sea-port, cured, in a degree, of performing his absurd and miserable impostures in it.

"There you go, an' may honor an' glory be in your road, afore you!"— Cahill continued to shout.

“There you go, an' may you never know what it is to have a heart as heavy as the hearts you're afther makin' happy, this day !"-added Peery.

"Stand!" cried voices at their backs-" one of you is Cahill, the outlaw." They turned, and saw half a dozen police, who, with presented carbines, immediately surrounded them.

66

6

Bother, boys, wid your stand!"-answered Ned-" I'm Cahill, sure enough, but no outlaw, this blessed day, thank God, an' his honor the Lord Lieutenant! Hurrah!"-he jumped again.

"Come, come-your arms,”—said the serjeant of the party.

"Arms? sorrow a one I have, barrin' the two God gave me;—a little while ago, to tell thruth, I had a sort of an ould pistol wid me-but I sint the bullet of id up into the air, an' itself afther the bullet, to the divvle, entirely-an' its my word I give you, masther Peelers, honies, that, from this day, out'

"Search him"-interrupted the serjeant.

"Here, then-sarch-sarch,-sarch-oh, wid all my heart. I tell you, boys, it's only givin' yourselves throuble for nothin''

“Fall in with the men, then, and march for jail,” resumed the serjeant, when the useless search was ended.

"Jail? me march for jail? ye're mad to spake of id. It's more than your lives are worth to use the words. Take great care what ye're for doin'." "Come, fall in :-where are the handcuffs ?"

"Handcuffs?" as he heard them jingling-" have a' care o' your behavour to me, I tell you once agin!" ejaculated Cahill, while he vainly resisted the strength used to manacle his hands-" his own self took the ban off 'o me, masther Peelers-his own self, my Lord the Lieutenant, only a minute agone, an' on this very blessed spot! ay, ye may laugh at me; bud I say he did! an' here's Peery O'Dea that's ready to say the same thing, for he hard an' seen him! didn't you, Peery, didn't you?"

Peery proved, indeed, a ready witness; but still the police sneered, until, after glancing down the road, in the direction of Mr. Lowe's house, the serjeant said, "well, Cahill, now's the time to get grace from us, if your words are true,”the man's tone was still deriding-"here comes his Excellency."

"Which way?" demanded Cahill, glancing up and down the road, in great astonishment "Eh? the gentleman ridin' up to us wid Mr. Lowe an' the officers? stop-wait-stop-eh! by the powers o'man, an' it is, sure enough, however the divvle-or by the Lord's will-he got there! Peery! Peery, avich!"

"Shove aside, and clear the road," said the serjeant. The police and their prisoners accordingly stood at the fence, the men presenting arms. The Lord Lieutenant stopt before them, and was about to ask what was the matter, when Cahill broke forward, and falling almost prostrate, with his manacled hands, prayed his Excellency to look on him, and remember him well, and say whether or no he had not, a few moments before, pardoned him his offences; and at the same time he again shouted out for Peery O'Dea to support his assertion.

"The man must be mad," said the Lord Lieutenant, to Mr. Lowe-" both of them must be so; I have never seen either of them, in my life before and yet how apparently sincere is their earnestness; one of them weeps."

At the sound of his Excellency's voice, Cahill started up, staring in misgiving and dismay on the face of the speaker; and again he called, in a whisper, to Peery! Peery, avich!" as if for counsel.

No, Ned, asthore," replied Peery, after making his own observations, "tisn't himself is afore us-or-it is himself, I mane-or else there's two

o' them—or, it was the ould divvle that came the road, first of all, to make you go thro' wid the foolish thought o' your mind, an' get you taken agin!”

