all, it was by stealth and in a hurried manner, and in defiance of the very laws which forbade the outrageous retaliation to which they felt so sorely tempted to resort. Put out of the protection of the law, and separated, so far as legislative insanity could effect it, from the wholesome control of religion, they took their own measures. The clearing out was revenged in their own summary way upon parson Josiah Tollet and his people. What they did may be best gathered from the language of the humble petition which Thomas Higinbottom, Sam Law, his reverence himself, and nine other subscribers in behalf of themselves and other "the Protestant inhabitants in the half-barony of Erris, most humbly offered to the Honourable Sir Henry Byngham," Queen Anne's Governor of Connaught. This dolorous effusion states that her Majesty's most loyal subjects have, ever since their coming to the country, met with several discouragements by the wicked combinations They do not allude to the "privateers" and their depredations, which, though redressed by the laws, have been a great uneasiness, trouble, and expense in redressing. But the latter measures the Papists have taken," have effectually ruined us; and that is, by the more secret artifices "of stealing our cattle to the number of 75 within the space of nine months, besides sheep without number; not "to mention the plundering of our gardens, stealing our corn, both out of the field and haggard," &c. Some of these secret depredators having been discovered and confined by the governor of the province, the petitioners are laid thereby under "the greatest obligations imaginable, " and most humbly hope that your honour will be pleased 66 not to bail them." If he protects the Protestants, he "shall have Sir Arthur Shaen's grateful acknowledgment," and their prayers. of those who are no friends to the Protestant interest. 66 The petition seems to have had but little effect. Wearied by persecution, the settlers at last were obliged to admit the natives to a share in the soil, these having made way for themselves by stealing the stock that lately was upon it. Another generation saw the Protestant colony "ipsis Hi"bernis Hiberniores," more Irish than the Irishry; for the natives having now become tillers of the soil, the settlers ceased to till and became petty landlords, receiving services and rent, both in money and produce, in return for the right of occupancy. Their kitchens were well-stored, but not by their own labour. The host of followers that swarmed there were fed out of the supplies that came in the shape of rents. The sheep, pigs, and poultry, the quarts and crocks of butter, the fish, and all manner of eatable and drinkable commodities flowed in from the cotters to the "Masther" at the "Big House," without any trouble on his part. Nothing to do, however, became his ruin. He fell into expensive and dissipated habits, most unbecoming the pure and saintly character of a Reformer of Popery. The nominal head rent and the trifling renewal fines were allowed to run on unpaid to such an extent, that of the whole Shaen estate in Erris, containing 95,000 acres, almost one-half, says Mr. Knight, have ceased to be held under the original tenure of the leases in perpetuity. Of those that are still so held, the statistical table gives the names of the tenants. "Out of the original settlers who signed that petition, only two at present exist in Erris, " and one out of it; the remainder being entirely extinct "in the male line. And it is also remarkable that these "three families still continue Protestants, though all the "others that remained in the country had become Papists!" We are happy to add, that within the Mullet there are now two chapels where they may hear Mass every day if they like it, and that Kilcommon is served by three priests. 66 From this history, we agree with Mr. Knight in believing that a lesson may be taken by the Protestant Colonization Society of the present day. Whether it will be taken is another matter. As to the apostates they have brought SHAKSPERE'S FALCONRY.-No. 1. From the art or mystery of Hawking-one of the "gentle and allusions, to intensify his language and illustrate his sciences"-Shakspere has borrowed more expressions, images, ideas, than from any other sport or pastime, habit or custom of his age. It must be remembered that the language of falconry was the familiar phrase of all but the lower class of persons all over Europe for several centuries; the noble and gallant character of the falcon, its teachableness, and the animating sport in which its prowess was exhibited, were calculated to endear it to men, whose pride it then was to self the bird appears to have been especially admired; and excel in very similar characteristics. By Shakspere himif there be one trace of individuality in his works, one trait of the personal habits of our poet, we may find it in his fondness for falconry. How much force might be gained by as