"To ensure this object, the Marquis's estate has been divided, subdivided, and again divided, until it has become a warren of freeholders, and the scheme has com pletely succeeded. The landed property of this nobleman exhibits, perhaps, the best specimen of political agronomy to be found in Ireland, and is a proof of the ingenuity of those by whom it was planned.” Vol. ii. p. 304.

Mr. Wakefield gives a variety of similar instances.

To put an end to this miserable system, and to rescue the peasantry from the degradation of being made mere offensive weapons, wielded by the rival candidates at elections for the annoyance of each other, without the smallest regard to their feelings or wishes, it appears to us, that the best way would be to confine the elective franchise to persons actually in possession of freehold or copyhold property of the real value of £10 or £20 a year, and to the occupiers of farms paying £50 a year or upwards of rent. By an arrangement of this kind, the proprietors of small estates, and the really independent class of freeholders would attain that salutary and much wanted influence and consideration, which they have never hitherto enjoyed in Ireland; an obvious inducement would be created to consolidate the smaller farms; and it would henceforth be impossible for a few noblemen to regulate the elections exclusively by the controlled suffrages of their serfs. Such a plan might be easily adopted, and it would be productive of the most extensively beneficial effects. But if the qualification of freeholders be not raised, the next best plan would be to do it away entirely, and to communicate the elective franchise to all classes indiscriminately. Universal suffrage would not certainly prevent the members of Legislature being chosen by voters driven to the poll, like cattle to a market; but it would take away, or very much weaken, the existing temptation to split farms, or to cover the whole country with potato-gar、 dens and mud-cottages.

The trifling expense for which cabins can be erected in Ireland, and the facility of procuring small patches of ground, afford strong temptations to early marriage.

"In England," says Mr. Young, "where the poor are in many respects in such a superior state, a couple will not marry unless they can get a house, to build which, take the kingdom through, will cost from £25 to £60; half the life, and all the vigour and youth of a man and woman are passed, before they can save such a sum; and when they have got it, so burdensome are poor to a parish that it is twenty to one if they get permission to erect their cottage. But in Ireland, the cabin is not an object of a moment's consideration; to possess a cow and a pig is an earlier aim; the cabin begins with a hovel that is created with two days' labour; and the young couple pass not their youth in celibacy for want of a nest to produce their young in." -Tour in Ireland, Appendix p. 61, 4to. edit.

To strike at the root of this pernicious system, the most effectual, and we think, all things considered, the most expedient and proper method would be, to prohibit, for twenty or thirty years, the erection of cottages, except in towns and villages, to which from five to ten acres of land were not attached. Such a measure would oppose a powerful obstacle to the excessive increase of the cottier population. And, taken in conjunction with the measure we have suggested respecting freehold qualifications, could hardly fail to have a powerful and beneficial influence on the habits of the people.

It has been proposed to relieve Ireland of a portion of her redundant population, by an extensive plan of emigration. But to be advantageous, emigration must be made subordinate and supplementary to the

measures we have proposed for relieving the peasantry from the oppressions to which they are subjected; and for checking their increase. Circumstanced as Ireland now is, the most extensive emigration would be of little or no service. It would merely afford greater facilities to the remaining population to gratify the prevailing habit of early marriage, and would not, therefore, occasion any permanent diminution of the supply of labour. But whenever the situation of the peasantry has been otherwise ameliorated, and a desire to improve their condition, and to obtain a share of the comforts and conveniences of life, been excited, the vacuum caused by emigration will not be filled up, and it will consequently be productive of the greatest advantage.

It has long been the fashion with the Ministerial class of politicians, to represent the disorders, crimes, and poverty of the Irish people as the result of uncontrollable and irremediable causes. We think we have demonstrated the utter fallacy and absurdity of this opinion; and have shown, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the discontent and poverty of the people of Ireland are entirely owing to the vicious political institutions of the country, and the misgovernment and oppression to which they have been subjected.

FROM THE RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW.

The History of the Great Plague in London, in the year 1665 ; con

taining Observations and Memorials of the most remarkable Occurrences, both public and private, that happened during that dreadful period. By a Citizen, who lived the whole time in London. 1769.

