injury to the parties whom it is meant to serve. We have given some proof in this number, that we are not indifferent to cheap bread, cheap sugar, and cheap timber-but there are things which we value much more highly than such things, and these are, a right moral feeling in political matters, and a just reverence of religious principle wherever it exists. Every free trader who has voted in favour of the measure of Sir Robert Peel, has so done at the cost of that morality in respect to religion which he holds to be imperative in respect to much meaner things. Such voters and orators should remember that men are not likely to feel less displeased in having their purse assailed to support monopolies in religion, than when the same demand is made upon them to uphold private interests at the cost of the public interest in other forms; and should the free trader, who can so far forget his principles as to allow his name to appear among the upholders of such a policy as that which we now censure, account what he has done a small matter, we can assure him that there are men who are likely to form a different estimate of his conduct. In this policy we see the natural consequence of beginning in We do not blame England for perpetuating a wrong course. an established church in Ireland. Nothing could be more unreasonable than to expect that our rulers in past times should have done otherwise. But it was not incumbent upon them to perpetuate such a church; and it is in the vicious nature of that establishment, covering the whole land, as it does, and accroaching to itself enormous wealth without yielding any adequate return, that we find the real secret of the effort now made to endow the Romanism of that country. So long as there is an endowed protestant church, it is presumed there can never be tranquillity until there is an endowed catholic church. But why not, in a spirit more consonant with the principle and temper of the age, reduce the Irish protestant church to something like just and modest dimensions, after the congregational method before adverted to; and having thus removed ninetenths of the cause of irritation to the Irish mind as arising from that source, why not proceed to make abundant provision for further conciliation by a judicious and righteous expenditure with a view to the general improvement of the country? Such a method of dealing with the case of Ireland would have been worthy of the wise head, and the bold heart, but in what is now proposed we see little indication of either. Passing from the principle of this policy to its expediency, we remark that it will, as already intimated, be a great error to suppose that the favourable impression produced in Ireland by this grant to Maynooth, will be such as to admit of being weighed against the unfavourable impression that will be produced by it in Great Britain. Mr. O'Connell may be as versatile on this subject as Sir Robert himself, but to the body of the Irish people the thing will be as a mockery rather than a relief. When they think of it, they will feel, we suspect, very much like men who, when they ask for bread receive a stone. Let the Irish cotter become sensible that you have done something to make his home less wretched, and he will understand that; but tell him that the channel which your wise benignity has chosen, is to see that his priest shall be something more of a scholar and a gentleman, and depend on it he will be more disposed to regard such a proceeding as a bit of Saxon fraud than as a benefit. If it were reasonable to expect that the object of the intended grant would be realized, and that the character of the future priesthood of Ireland would be improved, the desirableness of such a change, while the state of society in that island continues as it is, must be extremely doubtful. The fastidiousness of your gentleman and scholar priest, would be ill at ease, we fear, amidst your men of filth and indolence, of hunger and rags, through the south of Ireland. Qualify him for the better society which he is seldom to see, and take care that you do not disqualify him for that humbler society with which he must always be in intercourse. Our belief is, that the little that may be done to mend things at Maynooth, will be speedily undone by the circumstances which everywhere await its inmates. So long as the social condition of Ireland shall present its present miserable aspect, nothing that may be done to improve the character of its priesthood will produce any sensible effect. In general, men of superior mind will not entertain the thought of such a vocation in such circumstances, and the multitude who may be otherwise disposed will yield to the stream. But it will be said, secure to these men government income as well as government education, and what may you not hope? We answer, that in that case there would probably be some improvement in cultivation, presence, and address-but the change would not end there. Let the position of the Irish priesthood, in the eyes of their people, become that of men who receive their quarterly pension-money from some neighbouring functionary of the English government, and they would immediately sink from their place as the trusted guides of their flock, to that of suspected spies over their conduct. This consequence may be confidently expected, inasmuch as our Erastian statesmen have been very frank in declaring, both in their speeches and through the press, that the one object intended by this bounty is to separate these men from the influence of disaffection, and to buy up their services in behalf of the government. In the theory of this school of politicians, the priest was made for the magistrate. In the lan guage of this policy, the ministers of religion are in all cases men who have their price; and the state is wise in making the required payment for the required service from that quarter. Strange enough, while publishing this estimate of the character of Christian ministers, these gentlemen seem to suppose that they are doing their very best thing towards securing to religion itself greater purity, and better influence in the world. Men are likely to think better of religion from knowing that its ministers are time-servers, and take bribes! But why must men be thus bribed into quietude?