While the Lord Lieutenant still spoke in an under tone with Mr. Lowe, the serjeant of the police adyanced to recapture Cahill. Peery O'Dea now sprang forward and continued, in a loud, wailing voice-"But since they have you the second turn, Ned, its time for me to do what I said!—Plaise your lordship, Ned Cahill, my wife's brither, tho' he broke jail, is as innocent as my own weenoch o' what sent him there!-I am the man-I, Perry O'Dea,—that headed the boys up to the house, for the arms that night,-an' Ned wasn't wid us at all, only met me on the road, after we got what we went for-an' forced my gun for me, an' stood to be saized by the Peelers! an' this is the holy thruthi, an' I'll get your honor plenty o' witnesses to say so:-an' now, sure your Majisty 'ill just tell them to let him go, and take me, in his place, an'"

"Don't put thrust in a word the fool of a' boy is sayin, glory to your lordship," interrupted Cahill-" the head of him is cracked, becase I'm poor Mary's brother, an' he's often not in his right mind; 'twas in my hands the gun was found-an' 'twas I that broke jail-and, by coorse, its' I that ought to go to jail, over agin; an' so, mister serjeant-now, the Lord save us! an' whats' this?"

Mary O'Dea held him in her arms, sobbing and weeping aloud. “To jail you'll never go, brother Ned, machree!"-she cried-" never, never, praises to the good God, an' our good Lord Lieutenant!"-" Avich, you poor cratur; an' did that desaitful divvle come across you, too, an' make you all manner o' promises?" asked Cahill, returning her embraces. "Your honor, my lord!" continued Mary, "spake the word you promised me!"

Addressing Mr. Lowe, his Excellency, touched and affected, turned his horse's head-"Pray, Sir, explain to the poor people." "Cahill," said Mr. Lowe, "your sister has saved you; at least confirmed the Lord Lieutenant's merciful dispositions towards you, previously formed out of other circumstances. She contrived to meet his Excellency, before my house, this morning, and, on condition that a considerable depôt of concealed arms-discovered by her, she has not said how," (Cahill glanced from Mary to Peery) "should be delivered up, obtained your pardon. The tranquillity of the country for the last year, a word in your favor, from your priest and others, and indeed from myself, and a wish to show the deluded people that they will be treated mercifully, whenever they, themselves, afford the opportunity-all this helped your sister's prayers. Thank his Excellency. You are a free man.-"

That Cahill did as he was bid it would be idle to enforce. Neither is it necessary to describe the joy of the re-united family. But, indeed, kind readers, -contradictory as the thing may sound,-men made of mortal materials similiar to those which we believe you like in the brothers-in-law, Ned and Peery, often plunder arms, in some Irish counties, nay-(and alas for the admission!) use them fearfully, too. Let us hope and pray, however, that such an Irish Lord Lieutenant as we here have sketched for you, acting under the wise instructions which shape his own excellent feelings and inclinations, may soon gain possession of all the hidden depots of distraction, accumulated by the wretched people.

As for his Double

"Peery, avich," said Cahill, after they and Mary had been left alone on the road-"let us run hard, straight-a-head, an' thry an' lay hould o' that brute-baste of a pretendher!"

MISMANAGEMENT OF THE LIBRARY OF THE BRITISH
MUSEUM.

IT has been unblushingly pronounced by an official personage of some note, that the "decline of science," at present talked of, is nothing more than cant, arising, we may infer, (by reference to certain fulsome panegyrics of the same writert), from those who wish to detract from the merits of such living characters as spin out an ephemeral distinction in their fireside circles, on the faith of having indited, or intended‡ to indite, some dozen paragraphs in a periodical. But if any person will take the trouble of making the slightest comparison between the productions of the acknowledged great men of any former era however remote-ay, even in Aristotle's time-and the flimsy and fanciful things at present lauded as "lights from heaven," he must see, at a glance, that it is the CANT OF TRUTH, (if such a phrase may be allowed), not the cant of hypocrisy, to talk of the decline of science. Having made some rather extensive comparisons of this kind, the particulars of which we cannot at present spare room for, we have satisfied ourselves of the fact, that British science, in many of its departments, has been decidedly declining, owing to various obstructions, partly originating in the impolicy of those whose duty it ought to be to aid its advancement.