clear an understanding of this, now obsolete art, as was generally possessed by the audiences of the Globe and Blackfriars in the poet's time, it is, perhaps, too late to ascertain. We venture, however, to select a few passages, which may be said rather to teach the art of falconry than to require explanation; and thus, by making the text its own comment, we hope to rescue a few allusions from the obscurity with which the lapse of ages and the change of tastes have enveloped them. 1. To begin ab ovo we might quote the Queen in Hamlet, to prove how much force may be given to a phrase by the use of one word from the vocabulary of hawking:-In Act v., sc. 1, the Queen, apologizing for a sudden fit of Hamlet's supposed madness, says : "Anon, as patient as the female dove, When that her golden couplets are disclosed, The charming and appropriate expression "her golden couplets," for the dove's twin nestlings, owes nothing to falconry; but " to disclose" is the technical word for chipping the egg, and has no other appropriate sense in this passage-it bespeaks the tenderest moment of the mother bird, the end of her watching and the assurance of her hope. 66 66 2. As the young nestlings grow, they are called eyases; their peculiar iterated "chirp" is querulous and plaintive, and their carnivorous nature makes them clamorous beyond the nestlings of the more domesticated races. In this state the young hawks are referred to in the same play, as the type of a company of children-actors, "the children "of the revels," who were popular when the play of Hamlet was produced-See Act i., scene 3. been announced: Rosencrantz has spoken of the " The players have trage"dians of the city" as those the Prince" was wont to take "such delight in."-" How chances it they travel?" inquires Hamlet; their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.' "I think," replies Rosencrantz, still alluding to the moment of the play's performance, and forgetting the scene and time of its story, "their inhibition comes by the late innovation."- -"Do they," asks Hamlet, "hold the same estimation they did when I was in the "city? Are they so followed?” No, indeed they are not," is the answer. How comes it? Do they grow rusty?" continues the royal questioner. "Nay," is the reply of Rosencrantz, their endeavours keep in the wonted pace; "but there is, Sir, an aiery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are tyrannically clapped for't." "An aiery of eyases" would convey a more clear impression to an audience of that day, of this "ery" of children players, these infant Roscit, than any other form of words. 66 We speak of a nest of birds, meaning the tenants of the nest, with or without the nest itself: so Gloster (Richard III., Act i., sc. 3) uses the word aiery for the family "Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top, "Your aiery buildeth in our aiery's nest." over, we should like to test every one of them as old Widow And Margaret repliesHare tested the scoundrel informer Tobin, in Griffin's tale of "The Rivals." Has the course of his apparent life "since the day of his change been such as to justify the supposition of an improvement in his principles? Ah! say not that I judge him when I answer, No!" 66 66 3. But the hawk grows, is fledged, and ready to leave the nest in its native cliff though it has not yet ventured on a flight; it has acquired new qualities, which are expressed in 1842.] two admirably descriptive words, for which a full equivalent is borrowed from falconry in the same sentence, thus: In Much Ado about Nothing, Act iii., sc. 1, Hero says of Beatrice "I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock.' The hawk, at the age it has now reached, is a haggard of manned," that is, the rock, and it continues a haggard until " trained for service; and if the bird be of a bad breed, or an irreclaimable spirit; if it prove wanting in gallantry, fidelity, or devotion, it is a haggard in spite of all its education, and therefore a truant, and punishable, or, a cast-away and worthless. But we find the word eyas well applied in another instance, to which we will first advert. 4. The little kirtle-page Robin, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, whom his master, Falstaff, employs between himself and Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford, and of whom they make .a jack o'lent," or ignis fatuus, to mislead the fat knight into the mire, is thus addressed by Mrs. Ford, Act iii., sc. 3: "How now, my eyas-musket?" A most descriptive epithet, for the musket is the male of the sparrow-hawk, the smallest, the most sprightly, the most alert and roguish of the race, and its young, or eyas, must be the very model of a lively page. The merle is another name of this peculiar hawk, which was borne in those days on the wrist or forefinger of a lady, as at once a pet and a mark of distinction -indeed an emblem of a page. 5. All the inferior hawks, kites, buzzards, &c., are consi- "And, like the haggard, checks at every feather 6. Thus acts the hawk that is wild or ill-trained; but the bird of a baser nest "checks" greedily and for a meaner object. Thus, in the same play, Act ii., sc. 5, Malvolio, seeing the letter that exites his vanity, is carried swiftly away from his duty by the foolish notion that his lady loves him. Fabian observing his action, says, Why, what a dish of poison she" (Maria who has forged the letter)" has dished up for him."