sent evils, we would say: "Be national. You talk glibly about the best thing for Ireland being to take her place along with Kent or Cornwall. It is a grave question whether that would be the best thing; but, whether or not, neither you nor any man can compass such a result. Here is the crave for nationality; if the better part of the nation join in satisfying it, it will be satisfied decently, as it has been in Scotland. If they stand aloof, the mob will very naturally run into strange vagaries. But whether guided or left to themselves, the Irish will have that nationality which is the heritage of every distinct people, and of which, at this age of the world, no wise government will attempt to deprive them."

But, though Irish help is essential to the success of Irish manufactures, there is one direction in which government help is sorely needed, and in which nothing but government help can be of any real service. Arterial drainage is the great want of Ireland; no thorough draining can be done till it is accomplished; the landlords will never combine in such a work; indeed, with the best intentions, they could hardly compass that unity of plan which is essential for every great artery. There is no reason why the work should not be begun at once, for the government surveys and valuation afford just the data that are wanted. The work would pay; it would raise wages, which still in winter do not range, except near the great towns, above 1s. a day, so that a man must (at present prices) work two days to get one day's food for himself and wife and four children; it would, moreover, be necessarily supplemented with embankment works along rivers, which, like the Suck, are (as has often been said) "a disgrace to any civilised country," with canal works, &c. Here is a ready way of spending all the church moneys which are likely to come in for a long time. The greater portion of them might be funded, and the interest applied both to keep up the works and to pay off loans for construction which should at once be made out of the imperial treasury. In this way a positive work would be done far superior to any of the Utopian schemes of those who, with the best intentions, would make Ireland a corpus vile for social experiments. In this way too the great mass of the people, who desire nothing better than to live in quiet and security, would see that government was at last determined to do, and not merely to talk. They would get just that "initiative" which the Celtic nature is said to want; and there would be some chance of that consummation being realised, of which Lord Russell speaks thus in his closing paragraph :

"The English have the most perseverance, the Scotch the most sense, the Irish the most generosity. But all these nations, speaking one language, living in two islands closely connected, governed by a mixed race of Norman, Saxon, and

"Hibernia Pacata."

399

Celt, are destined to form, as they have formed, through dangers, convulsions, and disasters, a community-or, if you will, an empire, distinguished by its high spirit, its freedom, and its civilization. Let us only add Hibernia Pacata to our victories of peace, and the future may exceed the past."

We are glad to believe that Hibernia Pacata may be the triumph of a government with Mr Disraeli at its head. That statesman has only so to "educate his party" that they shall realise the crying injustice of the Establishment, the exceptional need, in a purely agricultural country, of protection to the tenant, and the claim of Ireland on Government-support to counterbalance the unfair treatment which she received in past times. Let these three ideas be impressed on Parliament, and let it also feel the need of acting at once, and all will yet be well. There is no excuse for inaction. The British people is thoroughly moved. Never has so much been written on any subject, in so short a time, as on this Irish topic since Fenianism broke out in an aggravated form. Amid much wild talk, much light must also have been thrown upon questions of which even educated Englishmen have hitherto been content to be singularly ignorant. We, to whom Irish matters have been familiar from boyhood, have been constantly astonished to find how little information very many men of intelligence and culture have upon them. As Mr W. Arnold says of Celtic literature, Irish history, Irish antiquities, everything Irish, except the common misleading talk of newspapers, has hitherto been for most Englishmen as though it was not. For this ignorance no one can in future plead want of information; enough has been said on every point to enable all to form a judgment who possess in any degree the judicial faculty.

Our own object has been rather to state facts than to draw inferences. We had intended to enter at some length into the history and antiquities of Ireland, and to discuss the character of its people, and its climatic and geographical peculiarities. These points we hope to return to in another paper. Mr Mill, Mr Goldwin Smith, and Earl Russell have, for the present, kept us to graver topics. Gravest of all the points which we have mooted is the case of the Established Church, which we hope the present Parliament will not hesitate to deal with. We have already said that the Church of England in Ireland should (in our view) be to a great extent maintained by English money; it is not in any sense a national church. would, of course, involve a great change in arrangements; the "Irish Church" (as it calls itself) would soon grow a good deal like the Episcopal Church in Scotland. We should no longer have the anomaly of which Mr Godkin complains, of Archbishop Trench receiving £6000 a year, while Cardinal Cullen has to live on voluntary contributions. And when the govern

This

ment had given this earnest of an intention to deal thoroughly with Irish grievances, minds would become calmer and better fitted to consider the more vexed and intricate, though less important, question of the land-tenure.

And if Fenianism shall lead us at last to do away with Ireland's capital grievances, we may well say with Mr Gladstone, "These painful and horrible manifestations may perhaps in the merciful designs of providence-without in the slightest degree acquitting the authors of responsibility-have been intended to invite this nation to greater search of its own heart and spirit and conscience, with reference to the condition of Ireland, and the legislation affecting that country." And such legislation would surely be met by Ireland in a kindly spirit. For, though there is much discontent and some disaffection in Ireland, Lord Mayo is right in reminding us that "there is a very numerous class in the country as patriotic and as attached to our institutions as any class of men in the world. Their faces are not turned to the West; they believe that the best hopes of Ireland are mixed up with the British constitution; they desire that their sons should be as they and their fathers have been, sharers in your greatness, your glories, and your freedom; and their best hope for their country is, that the day is not far distant when, not by legislative coercion, but by a more beneficent course on the part of the Government, the whole mass of the country may be brought to acknowledge, and, in acknowledging, to appreciate, the kindly blessings which a free constitution affords to a loyal and united people." Surely these words of Lord Mayo are a pledge that Government does not mean to rest satisfied with the policy of procrastination, and that it will not leave to Mr Bright and Mr Gladstone the work of pacifying Ireland.

