among the parties who had in former times reposed in them dangerous confidences. 6 It is part of the system or the tactique of the Church of Rome in Ireland, that the priests are located in the diocese, and often in the neighbourhood, where they have been born. They are by birth subjects' to their diocesan, are sent as his subjects to the place of their collegiate education, and return to incur the twofold obligation devolving on those who are subjects by birth and by professional engagements. The policy of this system has been questioned. It has been said that, if priests came from a distance, their admonitions would have greater weight than when coming from persons whose fathers and brothers the people knew. The objection is not valid. Many great advantages attend on this system of domestic appointment, and inasmuch as towns and places of public resort are objects of special consideration, the inconveniences are rather specious than real. It is true that gentry of the Roman Catholic communion have murmured and remonstrated against the elevation to the episcopal rank of one whom they regarded from the habits of his early life unfitted for high station. But the people saw one of their order thus elevated-one, too, it may be, whom they thought only restored to the condition which, in right of ancestry, belonged to him, and they were not less favourably disposed to submit to his commands. Advantages, if religion was only a collateral subject of attention, great and manifold, result from the policy according to which the priests dwell with their own people. The college education only interrupts, it does not break the confidences of early life. People and priest know each other; they have mutual guarantees for mutual dependance: their interests, their affections, their animosities, have the same object and direction: they are one party, susceptible to the same influences from recollections of antiquity, and freed from all difficulties in taking counsel together, and framing plans by which ancient things may be restored. Here we pause; although the question perpetually recurs, what is to be done? We are told, that if English institutions are applied without any change to the state of Ireland, the people of that country will be left at peace by the agitator, and will be contented with their condition. We ask in reply, is their condition good, are their agitators honest? We ask, have they been so taught as that they entertain no more extravagant ambitions than sober competence can gratify? Have their agitators manifested such dispositions, or become so secured in the objects of their desire, that from their hearts or their circumstances we should be justified in auguring tranquillity? How many millions of acres, profitable profitable acres, would be thrown into the lottery of indigenous competition, if the projects for repeal of the union became successful? How many timid, or needy, or unwise proprietors of estates in Ireland might be persecuted to their ruin by vexatious law-suits, if Roman Catholic corporations enabled every crafty and ambitious suitor to avail himself of machinery which, with Irish courts, and juries, and witnesses, might afford him unimaginable opportunities and facilities of legal enterprize? To what uses might the corporation, police, and constabulary be applied? If questions are to be arguments in the deliberations on the state and prospects of Ireland, we are very sure that, in the battery from which our opponents are to be assailed, they are to be found not scantily provided. But the question is ill-put which inquires what is to be done, unless it accept as an answer that which is wisest and best. We are told that there will be disorder in Ireland until the demands of its people are granted. We answer, that if the demands are just and reasonable, they ought to be granted, but that they should not have their authority increased by the disorder which forbids a patient consideration of them. We answer, that Ireland is now in a state of disobedience to the law, which has become more daring and outrageous in proportion to the extent of the concessions which were hazarded in the hope of appeasing it. We affirm that the Church of Rome has imparted a principle of permanence to the disorders by which that country has long been convulsed. We affirm that Romanism in Ireland is not religion; that it is only the mask worn by the anti-Anglican feeling of partizans, who are slowly carrying out a safe rebellion. We say that England ought to deliberate before she determines what it is right to do; and we affirm, that if she made her decision known, and made the nature of that system known against which she is forced to adopt defences and precautions, the results would justify her at least she would be spared the disgrace of hearing, in her senate, the atrocities which attempts at conciliation have induced, advanced, without rebuke, as arguments for further concession. We do not say that mere denial of what is boldly demanded can long prove serviceable. The question which is lost in debate and principle will soon be lost in the division. If in the legislature the votes and speeches do not square-if an orator determine his vote by one argument, and offer another in its justification, hé may rely on it that the contribution he offers to the support of his cause will not very materially promote it. The question now to be determined