It would lead us over far too wide a field, to exhibit, in their true light -closely akin to Milton's darkness visible-the effects of all the various oppressions of literature and science, devised and acted upon by the caballing of parties, by the jobbing for places, and by the insatiable rapacity of our statesmen for money. The disgracefully illiberal tax on the importation of foreign books and works of art, needs only be hinted at to be execrated by every person of taste and education; but not contented with eleven pence for every pound weight (mark the ignorance of these sordid law-givers) of foreign printed books, and one shilling for every square foot of a foreign painting, besides a shilling on the whole piece, they proceed farther to impose an oppressive tax upon all works published at home. As if this also were directly aimed at the spread of intelligence, an additional burden is laid upon periodical works, evidently to prevent them circulating too fast or too far, and thereby enlightening the public, in contravention of the standing state maxim, that ignorance is the mother of devotion,-meaning, that ignorance of state jobbing begets confidence in the people, who have to pay for it in the shape of taxes; a flagrant instance of which we have in the present Board of Health, for shielding us from the threatening plague of India-the Board consisting of twelve distinguished titled courtiers, many of them of small medical talent, excluding competent men who have seen the disease extensively in Hindostan, because they are afraid of being eclipsed by their superiors in science, and are moreover desirous of keeping all the crumbs that fall from their master's table, for their own junto the same crumbs amounting, in the Board of Health case, to £6,000 a year!!! Were periodicals not taxed, such shameless jobs as this would be immediately known and stigmatized in every cottage in the kingdom, and the jobbers hooted by an indignant nation, till they disgorged their plunder.

* Loudon's Mag. of Nat. Hist. iv. 335, Note.
Ibid. p. 214.

+ Ibid. iii. 201, &c.

|| Ibid. p.

223.

But leaving this important point for subsequent scrutiny, we shall pounce at once upon the iniquitous tax which, according to the evidence elicited by the committee of the House of Commons, not only prevents publishers from engaging at all in expensive works, (see the evidence of Messrs. Murray, Baldwin, and Rees), but wrings a considerable per centage out of the hard-earned profits of authors, upon whom the tax ultimately falls, though the statute enacting the tax is most preposterously entitled, " An Act for the further Encouragement of Learning in the United Kingdom." This statute, so far from encouraging learning, enacts a tax on the author and publisher of every work of eleven copies of the same, while in favour of the Library of the British Museum, it is further enacted, that "one copy, on the best paper," shall be delivered for the use thereof, at Stationer's Hall, "within one calendar month" after its publication, under the penalty of "five pounds, together with eleven times the price at which such book shall be sold or advertized." The other ten libraries must make demand in writing of their several copies; but this, as it appears, is not required of the British Museum. In what manner, therefore, the deficiencies, to which we shall presently advert, have originated, we cannot, in some instances, divine; in others, they are traceable to palpable favouritism and jobbing.

Leaving, however, out of our consideration for the present, the gross impolicy and injustice of this tax upon literature, we complain that it is partially levied, and the Library of the British Museum, rich as it must be acknowledged to be, is rendered imperfect as a national depôt of the literature and science of the day. If a student, calculating upon this oppressive library tax, expect to find every recently published work in the British Museum Library, we can tell him, from our own experience, that he will meet with frequent disappointments, where he could have least anticipated them. We admit that he will find many of the most valuable late publications; but if his researches lie in any particular line of study, which requires him to examine a complete series of the newest works relating to it, he must be prepared to lay his account with the absence of many books, which, as we shall specifically prove, ought, in all fairness, to be in the library. In old and foreign books, the deficiencies are still greater.