-" And," observes Sir Toby 66 66 "With what wing the stannyel checks at it." The stannyel, or stannel, is a worthless kite, that preys on garbage, and is not capable of right training; a conceited buzzard, that apes the hawk without its talent for emulation, with a touch, too, of the owl in it-in short, a Malvolio. 7. Now, to prevent " checking," or any of the evils of neglected nature or unheedful education, it is important that the young hawk, yet haggard, should be manned, or taught to know her manage. For this purpose it is unnecessary to refer even to so popular a directory as that of Isaac Walton; for Petruchio, who has undertaken to man the haggard Katharine, says-Taming of the Shrew, Act iv., sc. 1. My falcon now is sharp and passing empty; And, till she stoop, she must not be full-gorged, For then she never looks upon her lure. Another way I have to man my haggard, To make her come, and know her keeper's call, That is to watch her, as we watch those kites That bate, and beat, and will not be obedient." 8. In the same comedy Hortensio, speaking of Bianca, calls her "a proud disdainful haggard." And Tranio, in an early portion of the play, speaking of the same lady, and her father's confinement of her, says― "And therefore hath he closely mew'd her up." Gremio has just before asked Baptista, Now it is in the mew, as the reader is very well aware, that the haggard is to be manned. The mew, or mews, a name now applied to stables and the care of horses, were originally the places where, indeed, horses and dogs were hawk, who was mewed up, in order to her manning. Edkept and cared for, but only as the needful attendants on the win Landseer, the pictorial historian of falconry, has given us a portrait of a hawk in the mew, of a most explanatory height of her keeper, that she may be handled and fondled character: she is perched upon a post or pillar about the by him with ease. LONDON STREETS.-LIGHTING. IT is said that a foreign ambassador, visiting London, was so amazed and deceived by the multitude of its streetlamps, and the splendid lighting up of its shops, that he immediately sat down and wrote to his court to announce the very gratifying intelligence that the English capital had been brilliantly and universally illuminated in honour of his arrival. A very few hours would, no doubt, undeceive the simple diplomatist, whose mistake was surely pardonable; for who that looks down from Hampstead-heath on London in a winter night, would imagine that the multitude of terrestrial stars which blaze beneath him are no more than the merely ordinary accommodation for the citizens, and the nightly substitute for the light of day? There is not, perhaps, a more beautiful, or a less describable vision, than this dark Lines, miles in map of a mighty metropolis, dotted into intelligible outlines by brilliant and still succeeding sparks. length, radiating from a common centre to the vast circumference, crossed and intersected by intricate and interwoven threads in all directions, and every point in the whole expanse of net-work intelligibly marked by sparks of gem-like flame. The Roman name of the city Urbs-Augusta, forcibly recurs to the memory as now, more than ever, appropriate. To have seen her enveloped for several hours of day in a thick dark robe of fog, which, gradually unfolding towards evening, displayed the spangled mantle that at night envelopes her, must be sufficient to impress the memory with a stately image of "the Lady Augusta "London." It is curious to inquire how this lustre has gradually increased; for the most neglected country towns in England, and the smaller cities of the Continent are, in the present day, lighted quite as well as London was at the close of the last century. In Knight's "London" (part vi.), the subject is taken up dramatically; and a scene in the reign of Henry VIII. is enacted by Wolsey, Brandon, and the King, in order to convey, by the forced dialogue of an imaginary encounter, an idea of the " setting of the marching watch" in the city, at the great festival of Midsummer Eve, in the year 1570. The idea is a good one, but it is not well carried out; and it is possible perhaps, by a few lines of narrative, to convey a clearer notion of the means employed in early days to supply those necessities to which modern science administers so potently. The vigil of St. John the Baptist-the eve of Midsummer, the 23rd of June, the æstival solstice-was an occasion dignified by nature and