in the legislature is, whether Roman Catholics shall have all authority in Ireland, or whether the government of that country shall become possessed of powers for the exercise of which it shall be responsible. If the Roman Catholics are not gratified, they 2 D2 they threaten agitation to effect a repeal of the legislative union— if they are gratified, they will be placed in a condition_eminently calculated to render the project for repeal successful. In point of expediency, is it better to give them power, or to encounter what would be now their (comparatively) impotent agitation? In point of expediency, would it be better to encourage and strengthen the Roman Catholic party by continued concession, or to make a stand against violence, and expose to the honourable and uninformed members of the party the real character of the Church they countenance and strengthen? And, in point of expediency, is it better to abandon a million and a half, or perhaps two millions of Protestants, tried friends of England, to persecution which must waste or change them, or to give them the protection which in the year 1799 we solemnly promised? But we have done with questions, and conclude with a counsel from a speech, which we have already quoted Again it is asked, "Will the Catholics be content with a limited franchise?" But I say, it is not what will content them, but what ought to content them, that we ought to consider. I am willing to give them everything, except what will terminate in our own destruction. In some things I would even go farther than the bill, though in the franchise I would not go so far. The misfortune is, that the right honourable gentleman who has negociated it does not understand the internal state of the country, and is ignorant of its interests.' This was the advice of Sir Laurence Parsons. We wish the truth of his prediction, the wisdom of his warning, so painfully confirmed, could ensure its adoption. ART. V.-1. Winchester, and a few other Compositions, in Prose and Verse. By the Rev. Charles Townsend. Winchester. 4to. 1835. 2. Epistle to the Right Honourable John Hookham Frere in Malta. By William Stewart Rose. Brighton. 8vo. 1834. HE circulation of Mr. Townsend's Miscellanies has, we believe, been hitherto confined to Winchester and his own intimates: Mr. Rose's Epistle to Mr. Frere has been only privately printed; but we are happy in being allowed to consider it as publici juris, both because we regard it as among the best of his compositions, and because Mr. Townsend may be said to be its hero. Few persons of literary taste, who have had occasion to visit Brighton of late years, can have failed to hear something of that gentleman: there is, we believe, no settled inhabitant of that neighbourhood who will not acknowledge the discriminating accuracy accuracy of his friend's description of him; and so well do the Miscellanies of 1835 illustrate and confirm the Epistle of 1834, that we are glad of this opportunity to place them together, as the materials of one complete and charming portraiture. We heartily wish Mr. Rose would write many such rhyming letters as this to Mr. Frere. It is very lightly and elegantly versified; its transitions are at once easy and rapid; and with much knowledge of society, and playful sarcasm on its follies, there are mixed up a thorough candour and good sense, and here and there such a vein of true feeling for the beauties of external nature, that, on the whole, our moral and critical tastes have been equally gratified in the perusal. It is delightful to find the poet surviving to grace the retirement, and mellow the retrospect, of the man of the world. The Epistle opens thus: That bound like bold Prometheus on a rock, O Save when a Maëstrale makes you shiver, While worse than vulture pecks and pines your liver; Where neither lake nor river glads the eye Seared with the glare of "hot and copper sky;" Where dwindled tree o'ershadows withered sward, Where green blade grows not; where the ground is charred : Where, if from withered turf and dwindled tree You turn to look upon a summer sea, And Speronaro's sail of snowy hue, Whitening and brightening on that field of blue; Grave, turbanned Turk, and Moor of swarthy cheek ;- Where you The symbols of a monkish chivalry; The vaulted roof, impervious to the bomb, The votive tablet, and the victor's tomb, Where vanquished Moslem, captive to his sword, Forced Forced alms must purchase from a greedy crowd, Who landing-place, street, stair, and temple crowd:- Its pensile pier, dry beach, and breezy down.'-Rose, pp. 1-3. A description of a ride by the Devil's Dyke introduces to Mr. Frere the usual companion of Mr. Rose's rambles on the Brighton downs-the same to whom he once seut, by post, a letter, with this epigraph "The Reverend Charles Townsend, (best on The list of Sussex parsons,) PRESTON.' These breezy downs,' with their endless variety of sea-view and land view, constitute the great charm of a residence at Brighton; but no visitant can have forgotten the delightful contrast afforded, on descending from their heights to the rich soft pastures, the ancient groves, and the modest little hamlet of Preston. All this Mr. Rose paints with a truth and lightness of touch which recalls the better day of English rhyme. Upon this rumpled bed of thyme and turf I loiter, listening to the rumbling surf; While green Earth maps the changes of the sky; • Here |