desires me to request that, in any future edition of the book, the permission to dedicate it to him may be omitted.

"I have, &c. &c.

"Sir Rd. Musgrave, Bart." "E. B. LITTLEHALES." This unequivocal censure, from such high authority, is not noticed by Sir Richard; who, in his prefixed advertisement, contents himself with asserting the success of his work and the fidelity of his details, and with correcting a few trifling errors.' His silence with respect to the preceding letter is in no degree surprising: but que cannot avoid saying that it ought to be kept in remembrance until the book which it reprobates shall be engulphed in oblivion.

On commencing a perusal of this volume, the attention of the reader is first called to some remarks on the Romish religion, and a statement of sundry tramontane doctrines: but, as it is not pretended that Rome now acts upon them, or even professes them, we are at a loss to comprehend why they were here introduced. We then meet with an account of the seve ral rebellions in Ireland since its first subjugation, consisting of brief heads derived from the common histories; and which the author has not taken the trouble either of selecting with judgment, or digesting into method. Sir Richard next acquaints us with the different associations and conspiracies, of which the sister island has been the scene for the last forty years; viz. those of the White Boys, Volunteers, Defenders, &c. In reading these accounts, we have to lament that the author has paid so little attention to arrangement and adhe rence to his subject, and that he seems uniformly to prefer ex traneous to relevant matter. In the history of the White Boys, the memoirs of Edmund Burke, sketches of Thomas Burke, (titular Bp. of Ossory,) and of Bp. Woodward, form a part; though it is not stated that they were in any way connected with these conspirators. Edmund Burke was nevertheless so conspicuous a character, that wherever he presents himself, Nowever strange the company into which he is ushered, or however odd the situation in which he is placed, he must always attract notice. The present author dwells much on his predilection for the catholic religion; intimates that, in order to obtain the hand of a fair lady, (his future wife,) who was the daughter of a bigotted Romanist, he professed that religion for a short time; and says that he had once intended to write a history of the massacre of 1641 for the express purpose of vindicating its alledged abettors. We suspect that this reconciliation of Mr. Burke to the Romish religion stands on the same foundation with many of the relations contained in this work: but, avoiding any discussion of this point, we must now return to

ΤΑ

the

the White Boys; who were so called from their wearing uni· forms of that colour, when they appeared in any force. Their origin goes as far back as the year 1759; their avowed object was relief against the oppressions of tythe proctors, and the exorbitant fees of their own clergy: but the real view was the service of the French King and Prince Charles the Pretender, to which they had bound themselves by oaths. This body melted down into another called Right Boys; who, supported by many persons of consideration, concerted and successfully carried into effect plans for defrauding the clergy of their tythes.

Local quarrels produced the Defenders and Peep-of-day Boys (so called from searching the houses of their antagonists for arms, at a very early hour in the morning); the former, Catholics, the latter, Presbyterians. On this occasion, the antient animosities of the parties seemed to have revived, many ravages were committed, and many lives were, sacrificed, till at length these contending streams were lost in the mighty torrent which had nearly overwhelmed the whole country: the Defenders swelled the list of the United Irishmen; while their adversaries acted variously, some joining the Orangemen, some the disaffected, and some remaining neutral. In our introductory remarks, we have anticipated the account of the Orange-men: but we omitted to state an anachronism which the author imputes to the public prints. According to him, the outrages, which these prints charge the Orange-men with having perpetrated in Armagh, immediately before the rebellion, are no others than those committed by the Peep-ofday Boys in 1795, connected with a later and a false date.

In the course of the late American war, Ireland having been stripped of the greatest part of her military force, and being threatened with invasion, the inhabitants were invited by Government to associate for the defence of their native land. The invitation was accepted with alacrity, and its object was pursued with zeal; and these corps constituted the Volunteers, who were afterward so famous. It is well known that this body procured for their country an enlargement of trade, with à supposed independent government; and that it attempted, but failed, to carry into effect a parliamentary reform. This habit of associating for self-defence, and for the redress of grievances, no doubt facilitated the military and civil organization of that subsequent formidable conspiracy beneath which the government of Ireland, unassisted, would inevitably have succumbed. The catholic committee, we are told, was first formed in 1757 but its proceedings engaged little attention till 1791; and, in the succeeding year, a sort of concert between it and

the

the presbyterian associations of Belfast added to the novel and extraordinary events with which the period was so pregnant. In connection with this body, the name of Mr. Burke is frequently introduced, and certainly in a manner not very friendly to his fame. The interferences of his son are expressly said to have been owing to pecuniary rewards; he is even called, in terminis, the hired agent of the catholic body; and, if we interpret rightly the author's enigmas, the father's services in the cause of toleration were not wholly gratuitous.

The dread society of United Irishmen closes the list. The first association under this name was formed at Belfast, and announced itself to the public in October 1791. It was followed by another in Dublin, which met on the 9th of the fol lowing month, and which soon afterward circulated letters recommending the formation of similar societies throughout the country. The avowed objects of their association were stated to be parliamentary reform, and complete toleration.-The author's record of their subsequent proceedings presents no novelty, and is already before the public in the reports of the committees of Parliament.