consecrated by Religion. The writer to whom we have alluded omits, in the false spirit of the present day, all acknowledgment that the great lighting of the city when the natural sun, by an astronomical paradox, is said to stand still, was figurative of that true Light which was born into the world, and of which John the Baptist was the precursor. The spectacle of the marching of the watch at the period indicated, was strikingly characteristic of the magnificent Its course is thus briefly age to which it is referred. traced by Stow : "From the little conduit by Paul's-gate, through Westcheap by the Stocks, through Cornhill by Leadenhall to Aldgate, then back, down Fenchurch-street, by Grass 86 church, about Grasschurch Conduit, and up Grasschurch- a notion as he who has visited the last Guild at Preston, "street into Cornhill and through it into Westcheap 66 again." The attractive character of the pageant is thus described in the "London Artillery" of Richard Niccols: "The goodly buildings that till then* did hide Adorned with shining gold and purple weeds, And stately mounted on rich trapped steeds; Their guard attendant through the streets did ride Its effect at a distance the same writer beautifully hints at: "The wakeful shepherd, by his flock in field, The composition of the pageant will bear out, even to modern estimation, the grandeur of effect ascribed to it. "There were 700 cressets for lighting the procession, cresset originally signified a great light or pharos; but in the sense here used it means a basket of iron hoops, borne on the end of a stout pole and filled with inflammable matter, generally tow, or teased oakum, old ropes, dipped in tar or tallow. One man bore the cresset and another fed it; and thus we have already 1880 men, besides the constables. The men of the watch amounted to 2000, mounted or on foot, and they mingled with the cresset-train. The inferior persons wore the picturesque holiday costume of the time, long bright-coloured hose, long coats or gowns, and flat caps; but of the watch there were "Demi-lances on great horses"—that is, men in half armour, with short spears, and mounted on cattle resembling the modern drayhorse: " gunners, with their harquebuses and wheel-locks," -these were the old artillery, for the exercise of which the "Artillery Ground" in Bunhill Fields (still extant) was set apart; archers, in white coats with bows bent, and sheafs "of arrows by their sides; pikemen, in bright corslets," or breastplates of steel; and "billmen," armed with a weapon now used chiefly by hedgers, "with aprons of mail," or chain armour. This crowd altogether must have been no very contemptible exhibition in itself; but these figures only preceded the constables of the watch, each of whom was well mounted, each bearing a lance, and each clothed in bright armour that " gleamed beneath his scarlet jornet." This last word describes a garment like a kilt and scarf, or a short petticoat strapped across the shoulder. The constable's dignity was further marked by his " gold chain," and he was the centre of a group of satellites. His "min"strel" went before, his henchman" behind, and, at each side his "cresset-bearer and his cresset-feeder." "and 240 constables had each his cresset." The word 66 66 to After the constables came the "waits" of the city "make music"-in those days the English people were musical, as we may hereafter take occasion to demonstrate. The waits were followed by the merry "morris-dancers"-a race at that time indispensable to any holiday manifestation, but now banished for ever, their sad remains having passed into the "hard hands of unrelenting clowns," who at Christmastide still dance the sword-dance of the Morescos, by way of relief to the legendary tragedy, with its comical conclusion of St. George and the Dragon. or the last Riding of the Lady Godiva at Coventry. Thus, with knights in armour, lances and banners, duly shown by the surrounding cressets and torches, came the Lord Mayor's watch; and, "in the like order," says Stow," but not so large in number," followed the watches of the Sheriffs. The whole followed by as many volunteer lights and bearers as the officials who preceded the train. Such was the gorgeous procession at this civic celebration, even after it had lost the outward signs of the religious influence to which it owed its origin. The narrow streets, the manycoloured and many-angled buildings, with their projecting points and soaring spiracles, decorated with bannerols, and their bays and balconies covered with cloths of various colour and quality, from brocade and tapestry down to buckram and kersey; the illuminated façades of the innumerable churches and other public buildings in the route, while bells rung and bands played and merry voices sung and cheered, must have combined happily with the splendour of the procession to make the Midsummer Eve as brilliant as the fairy festival in Shakspere's "Dream" of a Midsummer