paltry distinction in the world, is ever ready to accuse | needful a second time. It is also very seldom that a boy

deserves both a log and a shackle at the same time. Most boys are wise enough, when under one punishment, not to transgress immediately, lest it should be doubled.'-(p. 47, 48.)

This punishment is objected to on the part of Mrs Trimmer, because it inculcates a dislike to Jews, and an indifference to dying speeches! Toys, she says, given as rewards, are worldly things; children are to be taught that there are eternal rewards in store for them. It is very dangerous to give prints as rewards, because prints may hercafter be the vehicle of indecent ideas. It is, above all things, perilous to create an order of merit in the borough school, because it gives the boys an idea of the origin of nobility, especially in times (we use Mrs. Trimmer's own words) which furnish instances of the extinction of a race of ancient nobility, in a neighbouring nation, and the elevation of some of the lowest people to the highest stations. Boys accustomed to consider themselves the nobles of the school, may in their future lives, form a conceit of their own merits (unless they have very sound principles), aspire to be nobles of the land, and to take place of the hereditary nobility.'

conspicuous persons of irreligion to turn common in former for the church and to convert the most beautiful feelings of the human heart to the destruction of the good and great, by fixing upon talents the indelible stigma of irreligion. It matters not how trifling and insignificant the acuser; cry out that the church is in danger, and your object is accomplished; lurk in the walk of hypocrisy, to accuse your enemy of the crime of Atheism, and his ruin is quite certain; ac quitted or condemned, is the same thing; it is only sufficient that he be accused, in order that his destruc tion be accomplished. If we could satisfy ourselves that such were the real views of Mrs. Trimmer, and that she were capable of such baseness, we would have drawn blood from her at every line, and left her in a state of martyrdom more piteous than that of St. Uba. Let her attribute the milk and mildness she meets with in this review of her book, to the conviction we entertain, that she knew no better that she really did understand Mr. Lancaster as she pretends to understand him and that if she had been aware of the extent of the mischief she was doing, she would have tossed the manuscript spelling book in which she was engaged into the fire, rather than have done it.As a proof that we are in earnest in speaking of Mrs. Trimmer's simplicity, we must state the objection she makes to one of Mr. Lancaster's punishments.- and interesting little nobles, shining in their tin stars, When I meet,' says Mr. Lancaster, with a slovenly boy, I put a label upon his breast, I walk him round

the school with a tin or paper crown upon his head.' mechanics. We did, in truth, imagine we had ob.

Surely,' says Mrs. Trimmer, (in reply to this,) 'surely it should be remembered, that the Saviour of the world was crowned with thorns, in derision, and that this is the reason why crowning is an improper punish ment for a slovenly boy.' !!!

Rewards and Punishments. Mrs. Trimmer objects to the fear of ridicule being made an instrument of education, because it may be hereafter employed to shame a boy out of his religion. She might, for the same reason, object to the cultivation of the reason ing faculty, because a boy may hereafter be reasoned out of his religion: she surely does not mean to say that she would make boys insensible to ridicule, the fear of which is one curb upon the follies and eccentricities of human nature. Such an object it would be impossible to effect, even if it were useful: Put an hundred boys together, and the fear of being laughed at will always be a strong influencing motive with every individual among them. If a master can turn vice instead of the old plan of laughing at virtue, is this principle to his own use, and get boys to laugh at not doing a very new, a very difficult, and a very laudable thing?

he

When Mr. Lancaster finds a little boy with a very dirty face, he sends for a little girl, and makes her

wash off the dirt before the whole school: and she is directed to accompany her ablutions with a gentle box of the ear. To us, this punishment appears well adapted to the offence; and in this, and in most other instances of Mr. Lancaster's interference in scholas

tie discipline, we are struck with his good sense, and delighted that arrangements apparently so trivial, really so important, should have fallen under the attention of so ingenious and so original a man. Mrs. Trimmer objects to this practice, that it destroys temale modesty, and inculcates in that sex, an habit of giving boxes on the ear.

