clubs and the unhappy ecclesiastical titles movement, was perhaps too narrow, and the recollections of the period just traversed too recent, to admit of measures as extensive in their character as the condition of Ireland might seem to require. And with regard to the ecclesiastical titles Act itself,-the motives that induced ministers to extend its provisions to Ireland, are so completely out of the range of calculation with reference to that particular crisis, that we are disposed to refer it to some inscrutable dispensation of Providence that was never dreamed of in Ireland, and that public opinion never called for in England. But surely no infatuation could go so far as to say that it established a normal or suitable state of things in Ireland, one likely to promote good citizenship or one which the people of that country will endure beyond the continuance of their inability to set it aside. This was the last Irish measure of the Russell administration; the Establishment of the Incumbered Estates Court was its best; for though temporary in duration, its influence was destined to be lasting, and it soon became felt that its machinery would not be broken up, but removed" with all the modern improvements" to another place for the perpetual advantage of the country. The brief administration of Lord Derby supplied one only lesson in the philosophy of agitation, the necessity of leadership. The people, or the large majority, had in view a scheme of Tenant-right, exciting and plausible: many men of respectable abilities, and at least three, of talent approaching to genius were committed to the measure, but from want of discipline one week demoralized the Irish vote; and what might have been a power courted and conciliated for some one purpose or another, disappeared in the course of a month from party calculations. The Irish members were drawn into Irish rows, they were third-rate actors, their colleagues spectators, they ranted and the audience hissed. Passing over the administration of Lord St. Germans, uneventful as far as Ireland merely is concerned, we at length reach our own times, when earth and sky seem to have exchanged tokens of reconciliation; and the gloom that brooded over present and future, rolls back to show us pleasant pastures at hand and bright summits not too far off. Under its mysterious canopy great things were accomplished, and great things in progress, of which we took no note. Town gave its hand to town, and sea to sea across the island. Experience took its last and inexperience its first and every other lesson in the discipline of a new school. The soil had been wrested from the dead and corrupt but unrelaxing hand of insolvency, and delivered over to those who could apply and reward industry. Commerce, finding new issues, discovered new resting places; and enterprise won victories unlooked for on new fields. We have lived to see children twine their hair with field flowers by the roadside, where their fathers had browsed upon nettles; and the marriage feast, a revived tradition where hunger had been appeased by the liver of an ass. We have seen the rank and file of society, so lately thinned by death and desertion, gradually repeopling itself, and giving promise to the country of strength, wisdom, and fortitude beyond its former experience. And lastly we have been witnesses of a revolution at once more democratic and more conservative than party ever fought for, a revolution which has proposed to mere mind and unprotected merit, the prizes whose patronage enabled Dundas to hold an entire kingdom in the hollow of his hand, and which even yet might buy any amount of servile mediocrity, or servile genius more despicable still. The government of Ireland moreover has been confided to one whose person is in still greater respect than belongs to his office, and yet whose favour with the people it would be incorrect to describe as popularity, according to the more aggravated type of the distemper. We have seen no dusty terrace, no weedy square, nor any other suburban or marine impertinence, calling itself "Carlisle." The "Eglinton" shirt, we believe, has never been deposed; nor has the cruel ingenuity of Hyam or MacDona been taxed for new deformities of costume, whether cape, shootingcoat, or mantle, to issue under the viceregal auspices. The feeling of the people, however, is not wanting in strength, nor its expression unnecessarily sober, if we may be allowed to judge from the addresses presented to Lord Carlisle, and the cordiality of his reception on the occasion of his visits to various parts of the country to inaugurate great or useful undertakings. But the singular fortune of his administration is the accord of parties to acknowledge in Lord Carlisle the social and intellectual qualities, which party spirit more especially in Ireland affects to deny, or at least endeavours to disparage. There is no one that fails to recognize in the Lord Lieutenant the friend of all the charities and the master of all the courtesies of life. No one capable of judg ing has been insensible to the charm of his familiar scholarship, which is not a treasure in the mine nor a hoard in the coffer, but a jewel on the breast and riches in flow and circulation; or which, perhaps we are wrong in comparing to an ornament or a dress, when it is rather a complexion, an emanation, an undefined grace of manner; or, say, the same to the style that the stream is to the landscape, sometimes sparkling through remote, sometimes heard though unseen, sometimes heard and seen, but whether neither or both, to be traced in the depth of verdure and luxuriance of fertility that mark its path. There is not an editor that ever let off article, nor a Brunswicker that ever aimed bottle at Lord Lieutenant, unwilling to see the Earl of Carlisle seek acquaintance with the hospitals and charity schools of Dublin. No one refuses applause to his patronage of art to his zeal in promoting every institution whether new or old, of a civilizing and educational tendency to the kind word of encouragement or assistance of a different kind so liberally given to the humble and the timid; or the duly weighed approval accorded to success. He seems to have received an indemnity for acts and appointments of a party character, which in other times must have provoked endless controversy; or at worst they have been noticed by way of protest,as a safe formality, and in order to avoid the creation of a