Night, which owed, perhaps, a little of its lustre to the city celebration of the Vigil of St. John. Knight has painted as enjoying and admiring the glories It ought not to be forgotten that Henry VIII., whom Mr. of this festival in 1510, suppressed it in 1540; and, although the city still loved and cherished the old feeling and strove repeatedly to revive the festival, it was altogether aban doned in 1569. The flaming cresset was not the only "light of other days." Lanthorns were invented by Alfred the Great; and, either in the hall or the stable, in the saloon or in the street, these light-keepers have existed even to the present day. So early as in 1416, Sir Henry Barton, then lord mayor of London, ordered all citizens to hang out" lights" (perhaps cressets) and "lanthorns" on the nights between Allhallowmas and Christmas. However, the cressets faded before the lanthorns, which were at length dimmed by the oil and cotton-wicks, which gave way to glorious gas. So the challenge," the " cry," and the " past one o'clock and a cloudy morning," of successive watchmen have at length dropped into silence. 66 The period of public lamps lies between 1694 and 1830the year of returning light. Up to the first of these dates, every man hung up his light, or kept it in as he thought fit, or as he respected the cry of the watchman; and now and then a knot of neighbours suspended a joint-stock lanthorn by ropes across the narrow street in the French fashion. After the latter date came Gas ;—an interesting subject on which we propose to enter on another occasion. In the meanwhile, let us, with the aid of Mr. Knight, endeavour to compare the period of 1510 on the one side, and of 1842 on the other, with a middle period-say 1766. In the first period the lighting was voluntary, and the city small; but the light emitted by the 940 cressets of Midsummer Eve in 1510 may be computed at that of 235 lbs. of tallow candles. About the year 1766 the number of lamps lighted in the Metropolis, then considerably increased, is estimated as equal to only 100 lbs. of tallow candles. The light of the ancient Catholic cressets, therefore, bears to the oil and wick of the middle or Protestant period, the proportion of about 23 to 1; and the proportion would be increased by the light hung out from the house of each citizen, nearly to double this amount, so as to make it in reality nearly five to one. If, then, we look for the dark ages, we shall find them between the year 1569 and the year 1830. We shall soon return to this subject, in the meanwhile, we recommend the comparative physical and mental illumination of these distinct periods to the careful consideration of the After these bell-accoutred "lilting and tilting fantasti"cos" came the mayor himself on horseback caparisoned, preceded by his "footmen," wearing half-armour; his "giant guards," the ancestors of the wooden barbarisms now in Guildhall, where they are ill placed and over valued; and his "sword-bearer ;" and followed by his "henchmen and his "pageants," of which no one can form so accurate London: Printed by PALMER and CLAYTON, 10, Crane-court, Fleet *At a particular point of the procession. The city of London is addressed. We are bound to state that we owe to Mr. Knight our introduction to the poet and his poem. curious. street; and published by GEORGE DISMORE, at the Office of the TRUE TABLET, 6, Catherine-street, Strand; whither all communications must be sent, addressed (prepaid) to FREDERICK LUCAS, the sole Editor and Proprietor. HOW TO KNOW THE the wretchedness of it; but that when he came there and witnessed the happy smiling faces around him, and thought of the aching hearts that tenanted the splendid mansions and equipages of England, he felt as if he had been deceived, and that it appeared to him that he had come to a most happy and peaceful land, and had left the land of wretchedness and suffering behind him. We thought so too. We concurred equally with the holy preacher in the conclusion to which this experience conducted him. It was, that a nation which had found so much peace unto its soul, could only have obtained it through the promise that our Saviour vouchsafed to men of meek and humble spirits. Truly humility is an Irish virtue; and it is the foundation of all other virtues. It was thus, for example, that the Irish people were strengthened to attain to that heroic one, which Theobald Mathew, the Franciscan, came to preach. The almost universal adoption of the total abstinence pledge testifies, on the one hand, that drunkenness in Ireland was a vice of foreign growth, and on the other hand, that the Irish character is generous by habit, and prone to Christian perfection. When the impediments are once removed which alien heresy has laid in its way, to what new grades of perfection may not that nation ascend! IRISH PEOPLE. ENGLISH people are very prone to talk about the Irish character; but are they sure that they know it? Arguing from the