We think these extracts will sufficiently satisfy every reader of common sense, of the merits of this publication. For our part, when we saw these ragged we only thought it probable that the spirit of emulation would make them better ushers, tradesmen, and served, in some of their faces, a bold project for procuring better breeches for keeping out the blast of heaven, which howled through those garments in every direction, and of aspiring hereafter to greater strength of seam, and more perfect continuity of cloth But for the safety of the titled orders we had no fear; nor did we once dream that the black rod which whipt these dirty little dukes, would one day be borne be fore them as the emblem of legislative dignity, and the sign of noble blood.

Order. The order Mr. Lancaster has displayed in the school is quite astonishing. Every boy seems to be the cog of a wheel-the whole school a perfect machine. This is so far from being a burden or constraint to the boys, that Mr. Lancaster has made it quite pleasant to them, by giving to it the air of military arrangement; not foreseeing, as Mrs. Trimmer foresees, that, in times of public dangers, this plan furnishes the disaffected with the immediate means of for all the children educated by Mr. Lancaster, from raising an army; for what have they to do but to send the different corners of the kingdom into which they are dispersed, to beg it as a particular favour of them to fall into the same order as they adopted in the spelling class twenty-five years ago; and the rest is all

matter of course

Jamque faces, et Saxa volant,

The main object, however, for which this book is

written, is to prove that the church establishment is in danger, from increase of Mr. Lancaster's institutions. Mr. Lancaster is, as we have before observed, a Quaker. As a Quaker, he says, I cannot teach your creeds; but I pledge myself not to teach my own. I pledge myself (and if I deceive you, desert me, and give me up) to confine myself to those points of Christianity in which all Christians agree. To which Mrs. Trimmer replies, that, in the first place, he cannot do Mr. Lancaster, the best mode of cure that I have hitherto this; and, in the next place, if he did do it, it would found effectual is by the force of ridicule. Decorate the not be enough. But why, we would ask, cannot Mr. offender with matches, ballads, (dying speeches if needful;) Lancaster effect his first object? The practical and and in this garb send him round the school, with some boys the feeling parts of religion are much more likely to

When a boy gets into a singing tone in reading,' says

before him crying matches, &c., exactly imitating the dismal

tones with which such things are hawked about London attract the attention and provoke the questions of chilstreets, as will readily recur to the reader's memory. I be- dren, than its speculative doctrines. A child is not Heve many boys behave rudely to Jews more on account very likely to put any questions at all to a catechising of the manner in which they cry "old clothes," than be- master, and still less likely to lead him into subtle and cause they are Jews. I have always found excellent effects profound disquisition. It appears to us not only pracmanner described. It is sure to turn the laugh of the whole ticable, but very easy, to confine the religious instrucfrom treating boys, who sing or tone their reading, in the school upon the delinquent; it provokes risibility, in spite tion of the poor, in the first years of life, to those genof every endeavour to check it, in all but the offender. I have eral feelings and principles which are suitable to the seldom known a boy thus punished once, for whom it was established church, and to every sect; afterwards, the

discriminating tenets of each subdivision of Chris- | their interests, it is worth while to conciliate Ireland, tians may be fixed upon this general basis. To say to avert the hostility, and to employ the strength of this is not enough, that a child should be made an An- the Catholic population. We plead the question as

tisocinian, or an Antipelagian, in his tenderest years, may be very just; but what prevents you from making him so Mr. Lancaster, purposely and intentionally, to aliay all jealousy, leaves him in a state as well

the sincerest friends to the Establishment;-as wishing to it all the prosperity and duration its warmest advocates can desire,- but remembering always, what these advocates seem to forget, that the Establish

adapted for one creed as another. Begin; make your ment cannot be threatened by any danger so great as

pupil a firm advocate for the peculiar doctrines of the English church; dig round about him, on every side, a trench that shall guard him from every species of heresy. In spite of all this clamour you do nothing; you do not stir a single step; you educate alike the wineherd and his hog-and then, when a man of real genius and enterprise rises up, and says, Let me dedi

the perdition of the kingdom in which it is established.