We believe that the most prudish critic who ever wrote never attached any moral crime to the fiction of the novel writer, or regarded his tissue of imaginary events as a deliberate violation of truth. The author who portrays characters which never existed, or describes scenes which never took place, save in his own imagination, misrepresents no real transaction, and deludes no one, but for an instant, into a belief of his veracity. Though his personages are creatures of shade, and their lives as unreal and unsubstantial as the visions of a phantasmagoria, yet, if they never did exist, they easily might have done so; and, being the absolute creatures of their inventor, are guided, without trouble, into such a course of action, as to afford excellent examples to the more obstinate subjects of real life, who are formed of materials too stubborn to be always bent to the purposes of the moralist. The fiction of the historical novelist cannot, however, be considered so entirely innocent, for he confounds real persons and real events with imaginary ones, and produces in the end an erroneous impression on the minds of his readers, inconsistent with the immaculate purity of truth. The genuine novelist invents worlds of his own, and has a right to people them as he thinks proper; but the historical writer of fiction is like the geographer, who, in default of information, fills the parts of his map, which would be otherwise blank, with rivers, and towns, and mountains, which, though they may please the eye, will be wilder the traveller and deceive the student. He is still more culpable, who not only involves real persons in imaginary events, but who chooses a real time, a real event, assumes an historical style, utters repeated asseverations of veracity, mixes up true incidents and false, and when his composition is complete, conceals every trace of falsehood, and does his best to delude posterity. If there be any blame attached to such a procedure, the amount of it must, in a great measure, depend on the nature of the transactions thus imposed on the world as real, whether they are likely or not to be appealed to as evidence, and thus to produce evil consequences. He would, indeed, be a very harsh censor

or who should object to Robinson Crusoe; but we cannot help wishing that Defoe had chosen some other mode of recording the dreadful effects of the great plague of London than the work before us. Defoe, however, was never so happy as when he identified himself with his history, and made himself the hero of the incidents which his imagination poured forth in such abundance. His own life was of so troublous a nature, that it seems as if he delighted to lose his own identity in that of his creature, and live over his ideal adventures with nearly the intense consciousness of reality. We can easily conceive how charming the retreat from duns, pursuit, and political broils, to the peaceful island of the shipwrecked mariner, the wild and gainful adventures of Colonel Jack, or Captain Singleton, or even the awful scene which presented itself in the deserted streets of London, when that great city bowed its head beneath the rage of the pestilence. However this may be, such is the verisimilitude of all the writings of Defoe, that unless we had some other means of refuting their authenticity than internal evidence, it would be a very difficult task to dispute their claims to credit. Such is the minuteness of detail; such a dwelling is there upon particular circumstances, which one is inclined to think would have struck no one but an actual spectator; such, too, is the plainness and simplicity of style; such the ordinary and probable nature of his materials, as well as the air of conscientiousness thrown over the whole, that it is a much easier thing to say the narrative is tedious, prolix, or dull, than to entertain a doubt of its veracity. All these marks of genuineness distinguish the work before us perhaps more than any other compositions of the same author; and are said to have so completely deceived Dr. Mead, that that able and experienced physician quoted the work as one of the grounds, or as a confirmation, of his opinions on the subject of the plague. No one, indeed, can, from an examination of the history of that dreadful visitation, discover the slightest variation from the truth in the narrative of our author, but, on the contrary, every document remaining to us confirms his account, coinciding with it in most instances, and supporting it in almost every other; a fact, however, which does not diminish the blame we consider attached to the author, for pretending to be an original evidence and eye witness of the scenes he describes. As in most of the other works of Defoe, no author's name appears to the work; but no one who knows the mannerism of Defoe as collected from a view of all his writings, can, for a moment, hesitate to agree with the voice of common fame, which assigns it to him.

As the title imports, this book contains a register of the observations and reflections of a citizen, who lived in the city from the rise to the expiration of the disorder. The writer is a respectable tradesman, residing in Whitechapel, of a religious turn of mind, inquisitive in disposition, well-informed for his rank, and anxious to transinit to posterity an account of a calamity which few appeared likely to sur

vive, and fewer still, who, in the midst of misery and disease, would have the heart to turn their attention to recording the triumphs of the conqueror, Death. The character of this man is of that plain, downright, homely, pious description, in personating which, Defoe always appears much at home; and from the circumstance of himself residing on the spot in which he has placed the journalist, exercising the same trade as this fictitious person, and himself being born a year previous to the plague, it is not improbable, that Defoe's father may be the supposed writer, from whose mouth it is not unlikely that he received many particulars, which he has interweaved in his narrative. For it will be observed, that nearly all the particulars, which are of a private nature, have their locality in the immediate neighbourhood of Aldgate, the imaginary habitation of the historian of the ravages of the plague.

