complaints of his administration were made by the officers of Olf. ver's own regiment, addresses in his favour were transmitted from every county in the kingdom. It is not unlikely that the enmity of the officers was his best panegyric.

By the Restoration Ireland was again thrown into a state of utter confusion. The blessed policy of governing one tribe of subjects and oppressing all the rest, had by this time been administered by so many hands, and produced such a plentiful crop of division, there was scarcely a man in the country who had not something to gain or to lose, to hope or to fear, by a change of government. These differences Charles endeavoured to adjust by an act of settlement; but out of claims so contradictory and so various, innumerable obstacles could not but arise, to perpetuate malice, party, and bad neighbourhood. The arrangement which finally took place, as is almost inevitable in such cases, was to the absolute satisfaction of no one. The miserable views of this true Stuart, in the after part of his reign, exalted the hopes of the Catholic only to precipitate him the lower. Nothing, in fact, more essentially injured the genuine interests of this body, than the political use made of them by both the Charleses. Catholics were by their means rendered a bugbear to the people of England, and from their supposed accordance with the despotic views of these monarchs, at length considered the standing enemies of liberty and good government. They never actually gained any thing by this weak and unprincipled family, while its notice so connected in the mind of the English the ideas of catholicity and arbitrary sway, the quiet of a century has failed to untwist the association. The part taken by the Catholics was however natural what was that liberty to them of which they were not allowed to partake? There was nothing extraordinary in their preference of the despotism of one to the domineering ascendancy of thousands. Thus their adherence to the wretched James would have been perfectly in character, had he been much less a bigot than he was. Their side of the question was, at least, as liberal as that of their opposers. Comparatively, they fought as much for freedom, in espousing the side of James, as the English did in embracing that of William. As it regarded Ireland, what was it but a miserable contest to decide which description of millions should be slaves? It had an end worthy of it, in the famous treaty of Limerick,

There are a certain set of literary worthies, who do Englishmen the honour to put them into a good humour with themselves, by emphatically calling their disposition to blink at their national failings past or present-the right or English feeling. Consistently with the patriotic doctrine of these acute gentlemen, every thing which (nationally speaking) has been done by our ancestors, or is done by ourselves, should be pronounced, without further examination,

examination, upright, pure, and political. It is to be presumed, the geography of this instructive body has neither east nor west, or they might sometimes be led to exemplify by reference to India or Ireland. If disposed to amend their omission, let them begin with the treaty of Limerick, and deliver their opinion of that monarch, or rather parliament (for the monarch had scarcely volition) which, in the face of the article at the bottom of this page, * in the course of the next half dozen years, excluded Catholics from the Lords and Commons, deprived them of arms, denied them the privilege of educating their own children, and banished their pastors from the realm, a breach of faith more glaring, or more fraught with deliberate tyranny and insult, has seldom stained the annals of any nation.

Nor was this all; for half a century longer, pains and prescriptions were so heaped on this unfortunate profession, that a calm observer might have been led to suppose the policy an experiment on human endurance. The restive properties of persecution were probably never better exemplified than by the event. The Catholics, like the posterity of Jacob, have absolutely prospered in bondage and flourished under privation. Hearts have been hardened, as was that of Pharaoh, in vain. They have increased in number, in wealth, and in spirit; and were they inclined, like their prototypes, to quit the land, where is the power that could hinder them? This abandonment, however, appears by no means their intention: should emigration prove the fate of either party, it seems less likely to be the lot of the Catholic Israelite, than of the Protestant Egyptian.

Dismissing this hideous picture, let us calmly ask ourselves, what has been displayed in the Protestant management of Ireland to change a Catholic heart, to play on his best feelings, or operate on his worst? If he sighed for the fields of his ancestors, could it be shown that his losses were compensated by equal and beneficent government? Was ignorance his misfortune? shew your medium of improvement. Was intolerance the odium of his church? could it be cured by making it the spirit of your own? Is he accused of superstition and absurdity? he can point out a thousand instances of the most senseless foolery and fanaticism, which are

not

*The Roman Catholics of this kingdom shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as are consistent with the laws of Ireland; or as they did enjoy in the reign of King Charles II.; and their majesties, as soon as their affairs will permit them to summon a parliament in this kingdom, will endeavour to procure the said Roman Catholics such further security in that particular, as may preserve them from any disturbance upon the account of their said religion.-First Article of the Treaty of Limerick.

An

not only suffered but countenanced. The creed and observance which have been handed down by a long train of ancestors, however abounding in defects, receive a sanction from time. tiquity alone is, in the eyes of many, authority; and indisputably is better authority than the impudent presumption of the various quacks in religion whom the Irish might follow without losing their chance of becoming either chancellors, generals, or members of parliament. That house need not be much scandalised, even by the advocate of a pope, which has heard a speech in favour of Brothers; nor would those holy gentlemen who are presumed to be the organ of the Methodists, be absolutely disgraced by the company of a few others manifesting the same happy disposition towards the votaries of Rome.

t

It ought not to be forgotten, that it was the wisdom of our ancestors to stigmatize every rebellion in Ireland as of popish origin. Their impartial posterity continued willing enough to follow their example, until a little more study of Irish history led to a detection of their mistake. In fact, it is now generally admitted that the sister kingdom has never been so well governed but that rebellion might have proceeded from other causes. But what then? Why, as catholicism is not the cause of rebellion, it is wholly unnecessary to emancipate the Catholics. Unhappy people; if you behave ill you ought not to have freedom, if you behave well you do not want it! Your advocates are between the horns of a dilemma, and can only escape by joining in the liberal conclusion, that as you have suffered two or three hundred years without cause, you should suffer two or three hundred more without reason.