Since this paper was written, " An Ulster Presbyterian" has been publishing a series of letters in the Daily News. The last of these, which appeared on March 13, so thoroughly confirms what we have said in p. 398, about the absolute need of security to the tenant, that we must quote a paragraph from the letter itself. No doubt Ireland needs "patience, not legislative panaceas ;" and Lord Mayo is perhaps justified in seeking by a Commission to "secure a solid basis for any future legislation before he brings in a land law;" but still a purely agricultural country requires un-English remedies, and the following very emphatic words-all the more emphatic because so temperately expressed-show the feeling in reference to land laws among the men of the north, who (be it remembered) have, despite tenant-right, a good deal to complain of, when the agent sends round a valuator every fourth year to raise their rent, and so makes their famous "custom"-the true child of that Scotch feeling which protests against "lairds sae sair on

gear, wha set ane mailin to anither' —a mere mockery. The Ulster Presbyterian says:

"Any measure, to be of the slightest use, should, in the first place, give the tenant the full value for all unexhausted improvements made in the last thirty or thirty-five years. It should enable the tenant to make improvements in the future, and should provide that all improvements should be paid for either in money, or by a lease of proportionate length and value.

"It is a sad comment upon English land-laws that if, in any part of Ireland, there is a town distinguished for energy and enterprise, it will be found on inquiry that the landlord is a pauper, who has been forced to give perpetuities. But there is no reason why Ireland should be impoverished generally to keep the landlord rich, or why the landlords should be destroyed that the people may go free. Surely it is not a hopeless task to reconcile the interests of class with class. If it be too hard for the Parliament of England, it will assuredly some day be taken up by some other body. Suppose for a moment that, remembering how Canada thirty years ago was pacified by a settlement of their land and Church questions, it was decided that Ireland should be allowed to join the present confederation of our North American colonies, does not every man know that the measures I have suggested would be adopted in a more stringent form, and that the result would be within a generation, the contentment of the people, and the growth of a loyal feeling towards the English crown? And can we not make the experiment for ourselves? Can we not try the effects of a little wisdom and a little justice and justice is only wisdom in action— and seek the happiness of a nation by giving it the opportunity of improvement?"

VII.-GENERAL LITERATURE.

Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands, from 1848 to 1861, to which are prefixed and added Extracts from the same Journal, giving an Account of Earlier Visits to Scotland, and Tours in England and Ireland, and Yachting Excursions. Edited by Arthur Helps. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1868.

The Queen of England-to give this distinguished Lady her proudest title has already invited her people into her confidence, and thrown herself upon their honest sympathy. She now admits them to a further intimacy, and anticipates, not unwisely in these rapidmoving times, the favourable verdict of posterity. All that we and others have said in praise of her estimable character, as partially revealed in the "Early Years of the Prince Consort," receives confirmation from this private "Journal." Making every allowance for idle

curiosity, we venture to think that the finer characteristics of these royal revelations, must have met with corresponding moral properties in the people who so largely appreciate them. The art of photography has already brought faithful portraits of this widowed Queen to every "album" in her kingdom; and a no less truthful conception of her personal and domestic qualities as now present in the heads and hearts of her subjects. These subjects, although nothing doubting of their human kinship with royalty, are very naturally gratified by the now tangible verity that there are also hearts and homes in the palace, equal to the best and purest of their familiar hearths. Whilst others, not her subjects, who are apt to believe that royalty is as effete as chivalry or feudalism, incontinently admit that in the person of Queen Victoria it has yielded a flower of rare beauty in these latter days. These modest "Leaves from the Journal," it is true, are not at all conventionally noble, that is in outward aspect, so far as pomp and circumstance and courtly bravery go to make up the ensemble of regal nobility. They, with their Queenly author, are noble, as all persons and things that are both good and great in themselves contain that dignity in the grand simplicity of truth. Neither, indeed, could a greater mistake be committed than to criticise this book at all, seeing that it has no literary pretensions whatever, although it might teach many writers a lesson in plain and unaffected force of style; sincerity and artlessness constitute the charm of its manner. The book is simply to be accepted as a remarkably pleasant fact, full of the best of meanings.

Understanding that the daily press has so largely reproduced this work, and that a popular edition is about to be issued at a nominal price, we need not sample it here; nor can we sum its contents with more accurate brevity than they are done in the title. Mr Helps has further so intimately apprehended the spirit of this ingenuous diary, as might have been expected from the refined and thoughtful author of "Friends in Council," that there is nothing left for us to do but to borrow from his prefatory remarks. These, moreover, acquire additional value from the circumstance of the editor's convenient official position, as Clerk in Ordinary to Her Majesty's Privy Council.

After stating that the volume now published is merely "such a record of the impressions received by the Royal author in the course of her journeys, as might serve hereafter to recall to her own mind the scenes and circumstances which had been the source of so much pleasure," he proceeds to observe, that it would not be becoming on his part to dwell largely upon its merits. "He may, however," he adds, "allude to the picturesque descriptions of scenery in which the work abounds; to the simplicity of diction throughout it; and to the perfect faithfulness of narration which is one of its chief characteristics; for in every page the writer describes what she thinks and feels, rather than what she might be expected to think and feel." Respecting the notes to the volume, which bear traces of recent writing, he remarks that "besides indicating that peculiar memory for persons, and that recognition of personal attachment, which have been very noticeable in our Sovereigns, they illustrate, in a striking manner the patriarchal feeling (if one may apply such a word as "patriarchal" to