Sir R. Musgrave's narratives of the skirmishes and combats, which took place in the course of the late unhappy troubles, are liable to the same objections with his accounts of the associations; they are not so well drawn up as the dispatches of the period; nor have we reason for supposing that they can boast any advantage over them in point of accuracy. The atrocities of which one side was notoriously guilty are detailed with disgusting minuteness, while those which were as undeniably committed by the other are almost wholly unnoticed; and the thread of the narrative is frequently interrupted, to make way for the insertion of rumours calculated to excite the highest degree of abhorrence of the obnoxious party. Since the strictest truth would have furnished but too many materials for this purpose, the author might well have spared himself the trouble of recording so many questionable reports. - From these considerations, and because in a subsequent Review we shall be called to consider accounts of the same transactions drawn up by another author, we feel the less difficulty in quoting sparingly from the pages before us. The author to whom we refer is Mr. Gordon, a protestant clergyman, living in a part of the country in which the principal ravages were committed, and who was himself a sufferer by them: in making extracts from his statements, therefore, we shall be in no apprehension of aiding the circulation of irritating aspersions and baleful misrepresentations. We cannot refrain from particularizing one instance of the want of care and scrupulosity with which these memoirs

have

have been compiled, though it will lead us into a digression somewhat similar to those which we have already censured in the work itself:

In the years 1791 and 1792, (says Sir Richard,) Rabaud de St. Etienne, the boson friend of Brissot, the famous leader of the Girondine party in the French national assembly, passed some time be tween Dublin and Belfast, sowing the seeds of future combustion.'

It is well known that Rabaud had no knowlege of the English language; that he never set foot out of France; that he had no intimacy with Brissot until the meeting of the Convention; and that he never acted politically with that leader, except during the short time that they sat together as members of that body. In the constituent assembly, Rabaud was distinguished by his labours in the formation of the limited monarchy; he concurred in the revision so much reprobated by the Republicans; he voted against bringing the king to a trial on his flight to Varennes, for his name does not appear in the famous minority of eight, the germ of the Girondist party; and on the dissolution of the Assembly, instead of participating in the ominous applauses bestowed on this little faction, he was accused by the lower class of Brissot's partizans with having shared in the bribes of the court. The decree against a republic, and against two chambers proposed by the Bishop of Lyons, in the commencement of the July immediately preceding the fatal tenth of August, and which was carried by acclamation, originated with Rabaud. We can affirm from the best authority that, up to this period, and even as long as opinions were free, this distinguished deputy was a zealous asserter of monarchy, as the most eligible form of government for a great country like France; that so obnoxious was he to the Republicans, that on the horrible days of the first week in September, when deputies were sent from the several departments which had returned him to the Convention, to announce to him his election, he was not to be found, having concealed himself from apprehension for his personal safety; and that he did not desert the royalist cause, till it was become no longer a doubt that the court had formed an understanding with the declared enemies of the country. In consequence of this fatal measure, he acted as he had always professed he should do, if the unhappy alternative should ever present itself; and, as well as many other most respectable royalists, chose to throw himself into the arms of the republican party, rather than unite with those who were willing that foreign powers should dictate the law to France.-We are aware of very intemperate and injudicious speeches delivered by him in the convention: but whether these were the effect of fear, of policy,

policy, or of recent conviction, we shall not stop to inquire, because they were made at a time subsequent to that assigned by the author for the Irish mission; at which period, it is suffici ently known that there lived not a man more free from every sort of fanaticism, and that it was more congenial to his turn to ridicule propagandism than to engage in its diffusion. The intrigues of the constituent assembly, indeed, with which he was better acquainted than most men, had disgusted him with politics. Like many others, also, the most worthy of his fellow labourers in the same assembly, he was not reserved in avowing that they had gone too far in weakening the royal authority, and in admitting the general imperfections of their joint work; and full of apprehension respecting its fate, Rabaud, at the epoch in which Sir R. Musgrave makes him act the part of a political St. Patrick, was in a humour very foreign from that of preaching up and extolling revolutions.-We feel happy in an opportunity of doing this justice to the memory of a person, whom we considered as one of the most upright of the Revolutionists; though it is true that this calumny of the ex-constituent is in no other way important with regard to this history, than as it exemplifies the good faith of the historian.

Did our limits permit, indeed, we could produce instances without number in which the facts of past history, and the transactions of other countries, like the late events in his own, are made to bend to the author's individual notious. He repeatedly asserts that the Church of England is the only party uniformly attached to the Constitution. Did he never hear of the courtly preachers of James and Charles the First; of the Nonjurors of the Revolution; nor of Protestant Jacobites who never ceased to plot against the government which lent them protection? Sir Richard also says that, while the Emperors of Rome and Constantinople retained in their own hand the spiritual supremacy, these great empires were free from ecclesiasti cal troubles. On this passage we shall not enlarge, but leave those who peruse it to make their own comments; nor shall we occupy our pages with any farther specimens of the author's attainments in general history.

The following account of the Irish catholic seminary, as well as the curious anecdote of Lord Dunboyne, will probably interest our readers:

As a college was erected at Maynooth, in the county of Kildare, for the education of Romish priests in the year 1795, and, as it was amply endowed by government, I shall make a few observations on it. In the year 1794, and in the administration of Lord Westmorland, Dr. Troy made a representation to government, that, in consequence of the disturbances in France, four hundred Irish

students,