PART VIII.

Transcriber's note:

Spelling and punctuation are sometimes erratic. A few obvious

misprints have been corrected, but in general the original spelling

and typesetting conventions have been retained. Accents are

inconsistent, and have not been standardised.

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.

This issue contains the index to Volume 64.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCXCVIII. DECEMBER, 1848. VOL. LXIV.

CONTENTS.

MRS HEMANS, 641

ON THE MISERIES OF IRELAND, AND THEIR REMEDIES, 658

THE CAXTONS. PART VIII., 672

REPUBLICAN FIRST-FRUITS, 687

PROPHECIES FOR THE PRESENT, 703

SIGISMUND FATELLO, 714

THE "GREEN HAND."--A "SHORT" YARN, 743

EASTLAKE'S LITERATURE OF THE FINE ARTS, 753

INDEX, 767

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;

AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

MRS HEMANS.

Felicia Hemans and the poetesses of England! Such would probably be

the form in which the toast would run, if literary toasts were the

fashion, or such a mode of compliment the one exactly suited to the

case. Not that we would venture positively to assert that Mrs Hemans

stands at the head of our poetesses, the first absolutely in point of

genius,--though there is but one name, that of Joanna Baillie, which

occurs to us, at the moment, as disputing with hers that

pre-eminence,--but because she, in a more complete manner than any

other of our poetesses, represents the mind, the culture, the

feelings, and character, of the English gentlewoman. Her piety, her

resignation, her love of nature and of home,--that cheerfulness easily

moved by little incidents, that sadness into which reflection almost

always settled,--all speak of the cultivated woman bred under English

skies, and in English homes. Her attachment to the privacy of life,

her wise dislike and avoidance of the _éclat_ of literary renown, and

the dull, dry, fever-heat of fashionable circles, tend to complete her

qualifications as a fitting representative of her fair countrywomen.

The cultivation of her mind, in its weakness as well as elegance,

savoured, perhaps, too much of what we are compelled to call feminine.

Alive at all times to beauty in all its forms, to music, to tender and

imaginative thought, she seems to have been almost equally averse to

whatever bore the aspect of an analysis of feeling, or an approach to

a severe investigation of truth. Present her with the beautiful, but

spare her all scientific dissection of it. Let the flower live as her

companion; do not rend it to pieces to show its conformation. Let but

the faith be tender and _true to the heart_, and disturb her not with

rude inquiries whether it possess any other truth or not. That too

much melancholy (at least for her own happiness) which is traceable in

her poems, arose in part from events in her life, but in part, also,

from this too partial and limited cultivation of the mind. The

feelings were excited or refined, but the reasoning powers not enough

called forth: no task-work was therefore given to the active

intellect; and a mind that could not be at rest was left to brood over

sentiments, either the sad heritage of all mortality, or the peculiar

offspring of afflictions of her own. We are not imputing, in this

remark, any shadow of blame to her; we make the remark because we

think that, eminent as she was, she still suffered much from the

unwise and arbitrary distinction which is made in the education of the

two sexes.

The difference between the mental qualities of the sexes is owing, we

apprehend, far more to education than to nature. At all events, there

is no such natural difference as warrants the distinction we make in

the mental discipline we provide for them. There are certain

professional studies with which no one thinks of vexing the mind of

any one, man or woman, but those who intend to practise the

professions; but why, in a good English library, there should be one

half of it, and that the better half, which a young woman is not

expected to read--this we never could understand, and never reflect on

with common patience. Why may not a Locke, or a Paley, or a Dugald

Stewart, train the mind of the future mother of a family? or why may

not an intelligent young woman be a companion for her brother or her

husband in his more serious moods of thought, as well as in his gayer

and more trifling? Would the world lose any thing of social happiness

or moral refinement by this intellectual equality of the two sexes?

You vex the memory of a young girl with dictionaries and vocabularies

without end; you tax her memory in every conceivable manner; and at an

after-age you give the literature of sentiment freely to her pillage;

but that which should step between the two--the culture of the

reason--this is entirely forbidden. If she learns a dozen modern

languages, she does not read a single book in any one of them that

would make her think. Even in her religious library, the same

distinction is preserved. Books of sentimental piety--some of them

maudlin enough--are thrust with kindest anxiety and most liberal

profusion upon her: any work of theology, any work that discusses and

examines, is as carefully excluded.

We are not contending that there is no difference whatever in the

mental constitution of the two sexes. There may be less tendency to

ratiocination in woman; there is certainly more of feeling, a quicker

and more sensitive nature. One sees this especially in children. Mark

them in their play-hours, in their holiday freedom, when they are left

to themselves to find matter of enjoyment,--how much more pleasure

does the girl evidently derive from any beautiful or living thing that

comes before it than the boy! We have an instance of it almost as we

write. There is a group of children on the beach. The little girl is

in perfect ecstasies, as she looks at the sparkling waves that come

bounding to her feet; she shouts, she leaps, she herself bounds

towards them, then springs back as they approach, half frightened and

half pleased--she knows not how to express her delight at this great

playfellow she has found. Meanwhile the boy, her brother, does nothing

but throw stones at it--of that he seems never wearied. The beach is a

perfect armoury to him, and he pelts the graceful waves remorselessly.