We are truly glad to agree so entirely with Mr. Parnell upon this great question; we admire his way of thinking; and most cordially recommend his work to the attention of the public. The general conclusion which he attempts to prove is this;-that reli

cate my life to this object; I will do every thing but gious sentiment, however perverted to bigotry or that which must necessarily devolve upon you alone; fanaticism, has always a tendency to modcration; you refuse to do your little, and compel him, by the that it seldom assumes any great portion of activity cry of Infidel and Atheist, to leave you to your an- or enthusiasm, except from novelty of opinion, or frem cient repose, and not to drive you, by insidious com- opposition, contumely, and persecution, when novelty parisons, to any system of active utility. We deny, ceases; that a government has little to fear from any again and again, that Mr. Lancaster's instruction is religious sect, except while that sect is new. Give a any kind of impediment to the propagation of the doc-government only time, and, provided it has the good trines of the church; and if Mr. Lancaster was to per- sense to treat foliy with forbearance, it must ultiish with his system to-morrow, these boys would pos- mately prevail. When, therefore, a sect is found, itively be taught nothing; the doctrines which Mrs. after a lapse of years, to be ill disposed to the govemTrimmer considers to be prohibited would not rush in, ment, we may be certain that government has widenbut there would be an absolute vacuum. We will, ed its separation by marked distinctions, roused its however, say this in favour of Mrs. Trimmer, that if resentment by contumely, or supported its enthusiasm every one who has joined in her clamour, had la- by persecution.

bored one-hundredth part as much as she has done in

the cause of national education, the clamour would be much more rational, and much more consistent, than it now is. By living with a few people as active as herself, she is perhaps somehow or another persuaded that there is a national education going on in this country. But our principal argument is, that Mr. Lancaster's plan is at least better than the nothing which preceded it. The authoress herself seems to be a lady of respectable opinions, and very ordinary talents; defending what is right without judgment, and believing what is holy without charity.

The particular conclusion Mr. Parnell attempts to prove is, that the Catholic religion in Ireland had sunk into torpor and inactivity, till government roused it with the lash: that even then, from the respect and attachment, which men are always inclined to show towards government, there still remained a large body of loyal Catholics; that these only decreased in number from the rapid increase of persecution; and that, after all, the effects which the resentment of the Roman Catholics had in creating rebellions had been very much exaggerated.

In support of these two conclusions, Mr. Parnell takes a survey of the history of Ireland, from the conquest under Henry, to the rebellion under Charles the First, passing very rapidly over the period which pre

PARNELL AND IRELAND. (EDINBURGH RE- ceded the Reformation, and dwelling principally

VIEW, 1807.)

Historical Apology for the Irish Catholics. By William Parneli, Esquire. Fitzpatrick, Dublin, 1807.

Ir ever a nation exhibited symptoms of downright madness, or utter stupidity, we conceive these symptoms may be easily recognized in the conduct of this country upon the Catholic question. A man has a wound in his great toe, and a violent and perilous fever at the same time; and he refuses to take the medicines for the fever, because it will disconcert his toe! The mournful and folly-stricken blockhead for gets that his toe cannot survive him; that if he dies, there can be no digital life apart from him; yet he lingers and fondles over this last part of his body, soothing it madly with little plasters, and anile fo. mentations, while the neglected fever rages in his entrails, and burns away his whole life. If the comparatively little questions of Establishment are all that this country is capable of discussing or regard

