remarkable appearance of 
 health among the very lowest of the peasantry whom 
 we have yet encountered. What we may see in the 
 West we cannot anticipate ; but we are assured that 
 the same fact will strike us there, — that there also 
 we shall see grown people and children grovelling in 
 filth, with a manure-heap on the threshold, a stag- 
 nant pool before the door, and rotten thatch dropping 
 on the stale straw on which they sleep, and they 
 nevertheless stout, clear-eyed, and ruddy. From this 
 we except, of course, particular situations and cir- 
 cumstances in which ophthalmia and fever arise, such 
 as crowded dens in towns, and over-peopled work- 
 houses. AThat this mischief amounts to may be 
 partly judged of by the number of one-eyed people, 
 and persons marked with the small-pox, who may be 
 seen at assemblages like Donnybrook Fair ; where 
 we observed more than can easily be seen at once, 
 anywhere out of Egypt. But these people are not 
 usually peasants, living in country cabins. As to 
 the cause of the apparent health, it is said to be 
 notliing else than the antiseptic properties of the 
 peat. We know how charred and powdered peat is 
 valued as a deodorizing agent. Plenty of this crum- 
 bled peat lies in and about every cabin, on the mud 
 or flint-paved floor, on the threshold, in the pool, 
 
72 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 and dropped about on the manure. If this is the 
 real reason of the undeserved healthiness of the ordi- 
 nary Irish cabin, it is as well that the EngUsh should 
 know it, for the sake of many thousands of poor fever 
 patients who might be made the better for the 
 3,000,000 of acres of bog which might be emptied 
 out, greatly to the advantage of Ireland. 
 
73 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 RAILWAY FROM DUBLIN TO GALWAY— BOG OF ALLEN. 
 
 August 29, 1852. 
 The railway from Dablin to Galway carries the tra- 
 veller completely across Ireland — from the Irish 
 Channel to the Atlantic — in six hours. The speed is 
 not great — a Httle short of twenty-one miles an hour ; 
 but the punctuality is remarkable. The Dublin and 
 Galway Eailroad is not a very easy one to travel on in 
 regard to steadiness. Eor the third of the line near- 
 est to Dublin there are many curves, and pretty severe 
 ones, so that the shaking of the carriages is disagree- 
 able. For the rest of the way the road cuts straight 
 through bog, with very narrow intervals of more solid 
 ground ; and a httle jumping is not therefore to be 
 wondered at, or found fault with. The marvel would 
 have been, a quarter of a century ago, that the weight 
 of a railway train should ever be carried across the 
 bog at all. 
 
 The road traverses the great limestone basin which 
 occupies the centre of Ireland ; and there is scarcely 
 any variation of level all the way. The engineer's dif- 
 ficulties were wholly with the consistency of the soil, 
 
74 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 and not at all \^ith any hills and dales. One plea- 
 sant consequence of this is that the traveller sees for 
 miles on either hand, and is not bhnded and stunned 
 by being whirled through cuttings. To us it appears 
 as if there was scarcely a mile of cutting the m hole 
 way. Some who know the road may ask what is 
 the good of this, considering what it is that is to be 
 seen. But when one^s object is to study the face of 
 a country, nothing comes amiss, — neither Salisbury 
 Plain nor the Bog of Allen. We (two of us) deter- 
 mined to use our opportunity of passing through a 
 dead level of nearly 125 miles, to see everything 
 on both sides the road, — and a dihgent look-out we 
 kept, 
 
 First, about the potatoes. We can safely say that 
 we did not see one healthy ridge of them between 
 Dublin and Galway ; and we believe there is not one. 
 It appeared indeed as if, in despair, the people had 
 left the potatoes to their fate without a struggle. In 
 the greater number of cases the field was so gay 
 with poppies and other weeds as to leave only a black 
 shadow of the potato-plant in the midst ; and, quite 
 universally, the ridges were so choked with grass 
 and weeds that no care could possibly have been 
 taken of the crop at any time this season. The oats 
 were as weedy as many that we have before described ; 
 and some of the pastures as overgrown with thistles 
 and ragwort ; but they did not present the same evi- 
 dences of reckless despair as the numerous potato- 
 fields. Some of the pastures were so fine, of so pure 
 a grass and so brilliant a verdure, that there would 
 
THE BOG OF ALLEN. 75 
 
 have been muningled pleasure in looking on them 
 but for the drawback that the hay is not yet carried. 
 There it stands in cocks, in these last days of August, 
 to catch the rains which are coming up with this 
 west wind from the Atlantic : and a sad pity it seems. 
 "We do not expect to see much more such grass ; and 
 we can scarcely see finer anywhere. The limestone 
 bottoms favour pasturage so much, that we hope the 
 day may come when, in all the intervals of the great 
 central bog, there may be a most advantageous stock 
 farming carried on. In those days the hay will, we 
 suspect, be saved six weeks earlier; though it should 
 in fairness be said that we are told that Enghsh cri- 
 tics have no idea what allowance it is necessary to 
 make for the caprices of the Irish climate. 
 
 As we proceeded, we looked with a regretful inter- 
 est on the trees, where we saw them grouped in any 
 beauty— as they were, if we are rightly informed, 
 nearly the last we shall see for some time to come. 
 Among the wild scenery of the west coast we shall 
 see quite another kind of beauty. The College at 
 Maynooth appears to be . surrounded by gardens and 
 thriving plantations ; and some old trees hang about 
 the neighbouring ruins of the ancient castle of the 
 Fitzgeralds of Leinster, and clothe the entrance to 
 the estate of the Duke of Leinster. There are large 
 plantations again on the estates of Lord Clancarty, 
 at Ballinasloe, though there we have entered on the 
 bog country, which extends all the way to Galway. 
 A more desolate tract of country than that which 
 stretches forward from the boundary of Lord Clan- 
 
 E 2 
 
76 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 carty^s liberal improvements, we are hardly likely ever 
 to see. It makes the imagination ache, like the eye. 
 What it must be may be in some measure conceived, 
 if we remember that Ireland contains very nearly 
 3,000,000 of acres of bog ; that six-sevenths of tliis 
 amount He between lines drawn from Wicklow Head 
 to Galway, and from Howth Hill to SHgo ; and that, 
 wdthin that space, the greater proportion of bog lies 
 west of the Shannon. When CromweU transplanted 
 all disaffected families from other parts to Connaught, 
 and when Connaught became the proverbial alter- 
 native of heU, the great bog was no doubt the up- 
 permost image in men^s minds. The disgraces of 
 Connaught certainly recur with strong force to the 
 traveller's mind when he traverses that bog for the 
 first time. 
 
 The depth is at the deepest part forty-two feet : at 
 the shallowest, where it is worked, about six feet. 
 The deep and wide drains are satisfactory to look 
 upon ; and so are the blue smokes where heaps of peat 
 are burning with an intermixture of clay, — working 
 the process of reclamation ; and so, perhaps, are the 
 dismal patches of thin and feeble oats, where, wholly 
 surrounded by black bog, the reaper and his chil- 
 dren, bare-legged and half clad, suspend their work 
 to see the train go by. The vast " clamps" (stacks) 
 of peat, the acres upon acres covered with httle heaps 
 of the drying " bricks" of turf, the brown and black 
 terraces, just sprinkled with new heather and weeds, 
 may be dreary ; but they are not dismal ; for they 
 tell of industry, and some harvest of comfort, how- 
 
THE BOG OF ALLEN. 77 
 
 ever small. But there are other sights, — groups of 
 ruins, as at Athenry — staring fragments of old cas- 
 tles, and churches, and monasteries; and worse than 
 these, a very large number of unroofed cottages. 
 For miles together, in some places, there is scarcely a 
 token of human presence but the useless gables and 
 the empty doorways and window-spaces of pairs or 
 rows of deserted cottages. There is . something so 
 painful — so even exasperating in this sight, that one 
 wishes that a little more time and labour could be 
 spared to level the walls, as well as take off the roof, 
 when tenants are either ejected, or go away of their 
 own accord. Yet, while substantial stone walls are 
 thus staring in the traveller's face, what cabins — 
 actual dwellings of families — are here and there dis- 
 tinguishable in the midst of the bog ! styes of mud, 
 bulging and tottering, grass-grown, half-swamped 
 with bog-water, and the soil around all poached with 
 the tread of bare feet. In comparison with such 
 places, the stony lands near Galway (a vivid green 
 ground, strewn with grey stones) look wholesome, 
 and almost cheerful, but for the wrecks of habitations. 
 From the time that we enter upon the district of the 
 red petticoats — the red flannel and frieze, which form 
 a part of the dress of most of the Galway people — 
 things look better than in the brown and black region 
 of the bog. 
 
 Yet we were accustomed, a year ago, to hear the 
 Boo; of Allen called the Irish California. This was in 
 our minds as we passed through it yesterday ; and 
 we had not forgotten it when we were in Antrim; 
 
78 LETTERS PROM IRELAND. 
 
 and we went down into Kildare on purpose to s.ee 
 about it. The interest excited a year ago by the 
 news of Messrs. Reece and Owen^s patent, and by 
 the promise that peat should be converted into divers 
 useful substances by a process yielding enormous pro- 
 fits, was not only natural, but thoroughly justifiable. 
 If it were really probable that the substance which 
 occupies nearly 3,000,000 of acres of the surface of 
 Ireland could be turned into wealth, the fact would 
 be of such incalculable importance to the whole peo- 
 ple — and to our whole empire — that no degree of 
 earnestness could be ridiculous or misplaced. Men 
 of business distrusted the statement of probable pro- 
 fits ; and men of science were aware that difficulties^ 
 many and great, usually occur in reducing scientific 
 prospects to commercial facts, under a delegated 
 agency; but none were willing to discourage a trial, 
 or to prophesy failure in the pursuit of so great a 
 good. As far we can make the matter out, the re- 
 sults thus far have not been very encouraging ; but 
 still, so great is the stake, the scientific and practical 
 seem to agree to treat the enterprise gently and cheer- 
 fully, in hope of better days. 
 
 This is a matter about which the public can form 
 some judgment for themselves, without taking the 
 trouble that we have taken, of going to the works of 
 the Irish Peat Company, four miles from Athy. The 
 first annual meeting of the company took place in 
 London at the end of July ; the report was printed 
 in the London papers the next day, and it has been 
 copied all over the country. Each reader of that 
 
THE BOG OF ALLEX. 79 
 
 report can judge for himself as to whether, if the Bog 
 of Allen had been the mine of wealth supposed by 
 the patentees, this company's report would have been 
 what we see it is. If the wealth be there, it will 
 come forth through the retorts, pipes, and hydraulic 
 presses at the works. There is no opposition, we be- 
 lieve, no enmity to meet, no antagonism whatever but 
 that of Xature ; and therefore the thing, if feasible, 
 will be done. 
 
 On inquiry about this matter at Belfast, we found 
 that the experiments tried at Antrim had come to 
 nothing. The thing was completely over there ; and 
 we were informed that the only place where any 
 works were going on was at the establishment near 
 Athy. In Dublin we could not find that any interest 
 was felt, or that any products had ever been seen. 
 We therefore went down into Kildare to see for our- 
 selves. We found the bog lands of the company, 
 consisting of 500 acres, h'ing close to the railway, 
 the managers of which have acted in a must hberal 
 spirit to the company — as the report informs us — 
 even constructing a siding at their own expense. 
 There was the furnace, vrith the gases blazing within; 
 and there was the hydraulic press, full of paraffine, in 
 its woollen cloth ; and there were barrels, with more 
 or less of tar, and spirit, and oils. The distillation 
 was going on ; and tliree or four men were about the 
 place. We were told by the agent, afterwards, that 
 fifteen people are employed on the works, besides 
 those engaged in digging the peat: but three men 
 had been so burned the day before, as to need remo- 
 
80 LETTERS from: IRELAND. 
 
 val to the Kildare Infirmary; and the foreman had 
 that morning burned his hand. We, no doubt, saw 
 the place at an unfavourable time ; and the works have 
 never fully recovered their spirit since a fire which 
 took place in February last, by which £300 worth of 
 peat was burnt. The agent told us of intended new 
 buildings, new furnaces, etc. ; and we see by the re- 
 port that the shareholders (who are not the public 
 at large, but a few gentlemen interested in the enter- 
 prise) are called upon for a payment of £2 per share, 
 in addition to the £4 already received. When these 
 new buildings are up, and the furnaces at work, we 
 shall be better able to judge of the prospects of Ire- 
 land with regard to her bogs. At present there has 
 been an expenditure of above £12,000, without (as 
 we understand the report) any profit to the company. 
 The agent speaks of "difficulties;" and such cer- 
 tainly beset all new undertakings. He declares that 
 all the original chemical statements have been verified, 
 and all promises fulfilled. If so, success must soon 
 stifle all cavil. Meantime, the observation is natural, 
 that there are no sales made except in London. K 
 the products are of the value and immediate use 
 alleged, it seems strange that they should not find a 
 market nearer home. On the whole, while every one 
 appears to wish, sincerely and earnestly, that the bogs 
 of Ireland may be turned to a richer and more speedy 
 account than ])y the old method of toilsome and gra- 
 dual reclamation, the hope of such an issue of the 
 new experiment seems to weaken with time. If the 
 wealth is so very great, it is strangely slow in coming 
 
THE BOG OP ALLEN. 81 
 
 in ; and, while no one will say that peat is not converti- 
 ble into candles, naphtha, oils, ammonia, and gases, 
 there is more and more hesitation in saying that the 
 conversion will ever be worth while. The consolation 
 under this doubt is, that the experiment, if sound, 
 cannot fail soon to vindicate itself. 
 
 k8 
 
82 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 GALWAY. 
 
 August 31, 1852. 
 Whatever we may find that is strange in the wild 
 parts of Ireland, we shall hardly find anything stranger 
 than this town of Galway. If we should encounter 
 a wilder barbarism in remote places, it will, at least, 
 not be jumbled together with an advanced civihzation. 
 See here what has struck us already. 
 
 We approached the place through a series of lime- 
 stone bottoms which ought to afford the finest pas- 
 turage. Nothing can be fresher, sweeter, or more 
 delicate than the grass that grows there, though there 
 is no great weight of it. The people destroy these 
 slopes and levels as pasture, breaking it up to grow 
 potatoes, of which they lose this year 80 per cent. 
 As, owing to natural advantages, nothing can alto- 
 gether stop the grazing, butter of the finest quality 
 is sold in Galway (none being exported) at \s. a lb. 
 throughout the year ; the pound consisting of 28 oz. 
 Yet there is no manure whatever saved or made from 
 any kind of stock or land-growth. The people will 
 have seaweed, and no other manure whatever. Now, 
 
GALWAY. 83 
 
 see what a story belongs to this seaweed. It is the 
 red weed^ which is tlirown up in vast quantities, in 
 every bay and on every promontory, from the north 
 coast of Mayo to the extreme south-west of Ireland. 
 After all is taken for manure that the people will use, 
 two-thirds are left to rot and be lost. A professor of 
 chemistry examined this weed, and saw reason to be 
 confident that, if properly burned, it might be made 
 an article of profitable production. He is certain that 
 the extinguished kelp fires might be profitably re- 
 lighted all along the coasts, not for the sake of the 
 soda, which was the product formerly sought by kelp- 
 burning, but which can now be had more cheaply from 
 common salt, but for the sake of the iodine and pot- 
 ash salts, which tliis particular weed yields in abund- 
 ance, when burned in a certain manner. He went 
 over to the island of Arran, and there arranged his 
 plans. He purchased seven stacks of the weed, at £1 
 per stack, and he promised £3 more for the burning. 
 This boming would take one man three weeks, or three 
 men one week. One need not say that tliis pay is much 
 higher than could be obtained by selling the weed 
 for manure, even if there had not been abundance 
 for both purposes. All was agreed upon; and the 
 professor paid half the money into the hands of the 
 priest, in the presence of the men, promising the re- 
 mainder when the work should be finished. In the 
 morning, as he was proceeding to the spot with the 
 rake he had brought over for the men^s use, they met 
 him, and, under various pretences, threw up their 
 bargain. 
 
84 LItTTERS PROM IRELAND. 
 
 There is a fish abounding in these bays, and near 
 the land (for the Claddagh fishermen will not go far 
 to sea) called the basking shark. To what extent it 
 abounds may be judged by the fact that eighty were 
 taken last season, under all disadvantages. Each fish 
 yields six barrels of oil ; and the liver of a single fish 
 fills one of the Claddagh boats. The oil is almost 
 inestimable as a commercial resource, if its value was 
 understood; but the people do not understand or 
 beheve it ; and they sell it all, as train-oil, to a pur- 
 chaser from Dublin, who comes and buys it up. This 
 oil burns with a light as brilliant as sperm ; and the 
 professor of chemistry here vouches that its Vi^lue for 
 medicinal purposes is nearly or quite equal to tliat of 
 cod-liver oil. Yet, there is no inducing the Claddagh 
 men to use any harpoon in pursuing the l)asking 
 shark, but the antique one, which allows many more 
 fish to escape than it secures. We were, the other 
 day, in a boat with a man who last season struck 
 seven fish which escaped, and which he might have 
 secured with a proper harpoon : and he sticks by the 
 old one yet. To appreciate the mournfulness and vex- 
 atiousness of this perverseness, one must walk tlu-ough 
 Claddagh, looking into the houses as one goes. 
 
 It is a spectacle never to be forgotten by an Eng- 
 lishman. Claddagh is a suburb of Galway — a village 
 of fishermen's cabins. The cottages are in rows ; and 
 there are therefore streets or alleys, where grass 
 springs between the stones, or moss tufts them, and 
 where a stunted elder-busli, or other tree, affords a 
 strange little patch of verdure in the dreary place. 
 
 I 
 
GALWAY. 85 
 
 The rest of the verdure is on the roofs. Nettles, 
 docks, and grass grow to the height of two feet, and 
 the thistle and ragwort shed their seeds into the 
 thatch. Where the thatch has tumbled in, the holes 
 are covered with matting, kept down by large stones, 
 which make new holes in the rotten mass. The once 
 white walls are mossy and mouldy. The sordidness 
 is indescribable. But infinitely worse is the inside. 
 Some have no windows at all. Yoices were heard 
 from the interior of one where there was no window, 
 and where the door was shut. In several, men were 
 mending their nets by the light from the door; in one 
 we saw, through the darkness, a woman on her knees 
 on the mud floor, netting, at a net which was sus- 
 pended from the roof; and again we saw, kneeling at 
 a bench, a mother and daughter, whose faces haunt 
 us. The mother^s eyes were bleared, and her hair 
 starting bke a patient^s in Bedlam. Elsewhere we 
 saw a litter of pigs wallowing in the mud close by the 
 head of the bed. Many mothers in the street, and 
 even in the fish-market, were performing that opera- 
 tion on their daughters^ heads or on their own per- 
 sons, which is apt turn Enghsh stomachs in Xaples 
 or Lisbon. But enough. This mere fragment of de- 
 scription will show something of how the Claddagh 
 people live, while the basking shark abounds on the 
 coast, and dozens of Claddagh boats are laid up in the 
 harbour. On inquiring whom this village belonged 
 to, we were informed that it has lately been purchased 
 by a Mr. Grattan, and that he is hoping to induce 
 the people to use a modern harpoon wliich he is send- 
 
86 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 ing tliem. But, till this is achieved, Avhat is to be 
 done about those cabins ? How can any man endure 
 to call them his ? 
 
 There is a clergyman on the island of Arran who 
 has set up a trawling-boat, with a crew of two men, 
 said to be Scotch. The success of this little fishery 
 is what might be expected on such a coast, and what 
 might attend any other well-served trawling-boats. 
 It is necessary to be cautious in receiving details in 
 this part of the world ; but the profits of that fishery 
 are said to have been, in the past season, from £12 to 
 £16 per week. The Claddagh men attacked the boat, 
 and threatened, in all seriousness, the life of the 
 clergyman. He applied to Government for protection, 
 and a steamer has been sent in consequence. Some 
 Claddagh men were asked, in our presence, the other 
 day, whether it would not be better for them to try 
 for a share in so profitable a fishery ; and why they 
 did not club together to get trawling boats, and 
 prosper like the clergyman. They replied that they 
 had their own boats in the harbour ; that they were 
 poor men ; that they did not want any new ways ; that 
 they had always been used to their own boats ; and 
 so forth. The answer to all proffers of advantage to 
 the people here is, that they don^t want any improve- 
 ments. 
 
 " Here is the barbarism,^^ you will say ; " but where 
 is the civilization ?" You have had news of the rail- 
 road. Here is a new canal — a massive and admirable 
 work, to all appearance, opening the great lakes to the 
 bay. A short canal connects Lough Mask with Lougli 
 
GALWAY. 87 
 
 Corrib ; and this new line, very short also, with some 
 improvement of the navigation of the river Corrib, and 
 some deepening of parts of the lake, establishes an 
 admirable waterway for the conveyance of produce 
 from the interior. Of the interior and its produce 
 we may say more when we have seen them. As to 
 the aspect of Gal way, the place seems to have been 
 furnished with a vast apparatus for various social 
 action, for which there is no scope. Here is the rail- 
 road, with, as yet, very little traffic. Here is this 
 canal, with, as yet, no trade. Here is a nobly situated 
 port, with, at present, no article of export. Here is 
 a great hotel, built apparently in some prophetic anti- 
 cipation of custom in future years. Here is the very 
 handsome Queen^s College, with its staff of twenty 
 professors, and its forty-two scholarships, while its 
 halls echo to the tread of seventy-five students. The 
 number on the books is about one hundred and 
 twenty ; and the attendance is seventy-five. The grey 
 marble edifice stands up strangely amidst bare plots 
 of ground and desolate fields, heaped up or strewed 
 over with stones, and inlets of water, which glitter in 
 the sun on every side. The sea runs in wherever it 
 can find an opening; and there is the river Corrib, 
 and the canal ; and a cut through the rocks for the 
 water-power which turns the great wheel at Tranklin's 
 marble-cutting establishment. The amount of water- 
 power would make a great manufacturing centre of 
 the place at once, if Galway were in America; here it 
 seems to add to the desolation of the scene. Well, 
 there is, besides, the new workhouse, also of grey 
 
88 LETTERS EROM IRELAND. 
 
 stone ; and the model schools under the National 
 Board — the most hopeful feature, perhaps, of the 
 singular scene. Across one arm of the bay there are 
 woods; and, when your boat approaches the beach 
 there, you see gay gardens, productive orchards, rows 
 of stacked corn and hay ; and, across another inlet, 
 more stacks, another orchard, verdant pastures, a 
 pretty farm-house, some splendid stock; and you 
 believe you have found one piece of sound prosperity 
 on the shores of Galway Bay. You find that the 
 tenant of the farm is the agent of the whole estate, 
 under whose management it has reached this pros- 
 perity; but he is going away. His stock is to be 
 sold off; the pastures he has retrieved to their natural 
 use will be broken up into potato-grounds. He is 
 the Professor of Agriculture in the college. He has 
 only five pupils there, but his example on this farm 
 might have done more than his instructions in the 
 college. Why is he leaving liis farm ? Because the 
 noble owner of tlie property which has been so much 
 benefited by his science and skill died of cholera last 
 year, and the widow will not (possibly cannot) grant 
 the tenant a lease which will justify his remaining on 
 his farm. 
 
 So much for the agriculture. We have seen liow it is 
 with the fisheries and the seaweed. There are marble 
 quarries at hand, — the fine black marble of Galway, 
 and the green marbles of Connemara, so well known 
 by name, but of which so little use is made. With 
 all these resources, and many more, Galway has no 
 trade; and people who desire improvement look for 
 
GALWAY. 89 
 
 it from the place being made an American packet 
 station. For passengers, and mails, and latest news 
 by the electric telegraph, it may serve ; but surely not 
 for goods traffic: the trans-shipment for the pas- 
 sage of the Irish Channel must be a fatal objection"^. 
 However this may be, we would fain see the Galway 
 people using now their great advantages, while await- 
 ing what the future may bring. The difficulty seems 
 to lie in the absence of a middle class of society. The 
 people are, in this, like the buildings. There are 
 imposing edifices — hotel, college, schools — and there 
 are the thatched cottages of the old town, and the 
 Claddagh cabins. If, after looking round for middle- 
 class abodes, you think you have discovered a row or 
 group, you find they are convents, and you are shown 
 the cross upon the roof. In the same way, you find 
 two kinds of aristocracy in the place — the proud old 
 families, either rolling in their gay carriages through 
 the narrow old streets (and past, among other houses, 
 the weedy grey mansion of the Warden of Galway), 
 or secluding themselves within their own gates, be- 
 cause they are too poverty-stricken to come abroad; 
 and the implanted society of the college professors 
 and their families, and other officials. Between these 
 and the poor you find scarcely anybody — the poor, of 
 whom not one in forty can read, and whose ignorance 
 is of a worse kind than an absence of all notion of 
 books. There are a few shops, languid and old- 
 fashioned; and there must be industrial people of 
 
 * Since this was ^Titten, the commissioners have reported against 
 Galway for an American packet-station. 
 
90 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 sufficient intelligence to carry on the business of life : 
 but there is no substantial, abounding middle class, 
 from whom the rise of a place of such capabilities 
 might be confidently expected. 
 
 Of the religion of the region we will say little till 
 we know more. Taking all the Irish colleges together, 
 there was a decided increase of CathoHc students after 
 the Synod of Thurles. This is a cheering fact. In 
 the Gal way College and Model Schools the proportion 
 of Cathohcs and Protestants accords very fairly with 
 that of society generally. The Yice-president of the 
 College is a Catholic ; but he has lost caste among his 
 own order, who are vehemently opposed to the insti- 
 tution ; he has been absent for six months past — gone 
 to Rome, to represent the mistakes that the Pope has 
 been led into about these colleges. We shall see 
 whether any good results from his voluntary mission"^. 
 Meantime, we have seen something. We yesterday 
 turned, after leaving the college and schools, into the 
 parish chapel, — a dim, large, sordid-looking building, 
 with a shadow of an old woman on the steps, selling 
 rosaries; and four blind, crippled, and decrepit per- 
 sons within; two telling their beads on their knees, 
 and two asking charity. All this we should have ex- 
 pected ; and the dressed altar, and the confessionals. 
 But there was more, which we could not have antici- 
 pated. Panelled in the wall, there was a barbarous 
 image of Christ, for the most part hung with cobwebs, 
 but with one leg and foot black and shining — no 
 
 * The Pope has compelled him to rcsitin his oflice, while clcclariug 
 that lay students are not Ibrhidden to attend the colleges. 
 
GALWAY. 91 
 
 doubt with the kisses of worshipers; and worse — 
 there was another panelled image, a bas-relief, of 
 God the Father, as a hideous, bearded, mitred old 
 man ; and God the Son, as a lamb with a human face, 
 equally hideous. We turned away, and, when in the 
 open street again, felt as if we had passed, with one 
 step, from the recesses of a pagan temple into the ves- 
 tibule of our own home. 
 
9S 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CONNEMARA. 
 
 September 3, 1852. 
 There are few things in the world more delightful 
 than a drive at sunset, in a bright autumn evening, 
 among the mountains and lakes of Connemara. A 
 friend of ours describes the air of his favourite place 
 by saying it is like breathing champagne. The air 
 here, on such an evening, is like breathing cream. It 
 has the best qualities of the sea and land breeze at 
 once. Then there are the grand bare mountains, the 
 Bennobeola, or Twelve Pins, with caprices of sunhght 
 playing about their solemn heads, and shining into 
 their dark purple depths ; and below are waters un- 
 traceable and incalculable. We are here at the ends 
 of the earth, to all appearance ; for the land is as a 
 fringe, with the waters running in everywhere between 
 its streaks. There are salt waters and fresh : bays, 
 lakes, river ; dashing torrents ; mirror-Hke pools ; a 
 salmon-leap here; an inlet for shellfish there; and, 
 receding behind, Ballinahincli Lough, with its little 
 island, just big enough to hold the old castle, now a 
 ruin, where tradition says that ^Dick Martin^ used to 
 
CONNEMAUA. 93 
 
 imprison people who were guilty of cruelty to animals. 
 Then comes a basin of turf — a filled-up lake, as any one 
 may see, with the last little pool in the middle fast 
 turning into bog. Close at hand are broken banks, 
 gaudy with heath and bo£^ flowers in vast variety; 
 and beyond spreads the bronzed moorland, with fo- 
 reign-looking goats, black and white, browsing in a 
 group ; and sea-gulls dipping, as if they took it for 
 the sea. Along the road are brown-faced girls and 
 boys, all healthy-looking, and many handsome; and 
 women finishing their reaping and binding for the 
 day, — their madder-red petticoats and blue cloaks 
 throwing a wonderful charm of colour into the scene. 
 And next, we cannot but observe that cottages are 
 whitewashed as we approach Clifden. This was no- 
 ticeable in the neighbourhood of the mansion lately 
 called the Martins' Castle ; and pleasant it was to see 
 neat white cottages up on the hill-sides, each with its 
 "stooks" of oats before it. In proportion to the 
 sweetness of such an evening drive is the strangeness 
 of entering the public drawing-room at the inn, where 
 there are ladies and clergymen, all intensely occupied 
 with the condition of the people. There are Bibles 
 open and shut. There is talk of a Protestant lecture 
 this evening; of Protestant prayers in the morning, 
 preparatory to an examination of the children in the 
 principles of Protestantism. Ladies are busy with 
 crochet-work, or with their accounts of crochet-work 
 sold, or in teaching poor women crochet. The ladies 
 relate that they have thus far sent out teachers to 
 instruct the poor women in cabins in crochet-work. 
 
94 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 with the simple object of earning their bread : but that 
 now, as these pupils have been almost all Catholics, 
 they shall alter their plan, and give this instruction 
 only in connection with sound Protestant principles. 
 They tell how wonderfully the ministry of Mr. — has 
 been blessed, from his plan of speaking plainly ; that 
 he has plainly told the people, " If you attend to what 
 the priests tell you, \ ou will go to perdition ; if you 
 learn of me, you will be saved ;" and this plan, they 
 say, has " certainly been wonderfully blessed ; " " the 
 people are coming over by hundreds, and the answers 
 given by the children are really astonishing.''^ This 
 is one statement, earnest and sincere, whatever else it 
 may be. 
 
 Another is, that the people were terribly neglected 
 by the priests, and that the novelty of being sought, 
 caressed, and flattered, stimulates their ambition, while 
 it excites their affections ; that the native shrewdness 
 is called forth, and that it is true that the answers of 
 the children are wonderful — that, in fact, tlieir apti- 
 tude at theological controversy is something truly 
 frightful to witness ; that their new religion will pro- 
 bably turn out a very transitory matter ; that, in re- 
 gard to this very crochet-work, on which their bread 
 depends, the women do one or two pieces admirably, 
 and then grow careless, preferring to do two collars 
 that shall bring a shilling each to doing one wliicli 
 shall bring in six ; that their characteristic versatility 
 and slovenliness will presently extend to their religion ; 
 and that, when the first excitements of praise, gain, 
 notice, and gratified aft'ections are over, it is probable 
 
CONNEMARA. 95 
 
 that nearly all the converts will fall back under the 
 old-established power of their priests. They will go 
 back, as Gavan Dufty said, to the old Holy Well. 
 
 There is a third account given to the inquirer. It 
 begins like the last, with the declaration that the 
 people were deserted in their need by the priests, who 
 really refused the offices to the dying on which salva- 
 tion is supposed to depend, when all hope of pay was 
 gone. It is said that the people have fairly found out 
 that the priest's attendance depends on his pay, and 
 that he desires to keep them ignorant : that the grand 
 benefit of the present movement is that it teaches the 
 people something, and rouses the priests to better be- 
 haviour, and the people to require it : that the prac- 
 tice of the clergy on both sides teaching that their 
 antagonists are carrying their hearers to hell tends to 
 make the people reject both doctrines; and that in 
 fact a total infidelity, such as now prevails largely 
 among the educated, in this region of strife, will pro- 
 bably prevail ere long no less extensively among the 
 poor and ignorant. 
 
 Here you have the various local opinions, as they 
 have reached us, on a subject which is occupying more 
 attention here at present than any other. From the 
 temper in which it is discussed by the most zealous, 
 it is far from being agreeable to the stranger. And 
 it must not be forgotten that we have at present heard 
 only the proselyting side. At Dublin we found in the 
 National Schools that two or three hundred teachers, 
 from all parts of Ireland, can live and learn together. 
 Catholics and Protestants, at the very age of theologi- 
 
96 LETTERS EROM IRELAND. 
 
 cal passion — from seventeen upwards — without a word 
 of strife for years together, while earnest in their work 
 as any of the apostles of the west. Here, in the west, 
 we find it taken for granted, or as proved, that the two 
 faitlis are opposite as heaven and hell, and that their 
 professors can make no terms whatever with each other. 
 It is perhaps fair to remark tliat, in the DubHn case, 
 the Church, strictly so called, — that is, the laity in 
 conjunction with the clergy, — are engaged in the work 
 of education. Here, in the west, it appears to us that 
 the enterprise is mainly engrossed by clergymen and 
 ladies. If so, the difference in temper and spirit is 
 easily accounted for. Of this we shall know more as 
 we proceed. 
 
 Before we left Galway, we saw increasing reason 
 to believe that the fearful apparent wretchedness of 
 the people is no necessary indication of poverty. The 
 five pigs wallowing near the bed^s head is an instance. 
 At the present value of pigs here — a value greatly 
 enhanced by the potato- disease — these five must be 
 worth many pounds. Elsewhere, we have seen a very 
 fine cow, or perhaps two, belonging to a hovel so 
 wretched that you would suppose the people liad no 
 prospect of another meal. The pawnbrokers^ shops 
 at Galway reveal a great deal. We find that the peo- 
 ple have no idea of selling any of their possessions 
 when they want money, — of traffic, in fact. They beg, 
 they pawn, they resort to every possible device before 
 they think of selling a pig, or anything else that they 
 have ; and the collections of rags — Irish rags — at the 
 Galway pawnbrokers' are a singulai* sight. They would 
 
CONNEMARA. 97 
 
 melt the heart of any stranger, unless he should learn 
 that the owners of some of the tatters had pigs or 
 cows or other stock at home, to the value of many 
 pounds. The peasants do not like to be supposed to 
 have any property ; they do not like paying rent, on 
 this account ; and they prefer paying it, if tliey must, 
 in some sort of barter. All this is a painful evidence 
 of what sort of treatment they must have been subject 
 to, some time or other ; and it makes their present 
 case so difficult to deal with, that one is not surprised 
 to find their most spirited and humane and patient 
 friends despairing of ever teaching them to live cleanly 
 and respectably. But the case may, it seems to us, 
 be fairly regarded as now a hopeful one. AVe may be 
 somewhat misled by the charms of w'hat we have seen 
 of Connemara ; but we are certainly in better spirits 
 about " the poor Irish" than we have ever before been 
 since we entered the country. We should never have 
 conceived beforehand that Connemara would be the 
 place where we should feel cheered : but so it is. 
 
 In the first place, the healthful appearance of the 
 people is something quite remarkable. Men, women, 
 and children are plump, brown, clear-eyed, comfort- 
 able-looking in face and limb. We are told that about 
 one- fifth of the population on and around the Martin 
 and D^Arcy estates (now bearing those names no 
 longer) died during the famine. A good many — 
 nobody seems to know how many — but certainly no 
 great multitude — ^have since emigrated. Those who 
 remain used to think they could live on nothing but 
 potatoes. In one mansion that we have visited, the 
 
 F 
 
98 LETTERS PROM IRELAND. 
 
 servants thought all was over when they were restricted 
 in regard to potatoes, and supplied with Indian meal 
 and other things. Last year, when the potatoes were 
 good, and they were told they might return to them, 
 they begged for a portion of meal also. Six years 
 ago, a girl on the estate said, " O ma'am, I hope the 
 Lord will take me to himself before I have to eat tur- 
 nips.^' She was soon glad enough to get turnip-tops, 
 poor thing ! And yesterday, an intelligent lad, who 
 was our guide to CKfden Castle, took pains repeatedly 
 to explain to us what turnips were, with a zeal and 
 pride which showed that the growth was new here, 
 and highly esteemed. According to his testimony the 
 ragged people here get meat sometimes, and a good 
 deal of meal. Is not this good, as far as it goes ? 
 
 The castle at Clifden, a part of the late DMrcy 
 property, is inhabited by a gentleman who is said in 
 the neighbourhood to have done much good by "teach- 
 ing the people better ways." They were his turnips 
 that were, with his other crops, shown us with so much 
 pride. And very well they looked. The quantity of 
 land that goes with the mansion, is, we were told, 250 
 acres, which feeds "an illigant stock," and leaves a 
 good deal for sale, and of course employs many peo- 
 ple. It was a ragged boy who said, hi answer to our 
 remark on the whitewashed cottages which shine all 
 around on the hill-sides, that you may always know 
 that the people are well-doing within when you see 
 whitewash on the outside. AVe saw some fair plots of 
 oats and turnips before these places ; and girls feeding 
 calves, and here and there a vast hydrangea flowering 
 
CONNEMARA. 99 
 
 near the door. From the inlet below, fish come n[) 
 all the year round. The men bring in large turbot. 
 which sell for 1^. ^r/. or Is, 6d. each ; and the boys 
 wade at low tide for shellfish. The salmon-fisheries, 
 belonging to the Martin estate, employ not less than 
 fifty persons on the average of the year. The tin for 
 the cases is imported from Cornwall, and the cases are 
 made on the spot. Flags are imported, and used for 
 floorings (better than mud !) and also for the grinding 
 and poUshing of the marbles of the district. These 
 importations take place at the httle wharf erected by 
 the late Mr. D'Arcy, whose unfinished monument 
 (begun before the famine, and left stunted) deserves 
 to be completed by grateful admirers, and to stand for 
 future generations to be proud of, on its commanding 
 summit, visible far over sea and land. Wliat the pre- 
 sent exports are it is not easy to make out, without 
 closer inquiry than we have yet had time for ; but it 
 is easy to see what they might, and probably will, be. 
 The agent of the Law Life Insurance Company^s pro- 
 perty (late the Martins^), is gradually reclaiming ex- 
 tents of bog, which will yield a great amount of pro- 
 duce. The success thus far affords a sure promise of 
 this. Some small openings have been made in the 
 centre of a valley, which reveal not only the green 
 marble of which the celebrated chimney-piece at the 
 Martins' is made, but that there are mountains of it ; 
 and the same elsewhere with the black. The red sea- 
 weed, mentioned before, abounds in all the bays. 
 The sea, lakes, and rivers yield a vast wealth of pro- 
 duce : so mio'ht the surface of the crpound : so does its 
 
100 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 interior. It is true the liill-sides are deformed by the 
 staring gables of deserted dwellings ; it is true the 
 gardens of the castle are damp and weedy, and 
 the noble fig-tree trailing from the wall; it is true 
 that the D^Arcy monument is unfinished, and the 
 town of his creation more dependent for subsistence, 
 just now, on the influx of tourists, than a steady 
 trade ; it is true that the timid have a genuine side 
 of the question as well as the hopeful. But it is also 
 true that the two great estates have come into new 
 hands, by which they may obtain that improvement 
 which was before impossible ; and that the people are 
 fed and in health; and that their district is full of 
 natural wealth ; and that strangers know it ; and it 
 is true beyond controversy that the condition and 
 temper of the peasantry are improved. At this agree- 
 able conclusion we stop for to-day. 
 
101 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 THE PEOPLE AXD THE CLERGY. 
 
 September 5, 1852. 
 The most experienced travellers find one piece of 
 experience ever fresh and striking — their inability to 
 anticipate^ through any amount of previous reading 
 and inquiry^ what they shall see and what they shall 
 think in a new country. After wide travelling, ex- 
 tended over many years, we are now feeling this as 
 freshly as in our first journey ; and we need not be 
 ashamed to own it, as the same acknowledgment is 
 made by some persons who were likely to know a 
 good deal more beforehand about the Irish than our- 
 selves — the English settlers in Connemara. Some 
 of them declare that, while in no one respect disap- 
 pointed, they find the Irish people with whom they 
 have to do, and their circumstances, different from 
 what they expected. After a long course of reading 
 and thought on Ireland and its main interests, there 
 were two things, among others, about which we felt 
 ourselves pretty well assured — that in the wild TTest 
 we should find the peasantry poor, to the point of 
 hunger; and that we should be in some sympathy 
 
102 LETTERS EROM IRELAND. 
 
 with the Catholics — priests and people — under the 
 injury of the establishment, over their heads, of the 
 religion of the minority, and under the suffering of the 
 contumely with which they are treated by the insolent 
 Protestantism of the country. Do not be alarmed. 
 Do not suppose that we are any nearer than formerly to 
 sympathy with insolence — Protestant or Catholic — 
 or to approbation of the estabhshment of the religion 
 of the minority over the heads of the majority. We 
 ^ill presently explain what we mean. 
 