—why not rather set their complaints at defiance, by taking away all reasonable cause for them? If the evil day may be deferred by a less bold and honest course, it can only be that it may come with a more fearful retribution when it does come. It has been difficult enough to secure anything like adequate attention to the wrongs of Ireland, even while her priests and people have been united in proclaiming them; but suppose the people of that country to become aware that their priests have been bought off from all such patriotic sympathies, and to learn that they have consented to take upon them the office of a higher order of police, exercising oversight for Cesar rather than for God-suppose this, and two things will follow: a much longer respite will be secured to existing evils in that long ill-used land, which will wax worse, and bring worse ultimate consequences along with them; and a new ingredient will be thrown into the cauldron of boiling passions which the history of Ireland presents-that of dark suspicion and bitter disaffection between her priests and her people. We have no wish to see respite given to the wrongs of Ireland-still less do we wish to see our national treasure applied in a manner adapted to augment those wrongs, rather than to remove them. In this instance, as in almost every instance connected with the policy of England towards Ireland, it has been the fate of our rulers to begin their labours at the wrong end. Their great object through many centuries has been to uphold a protestant church, and to secure a protestant ascendancy, in place of seeking the general improvement and civilization of the people. We have seen something of the result. So at present the great business of our statesmen seems to be, to remove the wart of poverty from Maynooth, and to disperse irritation on the skin by abating the roughness and necessities of a priesthood, whilst the diseases which have their lodgment through the whole body remain untouched, and are, we fear, likely so to remain. But without a manly dealing with these deeper disorders, the rest will be all in vain. Improve Ireland socially, and you of necessity improve her religiously. Save her from the curse of being a country in which life and property are insecure, and her colleges and priesthood will rise of themselves to a position, to which government influence, apart from such improvement, can never raise them. Give to Ireland, education, order, and industry, and all beside will be regenerated from those sources. In nothing has our patience been more tested than in reading speech after speech of honourable members in favour of this policy, and finding them to consist of little else than the reassertion of the notion, that Ireland should be governed in a spirit of conciliation, and that a conciliatory policy towards Ireland is dependent on beginning thus at Maynooth! On the contrary, we reiterate, as the sum of our argument-Do JUSTICE TO IRELAND AS A COUNTRY, AND YOU SUPERSEDE ALL NECESSITY FOR ENDOWING ITS ROMANISM; REFUSE TO DO THAT JUSTICE, AND THE ENDOW MENT OF THAT SYSTEM MUST BECOME SO MUCH SUPERADDED AND ROOTED MISCHIEF. But affairs will not end thus. Men begin to feel that some great reconstruction of parties will soon be necessary. The present house of commons has the confidence of no party. It embraces all sorts of inconsistencies and contradictions, but it has no character. Only one thing respecting it is certain -the men in the British nations, who bow with the most conscientious reverence to the supremacy of their religious principles, are the least disposed to regard it as trustworthy. Mr. Macauley, in the debate on the second reading of the Maynooth bill, described the opponents of the measure as consisting of three classes those who merely opposed the increase of the grant; those who opposed the endowment of catholicism because of its errors; and those who were opposed to this instance of endowment, on the ground of being opposed to the endowment of religion in any case. The objection of the first class, the honourable member observed, was in reality to say-it may be very well to endow catholicism, so you take care to endow it shabbily. To the second class it was replied, that all established systems are mixtures of truth and error; that catholicism embraces more truth than error; and that the catholic religion is far better for the peasantry of Ireland than no religion. We were curious to see how so skilful a debate would meet the objection based on the voluntary principle-and this was done by alleging, that the case of the Irish catholics was one of exception, constituted such by the amount of spoliation and injustice to which the catholic church of Ireland has been so long subject, and which could never have been inflicted by a minority in that country, had they not been supported by a majority in this. But we submit, that this representation, while it shows strongly that there is a liberal and healing policy due from England towards Ireland, by no means shows that this policy should take the shape of endowing Maynooth and the priests. Where there has been wrong there should be reparation-and reparation to the extent of the wrong; but wisdom may require that the reparation of a wrong inflicted some centuries since should consist, not in reconstructing things on their old basis, so much as in placing them on a new and a better one. The inference to be deduced from Mr. Macauley's premises was-that we should do good to Ireland, and not that we should fall back upon old and wornout principles in her favour, which may do her more harm than good. This, as we have observed above, is the fallacy which runs through all the argument we meet with on this subject. The voluntary will smile, probably, on seeing his favourite principle come forth thus unscathed and invulnerable as dealt with by such an opponent. It is plain, from the language of the orator, that he felt this point as the great difficulty in his reasoning, and the problem thus raised is not only unsolved, it is untouched. 621 BOOKS AND LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. Criticisms on Books. 1. The Diplomatic Correspondence of the Right. Hon. Richard Hill. 2. Look to the End; or, the Bennets 3. Notices of Windsor in the Olden 5. Christ our All in All. By the Rev. 6. Christian Consolation. By the Rev. E. Mannering. 7. Hints on the Revival of Scriptural 8. Complete View of Puseyism. 15. Bible Stories-Sights in all Seasons 16. Christian Baptism. By J. H. God win. 17. The Works of Edward Polhill. 18. What was the Fall? I. The Diplomatic Correspondence of the Right Hon. Richard Hill, Envoy Extraordinary from the Court of St. James's to the Duke of Savoy, in the reign of Queen Anne, from July, 1703, to May, 1706. Edited by the Rev. W. BLOCKLEY, B.A. 2 vols. 8vo, p. 990. Murray, London. THE Right Hon. Richard Hill, whose Diplomatic Correspondence is here given to the public in two portly and handsome volumes, was of the Hill family of Hawkestone, in the county of Salop; the son, |