However impressed the author of these observations may be with the justice of the Claims of the Irish Catholics, he is by no means, disposed to compliment their political prudence. The truth is, they have always been miserable managers of their own affairs, and as a proof that they remain so, take their conduct respecting the Veto at the present moment. Never was there a proceeding more calculated to rouse the latent energies of the English feeling before alluded to, than this most senseless pertinacity. Were it merely a contest of reason, their folly would be nugatory; for it is quite as silly to reject on this score, as it is for them to petition on no other. But they should recollect

the

* It is not intended to stigmatise the House of Commons for the folly of au individual, but merely to shew the latitude assumed in that assembly by certain religious tendencies, scarcely more reconcileable with the church of England than with that of Rome.

✦ The Historical Apology for the Catholics, by Mr. Parnell, has been highly serviceable in this particular.

the battle is that of interests, of vile and selfish interests, which will cling to any popular error, make any mountain a mole-hill, to retain present advantages. If any man ought to be laughed at more than the Catholic who professes so much horror at a kingly interference with popish benedictions and consecrated palls, it is the Protestant, who entertains similar fear of a phantom whose fall failed to raise even partial insurrection in its own domain. The Catholic priesthood understood this matter well, and would never have talked about the Veto, had not a certain description of laity, with something of the temper and profundity of Rinuccini's Assembly of a century and a half before, interposed and called them into action, Thus roused, they recollected the centre of authority and infalli. bility, and laboured in their vocation. Popes, Councils, and Fathers, were appealed to, pamphlets, defences, and vindications, flew about, and this delectable species of speculation occupies the minds of English and Irishmen amidst the crash of kingdoms in the nineteenth century!

The use made of the Catholic to effect the Union, and their subsequent treatment, (a species of manœuvre in the Stuart stile), has produced a most singular phenomenon for Ireland, a kind of tacit agreement to unite in effecting one great object. It would be well, before two-thirds of a population be offended, to ascer tain if the remaining division is quite at ease. Considerations of such a miserable worldly nature, are unworthy the pious councils which at present direct us. But if the two parties, Catholics and Anti-unionists, should be found to affect cordiality and unite cries, with all due respect for our enlightened zeal against Baal, it is not exactly perceived by what prudent means either the Emancipation or the Repeal could be resisted.

ART. XXI.-Remarks on the Past and Present State of the Arts in England.

THE following remarks are presented to the reader, not as having any nice pretensions to connoisseurship, but as resulting from some attention, and more regard, to the cause of the Fine Arts. The writer is impartial on the subject, if he is nothing else; and he attempts to estimate it in no other way than by the general standard of poetry, music, and other works of genius; that is to say, by its invention, it's harmonious agreement, and it's nature. Nor will the observations of a critic, so ill qualified" to make

the

the worse appear the better reason," be found, it is hoped, alto. gether useless to the public. The subject is beginning to excite a general interest, but hitherto it's critics have been either professors themselves, or persons too well acquainted with those professors; and though we have had a great deal of good criticism upon Art, we have had very little either good or disinterested upon our Artists.

The reasons are obvious. Professors, though of course best informed on the subject, are not the best qualified in other respects to criticise their living brethren. In the first place, their individual rivalry, like that of poets and musical composers, is a great and perhaps insurmountable bar to impartiality: secondly, when inclined to be impartial with regard to artists, they find it difficult to be so with regard to branches of art: and thirdly, even where neither of these stumbling-blocks might be found, professional delicacy naturally interferes with the requisite freedom of criticism. Of the first of these causes, the proofs are sufficiently notorious and lamentable; the second has ever been manifest in the disputes between the different walks of art; and the third has lately been exemplified in the writings of Mr. Shee, who with every disposition to be an impartial critic even at his own expense, cannot find it in his heart to be a just one at that of others. The patrons and professed connoisseurs, taking part with their respective favourites, are more or less liable to the same objections. Nay, some of the very artists, who have otherwise the most exalted views of their profession, put impartiality entirely out of the question, and think that criticism has no business with a rising art, but to pass over it's defects and flatter it into a vain and slovenly confidence; as if weeds would of their own accord forsake the garden; or as if, by any cherishing process of the hothouse, these weeds could become flowers.

It may be of use then, as a small help to persons of cultivated minds who would easily blend a love of painting and sculpture with that of the other liberal arts already established in this country, to state the general impression which our British artists have made upon an humble but not inattentive spectator. This statement may also serve, in a general sense, as a specimen of the mind and feeling, with which it is proposed to handle the subject in the future numbers of the REFLECTOR, where attention will be paid to the general spirit and progress of art rather than to it's indiscriminate efforts, it's mechanism, or it's petty disputes. Criticism of this kind does not pretend to instruct the painter in the process of his art, to decide between the merits of strata and substrata, of oils and of mygylphs,--or indeed to assume any tone of pictorial learning. It's whole endeavour is to try the artist upon the general principles of taste, and to interest the general

taste