upon the various rebellions which broke out in Ireland between the Reformation and the grand rebellion in the reign of Charles the First. The celebrated conquest of Ireland by Henry the Second, extended only to a very few counties in Leinster; ninc-tenths of the whole kingdom were left, as he found them, under the dominion of their native princes. The infiuence of example was as strong in this, as in most other instances; and great numbers of the English settlers who came over under various adventurers, resigned their pretensions to superior civilization, cast off their lower garments, and lapsed into the nudity and barbarism of the Irish. The limit which divided the possessions of the English settler from those of the native Irish, was called the pale; and the expressions of inhabitants within pale, and uithout the pale, were the terms by which the two nations were distinguished. It is almost superfluous to state, that the most bloody and pernicious warfare was carried on upon the borkers-sometimes for something-sometimes over whom the sovereigns of England affected a sort own laws; and so very little connection had they with the justice of the invading country, that it was as lawful to kill an Irishman, as it was to kill a badger or a fox. The instances are innumerable, where the defendant has pleaded that the deceased was an Irishman, and that therefore defendant had a right to kill him; and upon the proof of Hibernicism acquittal followed of course.

ing, for God's sake let us remember, that the foreign for nothing-most commonly for cows. The Irish,

conquest, which destroys all, destroys this beloved

toe also. Pass over freedom, industry, and science-- of nominal dominion, were entirely governed by their

and look upon this great empire, by which we are about to be swallowed up, only as it affects the manner of collecting tithes, and of reading the liturgystill, if all goes, these must go too; and even, for

* I do not retract one syllable (or one iota) of what I have said or written upon the Catholic question. What was wanted for Ireland was emancipation, time and justice, abolition of present wrongs; time for forgetting past wrongs, and that continued and even justice which would make such oblivion wise. It is now only difficult to tran

When the English army mustered in any great strength, the Irish chieftains would do exterior ho

quilize Ireland, before emancipation it was impossible. As mage to the English Crown; and they very frequentto the danger from Catholic doctrines, I must leave such ly, by this artifice, averted from their country the apprehensions to the respectable anility of these realms. I miseries of invasion: but they remained completely unsubdued, until the rebellion which took place in

the reign of Queen Elizabeth, of which that politic | armies; for, where there was no improvement or tillage,

woman availed herself to the complete subjugation of Ireland. In speaking of the Irish about the reign of Elizabeth, or James the First, we must not draw our comparisons from England, but from New Zealand; they were not civilized men, but savages; and if we reason about their conduct, we must reason of them as savages.

After reading every account of Irish history,' (says Mr. Parnell,) one great perplexity appears to remain: How does it happen, that, from the first invasion of the English, till the reign of James I., Ireland seems not to have made the smallest progress in civilization or wealth?

That it was divided into a number of small principalities, which waged constant war on each other, or that the appointment of the chieftains was elective, do not appear sufficient reasons, although these are the only ones assigned by those who have been at the trouble of considering the subject: neither are the confiscations of property quite sufficient to account for the eifect. There have been great confiscations in other countries, and still they have flourIshed: the petty states of Greece were quite analogous to the chiefries (as they were called) in Ireland; and yet they seemed to flourish almost in proportion to their dis sensions. Poland felt the bad effects of an elective monar

chy more than any other country; and yet, in point of civilization, it maintained a very respectable rank among the nations of Europe; but Ireland never, for an instant, made any progress in improvement till the reign of James

I.

It is scarcely credible, that in a climate like that of Ireland, and at a period so far advanced in civilization as the end of Elizabeth's reign, the greater part of the natives

shoul i go naked. Yet this is rendered certain by the testimony of an eye witness, Fynes Moryson. "In the remote parts," he says, "where the English manners are unknown, the very chief of the Irish, as well men as women, go naked in the winter time, only having their privy parts covered with a rag of linen, and their bodies with a loose mantle. This I speak of my own experience, yet remember that a Bohemian Baron coming out of Scotland to us by the north parts of the wild Irish, told me in great earnestness, that he, coming to the house of O'Kane, a great

lord amongst them, was met at the door by sixteen women all naked, excepting their loose mantles, whereof eight or ten were very fair; with which strange sight his eyes being dazzled, they led him into the house, and then sitting down by the fire with crossed legs, like tailors, and so low as could not but offend chaste eyes, desired him to sit down with them. Soon after, O'Kane, the lord of the country, came in all naked, except a loose mantle and shoes, which he put off as soon as he came in; and, entertaining the Baron after his best manner in the Latin tongue, desired him to put off his apparel, which he thought to be a burden to him, and to sit naked.