 Since we wrote last we have seen multitudes of the 
 peasantry and town labourers ; nearly all, in fact, that 
 there are to see; for they are a people who do not 
 stay much within- doors at this season (to which, 
 indeed, there is little temptation), and we have not 
 seen one unhealthy-looking person. Our attention 
 has been particularly directed to this since we entered 
 upon what are especially called the famine districts. 
 We have passed through the districts of the English 
 settlers ; we have skirted the lonely Kylemorc Lough, 
 and crossed the moorlands at its head ; we have tra- 
 velled the length of the wild Killeries (where it was 
 scarcely possible to believe ourselves within the 
 bounds of our own empire), and traversed the dreary 
 tract which lies between the Erive and Westport ; we 
 have left Connemara behind us, and penetrated some 
 way into Mayo, and we have as yet seen only the 
 same stout, brown, clear-eyed health that we have 
 spoken of in former letters. We are now about to 
 plunge into the very wildest part of the island — be- 
 yond Achill to the Mullet, which was depopulated by 
 
f 
 
 THE PEOPLE AND THE CLERGY. 103 
 
 the famine. If we have a different story to tell after 
 being there, you will soon know it. Meanwhile, I 
 tell you what we have found. Prom every cluster of 
 hovels by the roadside — from behind a dunghill on 
 which a noble eagle is somehow secured — from over 
 the fences — from all imaginable places — children, 
 lads, lasses, sometimes women, rush forth, with 
 bundles of stockings and socks, with crystals, or bits of 
 marble or of coral, and run beside the car, with their 
 light, easy, bog-trotting pace, for miles, begging, more 
 or less earnestly, or, in some cases, apparently for the 
 sport. They seem to have lost no breath, at what- 
 ever distance they may stop ; and they do not look as 
 if they had ever known what sickness was. Several 
 are marked with small-pox; and cases of the loss of 
 an eye are frequent in the towns ; and we have ob- 
 served an unusual proportion, we think, of club-feet. 
 But in the faces and forms we see no signs of deficient 
 nourishment, or of the diseases which are generated 
 by bad air and light, damp, and over-crowding. 
 
 The testimony of good judges seems to be uniform 
 as to the industry of the labouring classes under fair 
 circumstances, — that is, when they can make money 
 only by industry, and when their labour is fairly paid. 
 If they can beg they will. If they fancy they can 
 find a short cut to wealth, they will try it, eagerly 
 enough; but, settled down under a just employer, 
 out of the track of tourists and of conflicting re- 
 ligionists, they will work as well as anybody. They 
 are also very provident. It is this part of the expe- 
 rience of the English settlers which has surprised them 
 
104 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 most. The labourer will live upon almost nothing, 
 and lay by all he can save, till he has enough to take 
 him to England, or to America. He does not like to 
 be known to have anything ; so he will not let the 
 most honourable and benevolent gentleman take care 
 of his money, or put him in the way of getting inter- 
 est for it. The long accumulated suspicion of many 
 generations cannot be dispersed at once ; and the pea- 
 sant would rather forego the interest on his money 
 than let anybody know that he has it : so there is no 
 knowing what he does with it, except when he buys a 
 cow or other stock. The unwillingness of the people to 
 traffic — to sell anything that has once been their own 
 — has been already mentioned. They hold fast by 
 any investment they have made, and evidently con- 
 sider that they are robbed if they have to part with it. 
 At the time of the famine some persons went on their 
 own horses to obtain relief from the board ; and one 
 man got it who was found to have been, at the mo- 
 ment, the owner of fifteen cows. These were people 
 who would not have stolen anything under any pres- 
 sure ; but they had a notion that what was once theirs 
 was theirs always, by right. Wherever we have been, 
 and from all sorts of authorities, we have been assured 
 that there is a fine natural sense of justice among 
 the Irish, under whatever strange perversions : and it 
 certainly appears as if, among their most insuil'erable 
 encroachments and their wildest eccentricities, they 
 had some distorted conception of justice in their 
 minds. In school, and in domestic service, it is found 
 that they rather lack truthfulness ; that in regard to 
 
t 
 
 THE PEOPLE AND THE CLERGY. 105 
 
 honesty, they are about on a par with tlie Enghsh 
 and that, as to other matters, their morality may be 
 sustained at a high point, if their sense of justice be 
 duly respected, and made the point of appeal. This 
 being the case, the shameless and absurd begging, by 
 those who are not in need, is indeed sadly infra dig. 
 The other day we were walking on a half-private road, 
 where two lads were raking and smoothing the ap- 
 proach to a pretty residence, by whose owner they 
 were employed and paid. They asked us for money 
 for mending the road, and were refused. A little 
 further on, their spade, of unusual shape, was stand- 
 ing against the wall. We felt the weiglit of it. 
 ^' There, now,^' said they, "you must give us some- 
 thing for using our spade." " Give me a halfpenny," 
 cried a girl. " What would you do with it if I gave 
 you one?" "I would buy a book with it." "Can 
 you read, then ?" " No." This one had the grace 
 to run away. Probably their parents, or the habit 
 of a life, may set these children and grown-up young 
 people to run miles after a car; but our impression 
 is, that they like the fun of it : and they certainly look as 
 well fed and merry as the tourists about whom they 
 swarm. 
 
 As for the other matter, it becomes a more painful 
 one to hear of, and witness, and tliink and speak about, 
 the further we go into the wilds. This is no reason 
 for silence, but the contrary. There is no need to ex- 
 plain that we are wholly unconnected with the con- 
 flicting religious " interests " in this country, and that 
 our sole " interest " is in seeing the people wise, good. 
 
106 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 and happy. We have hitherto taken for granted that 
 the Catholic rehgion was a real faith to its professors, 
 animating their hopes, and more or less securing their 
 morals. We have steadily contended for their rights 
 of conscience, and, as they have been conventionally 
 (since they ceased to be legally) oppressed, we have 
 found our sympathies unavoidably siding with them — 
 including the priests with the laity. We are com- 
 pelled to say that the further we go, and the more w^e 
 learn, the more completely that sympathy dies away. 
 We little thought ever to have written this ; but this 
 is what w^e have to write. We find, from universal 
 testimony, — and by no means from that of the zealous 
 "Protestants" we have met, whose word we would 
 not take in this particular matter, — that it is a settled 
 thing in the popular mind that " the priest is no good 
 w^here there is no money."" Those who cannot say, of 
 their own knowledge, that it is true that the priests 
 refused the last offices "essential to salvation" to 
 those who could not pay, admit that everybody acts 
 on the certainty that it is useless to send to the priest 
 unless the fee is ready. Again, the fee must be ready, 
 if by any conceivable means it can be scraped together, 
 and for purposes incessantly recurring. A peasant 
 would never think of using a chair, or other article of 
 furniture, till it has been blessed by the priest, which 
 blessing costs half-a-crown. There is scarcely an in- 
 cident in life in wdiich the priest, and consequently 
 his fee, is not mixed up ; and we are unable to learn 
 what the priest does beyond such paid services as 
 these. lie is the policeman of his church; and it 
 
THE PEOPLE AND THE CLERGY. 107 
 
 does not seem clear what he is besides. We have en- 
 deavoured to learn which alternative of two very sad 
 ones we must suppose to be real, — that the priest be- 
 lieves in the necessity of blessing furniture, and of ex- 
 treme unction, or that he does not. If he does, what 
 are we to think of his money stipulations ? If he does 
 not, what kind of a priest is he? In either case, 
 what is the plight of the people — of that multitude 
 whom I now see kneeling, not only on the steps of 
 the chapel opposite, but on the pavement outside the 
 railings, filling up its whole breadth ? The Catholic 
 and the Protestant zealots seem to be trjdng, as for a 
 wager, which can fastest drive the people into an igno- 
 rant contempt of all faiths whatever. The struggle 
 for victorv is as morallv bad for the ic^norant witnesses 
 as it is painful to those who are out of the battle. 
 They know very well that Protestant ladies are trying 
 in vain to get their tracts laid about in hotels, where 
 the Catholic or politic owners will not suffer them to 
 lie for an hour. Some have much sadder cause to 
 know what the conflict is. Yesterday, we were issu- 
 ing from the Killery Pass — feeling more as if we were 
 in Norway than anywhere else, with this true fiord 
 before our eyes — when we perceived (what is never to 
 be seen in Norway) a most wretched-looking hamlet, 
 in a slight hollow, high up on the mountain-side. 
 But for the hovering smoke, we should never have 
 supposed those cabins to be dwellings. We asked 
 what that wretched place was. " Oh," replied our Ca- 
 tholic di'iver, "the people there are all Jumpers" 
 (Protestants). We inquired further, not seeing the 
 
108 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 connection between the religion and the wretchedness. 
 He said, in simple reply to our questions, that the 
 people were Jumpers because they were too poor to 
 help it. That the clergyman (whose pretty house he 
 pointed out) got money from England, and offered 
 work to everybody who would go to his church, and 
 refused it to all who went to mass. The priest had no 
 money, and so the people were obhged to be Jumpers ; 
 but they would not be so when they could help them- 
 selves. They loved the priest, and wished to go to 
 mass ; and when he called and threatened them with 
 what would happen if they did not, they promised to 
 go ; but they were obliged to break their promise or 
 starve. Such is the Catholic account of the matter, 
 on the spot. Whether the Protestants would allow 
 it to be correct or not, tliis report shows what is the 
 popular feeling on the subject of the religious con- 
 flict. Then we passed the new church, rising under 
 the hands of people thus driven to the work, and thus 
 " converted.^' Next, we met a band of boys, — clean, 
 intelligent-looking, and well-mannered. They pulled 
 their forelocks, and did not beg. We observed on this 
 to the driver, who said that children don^t beg on 
 their way to school. AU hail to the schools ! happen 
 what may outside. The schools are our ground of 
 hope : we were going to say our only ground of hope, 
 but we will not say that yet. Nor will we say what 
 the difficulty is of forming an opinion or a wish on the 
 management of ecclesiastical affairs in Ireland, till we 
 see whether more light arises from further travel. 
 
109 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 ENGLISH SETTLERS IN THE '' ^VILDS OF THE 
 WEST." 
 
 September 7, 1852. 
 These western wilds are the region for English settlers. 
 The further we proceed^ the more of them we find; 
 and we must say that, as far as our observation goes, 
 they seem to be heartily welcome. In old days we 
 used to believe (and we find that some residents think 
 so stiU) that the peasantry, all over Ireland, had a 
 strong distaste to working for wages ; and that the one 
 good thing in life, in their estimate, was to have a bit 
 of ground on which they might be independent. We 
 now find indications of a very different feeling wherever 
 Englishmen have settled. Mr. A. is a very fine man, 
 who employs sixty people or more, who would be 
 starving but for him. Mr. B. is a gentleman who has 
 a very fine wife, who has so many people come that 
 they keep much company, and spend a good deal of 
 money. Mr. C. has a very fine place and garden, and 
 it employed plenty of people for a long while to raise 
 it and get it into order. Mr. D. has a very fine mill ; 
 and it is a fine thing for the place — it employs so 
 
110 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 many people. Mr. E. has a very fine farm, and the 
 people are sure of work and wages all the year round. 
 And so on, from one county to another, in the west. 
 Mr. Robertson, the agent on the Martin estates, 
 now the property of the Law Life Insurance Com- 
 pany, has lived in the country for many years and 
 is much esteemed and trusted by his neighbours. It 
 is he of whom we used to hear that he had no locks 
 and bars on his doors, as there was nobody to be afraid 
 of. He is the lessee of the Martin fisheries, and he 
 employs fifty persons, on tlie average of the year, on 
 the salmon-fishery near the Martins^ Castle. His bog 
 reclamations answer well, and employ much labour. 
 There was some discontent about the 196,000 acres 
 of that property being all transferred to one company; 
 but there was nothing else to be done, as the company 
 had claims exceeding the value of the whole estate. 
 It is not yet divided, to be sold in portions. It has 
 been so laid out that the saleable parts could not be 
 disposed of without throwing away every chance of 
 making anything of the more unproductive. Time 
 will remedy this ; and the management of the estate 
 will proceed with a view to a future division and sale. 
 Meanwhile, there is no necessity for a forcible clear- 
 ance, nor even for the company to enable the people 
 to emigrate. Some have earned the means, and are 
 gone ; and more employment is found for those who 
 remain. The other great domain, the D'Arcy estate 
 (about a fourth of the size of the Martins'), is divided, 
 and lias been sold in portions, of which two or three 
 are bought by Englishmen. Our guide at Clifden told 
 
k 
 
 ENGLISH SETTLERS IN THE WEST. Ill 
 
 US that the castle and lands belonging to it are bought 
 by a " Mr. Eyre, the head banker of London."' Mr. 
 Scully, his agent, now resident at the castle, is grate- 
 fully spoken of throughout the neighbourhood, for 
 the pains he takes to improve the people's ways and 
 promote their welfare. 
 
 On leaving Chfden for the north, we see, on the 
 first water-power, and at the foot of a little wooded 
 ravine, a large mill, with a dwelling-house beside it. 
 A new settler lives here — with a Scotch name — and 
 he is evidently the great support of the population 
 round him. After ascending the swelling moorland 
 above, tc see, far off and away, the lovely coast, with 
 its bays, promontories, vaUeys, and islands — as sweet 
 a scene as ever basked in autumnal sunlight. The 
 driver points out what he calls the light on yonder 
 hill : this " light " being a clearing where green fields 
 and stubble shine amidst the surrounding moor. Tliis 
 is Mr. Twiniug's, of Clegan — too far off for us to visit; 
 but a letter of Mr. Twining's has been published, 
 in which he speaks hopefully of the capability of the 
 district. We turn down to the right, and see a 
 church, a large expanse of drained bog and of ad- 
 vanced cultivation; and a large, eccentric-looking 
 abode. This is Mr. Butler's, a settler of many years^ 
 standino'. Some wav further on, amidst a scene of 
 remarkable beauty, there is a handsome house, with 
 its roof- tree just laid, and workmen busy about it. 
 In the sloping fallow before the door, two men are 
 harrowing. There is a pleasant and cheery look about 
 the place. It is Captain Retcher's. Then follow im- 
 
].12 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 mediately half-a-dozen or so of brilliantly clean dwell- 
 ings, some gardens, really verdant fields, a post-office, 
 a shop, a school-house, up the hill on the left-hand 
 side ; and on the right, charmingly seated on its green 
 bank, and with garden sweets about it, the grey stone 
 house of James Ellis, whose name is his sufficient 
 eulogy. This Quaker family lives among an exclu- 
 sively Catholic peasantry, on terms which it would do 
 the conflicting zealots elsewhere good to witness, — if 
 they could go to hold their tongues and learn, instead 
 of preaching mischief where all is now peace. This 
 Priend, who values his own faith as much as any 
 M'Hale or Dallas, employs a large number of la- 
 bourers, who are all Catholics ; and they find they can 
 all be religious in their own way, without any strife. 
 
 Somewhat further on, towards Kylemore Lough, in 
 a solemn seclusion, at the foot of dark mountains, 
 stands the abode of Mr. Eastwood, another English 
 gentleman, who is improving a large estate there. 
 After that, there are no more dwellings for many 
 miles, except the little Kylemore Inn, and some cot- 
 tages beyond. The moorland is too wild for settle- 
 ment, and the misty mountains allow too little sun- 
 shine to encourage tillage. The singular and glorious 
 Killery follows, with its admirable road, one of the 
 benefits left behind by the lamented Alexander Ts^immo. 
 Then comes the Jumper village I told you of, with 
 its new church and pretty parsonage at the extremity 
 of the fiord. Further on, when the Connemara 
 mountains are left behind, and the moor looks as if 
 nobody had ever crossed it before, we come upon the 
 
ENGLISH SETTLEES IN THE WEST. 113 
 
 plain, domestic-looking Catholic chapel, and, almost 
 within sight of it, the national school-house of Car- 
 rekenedy. That school-house is a pleasant token of 
 EngHsh care to Hght upon in the wilds. 
 
 We are now approaching Lord Sligo's property. 
 The road continues most excellent to witlnn five miles 
 of Westport, where Lord SHgo^s "demesne" skirts 
 the town. This young nobleman seems to be much 
 beloved, Protestant as he is, by his Catholic neigh- 
 bours. In the morning, one may see him handing 
 round the plate in his own church in the park for con- 
 tributions for Protestant schools, — the police of the 
 neighbourhood being on the floor of the church, and 
 the soldiers in the gallery; and in the evening you 
 may hear from his Catholic neighbours how good he 
 is, — how just and kind to his tenantry and labourers, 
 how generous as a family man, how self-denying under 
 the reduction of fortune caused by the adversity of the 
 country. The reduction of rents and increase of bui*- 
 dens that he has had to bear for his share are no secret, 
 and should be none. There is no disgrace in the fact; 
 and there is honour in the way in which it has been 
 met. Prom AYestport, for some miles on the road to 
 Newport and beyond it, the aspect of things is more 
 dreary than anything that had before met our eyes in 
 Ireland. We need not describe it. Those soaked, 
 and perished, and foul moorlands, relapsed from an 
 imperfect cultivation; those hamlets of unroofed 
 houses, with not above one or two roofs in sight; 
 little bridges, with their centre-stones tumbHng out ; 
 graveyards overgrown with thistles, while cattle go in 
 
114 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 and out over the crumbling earthen fence; signs of 
 extensive former habitation, amidst which we may see 
 two or three human beings moving about hke chance 
 survivors of some plague, — these features of a lapsed 
 country are understood at a glance ; and here we found » 
 
 them. But presently we met a gentleman, riding a I 
 
 fine horse, and looking as if business carried him on 
 so briskly. He touched his hat : we inquired who he 
 was, and found he was another English settler — Cap- 
 tain Houston — who is gratefully spoken of for his 
 excellent and extensive farming; and he is only one 
 of seven or eight settlers who have large farms near 
 Westport. 
 
 As soon as we enter the island of Achill we see a 
 large house half built ; and superintending the work 
 is the owner, Mr. Pike, a magistrate of the island — 
 better known as the late chairman of the committee 
 of the Birkenhead improvements. This gentleman is 
 one of the party of friends to whom one-half of the 
 island of Achill has lately been sold ; the other half 
 being purchased by the Protestant mission in the is- 
 land. The island — not much smaller than the Isle 
 of Wight — has been for seventy-two years the pro- 
 perty of the O^Donnells. By the recent sales in the 
 Incumbered Estates Court of the lands of Sir Richard 
 O'Donnell, this little dominion has come into the 
 hands of English improvers. Mr. Pike employed 
 fifty people last winter. At this season, when they 
 can well take care of themselves by harvest-work, 
 etc., he dismisses them, to be taken on again as soon 
 as they "feel the pinch," as they say. He is going 
 
ENGLISH SETTLERS IN THE WEST. 115 
 
 to plant very largely. His experience in the plant- 
 ing of the new park at Birkenhead, and the skill of a 
 man whom he has brought over to direct this part of 
 the business, guarantee his success ; and in half a 
 century there may be woods clothing the bases of the 
 magnificent hills of A chill, sheltering its valleys, and 
 imparting an air of civiHzation to the wildest shores 
 that the most romantic traveller could wish to see. 
 We have more to say about Achill hereafter. Our 
 mention of it now is merely in connection with the 
 subject of the settlement of Englishmen in Con- 
 naught. 
 
 The one thing that everybody — high and low, Pro- 
 testant and Catholic — says about this is, that Ireland 
 is perishing for want of capital ; that there has been 
 too much labour ; that the land is very fine, and the 
 sea most productive, — that there is, in short, every 
 conceivable material of human welfare, if only the 
 people had the means of obtaining and using them. 
 We hear, in these western parts, no political mur- 
 muring whatever. O^ConneU's name has never once 
 been mentioned to us since we landed, except when 
 we were passing his house in Merrion-square, Dublin, 
 and looking at his door-plate : nor has Eepeal been 
 spoken of, except when the subject was introduced by 
 ourselves. The complaint is of want of capital; and 
 the settlers are popular because they bring it. 
 
 All the while, Lish capitalists were keeping money 
 invested in public securities to the amount of nearly 
 forty millions, up to the time of the opening of the 
 Incumbered Estates sales. Yery few English and 
 
116 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 Scotch have been purchasers there, in comparison 
 with the Irish. Out of the first five hundred and 
 eighty-seven purchasers, only thirty were EngHsh and 
 Scotch. The capitaKsts of Ireland are not the pau- 
 perized tenants and embarrassed landlords ; and hence 
 it is that the English settlers are so welcome as they 
 are. But that there are capitalists enough in Ireland 
 to redeem her from her poverty is proved by the 
 equality of the rate of interest received by holders of 
 stock in Ireland and England. (The 1 per cent, 
 more charged on Irish mortgages is owing to the 
 greater irregularity and risk in Ireland, and so is the 
 limit of 6 instead of 5 per cent, in the usury laws.) 
 As long as tens of thousands of Irish capitalists send 
 forty millions of money to England, to receive only 
 3i per cent, for it, it is clear that the thing wanted 
 in this undeveloped country is not capital, but in- 
 ducement to employ it as strangers are beginning to 
 do. It is with great pleasure that we find how very 
 large a majority of the purchasers in the Incumbered 
 Estates Court are Irisli ; and yet it is with great plea- 
 sure that we see our countrymen scattered over these 
 western wilds, each a centre of industry and a source 
 of plenty. The Irish purchasers furnish a practical 
 answer to the complaint of want of native capital : 
 and the Enghsh and Scotch open up a prospect of 
 national union, political peace, and social regeneration 
 in that part of the United Kingdom which the most 
 sorely needs it. 
 
117 
 
 I 
 
 LETTER XY. 
 
 ACHILL. 
 
 Sejotemher 14, 1852. 
 Twenty years ago, there were no roads iu the Island 
 of Achill. The people were as truly savage as any 
 South Sea Islanders. AT hen we were crossing the 
 mountain — walking along precipices at a great height 
 above the sea, on our way to Keem — we were told by 
 a gentleman who has known the place for a quarter of 
 a century, that we could not have taken that walk 
 twenty years since, for fear of the natives. The island, 
 whose coast measures eighty miles, was then one vast 
 tract of moorland, yielding nothing but grouse and 
 fish. Its boats were the old curraghs, frames of wood 
 covered with tarred canvas, as indeed too many of 
 them are stiU. Of all the poor inhabitants of the 
 west of Ireland, the very poorest were the people of 
 AchilL. They were then to others what the people of 
 South Inniskea now are to them; the people who 
 worship a stone, dressing it in woollen, and praying 
 to it for wrecks ! 
 
 The first road in Achill was made by the Govern- 
 ment about twenty years ago; and there are now 
 
118 LETl'ERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 several : but so few in proportion to the extent of the 
 island^ that the traveller is annoyed at the loss of time 
 and the fatigue incurred by the great circuits that 
 have to be made to get from place to place ; and there 
 is no making any short cuts, as the whole surface is 
 bog. Before there was any road, there was a coast- 
 guard ; and a tower, conspicuous on a mountain, 
 shows where an officer and a few soldiers were sta- 
 tioned in the days of the war, looking over the sea in 
 opposite directions, and keeping watch against inva- 
 sion. The coast-guard were less " duir' then than 
 now. Smart affairs with smugglers were of frequent 
 occurrence in the days of high duties, when the deep 
 coves of Achill offered great facilities for introducing 
 a variety of articles from France, Holland, etc. At 
 present there is no smuggHng whatever, and the coast- 
 guard find their station horribly dull. 
 
 Seventeen years ago the Protestant mission, of 
 which so much good and evil has been said, was es- 
 tablished in Achill. Mr. Nangle is now about to 
 leave the station which he has held through this long 
 course of years. He is going to a rather humble living 
 in Shgo county. Our impression is that when he has 
 left his work, and the result of his sojourn can be 
 estimated with impartiahty, he will be founil to have 
 borne a great deal with courage and patience, and to 
 have done a great deal of good. Whether there have 
 been faults in the doing of his work we have no wish 
 to inquire. Our business is with the results, and they 
 have satisfied us that Mr. Nangle^s residence has been 
 a great blessing to Achill. In the early part of his 
 
ACHILL. 119 
 
 residence there his life was in danger : he was thrice 
 shot at, and once knocked down by a stone, and 
 nearly killed. It is told with laughter now in the 
 drawing-rooms at Achill, that in those days there was 
 only one hat on the island (outside the mission, we 
 suppose) ; that it was hung on a pole near the Sounds 
 whence it was taken by any person going to the main- 
 land, to be hung up again on his return. Now, there 
 are schools, not only at the mission settlement, but 
 scattered about the island, where boys and girls are 
 taught in both the Irish and English languages. We 
 saw the eager, intelligent, vigilant little boys of Keel 
 — the Catholic Keel — at school, and we saw that there 
 was no dawdling there. The school was dark and 
 poor-looking, but the children were wide awake, and 
 well-mannered, and clean, though, of course, barefoot 
 and ragged. The houses of the settlement occupy 
 two sides of a square ; and apart stands, on a third 
 side, the dwelUng of Mr. Nangle. There is a little 
 church, and a post-office, and a humble inn; the 
 houses are all whitewashed, and all but one slated. 
 On a hill behind Mr. Nangle^s are some unroofed 
 cottages ; and close by, a more dreary sight still, the 
 hamlet of Dugort on the cliff, with its filth and appa- 
 rent misery. We inquired how it could have hap- 
 pened that, in full view of the settlement, this place 
 could, at the end of seventeen years, be what it is ? 
 The answer was that the property of the place has till 
 now been Sir Richard O'Donnell's, and that all the 
 mission could do was to educate the cliildren of the 
 Catholic parents Hving there, hoping for the effects to 
 
120 LETTERS FEOM IRELAND. 
 
 appear in the next generation — as in Keel and other 
 CathoHc places. 'Now, the mission having bought 
 half the island, the influence of its presence upon the 
 population may be expected to be much greater. 
 
 It has already been very great. The skirts of 
 Slievemore, the highest mountain in Achilla which 
 rises behind the settlement, are enhvened with tillage, 
 from a considerable height down to the boggy plain. 
 It is a cheering sight to see the farmhouse from afar 
 off, with its range of handsome stacks, and the sloping 
 fields, some with green crops (so green in contrast 
 with the bog), and others with oats and rye falling 
 under the sickle of the reapers. It is cheering to see 
 the healthy faces of the women, who, a dozen in com- 
 pany, file out of the field by the roadside, each carry- 
 ing a horse-load of fine oats to the stack. It is 
 cheering to see the boys — ready for a job, but not 
 begging, and looking like civilized beings. The wo- 
 men we meet in the road are knitting. The people 
 in the fields are really working hard. There is life 
 throughout the settlement. That much a stranger 
 can see for himself, without entering into any dis- 
 putes as to whether things might have been done 
 better. There are contradictions among the residents 
 as to whether the children are or are not improved in 
 morals, in truthfulness, and honesty, by the education 
 at the Mission Schools. One em])loycr says they are, 
 another says they are not ; but the last admits that 
 this may be from the influence of the parents, and 
 the habits of many generations overwhelming that of 
 the recent education. 
 
ACIIILL. 121 
 
 Por a long course of years there was a quietness 
 which might almost be called peace in Acliill. The 
 mission pursued its work quietly ; and the ishind was 
 blessed with a quiet priest, who diligently minded liis 
 own business, of which he had quite enough, and let 
 other people alone. Before the famine there were 
 6000 people in Achill; and there are now about 
 4000, — a population sufficient to occupy the clerg}', 
 without leaving time for quarrels. But, since the 
 Papal aggression business, the renowned ^' John 
 Tuam^' has become dissatisfied with the quiet priest, 
 who is understood to have had the utmost difficulty 
 in keeping his situation, and who is virtually super- 
 seded by a priest of the temper of "Jolin Tuam" 
 himself. The last petty sessions show what a state 
 the island is now in, and is likely to be in lienceforth. 
 A month ago Dr. M'Hale visited the island, and 
 opened a Catholic chapel not far from the settlement. 
 He left behind him the two priests who are to be 
 tried for assaults on the Scripture Readers belonging 
 to the mission. Without prejudging a matter which 
 stands over for trial"^, we can state these particulars of 
 the case which are declared and admitted on both 
 sides. The admitted facts are, according to the re- 
 port of petty sessions, that the two priests collected 
 the people in the \illage of Keel (Catholic, and the 
 largest place on the island); that they supported each 
 other in instigating the attack by which a Scripture 
 Header was stoned, knocked down among the turf, 
 
 * One priest has been since convicted, and fined £5. We do not 
 know the fate of the other. 
 
122 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 and beaten; that one of these priests, foaming at 
 the mouth with passion, called the readers " damned 
 devils/^ and the Protestants "juniper devils ^^ and 
 " stirabout jumpers ;' that he charged the parents 
 with sending their children to school to lose their 
 souls, to be "justified by stirabout and redeemed by 
 porridge " that he bade the people " scald, scald^, 
 and persecute to death''' the Protestants of Achill; 
 that he pronounced his curse and the curse of God 
 on any one who should sell them a pint of milk or a 
 stone of potatoes ; that he said he had but one life, 
 and he " would willingly give it to drive out these 
 devils, and see Achill great, glorious, and free, as it 
 was before they came/' An impartial person, arrived 
 from a place where such quarrels are not heard of, 
 happened to be present, and to see the convulsive 
 rage of one of these priests ; to see him run after a 
 woman, who escaped by a stratagem from liis blows ; 
 to hear him say that to think of the settlement made 
 his hair stand on end ; to see him endeavour to enter 
 the girls' school, presided over by a modest young 
 woman ; and to hear him, when the door was (by 
 order of her superiors) shut against him, shout out 
 against her, in the hearing of the crowd, names too 
 foul for repetition ! 
 
 In following a road across the bog, towards the 
 north-east of the island, we came upon piles of stones 
 which scarcely left room for the car to pass. On in- 
 
 * Scalding seems a favourite idea witli tlic priests. " May the 
 Almighty scald your soul, when you come to die !" is one of their 
 imprecations : in one case used hy a hishop to a convert. 
 
 i 
 
ACHILL. 12;3 
 
 quiry we found that a nunnery is about to be built 
 there — another broad hint of the religious warfare 
 which may be expected now that Dr. M^Hale's at- 
 tention is riveted upon Achill. It was by mere ac- 
 cident that we discovered that^ of all the population 
 of the Catholic village of Keel^ there are no adults 
 who dare go out after nightfall, for fear of the fairies. 
 Dr. M'Hale's emissaries fear nothing so much as the 
 emancipation of the people from fear; and nothing 
 arouses their wrath so quickly as the sight of that 
 book in which the people read, " For ye have not re- 
 ceived the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, 
 and of a sound mind." A tract has been published 
 (in not the best spirit) which contains the report of 
 the trial of a Sligo priest, some time ago, for an assault, 
 — the motto of which tract is, ^^The servant of the Lord 
 must not strive," etc. That priest was punished by 
 imprisonment, and his flock and their neighbours re- 
 gard the sentence as a piece of Protestant persecution, 
 and English oppression of Ireland. On the other 
 hand, the Catholics complain that disreputable con- 
 verts, and men who will do anything for a mainte- 
 nance, are sent out by the Protestant zealots to dis- 
 tribute tracts and read the Scriptures ; and that they 
 go armed with leaden life-preservers, with which they 
 lay about them, on women and others, on the shghtest 
 occasion, or none. Thus is the rehgion of peace 
 preached in these parts. 
 
 Our visit to Keel was on our way to the most ro- 
 mantic and melancholy spot that even romantic and 
 sombre Achill can show ; the place which once was 
 
124 
 
 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 Keem — still spoken of iu the Irish guide-books as 
 living, and moving, and having a being on earth. 
 Proceeding from Keel, we went through the village 
 of Dooagh — sordid, like the rest — and began to 
 mount by a good hill-road, till we found ourselves 
 at a grand height above the sea, which, seen from 
 hence, had the deep blue of the Mediterranean. The 
 view of the coasts was superb, from the precipices 
 of Achill, where a woman and seven children were 
 blovvn into the sea, from the mountain path, one 
 stormy night, to the faint, far distant headlands of 
 Connemara. We saw the entrance of the Killeries, 
 and Clew Bay with its islands (like a shoal of seals), 
 and many islands and rocks besides, with here a glit- 
 tering lighthouse, and there a few scattered boats — 
 mere black specks on the shining sea. Another 
 turn, and a most touching scene was before us. The 
 road — a very good one, in excellent repair — wound 
 down and down to a little cove where the waters, in 
 the shadow of the rocks, were of emerald green, and 
 the narrow beach of the purest sand. On a green 
 slope behind, under the shelter of high mountains 
 which clasped it round, stood the remains of Keem, 
 — a village of roofless stone cottages, now becoming 
 grass-grown, and silent as the death that laid it waste. 
 The people lived chiefly by fishing; but they had 
 some potato-grounds too. When weakened by the 
 famine (which they had somehow struggled through), 
 the cholera came upon them, and carried off a third 
 of their number. The rest went away — some to 
 America, others to wherever they could find food. So 
 
ACHILL. 125 
 
 the eagles look down from their perch on the ridges 
 above, and see only the places where people once were 
 — smugglers of old, and fishermen since. There is 
 a little potato-patch on the margin of the sand ; and 
 one solitary roofed dwelling stands beside it. Some 
 way up the hill- side there is a heap of stones among 
 the heather, and a man or boy may now and then be 
 seen searching and knocking among the stones. This 
 is what is called the amethyst-mine, and some fine 
 amethysts have, we are told, been found there. 
 
 The best tillage is towards the south of the island, 
 where oats grow to great perfection, as well as the 
 other crops mentioned before. The freshwater lakes 
 yield trout of a large size; and the sea is alive with 
 fish. Fine lobsters may be had for 2^. each, and 
 turbot for 1*. 6^. Geese are 10^. each; and they 
 and fowls abound all along the road. A fine dairy 
 of cows wends its periodical way to the settlement. 
 There seems no reason why the island, now so fairly 
 brought under the notice of the friends of the Irish, 
 should not support, in comfort, its present number of 
 inhabitants, and twice as many as it has ever had. It 
 will be a dreadful scandal if its prospects are broken 
 up in the name of rehgion. 
 
126 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 THE WILDS OF ERRIS. 
 
 Sejjtember 11, 1852. 
 We have crossed the wilds of Erris — the wiklest dis- 
 trict of Ireland, aud the scene of the worst horrors of 
 the famine. Of the horrors of the famine we shall say 
 nothing here. It is more profitable to look at the 
 present state of the district, to see if future famines 
 cannot be avoided. 
 
 The district of Erris extends north of a line drawn 
 from the two great mountains, Nephin and Croagh 
 Patrick, or the Reek — a holy mountain, to which the 
 people make pilgrimages. Eew but sportsmen and 
 poor-law officials know much about Erris. Snipe and 
 trout abound among its blue lakes and ponds, and 
 grouse among the heather, which extends as far as 
 the eye can reach. Police barracks, brilliantly white- 
 washed, glitter here and there; and near them may 
 be seen a shooting-box, a public-house, and a few cot- 
 tages. But in one place, at least, and probably more, 
 the high road passes through wilds where no dwelling 
 is seen for miles. The traveller must amuse himself 
 with the vegetation, the various heaths, the exquisite 
 
THE WILDS OF ERRIS. 127 
 
 ferns, the marsh willows, the bog-cotton waving in the 
 wind, and the bog myrtle ; or with the cranes, fishing 
 from a stone ; or with the moor game, poking up their 
 heads from the heather ; or with the snipe, swinging 
 on a bulrush ; or he may feast his eyes on the outlines 
 and shadowy hollows of the distant mountains; for 
 of human beings he mil see none for miles together. 
 When he does, it will be a policeman buying apples of 
 a brown-faced countrywoman ; or a young lady, with 
 a letter for the mail-car — a young lady dressed in a 
 white muslin gown with flounces, with hair in ringlets, 
 and no stockings or shoes ; or it may be a Londoner, 
 with gun and dog, seeking sport ; or a merry peasant 
 boy, with his donkey and load of turf. The sudden 
 changes of scene are remarkable; for instance, the 
 finding a fair going on at Bangor — a place of half-a- 
 dozen houses. A company of constabulary are in the 
 road, ready for the fray, which is sure to take place 
 at nightfall, when the people have drunk enough to be 
 quarrelsome. Women in scarlet and yellow shawls 
 are tripping hither over the bog, carrying their shoes 
 and stockings. Maudhn men are swearing eternal 
 friendship, and shaking hands with the landlady of 
 the only pubHc-house, which is so crowded that the 
 poor woman does not know which way to turn herself. 
 Amidst all the noise and signs of drink, and sights 
 of folly, the stranger cannot but remark that he never 
 saw such health in his life before. Throughout this 
 part of the country the old maxim will recur to him, 
 however he may abhor it — "the fewer the better 
 cheer." Our business is to tell of things as they are, 
 
128 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 and not to sentimentalize about how they might be 
 expected to be; so we state that where one cottage 
 remains inhabited among half-a-dozen that are un- 
 roofed, there may romping be seen before the door, and 
 loud mirth be heard from within. Many a laughing 
 party may be seen round a huge pile of smoking pota- 
 toes, in a dirty cabin. The pig is cordially invited to 
 the fire-side, and a great potful of potatoes is emptied 
 before him. Boys and girls show splendid rows of 
 teeth as the car approaches, and, with grins and 
 antics, shout and race after it, putting to flight all the 
 traveller's preconceptions about the melancholy left 
 behind by the famine. 
 
 Another kind of change occurs when he draws near 
 Belmullet. He suddenly observes that the rude fences 
 are apparently built of marble — of glittering and veined 
 blocks of the purest white. He has entered upon a 
 new limestone district; and he knows he may now 
 look for verdure instead of brown heather. He enters 
 the pretty little valley of Glencastle, and finds its sides 
 bristling with wood, and its slopes carpeted with 
 green. On the upland is a fine harvest of oats, stand- 
 ing in shocks. As he advances, the scene opens finely, 
 the great Blacksod Bay being on his left hand (some- 
 times hidden by sloping fields), and on his right the 
 beautiful bay of Broadhaven, like a great lake shut in 
 by yellow beaches and mountains of most varied out- 
 line. Presently the town of Belmullet comes in sight, 
 with its pubhc works, its wharfs, its drawbridge, and 
 cutting, and all the apparatus of a commerce which 
 does not exist. This town, where a coast-guard in- 
 
THE WILDS OF ERRIS. 129 
 
 spector resides, is remembered as the head- quarters of 
 the famine, where the clergyman and the inspector 
 and their assistants were almost killed with toil and 
 sorrow, — the toil of serving out the meal, night and 
 day, and the sorrow of seeing the dead and d\ing 
 heaped before their doors. 
 
 The dead and dying were brought from all places 
 round : but chiefly from the Mullet — the remarkable 
 peninsula which obtrudes itself into the sea beyond 
 the town. It was this peninsula that we traversed 
 Erris to see — that we might be sure that we had wit- 
 nessed the worst of the wrecks left by the famine. 
 Tew have seen them, but those whose business lies 
 among them. The waiter at the inn testified his 
 pleasure at having guests to make welcome, so very 
 few go there ; and when we left he wished we could 
 have stayed longer. In the centre of the town there 
 is an air of some pretension, and some look of com- 
 fort ; but the outskirts are miserable enough. All this 
 is forgotten however on approaching Binghamstown, 
 the most shocking wreck that we have seen, except 
 perhaps one other village in another part of Mayo. 
 We found more inhabitants remaining than Ave had 
 expected, and they did not look personally miserable 
 at all. But the lines of ruin where there was once a 
 street, the weeds and filth about the deserted hearth- 
 stones, or (what seemed almost worse) the crops of 
 potatoes and cabbages grown on the floors where dead 
 neighbours lived so lately, made our very hearts sick. 
 The Catholic chapel is not considered at all in a ruinous 
 state in comparison with other places, yet its windows 
 
 g3 
 
130 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 are half boarded up^ its walls are mouldy, and half 
 the cross on its roof is gone. The large white house 
 near was the seat of a gentleman, of one of the ancient 
 families of Ireland. After a long struggle with em- 
 barrassments, he was too weak to bear the stress of ", 
 the famine year. He let his house for a workhouse, 
 and was thankful to be made its master. In those 
 ancestral rooms he ruled as master — not of his own 
 house, but of the workhouse ! He soon died. One 
 of his sons is, we are told, there now as a pauper. 
 His widow and daughters live in an ordinary labourer's 
 cottage near. One such tale is enough, and we will 
 tell no more. 
 