contradictory accounts one hears on all sides, we should answer, "Decidedly not." One man will tell you that the Irish are a savage race, and will offer you his own experience to prove the charge. Another, denying this, will establish most incontrovertibly the contrary proposition; and those who hold to it are bound to believe the Irish, as a nation, humane, moral, and devout, and offering far better proofs of civilization than the natives of our own island. We need not say, that we side with the latter class of thinkers. The evidences of Catholicity furnished by the Irish character, are too numerous and clear to fail of convincing any disinterested Catholic, that his religion, and the moral and social graces which form her train, are in Ireland indubitably ascendant. But while we think so, and can, by an appeal to facts, justify what we think, we must confess, that even in the absence of those facts, it would be hard for us to embrace the directly opposite opinion. With religion to guide them, and with foreign heresies to exercise their vigilance, it is incredible that the Irish nation should have triumphed in the contest, and yet have found itself savage, and unsocial, and wicked at its close. The Reformation might have crushed them,-might have seduced them; but, not having done either of these things-having, on the contrary, been itself beaten and thrust out from their altars and hearths,-it must have become the means of even greater perfection to those who so contemned it, and therefore it must have left them by so much the better than it found them. Hence, were facts wanting to prove to us what the Irish are, this one fact, of their brave struggles with British heresies, and their glorious successes, would suffice to tell us what they are not. It is clear that a people who so acted, and still continues to act, is something very different from savage, unnurtured, and immoral. From the days of Stanihurst (for we prefer to confine this remark as nearly as possible to Protestant times) the Irish have been famous for their ardour in the pursuit of learning. Many of our readers will remember his graphic picture of the hedge-schools, where the scholars were taught writing, ciphering, and so forth, by masters too poor to afford them any better implement than a little fine sand traced with the finger. Poverty and hardship are much the same as when Stanihurst wrote; and the desire of knowledge is likewise as strong as it was then. We had once the curiosity to visit a day-school, kept by a poor man, upon no other resources than the scanty pay he received from some of his scholars. Many could not afford to remunerate their teacher, and therefore he taught them freely in every sense of the word. Poverty opened his heart to those who were poorer still. He had no charitable funds at his disposal; no parliamentary grants; no kind patron to guarantee him from ultimate losses. A few shillings scraped together quarterly from his pupils enabled him to pay the rent of a very wretched cottage in the village of Ballyhamhnis, which served for school and dwelling, and to support himself upon that small scale in which peasants of his class ordinarily live. The ground-floor, when we entered the cottage, was crowded with little girls of various ages, who were all engaged in reading, writing, and other tasks. Some boards above the rafters formed a kind of attic; and there, in like manuer, a number of boys were congregated, and as busily engaged as the girls below. The youngest child in the school was of the age of five years: the eldest boy was about sixteen. The regular attendants were in number sixty. The poverty of their master denied him the assistance of many volumes; and, of those he had, not a few were odd ones, or otherwise imperfect. Yet this poor man contrived to teach the infants their alphabet, and the senior boys the classics. Livy in the Latin tongue was actually a class-book in that miserable cabin. It is true that only a few got as far as this; that only seventeen in all were learning the classics; and that those who did so, were supposed to be qualifying themselves for the diocesan seminary, where they were to study for the priesthood. But this consideration rather enhances the merit of poor Roddy Brehony, and his useful school. Nor was this a solitary school: they abound everywhere; in fact they are too nunumerous to be always supplied with the best masters. But we are not abandoned to the exclusive use of negative evidence. Facts there are in profusion,-such a profusion as renders selection difficult,-which speak powerfully as to the high degree of spiritual and social culture at present occupied by the Irish. Our English readers will owe us much gratitude when we come, as we trust sometimes to do, to lay before them the Irish character as Catholic pens have delineated it. The late Mr. Banim, whose recent death all Ireland is now lamenting, and that Christian brother who preceded him in death as