unthought of. Whatever surplus may remain after satisfying the priest, must go towards treating the friends of the family. But the rent:-such a cabin is rated as high as the Englishman's cottage. I do not remember to have known less than thirty shillings charged on any one in a long street of these dwellings, where I was intimately conversant with all the details. How is the young tenant to pay this rent, entering on the holding as he does, pennyless, and with the hopeful prospect of a growing family to enliven it? As the English cottager does. No: there is no parallel here. The Irish cottier, or labourer, knows nothing of bread as an article of food: his scanty wages would not purchase enough of it to satisfy the cravings of his own hunger, much less would they extend to the wants of his family, and the payment of his rent. The potatoe is his only dependence, and the first necessary of life is to procure a plot of ground for the cultivation of the Two alternatives alone appear: either he must agree with his landlord to work out in day labour the amount of his holding, or else he must make the ground attached to it yield a sufficiency for all demands. The latter he can rarely, if ever do: for ground to be at all productive demands frequent dressing; and this again requires an outlay of money, and money he has none. If he root. reserves to himself so much of the produce as will feed his household, the remainder will never for any time suffice to cover the landlord's claim. On the other hand, if he undertakes to work out the value of his possession, a rate of wages is invariably fixed that leaves him far behind hand; and the arrear accumulating as he goes on, increases his difficulties, depresses his mind, and paralyses the main-spring of industry-honest independChildren are born, unavoidable expences are incurred, and for the supply of all these pressing wants he has the little potato plot, which, in a bad season, will not furnish his own family with a daily meal throughout the year. Some of them must beg: it is a sore trial to his feelings, but how can he help it? The utmost that he earns will barely satisfy the landlord, and avert an ejectment, and those whom he cannot feed must cater for themselves, by appealing to casual charity. ence. But when this bargain is not struck between landlord and tenant, the matter usually becomes worse. Labour is uncertain, and dependent on seasons at the best; the earnings of an able-bodied, industriousman, rarely exceed sixpence a day, when he can find work; and many a day must he stand idle, through the disproportionate amount of employment and of the numbers seeking it. In the summer he crosses the channel, leaving his wife and children to subsist by begging, while he traverses England and Scotland in search of work. Haymaking, harvesting, and hop-picking afford him a little profit, and he returns to pay up part of his arrear, and to purchase seed potatoes for the ensuing crop: A valuable store, which the poor creatures are frequently driven to consume for the support of nature before the season arrives for committing it to the earth. But is not this an extreme case? Would it were! It is the simple, unadorned story of the population in more than three-fourths of Irelanda story that I could relate on my own personal observation, but which is placed beyond a question by the heart-rending report of the Poor Law Commissioners, who visited every part of the island, and investigated the matter to the bottom. To that report I refer you, and after thus slightly sketching the outlines of a picture, over the details of which my heart has often bled as it lay-not the description, but the very reality,-beneath my eye, I must ask you to decide, whether the ingenuity of man, or of Satan himself, could contrive a piece of machinery more admirably adapted to be set in motion by a designing, crafty hand, than this impoverished, harassed people, endowed as they all are with fiery spirits, quick apprehension, daring hearts, and powerful frames. Add to this, that through the whole mass is infused the most unlimited confidence in, and devotion to the very system that looks to them for its advancement on the ruins of what they are taught to believe is the weight that bears them down, and you have an appalling, but a correct view of Ireland, in her present state and seeming prospect. Forty years ago the attempt was made, and baffled. A lesson of wisdom was derivable from the event, which has been read backwards and transformed into a lesson of fatuity. The vital principle of that rebellion has been nourished, and fostered, and nursed into more portentous growth and energy; the means of our former deliverance have been rejected, broken, scattered to the winds. At best, the hope was faint and the probabilities of success doubtful and contracted, as regarded the infusion of a better spirit into the adult race of Irish Romanists, but a noble field lay before us in the rising generation; while the anxiety of the poor parents to see their children taught opened a vista of brightness and beauty, to fill the Christian heart with joy. We approached them with the boon, of all gifts most prized by them— a fair system of education, combining useful knowledge in the affairs of this life with the far more precious instruction that maketh wise unto salvation. The priesthood of Rome would necessarily array themselves in opposition to the latter; because it was letting in light where their interests made the prevalence of utter darkness indispensable: but experience had shewn that in the breast of an Irish peasant one feeling could prevail over the otherwise insurmountable habit of sub-jection to the priest. Despite of all that the latter could do, wherever a scriptural school was opened, thither the children flocked; and if by the force of intimidation, or, as it often happened, by the vigorous application of a stout horse-whip, the little ones were for a time arrested in their path, an instance was never known where they did not soon contrive to surmount the barrier, and to return-flying like doves to their windows. By this means, a tie the most endearing was gradually forming between the poor Romanist population and their Protestant landlords and neighbours. That precious book, the message of which is, "Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace, good-will towards men," was prevailing where nothing else could prevail, to remove the mists of prejudice, and to cement a band, indissoluble by all the craft and subtlety of the devil or man. The Irish are a most affectionate people; win their hearts, and they are wholly yours. What sight so calculated to awaken the strongest emotions of grateful attachment as that of their chil |