 The soil is considered excellent all along the Mullet; 
 and, near Belmullet, the rising grounds were covered 
 with harvests, bristling with ' stocks' of fine oats. 
 Eurther on, there were enclosures everywhere, show- 
 ing what the cultivation had been; but there was 
 little growth of anytliing. Some of the fields were • 
 
 lapsing into mere waste; in others, cattle were | 
 
 grazing. On either hand the most lovely bays ran • 
 
 into the land — bays always alive with fish. Yet we 
 saw only one net, in our drive of fourteen miles and 
 back again. The usual declaration is, that the people 
 cannot fish, for want of boats and nets, which they 
 are too poor to obtain; but we saw a sight to-day 
 which told a worse tale than even this. Seeing some- 
 thing like a deserted windmill without its sails, we 
 inquired what it was, and found it was a curing-house, 
 going to ruin. An Englishman had come here to 
 establish a fishery. He knew his business; but he 
 
 I 
 
THE WILDS OF ERUIS. 131 
 
 did not know the people who were to do it. He was 
 right about the fitness of the place for a profitable 
 fishery ; but he was wrong in supposing that his fish- 
 ery must therefore be profitable. The people ruined 
 his project, the success of which would have made 
 their fortune, as well as his. They asked for advances 
 of wages — one half-a-crown — another eighteenpence, 
 and so on ; and then they went off without doing their 
 work. His money melted away, and he departed, 
 leaving the curing-house to rot on the shore of the 
 bay which swarms with fish. And still we are met 
 with the plea that the people are too poor to have 
 boats and nets ; and with complaints that capitaKsts 
 do not come and settle, to develop the natural wealth 
 of the district. Once more we ask why 20,000 Irish 
 capitalists invest nearly £40,000,000 in the English 
 funds, while such natural riches remain to be deve- 
 loped at home ; and, again, we have to pause long for 
 a reply. 
 
 We have said, in a former letter, that English set- 
 tlers appear to be heartily welcome in the west of Ire- 
 land. Yet, since we wrote that, we have been where 
 an English gentleman found, one morning lately, that 
 the tails of all his horses were cut off. An Enghsh 
 clergyman found, another morning, that one ear of his 
 saddle horse had been cut off in the night. This last 
 act is probably ascribable to theological hatred. As 
 to the other, it appears that the good feehng towards 
 settlers does not always extend to those who make 
 the rearing of stock their object. They buy up or 
 lease land for a sum or rent nearlv nominal, when, as 
 
132 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 in the case of Lord Sligo^s lands, the depreciation in 
 value is excessive. They graze their cattle for almost 
 nothing, employing next to no labour, and make vast 
 profits. There is nothing really unfair in this. They 
 give what the land, in a season of adversity, will bring, 
 and they use it in a way most profitable to themselves. 
 Nobody has a right to complain of this as dishonest. 
 But we cannot wonder if the suffering neighbours are 
 quick to feel the difference between this method of 
 settUng and that of men who come to till the ground 
 and employ labour. Men see cattle growing fat 
 among the enclosures where their neighbour's homes 
 used to be. Their neighbours are gone — over the sea 
 or into the grave — for want of work and food, and 
 one herd of cattle succeeds another, to be sent away 
 to England, and fill English pockets with wealth, 
 while the Irish peasant remains as poor as ever. And 
 Avithin sight, perhaps, there is another Enghsh settler, 
 who employs all the labour round him, and who 
 says that if the land were made the most of, the 
 country would be found to be much under-peopled. 
 The peasantry cannot but draw comparisons between 
 the two orders of settlers. That they should cut off 
 horses' tails is horrible. That they should feel that 
 the graziers could not be making such fortunes, if 
 calamity had not, for tlie time, annihilated the value 
 of land, is natural and unavoidable. That the ex- 
 tension of tillage will in time restore the value of 
 depreciated lands, and rectify the balance between 
 grazing and cultivation, is the issue to which we 
 must look, and for which we would fain persuade the 
 
THE WILDS OF ERRIS. 133 
 
 people to wait with patience. But what patience is 
 needed ! In answer to our inquiry^ whether the con- 
 dition and prospects of the people on or near the 
 Mullet were improving, the constant answer was — 
 " In comparison with the famine years, yes, of course. 
 In comparison with the years before the famine, no. 
 "We have no trade — no resources. "Where is the im- 
 pro\^ement to come from ?^' And truly when we had 
 passed through a few more of the depopulated villages 
 on the Mullet, and seen the mere remnant of people 
 that hang about that tract which might be so fertile, 
 we could not but echo the question, " "Where is im- 
 provement to come from ?" Yet, we cannot but feel 
 that it will come, so rich are the means which Nature 
 has laid there, readv to the hand of man. 
 
134 
 
 LETTEE XYTI. 
 
 CASTLEBAR— PAUPERS— EMIGRANT FAMILY. 
 
 Sejoteinher 12, 1852, 
 Ballina is the most prosperous-looking town we have 
 seen for some time. The reason, no doubt, is, its 
 good situation on the Moy, and its fine salmon-fishery, 
 which is next in importance to that of the Bann. As 
 we drew near to it, we observed signs of a brisker in- 
 dustry. We passed a really good farm, with a com- 
 fortable house upon it ; with an orchard fuU of fruit, 
 rows of well-grown trees pleasantly shading the road 
 without damaging the fields. We passed a stock- 
 master, who inquired of us about a stray bullock. He 
 had purchased about three hundred head of cattle, at 
 an average of £5 each, and was removing them home, 
 in the north. We saw spinning in the cottages, and 
 a cart full of ropes made of the bent, or coarse grass, 
 which grows on the shores. In the town, the people 
 Were walking about as if they had business to do : 
 and there was a look about shops and offices which 
 showed that they really had it to do. Having read 
 that Ballina was the third town in Alayo, while Castle- 
 bar was the first, we thoughtlessly expected to find 
 
CASTLEBAR. 135 
 
 Castlebar yet brisker than Ballina, — forgetting that 
 Castlebar has no manufacture, and no facilities for 
 trade, — forgetting, also, the singular letter of Lord 
 Lucan, as Chairman of the Board of Guardians, about 
 the repayment of the advances made by England at 
 the time of the famine. When we saw the state of 
 the town, and found that we were close by the gate of 
 Lord Lucan^s park, all this flashed upon us ; and we 
 set about seeing and learning what we could of this 
 noted place and its condition. Before we thus put 
 ourselves on the watch, we were struck by the num- 
 ber of one-eyed people we met in the streets — three in 
 a trice, on our entrance into the town. We had seen 
 none such in the wilds; and we have learned to re- 
 gard these remains of ophthalmia as a token of misery 
 endured in the workhouse, or some other crowded 
 receptacle of destitution. We have heard from an 
 eminent surgeon, entreated to advise what was to be 
 done, when guardians were at their wits^ ends, what a 
 spectacle it was to see 300 poor creatures down in 
 ophthalmia, on the floor of a low-ceiled malt-house — 
 one of the auxiliary houses of a union down in the 
 south-west. In all workhouses, eye complaints seem 
 to be the besetting ailment. In some of the L-ish, 
 they are not found at all ; in others, their virulence is 
 dreadful. " You must buy a green field,^^ said the 
 gentleman; ^^and you must get a large airy house." 
 They would do anything — anytliing in the world. 
 " Yes," rephed he ; " you had better, for (adapting 
 his appeal to the supposed quality of his hearers) if a 
 man dies it will cost you only 35. 6^. to bury him ; 
 
136 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 but if these people live blind (and blind people always 
 do live), it will cost you £4. 155. per annum each to 
 maintain them as long as they live.''' We are sorry 
 to see by the last report of the Poor Law Commis- 
 sioners that the disease was still on the increase at the 
 date of that report,, the number of cases during 1851 
 amounting to nearly 46,000. Of these above 40,000 
 were cured; but 263 persons lost both eyes, 656 lost 
 one eye, and 754 sustained otherwise more or less in- 
 jury to sight. Many more must have suffered out of 
 the workhouses ; and indeed, considering the healthy 
 appearance of the people in other respects, the num- 
 ber of one-eyed persons in the towns is a striking cir- 
 cumstance to a stranger. 
 
 While within the town of Castlebar there is a ge- 
 neral air of poverty and negligence, there are in the 
 neighbourhood a good many unfinished roads — those 
 melancholy roads which have occasioned so much 
 controversy and ill-will. It is strange to mount pain- 
 fully up a hill, by a newly-mended road, in order to 
 go down again on the other side, overlooking all the 
 while a grass -grown road winding round the base 
 of the hill, and to hear that that shut-up way is one 
 of the famine-roads, which has never been finished. 
 It is as sad as strange to sec how many of these liave 
 never been finished. Though nothing can excuse the 
 language of the repudiating guardians, it is impossible 
 to be on the spot without sympatliizing in their mor- 
 tification at the way in which the money from Govern- 
 ment was spent, and their remonstrance against being 
 made answerable for it. There are persons — calm and 
 
CASTLEBA.R. 137 
 
 benevolent observers — who say that an infinity of 
 good might have been done where now the insult 
 will never be forgotten of applying a labour test to 
 men who dropped fainting or dying on the road. The 
 men who were to earn their meal by working on the 
 roads, could not work on the roads for want of that 
 very meal. It was a pity to think of tests at all, under 
 the peculiar circumstances of the time. The right 
 way would have been, according to these authorities, 
 to say to the landlords, " No, you must not eject your 
 tenants ; that will ruin everybody. Government will 
 secure you against your tenants, under certain condi- 
 tions. Good farming must go on, or be begun where 
 as yet unknown. Good teaching and due means shall 
 be provided ; your sustained rental will repay our 
 advances ; or, if not, we shall repay ourselves in kind. 
 Thus will the value of the land be supported ; our ad- 
 vances will be reproductive; the horrors of e^'iction 
 will be avoided ; and the rates will be kept moderate." 
 It is believed that such a scheme could not have cost 
 more at the time than the plans actually adopted ; and 
 
 now But there is no need to describe again 
 
 the condition of the land and the people, with unfin- 
 ished roads running in among them, as if to mock the 
 deterioration of the land, and exasperate the temper 
 of the people. Lord Lucan has taken into his own 
 hands large tracts of land round, we might almost 
 say in, Castlebar, and is raising stock at a great rate. 
 The people do not like it : that is, they had rather see 
 the land under tillage ; but then, much of it is under 
 tillage, for the use of the stock. TVe saw many acres 
 
138 LETTERS FllOM IRELAND. 
 
 of turnips, which looked well. Like otlier landlords 
 in the distressed chstricts, he has, no doubt, suffered 
 bitterly; and no one can wonder that he makes 
 the most profitable use of his lands. It was an 
 agreeable surprise to us to find that he was doing so ; 
 for certainly nothing can well look more forlorn and 
 neglected than the estate on which he lives adjoining 
 the town. Its untended woods and lumpy grass, and 
 mouldy appearance altogether, would never suggest 
 that its owner was a great stock-breeder. Meantime, 
 the workhouse — the scene of his lordship's exploits 
 as chairman and addresser of the Government — is in 
 a more hopeful state than formerly, inasmuch as there 
 are now only (if we remember right) 550 inmates 
 instead of 3000. 
 
 There is much controversy there, as in many other 
 places, about Avhat should be done with these paupers. 
 The ratepayers complain that hundreds of persons 
 whom they feed and shelter are idling away their 
 time, doing absolutely nothing, within the walls. 
 They ask why the land which Lord Lucan once let 
 for the purpose was not tilled by the labour of these 
 people, and why Lord Lucan has taken it back into his 
 own hands. The reply is, that the labour of the pau- 
 pers cannot be made to support the institution, or they 
 would not need to be there. In fact, the number of 
 able-bodied men in the workhouses is now very small ; 
 and the women are usually not more than suffice, 
 under the apathy of compulsory labour, to do what 
 is wanted in the house. The greater number of the 
 inmates are aged, sick, or children. If they are 
 
 I 
 
CASTLE BAR. 139 
 
 idle, that is really a fault of somebody's. If, by being 
 idle is meant only that they do not support their 
 workhouse by their own labour, that cannot be helped. 
 The spirit of the controversy has however entered 
 the house itself. A number of young women, who 
 declare themselves healthy and active, have sent up 
 their petition to the Board of Guardians to be aided 
 to emigrate. Their letter bears, to our eyes, strong 
 marks of having been composed for them; but, on 
 examination by the Board, they have confirmed all 
 that it declares about their indignation at their com- 
 pulsory dependence and idleness, and their claim to 
 be placed where they can work for their own support. 
 So the guardians declare in their favour, and steps are 
 to be taken to get them sent away. 
 
 The population of Castlebar was, if we were cor- 
 rectly informed, 6000 before the famine; and it is 
 now between 3000 and 4000. Many have gone to 
 the grave; but more have removed to other countries. 
 Large sums are arriving by post, to carry away many 
 diore. We were yesterday travelling by the public 
 car, when, at the distance of a few miles from Cas- 
 tlebar, on approaching a cluster of houses, we were 
 startled — to say the truth, our blood ran cold — at 
 the loud cry of a young girl who ran across the road, 
 with a petticoat over her head, which did not conceal 
 the tears on her convulsed face. A crowd of poor 
 people came from — we know not where — most of 
 them in tears, some weeping quietly, others with 
 unbearable cries. A man, his wife, and three young 
 children were going to America. They were well 
 
140 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 dressed^ all shod, and the little girls bonneted. There 
 was some delay — much delay — about where to put 
 their great box; and the delay was truly painful. 
 Of all the crowd, no one cast a momentary glance at 
 anybody but the departing emigrants. The inqui- 
 sitiveness, the vigilance, the begging, characteristic 
 of those who surround cars, were all absent. All eyes 
 were fixed on the neighbours who were going away 
 for ever. The last embraces were terrible to see ; but 
 worse were the kissings and the claspings of the hands 
 during the long minutes that remained after the wo- 
 man and children had taken their seats. When we 
 saw the wringing of hands and heard the wailings, 
 we became aware, for the first time perhaps, of the 
 full dignity of that civilization which induces control 
 over the expression of emotions. All the while that 
 this lamentation was giving a headache to all who 
 looked on, there could not but be a feehng that these 
 people, thus giving a free vent to their instincts, were 
 as children, and would command themselves better 
 when they were wiser. Still, there it was, the pain 
 and the passion : and the shrill united cry, when the 
 car moved on, rings in our ears, and long will ring 
 when we hear of emigration. They threw up their 
 arms and wailed. AVhen a distant turn in the road 
 showed the hamlet again, we could just distinguish 
 the people standing where we left them. As for the 
 family, — we could not see the man, who was on the 
 other side of the car. The woman's face was soon like 
 other people's, and the children were eating oatcake 
 very composedly. 
 
CASTLEBAR. 141 
 
 There were no signs of affliction in them. It is de- 
 nied here that the people are eager to go, as the news- 
 papers assert. They go, we are told, because they 
 must. Our own impression is that the greater number 
 go without knowing much about it, because others 
 have gone, or because they are sent for, or because 
 they have a general idea that it is a fine thing for 
 them. Many, of course, are more fully aware what 
 they are about ; but we do not see reason to suppose 
 that political discontent has anything to do with it. 
 We saw at Castlebar a print of O^Connell (as we had 
 once before), but it was soiled and torn, and poked 
 into a damp corner out of the way. If any ill-feeling 
 towards the English has come under our notice at all 
 (amidst much good- will towards British settlers), it is 
 merely in connection with Protestant proselytism — 
 and of that there is likely to be plenty more if the 
 Protestant zealots go on doing as some of them are 
 doing now. 
 
142 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 IRISH LANDLORDS AND IRISH POTATOES. 
 
 September 17, 1852. 
 When we chance to pick up an English newspaper, 
 here in the west — a thing which does not happen 
 often — we usually meet with some remark on the dis- 
 crepancy between the various accounts of the state of 
 the potato-crop. Nobody knows, by reading the 
 newspapers, what to believe or expect. There are 
 more reasons than one for this variation of accounts. 
 No doubt the disease is worse in some parts of the 
 island than in others; and no doubt many scores of 
 acres of potatoes have turned out good for something, 
 after they had been despaired of. But a new light on 
 this matter has dawned upon us since we have come 
 down from the wilds of Erris, and from the districts 
 where EngHsh and Scotch settlers may be found, to 
 a more thoroughly Irish part of the country, where 
 there is less religious animosity, and more of the land- 
 lord and tenant strife. We arc coming into the re- 
 gions of landlord-hating ; and very sad and terrible are 
 the evidences we have met of the state of feeling exist- 
 ing towards the landlords, on the part of — not the pea- 
 
IRISH LANDLORDS AXD IRISH POTATOES. 143 
 
 santrj, for of that we know nothing substantial as yet, 
 but of the middle class. You may wonder what this 
 has to do with the variety in the reports of the potato 
 failure. Thus it is. The poor people keep up their 
 furor for the potato, — though they will, because they 
 must, eat Indian meal, more or less. But you may 
 see, by the roadside, or sitting on walls, or crouching 
 by the threshold, children munching raw potato"^ as 
 English children munch apples. The mother pares 
 and quarters a raw potato, and indulges the cliildren 
 with it. These people will not believe, till the last 
 minute, that the potato will fail. They are saying 
 now, after those above them, that we have had the 
 seven years of famine, and that next year plenty will 
 come again. The landlord is just as slow of belief. 
 He watches the growth of the potato with the keenest 
 anxiety ; he holds his tongue about any reports of its 
 failure that he may hear ; and, when the failure can- 
 not be concealed, he makes the least of it, and is cer- 
 tain that it is owing to this or that accident, and that 
 it is not likely to happen again. It is not that he is 
 thinking about the prospects of the winter and spring, 
 and of his rates. He is thinking not of his rates, but 
 of his rents. There seems to be no doubt that the 
 landlords are virtually in league with the peasantry, to 
 keep up the depedencne of the labouring classes on the 
 
 * An Irish friend protests against this statement, saying that no- 
 body in the worid ever ate raw potato. He declares it must have been 
 Swedish turnip. All we can say is that we did not judge by the eye 
 alone, "^e asked the children what raw root they were eating, and 
 they said "potato." They might however be only gna\ving it. 
 
144 LETTERS FHOM IRELAND. 
 
 potatOj for the sake of their rents, which are very much 
 higher under potato-cropping than they can be under 
 any other management. While the most enhghtened 
 friends of the Irish people are hoping to see the pea- 
 santry weaned from this exclusive diet, and are heard 
 to say that even the famine may be a benefit if it intro- 
 duces cereal food as their main dependence, and while 
 this view is earnestly held and enforced by the farm- 
 ing and shop-keeping class (who are rate-payers, but 
 not rent-receivers), the landlords (in great numbers, 
 we fear) are doing all in their power to foster the pre- 
 judices of the people, because only under the potato 
 system can there be the excessive competition for land 
 which affords them rents like those of times gone by. 
 It is melancholy, we can assure you, to meditate on 
 this as we travel along. For years past we have, like 
 most other people, said '^Ah, it is very sad — this visi- 
 tation ; but it will bring in a better time than Ireland 
 has ever known yet. It will compel a vast emigra- 
 tion, and thus clear the land for improved manage- 
 ment; it will bring over British settlers to ^ plant ^ 
 the lands which will be deserted. It will break up 
 the wretched relations between landlord and tenant, 
 and substitute a system of smaller holdings than the 
 largest, and larger than the smallest, with a parlia- 
 mentary title, freedom from incumbrance — freedom, 
 in short, to begin afresh, with the advantage of mo- 
 dern knowledge and manageable numbers.'' It was 
 this view which consoled us during many a day's 
 journey through an almost unpeopled country, and 
 through districts where the unroofed cottages out- 
 
IRISH LANDLORDS AND IRISH POTATOES. 145 
 
 numbered the occupied. It was this which kept up 
 our spirits under the stories we have heard in work- 
 houses, and the sight of crowds of orphans within 
 and without the walls. And now, after all this, we 
 find the landlords trying to bring back the old state 
 of things — the potato diet — the competition for land, 
 the sub-letting, and all the consequent deterioration 
 of land and people. We know of one instance in 
 which a sensible and educated man, who is fond of 
 farming, if he may do it well, was asked by a pro- 
 prietor to undertake a certain farm, on the ground of 
 his inclination to improve. He did so, and improved 
 the estate by expensive preparations for very superior 
 tillage. He fenced it thoroughly, and began to drain 
 and plant. His landlord wanted him to grow pota- 
 toes largely, which he refused to do, for reasons which 
 he assigned. At the end of two years, when he was 
 about to drain a great deal more (encouraged by his 
 success so far), he asked his landlord, at whose ex- 
 press request he had undertaken the enterprise, to 
 give him the security of a lease, or other method of 
 repayment for his improvements. The landlord re- 
 fused all security whatever ; and, of course, his tenant 
 gave up the job. Whatever may be the landlord^'s 
 difficulties, legal and conventional, in gi\dng such 
 security, he cannot but be an unpopular man while 
 such refusals are su^ained by improving tenants ; 
 and a new cause of discontent is becoming more se- 
 rious every day. 
 
 It has been mentioned before that some British 
 settlers have become graziers on a great scale, on 
 
 H 
 
146 LETTERS FEOM IRELAND. 
 
 lands which have sunk to an ahnost nominal value. If 
 they are unpopular, much more so is the Irish land- 
 lord who follows the same course on lands w^hich were 
 under tillage only the other day. Some landlords are 
 taking fright at the rise of wages consequent on the 
 departure of multitudes of labourers for America. In 
 despair of cultivating their land profitably, under a 
 higher rate of wages, they are throwing their farms 
 together for grazing purposes, spending their money 
 in buying cattle instead of paying wages, and employ- 
 ing, perhaps, on half-a-dozen farms, a couple of herds- 
 men. They have, of course, a perfect right to do this, 
 and many of them may have no other course open to 
 them; but it does not tend to enhance their popula- 
 rity. They would obtain love and honour by selling 
 their land to men who have capital wherewith to cul- 
 tivate, or by letting it to improving tenants, where 
 now they are cursed by the remaining peasantry, who 
 see fat cattle on lands where, as they think, half a 
 hundred men ought to be earning a shilhng or eighteen- 
 pence a day. Tenants say that landlords' ^^word and 
 honour '^ are not to be. depended on; and labourers 
 say that they may go to the workhouse if those who 
 should be their employers can only make vast profits 
 by stock farming. And thus there is much landlord- 
 hating, while the landlord may have many hardships 
 to bear, on his part, from law and circumstance. 
 
 After all, we must come to the conclusion that the 
 grand practical point is, that the land shall be made 
 the most of. Wherever the fault of past failures may 
 lie, this is the thing that must be provided for in the 
 
IRISH LANDLORDS AND IRISH POTATOES. 147 
 
 future. Now, in order to do this, one of three things 
 must happen : — Either the landlord must make im- 
 provements (repaying himself, of course, for the ex- 
 pense) ; or the tenant must make them, for which 
 purpose he must, of course, be securely compensated 
 for his outlay ; or the landlord's interest must be pur- 
 chased by the tenant, in which case the tenant becomes 
 the virtual proprietor. Here are three methods. 
 There are no others. If the landlord agrees to none 
 of them, he sets himself up against the great principle 
 that the land must be made the most of. If he does 
 so (and it is too cei-tain that a great number of land- 
 lords decline all the three propositions), it must inevi- 
 tably follo\^' that the land will pass out of his hands 
 into those which can render it profitable. It mast be 
 so, by the immutable natui"al laws under which all 
 social changes proceed. Meanwhile, he has no right 
 to wonder at his personal unpopularity, nor to scoff 
 at any nonsense, nor to defy any sense that is talked 
 under the heading of " tenant right." At the cry of 
 the labourer capital will come, and settle down upon 
 the great man's land, paying him off, and dismissing 
 him, as he has dismissed others, and taking on his 
 neighbours, the labourers, in his stead. 
 
 It is beheved here that this process would go on 
 more rapidly but for the disappointment of some Eng- 
 lish purchasers, who find themselves deceived about 
 the rental of the estates they have bought. It seems 
 strange that men of business should buy land on the 
 faith of any printed valuation, without close investi- 
 gation. Sometimes three valuations are printed which 
 
 H 2 
 
148 LETTEllS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 differ so widely as to make English inquirers ask what 
 the discrepancy can possibly mean. Sometimes it 
 means that the rental is taken at what it was when 
 potato-plots were let three times over ; sometimes it 
 means other things, which it would take too much 
 space to explain now. The practical matter is that 
 men who think of purchasing should test the particu- 
 lars of the rental themselves, if possible, and on the 
 spot. It would be a pity that the best hope for Ire- 
 land — that of the settlement of improving capitahsts 
 — should be impaired by the disappointment of a few 
 too easy purchasers. There is, we rejoice to say, one 
 other particular to be now considered by those who 
 contemplate farming or fisliing in Ireland — the rise 
 of wages. There can be no doubt whatever that the 
 people now on the land (throughout the west and 
 south of Ireland) are insufficient for its thorough 
 tillage; and new comers must no longer reckon on 
 getting labourers, in any numbers, for 6J., and we 
 hope not even for Is., a day. And the people are 
 still going away in crowds. 
 
 "What a pity it is that the Quakers cannot purchase 
 in the Incumbered Estates Court ! Everybody is sorry; 
 they would make so admirable a class of purchasers ! 
 But the arrangement about tithes precludes their buy- 
 ing those estates. Can nothing be done about this ? 
 It has been very striking to us that the one opinion 
 in which we have found sensible, benevolent, well- 
 informed, practical men most earnestly agreeing, 
 throughout the length and breadtli of the land, is 
 this — tliat the best hope for Ireland lies in the settle- 
 
IRISH LANDLORDS AXD IRISH POTATOES. 1^9 
 
 ment of British capitalists, who shall pay wages in 
 cash, make no inquiry into any man^s reHgion, do 
 justly, lead a quiet life, and leave others in peace and 
 quiet. This is the very description of the Quaker 
 settlers already here. Must the passage hither through 
 the Incumbered Estates Court be closed against them 
 alone ? 
 
150 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 LANDLORDS, PRIESTS, AND VOTERS. 
 
 Septemher 21, 1852. 
 The western coast of Ireland is very beautiful — most 
 striking in its wild magnificence. It is full of in- 
 terest, too, from its noble capabilities, and from the 
 spectacle of the modes in which the inhabitants keep 
 themselves alive. But a few days are enough. A few- 
 days of observation of how the people live, merely by 
 our going to see them, are sad enough to incline one 
 to turn away, and never come again. Prom Galway 
 we have travelled by the unusual route of the coast 
 of Clare, where tourists being, as we supposed, out 
 of the question, we hoped to discover how the people 
 lived. Prom Galway to Ballyvaughan, and thence on 
 to the borders of Mr. O'Brien's estates, was the most 
 desolate region perhaps that we have traversed — al- 
 most as unpeopled as the wilds of Erris, without the 
 curious charm of its having never been peopled. It 
 was some relief to find that the unroofing of houses is 
 not all recent. We were grieving over one mass of 
 good-looking houses, when our driver told us that was 
 the memorial of an old landlord quarrel ; that a whole 
 
LANDLORDS, PRIESTS, AND VOTERS. 151 
 
 village population — thirty or forty families — all de- 
 camped in one night, about thirty years ago, in fear 
 of their landlord. Some good-looking houses on 
 heights and promontories were deserted at an older 
 time ; but the dozens and the scores of humble dwell- 
 ings still have the soot hanging about their gables. 
 The traveller on the admirable road which winds with 
 the heights of the coast looks out anxiously to sea for 
 fishing-boats; but there are none, — only the savage 
 canoe or curragh is to be seen by good eyes, tossing 
 near the shores. A woman here and there climbing 
 barefoot over the rocks in search of bait, or of that 
 seaweed which people eat to give a taste to their meal 
 or potatoes ; a boy and girl digging potatoes from out 
 of the stones of limestone fields, are nearly all the 
 people that are to be seen at any one place. There 
 seem to be too few to beg. A very large number of 
 men are gone to England for the harvest, or to Ame- 
 rica ; the wives and children are in the workhouses ; 
 and the roofs then come off their abodes. While on 
 the part of the coast of Clare which is almost entirely 
 limestone, we hoped and believed that the excessive 
 subdivision of the land was owing to its stony cha- 
 racter. We saw vast heaps in the middle of little 
 fields ; and we hoped that the innumerable fences were 
 merely a method of getting rid of the stones. But, 
 since we have come down upon a more fertile district, 
 where there no stones in the middle of the fields, we 
 find the enclosures no larger. Eank and ruinous 
 hedges or turf-banks occupy a large surface, and di- 
 vide fields which are mere plots, like the sluggard^s 
 
152 LETTERS PROM IRELAND. 
 
 garden. The first revival that we were sensible of was 
 when the whitewashed dwellings of Mr. O'Brien^s 
 tenants began to glitter before our eyes. "Corny 
 O'Brien/' as his neighbours call him, is considered a 
 kind landlord ; and is not, we were assured, the less 
 beloved in that capacity for being " an apostate " — 
 as people here call a Protestant whose parents were Ca- 
 tholic. The care and expense that Mr. O'Brien has la- 
 vished on making the Moher cliff's accessible, safe, and 
 attractive to strangers, have made his name popular 
 along the coast. The great number of men tiiat we 
 saw employed in getting in his crops of hay — such a 
 quantity that we could not conceive how it was all 
 to be eaten — was an explanation, quite satisfactory, of 
 the affectionate tone in which we heard him spoken of. 
 It is true, there is little more doing in his neigh- 
 bourhood, in the way of permanent employment of 
 industry, than elsewhere, — no regular scientific farm- 
 ing, no manufactures, no fisheries ; but there is some- 
 thing done to attract strangers, and to keep the la- 
 bouring class from starving. You will wonder at all 
 this detail. It is not given for nothing, but as intro- 
 ductory to what we have to say of the affair of Six-mile 
 Bridge. 
 
 You are aware of the exasperation of the priests 
 about Lord J. Russell's letter to the Bishop of Dur- 
 ham, and about the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. You 
 understand how the theological strifes of Ireland, — 
 and especially of the west, w^here the less-informed 
 priests are sent, — have been aggravated by the pro- 
 ceedings and debates in Parliament about Catholic 
 
LANDLORDS, PRIESTS, AND VOTERS. 153 
 
 affairs. And you will see in a moment that the 
 temper of the priesthood is not likely to be improved 
 by the pressure of the poverty to which they are sub- 
 jected by the emigration of a multitude of their sup- 
 porters. The subsistence of the priests is derived 
 mainly from the poorest and most ignorant class of 
 their disciples; and there is no doubt of the severe 
 poverty under which many of them are labouring. 
 Their political action becomes vigorous in proportion 
 to their adversity; and you do not need to be told 
 what it was in the late elections. The Six-mile Bridge 
 affair is just one of the landlord and priest quarrels 
 which are taking place all over Ireland ; and when the 
 trials come on, they will be worth observing, as an 
 illustration of the politics of the whole island. 
 
 Colonel Vandeleur is the proprietor of the greater 
 part of Kilrush. Kilrush, with all its great corn- 
 stores, and its quay, and its good streets, and pre- 
 paration for trade, is in a sadly stagnant condition. 
 Colonel Yandeleur is not employing labour to such an 
 extent as to satisfy his neighbours ; but they are taught 
 to believe that if he was in Parliament the trade of 
 Kilrush would improve, and all would go well. There 
 is much contradiction on the spot as to whether the 
 eighteen voters escorted by the soldiers would, if 
 voting by ballot, have voted for him or for " Corny 
 O^'Brien.^' The probability seems to be that they 
 would, if not interfered with, have voted for Yande- 
 leur, as a matter of course, " because tenants are al- 
 ways understood to vote for or with their landlords.''^ 
 One incident seems to show this. These men were 
 
 H 3 
 
154 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 "cooped," as we say in England, by "the Liberals" 
 — some of O^Brien^s party, moved and led by priests ; 
 and then they were released by some of the Yandeleur 
 party; whereupon, seeing Colonel Yandeleur, they 
 cried out, " Oh, master, we knew you would not leave 
 us prisoners. We knew you would come.^' We think 
 it may be understood that these eighteen voters volun- 
 tarily adhered to their landlord against the priests, 
 though the Liberals (or some of them) insist that they 
 were coerced by their landlord. Either way, what a 
 farce is the suffrage in their case ! 
 
 Eorty-two soldiers were required to escort these 
 eighteen voters. " And not one too many," we are 
 told : " you have no idea of the ferocity of an Irish 
 mob, led by priests, who hope to get rid of the Eccle- 
 siastical Titles Bill, or to carry any electioneering 
 point whatever." The party had entered a narrow 
 lane, fenced by high walls on both sides. The ma- 
 gistrate, Mr. Delmege, was at the time some way be- 
 hind, talking with the two officers who were in com- 
 mand of the soldiers. A mob, among whom three 
 priests were seen to be busy, gathered on the other 
 side of the walls, and began to pelt the party with 
 stones. More and more rushed to the spot, and the 
 stoning became more dangerous ; and at last tlie 
 mob collected at both ends of the lane, to hem in 
 their victims. It is said that not a man of the party 
 would have escaped alive if the soldiers liad not fired. 
 The magistrate says he made no request that the sol- 
 diers might fire. The officers say they gave no orders 
 to their men to fire. The soldiers say they had no 
 
LANDLORDS, PRIESTS, AND VOTERS. 155 
 
 orders to fire, and that it was as citizens that they did 
 so, in the exercise of their citizen right of self-defence. 
 How these statements will be supported when the trial 
 comes on, we shall see. Meantime, eight men, if not 
 nine, have been killed; and we understand that the 
 three priests are to be brought to a legal account for 
 the transaction, as well as the magistrate and the mi- 
 litary. Colonel Yandeleur lost his election by two 
 votes only; and people are wondering whether Mr. 
 O'Brien will keep his seat or lose it^. Xobody has 
 the least idea (as far as we can gather opinions) that 
 the wishes of the electors can be judged of, in any 
 degree whatever, by the state of the poll. This is 
 the conclusion in which all acquiesce, whatever they 
 may have to say of Yandeleur or O^Brien — of priest 
 or landlord — of magistrate or military — of voter or 
 escort. 
 
 From the first word we have heard about election- 
 eering matters in Ireland, to the last, one thing has 
 been plain to us, — that if we cannot get the ballot, 
 we had better give up the absurd and cruel sham of 
 popular election. There is no need to point out that 
 the ballot is equally necessary, whether, in any par- 
 ticular case, the tenants vote according to their own 
 opinion or against it. That their wishes are argued 
 about is enough. That they are the subject of con- 
 flict is enough ; that they are "cooped," and released, 
 and escorted, is enough. That cry, " Oh, master, we 
 knew you would not leave us," is worthy of negro 
 slaves appealing to their owners, rather than of elec- 
 
 * The petition against Ms retm-n has been witlidrawn. 
 
156 
 
 LETTERS l'EO]\I IHELAND. 
 
 tors exercising a riglit of citizenship. It is mourn- 
 ful enough to compare the actual working with the 
 ideal of most institutions ; but when we hear how this 
 Six-mile Bridge affair is talked of in Clare and Kerry, 
 it seems to us that we have never — except, perhaps* 
 in the slave States of America, or in the proclama- 
 tions of Louis Napoleon — heard such a spouting of 
 farcical tragedy. Let the advocates of the ballot 
 keep their eye on the trials for this affair, which are 
 to come on a few months hence. If the evidence 
 brought forward should be anything like what is com- 
 municated to us now, it will be the business of all 
 honest Liberals to repeat it incessantly — to din it into 
 all ears, till the Irish tenant-voter is either blessed 
 with the ballot or released from the injurious burden 
 of the suffrage. There can be no question which 
 alternative should be insisted on in his behalf. 
 
 
157 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 THE WORKHOUSES. 
 
 Septemler^l, 1852. 
 Befoee entering an Irish workhouse, the English 
 visitor is aware that the people to be seen within are 
 altogether a different class or race from those whom 
 he has been accustomed to see in workhouses at 
 home. In England, the pauper population, domes- 
 ticated in those abodes by legal charity, are, for the 
 most part, a degraded order of people. The men 
 and women have either begun life at a disadvantage, 
 or have failed in life through some incapacity, physi- 
 cal or moral j or they are the cliildren of such that 
 we find in workhouses; and we expect therefore to 
 see a deteriorated generation, — sickly or stupid, or in 
 some way ill-conditioned. In Irish workhouses it is 
 not this sort of people that are to be found. Indeed, 
 the one thing heard about them in England is that 
 they are ready to die rather than enter the workhouse. 
 They are the victims of a sudden, sweeping calamity, 
 which bore no relation to vice, folly, laziness, or 
 improvidence. In the first season of famine, the in- 
 mates were a pretty fair specimen of the inhabitants 
 
158 
 
 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 at large ; and they are now the strongest and best- 
 conditioned of those original inmates. The}^ are now 
 the people who lived through the famine which carried 
 off the weak and sickly. The visitor therefore enters 
 the workhouse gates without that painful mingling of 
 disgust and compassion in his mind which is one of 
 the most disagreeable feelings in the world. Prom 
 afar he sees the great building — solid and handsome, 
 not at all dull or dreary-looking, but lightsome, with 
 plenty of window^s, and generally in an airy and 
 cheerful situation. Again and again have we asked 
 one another whether, if we had been hungry peasants, 
 we should have been otherwise than eager to go to 
 those refuges, where food was known to be certainly 
 procurable. We can understand the dislike to the 
 supposed confinement, to the diet, to the cleanliness, 
 to the total change, in any ordinary times, but we 
 should have thought that there had been nothing here 
 that hunger would not have made almost inviting. 
 We have inquired a good deal into this matter ; and 
 we have visited several workhouses. With regard to 
 the well-known fact that many thousands died imme- 
 diately after admisson, it is asserted by some persons 
 that a large number had applied days or a week before 
 they could be admitted ; but it seems more widely true 
 that admission was at the worst period regarded as a 
 sentence of death; and that, at all times, there is a 
 dread of the food in the first place, and of tlic con- 
 finement and new ways afterwards, so that the request 
 for admission was delayed till too late. 
 
 What we have seen now is nothing like what we 
 
THE AVOllKHOUSES. 159 
 
 should have seen in the famine years. The first work- 
 house we visited was that of Newtown -Limavady, 
 in Londonderry. In the centre of the estates of the 
 great Companies is little distress ; and in the harvest 
 season we saw only groups of children, healthy and 
 playful, clean and bright ; and women and girls spin- 
 ning, washing, or cooking ; and infirm old men and 
 boys, much fewer than the house would hold ; and 
 benevolent agents going in very often, to see that 
 they were comfortable. Matters are not so pleasant 
 everywhere, of course; but still they are a vast im- 
 provement on what " S. G. 0.^^ and others saw awhile 
 ago. For instance, we stopped at Ballyvaughan, on 
 Galway Bay. In the course of our afternoon walk, 
 we were struck by the situation of a farm-house on 
 an eminence, with a green field before it, stretching 
 down to the bay. Entering the field, we saw below 
 us a number of women wasliing clothes, evidently 
 from the workhouse. This house was an auxiliary 
 to the auxiliary house of Ballyvaughan. The preva- 
 lence of ophthalmia in the house caused this field and 
 dwelling to be hired for an infirmary. Forthwith we 
 went to the larger house, an assemblage of whitewashed 
 buildings, arranged as a workhouse, for the relief of 
 the overcrowded establishment at Ennistymon. 
 
 This Ballyvaughan house was prepared to contain 
 900 inmates. On the day of our visit — at harvest- 
 time — at the most prosperous season of the year, and 
 in a neighbourhood where there is an admirable em- 
 ployer of labour, the number was no less than 667. 
 It was inconceivable to us, when we heard this, what 
 
160 LETTEES FROM IRELAND. 
 
 the people could have done when there were no houses 
 nearer than Galway and Ennistjmon. People who 
 had to come above thirty miles for relief perished for 
 want of it in great numbers — some at home^ and some 
 by the roadside. It will not be so again, for there is 
 to be a proper workhouse built at Ballyvaughan, and 
 the question of its precise situation is now under de- 
 bate. A proprietor in the neighbourhood is draining 
 his lands largely, and with funds borrowed from the 
 Improvement Commissioners, one of whose stipula- 
 tions is that the labourers' wages shall be paid in 
 cash. If we remember rightly, as many as 200 men 
 are thus employed regularly, and for sufficient pay. 
 How, then, were there 667 in the workhouse in the 
 harvest month ? How many were able-bodied men ? 
 One official said twenty, but on inquiry it turned out 
 that they were not able-bodied at the moment. Oph- 
 thalmia, or other ailment or infirmity, had incapaci- 
 tated these twenty. Of children there were 300. 
 That was a fact only too easily understood : they were 
 orphaned by the famine. There were many widows 
 and " deserted women " the " desertion'' being that 
 their husbands had gone to England for summer work, 
 leaving their famihes to the union. The expectation 
 was that most of these men would come back, with 
 more or less money. Some would probably go from 
 Liverpool to America, leaving their families where they 
 were till they could send funds to carry them out to 
 the United States. We heard here again of a scandal 
 which we have since encountered more tlian once. 
 Some of the guardians have turned out young women. 
 
