the fact is ascribed chiefly to the much better enforcement of the law. One of the most important recent movements in the direction of prison reform has been due to the success of the reformatory system which has been established in Ireland. Undetected agrarian crime, the untrustworthiness of juries in cases on which public feeling is strongly excited, the scandalous tone of a certain section of the press, and the frequency of religious or political riots still disgrace the country; but the first and last of these evils have been restricted within very narrow territorial limits; the second might be greatly mitigated by the introduction of the Scotch jury system, under which unanimity is not necessary for a verdict; and the general average both of serious crime and of vice is lower than in England. It would be a gross injustice to the country to infer that its political condition reflects accurately its social condition, or that the relations of landlords and tenants are habitually hostile. If the people are deficient in self-reliance, they are at least eminently susceptible to discipline, their natural instincts are aristocratic, and they are very faithful to their leaders.

If it be true that the desire for some measure of selfgovernment is not likely to be extinguished or diminished in Ireland, it is evident that many influences are in operation which must tend towards its realisation. Of the two great Irish measures which have been passed within the last few years, it will probably be found that the one disestablishing the Protestant Church will have effects little contemplated by the bulk of its supporters. The question was always mainly an English Since the tithes were commuted into a land-tax, paid exclusively by the landlords, the great body of

one.

the Irish people have cared very little on the subject. The Protestant clergy were usually popular and useful; with the exception of priests and converts, few people in Ireland grudged them their endowments; and if it had not been for English party interests, and for the radicalism of British Dissent, they might long have continued. If, indeed, the Church funds had been divided between the rival sects, the conciliatory effect of the measure might have been very great. The partial payment of the priests-which a long series of eminent statesmen of different parties, from Pitt to Lord Russell, have concurred in recommending--would have attached the most influential class in Ireland indissolubly to the throne, would have appreciably raised their social position, and, by relieving the poorer Catholics of their most oppressive burdens, would have been felt with gratitude in every household. If the independence of the priesthood had been fully guaranteed, the Irish objections to such a measure would probably have been surmounted; but English, and especially Scotch, public opinion made it impossible. The Radicals, who desired the abolition of the Irish Establishment mainly as a step to the abolition of the English one-the Puritans, whose hatred of Catholicism was even stronger than their hatred of Establishments-interposed their veto, and the Church Bill was carried in a form which was of little or no practical benefit to the Catholics, who have accordingly received it with general indifference. But its effect upon the Protestants has been extremely great. They have been cut loose from their old moorings. The object the defence of which was a main end of their policy has disappeared, and they are

certainly more disposed than at any period since the Union to throw themselves into the general current of Irish sentiment. At the same time, the representative bodies in which the Irish gentry are learning to assemble to deliberate upon their Church affairs are forming habits which may be extended to politics. In spite of frequent and menacing reactions, it is probable that sectarian animosity will diminish in Ireland. The general intellectual tendencies of the age are certainly hostile to it. With the increase of wealth and knowledge there must in time grow up among the Catholics an independent lay public opinion, and the tendency of their politics will cease to be purely sacerdotal. The establishment of perfect religious equality and the settlement of the question of the temporal power of the Pope have removed grave causes of irritation, and united education, if it be steadily maintained and honestly carried out, will at length assuage the bitterness of sects and perhaps secure for Ireland the inestimable benefit of real union. The division of classes is at present perhaps a graver danger than the division of sects. But the Land Bill of Mr. Gladstone cannot fail in time to do much to cure it. If it be possible in a society like our own to create a yeoman class intervening between landlords and tenants, the facilities now given to tenants to purchase their tenancies will create it; and if, as is probable, it is economically impossible that such a class should now exist to any considerable extent, the tenant class have at least been given an unexampled security— they have been rooted to the soil, and their interests have been more than ever identified with those of their landlords. The division between rich and poor

is also rapidly ceasing to coincide with that between Protestant and Catholic, and thus the old lines of demarcation are being gradually effaced. A considerable time must elapse before the full effect of these changes is felt, but sooner or later they must exercise a profound influence on opinion; and if they do not extinguish the desire of the people for national institutions, they will greatly increase the probability of their obtaining them.

L.

THE

LEADERS OF PUBLIC OPINION

IN

IRELAND.

JONATHAN SWIFT.

JONATHAN SWIFT was born in Dublin in the year 1667. His father (who had died a few months before) had been steward of the King's Inn Society. His mother was an English lady of a Leicestershire family, remarkable for the strictness of her religious views, and for the energy and activity of her character. At the early age of six, Swift was sent to a school at Kilkenny, where he remained till he was fourteen, when he entered the University of Dublin. His position there was exceedingly painful, and he remembered it with bitterness to the end of his life. His sole means of subsistence were the remittances of his uncle Godwin; and those remittances, owing to the poverty-or, as Swift believed, the miserly disposition-of his uncle, were doled out in the most niggardly manner. He found it impossible to maintain the position of a gentleman. He was precluded from all the luxuries, and could with difficulty procure the necessaries of life.

B