*"To conclude, men and women at night going to sleep, lye thus naked in a round circle about the fire, with their feet towards it. They fold their heads and their upper parts in woollen mantles, first steeped in water to keep them warm; for they say, that woollen cloth. wetted, preserves heat (as linen, wetted, preserves cold,) when the smoke of their bodies has warmed the woollen cloth."

• The cause of this extreme poverty, and of its long continuance, we must conclude, arose from the peculiar laws of property, which were in force under the Irish dynasties. These laws have been described by most writers as similar to the Kentish custom of gavelkind; and indeed so little attention was paid to the subject, that were it not for the re-earches of Sir J. Davis, the knowledge of this singular usage would have been entirely lost.

• The Brehon law of property, he tells us, was similar to the custom (as the English lawyers term it) of hodge-podze.

When any one of the sept died, his lands did not descend

to his sons, but were divided among the whole sept: and, for this purpose, the chief of the sept made a new division of the whole lands belonging to the sept, and gave every one his part according to seniority. So that no man had a property which could descend to his children; and even during his own life, his possession of any particular spot was quite uncertain, being liable to be constantly shuffled

and chan red by new partitions. The consequence of this

was that there was not a house of brick or stone, among the Irish, down to the reign of Henry VI.; not even a garden or orchard, or well fenced or improved field, neither village or town, or in any respect the least provision for posterity. This monstrous custom, so opposite to the feelinzs of mankind, was probably perpetuated by the policy of the chiefs. In the first place, the power of partitioning

being lodred in their hands, made them most absolute

war was pursued as an occupation.

In the early history of Ireland, we find several instances [of chieftains discountenancing tillage; and so late as Elizabeth's reign, Moryson says, that "Sir Neal Garve restrained his people from ploughing, that they might assist him to do any mischief.""-(p. 98-102.)

These quotations and observations will enable us to state a few plain facts for the recollection of our Eng. lish readers. 1st, Ireland was never subdued till the rebellion in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 2d, for four hundred years before that period, the two nations had been almost constantly at war; and in consequence of this, a deep and irreconcileable hatred existed between the people within and without the pale. 3d, The Irish, at the accession of Queen Elizabeth, were unquestionably the most barbarous people in Europe. So much for what had happened previous to the reign of Queen Elizabeth: and let any man, who has the most superficial knowledge of human affairs, determine, whether national hatred, proceeding from such powerful causes, could possibly have been kept under by the defeat of one single rebellion; whether it would not have been easy to have foreseen, at that period, that a proud, brave, half-savage people, would cherish the memory of their wrongs for centuries to come, and break forth into arms at every period when they were particularly exasperated by oppression, or invited by opportunity. If the Protestant religion had spread in Ireland as it did in England, and if there never had been any differ. ence of faith between the two countries, can it be believed that the Irish, ill-treated, and infamously govcrned as they have been, would never have made any efforts to shake off the yoke of England? Surely there are causes enough to account for their impatience of that yoke, without endeavouring to inflame the zeal of ignorant people against the Catholic religion, and to make that mode of faith responsible for all the butche. ry which the Irish and English, for these last two centuries, have exercised upon each other. Every body, of course, must admit, that if to the causes of hatred already specified, there be added the additional cause of religious distinction, this last will give greater force (and what is of more consequence to observe, give a name) to the whole aggregate motive. But what Mr. Parnell contends for, and clearly and decisively proves, is, that many of those sanguinary scenes attributed to the Catholic religion, are to be partly imputed to canses totally disconnected from religion; that the unjust invasion, and the tyrannical, infamous policy of the English, are to take their full share of blame with the sophisms and plots of Catholic priests. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, Mr. Parnell shows, that feudal submission was readily paid to him by all the Irish chiefs; that the Reformation was received without the sight. est opposition; and that the troubles which took place at that period in Ireland, are to be entirely attributed to the ambition and injustice of Henry. In the reign of Queen Mary, there was no recrimination upon the Protestants; a striking proof, that the bigotry of the Catholic religion had not, at that period, risen to any great height in Ireland. The insurrections of the various Irish princes were as numerous, during this reign, as they had been in the two preceding reignsa circumstance rather difficult of explanation, if, as is commonly believed, the Catholic religion was at that period the main spring of men's actions.