What is their grace to him? So, too, in an inland scene, a garden or a

lawn, we have often noticed what exquisite pleasure a little girl will

feel, as she watches a sparrow alight near her upon the ground, in

search of crumbs or other food. Her little frame quite thrills as this

other little piece of life comes hopping and pecking about her. She

loads it, but with suppressed voice, with all the endearing epithets

her vocabulary supplies. She is evidently embarrassed that they are so

few: she makes up by their frequent repetition. She absolutely _loves_

the little creature, with all whose movements she seems to have the

keenest sympathy. Her brother, the boy, he has nothing for it but his

unfailing stone, or he flings his hat at it. Unfailing, fortunately,

the stone is not; for, if his skill as a marksman responded to his

destructive zeal, there is nothing that a stone would kill that would

be left alive, or that a stone would break that would be left whole. A

mere blind animal-activity seems, at that very interesting age, to

distinguish the future lord of the creation.

At an after period of life, when thought has educated the youth into

feeling, the picture is often entirely reversed. Then, unless the man

be bred up a mere pleasure-hunter, seeking what he calls amusement in

town or country, the superior education he has received makes him the

more feeling, the more imaginative, because the more reflective of the

two. That brother who once shocked his little sister by his stupid and

cruel amusements, now looks with something like contempt at the

frivolous tastes and occupations--at the system of poor artificial

enjoyments--to which that sister has betaken herself. Now, if they are

at the sea-side together, it is he who finds companionship in the

waves, who finds thought grow more expanded, freer and bolder, in the

presence of the boundless ocean. She, too, dotes upon the sea, and

sits down beside it--to read her novel. Now, if they ride or walk

through the country together, it is his eye that sees the bird upon

the bough--hers is on the distant dust some equipage is making.

But matters are mending, and will continue to mend. There are so many

women of richly cultivated minds who have distinguished themselves in

letters or in society, and made it highly feminine to be intelligent

as well as good, and to have elevated as well as amiable feelings,

that by-and-by the whole sex must adopt a new standard of education.

It must, we presume, be by leaders of their own starting out of their

own body, that the rest of the soft and timid flock must be led.

Yes, we are mending. Very different are our times from those when

Madame de Genlis published her little work, _De l'Influence des Femmes

sur la Littérature Française comme Protectrices des Lettres, et comme

Auteurs_. She had to contend, with the same acrid energy, for the

privilege of a lady to write, as a Turkish dame of the present century

might be supposed to display, who should contend for the privilege of

walking abroad unveiled, or rather unmuffled. And even she herself

thinks it necessary to give certain rules to young women who write--as

she would to young women who dance--how to comport themselves with

consummate propriety; as not to enter into controversy, or use big

words--in short, to deal with printer's ink without soiling the most

delicate fingers. As to that argument drawn from the supposed neglect

of domestic duties--which it seems, in those days just emerging from

barbarity, was still heard of--she dismisses it very briefly. "Comme

ces devoirs dans une maison bien ordonnée, ne peuvent jamais prendre

_plus d'une heure par jour_, cette objection est absolument nulle." As

there is much implied in that "maison bien ordonnée," and as Madame de

Genlis did not write for simple gentle-folks, it is to be hoped that

the one hour per diem may admit of extension without any forfeiture of

literary privileges. In her time, too, there was thought to be a sort

of feud between authors and authoresses--a thing which in our day, is

quite inconceivable--for she writes, apropos of a charge of

plagiarism, against La Fontaine, in the following indignant

strain:--"Quelles que soient le bonhomie et la candeur d'un auteur, il

sait que, par une loi tacite mais universelle, il est toujours

dispensé de convenir qu'il doit à une femme une idée heureuse. Dans ce

cas seulement le plagiat et le silence sont également légitimes."

We have changed all that: we have had too many instances of women of

talent and of genius to doubt their ability to excel--we make no

exception--in any branch of literature whatever. We give them, on the

other hand, no monopoly of elegance or grace, or delicacy of touch, as

some affect to do. These qualities they are very likely to display;

but they will be superior in them to authors of the male sex, only

just so far as they are superior to those authors in genius and

talent. There is still a practice in many critics to detect the style

feminine from the style masculine. The sooner this is laid aside the

better. There are styles which, speaking metaphorically, one may say

have a feminine grace, or a feminine weakness. Such an observation has

been made, by Sir James Mackintosh, on the style of Addison. But to

pretend to say of a given page of composition whether a man or a woman

has penned it, is absurd. We often hear it said, that none but a woman

could have written the letters of Madame de Sévigné. If Cowper had

been a woman, people would have said the same thing of his letters.