After all, however, Defoe may not have been solely led to this subject by being in possession of peculiar information respecting it; for it has in itself those sombre charms which alone were sufficiently likely to attract him. There is no scene in the whole history of mankind which possesses a greater power of harrowing up the feelings, which affords more subjects for affecting or striking description, or gives greater scope for deep reflections on the nature of man, than a city under the visitation of the Plague. The incredulity which marks its rise; then, the panic which instantaneously follows certainty; then, the fluctuating state of hope or fear; the agitation of departure and separation; the struggling resolution to stay; and, when the bustle and hurry of those who flee have left the city still behind them, then the cold and fixed determination to abide and face the approaching enemy; then, the sweeping away of thousands before the giant strokes of the distemper, succeeded by the paroxysms of despair and the wailings of anguish, which, in a short time, sink into sullen indifference; then, the death of affection and love, and the dead calm which spreads over the whole population, undisturbed, except by the reckless rev. elry of crime and dissipation making the most of the short interval which is to elapse before their own doom; then, the gradual return of hope, followed by a premature rejoicing at delivery, then, a recurrence of alarm; and, at length, a well-grounded security in the flight of the pestilence, and a universal congratulation of the survivors upon each other's preservation, checked only by the recollection, that they are but a few, haunting the grave of a great city, and that too much joy would be but a mockery over the tens of thousands beneath their feet: these and numberless topics of a similar nature, would occur to the mind of one who undertook to describe a city under this awful infliction of Providence. Defoe's genius, however, was of a description rather to produce an effect upon his reader by a careful enumeration of particulars than by general views, spirited sketches, or even by pathetic touches-and, in the present work, there is nothing which might not have been written by a respectable tradesman of some observation, common feeling, little taste or imagination, and ordinary talents, had he really witnessed the scenes he describes. Thus the reader is left with the materials of reflection, rather than a complete history. From such as it is, and from other sources, we will attempt to give an idea of the rise and progress of the great plague of London, especially availing ourselves of the more remarkable passages of De

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foe, which, as we have said, it is probable were written from oral testimony, or, at least, such as are confirmed by other authorities.

We will give the account of the first rise of the pestilence, in the words of Defoe:

“ It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among the rest of my neighbours, heard, in ordinary discourse, that the plague was returned again into Holland: for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again.

“We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days, to spread rumours and reports of things; and to improve them by the invention of men, as I have lived to see practised since. But such things as those were gathered from the let. ters of merchants, and others, who corresponded abroad, and from them was hand. ed about by word of mouth only; so that things did not spread instantly over the whole nation, as they do now. But it seems, that the Government had a true ac. count of it, and several councils were held, about ways to prevent its coming over; but all was kept very private. Hence it was, that this rumour died off again, and people began to forget it, as a thing we were very little concerned in, and that we hoped was not true; till the latter end of November, or the beginning of December, 1664, when two men, said to be Frenchmen, died of the plague in Long-acre, or rather at the upper end of Drury-lane. The family they were in endeavoured to conceal it as much as possible; but as it had gotten some vent in the discourse of the neighbourhood, the Secretaries of State got knowledge of it. And concerning themselves to inquire about it, in order to be certain of the truth, two physicians and a surgeon were ordered to go to the house, and make inspection. This they did; and finding evident tokens of the sickness upon both the bodies that were dead, they gave their opinions publicly, that they died of the plague: whereupon it was given into the parish clerk, and he also returned them to the hall; and it was printed in the weekly bill of mortality in the usual manner, thus :

Plague, 2. PARISHES INFECTED, 1. “ The people showed a great concern at this, and began to be alarmed all over the town, and the more, because in the last week in December, 1664, another man died in the same house, and of the same distemper: and then we were easy again for about six week, when none having died with any marks of infection, it was said the distemper was gone; but after that, I think it was about the 12th of February, another died in another house, but in the same parish, and in the same manner.

“ This turned the people's eyes pretty much towards that end of the town; and the weekly bills showing an increase of burials in St. Giles's parish more than usual, it began to be suspected that the plague was among the people at that end of the town; and that many had died of it, though they had taken care to keep it as much from the knowledge of the public as possible: this possessed the heads of the people very much, and few cared to go through Drury-lane, or the other streets suspected, unless they had extraordinary business, that obliged them to it.”

From this time forward, the bills of mortality began to increase, from their usual amount of about two hundred and forty per week, to nearly five hundred, and continued to fluctuate on the whole, but gradually to increase in the parish of St. Giles, where, in the middle of June, they began to bury one hundred and twenty per week, sixtyeight of which were allowed to be, but a hundred considered to be, cases of the plague. Till this point, the infection had been confined to narishes lying near the place of its origin, but now the city became inated, and a few began to drop off in different parts of its en parishes. Now no doubt could be entertained but that the

planted itself in London; consternation spread in every