THE WORKHOUSES. 161 
 
 all alone, to shift for themselves. In each case the 
 clergyman and the great man of the neighbourhood 
 have rebuked this practice, and put a stop to it : and 
 it is well ; for there will be an end of the well-grounded 
 boast of the virtue of the Irish peasant women, if scores 
 of girls are thus set adrift by their so-called guardians. 
 In one case the excuse given was, that there was no 
 particular notice of their being young women, but 
 that they were included among the able-bodied, and 
 ordered off with that class. Twenty were thus got 
 rid of at Ballyvaughan, and thirty at Kilrush, besides 
 many at other places. We heard with much more sa- 
 tisfaction of the efforts made to enable young women 
 to emigrate to Australia. From Kilrush no less than 
 450 (some of our informants said more) have been 
 sent across the Atlantic, chiefly to Canada. 
 
 On the shores of Malbay, in Clare, stands a little 
 sea-bathing place, called Milltown, all glittering with 
 whitewash; and the most glittering part of it is a 
 large house full of thorough lights, which is described 
 in the guide-books of a few years ago as a fine hotel, 
 where sixty beds are made up for visitors. Travellers 
 had better not go there now in expectation of a bed, 
 for this house is at present a workhouse — another 
 auxiliary of Ennistymon — and spoken of with pride 
 for its healthy situation. Yet, on the way to it we 
 saw a painful sight — a cart or truck, loaded very 
 heavily with paupers — chiefly children, with some 
 women, — the whole being guarded by three of the 
 constabular}^, carr}dug arms. These were runaways, 
 we were told, who were being brought from gaol to 
 
162 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 MilltoAvn workhouse. We know nothing of the 
 merits of the case^ but the spectacle was not a plea- 
 sant one. If the dread of ophthalmia causes any to 
 abscond, we do not wonder at it. The story goes, 
 however, that many put themselves in the way of the 
 disease, actually try to catch it, to avoid work and 
 obtain the superior diet ordered for the patients. 
 The Poor Law Commissioners believe this. AYe saw 
 the patients at Ennistymon — dozens, scores of them 
 — lying on clean comfortable beds, in rooms coloured 
 green, with, green window-curtains, their skins whole- 
 some-looking, and the hair of the young people bright 
 and glossy, but all alike suffering under that painful- 
 looking disease, the consequence of over-crowdings 
 and other predisposing disadvantages. 
 
 The aspect of the other parts of the Ennistymon 
 house is anything but depressing. The greatest 
 number receiving relief from its doors at the worst 
 time was 20,000. The house being built to hold 
 500, of course the chief part of tliis relief was out- 
 door, of W'hich there is now none. An incident of 
 the time which happened here explains something of 
 the horror with which tlie people regarded the work- 
 house. In order to prevent the sale of the meal 
 given in relief it was wetted by order of the guar- 
 dians. Much of it became as hard as mortar ; and 
 most of it turned sour and caused illness in the 
 already enfeebled people. Popular reports of whole- 
 sale poisonings have often arisen from a less cause. 
 Now, however, it is found that the meal and other 
 food agree well with the inmates, whose average of 
 
THE WORKHOUSES. 163 
 
 health is high, exclusive of the prevalent ophthalmia. 
 The resident officers spoke cheerfully of the change 
 since last year. During the fever season last year 
 there were deaths daily to the amount of from twenty 
 to twenty-five in that crowded house, whereas there 
 are now only about three in a week. The breakfast 
 is porridge with milk; and the dinner, soup made 
 of meal, mth various vegetables; and an allowance 
 of bread, which suffices also for supper. The peo- 
 ple are hoping now to be allowed potatoes twice a 
 week ; and great is the pleasure with which they look 
 forward to this treat. There is no regular agricul- 
 tural instructor of the boys at Ennistymon, .but some 
 are promising weavers, under the teaching of a zealous 
 Yorkshireman. The women spin and knit, and the 
 sewing of the household is done by the girls, who are 
 also taught fine work, by w^hich they may make money 
 hereafter. 
 
 Long before we entered any Irish workhouse Mr. 
 Osborne^s name was uttered to us with blessings, as 
 we find it still wherever we go. There are no two 
 opinions about him, and the blessedness of his visit — 
 as far as we have heard. Gentle and simple, CathoHc 
 and Protestant, Tory and Liberal, bid us beHeve all 
 that he has said — assure us that his information was 
 precisely correct — declare that he is the best of all 
 the good friends of L-eland — and glow while they tell 
 us that what he said was (in the words of a poor Ca- 
 tholic) *■' religion, and charity, and truth, all in one.'"' 
 We had not doubted this before ; but this universal 
 testimony strengthened our desu-e to see the Kilrush 
 
164 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 house. We there heard^ from resident officials, ter- 
 rible accounts of the famine and fever times, when 
 people were brought in, and died between the outer 
 gate and the door of the house ; when they were laid 
 three in a bed (those beds which are comfortable and 
 decent for one, but which still are made to hold two), 
 and the dead and the living were found lying side by 
 side every morning. But enough has been said about 
 that. There have been auxiliary houses opened to 
 a greater extent than are now needed. Three have 
 been lately closed. The house was built to contain 
 1100, and the sheds 416 more. The number in the 
 house when we were there was 2735, and the deaths 
 during the last twelve months have been 362. There 
 is a farm of twenty-five acres, w^here the boys are 
 taught to labDur. It was Sunday when we were 
 there ; and we neither saw the people at work, nor 
 met the master and matron. Colonel Yandeleur and 
 a party of friends were there. After they were gone 
 we went round. We thought the place very clean, 
 and the people, on the whole, healthy-looking; but 
 our impressions of the management, in the hands of 
 subordinate officers (who seemed to us too young), 
 were not very favourable. There was much confusion 
 and inaccuracy in their statements ; and the terms 
 they were on with the people, and the manners of the 
 household, did not seem to us so good as we had ex- 
 pected from what we had seen elsewhere. There can 
 be no doubt, however, of the improvement which has 
 been fairly instituted in the Kilrush house, and which 
 is still advancing. 
 
 I 
 
THE WORKHOUSES. 165 
 
 Here and there we meet with some one who wishes 
 to see workhouses made seK-supporting. Such per- 
 sons seldom see any alternative between paupers being 
 absolutely idle and supporting the house by field- 
 labour. There is no need to tell you what we say 
 when our opinion is desired — how we ask whether 
 any industrial enterprise ever answers under corporate 
 management; whether there are not, in the case of 
 pauper labourers, peculiar disadvantages ; and whe- 
 ther the whole principle of a legal charity for the 
 helpless is not abandoned when the proposition is 
 made to maintain them by the labour of the able- 
 bodied. Of this we may have occasion to say more, 
 if the subject should again be pressed upon our notice 
 as it has been. Meantime, we have only to say now 
 that we cannot conceive what would have become of 
 the people without the workhouses ; and that we can- 
 not conceive what is to become of the workhouses 
 unless some productive industry — farming, fishing, or 
 manufactures — is ere long estabhshed in the west of 
 Ireland. 
 
166 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 September 23, 1852. 
 No one who has seen the KiHarney lakes can wonder 
 that visitors bring away no very precise accounts of 
 the condition of the inhabitants of the district. We 
 hear a good deal about the swarms of beggars, guides, 
 boatmen, and curiosity-sellers, because they have hi- 
 therto been a part of the scenery ; but the charms of 
 the scenery are so transcendent, and the visits of tra- 
 vellers are so short, that there is no room for wonder 
 or reproach if we hear less of the people of Kerry, 
 who yet see the greatest number of EngHsli, than of 
 the rest of the Irish nation. Henceforward, less and 
 less will be heard of the beggars and other persecu- 
 tors of the traveller ; for the nuisance has been found 
 so intolerable, that the magistrates and gentry of the 
 neighbourhood have taken vigorous measures to put a 
 stop to it. For our part we have found it nothing 
 worth complaining of, — nothing to compare with the 
 importunity of the car-pursuers of Connaught. A few 
 women with pitchers of goats' milk and bottles of 
 potheen on the hill-sides ; a few vendors of curiosities 
 
KILLAKNEY. 167 
 
 and arbutus wares ; a few boys pretending to assist, 
 when you want nothing but to be let alone : these are 
 all, under the prodigious temptations of the place and 
 season. 
 
 We are told that a million of money now enters 
 Ireland annually, in the shape of tourists ; and of these 
 nearly all, of course, come to Killarney. "We will not 
 say what the profits of the hotel-keepers are said on 
 the spot to amount to this season ; because we cannot 
 be sure that such reports are correct, and we have no 
 means of verifying them. It is enough to say that 
 each innkeeper is supposed to be making several thou- 
 sand pounds between May and October. We have 
 observed with pain, throughout the greatest part of 
 the country, that there seems little for the Irish to 
 depend on but the influx of visitors ; the most preca- 
 rious and demoraHzing of all resources for subsistence. 
 At this place, where the very springtide of this kind 
 of resource is met with, we have looked about us to 
 see what is the aspect of life, and what seem to be the 
 prospects of the inliabitants. 
 
 The neat, trim, finished appearance of the ap- 
 proaches to Killarney is so striking to the traveller as 
 to be known to all the world. Lawns that are mown, 
 plantations that are fenced, walls that are not dilapi- 
 dated, avenues of old trees, paths that are not grass- 
 grown, are a treat to the eye. There are also turnip- 
 fields that show at once what they are, instead of 
 putting on all sorts of gay disguises of weeds. Of 
 course, hands are required to do all this work. We 
 find that Lord Kenmare and Mr. Herbert — the two 
 
168 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 great proprietors on the margins of the Lakes — em- 
 ploy many labourers, and pay them somewhat higher 
 wages than we have been accustomed to hear of in 
 Ireland. Then there are the boatmen and guides. 
 These men make money only from June till the mid- 
 dle of October. During the rest of the year they do 
 not know what to do with themselves. Some make 
 scanty and fitful earnings by fishing ; but they utter 
 mournful complaints of the neglect and helplessness 
 under which they suffer during the winter, after hav- 
 ing been made profit of during the summer. The 
 boatmen^s story — calmly and gravely told — is, that 
 the innkeepers, who assume the whole business of 
 employing and paying them, allow them only 1*. 6 J. for 
 a day's work in the height of the season — short as that 
 season is — and give them no aid or countenance what- 
 ever during the rest of the year. If this is the case, 
 and the whole of it, the evil will soon be remedied. 
 The opening of the railroad before next year will enor- 
 mously increase the number of visitors to the Lakes ; 
 and the boat monopoly will no doubt be broken up 
 and the men enabled to improve their earnings. 
 
 Seeing a great number of Kerry cattle on the hills, 
 we inquired into the destination of the produce, and 
 we found, as we expected, that a large quantity of 
 butter goes to Cork for exportation. Here, again, w'e 
 find the producers, for the most part, in a state of 
 undue subservience to the merchant. The Cork but- 
 ter-merchants come their rounds once or twice a year ; 
 and the needy dairy farmers bind themselves by a six 
 months' contract to the price named by the merchant. 
 
KILLARNEY. 1C9 
 
 Those who have capital hold themselves independent, 
 aud profit accordingly. One farm that we have seen 
 to-day consists of forty acres, twenty of which are un- 
 der tillage, eighteen or so in grass, and the rest bog, 
 or required for the yards aud bit of garden. Some 
 wheat is grown, and, with the oats, sold, while Indian 
 meal is bought for family use. A few Swedes and 
 some mangold-wurzel are grown for the cattle. There 
 are ten cows, which yield a firkin, or half a cwt. of 
 butter (value two guineas and a half) per Aveek, for 
 about half the year, and less for the other half. Much 
 sour milk is sold in the town ; and there are other ad- 
 vantages — such as plenty of food for pigs — wood out 
 of the bog, turf, etc. The Cork market for butter and 
 for pigs is an advantage to all Kerry and a good part 
 of Limerick ; and might be much more so, with good 
 management, and a better investment of the capital 
 which is certainly now flowing freely into the country. 
 Of the bog-oak carving everybody has heard; but 
 comparatively few know how vast is the quantity of 
 wood exhumed from the Kerry bogs, and how great is 
 its value. It has undergone a preparation which fits it 
 for almost interminable wear ; and it is imperious to 
 insects. The manufacture of churns, milk " keelers,"' 
 bowls, aud even bedsteads for local use, is such as 
 might be a broad hint to sensible men to make some- 
 thing more of such a resource. T\'hilst the finest 
 black specimens are reserved for carving and knick- 
 knacks, the rest might furnish a good industrial re- 
 source in the hands of an enterprising man. If the 
 little Kerry cows are found grazing on the Xotting- 
 
 1 
 
170 
 
 LETTEES FRO^r IRELAND. 
 
 ham meadows, and speckling the hill-sides of York- 
 shire, Kerry churns, of a singular and indestructible 
 wood, would find no difficulty in getting there if their 
 value was understood. 
 
 Amidst these resources, what is the aspect of Kil- 
 larney, apart from the lakes and their adjuncts, to the 
 stranger? There is the grand Catholic cathedral, be- 
 gun by poor Pugin, and little likely to have been 
 finished by him, if he had been alive and well. It is 
 a melancholy sight, that half-developed edifice, stand- 
 ing on the bright sward, unused and unusable. It 
 has cost from £9000 to £13,000, (there is no 
 making out anything nearer than this,) and it would 
 require, some say £6000, some say £10,000, to finish 
 it ; and nobody sees where the money is to come from. 
 Another great building is the workhouse, now, by the 
 addition of wings after the famine, become indeed a 
 very large building. It is one of the best managed 
 houses in Ireland, strangely and mournfully populous, 
 considering the aspect and resources of the neigh- 
 bourhood ; but, on the whole, one of the most satis- 
 factory establishments of its class. The population 
 of Killarney was somewhat under 10,000 before the 
 famine. It is now under 7000; yet, thinned by 
 death and emigration, it stiU yields a large workhouse 
 population in the season when the harvest is gathered 
 in from the fields, and opulent strangers are swarming 
 on the lakes. 
 
 There is another prodigious edifice, more imposing 
 still. We could not credit the information when told 
 that it was a lunatic asylum. Looking from it to 
 
KILLARNEY. 171 
 
 the styes in the outskirts of the town, where human 
 faraihes are huddled hke swine, we could not but 
 feel that to build such an establishment in such a 
 place was hke giving a splendid waistcoat to a man 
 without a sliirt. That pile of building a lunatic asy- 
 lum ! But for what lunatics — and how many ? For 
 the pauper lunatics of the county of Kerry only. It 
 seemed to us an Irish bull of a melancholy sort; and 
 especially when we heard that there is another asylum 
 at Limerick, and another at Clonmel, and another at 
 Cork ; but we found that the affair is English altoge- 
 ther, — a parliamentary enterprise, at which the Irish 
 are as much surprised as anybody. ^Ve went over the 
 building, which is nearly ready for occupation, and 
 will be open for the reception of patients in two or 
 three weeks. As we looked along its vast corridors, 
 and our footsteps echoed under its vaulted roofs, it 
 seemed to us like some of those grand old monaste- 
 ries on the Danube or the Guadalquivir, which it 
 makes one feel youthful and romantic to read of; anci 
 it is built to accommodate, in this land of hunger 
 and rags, two hundred pauper lunatics ! There are 
 at present eighty Kerry patients at Limerick, and 
 eighteen elsewhere. Let us hope that these are 
 enough — ^reduced as the population of Kerry now is. 
 It is incredible that the place can be half-filled by 
 the people for whom it is built ; yet there is nothing 
 said, as yet, about appropriating any portion of it to 
 the use of paying patients. It seems as if this must 
 follow — so great as would be the advantage to such 
 patients of a position expressly adapted to their needs, 
 
 I 2 
 
172 LETTERS FllOM IRELAND. 
 
 — and so important as it is^ in the present state of 
 Ireland, that institutions of this kind should support 
 themselves, when the opportunity is fairly offered. 
 
 It should be added that this enterprise was ordered 
 and begun before the famine. The report to Parlia- 
 ment, which lies before us, on lunatic asylums in Ire- 
 land, which contains the beginning of its history, bears 
 the date of 1845. A committee of the Lords (of 1843) 
 had before reported on the neglect of the lunatic poor 
 of Ireland, for whom no other refuge was provided 
 than the gaols and a few cells in houses of industry. 
 It is perfectly right that what the Irish legislatures 
 had neglected should be done by us; but there is 
 surely some medium between shutting up persons with 
 diseased brains in gaol-cells and building palaces, and 
 providing a rich dietary for them, before the very eyes 
 of their houseless and hungering neighbours. The 
 state of brain produced by fasting is a real and true 
 insanity. By this process the building miglit too 
 easily be filled. Otherwdse, we must hope, it never 
 will. If a stranger w^as told that such a building as 
 that w^as filled from Kerry alone, he must needs think 
 that the Kerry people answered to poor Swift^s account 
 of the human race in general. 
 
 The interior arrangements of this institution are, 
 on the whole, excellent, — not, perhaps, quite up to the 
 mark of recent improvement elsewhere, but opening to 
 the poor innocent prisoner of the gaol- cell and inap- 
 propriate infirmary a prospect of space, air, activity, 
 and comfort, which it is pleasant to think of. 
 
173 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 THE RIVAL CHURCHES. 
 
 September 26, 1852. 
 As we have come down to the south, from Mayo and 
 Galway, we have heard less and less about the Pro- 
 testant conversions which make such a noise there. 
 We find the Catholics and Protestants on better 
 terms : but the comfort of this observation is spoiled 
 by the reflection which accompanies it — that the Pro- 
 testant Church has no business here as an establish- 
 ment. The peace and quiet, wherever they are found, 
 are solely owing to the number of Protestants being too 
 small to make any stir. Wherever we go — whether 
 we find the clergy of the two Churches in a state of 
 deadly mutual hatred, or letting one another alone — 
 we are driven back upon our old conclusion, that 
 wherever the Church of England is more or less a 
 missionary church in Ireland, there we find society 
 torn to pieces with quarrels ; and that, where there is 
 tranquillity, she is not discharging the function of a 
 missionary church, and has no right to her estabhsh- 
 ment over the heads of the majority, whom she as- 
 sumes to be converting. 
 
174 
 
 LErrEKS FROM IllELAND. 
 
 We have passed a church, here and there, with a 
 little parsonage standing near it ; the church new and 
 spruce-looking, if not handsome; the parsonage per- 
 haps a good white house, with a porch, and hydrangeas 
 and fuchsias adorning the front; perhaps a mere barn- 
 like cottage, with mud hovels standing directly before 
 the windows. In any case, the answer to our ques- 
 tion — how many worshipers attend the church? — is 
 nearly the same : — " four or five families )^ — '^ a score 
 or two of persons, according to the season/' In one 
 place, where the parsonage is a good house, the boast 
 of the Protestants is that a hundred people attend the 
 church. If we inquire about the income of the cler- 
 gyman, we hear of £300 a year in one place; £800 
 in another ; in a third, that the income, which was 
 £1500, is now reduced to £400. In this last case it 
 was that our Catholic informant (a great admirer of 
 the clergyman) told us of a guest of his from Eng- 
 land who went with him to his chapel, and found it 
 full of people on their knees, as full as it could hold ; 
 and how he, in return, went to the Protestant church 
 — a handsome church — with his guest ; and how the 
 guest was surprised to find only four or five persons 
 there. It is as well to hear both sides about such 
 matters ; and we therefore were glad to obtain a Pro- 
 testant account of the number of attendants at that 
 same church. The Protestant account is that there 
 are between twenty and thirty in the whole. "What 
 can the Catholics think of an income of £400 (after 
 the reduction) for the care of under thirty souls, — and 
 at a time when their priests are becoming desperate 
 
THE EIVAL CHURCHES. 175 
 
 from poverty ? It was in that neighbourhood that a 
 Protestant clergyman, with high preferment, but no- 
 thing that could be called a flock, received an afiecting 
 testimonv of the attachment of his Catholic neii'h- 
 hours, who respect his character, and love him for 
 his charity and Hberality. A tenant of his wanted 
 to abscond without paying rent, and chose Sunday 
 for the feat, thinking himself secure of not being ob- 
 served or pursued on that day. He got together on 
 Saturday afternoon everything that he could make 
 away with, and on Sunday morning he was off. Some 
 suspicion had got abroad among the peasantry, and he 
 was followed and brought back, with all his gear, and 
 delivered up to his clerical landlord. This is all very 
 well as a transaction between Catholic and Protestant 
 neighbours ; but it fills us with shame — only hearers 
 of the anecdote as we are — that tlie good landlord 
 should be receiving a large income as a clerical sine- 
 curist, wliile the clergy of his grateful neighbours are 
 sinking so low in poverty, from the depopulation of 
 their districts, as to be showing more and more of the 
 ferocity of hardship. There are some residents — some 
 of both Churches — who have said to us that it would 
 be a good thing if the Government would repeat the 
 offer to pay the priests. If it was done prudently, 
 and with some regard to their feehngs, it is beUeved 
 that they would gladly enough receive it now. There 
 was a time when we, not having seen so much of Ire- 
 land as we have now, were in favour of such a provi- 
 sion for the Catholic priesthood. Our present im- 
 pression (subject to change, if the existing crisis 
 
176 LETTF,RS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 should develop e new features in the case) is that it 
 would be a pity to spoil the process of testing the 
 priests which is now going on. There is no doubt that 
 the most mercenary of them are undergoing detection, 
 by means of the distress of their flocks at home,, and 
 the opening of the eyes of such of them as have gone 
 abroad; while the same circumstances are sure to 
 bring out, in full brightness, the disinterestedness of 
 such of them as are worthy of their professions. The 
 really devoted will be supported while their flocks have 
 anything to eat themselves. The rest — we fear we 
 must say the large majority — will become known by 
 their felt rapacity and hardness much better than by 
 any denunciations and canvassings by Protestant ri- 
 vals. Glad as we should be to see the few apostolic 
 priests placed at ease, we should be sorry to see the 
 process of the probation of the whole stopped short 
 in the middle. As the fleece is dropping off in tatters, 
 and the wolfs hide is showing itself from within, we 
 would not, if we could, patch up the rents, and so 
 help to beguile again tlie suspicious flock. However, 
 there is no hurry about this — no present need to 
 argue it — for nobody supposes that the present Govern- 
 ment will endow any Church but its own. 
 
 Our attention was long ago directed upon one mat- 
 ter which it is painful to think and speak about, but 
 which it would be wrong to pass over in inquiring 
 into the state of the Churches. It is easily conceiv- 
 able that a Protestant clergyman in Ireland must find 
 himself very unhappy in the position in which he is 
 most likely to find himself. He comes over, pro- 
 
THE RIVAL CHURCHES. 177 
 
 bablv:, iu a good spirit — devoted to a difficult duty — 
 hoping to bring converts into his Church — longing to 
 rescue the poor and ignorant from superstition, and 
 to redeem them for this life and the next. He pre- 
 sently finds all this out of the question. There is no 
 converting ignorant Catholics but by setting up in 
 fierce opposition to the priests — but by setting up 
 counter threats and promises ; and in such a game — 
 without bribery by food and work — the priest is sure 
 to have the best of it. The gentle and peace-loving 
 clergyman cannot enter upon, or sustain, such a war- 
 fare as this. He sinks into silence, except at certain 
 hours on Sundays; and then, how should he speak 
 with any earnestness, when he has scarcely a hearer 
 beyond his own household ? He finds little or no- 
 thing to do in return for the income he enjoys. He 
 is taunted with the enjoyment of that income, or he 
 suspects that he is. He meets vdth. no sympathy, 
 intellectual or rehgious. He lives in an atmosphere 
 of storm or stagnation. Either every man's hand is 
 against him, or no one regards him. Under such in- 
 fluences, w'ho can wonder if his nature faints ? Some 
 men may, in such a position, be humble enough to 
 bear the humiliation. Some may be heroic enough 
 to stand unmoved, — a mark for obloquy and insult. 
 Some may sincerely believe that they earn their main- 
 tenance as churchmen by their good deeds as citizens 
 outside their empty churches. But there is a large 
 number besides, who are but common men, and can- 
 not hold so anomalous a position ; and of these, too 
 many fall into bad habits. Some are merely selfish, 
 
 i3 
 
178 LETTERS PROM IRELAND. 
 
 surrouTicliDg themselves with pet animals,, or sporting, 
 or dozing away their lives in mere laziness ; but others 
 drink. There is no need to describe the process of 
 decline, or the painful spectacle which here and there 
 meets the eye of the traveller, on the road or by the 
 way-side inn. The sin and the fate are the same 
 wherever seen. When we have mentioned this to 
 Protestants — in order to inquire — the answer has been, 
 repeatedly, an admission of the occasional fact, with 
 the addition, " But the priests do so too."'' Some do. 
 There are instances in both Churches, no doubt ; and 
 the priests have the disadvantage of comparative igno- 
 rance and depressing poverty. It is not our business 
 (nor anybody's either) to make out how much drunk- 
 enness there is in either Chnrch, in comparison with 
 the other; but to point to the sad significance of its 
 existence in the case of clergymen without flocks. If 
 the sin and shame have arisen out of their false posi- 
 tion, let the blame visit theni lightly. If we had our 
 wish, we would decline to waste time and energy in 
 blaming anybody, but abolish the false position alto- 
 gether. 
 
 The operation of the National Schools will be found, 
 in the course of another generation, to be a curious 
 one. Wherever we go we find them attended almost 
 entirely by Catholics, not only because of the paucity 
 of Protestant children, but on account of the enmity 
 of the Protestant clergy. Yet it is impossible for the 
 Catholic priesthood to benefit by them. No boy 
 would be received in college, to prepare for the priest- 
 hood, who had been educated in a National school. 
 
THE RIVAL CHURCHES. 170 
 
 We watched the other day the countenance of an in- 
 telligent little lad of ten years old, destined for the 
 priesthood, whose father was talking to us in perfect 
 good faith of the O^Donohue^s seven-yearly appear- 
 ance on the Killarney lakes, and the other legends of 
 which that giant is the hero. The boy, brought up 
 in this kind of faith, cannot go to the National school, 
 though his father would like to send him, because it 
 would be fatal to his prospect of the priesthood ; and 
 his sisters are sent to the nunnery school. At an- 
 other place, meantime, the two schools are the Na- 
 tional and a Protestant one. The parents in the 
 neighbourhood would hke to send their children to 
 the Protestant school, because the teaching there is 
 of a high order ; but the priests compel them rather 
 to fall back upon the National school, which is not 
 well managed — or thought not to be so. It is clear, 
 on the whole, that the clergy of both Churches, as a 
 body, hold themselves, and would fain hold their peo- 
 ple, aloof from the National school. If another gene- 
 ration finds that both clergies have sunk into power- 
 lessness under the unavoidable operation of these 
 schools, who but the clergy wiU be answerable for 
 their fate ? 
 
 The religion and morals taught at nunnery schools 
 are rather remarkable — as far as we can learn. 
 TTe were visiting one lately, when we saw and 
 heard some curious things. A page in a copy-book 
 (not an exercise-book, but a copy-book) gave a sum- 
 mary of evidences and precepts in favour of ^'the 
 unblody {sic) sacrifice of the mass,'^ from the Old and 
 New Testaments,, which showed that the pupils were 
 
180 LETTEUS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 supposed to know notliing of either Testament. In 
 the fruitful garden was a fierce dog, formidable, even 
 when chained up, to all but the sisters. Sister A. 
 explained that the dog was placed there to protect 
 the vegetables from being stolen "by the parents/' 
 said she, "of the children we are supporting." She 
 went on to say that though " it would not do to say 
 so to the people themselves," there was no sin in 
 such theft, because the people were hungering, and, 
 added she, "God himself put these things in their 
 reach ; so there is no sin in eating them on the spot, 
 though there would be in carrying them away. But 
 of course it would not do to tell them so." We 
 longed to ask why the nuns put a dog there to keep 
 the people from touching what God put in their 
 way ; but the question might have been too puzzling. 
 Again, the little burial-ground was quite filled with 
 the half-dozen graves ; and the simple question was 
 asked, whether it was to be enlarged ? The eager 
 reply was, when it was wanted, and not before. 
 " Why anticipate death ? Evil comes soon enough : 
 why anticipate it?" This way of talking might have 
 been adopted as suitable to world's people, but it is 
 not very like the ordinary notion of convent ^dews of 
 life and death. We should like to know how the 
 children in the school are taught to regard death. 
 In the case both of nuns and children, the more they 
 are led to dread death, the greater is their dependence 
 on the priest, whose offices alone can bear them safely 
 through it : and this may account for the difference 
 between the nuns' and what is commonly called the 
 Christian view of death. 
 
181 
 
 LETTEE XXIII. 
 
 FROM KILLARNEY TO VALEXTIA— DIXGLE BAY— 
 CAHIRCIVEEX. 
 
 Sej-deinher 28, 1852. 
 There is hardly a more iiiteresting da/s journey in 
 all Ireland than that from Killarney to Yalentia — the 
 most westerly port in Europe, and the station from 
 which the O^Connell estates may be overlooked. By 
 the way, we omitted to mention, in speaking of the 
 unfinished cathedral at Killarney, that, close by, a 
 large monastery is rising from the ground. In answer 
 to our observation that the money which is building 
 the raoTiastery (the '^ monkery,"*^ as the inhabitants 
 call it) would have finished the noble cathedral, our 
 Catholic companion observed that the monks cared 
 most for their own affair, and had no thought of let- 
 ting the money be spent on any other object. The 
 boarded windows and truncated tower of that church 
 were a melancholy spectacle, as we left Killarney, — so 
 little hope as any one seems to have that poor Pugin^s 
 design will ever be wrought out. For several miles 
 the road lies in that tract of country which appears to 
 be enclosed between Macgillicuddy's Eeeks (the lof- 
 tiest mountains near KiUamev) and the Dins^le moun- 
 
182 LETTERS FIIOM IRELAND. 
 
 tains — Dingle Bay being yet unseen. At length 
 marks of improvement occur, which at once arrest the 
 traveller's attention. The pastures are really and truly 
 green : the hay is not half rushes ; the oats are well 
 stacked, and the stacks near the farmsteads are plen- 
 tiful. There is a little barley, too. There are or- 
 chards, with apple-trees bending with fruit. The bye- 
 roads are in tolerable order. Up the skirts of the 
 hills, and over a considerable extent of the bog, there 
 are inclosures which prove that a vigorous and sus- 
 tained reclamation has taken place. The chief draw- 
 back is that the children are all but naked, and very 
 impish-looking in their filth, with their hair on end, 
 and no clothing whatever but a rag of blanket round 
 their bodies. On inquiry, we find that this improved 
 region is the property of Lady Headly, — the same lady 
 who has built a church at Killarney, and pays a curate 
 £200 a year. She is called a generous employer; 
 and the reclamations are beheved to answer extremely 
 well. The people on her estate are said not to be poor 
 at all,— nothing that can be called poor, — as they are 
 paid such good wages — five shilHngs a week. We 
 asked how it was that the children were so naked; 
 and the answer was one which showed that clothes are 
 not here thought, in the case of children, a necessary 
 of life at all. After the treat of seeing this improved 
 tract, came that of emerging from the valley, and 
 winding round the base of the Drung mountain, above 
 the glorious expanse of Dingle Bay, — here seven miles 
 across at its narrowest part. We were swept along one 
 of Nimmo's noble roads, with our feet overhanging the 
 
DINGLE BAY. 183 
 
 fence of two feet high, and a heathery precipice plung- 
 ing down 200 feet into the blue sea below, — at such a 
 depth that the gulls and curlews are like white specks 
 floating in mid-air. Ximmo evidently carried the true 
 artist spirit into his profession. It is impossible to 
 travel along the western coasts of Ireland, as we have 
 done, without feeling towards him as towards a great 
 artist, watching the manifestations of his creative 
 faculty, and sympathizing in the boldness, the skill, 
 and the grace of his works as in the beauties of the 
 sculpture, the painting, or the architecture of masters 
 of another kind of art. Every traveller who knows 
 this road vaunts its beauty; and some have said that 
 the scenery is equal to any on the coast of Italy. It 
 is not so; but it is wonderfully beautiful, in such 
 weather as we have now. But in all that expanse, so 
 many miles in breadth, and stretching away as far as 
 the eye could follow, — even from that height there 
 "was not visible a vessel of any kind whatever. The 
 blue waters lay absolutely unbroken, but by the dip 
 of the sea-bird. Xo comment can strengthen the im- 
 pression of such a fact. 
 
 The road retires at length into a valley, where the 
 moorland becomes wilder with every mile. The tiirf, 
 where cut, is of great thickness. There is no drain- 
 age, and scarcely any attempt at cultivation. A few 
 patches of wet potato-ground, and weedy and scanty 
 oats, occur ; but, for long distances, there is nothing 
 to disturb the crane at his pool, or the hawk, hovering 
 aloft, with his eye on the young kids perhaps, which 
 look very white, as they repose themselves on a peat- 
 
184 LETTEllS FllOM IRELAND. 
 
 bank ; or on his proper prey, the chicks and ducklings 
 which appear here and there, as if it were spring. 
 Where there are kids, there is probably prey for the 
 hawk and eagle near. The interest now is, that we are 
 entering upon O'Connell's property — approaching 
 Cahirciveen. Among 8ome green fields and plantations 
 stands a neat abode : it is the dwelling of his agent. 
 On the other hand, on the brink of the inlet below, 
 stand the ruins of a country house, the roof and windows 
 gone, and the chimney and gable grown over with ivy. 
 This is the house in which O'Connell was born. At 
 every step one becomes more able to sympathize with 
 his love of his Kerry mountains, with their long 
 stretches of heather, peopled with moorfowl and four- 
 footed game, and separated by noble bays and lovely 
 inlets, where an evening sail must be a charming con- 
 trast with the nights spent in the House of Commons. 
 We grow milder about his personal extravagance — 
 more genial about liis sports with his beagles, and his 
 open house — more sympathizing, till — we enter Cahir- 
 civeen. After that, all is over ; and we return to our 
 deliberate estimate of his character. 
 
 We need not describe that place. It has been done 
 by the Times' Commissioner in such a way that no one 
 who cares about the matter at all can have forgotten 
 it. There is little to add, after the lapse of six years. 
 Mr. O^ConnelFs receipt of hundreds of thousands of 
 pounds from the Irish people seems not to have done 
 any good to his tenantry at Cahirciveen. The greater 
 part of that property he rented from Trinity College, 
 DubUn, and sublet to tenants, from whom lie received 
 
CA.HIRCIVEEN. 185 
 
 a larjje income. The existing embarrassments are 
 known to be very great^ notwithstanding the efforts 
 which have been made by the Catholic bishops to 
 clear them away. And there seems to be no feeling 
 left about the man who was so idolized so very short 
 a time ago ! A few years since the traveller heard of 
 him at every step — never by his own name, but by 
 the title of " the Liberator '■' — uttered as if it were a 
 sacred name. Now, it is evidently understood that 
 he never did aiiything, nor ever could have done any- 
 thing, to justify the promises by which he gained the 
 people's confidence, and the wealth which they yielded 
 him oat of their want. '''The people liked to be 
 under him,'' we are told, and he never wanted tenants. 
 Perhaps he should not be severely blamed for the fatal 
 over-peoplijig of his estates, wliich — a prevalent evil 
 everywhere — was aggravated in this case by the affec- 
 tion, the pride, and the vanity which urged the com- 
 petition to live under the Liberator. Bat the penalty 
 remained when the feeling was gone. When the news 
 of his death arrived, there was grief " for three or four 
 days," and then he seemed to be forgotten. He is 
 seldom or never heard of now : his portrait (a good 
 painting, we are told) was lately sold for two shillings. 
 His sons are thought not to inherit his ability, and 
 they excite no interest. The remarks of the Times' 
 Commissioner are found to have been very true, and 
 to have done great good — first, by causing a grand 
 cleaning and mending all tlu'ough Cahirciveen, and 
 afterwards by opening a good many eyes to the great 
 man's personal extravagance and forfeiture of liis pro- 
 
186 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 mises; and the people should not be taxed with in- 
 gratitude if these are tlie things that are heard of now. 
 Ever since we entered the country, our impression has 
 been growing stronger, that the people are not now 
 in the habit of attributing their woes to political in- 
 juries : and in this centre of O'ConnelFs influence, 
 where, ten years ago, every man was his worshiper 
 and his slave, it certainly appears now as if politics 
 occupied no part of the people's thoughts. During 
 the famine 2200 of the 3000 inhabitants of the 
 island of Valentia received relief at the soup-house ; 
 and a very large number has since emigrated from the 
 whole country round. They know very well that 
 O'ConnelFs promises were of no value against such 
 visitations as they have suffered under, and they are 
 thinking of getting food, and not of a separation from 
 England. Whatever the priests in Acliill and else- 
 where may say, the people do look to the English for 
 their redemption in this world, knowing that rom the 
 English alone has any effectual aid been derived. The 
 aspirations, desires, prayers (whatever you may call 
 such earnest wishes), that we have met with, are two, 
 from all sorts of people — that they could emigrate, and 
 that the English would come and settle and pay gooil 
 wages. Of Eepeal we have not heard one word, nor 
 of any political agitation whatever, but that which re- 
 lates to the great ecclesiastical quarrel of the day. 
 
 The most implacable enemy of OT'onnell could not 
 but be touched and softened by a visit to Derrynane 
 Abbey at this day. There can hardly be a more affect- 
 ing spectacle than that house, where so much of the 
 
CAHIUCIVEEN. 187 
 
 politics of our century has been conceived and dis- 
 cussed. The situation of that old seat of the O'Con- 
 nells is finer than description can give an idea of. 
 Seen from above, in its green cove, embosomed in 
 woods, guarded by mountains, whose grey rocks are 
 gaudy with gorse and heather, and facing a sea sprin- 
 kled with islets, it looks like a paradisiacal retreat. 
 The first glimpse of it from the Cahirciveen road (the 
 road by which O'Connell passed from one mass of his 
 large property to another) shows his yacht riding in a 
 sound in front of his grounds ; and that sea-view 
 sue'S'ests the remembrance of the old davs when the 
 O^Connells of both families — Dan^s uncles and father 
 — were understood to do as others did who lived in 
 situations so favourable for those commercial enter- 
 prises which are conducted by night. In the wild 
 times of the last century, when defiance of law was 
 rather a virtue than otherwise, and communication 
 with France was an Irish privilege, gentlemen who 
 had houses among the bays and sounds of the west 
 coast were under every inducement to make their for- 
 tunes by smuggling. The wild ruin of the house 
 where Daniel was born stands in an admirable situa- 
 tion for smuggling ; and so does the Abbey ; and the 
 legend runs, that the facility was abundantly used. 
 Smuggling is quite over now, as the coast-guard tell 
 with a sigh. And Agitation is over too. So the one 
 house stands a ruin, and the other is rotting away, in 
 damp and neglect. It is inhabited ; it is even filled 
 with company at times ; — it is to be so to-morrov;. 
 But not the less forlorn is its appearance, when seen 
 
188 LETTEPtS FROM IllELA^'D. 
 
 from a nearer point than the mountain roads, choked 
 bj its own woods, which grow almost up to the win- 
 dows, stained with damp, out of joint/unrepaired, un- 
 renewed, — it is a truly melancholy spectacle. Melan- 
 choly to all eyes, it is most so to the minds of those 
 who can go back a quarter of a century, and hear 
 again the shouts which hailed the advent of the 
 Liberator, and see again the reverent enthusiasm 
 which watched him from afar when he rested at Der- 
 rynane from his toils, and went forth to hunt among 
 his hills, or cruise about his bays. Now, there is his 
 empty yacht in the sound, and his chair in the chapel 
 covered with black cloth. All else that he enjoyed 
 there, in his vast wealth of money, fame, and po- 
 pular love, seems to be dropping away to destruction. 
 When we were there, the bay, whose full waters must 
 give Kfe and music to the whole scene, was a forlorn 
 stretch of impassable sand — neither land nor water. 
 The tide was out. It was too like the destiny of him 
 whom it neighboured so nearly. His glory swelled 
 high ; and grand at one time was its dash and roar : 
 but the tide is out. And it can never return — could 
 never have returned, if he had lived; for there is 
 going on, we trust, a gradual upheaving of the land, 
 giving some promise of that reclamation which he 
 never would allow. 
 
