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italics, Mr M. has deserted his author to introduce ornament of his own. Aristophanes takes his metaphor simply from a couch. But now,' he says, ye take no pity on him, beholding him in his dotage like an aged couch,

ἐκπιπτουσων των ἠλεκτρων, και του τονου ουκ ἐτ ̓ ἔνοντος,
των θ ̓ ἁρμονιων διαχασκούσων

⚫ with its bosses tumbling off-its straining-cords no longer fixed its joints wide-gaping.' The turn which Mr M. has given to the words may be more beautiful and more poetical, but it is not the sense of the original.

We must now bid Mr Mitchell farewell, with every assurance of the pleasure it will give us to meet with him again in the course of his entertaining and instructive labours. He professes himself no friend to indiscriminate praise, and will not therefore be offended by any portion of our animadversions. Let him drop a few prejudices, and the general tone of his work will be more pleasing: let him bestow a little more pains, and its general execution will be more correct. For what we have said in commendation, we think the extracts we have given will fully justify us to our classical readers. We hail with much satisfaction the prospect now afforded us of seeing ably and agreeably translated into our native language, an author who has hitherto had so much fewer readers and admirers than his merits deserve. It will be no slight honour to Mr Mitchell, if he succeed in making Aristophanes a more familiar and more popular study than he has been; and in spite of the despairing motto he has adopted, we have good hopes of his doing so. We rejoice to have laboured in a small portion of the same vineyard; and shall be glad if our assistance can in any way contribute to so desirable a result. We would recommend a more cheerful inscription for the next volume:-Aristophanes has long been under a sort of cloud,

"But shall anon repair his drooping head,
"And trick his beams, and with new-spangled ore
"Flame in the forehead of the Morning sky!"

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ART. II. 1. Whitelaw's History of the City of Dublin. 4to. Cadell & Davies.

2. Observations on the State of Ireland, principally directed to its Agriculture and Rural Population; in a Series of Letters, written on a Tour through that Country. In 2 Vols. By J. C. CURWEN, Esq. M. P. London, 1818.

3. Gamble's Views of Society in Ireland.

THE HESE are all the late publications that treat of Irish interests in general, and none of them are of first-rate importance. Mr Gamble's Travels in Ireland are of a very ordinary description-low scenes and low humour making up the principal part of the narrative. There are readers, however, whom it will amuse; and the reading market becomes more and more extensive, and embraces a greater variety of persons every day. Mr Whitelaw's History of Dublin is a book of great accuracy and research, highly creditable to the industry, good sense, and benevolence of its author. Of the Travels of Mr Christian Curwen, we hardly know what to say. He is bold and honest in his politics-a great enemy to abuses-vapid in his levity and pleasantry, and infinitely too much inclined to declaim upon commonplace topics of morality and benevolence. But with these drawbacks, the book is not ill written; and may be advantageously read by those who are desirous of information. upon the present State of Ireland.

So great, and so long has been the misgovernment of that country, that we verily believe the empire would be much stronger, if every thing was open sea between England and the Atlantic, and if skates and codfish swam over the fair land of Ulster. Such jobbing, such profligacy-so much direct tyranny and oppression-such an abuse of God's gifts such a profanation of God's name for the purposes of bigotry and party spirit, cannot be exceeded in the history of civilized Europe, and will long remain a monument of infamy and shame to England. But it will be more useful to suppress the indignation which the very name of Ireland inspires, and to consider impartially those causes which have marred this fair portion of the creation, and kept it wild and savage in the midst of improving Europe.

The great misfortune of Ireland is, that the mass of the people have been given up for a century to an handful of Protestants, by whom they have been treated as Helots, and subjected to every species of persecution and disgrace. The sufferings of the Catholics have been so loudly chanted, in the very streets,

that it is almost needless to remind our readers, that during the reigns of George I. and George II., the Irish Roman Catholics were disabled from holding any civil or military office, from voting at elections, from admission into corporations, from practising law or physic. A younger brother, by turning Protestant, might deprive his elder brother of his birthright: by the same process, he might force his father, under the name of a liberal provision, to yield up to him a part of his landed property; and if an eldest son, he might, in the same way, reduce his father's fee-simple to a life estate. A Papist was disabled from purchasing freehold lands-and even from holding long leases and any person might take his Catholic neighbour's house by paying five pounds for it. If the child of a Catholic father turned Protestant, he was taken away from his father and put into the hands of a Protestant relation. No Papist could purchase a freehold, or lease for more than thirty years-or inherit from an intestate Protestant-nor from an intestate Catholic-nor dwell in Limerick or Galway-nor hold an advowson, nor buy an annuity for life. 50l. was given for discovering a popish Archbishop-301. for a popish Clergyman -and 10s. for a Schoolmaster. No one was allowed to be trustee for Catholics; no Catholic was allowed to take more than two apprentices; no Papist to be solicitor, sheriff, or to serve on grand juries. Horses of Papists might be seized for the militia; for which militia Papists were to pay double, and to find Protestant substitutes. Papists were prohibited from being present at vestries, or from being high or petty constables; and, when resident in towns, they were compelled to find Protestant watchmen. Barristers and solicitors marrying Catholics, were exposed to the penalties of Catholics. Persons plundered by privateers during a war with any Popish prince, were reimbursed by a levy on the Catholic inhabitants where they lived. All Popish priests celebrating marriages contrary to 12 George Ist, cap. 3, were to be hanged.