precedent. Perhaps indeed his clearly ascertained position and decided political connexions have been rather favourable than otherwise, to the influence we have attempted to describe, as arguments of earnestness and sincerity. Perhaps too the tacit agreement of men to interrupt for a while those political conflicts whose violence providentially works its own surcease, has had an effect in inducing them to attribute less of a party significance to the appointment of Lord Carlisle than to any other in the choice of his government. The University of Dublin itself in its complimentary address, a piece of writing more remarkable for proper feeling than pure latinity, expressed the belief of the academic body, which to all intents is that of the Conservative party, that the Lord Lieutenant would redeem the pledge of good government which had been taken from the Chief Secretary: a sentiment repeated in various forms as often as a portion of the public has had an opportunity of addressing his Excellency. As truly as it was virtue in the king of France to forget the quarrels of the duke of Orleans, the people seem to think it would be virtue in Carlisle to remember the well-doing of Morpeth. And lastly, we believe that the country is pleased to recognize in its governor not only an undegenerate, but, we might almost say, a regenerate peer; a man who has not only kept his hereditary honours, but minted honors of a new stamp, preserving that real nobility, according to the notion of Euripides, which, though transmissible, cannot always be sustained, which indeed is not inconsisent with decent mediocrity, but which, when it falls upon the truly worthy, is always in progress, always on the increase. Δεινὸς χαρακτὴρ κάπίσημος ἐν βροτοῖς, And this being so, uow that the storm of popular passion is overblown, and men's minds intent upon the triumphs of industry and enterprise have become disgusted with the emptiness and dishonesty of politics; now that the people have begun to understand their substantial interests, and to value those rights only which it is impossible to confiscate, because they are in every man's breast and in every man's arm; when the government is committed to hands, so gentle and yet so sure; when heaven withal appears to smile, and the face of the earth to be renewed; when we are without one element of discontent, or one chapter for comment in the philosophy of agitation-is this a time, it will be asked, to speak of wrongs and rights, in terms whose meaning is lost, if they ever had a serious meaning? Why appeal to forgotten recollections, which should best remain forgotten, why teach lessons that are only good to be unlearned? Were the monster meetings so incombustible, was Conciliation Hall so regular an institution, or its rival the Confederation so innocent an amusement, or the tithe riots a rustic game, that we should exchange our peace, or at least our truce, our prosperity and our advancement for the worse than sterile excitement of the platform and the club? Why call our present condition provisional? Might we not all say, if we thought proper, here shall we dwell, because we have chosen it, in the increase of our fields, in the increase of our flocks, in the increase of our coin, in the advancement of our station, in the enlightenment, strength, and preponderance we are acquiring? Can any other than the genius of discontent repress the gladness that should be inspired by the picture we have been drawn? can any one but the most impracticable malignant find fault with the acknowledged happiness and repose of the country, or rather, are we not entitled to believe that this very repose is the object of his dislike, that it is peculiarly at this improvement he repines, that he is unhappy in the very happiness? Vixque tenet lacrymas quia nil lacrymabile cernit. There would be some truth in this style of reasoning if it were proposed to revive a specific agitation, or even to recommend agitation of any kind whatever at this particular juncture. Every thing has its fitness and its reason of existence, even agitation; neither is it virtuous or safe to encourage reactionary dislikes, and arguments from the abuse to the disuse, for they are always obstinate, unintelligent, and blind. Agitation never can be the normal condition of any state, unless perhaps of Spain and the South American republics; but neither can absolute inaction and dead level be the perpetual condition of a constitutional empire like ours. All our adventures cannot be by the fire-side, nor all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown; although we do not pretend it can be salutary, or even safe, for the state to be continually shaken and dislocated by the discussion of organic questions such as we have noticed in the early pages of this Article, some of which have been set at rest, and too many allowed to remain open in Ireland. But without especially referring to any portion of the United Kingdom, it neither is nor can be the natural or befitting condition of a society like ours, with such a variety of ambitions, and such often conflicting interests, with a system involving such combination and such opposition of forces to remain long unmoved by some question of great if not vital import. That wonderful something, not quite an abstraction nor altogether a reality, called the State; which is neither Cæsar nor the Commonwealth, nor yet has an existence separate from both, unless, as suggested by Lord Brougham, it can be resolved into certain great families who govern for governing sake; is sometimes paralysed, and the medicinal spring beside which it lies for cure, must be agitated before the bath can be salutary, although the commotion may require anything but an angelic hand. It is, perhaps, more necessary to the morality of our institutions than to their mechanical working that there should be some commotion from time to time in the spirit of the nation; that there should be distinct and clearly marked party divisions; that there should be the belief in a principle if nothing more, to prevent mere place and mere plunder from being openly and shamelessly proposed and coveted as the sole reward and the sole object of political service. Our public virtue requires the discipline of its own palæstra, and the emulation of its own stadium, or its nerves relax, and its spirit becomes enfeebled. spirit becomes enfeebled. We require a licensed theatre for ambition, and we should miss in |