In the reign of Elizabeth, the Catholic in the pale regularly fought against the Catholic out of the pale. O'Sullivan, a bigoted Papist, reproaches them with doing so. Speaking of the reign of James the First, he says, And now the eyes even of the English-Irish' (the Catholics of the pale) were opened; and they cursed their former folly for helping the heretic.' The English government were so sensible of the loyalty of the Irish-English Catholics, that they intrusted them with the most confidential services. The Earl of Kildare was the principal instrument in waging war against the chieftains of Leix and Offal. William O'Bourge, another Catholic, was created Lord Castle

of tyrants, being the dispensers of the property as well as Connel for his eminent services; and MacGully Pa

of the liberty of their subjects. In the second place it had the appearance of adding to the number of their savage

trick, a priest, was the state spy. We presume that this wise and manly conduct of Queen Elizabeth was

C

utterly unknown both to the Pastrycook and the Secre✔ METHODISM. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1808.) tary of State, who have published upon the dangers of employing Catholics, even against foreign enemies; Causes of the increase of Methodism and Dissension. By and in those publications have said a great deal about Robert Acklem Ingram, B. D. Hatchard. the wisdom of our ancestors-the usual topic wheneTHIS is the production of an honest man, possessed ver the folly of their descendants is to be defended. of a fair share of understanding. He cries out lustily, To whatever other of our ancestors they may allude, (and not before it is time) upon the increase of Metho they may spare all compliments to this illustrious dism; proposes various remedies for the diminution Princess, who would certainly have kept the worthy of this evil; and speaks his opinions with a freedom confectioner to the composition of tarts, and most pro- which does him great credit, and convinces us that he bably furnished him with the productions of the Right is a respectable man. The clergy are accused of not Honorable Secretary, as the means of conveying those exerting themselves. What temporal motive, Mr. juicy delicacies to an hungry and discerning public. Ingram asks, have they for exertion? Would a curate,

In the next two reigus, Mr. Parnell shows by what injudicious measures of the English government the spirit of Catholic opposition was gradually formed; for that it did produce powerful effects at a subsequent period, he does not deny; but contends only (as we have before stated), that these effects have been much overrated, and ascribed solely to the Catholic religion, when other causes have at least had an equal agency

who had served thirty years upon a living in the most exemplary manner, secure to himself, by such a con. duct, the slightest right or title to promotion in the church? What can you expect of a whole profession, in which there is no more connection between merit and reward, than between merit and beauty, or merit and strength? This is the substance of what Mr. Ingram says upon this subject; and he speaks the

in bringing them about. He concludes with some truth. We regret, however, that this gentleman has general remarks on the dreadful state of Ireland, and thought fit to use against the dissenters, the exploded the contemptible folly and bigotry of the English';*- clamour of Jacobinism; or that he deems it necessary remarks full of truth, of good sense, and of political to call into the aid of the Church, the power of intocourage. How melancholy to reflect, that there lerant laws, in spite of the odious and impolitic tests would be still some chance of saving England from the to which the dissenters are still subjected. We believe

general wreck of empires, but that it may not be saved, because one politician will lose two thousand a year by it, and another three thousand-a third a place in reversion, and a fourth a pension for his aunt!-Alas! these are the powerful causes which have always set. tled the destiny of great kingdoms, and which may level Old England, with all its boasted freedom, and boasted wisdom, to the dust. Nor is it the least singular among the political phenomena of the present day, that the sole consideration which seems to influence the unbigoted part of the English people, in this great question of Ireland, is a regard for the personal feel.

them to be very good subjects; and we have no doubt but that any further attempt upon their religicus liberties, without reconciling them to the Church, would have a direct tendency to render them disaffected towards the State.