in excellence, we mean Mr. Griffin, were the principal writers who devoted themselves to this truly Catholic and patriotic purpose. Let us hope that they will not be the last. Neither the "Tales of the Munster Festivals," nor those of the "O'Hara Family," exhausted the rich fund of illustration with which truth-telling Nature has enriched that genuine Catholic people. From a periodical of this kind political discussions are of course carefully excluded. But we may fairly ask our readers to bear in their remembrance such matters as are already there. Having done so, they will be able to supply all that we must leave unsaid, and more besides it. Truly the self-denial and patience of the starving peasant are unquestioned even by those who defame him into a savage. The fame of the forbearing Irish has gone forth into all lands, together with the infamy of their oppres sors. We were much impressed with an observation of an honourable and reverend divine, one of whose sermons we attended in the course of his mission to Connaught. He said that before he visited Ireland he used to hear much of About twelve years ago a pamphlet was published in France by the Count de Montalembert, who had then recently been travelling in Ireland. The profits of sale were generously devoted by him towards the relief of the sufferers by the famine, which was at that time desolating the whole of Ireland. The illustrious traveller there records, that in Kerry he found the Latin a living language; that the peasants often showed themselves well able to speak it fluently; and that when they had leisure to learn any language besides their own, they almost invariably chose Latin before English. The clergy are not suffering this laudable spirit to languish, neither should they. Let us continue to take Connaught as an example. In the single diocess of Tuam, there were early in 1841 not less than 14,000 children receiving instruction in the schools which the zeal of the Archbishop had secured to them. Many others have established themselves since in the same diocess. All of these schools are upon a permanent footing, whether endowed or not. Our readers will remember Brother Rochford for instance, and his Franciscan monastery and schools at "Errew, of the "Saxons," for which he was collecting in this country during spring and summer. In ten years more his grace expects that that one diocess of Tuam will have schools enough to supply its entire wants. Other writers have mentioned the same fact, but without | cruel. Mr. Griffin having admitted and deplored the seeing it in the true and happy light in which it flashed ascendancy of the duel among his country's gentlemen, upon the clear eye of Montalembert. He justly accounts we are far from reluctant to echo his words. It is the vice for this preference; and observes, that it is natural that so which makes those gentlemen " wretched men in their own oppressed and simple a race should turn with grateful love" country, and the pests of society abroad." And that and enthusiasm to the language of the church, their only pious writer composed many beautiful stories, especially comforter and deliverer, the language of freedom and one called "Touch my honour, touch my life," to wean mercy, rather than to the English tongue, hateful in Irish them if possible from so shocking and cowardly a practice. ears as being that of tyranny, and in Catholic ears as being But in all questions, and especially in this one of morals that of unbelief. In the west of Ireland, however, the and faith, a marked distinction must be drawn between the cultivation of the classics is not so popular as in the south. nation of Ireland and the gentlemen of Ireland. Most of To make amends for this, a general notion of the exact or the latter are British; at least in habits, and very often by mathematical sciences is by no means uncommon in Con- family and birth. The Irish people, on the contrary, abhor naught. Often it happens that the Irish agent of an the Englishman's usages, and are firmly wedded to their absentee landlord resorts to the arithmetic of some poor own. Now this completely explains the last objection. peasant for the means of finishing, in a creditable manner, Let us continue to confine our attention to the vice we the estimates he has to render. The neat diagram, which have particularized. We know that duelling was of English has attracted the marked approbation of the distant master, and Protestant introduction. Kept in restraint, as Mr. was, perhaps, the work of some frieze-coated genius, amply Digby's ninth book establishes, so long as England was remunerated, in his own and the agent's opinion, by the Catholic, it broke out, with unbridled fierceness, as soon half-crown he got for it. as the minds of Englishmen were abandonded to the licentiousness of the Reformed faith. Now, Sir John Davies, who wrote in James the First's reign, clearly proves, that although for more than four hundred years there