The greater part of these incapacities are removed, though many of a very serious and oppressive nature still remain. But the grand misfortune is, that the spirit which these oppressive Laws engendered remains. The Protestant still looks upon the Catholic as a degraded being: The Catholic does not yet consider himself upon an equality with his former tyrant and taskmaster. That religious hatred which required all the prohibiting vigilance of the law for its restraint, has found in the law its strongest support; and the spirit which the law first exasperated and embittered, continues to act long after the original stimulus is withdrawn. The law which prevented

Catholics from serving on Grand Juries is repealed; but Catholics are not called upon Grand Juries in the proportion in which they are entitled, by their rank and fortune. The Duke of Bedford did all he could to give them the benefit of those laws which are already passed in their favour. But power is seldom entrusted in this country to one of the Duke of Bedford's liberality; and every thing has fallen back in the hands of his successors into the antient division of the privileged and degraded castes. We do not mean to cast any reflexion upon the present Secretary for Ireland, whom we believe to be upon this subject a very liberal politician, and on all subjects an honourable and excellent man. The Government under which he serves allows him to indulge in a little harmless liberality; but it is perfectly understood that nothing is intended to be done for the Catholics; that no loaves and fishes will be lost by indulgence in Protestant insolence and tyranny; and, therefore, among the generality of Irish Protestants, insolence, tyranny, and exclusion continue to operate. However eligible the Catholic may be, he is not elected ;-whatever barriers may be thrown down, he does not advance a step. He was first kept out by law; he is now kept out by opinion and habit. They have been so long in chains, that nobody believes they are capable of using their hands and feet.

It is not however the only or the worst misfortune of the Catholics, that the relaxations of the law are hitherto of little benefit to them: the law is not yet sufficiently relaxed. A Catholic, as every body knows, cannot be made sheriff; cannot be in Parliament; cannot be a director of the Irish Bank; cannot fill the great departments of the law, the army and the navy; is cut off from all the high objects of human ambition, and treated as a marked and degraded person.

The common admission now is, that the Catholics are to the Protestants in Ireland as about 4 to 1-of which Protestants, not more than one half belong to the Church of Ireland. This, then, is one of the most striking features in the state of Ireland. That the great mass of the population is completely subjugated and overawed by an handful of comparatively recent settlers,in whom all the power and patronage of the country is vested,who have been reluctantly compelled to desist from still greater abuses of authority, and who lock with trembling apprehension to the increasing liberality of the Parliament and the country towards these unfortunate persons, whom they have always looked upon as their property and their prey.

Whatever evils may result from these proportions between the oppressor and the oppressed-to whatever dangers a coun

try so situated may be considered to be exposed-these evils and dangers are rapidly increasing in Ireland. The proportion of Catholics to Protestants is infinitely geater now than it was thirty years ago, and is becoming more and more favourable to the former. By a return made to the Irish House of Lords in 1732, the proportion of Catholics to Protestants was not 2 to 1. It is now (as we have already observed) 4 to 1; and the causes which have thus altered the proportion in favour of the Catholics, are sufficiently obvious to any one acquainted with the state of Ireland. The Roman Catholic

priest resides; his income entirely depends upon the number of his flock; and he must exert himself, or he starves. There is some chance of success, therefore, in his efforts to convert; but the Protestant clergyman, if he were equally eager, has little or no probability of persuading so much larger a proportion of the population to come over to his church. The Catholic clergyman belongs to a religion that has always been more desirous of gaining proselytes than the Protestant church; and he is animated by a sense of injury and a desire of revenge. Another reason for the disproportionate increase of Catholics is, that the Catholic will marry upon means which the Protestant considers as insufficient for marriage. A few potatoes and a shed of turf, are all that Luther has left for the Romanist; and, when the latter gets these, he instantly begins upon the great Irish manufacture of children. But a Protestant belongs to the sect that eats the fine flour, and leaves the bran to others: -he must have comforts, and he does not marry till he gets them. He would be ashamed if he were seen living as a Catholic lives. This is the principal reason why the Protestants who remain attached to their church do not increase so fast as the Catholics. But in common minds, daily scenes, the example of the majority, the power of imitation, decide their habits religious as well as civil. A Protestant labourer who works among Catholics, soon learns to think and act and talk as they do he is not proof against the eternal panegyric which he hears of Father O'Leary. His Protestantism is rubbed away; and he goes at last, after some little resistance, to the chapel, where he sees every body else going.

These eight Catholics not only hate the ninth man, the Protestant of the Establishment, for the unjust privileges he enjoys-not only remember that the lands of their father were given to his father-but they find themselves forced to pay for the support of his religion. In the wretched state of poverty in which the lower orders of Irish are plunged, it is not without considerable effort that they can pay the

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