Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

of the town of Belfast, and for the same reasons that led me to notice so slightly the other great cities of Ireland, Dublin and Cork. These places are sufficiently well known already: and they are moreover much too vast to be described in a work like this. A few detached memorandums must comprise all I have to say of this great and thriving city.

Belfast exhibits more and more-marked indications of activity and improvement than either Dublin or Cork. Its magnificent harbour is full of ships, and its numerous factories, full of hands, are vomiting perennial smoke. In public buildings it is much inferior to Dublin, but it has many fine houses; and some of its civic structures-as, for instance, its Banks, are truly superb both within and without. A few of its streets also may match with the best in Dublin.

The new Queen's College is a splendid building, and of an elegant design, though it has the great disadvantage, when compared with the Colleges of Cork and Galway, of being constructed mainly of brick. Like the other Colleges, however, it is no less creditable to the taste of the architect (Mr. Charles Lanyon), than to the liberality of the Government, and the public spirit of the Board of Works. For an institution of so recent origin, it is surprising to see how well its libraries and museums are already filled. It was in this College that all the Sectional Meetings of the British Association were held; and it would be impossible to

find ampler and better accommodation than was afforded by its excellent and spacious lecture-rooms.

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

A few memorandums respecting the progress and present state of this College, in its educational aspect, are subjoined:

1. The following Table shows the total number of students who have attended the College since its openand also the new entries in each Session:

ing;

[blocks in formation]

2. The following Table exhibits the religious denominations of all the Students that have as yet attended the College. The list is in itself a curiosity, and finely illustrates the free spirit of Protestantism on which Ulster has always prided itself. Some of the designations will also remind us of the share Scotland took in the Plantation scheme, and of the known tenacity of her children to hold by their old land-marks.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

3. Though these Tables show a progressive and considerable annual diminution in the number of Students entering the College, it is by no means to be inferred that the Institution is really falling off either in attractiveness or utility. Such a result is almost necessarily incidental to

Orthodox Presbyterians.

an

educational

Non-Subscribers to the Westminster Confession, and Unitarians.

establishment of recent origin. The novelty and attractiveness of the scheme would, in the first instance, bring into its halls numbers of young men from all parts of the Province, who may have been prepared, and waiting, as it were, for such an opening for the completion of their studies. This casual source exhausted, the College has since had to look for recruits solely from the regular annual crops from the superior provincial schools, which are at present much too scanty in numbers, and too low in quality; an evil likely, however, to be gradually removed in both its aspects. A third cause of the decreased numbers, is probably the necessary decrease of scholarships at present available for new comers. decrease, however, will speedily remedy itself as the scholarships are gradually vacated by lapse of time. In this College, as in the other two, the scholarships are numerous, and, of course, perpetual.

This

Adjoining Queen's College is the Belfast Botanic Garden, a very valuable institution, and a charming spot in every way. The grounds are extensive and in excellent order, and its plants numerous and well kept.

The Belfast Museum is also an institution most creditable to the town; its department of national antiquities is rich in the most interesting relics of Old Ireland.

The Public Library contains an excellent collection of books, and is in good order.

On the whole, it may be truly said, that while

the men of Belfast avow themselves to be devoted to commerce and the industrial arts, they are far from neglecting the Arts and Sciences more strictly so called. Mental activity is evidently the characteristic of the population; and where this prevails, it cannot be confined within the limits of the merely necessary.

Perhaps the flourishing condition of Belfast is most strikingly evinced by its increased and increasing population, at a time when the population of Ireland generally, and of so many of its best towns, has so greatly fallen off. During the last thirty years, the population of the town has more than doubled; and it appears to be progressively increasing. The following are the numbers of its inhabitants according to the two last censuses : 78,144 in 1841; 90,526 in 1851.

It will not be expected that any account of the scientific proceedings of the great and successful meeting of the British Association at Belfast, should appear in these humble pages. There were, however, a few papers brought before the Statistical Section which might very appropriately occupy a place among Memorandums made in Ireland, if their expected early publication in a separate form, did not render this in a great measure superfluous.

One of these papers, by Mr. Holden, "On the Progress of the Sewed Muslin Manufacture in Ire

« ForrigeFortsæt »