189 
 
 LETTER XXIY. 
 
 VALENTIA. 
 
 Septemler 29, 1852. 
 There are various reasons why Yaleutia is interesting. 
 Its Spanish name catches the ear, and reminds one of 
 the Spanish legends ^hich exist all down the coast 
 from Gahvay hither; and of the wrecking of two 
 vessels of the Armada in Malbay ; and of the frieudlv 
 intercourse which existed here between the con- 
 tinental pirates and the Irish^ in the time of war, in 
 consequence of the representations of a Catholic 
 bishop that the value of all depredations was levied 
 on the Catholics by the English. Yalentia is interest- 
 ing from its position — so favourable to smuggling, 
 invasion, and other sea tricks (from its enabling such 
 tricksters to slip out on one side while their pursuers 
 came in at the other), that Cromwell erected forts at 
 both its north and south entrances. It is interestincr 
 
 o 
 
 as overlooking O^ConnelFs town of Cahirciveen, yet 
 being never visited by him. It is interesting as being 
 a sort of little kincrdom of the Ivnic^hts of Kerrv — the 
 Eitz2:eralds — who would not exchans^e that old title 
 of Knight of Kerrv for anv that the Queen could 
 
190 LETTERS mOM IRELAND. 
 
 bestow. It is interesting as being one of the places 
 named for a packet-station — its port being the western- 
 most in Europe ; and " the next parish/^ for which 
 an official gentleman was one day inquiring, being in 
 America. A packet-station however it is not to be. 
 Passing over other causes of interest^ we come to that 
 which is, at the present moment, of the deepest signi- 
 ficance in our eyes. Yalentia affords the broadest 
 hints of any place we have visited of the importance 
 of the settlement of the English in Ireland. And the 
 present moment is the time tu point this out, as the 
 island is in the Incumbered Estates Court, and is to 
 be sold (the inhabitants believe) in October. 
 
 The island is five miles long, by two and a half 
 broad. Of its noble scenery, this is not the place to 
 speak. Before the famine, its population was 3000. 
 Now, in spite of the highly favourable circumstances 
 we shall speak of, the population is only 2500. The 
 Knight of Kerry has a house there, in a fine situation, 
 with some woods about it, and a capital dairy of Kerry 
 cows. A good deal of butter is made for exportation, 
 and the cattle, a small and pretty breed, are an orna- 
 ment to the hills and fields. The cabins of the rural 
 population are wretched. The thatched roofs are 
 rounded, and have no eaves ; and the dwellings are 
 usually set down one before another ; so that a hamlet 
 has the appearance, from a little distance, that we no- 
 ticed in the fishijig villages in Achill, of a cluster of 
 Hottentot kraals. In our eyes they are less respect- 
 able than Indian wigwams, because of their darkness, 
 and the infamous filth sm-rounding them, in the hoi- 
 
VALENTIA. 191 
 
 lows in wliich thej are sunk. The squaws in Wis- 
 consin throw skins and fish-bones about; but their 
 wigwams are pitched on dry sand or the wholesome 
 grass of the prairie, and are shifted when the stench 
 begins. Throughout the rural districts — elsewhere as 
 well as here — we have been struck with the laziness 
 of the people about beginning the day. Daylight is 
 precious now, and we are abroad early. After a couple 
 of hours' travelling, we see the housewife sitting down 
 to milk her cow (by her own fireside, literally), and 
 the donkey putting his head out of the cottage door, 
 going forth for his morning meal : he has waited till 
 the dew is ofP the grass. The children, still hot and 
 heavy with sleep, in their rags (the same that they 
 have slept in), are a disgusting sight to the traveller 
 who is some miles on his road. This is not digres- 
 sion, though it looks like it. 
 
 You ask somebody at Yalentia whether there is no 
 fishing going on. The answer is that you may get 
 iiny fish you please. '^But does anybody get it?'"* 
 Two or three nets may be seen drying on the grass in 
 the space of five miles, and a man on the road wanders 
 about with two crabs to sell. You are told that there 
 is a fishing station about a mile and a half from the 
 port; a curing-house, where there were to have been 
 boats and nets and employment for many people; but, 
 from one thing or another happening, the place has 
 never been opened. You find that one of the Fitz- 
 geralds designed this fishery ; that then it was sold — 
 not yet in operation — to a gentleman who hoped great 
 things from it ; that he, in his turn, parted with it to 
 
192 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 the Irish Eishing Company, who talk about opening 
 it; but that it is still only talk. If you look in 
 upon the people, you find them at dinner, perhaps ; 
 or rather, you find them eating; for regular meals 
 seem not to be liked. They prefer salt fish to fresh, 
 and sour milk to sweet: so you find them turning 
 out their potatoes and salt fish (dried on the roof or 
 the fence) upon the floor, — or a board, if they happen 
 to have one, — there being no utensil whatever in the 
 house but the big pot the potatoes are boiled in, and 
 the bogwood keeler or beaker that the cow is milked 
 into; for this discomfort is not from poverty, but 
 occurs in a dwelling where the man possesses a cow, 
 pigs, geese, and chickens, as readily as wdiere he is 
 worth nothing. The doctor cannot find any sort of 
 utensil in which to administer medicine in cabins wdiicli 
 shelter as many farm beasts as childi'en, and where the 
 owner farms twenty acres ! This is enough. It will 
 show you one aspect of hfe at Yalentia, — which is 
 much like that life at Cahirciveen with which every- 
 body has been made familiar. Now for the other. 
 
 At the little port there is a preventive station, a 
 station of constabulary, a little inn renowned for its 
 '^fragrant cleanliness," and a large establishment of 
 slate-works, in connection wdth the splendid slate- 
 quarries up in the hills. These slate-works have been 
 in operation five-and-thirty years, sustained by Eng- 
 lish capital, and conducted by English skill and care. 
 The workpeople however are Irish, every man of lliem, 
 except the overlooker, who is Welsh. At present 
 there are 120 men employed at the quarries and 
 
 I 
 
VALE>TIA. 193 
 
 works; and the difference between this part of the 
 population and the rest is so striking that the blind 
 might be aware of it. It is not only that the men 
 and boys, even those at the roughest work, can 
 scarcely be called ragged at all ; there is a look and 
 tone of decent composure and independence about 
 them which seems at once to set one down among a 
 company of well-paid English artisans. These people 
 are all well-paid : and, by good training, they get to 
 work very well in time. Their ideas rise with their 
 position : and then occurs the difficulty — what to do 
 for wives ; for men thus improved in their tastes do 
 not exactly Hke to pick up wives out of the stench of 
 the cabins. 
 
 We have mentioned the little inn. It has been 
 kept for nineteen years past by an Englishwoman. 
 TV hen a window is broken, she has the glazier over 
 to mend it. There are no holes in the floor, nor 
 stains of damp on the walls. The carpets, carefully 
 mended, are so bright that you see there is no dust in 
 them. The forks and spoons shine. The white bed- 
 curtains would show every speck : but there are no 
 specks to show. There is not even a cobweb any- 
 where ; and this is the first time we have missed cob- 
 webs in an Irish inn. The kitchen is as clean as the 
 bedrooms. TVe questioned the sensible old lady 
 closely as to how she managed to get her house kept 
 in this way, for she could not, if she were half her 
 age, do all this work herself. She told us that she 
 has taken the most likely girls into her service, shown 
 them how she chose to have things done, seen that 
 
 K 
 
194 LETTERS FEOM IRELAND. 
 
 they were done properly ; and, if she met with resist- 
 ance or laziness, sent away the recusant in a trice. 
 Such was her account. Elsewhere we were furnished 
 with an appendix to it. She cannot keep her servants. 
 However short a time the girls remain with her, they 
 become superior to other girls in their domestic habits, 
 so that they are sought by the men at the slate-works. 
 The superiority is, in most cases, still very small ; and 
 there is often a sad falling back after a little while; 
 yet their destiny, as wives to the most prosperous men 
 on the island, shows what would be the effect of an 
 improved training of the women. Again, the pro- 
 prietor of the slate-works lives beside them. He and 
 his lady are EngHsh; and they bring over English 
 servants, for their own comfort. They also lose all 
 their servants immediately. The best men at the 
 works marry them, as surely as they see their neat 
 ways and their English industry. 
 
 And how was it with this marked population at the 
 time of the famine ? We have said that out of a po- 
 pulation of 3000, no less than 2200 received relief. 
 We have now to add that, out of the remaining 800, 
 no less than 600 were maintained by the slate- works. 
 There were actually only 200 who were not either 
 slate-workers' families or paupers. Such a fact speaks 
 for itself. 
 
 There has been a great emigration from Yalentia, as 
 from everywhere else ; and some people on the main- 
 land told us that they thought all the Irish would go 
 away : and certainly it seems as if all connected with 
 the land, or with precarious employments, earnestly 
 
VALENTIA. 195 
 
 desired to go. They talk to us eagerly about it_, and 
 look wistfully in our faces, as in some hope that we 
 might possibly help them away — car-drivers, waiters 
 at inns, and shop-people, as well as the peasantry. But 
 we hear notliing of this from men who are earning 
 regular and good wages. The evident sense of inse- 
 curity among people who see what is the present de- 
 pendence upon tourists is, while very touching, a good 
 symptom. There is no need to explain how earnest 
 is the desire among such for more and more English 
 to come and settle. Yalentia is called the next 
 parish to America. We do wish that the Americans 
 who are sympathizing with Eepealers, and acting and 
 speaking on the supposition that all Irishmen are 
 praying day and night for release from English op- 
 pression, could step into this " next parish," and thence 
 on, as far as Derrynane Abbey, and hear for them- 
 selves how much the Irish are thinking about Eepeal, 
 and what is their actual feeling towards the English, 
 on the one hand, and, on the other, towards their own 
 landlords, who would have composed their '' Parliament 
 in College Green ^ long ere this, if the Liberator had 
 had his way. 
 
 k2 
 
196 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 PRIESTS AND LANDLORDS— NEW FEATURES OF IRISH 
 LIFE. 
 
 Octoher 5, 1852. 
 
 As week after week passes away, and we travel from 
 moorland to village, and from coast to city, the old 
 state of Ireland comes out to the eye more clearly 
 from the new innovations upon it; and the innova- 
 tions themselves become more distinct in their opera- 
 tion as the old state of things reveals itself to the 
 vigilant observer. At first, there is a confusion, as 
 in a dissolving view, when a new scene presents itself 
 before another is gone; but, by degrees, the two 
 separate themselves into a background and a fore- 
 ground, and are equally clear at their respective dis- 
 tances. Day by day now we watch with more in- 
 terest the movements of the two great background 
 figures — the landlord and the priest — observing how 
 they are themselves watching each other, and the 
 innovations proceeding before their eyes. This jea- 
 lous watchfulness is the only thing in which they 
 agree — unless, indeed, it be in their both being very 
 unhappy. 
 
 Very unhappy they both are. The landlord has 
 
PRIESTS AND LANDLORDS. 197 
 
 for centuries been a sort of prince on his own terri- 
 tory. His lands spread along the sea and over the 
 mountains, and include the rivers, like a royal do- 
 minion. A man who calls mountains and rivers his 
 own cannot but feel himself a prince ; and princely is 
 the pride of the Irish landlord. His word has been 
 law, and there has been no one to call him to account 
 till within a quarter of a century. First, his old 
 enemy, the priest, was emancipated ; and now, one 
 attack upon his prerogative after another has driven 
 him to desperation. He believes himself the object 
 of legislative persecution — he is called to account 
 about the letting of his lands — he is rated for the 
 support of his poor — his solvent tenants throw up 
 their farms and leave the country — and he is not al- 
 lowed to evict in his own way those who cannot pay 
 rent. His rents fail him ; and, when he cannot pay 
 his debts, his estates are sold for the benefit of his 
 creditors ; and he finds himself stripped of lands, 
 power, and position, with little (perhaps too little) 
 solace of sympathy and indulgent construction. Those 
 who have sunk are, for the most part, quiet — as be- 
 seems their dignity. Those who are sinking, or in 
 fear of sinking, are very far from being quiet. They 
 scold and vituperate the priest, as if both were in 
 rivalship about rising, instead of being both under 
 the same doom of fall. There is nothing more pain- 
 ful than landlord language about the priests ; unless 
 it be the ever-strengthening suspicion in the ob- 
 server's mind of the part borne by the priests in the 
 destruction of the landlord. 
 
198 LETTERS FKOM IRELAND. 
 
 The priest is as far from peace and prosperity as 
 his great rival. He is in deep poverty, from the de- 
 population of the rural districts,, which were his bank 
 up to the time of the famine. He is reduced to fol- 
 low the Protestant zealots from house to house, and 
 set up his sacerdotal threats against the promises and 
 praises of the emissaries who are seducing his flock 
 from him. He is confronted with rustics who hold 
 up their Bibles before his eyes; and little children 
 are lifted up in his path to spit Scripture texts in his 
 face. He is not allowed to manage his duty in his 
 own way, and to take care of his own position. It is 
 clearly understood, among both his friends and his 
 enemies^ that he is controlled "from head quarters," 
 so that he is compelled to do what he knows to be 
 rash, and forbidden to do what he believes to be best. 
 About the Eibbon Societies, those may speak who 
 have knowledge. We have none, beyond that which 
 is possessed by all the world, — that the priests know 
 all about them ; and that the priesthood have un- 
 bounded power over them. Whether it is true, as 
 many beheve, that the matter is managed by an au- 
 thority above that of the resident priesthood — whe- 
 ther the resident priests are wiUing or unwilhng par- 
 ticipants in a system of secret and bloody conspiracy, 
 is a matter of which we know nothing, xill that we 
 can say is, that there can be no conspiracy against 
 the property and life of the landlords that the priests 
 are not fully informed of"^. Which is the more uu- 
 
 * After this was written, we learucd more than we could liave an- 
 ticipated of the decay of the practice of confession among the men in 
 
NEW FEATURES OF IRISH LIFE. 199 
 
 happy class of the two, there is no need to estimate. 
 The landlord struggles, protests, or silently mourns, 
 and sinks. The priest goes about with an unpleasant 
 countenance — significant, discontented, suspicious; in 
 his unreserved moments confiding to a friendly ear 
 his rec^rets that Irish affairs are misunderstood "at 
 head- quarters ;" — that he is compelled to obey orders 
 which he thinks ignorant and rash; — and that the 
 Wiseman movement was prematurely made : and 
 while he thus unburdens his mind, he is sinking 
 perhaps as fast as his rival. 
 
 As for the innovations — the modern features of 
 Irish affairs — they are curiously connected with each 
 other, and with an older time. Down in the O^Con- 
 nell part of Kerry, where Eepeal was the cry which 
 once echoed from every mountain steep, we saw some 
 noticeable things. There was a fair at Cahirciveen 
 the morning that we left the neighbourhood. "We 
 set out very early ; and for five hours we met the peo- 
 ple going to the fair. Por a distance of fifteen Irish 
 miles we saw almost the whole population on the 
 road, or crossing the bogs towards it. We were 
 agreeably surprised by their appearance on the whole, 
 though the produce they were carrying was small. 
 Many of the women rode — each behind her husband 
 (not on pillions) — on good horses; and men and women 
 were well dressed. The number of mules was sur- 
 
 Ireland. Among the women it continues ; and from them, and b}"- 
 other means, the priest knows enough, it is believed, to stop agrarian 
 crime, if he was bent upon it. But his knowledge of popular secrets 
 is not what it once was. 
 
200 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 prising ; and there were not a few carts. The walkers 
 usually carried shoes, and were substantially clothed ; 
 and we scarcely saw a beggar that whole morning. 
 Out of some of the most wretched hovels came men 
 in new blue cloth coats (of the country homespun), 
 and women with silk handkerchiefs, and here and 
 there an artificial flower in the cap ; affording another 
 evidence that the condition of the people is not to be 
 judged of by that of their dwellings. The last party 
 we saw going to the fair was a group of three women, 
 coming down a mountain path near Derrynane Abbey. 
 Among this population there is now no talk — and 
 most people think little remembrance of any talk — 
 about Eepeal. And why ? Some miles further on we 
 came to the beautiful Dromore, the seat of Mr. Ma- 
 hony, whose estates extend far away over the mountains 
 towards Cahirciveen and Killarney. We were struck 
 with the prosperous appearance of the whole neigh- 
 bourhood ; and when we reached the wretched Ken- 
 mare, we heard a good deal about Mr. Mahony and 
 his property, which explained some tilings that we had 
 seen. We were told that Mr. Mahony was "fortu- 
 nately circumstanced " about his property : that he 
 is never disappointed in his rents ; that everything 
 grows well on his lands ; that he had not more than 
 ten or twelve paupers on all his property in the famine 
 time ; and that, moreover, though he is a Protestant, 
 he is a very good man, and his neighbours love him. 
 When we inquired how he came by all this good 
 ^' fortune,'^ we learned that he and his father before 
 him (wlio was a clergyman) fixed very moderate rents, 
 
NEW FEATURES OF IRISH LIFE. 201 
 
 and were very strict about gettiiig them; that they 
 allowed iio sub-letting on any pretence whatever ; and 
 that good tillage was encouraged in every way. The 
 tenants are well off ; pay their rent as a matter of 
 course ; and have proved themselves able to bear the 
 stress of such misfortune as can scarcely visit them 
 again. They do not want Repeal; being naturally 
 content as they are. But Kenmare ! — what a spec- 
 tacle it is, even now, when the streets are not strewn 
 with dead and dying, and young men are not em- 
 ployed as they were in famine time, to carry the dead 
 to the parish coffin, which held six corpses. The 
 Kenmare Union is ^^ the most distressed union almost 
 in Ireland," we were told on the spot. It is many 
 thousand pounds in debt ; and there is " a great wish 
 to shut it up f " but," said more than one informant, 
 " the commissioners will stand by the poor." It was 
 pleasant to hear that expression so near Derrynane 
 Abbey ; to find that the Imperial Government, in this 
 one form in which it is known to the poor, is re- 
 garded as their refuge and their hope. Kenmare is, 
 as everybody knows, chiefly the property of the Mar- 
 quis of Lansdowne, and so is that part of the neigh- 
 bourhood which is the most terribly reduced. He is 
 a good landlord as far as intention goes ; has made 
 roads here and there all through Kerry, and has 
 enabled six hundred of his tenantry to emigrate. But 
 there must be fault somewhere to cause so strong a 
 contrast between his tenantry and that of his neigh- 
 bour, Mr. Mahony. Some told us that he had not 
 been there for fourteen years; and others said that 
 
 k3 
 
202 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 everything had begun to improve since his present 
 agent superseded the former. The former agent (a 
 Scotchman too) " had an object/' as an advocate of 
 the potato told us (one who, from his position, ought 
 to know better), in encouraging the utmost possible 
 growth of the potato : he thought, by that means, to 
 reclaim mountain land. So he let small patches of it 
 
 to all comers : and they sublet it, and . But it 
 
 is the old story, which we may spare ourselves the 
 pain of telUng again. There were sixteen or twenty 
 families on one farm, the lessee of which would " walk 
 about with his hands in his pockets, wliile the poor 
 paid his rent ;" and on the smallest plots there were 
 as many mouths as could be fed in the best seasons. 
 Hence the horrors about Kenmare in the famine, 
 when half the population of the town died; and in 
 the country, many roofs were tumbled in upon dead 
 families whom there was nobody to bury. Even now 
 some persons who are not landlords hesitate to admit 
 that this method of " reclamation '^ was a bad one. 
 They still encourage the culture of the potato, as 
 "the finest crop after all," wliile seeing what good 
 consequences are arising from the new agent's prac- 
 tice of attaching the plots to neighbouring farms, as 
 fast as the holders emigrate. In Kenmare there 
 seems to be no trade, and scarcely any productive 
 industry; while there is more depression than in 
 almost any other town we have visited : yet there, 
 quite as evidently as in the more prosperous neigh- 
 bourhood, the people do iiot want Repeal, but rather 
 look to British institutions for " standing by the poor." 
 
 I 
 
NEW FEATURES OF IRISH LIFE. 203 
 
 Since we were there, this subject has beeu more 
 than once brought to our minds — and in ways not a 
 little touching. We were standing, the other day, on 
 a grassy terrace above the glorious river near Cork, 
 when our host pointed out to us, very high up on the 
 wooded hill which forms the opposite bank, a white 
 house, just Wsible among the trees. We admired the 
 beauty of the situation : but it was not that. That 
 was the house where Eobert Emmett courted poor 
 Sarah Curran. There he went, day after day, with 
 his head full of those schemes of repeal of which she 
 knew nothing. If it is touching to us to connect 
 these young people and their fate with that gay scene 
 of activity and beauty, what must it have been to 
 them — to him before his violent death, and to her in 
 her slow decline? Not many hours after, we were 
 traversing Tipperary, looking out in vain for human 
 beings, for miles together, — though the cattle and the 
 tillage in the fields showed that there must be inha- 
 bitants. Except about the towns we saw nobody. 
 Where there are people they always come out to look 
 at the railway train ; but we swept through an almost 
 deserted country, for scarcely any appeared. As we 
 entered the valley of the Suir, and drew near Clonmel, 
 we were observing a long slope of tillage, ending in a 
 mountain. The mountain was Slieve-na-mon, the 
 place of meeting of the Executive Council of 1848. 
 In the private parlour of the inn at Clonmel hung two 
 prints and a medallion. The prints were portraits of 
 Smith O^Brien and Meagher. The medallion was 
 Mitchell. In the course of some conversation with a 
 
204 LETTEllS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 resident, we observed that these men, if they had suc- 
 ceeded at first, must presently have come to ruin, be- 
 cause they were Protestants, as Protestants cannot 
 hold rule in a priestly movement. The answer was, 
 that Ireland is very wretched ; that Ireland has more 
 wretchedness than she can bear; that a good Pro- 
 testant is better than a bad Catholic to raise Ireland 
 out of her wretchedness. This was the first time that 
 we had met with anything approaching to a vindica- 
 tion of Eepeal or an interest in it ; and in this case the 
 plea was simply " wretchedness ^' — meaning poverty. 
 As we passed down the rest of the valley of the Suir, 
 we thought that its loveliness and fertility (for it is 
 full of promise) must rise up before the eyes of the 
 exiles, much as that river scene at Cork certainly did 
 within the prison-walls of Eobert Emmett, when he 
 wrote his last letter to his beloved. Among the re- 
 cent phenomena of Irish life, we hope we may recog- 
 nize this — that the lovers of their country have more 
 knowledge and less presumption than those who have 
 failed before them ; and that they see that patriotism 
 requires that they should not endanger the peace of 
 their country, and the lives of their countrymen, with- 
 out well knowing what are their own aims and re- 
 sources. 
 
 Of other new features of Irish life I have no room 
 to speak to-day. 
 
205 
 
 LETTER XXTI. 
 
 EMIGRATION AND EDUCATION. 
 
 Octoher 1, 1852. 
 Among tlie new features of Irish life, none is more 
 striking than the emigration that is going on almost 
 the whole year round. We have met with scarcely 
 anybody who does not lament over this departure of 
 the people as an unmitigated misfortune, — it being 
 the middle-aged and young who go, and the aged 
 and cliildren who are left behind. You do not need 
 to be told that we do not share this regret, though we 
 can easily understand and cordially respect it. The 
 clearance of the land by a method which secures the 
 maintenance of the inhabitants seems to us a very 
 great good. The aged are more safe and comfortable 
 in workhouses than they could have been amidst the 
 chances of Irish cabin life in these times : and as for 
 the children, the orphans and the deserted, they are 
 the hope of the country. Erom the workhouse schools, 
 a large body of young people will be coming forth, 
 very soon, with new ideas, good habits, and qualifica- 
 tions which will make of them a higher order of pea- 
 santry than Ireland has ever yet known. But the 
 
206 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 landlord watches with pain the autumnal emigration 
 which we see going forward from Cork, Waterford, 
 and Wexford. It is the respectable farming class that 
 goes out in autumn. Hundreds of farmers — each 
 with his family party — are, this month, paying away 
 for passage-money the cash they have received for 
 their crops ; and day by day they are sailing : here, a 
 middle-aged father and mother, with a son of twenty, 
 and four young daughters, paying £112 for their 
 passage to Australia; there, a younger couple, ^Yith 
 three or four infants, bound for the Mississippi valley. 
 Tempted by no lease, — detained by no engagement 
 with the landlord, such men as these sell oS their 
 crops and go, paying their rent if they can, and if 
 they think proper; but too many, not thinking it pro- 
 per — saying that the landlord has had much more 
 than his due out of them, on the whole, and that they 
 can't spare him the cash which will take their children 
 to a better country. We do not speak of this as a 
 general case ; but it is too common a spectacle. Of 
 course, the landlord does not like it. The spring 
 emigration is equally distasteful to the priest. It is 
 in spring that the poorest people go ; and they are 
 the priest's peculiar people. But the priests are 
 becoming, more and more, one of the heaviest of the 
 burdens of the poor. They are raising their charges 
 for their offices as their flocks diminish ; and this does 
 not add to the inducements to the remainder to stay. 
 The marriage fee is established at 10s, The priest 
 now demands £1. Even at this price, his gains are 
 much diminished ; for the custom of handing round 
 
EMIGRATION AND EDUCATION. 207 
 
 the plate used to yield from tenfold to a hundredfold 
 what is got by fees from the married. A priest used 
 to get sometimes a hundred pounds from the plate, — 
 in the days when the priests kept horses and cars. 
 Young couples now have frequently to borrow money 
 to pay the priest his fee. A Quaker lady was lately 
 so struck by the extortion in the case of a couple who 
 were thus borrowings that she wrote to the priest. 
 He made an evasive answer to her, and to the young 
 people insisted on his £1. The lady called on his 
 bishop. The bishop said that the fee was lO^., 5<?. 
 for himself, and 5-5. for the officiating priest. The 
 priest, however, would not give way, and he got his 
 £1. Such men do not like to see the spring emigra- 
 tion of peasantry and impoverished farmers, escaping 
 from their control to a country where they will find 
 no fairies, will hear no denunciations from the altar, 
 will incur no sacerdotal curse, and will either turn 
 Protestant in a little while, or will write home how much 
 more easy and comfortable an affair Catholicism is in 
 America than in Ireland. The tradesmen do not like 
 the emigration — regarding it either as a sign or a 
 threat that productive industry has ceased or will cease, 
 and dreading the time when there will be no exporta- 
 tion of produce, except the landlord's cattle, and no 
 home demand for what tradesmen sell. The remain- 
 ing farmers do not like it, because it raises wages. 
 They will soon have to give their labourers three six- 
 pences a day, instead of one ; and they do not yet see 
 that their labourers will then be worth three times as 
 much as they are now. Some people are asking them 
 
208 LETTERS EROM IRELAND. 
 
 now, " Would not you go away if you could get only 
 6^. a day ? " — " When you pay a man 6^/. a day, are 
 you not bribing him to lie down on his back in the 
 sun as soon as you are out of sight V But the farmer 
 does not yet see this. He talks of the lazy nature of 
 the labourer, and pays him so little that he has not 
 strength for severe toil, and needs to lie down in the 
 sun as soon as his employer's back is turned. The 
 very few who do like the emigration — through all its 
 sadness — are the managers of the workhouses, and 
 men who can look forward to the time — not very dis- 
 tant — when the aged who are left behind shall have 
 gone decently to their graves, warmed and fed mean- 
 while — and the children shall have come forth as a 
 new race of labourers — and the lands which are now 
 thrown together for grazing shall have recovered their 
 fertility, and be again fit for tillage — and a hundred 
 burdened estates shall have been divided among a 
 thousand unburdened proprietors — and new sources 
 of industry and profit may be opened up, as in a new 
 colony; when, in short, this fine country shall have 
 renewed its youth, through the removal of its worst 
 irritations and pains, and the infusion of fresh nou- 
 rishment. 
 
 And here is another innovation. It is pleasant to 
 be informed and reminded, in almost every house we 
 enter, that the purchasers in the Incumbered Estates 
 Court are almost all Irish. Everybody seems to know 
 exactly how many EngHsli and Scotch there are, and 
 to be pleased that there are so few, even while hoping 
 that more English capitalists will come, and telling 
 
EMIGKATION AND EDUCATION. 209 
 
 what good has been done by those who are already 
 liere. They believe, and hope, in fact, that the Irish 
 purchasers (who cannot be, to any considerable extent, 
 of the old landlord class) will bring an English mind, 
 so to speak, to their new enterprise, — conducting it, 
 not according to feudal prejudices, but to sound eco- 
 nomical principles. Eor our part we cordially sym- 
 pathize in this gratification, and say that we hope the 
 new purchasers are some of the 20,000 Irish capitalists 
 who have been investing nearly £40,000,000 in our 
 SJ per cents. Our informants and we join in being 
 glad that Mr. Ashworth has (if the newspapers say 
 true) bought the salmon-fishery at Galway, and that 
 the people about Carrickfergus are associating to work 
 the great salt-mine there ; and that the " slob'^ lands 
 reclaimed from AYexford harbour are rewarding the 
 enterprise of their reclamation ; glad, in short, of every 
 exposure to the sunshine of daylight and of hope of 
 the great natural wealth of Ireland. 
 
 Though the difficulty about the tenure of land is 
 an old one, the tenant-right agitation, as a way to a 
 remedy, is a new feature. It is enough to say now 
 that the agitation cannot die away fruitlessly ; that it 
 surely cannot end in the confiscation, avowed or vir- 
 tual, of the landlord^'s property ; and that no one will 
 be more benefited than himself if, through this move- 
 ment, he finds himself released from legal restrictions 
 which, though called privileges, are as baneful to him- 
 self as to his tenants, by impeding the improvement of 
 the soil. It is a movement as yet too indeterminate to be 
 accepted as more than the expression of a great need. 
 
210 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 Yiewed in that way, it is — however unacceptable to 
 the landlord and (as a sign of progress) to the priest 
 — full of interest and of promise. We have seen, for 
 the last few days, what the country looks like in a 
 part where the landlords cannot be so feudal as else- 
 where — in a part where free-trade has poured in food, 
 and kept the population alive, and where commerce is 
 too firmly established not to have made its benefits 
 felt through all the distresses of the last seven years. 
 In travelling from Waterford to Wexford, the travel- 
 ler's spirits rise, however sad are some of the road- 
 side spectacles that meet his eye. Over and beyond 
 them he sees the ranges of farmyard stacks, the flou- 
 rishing dairies, the shipments of produce from the long 
 quays — the signs of mingled agricultural and commer- 
 cial industry which denote and promise a social wel- 
 fare that the landlord and priest in league could not 
 overthrow. While this evidence is before the world's 
 eyes, in any part of the island, the landlord cannot 
 uphold, or return to, his feudality; and the great 
 question of tenure is on the way to a settlement, whe- 
 ther by tenant-right associations or by other means. 
 
 It is grievous to see one new feature of Irish life 
 disappearing before the echo of the world's admira- 
 tion has died away. At Cork there stands a chapel, 
 conspicuous in its situation, and meant to be so for 
 its beauty — Father Mathew's chapel — built as a mo- 
 nument of Temperance reform. Its pillars are trun- 
 cated, its arches stop short in their spring, its windows 
 are boarded up ; it stands a sad type of the Temperance 
 Reform itself — a failed enterprise. The relapse of 
 
EMIGRATION AND EDUCATION. 211 
 
 the people into intemperance is indubitable and very 
 rapid. Everywhere we are told that the temperance, 
 begun in superstition and political enthusiasm, was 
 maintained only by the destitution of the famine time ; 
 and everywhere we see but too plainly that the re- 
 straint was artificial and temporary. " Now that they 
 are better off," we are told, " they are taking to drink 
 again /' and so it seems, by what we see in the towns 
 and by the roadside. We never beheved that such a 
 process as that of self-government could come, com- 
 plete, out of such an act as a vow, or such an impulse 
 as social sympathy. And it seems that the further 
 safeguard of experience of the healthfulness and com- 
 fort of sobriety — an experience so lauded before the 
 famine — is not enough. Once more, and as usual, 
 we must look for hope and help to that power which 
 wiU never disappoint us— to education. Of aU the 
 new features of Irish life, this is the most important. 
 It is too important a subject to be introduced at the 
 end of a letter, if it could come in amiss anywhere. 
 But its name tells everytliing : explains its nature, 
 and asserts its value. It is a leading out of. Educa- 
 tion win lead the Irish people out of their woes ; and 
 it will lead them up to the tlireshold of a better 
 destiny. 
 
212 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 THE PEOPLE AND THE TWO CHURCHES. 
 
 October 10, 1852. 
 In casting back a last look upon Ireland as her shores 
 recede, the traveller naturally thinks of that remark- 
 able island as she once was, in contrast with what she 
 has been since, and with what she is now. There was a 
 time when L-eland gave light — intellectual and moral 
 — to the nations of northern Europe ; when she was 
 the centre of the Christian faith, whence apostles 
 went forth to teach it, and where disciples of many 
 nations came to learn it. She had a reputation for 
 scholarship and sanctity before England and Scotland 
 were distinctly heard of. Eew nations tlieii stood so 
 high as the Irish ; and few have ever sunk so lowas she 
 has since sunk. Her modern state has been a mourn- 
 ful burlesque upon the ancient one. Instead of the 
 ancient apostles, we have seen her modern priests ; 
 instead of the old chiefs, her modern landlords ; in- 
 stead of the ancient orders and guilds, her recent secret 
 societies of rebels against the Government, conspirators 
 against the landlord, and slaves of the priests. In- 
 stead of the ancient feasts, feuds, and forays, we have 
 
THE PEOPLE AND THE TWO CHUKCHES. 213 
 
 seen modem famine, and an escape from home far 
 more awful to witness than any exodus from a land of 
 bondage. 
 
 Though this last movement proceeds, it is clearly 
 true that Ireland has entered upon a new period — 
 upon a new life which is full of hope. We ought not 
 to be surprised if the people are slow to see this — if 
 the emigration should go on as at present, for some 
 years to come. The people cannot be expected to 
 forget what they have seen in ghastly years just over. 
 While waste lands lie round about them, and roofless 
 cottages stare them in the face, wherever they turn, 
 and the churches quarrel, and priest says that all is 
 going to ruin, the peasant and the farmer cannot be 
 expected to see that there is "a good time coming;" 
 and they may have reached a foreign shore, and have 
 looked homewards thence for a long while before 
 they perceive that the good time has actually set in. 
 But that it is so, is clear to the less-interested ob- 
 server. 
 
 There is nothing the matter with the original 
 structure of the country. The land is good enough : 
 the sea is fruitful enough ; and there is plenty of it, 
 all round the indented coasts; and, under the soil, 
 there is almost as much wealth as its surface could 
 yield. There is nothing the matter with the country. 
 And there is nothing the matter with the men in it, 
 but what is superinduced. There is no need to 
 speak of the fine qualities of the Irish character ; for 
 they are acknowledged all over the world. As for the 
 rest, employ them at task- work — at secure work — 
 
214) LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 and they soon show themselves as industrious as any- 
 body. Pay them regular wages, and pay them in 
 cash, and they immediately show themselves as pro- 
 vident as anybody. INFot as skilful in depositing and 
 investing — that is another matter, but as capable of 
 looking forward, and of providing for the future. Let 
 them alone about their religion, and obviate compe- 
 tition for land, and they are as peaceable as anybody. 
 We cannot yet point out the circumstances in which 
 they are found as truthful as other people ; for, in sad 
 fact, wehave met with few signs of that virtue, except 
 among some educated and in rare cases besides ; but 
 we can see how the vice has grown up, how it 
 has been encouraged, and, we trust, how it not only 
 may be, but will be, outgrown. Lying is the vice of 
 slaves ; and the extraordinary and extreme inaccuracy 
 of statement that everybody meets with all over 
 Ireland is the natural product of the fear and hatred 
 in which the people have lived for centuries, with such 
 a priesthood as theirs for their moral guides. One of 
 us observed to the other, a few days since, in talking 
 over the testimony of a poor man on an important 
 matter, that it was the first time since we entered the 
 country that information given by anybody had been 
 confirmed by the independent testimony of anybody 
 else. To us, one of the most mournful spectacles in 
 the country is that of the courts of justice, — those 
 platforms on which lying on the largest scale, and 
 perjury the most audacious, are ostentatiously ex- 
 hibited to the world. To see for one's self how strong 
 is the Irishman's natural sense and love of justice, 
 
THE PEOPLE AND THE TWO CHURCHES. 215 
 
 and then to observe him as witness or counsel in a 
 court of laWj is one the strangest experiences we 
 know. We believe the virtue to be constitutional 
 and permanent; the vice, induced and temporary. 
 The Irishman has had too little occasion to see that 
 law has any sort of connection with justice. When the 
 connection is more extensively established than even 
 now, great as are the recent improvements in the law, 
 the Irishman's love of justice will make him an ally of 
 the law, instead of its quizzing and cunning foe. We 
 have had frequent occasion to regret the high walls 
 which surround all the pretty places in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the towns we have last visited. While 
 walking or driving between such walls, with nothing 
 but the sky to look at, we have been told the reason 
 — that the people have so httle idea of the law being 
 instituted for just and mutually protective purposes, 
 that trespass and damage are preventible only by such 
 defences as these walls. If we should live to come 
 again, some years hence, we shall hope to find railings 
 in the place of these walls. We should Hke to see 
 what is within ; but we should like much more to see 
 the people learning that the law is meant to be every 
 honest man's friend, and guarding it accordingly. As 
 to the practical failure of trial by jury meanwhile, we 
 see nothing to be done but to educate the people up 
 to it. The deepening adversity of the Catholic priest- 
 hood on the one hand, and the spread of education 
 through the National Schools on the other, afPord 
 such promise of an improvement of the national cha- 
 racter in regard to veracity, that, in our opinion, the 
 
216 LETTERS EROM IRELAND. 
 
 effect of such improvement upon the administration 
 of justice must be waited for. Great as is the evil 
 of a vicious or insecure administration of justice, it 
 appears to us to be less than that of altering the prin- 
 ciple and form, in condescension to a vice of national 
 character which may be in course of cure. 
 
 Up to a very recent time — probably up to this hour 
 — there has been discussion among EngHsh poHtical 
 economists as to whether, in consideration of the 
 Irishman's passion for land, there might not be, in 
 his case, some relaxation of established rules, some 
 suspension of scientific maxims, about small holdings 
 of land; whether the indolence, improvidence, and 
 turbulent character of the Irish peasantry might not 
 be changed into the opposite characteristics of the 
 Flemish and Saxon countryman, by putting them in 
 the same position. We have borne this question in 
 mind throughout our survey of the country. ATe pre- 
 sently saw that the habits of slovenly cultivation, of 
 dependence on the potato, and of consequent idleness 
 for the greater part of the year, were too firmly asso- 
 ciated in the peasant mind with the possession of land 
 to allow the peasant to be a safe proprietor at present. 
 A course of discipline was obviously necessary to fit 
 him, in any degree, for the possession of land : and 
 tliis discipline he could never have while on the land, 
 and especially with the priest at his elbow, whose bu- 
 siness it is to prevent his obtaining knowledge and 
 independence. By degrees we discovered how the ne- 
 cessary discipline was being received precisely by those 
 men who are not on the land. And a very pleasant 
 
THE PEOPLE AND THE TWO CHUHCHES. 217 
 
 discipline it is to them, — being that of a growing pros- 
 perity under work for wages. The chief reason of the 
 passion of the Irish peasant for land is that land has 
 always been, to him and to his fathers before him, the 
 symbol of power, independence, and dignity. Recent 
 years have shown him great landowners stripped of 
 their lands, and, in many cases, glad to be so ; — and 
 men of power, independence, and dignity, whose pos- 
 sessions are in some other form than land. He feels 
 something of this himself, when, remembering his 
 hungering family on his putrid potato-plot, he now 
 looks at the money he has laid by since he began to 
 work for wages. He cannot but feel the comfort of 
 his present state in comparison with the former. We 
 have said before how great is the readiness, the eager- 
 ness to work for fair wages, paid regularly and in 
 cash. It would be absurd now to interfere with this 
 process, for the labourer's sake. It would be grievous 
 too for the sake of society. No one who has observed 
 the isolated Irishman on his solitary potato-ground, 
 and the Irishman at work on some social labour which 
 requires an observance of hours and rules, can fail to 
 be struck with the difference of social quality. Ire- 
 land would be as quiet a place to live in as any other 
 if regular and punctual labour went on there as 
 elsewhere; labour requiring, as manufactures and 
 public works do, a certain degree of combination of 
 regular labourers. This combining and quieting pro- 
 cess is advancing now ; and it will spread with every 
 extension of scientific industry. By it men may be 
 
 L 
 
218 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 fitted, in the course of generations, for the propiie- 
 torship or other holding of small pieces of land ; but 
 the process is only beginning as yet. While emigra- 
 tion is going on, wages must rise. The more they 
 rise, the less will the peasant think of having land. 
 When the present rage or necessity for grazing is 
 moderated, and high farming is begun on the estates 
 which are changing hands, the peasants notions of 
 the uses of land will alter prodigiously. If then — 
 after having seen and learned how land ought to be 
 used — he once more wishes for a bit, to see what he 
 can make of it, he will then be more in the condition, 
 as to fitness, of the Flemish or Saxon cultivator, and 
 may possibly be safely trusted with a field. But this 
 time is far off; and it will be a future generation which 
 sees the change, if it ever happens. 
 