Mr. Ingram (whose book, by the by, is very dull and tedious) has fallen into the common mistake of supposing his readers to be as well acquainted with the subject as himself; and has talked a great deal about dissenters, without giving us any distinct notion of the spirit which pervades these people-the objects they have in view or the degree of talent which is to

to the amount of 18,000 or 20,000 each, every month; and which contain the sentiments of Arminian and Calvinistic Methodists, and of the evangelical clergymen of the Church of England. We shall use the term Methodism, to designate these three classes of fanatics, not troubling ourselves to point out the finer shades, and nicer discriminations of lunacy, but treating them all as in one general conspiracy against ccmmon sense, and rational orthodox Christianity.

ings of the Monarch. Nothing is said or thought of be found among them. To remedy this very capital the enormous risk to which Ireland is exposed, defect, we shall endeavour to set before the eyes of the nothing of the gross injustice with which the Catho- reader a complete section of the tabernacle; and to lics are treated, nothing of the lucrative apostasy present him with a near view of those sectaries, who of those from whom they experience this treatment; are at present at work upon the destruction of the orbut the only concern by which we all seem agitated thodox churches, and are destined hereafter, perhaps, is, that the King must not be vexed in his old age. to act as conspicuous a part in public affairs, as the We have a great respect for the King; and wish him mchildren of Sion did in the time of Cromwell. all the happiness compatible with the happiness of The sources from which we shall derive our extracts, his people. But these are not times to pay foolish are the Evangelical and Methodistical Magazines for compliments to Kings, or the sons of Kings, or to any the year 1807; works which are said to be circulated body else: this journal has always preserved its character for courage and honesty; and it shall do so to the last. If the people of this country are solely occupied in considering what is personally agreeable to the King, without considering what is for his permanent good, and for the safety of his dominions; if all public men, quitting the common vulgar scramble for emolument, do not concur in conciliating the people of Ireland; if the unfounded alarms, and the comparatively trifling interests of the clergy, are to supersede the great question of freedom or slavery, it does appear to us quite impossible that so mean and foolish a people can escape that destruction which is ready to burst upon them; a destruction so imminent, that it can only be averted by arming all in our defence who would evidently be sharers in our ruin, and by such a change of system as may save us from the hazard of being ruined by the ignorance and cowardice of any general, by the bigotry or the ambition of any minis. ter, or by the well meaning scruples of any human being, let his dignity be what it may. These minor and domestic dangers we must endeavour firmly anu temperately to avert as we best can; but, at all hazards, we must keep out the destroyer from among us, or perish like wise and brave men in the attempt.

* It would be as well, in future, to say no more of the revocation of the edict of Nantz.

In reading these very curious productions, we seemed to be in a new world, and to have got among a set of beings, of whose existence we had hardly before entertained the slightest conception. It has been our good fortune to be acquainted with many truly religious persons, both in the Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches; and from their manly, rational, and serious characters, our conceptions of true practical piety have been formed. To these confined habits, and to our want of proper introductions among the children of light and grace, any degree of surprise is to be attributed, which may be excited by the publications before us; which, under opposite circumstances, would (we doubt not) have proved as great a source of instruction and delight to the Edinburgh reviewers, as they are to the most melodious votaries of the tabernacle.

It is not wantonly, or with the most distant intention of trifling upon serious subjects, that we call the attention of the public to these sort of publications. Their circulation is so enormous and so increasingthey contain the opinions, and display the habits of so many human beings that they cannot but be objects of curiosity and importance. The common

and the middling classes of people are the purchasers; An interference respecting Cards. and the subject is religion-though not that religion A clergyman not far distant from the spot on which these certainly which is established by law, and encouraged lines were written, was spending an evening-not in his by national provision. This may lead to unpleasant closet wrestling with his Divine Master for the communicacircumstances, or it may not; but it carries with it a tion of that grace which is so peculiariy necessary for the sort of aspect, which ought to insure to it serious attention and reflection.