had been wars between the English and Irish nations, Ireland was not subdued and reduced to obedience by England until James the First's reign; that is, until England had lost her faith. Nor was this all: two other Protestant conquests were to ensue within the short space of the same century; the first by Cromwell, the second by William of Orange. The influence which those three conquests had over the property and aristocracy of Ireland is still evident, in the estranged feelings and perverse principles exhibited by the descendants of the conquerors. Lord Chancellor Clare stated, not fifty years since, that to Viewed in another light, this popular appetite for know- eleven-twelfths of Irish estates, the first link in the title ledge becomes still more worthy of honour. We have seen was a forfeiture; so general had been those confiscations. that it is great and lasting, not easily to be thwarted or Not a few, too, of the old gentry, whom the policy of the satisfied. We believe that the people would, with one ex- conquerors left in possession, were seduced from their faith ception, make any sacrifice to obtain that knowledge. But and country, and brought to ape heretical and alien manthere is one sacrifice which they never will make; there is ners. Sir John Davies tells us, that the noble families of one priceless possession which they value even more than Thomond, Clanrickard, and O'Neill, obtained their earlknowledge, and which they have steadfastly abhorred to give doms, with houses and lands in Dublin, "that they might in exchange for that;-not even for the knowledge they "learn obedience and civility of manners," as those words honour, would they abandon the religion they so much were understood among the Protestant English," by often love. Kildare-street and the Hibernian Societies could no "repairing unto the state."-(Davies' Tracts, p. 283.) more pervert the Irish, than could the slated houses and Unfortunately this dangerous imitativeness is still so premeal-stores and money-pensions of Lords Farnham and valent amongst the few Catholic gentlemen who are left, Lorton, and the new Reformation. Therefore it is that that we need not multiply our citations. these traduce them still, as Sir William Petty did in 1672, We say, then, that the vice of duelling being a gentleand ridicule their simplicity, and say that they have not man's vice, and the Irish gentleman being formed after the any learning but the legend of the saints, psalters, models sent them from Protestant England, it is unfair to "missals, rituals," &c. But the truth is, that in seeking lay upon Catholic Ireland the guilt and odium of a practice first these things, the faithful Irish have been rewarded so repugnant to Celtic usages, and so hateful to religion. by having other and secular accomplishments added to their The British Government is even chargeable with the exstock. They are too well accustomed to absurder calum-cess to which its Irish neophytes have proceeded in reducnies to regard this one very much. So late as 1770, a bigoted Protestant, named Harris, found it necessary to check the imprudent zeal of his sectarian associates, and to defend his country from their attacks. In his letter to Lord Chancellor Newport, on the " History of Ireland," he indignantly denied that the Irish believed" that vio"lence and murder were in no way displeasing to God;" "counted it no infamy to commit robberies;" were "much given to incest," and "divorces under pretence of con"science;" were in the habit of eating raw flesh without bread, but with "large draughts of usquebaugh for diges-"tain forwardness and intrepidity in duelling," says George "tion, reserving their little corn for distillation;" and were Moore," was found of great assistance in making a parliaso besotted as to 66 pray to the wolves, lest they should mentary fortune. The highest situations in law and state "devour them." We believe that in Devon, Bucks, and " were, upon more than one occasion, conferred on detersome other parts of England, Harris's denial would even "mined duellists and gladiators."—(Brit. Revolut., p. 560.) at this day scarcely obtain credit. We even fear that our endeavours to clear the Irish character of this aspersion will excite wonder rather than sympathy. Many persons, we imagine, are of the opinion which the late Attorney-General avowed at the bar of the House of Lords, that duelling is no moral offence. We know that our Catholic readers will agree with us in leaving so wicked a position to Protestants. As to our Protestant readers, It is true that many of the prejudices of English people are kept alive, and somewhat justified by the blood-thirsty and dissolute conduct of notorious persons in the Irish upper class. Thus the vice of duelling has been observed to be very general among Irish gentlemen; and hence the Irish nation has obtained the credit of being vindictive and ing to practice their new lessons in the code of honour. It |