 The miseries of Ireland, it has been often and long 
 agreed, proceed from economical and religious causes. 
 The worst economical mischiefs are in course of extir- 
 pation by a method of awful severity, but one which 
 discloses unbounded promise. The old barriers are 
 thrown down day by day; the country is opened to 
 occupation and industry by the process which clears 
 it of those who could not find a subsistence upon it. 
 And, while emigration carries away, to prosper else- 
 where, more than a quarter of a million of people yearly, 
 the National Schools are training and sending forth, to 
 be Irish residents, half a million at once of the youth 
 and childhood of the country. Many good laws 
 have been passed, breaking down tlie land monopoly, 
 and precluding the old agitation about landholding. 
 
THE PEOPLE AND THE TWO CHURCHES. 219 
 
 The agitation that exists is about ecclesiastical mat- 
 ters ; and emigration may be found to act as favour- 
 ably upon this kind of agitation as upon the other. 
 The late census shows the population of Ireland to 
 be one-third less than under ordinarily favourable cir- 
 cumstances it would be. Those who have gone away 
 are Catholics — of the class that sustains the priest- 
 hood; and the children that will be born to those 
 emigrants in their new country would have been the 
 support of the Komish church at home. Of those 
 who are to fill up the gaps in the population, some 
 will be Protestants from England and Ireland ; more 
 will be educated Catholics out of the National Schools ; 
 and others will be the children of the Cathohcs now 
 and hereafter educated at the Queen's Colleges, in dis- 
 regard of the discouragement from head-quarters. Reli- 
 gious animosities will be allayed, rather than fomented, 
 by these two last classes of rising citizens. They will 
 never be the slaves of such a priesthood as that of 
 the Ireland of to-day. That priesthood is obviously 
 destined to decline. It may become more noisy and 
 quarrelsome as it declines, but its power for mischief 
 would soon be over, if it were not for the estabKsh- 
 ment in the land of the Church of the minority. 
 
 This Church of England in Ireland is the most for- 
 midable mischief now in the catalogue of Irish woes. 
 This church, as we have said before, either does no- 
 thing or breaks the peace. If she continues in place, 
 wealth, and artificial power, she may set about num- 
 bering her days; for it is clear to all dispassionate 
 inquirers that awakened Ireland will not long tolerate 
 
220 LETTERS FROM IRELAND. 
 
 a slothful Church ; and that the strife she provokes, 
 here and there, with the other Church, will and must 
 issue in the popular rejection of both. The world 
 sees, and Ireland feels, an express education of the 
 young spreading from shore to shore, and a virtual 
 education of the adults proceeding under the influence 
 of events — both alike independent of both Churches. 
 (The world sees, and Ireland feels, that all her peace 
 and progress (and it is not premature to speak of 
 peace and progress now) are owing to influences quite 
 apart from both Churches ; while the obstacles, the 
 discouragements, the dissensions with which she has 
 to contend, are owing to the faults of the one or the 
 other Church, or their mutual strife. What is to be- 
 come of these Churches or of religion, if it is to be 
 insisted upon in the form of either, in a country wliich 
 has begun to taste of peace and progress, no ghost 
 need come from the grave to tell. » 
 
 THE END. 
 
 .lOHN BDWARD TAYLOK, PHI.NTER, 
 -ITTLi; QIKEN STKEKT, LINCOLN'S INN IIELUS. 
 
;j3 te:^R^^-fe^R^rf>te?0^^te^gi)^<feaO^ 
 
 London, 142, Strand, 
 December 20th, 1852. 
 
 A LIST 
 
 OF 
 
 MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 N.B. — Pet'sons remitting the amount of the advertised prices of icorks 
 
 at 3s. and. tqiwards, will receive them in any part 
 
 of the Tcinydom, postage free. 
 
 Mg^ 
 
 Cljtolacfn aitir ^iilkal Critixbm. 
 
 A Brief Exposition of the Gospel of St. 
 
 MATTHEW. By the Rev. E. E. B. MACLELLAN. 12mo, 
 cloth, 35. V.Qd* 
 
 Popular Theology tested by Modem Sci- 
 ence. In a Series of Letters to a Friend. By a "Well-wisher to 
 Society. 16mo. cloth. Is. P. 6c/. 
 
 The Church in Danger -, or, a Warning Voice 
 
 to Protestants. 16mo, cloth, 2s. P. M. 
 
 A Review of Trinitarianism^ chiefly as it ap- 
 pears in the Writings of Pearson, Ball, Waterland, Sherlock, 
 Howe, Xewman, Coleridge, Wallis, Wardlaw, &c. By JOHN 
 BAELIXG. Post 8vo, cloth, 5s. P. Qd. 
 
 * Tlie letter P. after the price of each -cork, throu^hoT.t this Catalogue, is in- 
 tended to signify POSTAGE; the cost of transmitiirig the Books by post being, 
 in nearly all cases, indicated. 
 
 (^•^y:^^{ 
 
 % 
 
2^^=^^^ 
 
 ■^^^g^^i 
 
 MR. CHAPIM^VN'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Popular Christiaility : its Transition State and pro- 
 bable Development. By F. J. FOXTOX, A.B., formerly of Pembroke 
 College, Oxford, and Perpetual Curate of Stoke Prior and Docklow, 
 Herefordshire. Post 8 vo, cloth. Original price, 65.; reduced to 5s. P.6cZ. 
 " Few writers are bolder, but his manner [ fact is as he sees it. His book appears to 
 is singularly considei'ate towards the very | us to contain many just and profound 
 opinions that he combats — his language views of the religious character of the 
 singularly calm and measured. He is j present age, and its indications of pro- 
 evidently a man who has his purpose gress. He often touches a deep and fruit- 
 sincerely at heart, and indulges in no ful truth with a power and fulness that 
 writing for effect. But what most distin- 1 leave nothing to be desired." — Prospective 
 guishes him from many with whom he 1 Bevieiv, Nov. 1849. 
 
 may be compared is, the posiljiveness ofj " It contains many passages that show a 
 his doctrine. A prototype for his volume | warm appreciation of the moral beauty of 
 may be found in that of the American, I Christianity, — written with considerable 
 Theodore Parker— the ' Discourse of Eeli- 1 power." — Inquirer. 
 
 gion.' There is a great coincidence in the "... with earnestness and eloquence." 
 train of ideas. Parker is more copious ' — Critic. 
 
 and eloquent, but Foxton is far more 
 explicit, definite, and v-^omprehensible in 
 his meaning." — Spectator. 
 
 " He has a penetration into the spiritual 
 desires and wants of the age possible only 
 to one who partakes of them, and he has 
 uttered the most prophetic fact of our 
 religious condition, with a force of convic- 
 tion which itself gives confidence, that the 
 
 " We must refer our readers to the work 
 itself, which is most ably written, and 
 evinces a spirit at once earnest, enlight- 
 ened, and liberal ; in a small compass he 
 presents a most lucid exposition of views, 
 many of them original, and supported by 
 arguments which cannot fail to create a 
 deep sensation in the religious world." — 
 Observer. 
 
 Sermons of Consolation. By r. w. p. greenwood, 
 
 D.D., Boston, U.S. Third Edition, Post 8vo, cloth, 3s. P. 6d. 
 
 " This is a really delightful volume, | will meet with a grateful reception from 
 which we would gladly see producing its all who seek instruction on the topics 
 pui'ifying and elevating influences in all I most interesting to a thoughtful mind, 
 our families." — Inqtiirer. j There are twenty-seven sermons in the 
 
 " This beautiful volume we are sure volume." — Christian Examiner. 
 
 The Creed of Christendom : Its Foundations and 
 
 Superstructure. By W. PATHBONE GREG. 8vo, cloth, 10s. P. Is. 
 
 " Will rank high with those critical and j intelligent works which are now becoming 
 
 erudite works which have of late cleared i the moral alphabets of a new generation." 
 
 up so many obscure matters in the history I — Wcehly Dispatch. 
 
 of religion, corrected so many false theo- 
 ries, dispelled so many errors, and done so 
 much to bring into harmony, science, and 
 religion, the voice of Natui'e, and the voice 
 of God." — K(ono7nist. 
 
 " In a calm, dispassionate manner, and 
 in a style peculiarly elegant, and, at the 
 same time, argumentative, the momentous 
 questions of revelation, Christianity, and 
 a future state are cfiscussed. There is no 
 dogmatism, no assertion, no arriving with 
 an undue haste at irrelevant conclusions 
 in its pages; but there are to be found all 
 the evidences of profound study, scholar- 
 ship, much reading, more thinking, and 
 
 ' He appears to us to liave executed his 
 task with thorough honesty of purpose, 
 and in a spirit essentially reverential— in 
 a style clear, animated, and often eloquent, 
 and, for one wl'.o disclaims the possession 
 of learning, with no small amount of 
 critical knowledge and philosophic endow- 
 ment." — I'rospcclivc Review. 
 
 " No candid reader of the • Creed of 
 Christendom' can close the book without 
 the secret acknowledgment that it is a 
 model of honest investigation and clear 
 cxiiosition; that it is conceived in the true 
 spirit of serious and faithful research ; and 
 tliat whatever the autiior wants of being 
 certainly there is every indication of sin-! an ccclesia.stical Christian, is plainly not 
 cerityand truth. It will arouse a spirit | essential to the noble guidance of life, and 
 of inquiry where that is dormant, and will, the devout earnestness of the alfoctions." 
 take its place among those suggestive and | — H estviirigtcr Review. 
 
 \? 
 
 ^^^eB 
 
Cr^ THEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 3 
 
 An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Chris- 
 tianity. By CHARLES C. HENNELL. Second Edition, 8vo, cloth. 
 Us. P. Is. 
 
 The Decay of Traditional Faith^ and Re- 
 
 establishment of Faith upon Philosophy. Two Lectures by H. 
 lERSON, M.A. Post 8vo, paper cover, Is. P. 6cl. 
 
 national Faith. Three Lectures by H. Ierson, M.A. 
 Post 8vo, paper cover. Is. P. 6c?. 
 
 An Introduction to the Religion of Nature. 
 
 Being the two preceding together. Paper cover, 2s. P. 6d. 
 
 Religion and Education^ in relation to the 
 
 People. By JOHX ALFRED LANGFORD, Authoi of "Religious 
 Scepticism," ''The Drama of Life." &c. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 2s. P. 6d. 
 
 Religious Scepticism and Infidelity; Their 
 
 History-, Cause, Cure, and Mission. By J. A. LANGFORD, Post 
 8vo, cloth. Original price, 5s. ; reduced to 2s. 6d. P. 6d. 
 
 Miscellanies. By JAMES MARTINEAU. Post Svo, cloth, 9s. 
 p. Is. 
 
 Contexts : — The Life, Character, and Works of Dr. Priestley ; the 
 Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, D.D, ; Church and 
 State; Theodore Parker's Discourse of Religion; Phases of Faith ; 
 the Church of England ; and the Battle of the Churches. 
 
 Lectures^ Forming part of a Series Preached in Answer 
 to a Course of Lectures against Unitarianism by Thirteen Clergymen 
 of the Church of England. By JAMES MARTINEAU. 8vo, cloth, 
 7s. 6d. P. Is. 
 
 The Rationale of Religious Inquiry j or, 
 
 the Question stated, of Reason, the Bible, and the Church. By 
 JAMES MARTIXEAU. Third Edition. With a Critical Lecture 
 on Rationalism, Miracles, and the Authority of Scripture, by the 
 late Rev. Joseph Blakco White. Post Svo, paper cover, 4s. ; 
 cloth, 4s. 6d. P. 6a'. 
 
 a2 
 
 
 
 eA^ 
 
?.^^^^^^ 
 
 MR. CHAPMAN S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Undeavours after the Christian Life. Dis- 
 courses by JAMES MARTINEAU, Fiest and Second Series. 
 12mo, clothj 7s. 6d. each. P. 6d. eacli volume. 
 
 "Heartily do we welcome a second 
 volume of ' Endeavours after the Christian 
 Life,' because when all that suits not our 
 taste is omitted, we have still left more 
 to instruct, interest, improve, and elevate, 
 than in almost any other volume with 
 which we are acquainted. . . Whatever 
 may be its defects, we regard it as one of 
 the most precious gifts to the religious 
 world in modern times." — Inquire^-. 
 
 " Mr. Martineau is known, much beyond 
 the limits of his own denomination, as a 
 man of great gifts and accomplishments, 
 and his publications have been all mai'ked 
 by subtle and vigorous thought, much 
 beauty of imagination, and certain charms 
 of composition, which are sure to find 
 admirers. . . There is a delicacy and 
 ethereality of ethical sentiment in these 
 discourses which must commend them, 
 and we may safely say that many of the 
 
 orthodox in all departments might receive 
 from them intellectual stimulus, moral 
 polish, and in some moods religious edifi- 
 cation." — Nonconjormist. 
 
 " One of the most interesting, attrac- 
 tive, and most valuable series of essays 
 which the literature of Christianity has 
 received from priest or layman for many 
 a year. 
 
 " Volumes that have in them both intel- 
 lect and true eloquence, and which satisfy 
 the understanding while they please the 
 taste and improve the heart. 
 
 "When we say that these Discourses 
 are eminently practical, we mean that 
 they are adapted, not only for man in the 
 abstract — to teach the duties of Chi'is- 
 tianity everywhere — but also with refer- 
 ence to the circumstances of society — 
 of the age and country in which our lot is 
 cast."— Criiic. 
 
 Hymns for the Christian Church and Home. 
 
 Collected and Edited by JAMES MARTINEAU. Sixth Edition, 
 12mo, cloth, 3s. 6d. P. Is. 32mo, roan, Is. 8d. ; 32mo, cloth, 
 Is. 4d. 
 
 Christianity^ the Deliverance of the Soul^ 
 
 and its Life. By W. MOUNTFORD, M.A. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 2^. 
 P. 6d 
 
 The Soul: Her Sorrows and Her Aspira- 
 tions. An Essay towards the Natural History of the Soul, as 
 the Basis of Theology. By FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN, 
 formerly Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and Author of 
 " A History of the Hebrew Monarchy." Post 8vo, cloth, 6s. 
 P. Is. 
 
 " The spirit throughout has our warm- 
 est sympathy. It contains more of the 
 genuine life of Christianity than half the 
 books that are coldly elaborated in its de- 
 fence. The charm of the volume is the 
 tone of faithfulness and sincerity which it 
 breathes — the evidences which it affords 
 in every page, of being drawn direct from 
 the fountains oi con\ictioi\."—J'rospecth'e 
 Review. 
 
 " On the great ability of the author we 
 
 ^b^ 
 
 need not comment. The force with which 
 he puts his arguments, whether for good 
 or for evil, is obvious on every page." — 
 Literary Gazette. 
 
 " We have seldom met with so much 
 pregnant and suggestive matter in a small 
 compass, as in this remarkable volume. 
 It is distinguished by a force of thought 
 and freshness of feeling, rare in the treat- 
 ment of religious subjects." — Inquirer. 
 
 i? 
 
 I 
 
 ■^'e^ 
 
^9^ 
 
 THEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 
 
 Phases of Faith; or, Passages from the History 
 of My Creed. By FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN, Author 
 of "A History of the Hebrew Monarchy/' " Tlie Soul: 
 Her Sorrows and Her Aspirations." Post 8vo, cloth, 6s. 
 P. 6c?. 
 
 " Besides a style of remarkable fascina- I the conflicts of a deeply religrious mind, 
 tion, ft'om its perfect simplicity and the courageously seeking the truth, and con- 
 absence of all thought of writing, the lite- quering for itself, bit by bit, the right to 
 rary character of this book arises from its pronounce dogmatically on that which it 
 display of the writer's mind, and the nar- had heretofore accepted traditionally, we 
 rative of his struggles. ... In addition see reflected, as in a mirror, the history 
 to the religious and metaphysical interest, ' of the last few centuries. Modem spirit- 
 it contains some more tangible biogra- ualism has reason to be deeply grateful to 
 phical matter, in incidental pictures of Mr. Newman : his learning, his piety, his 
 the writer's career, and glimpses of the courage, his candour, and his thorough 
 alienations and social persecutions he mastery of his subject, render his alliance 
 underwent in consequence of his opi- ' doubly precious to the cause." — The 
 nions." — Spectator. Leader. 
 
 " The book altogether is a most remark- '. " Mr. Xewman is a master of style, and 
 able book, and is destined, we think, to his book, written in plain and nervous 
 acquire all the notoriety which was at- English, treats of too important a subject 
 tained a few years since by the ' Vestiges to fail in commanding the attention of all 
 of Creation,' and to produce a more last- thinking men, and particularly of all the 
 ing effect." — Weekly Xeu-s. ministers of religion." — Economist. 
 
 "No work in our experience has yet ' "As a narrative of the various doubts 
 been published, so capable of grasping the and misgivings that beset a religious mind 
 mind of the reader and can-ying him when compelled by conviction to deviate 
 through the tortuous labyrinth of religious from the orthodox views, and as a history 
 controversy ; no work so energetically of the conclusions arrived at by an intelli- 
 clearing the subject of aU its ambiguities gent and educated mind, with the reasons 
 and sophistications ; no work so capable and steps by which such conclusions were 
 of making a path for the new reformation gained, this work is most interesting and of 
 to tread securely on. In this history of great importance." — Morning Advertiser. 
 
 Sermons by theodore parker. 
 
 Post 8vo, cloth. 
 
 [Nearly ready. 
 
 A Discourse of Matters pertaining to Reli- 
 gion. By THEODORE PARKER. New Edition, Post Svo, 
 cloth, 45. 
 
 History of the Hebrew Monarchy^ from the 
 
 Administration of Samuel to the Babylonish Captivity. By FRANCIS 
 WILLIAM NEWMAN, formerly FeUow of Balliol CoUege, Oxford, 
 and Author of "The Soul: Her Sorrows and Her Aspirations," &c. 
 Svo, cloth, 10s. P. Is. 
 " It is truly refreshing to find Jewish | which contain the only materials for his 
 history treated, as in the volume before ; work." — Prospective Review. 
 
 us, according to the rules of soimd criti- 
 cism and good sense. . . . The publi- 
 cation of such a work wUl form an epoch 
 in biblical literature in this country." — 
 Inquirer. 
 
 " The Author has brought a very acute 
 mind, familiar with knowledge that is 
 beyond the range of ordinary scholarship, 
 to the task of combining and interpret- 
 ing the antique and fragmentary records 
 
 " This book must be regai'ded, we think, 
 as the most valuable contribution ever 
 made in the English language to our 
 means of understanding that portion of 
 Hebrew History to which it relates. . . 
 The Author has not the common super- 
 stitious reverence for the Bible, but he 
 shows everywhere a large, humane, and 
 Christian spirit." — Massachusetts Quar- 
 terly Revieu:. 
 
 >K 
 
 Qi^0^^ 
 
 -e=€S 
 
m^s^^ 
 
 ^^^^^mt 
 
 MR. CHAPMAN S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 . The Ijife of Jesus^ Critically Examined. 
 
 ^ By Dr. DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS. 3 vols. 8vo, cloth, 
 
 £1 168. P. 2s. 6d. 
 
 " The extraordinary merit of this book. 
 Strauss's dialectic dexterity, his 
 forensic coolness, the even polish of his 
 style, present him to us as the accom- 
 plished pleader, too completely master of 
 his work to feel the temptation to unfair 
 advantage or unseemly temper. . . We 
 can testify that the translator has achieved 
 a very tough wor^ with remarkable spirit 
 and fidelity. The author, though indeed 
 a good writer, could hardly have spoken 
 better had his country and language been 
 English. The work has e\idently fallen 
 into the hands of one who has not only 
 effective command of both languages, but 
 a familiarity with the subject-matter of 
 theological criticism, and an initiation 
 into its technical phraseology." — West- 
 minster and Foreign Quarterly Review, 
 1847. 
 
 " "Whoever reads these volumes without 
 any reference to the German, must be 
 pleased with the easy, perspicuous, idiom- 
 atic, and harmonious force of the English 
 style. But he will be still more satisfied 
 when, on turning to the original, he finds 
 that the rendering is word for word, 
 thought for thought, and sentence for 
 sentence. In preparing so beautiful a 
 rendering as the present, the difiiculties 
 can have been neither few nor small in 
 the way of preserving, in various parts of 
 the work, the exactness of the translation, 
 combined with that uniform harmony and 
 clearness of style, which impart to the 
 
 volumes before us the air and spirit of an 
 original. A modest and kindly care for 
 his reader's convenience has induced the 
 translator often to supply the rendering 
 into English of a Greek quotation, where 
 there was no corresponding rendering into 
 German in the original. Indeed, Strauss 
 may well say, as he does in the notice 
 which he writes for this English edition, 
 that as far as he has examined it, the 
 translation is 'et accurata et perspicua.'" 
 — Frospective Review. 
 
 " In regard to learning, acuteness, and 
 sagacious conjectures, the work resembles 
 Niebuhr's ' History of Rome.' The general 
 manner of treating the subject and ar- 
 ranging the chapters, sections, and parts 
 of the argument, indicates consummate 
 dialectical skill ; while the style is clear, 
 the expression direct, and the author's 
 openness in referring to his sources of in- 
 formation, and stating his conclusions in 
 all their simplicity, is candid and exem- 
 plary. . . It not only surpasses all its 
 predecessors of its kind in learning, acute- 
 ness, and thorough investigation, but it is 
 marked by a serious and earnest spirit." 
 — Christian Examiner. 
 
 " I found in M. Strauss a young man 
 full of candour, gentleness, and modesty 
 — one possessed of a soul that was almost 
 mysterious, and, as it were, saddened by 
 the reputation he had gained. He scarcely 
 seems to be the author of the work under 
 considei'ation." — Quiiiei,RevuedesMoncles. 
 
 Christian Aspects of Faith and Duty. Dis- 
 courses by J. J. TAYLER, B.A. Post 8vo, cloth, 7s. P. Is. 
 
 " Abounds with lessons of the highest 
 practical wisdom, conveyed in language of 
 consummate beauty." — Inquirer. 
 
 " These sermons are admirable. They 
 partake more directly of the character of 
 religious instruction, and possess vastly 
 more literary merit than is usual in such 
 compositions. The thought is arranged 
 with great clearness, and the style, for its 
 lucid and felicitous phraseology, is beyond 
 
 all praise. The greatest charm of the 
 whole volume, however, is its fine spix-it. 
 All the writer's himian sympathies ai'e 
 generous and elevated, and his religious 
 feelings and aspirations pure and fervent. 
 
 We are sure that many will 
 
 thank us for commending to them a 
 volume from which such catholic views 
 and elevated sentiments majr be derived." 
 — Nonconformist. 
 
 Iiectlires. Forming part of a Series Preached in Answer 
 to a Course of Lectures against Unitarian ism by Thirteen Clergy- 
 men of the Church of England. By J. H. TilOM. Svo, 
 cloth, 6s. 
 
 ;? 
 
 I 
 
 ^&^ 
 
 ^^^Q^^i 
 
-e^:^g^S^i 
 
 THEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 7 
 
 St. Faults Spistles to the Corinthians: An 
 
 Attempt to convey their Spirit and Significance. By the Rev. 
 JOHN HAMILTON THOM. Post Svo, cloth. Original price, 93.; 
 reduced to 7s. P. Is. 
 
 " A volume of singularly free, suggestive, and beautiful commentary."— 7n<7«!rer. 
 
 Worship of Genius^ and the Distinctive Character 
 
 and Essence of Christianity. Post Svo, cloth, 2s. P. 6cl. 
 
 XTnitarianism Defended : being Lectures delivered 
 by JAMES MARTINEAU, J. H. THOM, and HENRY GILES. 
 Svo, cloth, 15s. 
 
 The Memory of the Just. By charles wick- 
 steed. Svo, cloth, 3s. 6d. P. 6d. 
 
 Catholicity^ Spiritual and Intellectual: An 
 
 Attempt at Vindicating the Harmony of Faith and Knowledge. A 
 Series of Discourses. By T. WILSON, M.A., late Minister of St. 
 Peter's Mancroft, Norwich, Author of "Travels in Egypt and Syria," 
 &c. Svo, cloth, 5s. P. 6d. May be had separately. Is. each, 
 paper cover. 
 
 ^auipijltts. 
 
 Absolution and the Lord Bishop of Exeter. Svo, 6cZ. 
 
 " We advise all readers of theological matters to get this extremely able pamphlet ; 
 remarkable for its learning, its logic, its boldness, and its temper." — Leader. 
 
 Andresen (A.), Luther Revived. Svo, Is. 
 Coiechism of the Old Testament ISmo, stiff, ScZ. 
 Crawfurd (A.Q.G.), Thirty-nine Reasons why theClergy 
 
 ought not to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles. 12mo, Is. 
 
 Bavjson, Hymns and Songs. 82mo, 9d. 
 6d 
 
 I 
 
 @^I5^&* ^=e^e^^ 
 
^8 MR. chapman's publications. 
 
 Maccall (W.), Sacramental Services. 12mo, 6d. V 
 
 Doctrine of Individuality. 12mo, 6d. 
 
 Individuality of the Individual. 
 
 12mo, Qd. 
 
 Lessons of the Pestilence. 12mo, 6d 
 
 Unchristian Character of Commercial 
 
 Restrictions. 12mo^ Sd. 
 
 Mackay {R. W), Intellectual Religion. 8vo, Is. 6d 
 Madge {Thomas), The Dedication of the Christian 
 
 Temple to the Worship and Service of God. 8vo, 6d. 
 
 Marti/neau {J.), The Bible and the Child. 12mo, 6d. 
 
 Pause and Retrospect. 8vo, Is. 
 
 Ireland and her Famine. 12mo, 6d 
 
 The God of Revelation his own Inter- 
 
 preter. 12mo, paper, 6d. 
 
 Peace in Division. 12mo, Is. 
 
 Five Points of ChHstian Faith. 
 
 12ino, 2c?. 
 
 Watch Night Lamps. 8vo, Is. 
 
 The Christian Sabbath. By a Minister of Christ. 
 
 12mo, 6d. 
 
 Strauss (D. F.), Soliloquies on the ChHstian Religion. 
 
 8vo, 2s. 
 
 Tayler {J. J.), Value of Individual Effort. 12mo, 6d. 
 Religion ; its Root in Human Nature. 
 
 12mo, 6d. 
 
 Mutual Adaptation of Human Nature n 
 
 and Scripture. 12mo, Id 
 
 The Bible our Stumbling-block. Svo, Is. 
 
 %^3^^ ^€sSSS^ 
 
a/ speculative, moral, and social philosophy. 9 ^ 
 
 ^9 z'l 
 
 Y The Hebrew Cosmogony and Modern Interpi^etations. y 
 
 ^ 8vo, sewed, U. P. id. ^ 
 
 Three Discourses at the Dedication of Hope-street 
 
 Chapel, Liverpool, October, 1849, by the Revds. Thomas Madge, 
 James Martineau, and Charles Wicksteed. 8vo, Is. 6d. 
 
 The Truth-SeeJcer in Literature and Philosophy. In 
 
 Nine Parts. 8vo. Edited by Dr. Lees. 
 
 Thorn (J. H), SpiHtual Blindness and Social Disrup- 
 
 twn. 12mo, 6 c?. 
 
 Preventive Justice and, Palliative 
 
 Charity. 12mo, 6d. 
 
 Clairas of Ireland. 12mo, 6d 
 
 Wicksteed {Charles), The General Assembly and 
 
 Church of the Firstborn. Svo, 6c?. 
 
 The Rise and Progress of National Educa- 
 tion in England; its Obstacles, Wants, and Prospects. A Letter to 
 Richard Cobden, Esq., M.P. By RICHARD CHURCH. Svo, paper 
 cover, 2s. 6d. P. 6d. 
 
 " "Were we to follow the impulse with ' of vivacity, earnestness, perspicuity, and 
 which it has inspii-ed us, we should trans- . force of reasoning that renders his p'amph- 
 fer it entire to our pages. But this cannot let not only most instructive, but hishlv 
 be : suffice it, then, to say that the object interesting as a psychological history." It 
 which Mr. Church proposes to himself is, embraces all the debatuf/le questions of 
 ' to touch upon the rise, progress, obstacles, national education (omitting only the sub- 
 wants, and prospects of working-class jects that should be taught), and it deals 
 education.' The author pursues the dis- with them with a master's hand." — West- 
 cussion of these questions with a degree ?ninster Beview. 
 
 % 
 
 The Principles of Nature^ her Divine 
 
 Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind. By and through ANDREW XI 
 JACKSON DAVIS. 2 vols. Svo, cloth. Original price, I85.; ^ 
 reduced to 15s. P. 2s. "^ 'U^ 
 
 i^ ^>^^ ; ^^^^S^^ 
 
 A 3 
 
\ 10 
 
 MR. chapman's publications. 
 
 Memoir of Johann Gottlieb Pichte. By 
 
 WILLIAM SMITH. Secoad Edition, enlarged. Post 8vo, cloth. 
 Original price, 4s. 6d. ; reduced to 4s. P. 6d. 
 
 «• A Life of Fichte, full of noble- 
 ness and instruction, of grand purpose, 
 
 tender feeling, and brave effort ! 
 
 the compilation of which is executed with 
 great judgment and fidelity."— Prospec- 
 ttve Revieiv. 
 
 " We state Fichte's character as it is 
 known and admitted by men of all parties 
 among the Germans, when we say that so 
 robust an intellect, a soul so calm, so 
 loftv, massive, and immoveable, has not 
 
 mingled in philosophical discussion since 
 
 the time of Lutlier Fichte's 
 
 opinions may be true or false ; but his 
 character as a thinker can be slightly 
 valued only by such as know it ill ; and 
 as a man, approved by action and suf- 
 fering, in his life and in his death, he 
 ranks with a class of men who were 
 common only in better ages than ours."— 
 Stale of German Literature, by Thomas 
 Carlyle. 
 
 The Vocation of the Scholar. By johann 
 
 GOTTLIEB FICHTE. Translated fi-om the German, by William 
 Smith. Post 8vo, cloth, 2s. ; paper cover. Is. Qd. P. Qd. 
 
 "' The Vocation of a Scholar' . . . 
 is distinguished by the same high moral 
 tone, and manly, vigorous expression which 
 characterize all Fichte's works in the Ger- 
 man, and is nothing lost in Mr. Smith's 
 clear, unembarrassed, and thoroughly 
 English translation."— DoMg^as Jerrold's 
 Newspaper. 
 
 " We are glad to see this excellent 
 translation of one of the best of Fichte's 
 
 works presented to the public in a very 
 neat form. . . No class needs an earnest 
 and sincere spirit more than the literary 
 class : and therefore the ' Vocation of the 
 Scholar,' the ' Guide of the Human Race,' 
 written in Fichte's most earnest, most 
 commanding temper, will be welcomed 
 in its English dress by public writers, 
 and be beneficial to the cause of truth." 
 — Economist. 
 
 On the Nature of the Scholar^ and its Mani- 
 festations. By JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. Translated from 
 the German, by William Smith. Second Edition. Post Svo, cloth. 
 Original price, 3s. Qd. ; reduced to 3s. P. Qd. 
 
 " This work must inevitably arrest^the 
 attention of the scientific physician, by 
 the grand spirituality of its doctrines, and 
 
 "With great satisfaction we welcome 
 this first English translation of an author 
 who occupies the most exalted position as 
 
 profound and original thinker; as an 
 
 the pure morality it teaches. 
 
 Shall we 
 
 iiTesistiblc orator in the cause of what he be presumptuous if we recommend these 
 believed to be truth; as a thoroughly views to our professional brethren? or if 
 honest and heroic man. . . The appear- I we say to the enlightened, the thoughtful, 
 ance of any of his works in our language | the sei-ious. This — if you be true scholars 
 is, we believe, a perfect novelty. . . These i — is your Vocation ? We know not a 
 orations are admirably fitted for their higher morality than this, or more noble 
 purpose ; so grand is the position taken , principles than these : they are full of 
 by the lecturer, and so irresistible their | ti-uth." — British and Foreign Medico-Chi- 
 e\o(i\iQnce."—Exa7niner. \ rurgical Eevicw. 
 
 The Way towards the Blessed Life ', or, tlie 
 
 Doctrine of Religion. By JOHANN G. FICHTE. Translated by 
 William Smith. Post Svo, cloth. Original price, Gs. ; reduced 
 to 5s. P. 6d. 
 
 i? 
 
 % 
 
 !:Ky> - 
 
 ^^^S^t\ 
 
^^^^^^m 
 
 SPECULATIVE, MORAL, AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 11 
 
 The Vocation of Man. By johann gottlieb 
 
 FICHTE. Translated from the German, by William Smith. Post 
 8vo, cloth. Original price, 45. 6d. ; reduced to 4s. P. 6d. 
 
 " In the progress of my present work, I 
 have taken a deeper glance into religion 
 than ever I did before. In me the emo- 
 tions of the heart proceed only from per- 
 fect intellectual clearness ; — it cannot be 
 but that the clearness I have now attained 
 on this subject shall also take possession of 
 my heart." — Ficfite's Correspondence. 
 
 " ' The Vocation of Man ' is, as Fichte 
 truly says, intelligible to all readers who 
 are really able to understand a book at 
 all ; and as the history of the mind in its 
 various phases of doubt, knowledge, and 
 
 faith, it is of interest to all. A book of Eternal."— Seniewe/. 
 
 this stamp is sure to teach you much, be- 
 cause it excites thought. If it rouses you 
 to combat his conclusions, it has done a 
 good work; for in that very effort you 
 are stirred to a consideration of points 
 which have hitherto escaped your indolent 
 acquiescence." — Foreign Quarterly. 
 
 " This is Fichte's most popular work, 
 and is every way remarkable." — Atlas. 
 
 "It appears to us the boldest and most 
 emphatic attempt that has yet been made 
 to explain to man his restless and uncon- 
 querable desire to win the True and the 
 
 ? 
 
 The Characteristics of the Present Age. 
 
 By JOHAXN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. Translated from the German, 
 
 by William Smith. 
 to 6s. P. 6d. 
 
 Post 8vo, cloth. Original price, 7s. ; reduced 
 
 "A noble and most notable acquisition 
 to the litei-ature of England "" 
 Jerrold's Weekly Paper 
 
 He makes us think, and perhaps more 
 
 Douglas sublimely than we have ever formerly 
 
 thought, but it is only in order that we 
 
 " We accept these lectures as a true may the more nobly act. 
 and most admirable delineation of the " As a majestic and most stirring utter- 
 present age ; and on this ground alone we ance from the lips of the greatest German 
 should bestow on them our heartiest re- j prophet, we trust that the book wiU find 
 commendation ; but it is because they i a response in many an English soul, and 
 teach us how we may rise above the age, potently help to regenerate English so- 
 that we bestow on them our most em- ciety." — The Critic. 
 phatic praise. 
 
 The Popular "Works of J. G. Pichte. 2 vols. 
 
 Post 8vo, cloth. Original price, £1 4s. ; reduced to £1. P. 2s. 
 
 Iiectures on Social Science and the Organi- 
 zation of Labour. By JAMES HOLE. Demy 8vo, stiff cover, 
 price 2s. 6d. P. M. 
 " An able and excellent exposition of the opinions of the Socialists."— £con<»KM^. 
 
 A Just Income-Tax: How Possible^ being a 
 
 Review of the Evidence reported by the Income-Tax Committee, and 
 an Inquiry into the True Principle of Taxation. By G. W. HEM- 
 MING, of Lincoln's-Inn, Barrister-at-Law and Fellow of St. John's 
 College, Cambridge. 
 
 Ireland. An Inquiry into the Social Condition of the 
 Country with Suggestions for its Improvement. By DANIEL 
 KESHAN. Post 8vo, cloth. Is. Qd. 
 
 I 
 
i 12 
 
 c-e^^ ^! 
 
 MR. CHAPMAN S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 The Elements of Individualism. A Series of 
 
 Lectures. By WILLIAM MACCALL. Post 8vo, cloth, 7s. U. 
 P. Is. 
 
 " It is a book worthy of perusal. Even 
 those who can find no sympathy with its 
 philosophy, will derive pleasure and im- 
 provement from the many exquisite 
 touches of feeling, and the many pictures 
 of beauty which mark its pages. 
 
 " The expansive philosophy, the pene- 
 trative intellect, and the general humanity 
 of the author, have rendered the Elements 
 
 of Individualism a book of strong and 
 general interest."— Critic, 
 
 " "We have been singularly interested by 
 this book .... Here is a speaker and 
 thinker whom we may securely feel to be 
 a lover of truth, exhibiting in his work a 
 form and temper of mind very rare and 
 peculiar in our time." — Manchester Exa- 
 
 I 
 
 The Agents of Civilization. A Series of Lectures. 
 By WILLIAM MACCALL. 12mo, cloth. Original price, 3s. 6d. ; 
 reduced to Is. 6d. P. 6d. 
 
 The Education of Taste. A Series of Lectures. 
 By WILLIAM MACCALL, 12mo, paper cover. Original price, 
 2s. Qd. ; reduced to Is. P. 6d. 
 
 Letters from Ireland. By Harriet martineau. 
 
 Reprinted from the Daily News. Post 8vo, cloth. 
 
 The Progress of the Intellect^ as Exemplified 
 
 in the Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews. By 
 R. W. MACKAY, M.A. 2 vols. 8vo, cloth, 24s. P. 2s. 
 
 sufficient care or critical guidance to be 
 entitled to offer an opinion on the sound- 
 ness of its criticism or reasoning, or on 
 the truth or falsehood of its particular 
 conclusions, or, indeed, on anything but 
 its manifest labour and patience, the rare 
 and indisputable monuments of knowledge 
 which we find in it, and the surprising 
 range of method it includes — logical, philo- 
 sophical, and imaginative. Not many 
 books have at any time been published 
 with such irresistible claims to attention 
 in these respects ; in our own day we re ' 
 member none." — Examiner. 
 
 " Over the vast area of cloud-land, 
 bounded on one side by the wars of the 
 Christians, and on the other by the last 
 book of the Odi/ssei/, he has thrown the 
 penetrating electric light of modern 
 science, and found a meaning for every 
 fable and every phantom by which the 
 mysterious region is haunted." — Atlas. 
 
 " All tlie views are justified by authori- 
 ties. The work embraces many important 
 subjects included in and suggested by the 
 religious theories of the Greeks and 
 Hebrews, and, from this minute accuracy, 
 will be a storehouse for arginiicnts and 
 facts for those disposed to attack tlic 
 
 " Mr. Mackay brings forward in support 
 of his views an amount of erudition which 
 will prove formidable to his antagonists. 
 Most of the best German editions of the 
 Greek and Latin classics seem to be per- 
 fectly familiar to the author, who knows 
 well how to wield such ponderous mate- 
 rials The account of the theosophy 
 
 of Aristotle, given in the first volume, is 
 evidently the production of a master of 
 the subject." — Athcnceum. 
 