The tax itself is bad enough in all conscience, but these deficiencies add heavily to its oppression. Let us take the instance of an author, such as Mr. Britton, the antiquary, or Mr. Stephens, the entomologist, who may be bringing out a work with expensive illustrations, for which there must be paid, directly or indirectly, the tax of eleven copies, unless some manoeuvring of favouritism, &c., be made, to elude the law. Now it would certainly be some equivalent to him to be saved the expense of the numerous works which it might be necessary for him to consult, by finding them at the library, where part of the tax is directly levied. If he indulge in such a dream, he will soon awaken disappointed; for when he comes to inspect the catalogue, copious as it is, he will immediately discover that it is so deficient in complete sets of books-even of recent books, which ought to be there--that he will be compelled both to pay the tax, and purchase the books which are indispensable to his undertaking. We hope, therefore, till some more efficient system be adopted, either for abrogating this oppressive tax, or for levying it with more impartiality and fairness, that the advocates for things as they are-with all their abuses unregenerate and unreformed-will not again tell us of the tax being in part compensated, by affording a gratuitous library of all the works published in this country.

These charges we do not make upon vague surmise and rash assertion. We are prepared to prove them by reference to the catalogue of

the library; and the extent of the usual disappointments which we have experienced for the last seven years, amounts to at least one fourthfrequently to one half-of the particular works which we require to consult. Yesterday (July 12, 1831) for example, out of a list of fifty-seven books, all English and several recent, we found thirty-one not in the catalogue of the Museum; besides observing incidentally about a dozen more deficiencies not in our list, while looking for those we wished to consult.

We alluded above to Mr. Britton, whose claims upon the library are amongst the highest occurring to our recollection, when we consider that this tax for the encouragement of learning, has wrung out of his hardearned profits, between one and two thousand pounds sterling. In consequence of the law requiring copies on the largest and finest paper, for the British Museum, we find by calculation that the compulsory tax paid by Mr. Britton to this one library, leaving the other ten libraries out of the question, amounts to the enormous sum of 1867. 14s. Surely the legislature could never contemplate such an invasion of private property as this, which has been continued in spite of this author's repeated remonstrances, which we hope he will renew with effect under the present reforming cabinet. One of Mr. Britton's splendid works is devoted to the Architectural Antiquities of Normandy; but his best source of information, the still more splendid French work on the same subject, is not in the Museum, and of course he is compelled, in addition to his sixty or eighty pounds of tax on this single work, to lay out ten or fifteen pounds more for this indispensable French book. If we are told that there is no sufficient fund for purchasing expensive foreign works, we ask, whence come the hundreds that, as we understand, are uselessly squandered on pretty shells, merely to please the eye of the fashionable loungers in the Museum, or to give the curators an opportunity of displaying their learning, by inventing long Greek names for them? We are quite positive that no rational scientific man in the empire, would have the hardihood to call this shell-mania, or this name-inventing, by the name of science, no more than he would call the similar tulip-and-hyacinth-mania of the Dutch by the name of botany; and there cannot be a shadow of doubt, that the money would be as usefully expended on Dutch fancy flowerroots, as upon these high-priced fancy shells. But to come to a much stronger point.

We may suppose Mr. Britton to put up with the deficiency of foreign books, in expectation of meeting with all the English ones which he requires; but, alas! he will here be doomed to a still greater disappointment. If his antiquarian or historical inquiries refer to the interesting period of the Reformation, he finds that the Museum catalogue does not contain such common books as Dr. M‘Crie's Life of Knox, nor the same author's Reformation in Spain; not to mention "Mary, Queen of Scots," 12mo, Glasgow, 1825, in which the gross misrepresentations and party spirit of M'Crie and others on the same subject, are spiritedly exposed, by reference to unquestionable documents. What is still worse, it contains not the principal original works of the Reformers of Scotland themselves, such as the Scots Worthies, by Howie, with M'Gavin's Notes, the Cloud of Witnesses, Naphtali, the Hind let Loose, M'Gavin's Testimonies, and, we doubt not, many more, which we have not inquired after. In Irish History again we find deficient, Graham's Siege of Derry, Otway's Sketches in Ireland, and Sir William Betham on Dignities; besides Sir William's extensive work (5 vols. 4to.) on British Baronetage. In Heraldry, indeed, the catalogue is any thing but rich, as we lately experienced, when requiring to consult works on that subject.

The same gentleman, Mr. Britton, has lately gone to very considerable