 " ' The Progress of the Intellect' is in- 
 comparably the most important contribu- 
 tion yet made by any English writer to 
 views first broadly put forth by rational- 
 istic German theologians. He has widened 
 their basis — given them freer scope and 
 larger aims— supported them by stores of 
 as various and accumulated learning, and 
 impai-ted to them all the dignity which 
 can be derived from a sober and weighty 
 style of writing, and from processes of 
 thought to which imagination and reason 
 contribute in almost equal degrees. This 
 is unusual praise ; but it is due to unusual 
 powers ; and to be offered to Mr. Mackay 
 (luite apart from any agreement in the 
 tendency or object of his treatise. Wc 
 will not even say that we have read it with 
 
 % 
 
 ^^^3^^ 
 
 ^^^Q^m 
 
SPECULATIVE, MORAL, AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHr. 13 
 
 i 
 
 theories, if not for those who have an in- i 
 terest in defending them. For a book so 
 full of learning, it is remarkably well , 
 written." — Econamist. , 
 
 " The work before us exhibits an in- 
 dustry of research which reminds us of 
 Cud worth, and for which, in recent litera- ' 
 ture, we must seek a parallel in Germany 
 rather than in England, while its philo- 
 sophy and aims are at once lofty and 
 practical. Scattered through its more 
 abstruse disquisitions are found passages of 
 
 pre-eminent beauty— gems into which are 
 absorbed the finest rays of intelligence and 
 feeling. We believe Mr. Mackay's work 
 
 is unique in its kind Tlie analysis 
 
 and history of the theory of mediation, 
 from its earUest mythical embodiments, 
 are admirable, both from their panoramic 
 breadth and their richness in illustrative 
 details. We can only recommend the 
 reader to resort himself to this treasury of 
 mingled thought and learning."— IFcsf- 
 minster Review, Jan. 1, 1851. 
 
 Intellectual Religion ; Being the Introductory 
 
 Chapter to " The Progress of the Intellect, as Exemplified in the 
 Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews." By R. W. 
 MACKAY, M.A. 8vo, paper cover, Is. 6fZ. 
 
 Money and Morals : A Book for the Times. Con- 
 taining an attempt to explain the nature of Money Capital, and the 
 probable effects of the Xew Gold on Commerce, Incomes, and Pubhc 
 Morals; with some Suggestions relative to the Agricultural Interest, 
 the Condition of Towns, and the National Defences. By JOHN 
 LALOR. 8vo, cloth, lOa. P. Is. 
 
 " Both in matter and style it is alike 
 excellent ; and it is difficult to determine 
 whether Mr. Lalor has placed the public 
 under greater obligations by the ability 
 with which he has investigated several of 
 the most abstruse questions which perplex 
 political economists — by the felicitous and 
 forcible language in which his meaning is 
 uniformly conveyed— or by the high moral 
 tone which pervades every part of his 
 volume. Rarely has philosophy assumed 
 so attractive a garb, or appeared in a cos- ; 
 tume illuminated by so many of the ! 
 spangles of a lively but chastened fancy ; ' 
 and seldom has the intimate relation which ' 
 most persons feel to exist between the ma- ' 
 terial and moral conditions of society been i 
 so clearly and thoroughly expounded." — ! 
 Horning Chronicle. j 
 
 " These essays possess gi'eat merit, both i 
 of style and of matter. They are written ■ 
 with address and persuasion, and are not ■ 
 less remarkable for profound philosophic . 
 judgment and extreme metaphysical re- 1 
 finement than for a delicate play of poetic 
 fancy, which at the same time that his : 
 mind is strengthened and enriched, al- ' 
 lures, sui-prises, and beguiles the imagina- ! 
 tion of the reader. It is, in a word, an [ 
 attractive and quickening work, in which 
 the practical precepts of a benign and! 
 elevated philosophy are united in the 
 happiest combination with the graces of 
 elegant and harmonious composition." — i 
 Morning Post. 
 
 " Neither a party nor a superficial pro- ' 
 duction. Mr. Lalor is weU versed in all i 
 
 the writings of the economists, and not 
 only in them, but in much other htera- 
 ture ; and he pours out his stores with 
 great facility, and in a very graceful man- 
 ner. Essentially, the book is politico- 
 economical, but it is also social, moraJ, 
 and literary, treating many of the topics 
 of the day, but treating them on scientific 
 principle. If a temporarj' circumstance 
 have given birth to the book, the materials 
 for it have been gathered through years of 
 study, by much reading and reflection." 
 — Economist. 
 
 " A very able and luminous treatise on 
 the important questions of capital, cur- 
 rency, credit, and the monetary system 
 generally. The author is singularly clear 
 and accurate in his definitions of the 
 various branches of what is commonly 
 called money, or, as he more precisely de- 
 fines it, 'piurchasing power;' and places 
 before the reader, in as simple terms as 
 the subject wiU permit, a picture of the 
 mode in which income and capital reci- 
 procally create and augment each other. 
 A person with a very elementary notion 
 of the principles of political economy and 
 monetary science may readily follow and 
 comprehend liis arguments, and as he goes 
 on, will be enabfed to appreciate the 
 merits of the author's deductions. The 
 subject is one of deep interest, and, though 
 not concurring in all the views it contains, 
 we can fairly pronounce the work to be a 
 valuable contribution to the study of the 
 science on which it treats." — Slorning 
 Advertiser. 
 
 -6=6^ 
 
^^^ 
 
 MR. chapman's publications. 
 
 Iiectures on Political Economy. By prancis 
 
 WILLIAM NEWMAN, Author of ''Phases of Faith," "History of 
 the Hebrew Monarchy," &c. Post 8vo, cloth. Original price, 
 7s. 6d. ; reduced to 5s. P. Is. 
 
 "The most able and instructive book, I than economical -wisdom. " — Prospective 
 which exhibits, we think, no less moral | Review. 
 
 IiOtters on the Iiaws of Man^s Nature and 
 
 Development. By H. G. ATKINSON and HARRIET MAR- 
 TINEAU. Post 8vo, cloth. Original price, 9s.; reduced to 5s. P. Is. 
 
 " Of the many remarkable facts related 
 in this book we can say little now. What 
 rather strikes us is the elevating influence 
 of an acknowledgment of mystery in any 
 form at all. In spite of all that we have 
 said, there is a tone in Mr. Atkinson's 
 thoughts far above those of most of us who 
 live in slavery to daily experience. The 
 world is awful to him — truth is sacred. 
 However wildly he has wandered in search 
 of it, truth is all for which he cares to live. 
 If he is dogmatic, he is not vain ; if he is 
 drying up the fountain of life, yet to him 
 life is holy. He does not care for fame, 
 for wealth, for rank, for reputation, for 
 anything, except to find truth and to live 
 beautifully by it; and all this because he 
 feels the unknown and terrible forces 
 which are busy at the warp and woof of 
 the marvellous existence." — Eraser's Ma- 
 
 gazine. 
 
 " A book from the reasonings and con- 
 clusions of which we are bound to express 
 our entire dissent, but to which it is im- 
 possible to deny the rare merit of strictest 
 honesty of purpose, as an investigation 
 into a subject of the highest importance, 
 upon which the wisest of us is almost 
 entirely ignorant, begun with a sincere 
 desire to penetrate the mystery and ascer- 
 tain the truth, pursued with a brave re- 
 solve to shrink from no results to which 
 that inquiry might lead, and to state them. 
 
 whatever reception they might have from 
 the world." — Critic. 
 
 " A curious and valuable contribution 
 to psychological science, and we regard 
 it with interest, as containing the best 
 and fullest development of the new theo- 
 ries of mesmerism, clairvoyance, and the 
 kindred hj'pothesis. The book is replete 
 with profound reflections thrown out in- 
 cidentally, is distinguished by a pecuUar 
 elegance of style, and in the hands of a 
 calm and philosophical theologian may 
 serve as a useful precis of the most 
 foi-midable diSiculties he has to contend 
 against in the present day." — Weekly 
 News. 
 
 " The Letters are remarkable for the 
 analytical powers which characterize 
 them, and will be eagerly read by all those 
 who appreciate the value of the assertion, 
 that ' the proper study of mankind is man.' 
 The range of reading which they embody 
 is no less extensive than the sincerity as 
 well as depth of thought and earnestness 
 in the search after truth, which are their 
 principal features. "Without aflTectation 
 or pedantry, faults arrived at by so easy a 
 transition, they are marked by simplicity 
 of diction, by an ease and grace of lan- 
 guage and expression that give to a 
 subject, for the most part intricate and 
 perplexing:, an inexpressible charm."— 
 Weekly Dispatch. 
 
 An Elementary Treatise on Logic. 8vo, 
 
 cloth, 4s. Qd. 
 
 Philosophy of Human Knowledge. By J. j. 
 
 OSBORNE. 8vo, cloth, 4s. 
 
 A Treatise on Iiogic. By j. j. osborne. ismo, 
 
 sewed, Is. 
 
 '3^b^ 
 
 ■«=es 
 
w^^ 
 
 *^^$^© 
 
 f 
 
 SPECULATIVE, MORAL, AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 15 
 
 The Purpose of Existence. Popularly considered, 
 in relation to the Origin, Development, and Destiny of the Human 
 Mind. Crown 8vo, cloth. Original price, 7s. 6d. ; reduced to 
 35. 6d. P. Is. 
 
 " This singularly thoughtful essay em- 
 brices a wide range of topics, but without 
 ever departing from its proper theme. In 
 the performance of his task, the author has 
 
 displayed great power of reflection, much 
 learning, and an eloquence and elevation 
 of style, peculiarly appropriate to the 
 loftiness of the subject-matter." — Critic. 
 
 Social Aspects. By JOHX stores smith, Author of 
 ''Mirabeau, a Life History." Post Svo, cloth. Original price 6s. ; 
 reduced to 2s. 6d. P. Is. 
 
 " This work is the production of a 
 thoughtful mind, and of an ardent and 
 earnest spirit, and is well deserving of a 
 perusal in eitenso by all those who reflect 
 on so solemn and important a theme as 
 the future destiny of their native country." 
 Morning Chronicle. 
 
 " A work of whose merits we can hardly 
 speak too highly." — Literary Gazette. 
 
 " This book has awakened in us many 
 painful thoughts and intense feelings. It 
 is fearfully true — passionate in its up- 
 
 braidings, unsparing in its exposures — 
 yet full of wisdom, and pervaded by an 
 earnest, loving spirit. The author sees 
 
 i things as they are — too sad and too real 
 for silence — and courageously tells of 
 
 j them with stern and honest truth. 
 
 j We receive with pleasure 
 
 a work so free from polite lispings, 
 
 ; pretty theorizings, and canting progres- 
 sionisms ; speaking, as it does, earnest 
 
 j truth, fearlessly but in love." — Noncon- 
 
 [for mist. 
 
 Social Statics; or, the Conditions Essential to Human 
 Happiness Specified, and the first of them Developed. By HER- 
 BERT SPE^XER. Svo, cloth. Original price, 12s. ; reduced to 
 10s. P. 6d. 
 
 " It is the most eloquent, the most in- 
 teresting, the most clearly expressed and , 
 logically reasoned work, with views the ; 
 most original, that has appeared in the i 
 science of social polity." — Literary Ga- j 
 zette. i 
 
 " The author of the present work is no \ 
 ordinary thinker, and no ordinary writer ; 
 and he gives, in language that sparkles 
 with beauties and reasoning, at once novel 
 and elaborate, precise and logical, a very 
 comprehensive and complete exposition of 
 
 the rights of men in society. The book 
 will mark an epoch in the literature of 
 scientific morality." — Econotnist. 
 
 " We remember no work on ethics, 
 since that of Spinoza, to be compared with 
 it in the simplicity of its premises, and the 
 logical rigour with which a complete sys- 
 tem of scientific ethics is evolved from 
 them. This is high praise, but we give it 
 deliberately." — Leader. 
 
 "A very interesting and beautifully 
 logical work." — yonconformist. 
 
 A Theory of Population^ deduced from the general 
 law of Animal FertiHty. By HERBERT SPEXCER, Author of 
 " Social Statics." Republished from the Westminster Review^ for 
 April, 1852. Svo, paper cover, price Is. 
 
 General Principles of the Philosophy of 
 
 Xature : with an Outline of some of its recent Developments 
 among the Germans. By J. B. STALLO, A.M. Post Svo, cloth, 
 " P. Is. 
 
 *6S$^1 
 
^^§^^^ 
 
 16 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 MR. CHAPMAN S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Jisto^ mxis giffgrapl^. 
 
 i? 
 
 Historical Sketches of the Old Painters. 
 
 By the Author of "The Log Cabin," Post 8vo, cloth, Ss. P. 6d. 
 
 Italy: Past and Present. Or, General Views of its 
 
 History, Religion, Politics, Literature, and Art. By L. MARIOTTI. 
 
 2 vols, post 8vo, cloth, 10s. P. Is. 6d. 
 " This is a useful book, informed with ■ does not merely possess an interest simi- 
 lively feeling and sound judgment. It i lav to that of contemporary works ; it sup- 
 contains an exhibition of Itahan views of plies a desideratum, and is well adapted to 
 matters, social and poUtical, by an Italian j aid the EngUsh reader in forming a just 
 who has learned to speak through English j estimate of the great events now in pro- 
 thoughts as well as English words. Parti- I gress in Italy. Not the least wonderful 
 cularly valuable are the sketches of recent I part of the book is the entire mastery the 
 Italian history ; for the prominent charac- I author has acquired of our language." — 
 ters are delineated in a cordial and sym- | Examiner, April. 
 
 pathetic spirit, yet free from enthusiastic i " Our author has an earnest, nay, en- 
 ideas, and with unsparing discrimination, thusiastic, love and admiration of his 
 . . . The criticisms on ' The Past' will j native country ; with the ability and elo- 
 richly repay perusal ; it is, however, in quence to render his subject very inte- 
 ♦ The Present ' of Italy that the main in- resting and attractive."— J/orwzwg Adver- 
 terest of the book resides. This volume | User. 
 
 The followingr notices refer to the first volume of the work : — 
 
 " The work is admirable, useful, in- 
 structive. I am delighted to find an Ita- 
 lian coming forward with so much noble 
 enthusiasm, to vindicate his country, and 
 obtain for it its proper interest in the 
 eyes of Europe. The English is wonder- 
 ful I never saw any approach to 
 
 such a style in a foreigner before — as full 
 of beauty in diction as in thought."— SeV 
 E. Bulicer Lytton, Bart. 
 
 " I recognise the rare chraacteristics of 
 genius — a large conception of the topic, a 
 picturesque diction founded on profound 
 thought, and that passionate sensibility 
 which becomes the subject — a subject 
 beautiful as its climate, and inexhaustible 
 as its soil."— ^. Disraeli, Esq., M.P. 
 
 " A very rapid and summary resumS of 
 the fortunes of Italy from the fall of the 
 Roman Empii'e to the present moment. — 
 A work of industry and labour, written 
 with a good purpose. — A bird's-eye view 
 of the subject that will revive the recol- 
 lections of the scholar, and seduce the 
 tyro into a longer course of reading." — 
 Athenceum. 
 
 " This work contains more information 
 on the subject, and more references to 
 the present position of Italy, than we 
 have seen in any recent production."— 
 Foreign Quarterli/ Review. 
 
 " In reference to style, the work before | 
 
 us is altogether extraordinary, as that of 
 a foreigner, and in the higher quality of 
 thought we may commend the author for 
 his acute, and often original, criticism, 
 and his quick perception of the grand and 
 beautiful in his native literature." — Fres- 
 colt, in the North American Review. 
 
 " The work before us consists of a con- 
 tinuous parallel of the political and lite- 
 rary history of Italy from the earliest 
 period of the middle ages to the present 
 time. The author not only penetrates 
 the inner i-elations of those dual appear- 
 ances of national life, but possesses the 
 power of displaying them to the reader 
 with great clearness and effect. We re- 
 member no other work in which the civil 
 conditions and literary achievements of a 
 people have been blended in such a series 
 of living pictui-es, representing successive 
 periods of history." — Algetncine Zeitung. 
 
 "An earnest and eloquent work."— ^ 
 Exayniner. 
 
 "A work ranking distinctly in the class 
 of belles-lettres, and well deserving of a 
 library place iu England," — Literary 
 Gaxette. 
 
 "A work warmly admired by excellent 
 judges," — Taifs Magazine. 
 
 "An admirable work, written with great 
 power and beauty." — Prqf. LongJ'cllow. — 
 Foets and Foctry of Europe. 
 
 '^^a^^ 
 
 ■^-G^^s^m 
 
S^rS^ 
 
 -^"^^^^^fi 
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 17 
 
 The Life of Jean Paul Pr. Richter. Compiled 
 
 from various sources. Together with his Autobiography, translated 
 from the German. Second Edition. Illustrated with a Portrait 
 engraved on Steel. Post 8vo, cloth, 7^. Qd. P. I5. 
 ' The autobiography of Richter, which 
 
 extends only to his twelfth year, is one of 
 the most interesting studies of a true poet's 
 childhood ever given to the world." — 
 Lowe's Edinburgh Magazine. 
 
 "Richtei has an intellect vehement, 
 rugged, irresistible, crushing in pieces the 
 hardest problems ; piercing into the most 
 
 women, of the most refined and exalted 
 natures, and of princely rank. It is full 
 of passages so attractive and valuable, that 
 it is diflficult to make a selection as ex- 
 amples of its character."— /n^MiVer. 
 
 " The work is a useful exhibition of a 
 great and amiable man, who, possessed of 
 the kindliest feelings, and the most bril- 
 
 hidden combinations of things, and grasp- 1 liant fantasy, turned to a high piirpose 
 ing the most distant; an imagination j that humour of which Rabelais is the gi-eat 
 vague, sombre, splendid, or appalling, 1 grandfather, and Sterne one of the line of 
 brooding over the abysses of being, wan- '■ ancestors, and contrasted it with an ex- 
 dering through infinitude, and summoning ' altation of feeling and a rhapsodical poetry 
 before us, in its dim religious light, shapes ' which are entirely his own. Let us hope 
 of brilliancy, solemnity, or terror; a fancy , that it will complete the work begun by 
 of exuberance literally unexampled, for it : Mr. Carlyle's Essays, and cause Jean Paul 
 pours its treasures with a lavishness which i to be really read in this country."— -Ej-- 
 knows no limit, hanging, like the sun, a ; aminer. 
 
 jewel on every erass-blade, and sowing the t "Richter is exhibited in a most ami- 
 earth at large~with orient pearls. But i able light in this biography— industrious, 
 deeper than all these lies humour, the , frugal, benevolent, with a child-like sim- 
 ruling quality of Eichter— as it were the ' plicity of character and a heart overflow- 
 central fii-e that pervades and vivifies his ing with the purest love. His letters to 
 whole being. He is a humorist from his his wife are beautiful memorials of true 
 inmost soul ; he thinks as a humorist ; \ affection, and the way in which he perpe- 
 he imagines, acts, feels as a humorist ; tually speaks of his children shows that 
 sport is the element in which his nature he was the most attached and indulgent 
 lives and works."- r^o??2a^ Carlyle. ; of fathers. Whoever came within the 
 
 " With such a writer it is no common : sphere of his companionship appears to 
 treat to be intimately acquainted. In the ' have contracted an affection for him that 
 proximity of great and virtuous minds we death only dissolved : and whUe his name 
 imbibe apportion of their nature,— feel, as , was resounding through Germany, he re- 
 mesmerists say, a healthful contagion, are mained as meek and humble as if he had 
 braced with the same spirit of faifh, hope, still been an unknown adventurer on Par- 
 and patient endurance — are furnished nasstis." — The Apprentice. 
 with data for clearing up and working out " The ' Life of Jean Paul ' is a charming 
 the intricate problem of life, and are in- piece of biography which draws and rivets 
 spired, like them, with the prospect of the attention. The affections of the reader 
 immortality. No reader of sensibility can ! are fixed on the hero with an intensity 
 rise from the perusal of these volumes ' rarely bestowed on an historical charac- 
 without becoming both wiser and better." ' ter. It is impossible to read this bio - 
 — Atlas. ' graphy without a conviction of its inte- 
 
 " Apart from the interest of the work, as grity and truth; and though Richter's 
 the life of Jean Paul, the reader leai-ns style is more difficult of translation than 
 something of German life and German that of any other German, yet we feel 
 thought, and is introduced to Weimar ; that his golden thoughts have reached 
 during its most distinguished period — : us pure from the mine, to which he has 
 when Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wie- \ given that impress of genius which makes 
 land, the great fixed stars of Germany, in 1 them current in aU countries." — Christian 
 conjunction with Jean PauL were there, EeforTuer. 
 surrounded by beautiful and admiring 
 
 Histoire des Crimes du Deux Decembre. 
 
 Par VICTOR SCHCELCHER, Representant du Peuple. Post 8vo, 
 cloth, 7s. 6c?. 
 
 " It wants the splendid rhetoric and 
 sarcasm of ' Napoleon le Petit,' but it 
 compensates the deficiency by presenting 
 a circumstantial, animated, detailed his- 
 tory of the coup d'etat." — Westminster 
 Eeview. 
 
 ^b^ 
 
 " There is much that is new in it, and 
 every page is curious. The history of the 
 several ' preventive arrests,' with which 
 the coup d'etat opened, is told with cir- 
 cumstantial minuteness, and reads like a 
 Dumas novel." — Leader. 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 
 i 
 
^ 18 
 
 -e^^g^Q 
 
 c) The Educational Systems of the United V 
 
 MR. chapman's publications. 
 
 States. 
 
 [^Preparinrj for j^ublicatlon. 
 
 The liife of the Rev. Joseph Blanco "Wliite. 
 
 Written by Himself. With Portions of his Correspondence. Edited 
 by JOHN HAMILTON THOM. 3 vols, post 8vo, cloth. Original 
 price, £1 4s. ; reduced to 155. P. 2s. 
 
 " This is a book which rivets the atten- 
 tion, and makes the heart bleed. It has, 
 indeed, with regard to himself, in its sub- 
 stance, though not in its arrangement, an 
 almost dramatic character; so clearly and 
 strongly is the living, thinking, active j 
 man projected from the face of the re- ; 
 cords which he has left. j 
 
 " His spirit was a battle-field, upon i 
 which, with fluctuating fortune and sin- 
 gular intensity, the powers of belief and 
 scepticism waged, from first to last, their i 
 unceasing war ; and within the compass of 
 his experience are presented to our view ! 
 most of the gi-eat moral and spiritual pro- 1 
 blems that attach to the condition of our i 
 race." — Quarterly Review. \ 
 
 " This book will improve his (Blanco 
 White's) reputation. There is much in 
 
 the peculiar construction of his mind, in 
 its close union of the moral with the intel- 
 lectual faculties, and in its restless desire 
 for truth, which may remind the reader 
 of Dr. Arnold." — Examiner. 
 
 " There is a depth and force in this book 
 which tells." — Christian Itememhrancer . 
 
 " These volumes have an interest be- 
 yond the character of Blanco White. And 
 beside the intrinsic interest of his self-por- 
 traiture, whose character is indicated in 
 some of our extracts, the correspondence, 
 in the letters of Lord Holland, Southey, 
 Coleridge, Channing, Norton, Mill, Pro- 
 fessor Powell, Dr. Hawkins, and other 
 names of celebrity, has considerable at- 
 tractions in itself, without any relation to 
 the biographical purpose with which it 
 was published." — Spectator. 
 
 The History of Ancient Art among the 
 
 Greeks. By JOHN WINCKELMANN. From the German, by 
 G. H. Lodge, Beautifully illustrated. 8vo, cloth. Original price, 
 12s, ; reduced to Qs. P, Is. 
 
 " That Winckelmann was well fitted for 
 the task of writing a History of Ancient 
 Art, no one can deny who is acquainted 
 with his profound learning and genius. 
 
 He undoubtedly possessed in the 
 
 highest degree the power of appreciating 
 artistic skill wherever it was met with, but 
 never more so than when seen in the garb 
 
 of antiquity The work is of ' no 
 
 common order,' and a careful study of the 
 great principles embodied in it must ne- 
 cessarily tend to form a pure, correct, and 
 elevated taste." — Eclectic Itcvieiv. 
 
 " The work is throughout lucid, and free 
 from the pedantry of technicality. Its 
 clearness constitutes its great charm. It 
 does not discuss any one subject at great 
 length, but aims at a general view of Art, 
 with attention to its minute developments. 
 It is, if we may use the phrase, a Grammar 
 of Greek Art, a sine qua non to all who 
 would thoi-oughly investigate its language 
 of form." — Literary World. 
 
 " Winckelman is a standard writer, to 
 whom most students of art have been more 
 
 or less indebted. He possessed extensive 
 information, a refined taste, and great zeal. 
 His style is plain, direct, and specific, so 
 that you are never at a loss for his mean- 
 ing. Some very good outlines, representing 
 fine types of Ancient Greek Art, illustrate 
 the text, and the volume is got up in a 
 style worthy of its subject." — Spectator. 
 
 " To all lovers of art, this volume will 
 fui-nish the most necessary and safe guide 
 in studying the pure principles of nature 
 
 and beauty m creative ai*t We 
 
 cannot wish better to English art than 
 for a wide circulation of this invaluable 
 work." — Standard of Freedotn. 
 
 " The mixture of the philosopher and 
 artist in Winckelman's mind gave it at 
 once an elegance, penetration, and know- 
 ledge, which fitted him to a marvel for 
 
 the task he undertook Such 
 
 a work ought to be in the library of every 
 artist and man of taste, and even the 
 most general reader will find in it much 
 to instruct, and much to interest him." — 
 /Itlas. 
 
 m^^^^ 
 
 ■6=6^ 
 
f^^$^ 
 
 POETRY AND FICTION. 
 
 19 m 
 
 Iiife and Letters of Judge Story^ the eminent 
 
 American Jurist, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, and Dane Professor of Law at Har\'ard University. 
 Edited by his Son, WILLIAM W. STORY. With a Portrait. 
 2 vols. 8vo, cloth. Original price, £1 10s. ; reduced to £1. P. 3^. 
 "Greaterthan any Law "Writer of which I stone."— Lord Campbell, in the Hotue of 
 England can boast since the days of Black- | Lards, April', 1843. 
 
 I 
 
 FreciOSa : A Tale. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 75. 6d. 
 
 The Village Pearl : A Domestic Poem ; with Mis- 
 ceUaneous Pieces. By JOHN CRAWFORD WILSON. Fcap. 
 8vo, cloth, ds. 6d. 
 
 The Nemesis of Faith. 
 
 FeUow of Exeter College, Oxford. 
 
 By J. A. FROLT)E, M.A., late 
 Post 8vo, cloth, 6s. P. 6c?. 
 
 " ' The Nemesis of Faith' possesses the 
 first requisites of a book. It has power, 
 matter, and mastery of subject, with that 
 largeness which must arise from the 
 writer's mind, and that individual cha- 
 racter — those truths of detail — which 
 spring from experience or observation. 
 The pictures of an English home in child- 
 hood, youth, and early manhood, as well 
 as the thoughts and feelings of the student 
 at Oxford, are painted with feeling per- 
 vaded by a current of thought: the re- 
 marks on the humbug of the three learned 
 professions, more especially on the world- 
 liness of the church, are not mere decla- 
 mation, but the outpouring of an earnest 
 conviction : the Picture of Anglican Pro- 
 testantism, dead to faith, to love, and to 
 almost everj-thing but wealth-worship, 
 ■with the statement of the objects that 
 Newman first proposed to himself, form 
 the best defence of Tractarianism that has 
 appeared, though defence does not seem to 
 
 be the object of the author As the 
 
 main literary object is to display the 
 struggles of a mind with the growth and 
 grounds of opinion, incidents are subordi- 
 nate to the intellectual results that spring 
 from them: but there is no paucity of in- 
 cident if the work be judged by its own 
 standard . ' 'Spectator . 
 
 " The most striking quality in Mr. 
 Froude's writings is his descriptive elo- 
 quence. His characters are all living 
 before us, and have no sameness. His 
 quickness of eye is manifest equally in his 
 
 insight into human minds, and in his per- 
 ceptions of natural beauty The 
 
 style of the letters is everywhere charm- 
 ing. The confessions of a Sceptic are often 
 brilliant, and always touching. The clos- 
 ing narrative is fluent, graphic, and only 
 too highly wrought in painful beauty." — 
 Prospective Review, May, 1S49. 
 
 " The book becomes in its soul-bnming 
 truthfulness, a quite invaluable record of 
 the fiery struggles and temptations through 
 which the youth of this nineteenth century 
 has to force its way in religious matters. 
 
 Especially is it a great warning 
 
 and protest against three great falsehoods. 
 Against self-deluded word orthodoxy and 
 bibliolatry, setting up the Bible for a mere 
 dead idol instead of a living witness to 
 Christ. Against frothy philosophic Infi- 
 delity, merely changing the chaff of old 
 systems for the chaflf of new, addressing 
 men's intellects and ignoiing their spirits. 
 Against Tractarianism, trying to make 
 men all belief, as Strasburgers make 
 geese aU liver, by darkness and cram- 
 ming; manufacturing state folly as the 
 infidel state wisdom : deliberately giving 
 the lie to God, who has made man in 
 his own image, body, soul, and spirit, by 
 making the two first decrepit for the 
 
 sake of pampering the last 
 
 Against these three falsehoods, we say, 
 does the book before us protest : after its 
 own mournful fashion, most strongly when 
 most unconsciously." — Eraser's Mag., 
 May, 1849. 
 
 *6S$^ 
 
■€^0^ 
 
 20 MR. chapman's publications. 
 
 Essays^ Poems^ Allegories^ and Fables. By 
 
 JANUARY SEARLE. 8vo, 4s. 
 
 Poems by R. W. Emersono Post 8vo, cloth, 45. 
 
 Norica^ or, Tales of Niirnberg from the Olden Time. 
 
 Translated from the German of August Hagen. Fcp. 8vo, orna- 
 mental binding, suitable for presentation, uniform with *' The 
 Artist's Married Life." Original price, 7s. 6d. ; reduced to 5s. 
 P. 6d. 
 
 " This pleasant volume is got up in that 
 style of imitation of the books of a cen- 
 tury ago, which has of late become so 
 much the vogue. The typogi'aphical and 
 mechanical departments of the volume 
 speak loudly for the taste and enterprise 
 employed upon it. Simple in its style, 
 quaint, pithy, reasonably pungent — the 
 book smacks strongly of the picturesque 
 old days of which it treats. A long study 
 of the art-antiquities of Niirnberg, and a 
 profound acquaintance with the records, 
 letters, and memoirs, still preserved, of 
 the times of Albert Diirer and his great 
 brother artists, have enabled the author 
 to lay before us a forcibly-drawn and 
 highly-finished picture of art and house- 
 hold life inthat wonderfully art-practising 
 and art-reverencing old city of Germany." 
 —At/as. 
 
 " A delicious little book. It is full of a 
 quaint garrulity, and characterized by an 
 earnest simplicity of thought and diction, 
 which admirably conveys to the reader the 
 
 household and artistic German life of the 
 times of Maximilian, Albert Diirer, and 
 Hans Sachs, the celebrated cobbler and 
 ' master singer,' as well as most of the 
 artist celebrities of Niirnberg in the 16th 
 century. Art is the chief end and aim of 
 this little history. It is lauded and praised 
 with a sort of unostentatious devotion, 
 which explains the religious passion of the 
 early moulders of the ideal and the beau- 
 tiful ; and, perhaps, through a consequent 
 deeper concentration of thought, the secret 
 of their success." — Weekly Dispatch. 
 
 " A volume full of interest for the lover 
 of old times; while the form in which it 
 is presented to us may incite many to 
 think of art, and look into its many won- 
 drous influences with a curious earnest- 
 ness unknown to them before. It points 
 a moral also, in the knowledge that a 
 people may be brought to take interest in 
 what is chaste and beautiful as in what 
 is coarse and degrading." — Manchester 
 Examiner. 
 
 Hearts in Mortmain^ and Cornelia. A Novel, 
 
 in 1 vol. Post 8vo, cloth. Original price, lOs. 6c?. ; reduced to 
 5s. P. Qd. 
 
 " To come to such writings as ' Hearts 
 in Mortmain, and Cornelia' after the 
 anxieties and roughness of our worldly 
 struggle, is like bathing in fresh waters 
 after the dust and heat of bodily exertion. 
 . . . .. To a peculiar and attractive grace 
 they join considerable dramatic power, 
 and one or two of the characters are con- 
 ceived and executed with real genius."— 
 ProHpcctive lievieto. 
 
 " IJoth stories contain matter of thought 
 and reflection which would set up a dozen 
 common-placo circulating-library produc- 
 tions." — Examiner. 
 
 "It is not often now-a-days that two 
 works of such a rare degree of excellence 
 in their class are to be found in one 
 
 volume; it is rarer still to find two works, 
 each of which contains matter for two 
 volumes, bound up in these times in one 
 cover."— Observer. 
 
 " The above is an extremely pleasing 
 book. The first story is written in the an- 
 tiquated form of letters, but its simplicity 
 and good taste redeem it from the tedi- 
 ousness and appearance of egotism which 
 generally attend that style of composi- 
 tion." — Economist. 
 
 " Well written and interesting." — Dailt/ 
 Netrs. 
 
 " Two very pleasing and elegant novels. 
 Some passages display descriptive powers 
 of a high order." — Britannia. 
 
 I) 
 
 l<S^3^^ 
 
 ^=6s$^^i 
 
■^^^^3^m 
 
 POETRY AND FICTION. 
 
 21 
 
 t 
 
 The Siege of Damascus ; An Historical Romance. 
 
 By JAMES NISBET. In 3 vols, post 8vo, cloth. Original price, 
 
 £1 11^. 6d. ; reduced to 10s. P. Is. M. 
 "A romance of very unusual power, 
 such as must arrest attention by its quali- 
 ties as a work of fiction, and help the good 
 
 cause of liberty of thought." — Leader. 
 
 " There is an occasional inequality of 
 style in the writing, but, on the whole, it 
 
 may be pronounced beyond the aTerage of 
 modem novelists .... whilst descriptive 
 passages might be selected that betray a 
 very high order of merit." — Manchester 
 Examiner. 
 
 Peter Jones; or, Onward 
 
 12mo, price 3s. P. M. 
 
 Bound. An Autobiography. 
 
 Reverberations, Part I., \s. Part 11., 2s. Fcp. 
 
 8vo, paper cover. 
 " In this little vei-se-pamphlet of some 
 sixty or seventy pages, we think we see 
 evidences of a true poet ; of a fresh and 
 natural fount of genuine song ; and of a 
 purpose and sympathy admirably suited to 
 the times. .... The purchaser of it will 
 find himself richer in possessing it by 
 many wise and charitable thoughts, many 
 generous emotions, and much calm and 
 quiet, yet deep reflection." — Examiner. 
 
 " Remarkablefor earnestness of thought 
 and strength of diction."— 3/or«//jfi/era/d. 
 
 " The author of these rhymed brochures 
 has much of the true poetic spirit. He is 
 always in earnest. He writes from the full 
 heart. There is a manliness, too, in all his 
 utterances that especially recommends 
 
 them to us As long as we have such 
 
 ' Eeverberations' as these, we shall never 
 grow weary of them." — Weekly News. 
 
 The Artistes Married Life ; Being that of Albert 
 
 Diirer, Translated from the German of Leopold Schefer, by Mrs. 
 
 J. R. STODAET. 1 vol. fcp. 8vo, ornamental binding, 6s. P. 6d. 
 " It is the worthy aim of the novelist to ' " The work reminds us of the happiest 
 
 show that even the trials of genius are part eflTorts of Tieck The design is to 
 
 of its education — that its very wounds are show how, in spite of every obstacle, 
 
 furrows for its harvest No one, genius will manifest itself to the world, 
 
 indeed, would have a right to expect from and give shape and substance to its beau- 
 
 the author of the ' Laienbrevier ' (see tiful dreams and fancies It is 
 
 AttiencEum, No. 437y such a stem and for- a very pure and delightful composition, is 
 cible picture of old times and trials as a , tastefully produced in an antique style, 
 Meinhold can give — still less the wire- and retains in the translation all the pe- 
 drawn sentimentahties of a Hahn-Hahn ; culiarities (without which the book would 
 but pure thoughts — high morals — tender lose half its merit) of German thought 
 
 feelings — might be looked for The and idiom." — Britannia. 
 
 merits of this story consist in its fine pur- "Simply then we assure our readers 
 pose, and its thoughtful, and for the most ' that we have been much pleased with this 
 part just, exposition of man's inner life. work. The nai-rative portion is well con- 
 To those who, chiefly appreciating such ceived, and completely illustrates the 
 qualities, can dispense with the stimulants author's moral ; while it is interspersed 
 of incident and passion, the book before us •■ with many passages which are ftill of 
 will not be unacceptable." — AthencBum. \ beauty and pathos." — Inquirer. 
 
 The Bishop's "Wife : A Tale of the Papacy. Trans- 
 lated from the German of Schefer, by Mrs. J. R. STODART. Fcp. 
 8vo, cloth gilt. Original price, 4s. ; reduced to 2s. P. Qd. 
 
 Three Experiments of Idving: Within the 
 
 Means. Up to the Means. Beyond the Means. Fcp. Svo, orna- 
 mental cover and gilt edges, Is, P. 6d. 
 
 \ 
 
 ^tB- 
 
 ■e^^ 
 
22 
 
 -eO^ 
 
 MR. chapman's publications. 
 
 ma. 
 
 An Analytical Catalogue of l^r. Chapman^s 
 
 Publications. Price Is. P. 6d. 
 
 %* To enable the reader to judge for himself of the merits of Mr. 
 Chapman's publications, irrespective of the opinions of the press — 
 whether laudatory or otherwise — an Analytical Catalogue has been 
 prepared, which contains an abstract of each work, or, at least, such 
 an amount of information regarding it as will furnish him with a 
 clear conception of its general aim and scope. At the same time, 
 from the way in which the Catalogue is drawn up, it comprises a 
 condensed body of Ideas and Pacts, in themselves of substantive 
 interest and importance, and is therefore, intrinsically, well worthy 
 the attention of the Student. 
 
 Cheap BookSj and how to get them. Being 
 
 a Reprint, from the Westminstee Review for April, 1852, of the 
 article on " The Commerce of Literature ;" together with a Brief 
 Account of the Orisfin and Progress of the Recent Agitation for Free 
 Trade in Books. By JOHN CHAPMAN. To which is added, the 
 judgment pronounced by Lord Campbell. Second Edition. Price Is. 
 P. 6d. 
 
 A Report of the Proceedings of a Meeting 
 
 (consisting chiefly of Authors) held 'May 4th, at the House of Mr. 
 John Chapman, 142, Strand, for the purpose of hastening the re- 
 moval of the Trade Restrictions on the Commerce of Literature. 
 Third Edition. Price 2d. 
 
 Two Orations against taking away Human 
 
 Life, under any Circumstances ; and in Explanation and Defence of 
 the Misrepresented Doctrine of Non-Resistance. By THOMAS 
 COOPER, Author of "The Purgatory of Suicides." JPost Svo, in 
 paper cover, Is. P. 6d. 
 " Mr. Cooper possesses undeniable abili- the highest degree manly, plain, and vigor- 
 tics of no mean order, and moral com-aje ous." — Moriiing Advertiser. 
 
 beyond many The manliness with " These two orations are thoroughly im- 
 
 which he avows, and the boldness and zeal bued with the peace doctrines which have 
 with which he urges, the doctrinesof peace lately been making rapid progress in many 
 and love, respect for human rights, and unexpected quarters. To all who take an 
 moral power, in these lectures, are worthy interest in that great movement, we would 
 of all honour." — Nunronfoi7>iisl. i-econiniond this book, on accoimt of the 
 
 Mr. Cooper's style is intensely clear 
 and forcible, and displays great earnest- 
 
 ness and fine human sympathy ; it is in i Chester Examiner. 
 
 ^5^ 
 
 fervid iltxiuence and earnest truthfulness 
 which pervade every line of it."— iV«w- 
 
 ■^6^ 
 
i^^^s^ 
 
 ■^^^^^^t 
 
 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 23 
 
 stories for Sunday Afternoons. By Mrs. 
 
 DAWSON. Square 18mo, cloth, Is. Qd. P. M. 
 
 " This is a very pleasing little volume, 
 •which we can confidently rGcommend. It 
 is designed and admirably adapted for the 
 use of children from five to eleven years of 
 age. It purposes to infuse into that tender 
 age some acquaintance with the facts, and 
 taste for the study of the Old Testament. 
 The style is simple, easy, and for the most 
 
 part correct. The stories are told in a 
 spirited and graphic manner. 
 
 " Those who are engaged in teaching the 
 young, and in laying the foundation of 
 good character by early religious and 
 moral impressions, will be thankful for 
 additional resources of a kind so judicious 
 as this volume." — Inquirer. 
 
 !' 
 
 Essays by ISmerson. 
 
 by THOS. CARLYLE. Post i 
 " The difficulty we find in giving a pro- 
 per notice of this volume arises from the 
 pervadingness of its excellence, and the 
 compression of its matter. "With more 
 learning than Hazlitt, more perspicuity 
 than Carlyle, more vigour and depth of 
 thought than Addison, and with as much 
 originality and fascination as any of them, 
 this volume is a brilliant addition to the 
 Table Talk of intellectual men, be they 
 who or where they may." — Prospective 
 Hevieio. 
 
 " Mr. Emerson is not a common man, 
 and everything he writes coiitains sugges- 
 tive matter of much thought and earnest- 
 ness." — Examiner, 
 
 " That Emerson is, in a high degree, 
 possessed of tlie faculty and vision of the 
 seer, none can doubt who will earnestly 
 and with a kind and reverential spirit 
 peruse these nine Essays. He deals only 
 with the true and the eternal. His pierc- 
 ing gaze at once shoots swiftly, surely, 
 through the outward and the superficial, 
 to the inmost causes and workings. Any 
 one can tell the time who locks on the 
 face of the clock, but he loves to lay bare 
 the machinery and show its moving prin- 
 ciple. His words and his thoughts are a 
 fresh spring, that invigorates the soul that 
 is steeped therein. His mind is ever 
 dealing with the eternal ; and those who 
 only live to exercise their lower intellec- 
 tual faculties, and desire only new facts 
 
 Second Series, with Preface, 
 
 Ivo, cloth, 3s. Qd. P. Qd. 
 
 j and new images, and those who have not 
 
 ' a feeling or an interest in the great ques- 
 tion of mind and matter, eternity and 
 nature, will disregard him as unintelligi- 
 ble and uninteresting, as they do Bacon 
 and Plato, and, indeed, philosophy itself." 
 
 j — Doztglas Jerrnld's Magaxine. 
 
 I " Beyond social science, because beyond 
 
 I and outside social existence, there lies the 
 science of self, the development of man in 
 his individual existence, within himself 
 and for himself. Of this latter science, 
 which may perhaps be called the philo- 
 sophy of individuality, Mr. Emerson is an 
 able apostle and interpreter." — League. 
 
 "As regards the particular volume of 
 Emerson before us, we think it an im- 
 provement upon the first series of essays. 
 The subjects are better chosen. They 
 come home more to the experience of the 
 
 1 mass of mankind, and are consequently 
 
 j more interesting. Their treatment also 
 indicates an artistic improvement in the 
 
 I composition." — Spectator. 
 
 j " All lovers of literature will read Mr. 
 Emerson's new volume, as the most of 
 them have read his former one; and if 
 correct taste, and sober views of life, and 
 such ideas on the higher subjects of 
 thought as we have been accustomed to 
 account as ti-uths, are sometimes outraged, 
 we at least meet at every step with origi- 
 
 j nality, imagination, and eloquence." — 
 
 j Inquirer. 
 
 The Beauties of Channing. With an Introductory 
 Essay. By WILLIAM MOUNTFORD. 12mo, cloth, 2s. M. 
 P. 6fZ. 
 
 " This is really a book of beauties. It is 
 no collection of shreds and patches, but a 
 faithful representative of a mind which 
 deserves to have its image reproduced in 
 a thousand forms. It is such a selection 
 from Channing as Channing himself might 
 have made. It is as though we had the 
 choicest passages of those divine discourses 
 
 read to us by a kindred spirit 
 
 Those who have read Martyria will feel 
 that no man can be better quahfied than 
 its author, to bring together those passages 
 which are at once most characteristic, and 
 most i-ich in matter tending to the moral 
 and religious elevation of human beings." 
 — Inquirer. 
 
 I 
 
24 
 
 -e^^ 
 
 MR. CHAPMAN S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 William von Humboldt^ s Iietters to a 
 
 Female Friend. A Complete Edition. Translated from the Second 
 German Edition. By CATHERINE M. A. COUPER, Author of 
 "Visits to Beechwood Farm," "Lucy's Half-Cro\vu," &c. 2 vols, 
 post 8vo, cloth, 10s. P. Is. 
 "We cordially recommend these volumes ] sess not only high intrinsic interest, but 
 
 to the attention of our readers an interest arising from the very striking 
 
 The work is in every way worthy of the circumstances in which they originated. 
 
 character and experience of its distin- "SVe wish we had space to verify 
 
 guished author."— £>«% News. our remarks. But we should not know 
 
 " These admirable letters were, we where to begin, or where to end ; we 
 
 have therefore no alternative but to re- 
 commend the entire book to careful pe- 
 rusal, and to promise a continuance of 
 . occasional extracts into our columns from 
 the beauties of thought and feeling with 
 which it abounds." — Manchester Exa- 
 miner and Times. 
 
 "It is the only complete collection of 
 Westminster and Foreign Quarterly He- j these remarkable letters, which has yet 
 vieiv. I been published in English, and the transla- 
 
 " The beautiful series of W. von Hum- i tion is singularly pei-fect; we have seldom 
 boldt's letters, now for the first time ' read such a rendering of German thoughts 
 translated and pubUshed complete, pos- into the EngUsh tongue."— C;-jVjc. 
 
 believe, first introduced to notice in 
 England by the 'Athenaeum;' and per- 
 haps no greater boon was ever conferi'ed 
 upon the English reader than in the pub- 
 lication of the two volumes which contain 
 this excellent translation of William Hum- 
 boldt's portion of a lengthened corre- 
 spondence with his female friend." — 
 
 Iiocal Seif-Grovemment and Centralization : 
 
 The Characteristics of each, and its Practical Tendencies as affecting 
 Social, Moral, and Political Welfare and Progress : including com- 
 prehensive Outlines of the English Constitution. By J. TOULMIN 
 SMITH. Post 8vo, cloth. Original price, 8s. Qd. ; reduced to 5s. 
 P. Is. 
 " This is a valuable, because a thought- 
 ful, treatise upon one of the general sub- 
 jects of theoretical and practical politics. 
 No one in all probability will give an ab- 
 solute assent to all its conclusions, but the 
 reader of Mr. Smith's volume will in any 
 case be induced to give more weight to 
 the important principle insisted on." — 
 TaiCs Magazine. 
 
 " Embracing, with a vast range of con- 
 stitutional learning, used in a singularly 
 attractive form, an elaborate review of all 
 the leading questions of our d&^j."— Eclec- 
 tic Kcviinn. 
 
 " This is a book, therefore, of imme- 
 diate interest, and one well worthy of the 
 most studious consideration of every re- 
 former ; but it is also the only complete 
 and correct exposition we have of our po- 
 litical system; and we mistake much if 
 
 chapters of the soundest practical philo- 
 sophy; every page bearing the marks of 
 profound and practical thought." 
 
 " The chapters on the crown, and on 
 common law, and statute law, display a 
 thorough knowledge of constitutional law 
 and history, and a vast body of learn- 
 ing is brought forward for popular infor- 
 mation without the least parade or pe- 
 dantry." 
 
 " Mr. Toulmin Smith has made a most 
 valuable contribution to English litera- 
 ture; for he has given the people a true 
 account of their once glorious constitu- 
 tion ; more than that, he has given them 
 a book replete with the soundest and most 
 practical views of political philosophy." — 
 Weekly News. 
 
 " There is much research, sound prin- 
 ciple, and good logic in this book ; and we 
 
 it does not take its place in literature as j can recommend it to the perusal of all 
 our standard text-book of the consti- who wish to attain a competent knowledge 
 tution." I of the broad and lasting basis of English 
 
 "The special chapters on local self-go- constitutional law and practice." — MorU' 
 vernment and centralization will be found ing Advertiser. 
 
 Bible Stories. 
 
 p. u. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 By SAMEUL AVOOD. 2 vols. 12mo, cloth, 3s 
 
MISCELLANEA. 
 
 The Duty of Slngland : A Protestant Layman's Reply 
 to Cardinal AViseraan's "Appeal." 8vo, Is. P. 6d. 
 
 " The ' Protestant Layman ' argues the 1 logical argument, free inquiry, and free 
 question in the right spirit. He would ) thought, unbiassed by authority."- — Man- 
 meet the ' Papal aggressioii' solely by i Chester Spectator. 
 
 The Critical and JSaiscellaneous Works of 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. Post 8vo, cloth, Qs. P. Is. 
 
 "It will be seen from these extracts His language is almost entirely figurative: 
 that Theodore Parker is a writer of con- the glories of nature are pressed into his 
 siderable power and freshness, if not origi- service, and convey his most careless 
 nality. Of the school of Carlyle, or rather thought. This is the principal charm of 
 taking the same German originals for his his writings ; his eloquence is altogether 
 models, Parker has a more sober style and unlike that of the English orator or es- 
 a less theatric taste. His composition sayist ; it partakes of the grandeur of the 
 wants the grotesque animation and rich- | forests in his native land; and we seem, 
 ness of Carlyle, but it is vivid, strong, and ; when listening to his speech, to hear the 
 
 frequently picturesque, with a tenderness 
 that the great Scotchman does not pos- 
 sess." — Spectator . 
 
 " Viewing him as a most useful, as well 
 
 music of the woods, the rustling of the 
 pine-trees, and the ringing of the wood- 
 man's axe. In this respect he resembles 
 Emerson; but, unlike that celebrated 
 
 as highly-gifted man, we cordially wel- | man, he never discourses audibly with 
 come the appearance of an English reprint 1 himself, in a language unknown to the 
 of some of his best productions. The wox"ld — he is never obscure ; the stream, 
 'Miscellaneous' pieces are characterized I though deep, reveals the glittering gems 
 by the peculiar eloquence which is without I which cluster so thickly on its bed." — 
 a parallel in the works of English writers. ' Inquirer. 
 
 Fara Bellum^ War and Invasion. 8vo, Is. 6d, 
 
 Counsels and Consolations. By Jonathan farr. 
 
 18mo, cloth, 2s. 
 
 Commercial and Banking Tables^ embracing 
 
 Time — Simple Interest — Unexpired Time and Interest — Interest. 
 Account Current, Time, and Averaging — Compound Interest — 
 Scientific Discount, both Simple and Compound — Annual Income 
 and Annuity Tables, equally adapted to the Currencies of all Com- 
 mercial Nations. The True or Intrinsic Value of the Gold and 
 Silver Coins, and the Standard "Weights and Measures of all Com- 
 mercial Countries. Also American, English, French, and German 
 Exchange. Together with the Exchange of Brazil, and the Impor- 
 tation of Rio Coffee. Arranged with reference to the harmonizing 
 of the Accounts and Exchanges of the "World, the whole upon an 
 Original Plan. By R. MONTGOMERY BARTLETT, Principal of 
 Bartlett's Commercial College, Cin., 0. One "Volume Royal Quarto, 
 handsomely bound in russia, £5. 
 
 %* This Wo7'Jc is Copyright. 
 
26 MR. chapman's publications. 
 
 Calico Printing as an Art Manufacture. 
 
 a Lecture read before tlie Society of Arts by Edmund Potter. 8vo, 
 sewedj Is. 
 
 The Cotton and Commerce of India^ Con- 
 sidered in Relation to the Interests of Great Britain; with Remarks 
 on Railway Communication in the Bombay Presidency. By JOHN 
 CHAPMAN, Founder and late Manager of the Great Indian Penin- 
 sular Railway Company. 8 vo, cloth. Original price, 12s. ; reduced 
 to 6s. P. Is. 
 
 " Promises to be one of the most useful ' 
 treatises that have been furnished on this , 
 
 important subject It is distin- , 
 
 guished by a close and logical style, coupled 
 ".vith an accuracy of detail which will, in a , 
 great measure, render it a text-book." — 
 T/mrs, Jan. 22, 1851. . 
 
 " Marked by sound good sense, akin to j 
 the highest wisdom of the statesman. The l 
 author has given to the public the most \ 
 complete book we have for some time met I 
 
 with on any subject." — Economist. 
 
 " Mr. Chapman's great practical know- 
 le Ige and experience of the subjects upon 
 which he treats have enabled him to col- 
 lect an amount of information, founded 
 upon facts, such as we believe has never 
 before been laid before the public. Tlie 
 all-important questions of supply, produc- 
 tion, and prices of cotton in India, as well 
 as the commercial and financial questions 
 connected with it, are most ably treated." 
 — Morning CJironicle. 
 
 " Written by an intelligent, painstaking, 
 and well-informed gentleman 
 
 Nothing can be more correct than his 
 views, so far as they extend, his survey 
 and character of districts, his conclusions 
 as to the supply the earth can yield, and 
 I his assertion that the cost of transit is 
 with Indian cotton the first and ruling 
 element of price." — Daily News. 
 j " Mr. Chapman's work is only appre- 
 I elated in the fulness of its value and merits 
 I by those who are interested in one or other 
 I branch of his subject. Full of data for 
 I reasoning, replete with facts, to which the 
 ; most implicit credit may be attached, and 
 free from any political bias, the volume is 
 I that 7a)a, if not incognita avi.i, a truth- 
 ful blue book, a volume of statistics not 
 cooked up to meet a theory or defend a 
 practice." — Britannia. 
 
 "The arrangement is clear, and the 
 treatment of the subject in all cases mas- 
 terly." — hidian News. 
 
 " This is a comprehensive, practical, 
 careful, and temperate investigation," &c. 
 — Indian Mail. 
 
 The Temporalities of the Established 
 
 Church, as they are and as they might be ; Collected from authentic 
 Public Records. By WILIilAM BEESTON, an Old Churchman. 
 Svo, paper cover, Is. P. id. 
 
 -K?» 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 ■^^e^ 
 
cT 
 
 y'^ 
 
 CHAPMAN'S 
 
 yikarj far il^t ^t0j)lc. 
 
 Uniform, Post 8vo, ornamented paper cover. 
 
 Sketches of European Capitals. By ayilliam 
 
 WARE, Author of "Zenobia; or, Letters from Palmyra," " Aure- 
 lian," &c. Is. P. 6d. 
 
 n. 
 
 Ziiterature and Life. Lectures by e. p. Whipple, 
 
 Author of " Essays and Reviews." Is. P. 6d. 
 
 Representative Men. 
 
 Is. 6d. P. 6d. 
 
 " Mr. Emerson's boob is for us rather 
 strange than pleasing. Like Mr. Carlyle, 
 he strains after effect by quaint phrase- 
 ology—the novelty will gain him admirers 
 and readers. At the same time there is 
 good sterling stufiF in him ; — already pos- 
 sessing a great name in his own country, 
 and being well known to the reading world 
 of Europe, his present work, speaking of 
 men and things with which we are fami- 
 liar, will extend his fame. It is more real 
 and material than his former volumes; 
 more pointedly written, more terse and 
 pithy, contains many new views, and is 
 on the whole both a good and a readable 
 book." — Economist. 
 
 " There are many sentences that glitter 
 and sparkle like crystals in the sunlight ; 
 
 Lectures by R. W. EMERSON. 
 
 I and many thoughts, which seem invoked 
 by a stern philosophy from the depths of 
 the heart."— TFVeAZy Kei/'s. 
 
 ' " There is more practical sense and 
 wisdom to be found in it (tliis Book) than 
 in any of the Books he has given to the 
 world, since his first When Emer- 
 son keeps within his doptli, he scatters 
 about him a gi-eat deal of true wisdom, 
 mingled with much genuine poetry There 
 is also a merit in him w-hich it would be 
 ungrateful not to acknowledge ; he has 
 made others think; he has directed the 
 minds of thousands to loftier exercises than 
 they had known before : he has stimu- 
 
 I lated the reflective faculties of multitudes, 
 
 . and thus led to inquiry, and inquiry cer- 
 tainly will conduct to truth." — Critic. 
 
 TV. 
 
 The Fourth Edition of 
 
 The Soul; Her Sorrows and Her Aspira- 
 tions. An Essay towards the Natural History of the Soul as the 
 true Basis of Theology. By FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN, 
 formerly FeUow of Bafliol College, Oxford. 25. P. 6d. 
 
 V. 
 
 Christian Theism. By c. c. hennell. Author of -'An 
 
 Inquiry into the Origin of Christianity." Is. P. 6d. 
 VI. 
 
 Historical Sketches of the Old Painters. 
 
 By the Author of " Three Experiments of Living," &c. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The First Series of Essays. By r. w. emerson. 
 
 ! 
 
 ^d^ 
 
A 28 MR. chapman's publications. 
 
 9 
 
 THE 
 
 WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 Price Six Shillings per Number. 
 
 Annual Sulscrij^tion, v:hen paid to the Publisher in Advance, £1 ; or if 
 the worh he delivered by post, £1 4s. 
 
 Contents of "No. V.— January, 1853. 
 
 YI 
 
 I. Mary Tudor. 
 II. The Condition and Prospects of 
 Ireland. 
 
 III. Charity, noxious and beneficent. 
 
 IV. The English Stage. 
 
 V. American Slavery, and Emanci- 
 pation by the Free States. 
 
 The Atomic Theory, before 
 Christ and since. 
 YII. History and Ideas of the Mor- 
 mons. 
 VIII. Daniel Webster. 
 IX. X. XI. XII. Contemporary Li- 
 terature of England, America, 
 Germany, and France. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 III. 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 VI. 
 
 Contents of No. IV.— October, 1852. 
 
 VII. Goethe as a 3Ian of Science. 
 VIII The Profession of Literature. 
 IX. The Duke of Wellington. 
 X, XI. XII. XIII. Contemporary 
 Literature of England, Ame- 
 rica, Germany, and France. 
 
 The Oxford Commission. 
 Whewell's Moral Philosophy. 
 Plants and Botanists. 
 Our Colonial Empire. 
 The Philosophy of Style. 
 The Poetry of the Anti- Jacobin 
 
 Contents of No. III.— July, 1852. 
 
 I. Secular Education. 
 II. England's Forgotten Worthies. 
 The Future of Geology. 
 Lord Jeffrey and the Edinburgh 
 
 Review. 
 The Tendencies of England. 
 The Lady Novelists. 
 
 Ill 
 IV 
 
 VII. 
 
 Senti- 
 
 The Political Life and 
 ments of Niebuhr. 
 VIII. The Kestoration of Belief. 
 IX. Sir Robert Peel and his Policy. 
 X. XI. XII. XIII. Contemporary 
 Literature of England, Ame- 
 rica, Germany, and France. 
 
 "The Westminster Revhw, which has failed under so many managements, 
 under its new management promises to be no failure at all. Good healthy 
 blood stirs in it, and we have little doubt that it will not only win its way to as 
 high a point in public estimation as it held in its best days, but that more prac- 
 tical results will follow, and it will be found to sell. With equal ability, we 
 observe a larger and more catholic spirit. In the present number there are 
 several good subjects soundly and admirably treated, and there is a delightful 
 article on • England's Forgotten Worthies," especially to be named with i)lea- 
 sure. The notion of treating quarterly in four final articles the general con- 
 temporary literature of England, America, Germany and France, is very good ; 
 the articles are well done, and tliey place tiie reader of tlie review in luissession 
 of a kind of information which he wants about tiie literature of the day. Let 
 us hope, then, that our old friend the Westminster, brought as it now is into com- 
 
 G<::^3^^ 
 
 ■*<ss^ 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 29 
 
 plete harmony with the spirit of the time, and having its pages furnished by 
 thinking men as well as able writers, will take gradually a sure hold of the 
 public, and will be hought by tho-e who heretofore have been satisfied to read it 
 as it came to them borrowed from the circulating library. We wish its new 
 conductors all success. They are in the right way to obtain it." — Examiner, 
 July 24th. 
 
 " The new Westminster Review is a brilliant and thoughtful one." — Leader, 
 July 1 0th. 
 
 " In general, the Rerietc is characterized by great novelty and great vigour." 
 — Economist, July 10th. 
 
 " This number, like its predecessors, is characterized by enlarged thought, 
 loftiness of purpose, and a style of great freshness, brilliance, and vigour." — 
 Sheffield Free Press. 
 
 " The reader who looks to the successive issues of the Westminster for a well- 
 stored field of matter whence he may derive intellectual improvement and grati- 
 fication, will find his expectations fully answered in the current number, which 
 is quite equal to its predecessors of the new series." — British Mercury/. 
 
 " This organ of free inquiry and liberal politics proceeds \igorously in the 
 hands of Mr. Chapman. The entire contents of the number are rich and 
 varied." — Bradford Observer. 
 
 " This new number is as attractive for the variety of its articles, and the force 
 and brilliancy which generally characterize them, as for the value of the solid 
 thoughts and pregnant suggestions which t:iey contain. Fine 'mitingtoo often 
 of itself sustains the reputation of our quarterlies; fine and deep thinking is less 
 cared for; but in the union of chese two seldom united quahties the Westminster 
 may be fairly said to be at present pre-eminent." — Coventry Herald. 
 
 " We have no hesitation in saying that the Westminster Review, in point of 
 talent, is not surpassed by any of its numerous contemporaries." — Cambridge 
 Independent. 
 
 " The present number well maintains that high and independent position 
 which the first did and promised to continue." — Plymouth Journal. 
 
 " The contributions are of a very high order." — Western Times. 
 
 " The present number contains no fewer than thirteen articles, all written 
 with consummate ability, and all treating of popular and interesting subjects." 
 — Nottingham Mercury. 
 
 Contents of No. II.— April, 1852. 
 
 I. The Government of India. j V. Shelley and the Letters of Poets. 
 
 II. Physical Puritanism. TI. The Commerce of Literature. 
 
 III. Europe: its Condition and Pro- ' TIL Lord Palmerston and his Policy. 
 
 spects. i YIII. Early Quakers and Quakerism. 
 
 IV. A Theory of Population, de- : IX. X. XL XII. Contemporary 
 
 duced from the General Law Literature of England, Ame- 
 
 of Animal Fertihty. rica, Germany, and France. 
 
 " We had occasion to speak of the promise of the Westminster under its new 
 management, and the second number entirely confirms our favourable judgment. 
 It would be difficult to find anywhere, now-adays, so much originahty, ability, 
 and sincerity, in the same number of pages." — Daily News. 
 
 '* The Westminster Review, under its new editorship, seems destined to achieve 
 a very distinguished position as a critical Titan, and to become a powerful agent 
 in the mental and moral progress of the age." — Weekly Dispatch. 
 
 " The current number of this periodical is one of unusual merit. * * * * » 
 Must be ranked among the very best that have been given to the world since 
 the first publication of the Westminster and Foreign Quarterly." — Observer. 
 
 I 
 
 b2 
 
BO 
 
 MR. CHAPMAN S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 " The present is altogether an excellent number of the Westminster" — Leeds 
 Times. 
 
 " >Vithout enumerating the articles, we are safe in giving them credit for 
 solidity and ability." — The Scotsman. 
 
 " The number presents a more than usually rich and varied programme." — 
 Glasgow Citizen. 
 
 " The present number of this able organ of progress is, upon the whole, 
 superior to the last." — Glasgow Sentinel, 
 
 " The Westminster holds on bravely in the career started under its new edi- 
 torial regime, grappling in an intrepid and uncompromising spirit of inquiry 
 with what may be called the organic, social, political, literary, and philosophical 
 questions of the age." — Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 " The articles exhibit a well-selected variety of topics, and their treatment is 
 characterized by largeness of view, independence of thought, and marked 
 abiHty." — Bristol Mercury. 
 
 " The manifest improvement and infusion of new life and spirit into this 
 Quarterly, which marked the first number of the new series, are well kept up." 
 • — Stamford Mercury. 
 
 " These wide fields for discussion are treated in a masterly manner by the 
 writers now engaged upon this important serial." — Reading Mercury. 
 
 " Our previous opinion of tlie Westminster Review, under the new management, 
 is fully borne out by the present number, which contains evidence oC unques- 
 tionable originality, great ability, and unatfected heartiness in the cause of pro- 
 gress." — Sheffield Free Press. 
 
 " It is almost impossible to select a paper, and say that it bears the palm. 
 * * * One is unable to say which most recommends itself to his notice by its 
 philosophy, its clearness, the knowledge which it communicates, or the language 
 with which it is adorned." — Sherborne Journal. 
 
 " The second number of the Westminster, under its new management, evidences 
 all the freshness and force which characterized the first number, with a full 
 measure of that comprehensiveness which especially characterizes the most 
 original and far-seeing and philosophic of the Quarterlies." — Coventry Herald. 
 
 Contents of No. I. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VIII 
 
 IX. 
 
 -January, 1852. 
 
 Vir. The Ethics of Christendom. 
 
 Political Questions and Parties 
 
 in France. 
 Contemporary Literature of 
 England. 
 X. Retrospective Survey of Ame- 
 rican Literature. 
 XL XII. XIII. Contemporary Lite- 
 rature of America, Germany, 
 and France. 
 
 I. Representative Reform. 
 II. Shell Fish: their Ways and 
 Works. 
 The Relation between Em- 
 ployers and Employed. 
 Mary Stuart. 
 The Latest Continental Theory 
 
 of Legislation. 
 Julia von Kriidener as Co- 
 quette and Mystic. 
 " This number is perfectly satisfactory." — Daily Neirs. 
 " ]5xhibits a very effective coalition of independent minds." — Globe. 
 " Wlaen we compare the two Reviews, {Quarterly and ff'estminster,) and point 
 out the greater merits of the Westminster, we try it by a very I'.igli stanihird, and 
 pass on it a very high eulogium. The new life it has received is all vigorous and 
 healthy." — Ecoiiomist. 
 
 " Contains some of the best and most interesting articles which have ever 
 graced a ' Quarterly.*" — Weekly Dispatch. 
 
 " Its principles remain the same as of yore, though enforced with far more 
 vigour." — Observer. 
 
 " Distinguished by high literary ability, and a tone of fearless and truthful 
 discussion which is full of promise for the future." — Weekly Xews. 
 
 l^^^^^ 
 
 :h 
 
 ■^€s 
 
^ TUE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 31 
 
 " The variety and ability of the articles are great, and the general tone of 
 the Review is unequivocally the expression of matured thought, and earnest and 
 elevated convictions." — Inquirer. 
 
 " We congratulate Mr. Chapman on the high tone and spirit of superior 
 enterprise manifest in the Eeview." — Court Journal. 
 
 The "Westminster Review" is designed as an instiiiraent for the 
 development and guidance of earnest thought on Politics, Social Philo- 
 sophy, Religion, and General Literature ; and is the organ of the most 
 able and independent minds of the day. 
 
 The fundamental principle of the work is the recognition of the Law 
 of Progress. In conformity with this principle, and with the consequent 
 conviction that attempts at reform — though modified by the experience 
 of the past and the conditions of the present — should be directed and 
 animated by an advancing ideal, the Editors seek to maintain a steady 
 comparison of the actual with the possible, as the most powerful stimulus 
 to improvement. Xevertheless, in the deliberate advocacy of organic 
 changes, it will not be forgotten, that the institutions of man, no less 
 than the products of nature, are strong and durable in proportion as 
 they are the results of a gi'adual development, and that the most salutary 
 and permanent reforms are those, which, while embodying the wisdom 
 of the time, yet sustain such a relation to the moral and intellectual con- 
 dition of the people as to ensure their support. 
 
 In contradistinction to the practical infidelity and essentially destruc- 
 tive policy which would ignore the existence of wide-spread doubts in 
 relation to established creeds and systems, and would stifle all inquiry 
 dangerous to prescriptive claims, the Review exhibits that untemporizing 
 expression of opinion, and that fearlessness of investigation and criticism, 
 which are the results of a consistent faith in the ultimate prevalence 
 of truth. 
 
 Aware that the same fundamental truths are apprehended under a 
 variety of forms, and that, therefore, opposing systems may in the end 
 prove complements of each other, the Editors endeavour to institute such 
 a radical and comprehensive treatment of those controverted questions 
 which are practically momentous, as may aid in the conciliation of diver- 
 gent views. In furtherance of this object, a limited portion of the work, 
 under the head of " Independent Contributions," is set apart for the 
 reception of articles ably setting forth opinions which, though not dis- 
 crepant with the general spirit of the Review, may be at variance with 
 the particular ideas or measures it will advocate. The primary object of 
 this department is to facilitate the expression of opinion by men of high 
 mental power and culture, who, while they are zealous friends of free- 
 dom and progress, yet differ widely on special points of great practical 
 concern, both from the Editors and from each other. 
 
 § 
 
 I 
 
 ^ -ee 
 
-e^^ 
 
 32 
 
 THE WESTMlxVSTER REVIEW. 
 
 The Review gives especial attention to that wide range of topics which 
 may be included under the term Social Philosophy. It endeavours to 
 form a dispassionate estimate of the diverse theories on these subjects, 
 to give a definite and intelligible form to the chaotic mass of thought 
 now prevalent concerning them, and to ascertain both in what degree 
 the popular efforts after a more perfect social state are countenanced by 
 the teachings of politico-economical science, and how far they may be 
 sustained and promoted by the actual character and culture of the 
 people. 
 
 In the department of politics careful consideration is given to all the 
 most vital questions, without regard to the distinctions of party ; the 
 only standard of consistency to which the Editors adhere being the real, 
 and not the accidental, relations of measures — their bearing, not on a 
 ministry or a class, but on the public good. 
 
 In the treatment of Religious Questions the Review unites a spirit of 
 reverential sympathy for the cherished associations of pure and elevated 
 minds with an uncompromising pursuit of truth. The elements of eccle- 
 siastical authority and of dogma are fearlessly examined, and the results 
 of the most advanced Biblical criticism are discussed without reservation, 
 under the conviction that religion has its foundation in man's nature, and 
 will only discard an old form to assume and vitalize one more expressive 
 of its essence. While, however, the Editors do not shrink from the 
 expression of what they believe to be sound negative views, they equally 
 bear in mind the pre-eminent importance of a constructive religious 
 philosophy, as connected with the development and activity of the moral 
 nature, and of those poetic and emotional elements, out of which pro- 
 ceed our noblest aspirations and the essential beauty of life. 
 
 In the department of General Literature the criticism is animated by 
 the desire to elevate the standard of the public taste, in relation both to 
 artistic perfection and moral purity ; larger space is afforded for articles 
 intrinsically valuable, by the omission of those minor and miscellaneous 
 notices which are necessarily forestalled by newspapers and magazines, 
 and equivalent infonnation is given in a single article showing the course 
 of literary production during each preceding quarter. The Foreign Sec- 
 tion of the Review is also condensed into an Historical Survey of the 
 novelties in Continental and American Literature which have appeared 
 in the same interval. 
 
 — e!8«- 
 
 I 
 
i 
 
 ^^ ce^^ ,^ 
 
 MR. chap.man's public ations. 33 
 
 THE 
 
 PROSPECTIVE REVIEW 
 
 ^ (Qiiartcrli) S^onrnal 
 
 or THEOLOGY AND LITEEATUEE. 
 Price 2s. 6d. per ^nuraber. 
 
 Contents of No. XXXII.— November, 1852. 
 
 I. Money and Morals. 
 II. The Eddas. 
 III. Uncle Tom's Cabin. 
 
 I Y. Hartley Coleridsre's Lives of the 
 
 Northern Worthies. 
 Y. Lectures on Moral Philosophy. 
 
 !? 
 
 The " Prospectite Review" is devoted to a free theology, and the 
 moral aspects of literature. Under the conviction that lingering in- 
 fluences from the doctrine of verbal inspiration are not only depriving 
 the primitive records of the Gospel of their true interpretation, but even 
 destroying faith in Christianity itself, the work is conducted in the con- 
 fidence that only a living mind and heart, not in bondage to any letter, 
 can receive the living sjnvit of revelation; and in the fervent belief that 
 for all such there is a true Gospel of God^ which no critical or historical 
 speculation can discredit or destroy, it aims to interpret and represent 
 Spiritual Christianity in its character of the universal religion. Fully 
 adopting the sentiment of Coleridge, that " the exercise of the reasoning 
 and reflective powers, increasing insight, and enlarging views, are 
 requisite to keep alive the substantial faith of the heart," — with a grate- 
 ful appreciation of the labours of faithful predecessoi-s of aU churches, — 
 it esteems it the part of a true reverence not to rest in their conclusions, 
 biit to think and live in their spirit. By the name, " Pkospectiye 
 Review," it is intended to lay no claim to discovery, but simply to . 
 express the desire and the attitude of Progress; to suggest continually ^') 
 the duty of using past and present as a trust for the future; and openly 
 to disown the idolatrous conservatism, of wHatever sect, which makes 
 Cliristianity but a lifeless formula. 
 
 s^se^i 
 
:^m. chap:\ia:s s purlicatioxs. 
 
 CJt Catljolit Stries. 
 
 Sermons of Consolation. By F. 
 
 W. p. Greenwood, D.D. 3*. cloth. 
 
 Self- Culture. By Wm. Ellery 
 
 Chanxing. Paper Covers, 6d.; Is. 
 cloth. 
 
 3. 
 
 {Out of Print.) 
 4. 
 
 The Critical and Miscellaneous 
 
 Writings of Theodore Parker. CI. o*. 
 5. 
 (Out of Print.) 
 6. 
 Essays. By R. W. Emerson. 
 (Second Series.) "With a Notice by 
 Thomas Carlyle, 3*. 
 
 7. 
 
 Memoir of J. Gottlieb Fichte. 
 
 By William Smith. Second Edi- 
 tion, enlarged. Cloth, As. 
 
 The Vocation of the Scholar. 
 
 By JoiiANN Gottlieb Fichte. 
 Cloth, 2s.; paper cover, 1*. 6c?. 
 
 9. 
 
 On the Nature of the Scholar, 
 
 and its Manifestations. By Johann 
 Gottlieb Fichte. Second Edition. 
 Cloth, 35. 
 
 The Vocation of Man. By Jo 
 
 II ANN GoTTLn;n Fichte. Cloth, is 
 
 The Characteristics of ttie Pre- 
 sent Afre. By Johann Gottlieb 
 Fichte. Cloth, Oi-. 
 
 12. 
 
 The Way towards the Blessed 
 
 Life; or, The Doctrine of Beligion. 
 By Johann Gottlieb Fichte. 
 Translated by Wllli.^jvi Smith. 
 Cloth, 5*. 
 
 13. 
 
 Popular Christianity: its Tran- 
 sition State and probable Develop- 
 ment. By Frederick Foxton, A.B. 
 Cloth, 5*. 
 
 14. 
 
 Life of Jean Paul Fr. Richter. 
 
 Compiled from various sources. To- 
 gether with his Autobiography, trans- 
 lated from the German. Second 
 Edition. Illustrated with a Portrait, 
 engraved on Steel. Cloth, 75. Crf. 
 
 15. 
 
 Wm. von Humboldt's Letters 
 
 to a Female Friend. A Complete 
 Edition. 2 vols, cloth, 10*. 
 
 16. 
 
 Representative Men. Seven 
 
 Lectures. By Ralph Waxdo Emer- 
 son. Cloth, 1*. 6rf. 
 
 17. 
 
 Religious Mystery Considered. 
 
 Cloth, 2*. 
 
 18. 
 God in Christ. Discourses by 
 Horace Bushnell. In 1 vol. cloth, 
 
 6*. 
 
 19. 
 
 St. Paul's Epistles to the Corin- 
 thians : An Attempt to convey their 
 Spirit and Signilican e. By the 
 Rev. John IIamilton Thom. 1 vol. 
 
 cloth, 7*. 
 
 20. 
 
 A Discourse of Matters per- 
 taining to Keligion. By Theodore 
 Parker. I'ost 8vo, cloth, -u. 
 
 •> 
 ■h 
 
 ^b^ 
 
 -e^^ 
 
THE CATHOLIC SERIES. 
 
 35 
 
 " The various works composing the ' Catholic Series' should be known to all lovers 
 of literature." — Morning Chronicle. 
 
 " Without reference to the opinions which they contain, we may safely say that 
 they are generally such as all men of free and philosophical minds would do well to 
 know and ponder." — Nonconformist. 
 
 " A series of serious and manly puijlieations." — Econotnisf. 
 
 " This series desei-ves attention, both for what it has already given, and for what 
 it promises." — Tait's Magazine. 
 
 " A series not intended to represent or maintain a form of opinion, but to bring 
 together some of the works which do honour to our common natui'e, by the genius 
 they display, or by their ennobling tendency and lofty aspirations." — Inquirer. 
 
 " It is highly creditable to Mr. Chapman to find his name in connexion with so 
 much well-directed enterprise in the cause of German literature and philosophy. He 
 is the first publisher who seems to have proposed to himself the worthy object of in- 
 troducing the English reader to the philosophic mind of Germany, uninfluenced by 
 the tradesman's distrust of the marketable nature of the article. It is a very praise- 
 worthy ambition; and we trust the public will justify his confidence. Nothing could 
 be more unworthy than tl.e attempt to discourage, and indeed punish, such unselfish 
 enterprise, by attaching a bad reputation for orthodoxy to everything connected with 
 German philosophy and theology. This is especially unworthy in the * student,' or 
 the ' scholar,' to borrow Fichte's names, who should disdain to set themselves the 
 task of exciting, by their friction, a popular prejudice and clamour on matters on 
 which the populace are no competent judges, and have, indeed, no judgment of their 
 own, — and who should feel, as men themselves devoted to thought, that Vvhat makes 
 a good book is not that it should gain its reader's acquiescence, but that it should 
 multiply his mental experience ; that it should acquaint him with the ideas which 
 philosophers and scholars, reared by a training different from their own, have labo- 
 riously reached and devoutly entertain ; that, in a word, it should erJarge his 
 materials and his sympathies as a man and a thinker." — Frospeciive Beview. 
 
 (S 
 
 I 
 
 fe>^ 
 
I) 
 
 FREE TRADE IN BOOKS. 
 
 ^IR. JOHN CHAPMAN, who originated the agitation for free trade 
 in books, which has recently been brought to a successful termination, 
 invites public attention to the liberal terms on which he is now enabled, 
 by the dissolution of the Booksellers' Association, to supply books of all 
 kinds. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS ENGLISH BOOKS. 
 
 Mr. Chapman will allow, for Cash, a discount of one-sizth, 
 or twopence in the shilling*, from the advertised prices of 
 all new books which are published on the usual terms. Works issued 
 by those publishers who, in consequence of the recent change, deter- 
 mine to reduce the amount of discount allowed to the trade, will be 
 supplied at relatively advantageous rates. 
 
 Periodicals and Magazines supplied on the day of publication, at a 
 discount of 10 per cent, from the published prices. 
 
 Orders for Old or Second-hand Books carefully attended to, and 
 Binding executed in all varieties of style. 
 
 AMERICAN BOOKS AT GREATLY REDUCED PRICES. 
 
 The retail prices of American Books have hitherto been much higher 
 than needfid in England, in consequence of the practice of alloNving a 
 large discount to the trade ; Mr. Chapman begs to announce that he will 
 in future supply the English public with American BookS, at 
 the cost price of importation, with the addition only of 
 a small remunerative commission. 
 
 The prices attached (in English currency) to the List of American 
 Books published by Mr. Chapman, with the exception of Periodicals 
 and Magazines, are the ZiOWest Nett Prices, from which, 
 therefore, no discount can be allowed. 
 
 Mr. C. INVITES ATTENTION tO hls EXTENSIVE AND CAREFULLY-SELECTED 
 
 STOCK OF American Books, a classified Catalogue of which, at the 
 GREATLY-REDUCED PRICES, may uow be had, gratis, on application, or by 
 post in return for two stamps. 
 
 ^' Purchasers are especially requested to transmit their orders for 
 American Books, accompanied by a remittance, or reference in Town, 
 directly to Mr. CJiapman, ^vho will promptly execute them, and forward 
 the Books, by Post or otherwise, as desired. 
 
 LONDON: JOHN CHAPMAN, 142, STRAND. 
 
 ^^-9 -€^6^ 
 
tETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 ro— ^ 202 Main Library 
 
 OAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 \ 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 P^..^ ^ ...^ -.rr-.^Aprcr ..AY BE VAOE 4 DAYS PRIOR TO DUE DATE. 
 
 "■ ' ........ K. i-f/ONTHS, AND 1 -YEAR. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 Y 04 1991 
 
 SEf^TONILL 
 
 ECHOinTT MAY 1 
 
 9IHAR 2 9 199!) 
 
 U. C. BERKELEY 
 
 ^miii: m ')7 '^] 
 
 Jl^T 1 1 I9)f 
 
 RETURNED 
 
 APR 2 1 )9S5 
 
 MAR 2 199E 
 
 
 i^^ t 
 
 Santa Cruz Jitney 
 
 NOV 1 1 1997 
 
 *^'*»»ta Cn» 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CA 
 FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 1/83 BERKELEY, Cm 
 
 LD 21A-bOm-iu. ou 
 
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 CD0blE5177 
 
 M 196859 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 '<^ Mk^