They are unrivalled, at least in our own language, for grace and

elegance, and wit and playfulness. No woman, we believe--and the

epistolary style is supposed to belong by especial right to the female

pen--has ever written such charming letters as those to Lady Hesketh,

and his old friend Thomas Hill. As to the letters of Madame de

Sévigné, they so evidently come from a mother to a daughter, that it

is impossible to forget for a moment the sex of the writer. But if the

qualities which have given them literary celebrity are, to be

pronounced feminine, half the literature of France is of the same

gender. Still less can we tolerate the affectation that pretends to

discern a certain weakness, a tremulousness of the hand, when the pen

is held by a woman. There is grace and elegance, but, forsooth, a

certain hesitation--a want of vigour and certainty of touch.

Nonsense. Take _Our Village_, by Miss Mitford, and the _Sketch-Book_,

by Washington Irving: they are both of the graceful and elegant order

of style; but the lady writes the English language with far more

freedom, ease, and vigour, than the gentleman. The poetic element is

mingled in her diction with far more taste and judgment. It glitters

through her prose as the sunlight in the green tree--throwing its gold

amongst the foliage, yet leaving it the same green, and simple, and

refreshing object as before.

No--we will grant to woman no monopoly in the lighter elegancies, and

presume nothing against her ability to excel in the graver qualities

of authorship. We have said that Mrs Hemans was peculiarly the poetess

of her countrywomen, but we do not mean to imply by this that her

style is peculiarly feminine--for we do not pretend to know what a

feminine style is; we thus characterised her because the sentiments

she habitually expresses are those which will almost universally find

a response in the minds of her countrywomen.

It seems an ungracious thing to say, but we do wish that the

biographical notice of Mrs Hemans, appended to the last edition of her

works, had not been written by a sister. So near a relative may be

presumed, indeed, to know more of the person whose life she undertakes

to narrate than any one else; but she may not know what to tell us.

Her very familiarity with the subject is against her: she cannot place

it at a distance from her, and regard it with a freshness of view; she

does not think of recording, she does not even remember, what to her

has none of the interest of novelty. A sister who should give to any

impartial biographer the materials he required of her, would be found

to contribute far more to our knowledge of the person whose life was

written, than by holding the pen herself. Besides, a sister can have

none, and show none, but sisterly feelings; and though these are very

proper and amiable, we want something more.

The two or three events which we learn from this biographical notice,

and which bear upon the education of _the poetess_, are soon recorded,

and they are the only class of events we feel particularly interested

in. Felicia Dorothea Browne--such was the maiden name of Mrs

Hemans--was born at Liverpool, 25th September 1793. She is described

as distinguished "almost from her cradle by extreme beauty and

precocious talents." When of the age of seven years, her father, who

had been a merchant of considerable opulence, met with a reverse of

fortune, and the family retired to Wales, "where for the next nine

years they resided at Gwrych, near Abergele, in Denbighshire, a large

old mansion, close to the sea, and shut in by a picturesque range of

mountains,"--a change of residence which was, at all events, highly

propitious for the development of the poetic character. "In the calm

seclusion of this romantic region, with ample range through the

treasures of an extensive library, the young poetess passed a happy

childhood, to which she would often fondly revert amidst the

vicissitudes of her after-life. Here she imbibed that intense love of

nature which ever afterwards 'haunted her like a passion,' and that

warm attachment for the 'green land of Wales'--its affectionate,

true-hearted people; their traditions, their music, and all their

interesting characteristics--which she cherished to the last hours of

her existence." A pleasant picture this--the large old house near the

sea, and amongst mountains, with Welsh harpers and Welsh traditions,

and great store of books, and the little girl ranging at will through

all. This, and the picture we have of the young student conning her

Shakspeare, her choicest recreation, "in a secret haunt of her own--a

seat amongst the branches of an old apple-tree--where she revelled in

the treasures of the cherished volume"--are all we learn of her

childhood, and all perhaps that remained to tell.

Our poetess was very soon in print. Few have commenced their life of

authorship so early. In 1808 some friends, "perhaps more partial than

judicious," published a collection of her poems, written at and before

the age of fourteen, in a quarto volume. "Its appearance" our fair

biographer tells us, "drew down the animadversions of some

_self-constituted_ arbiter of taste." We never heard of any critics

being constituted by royal patent, or any mode of popular

election--certainly not by a committee of authors. Self-constituted!

why did not the lady call him a self-conceited knave, while she was

about it? Just or unjust, there would have been some meaning in the

phrase, at least. We suspect, for our part, that these friends, "more

partial than judicious," who published the rhymes of a young girl of

fourteen in a quarto volume, were themselves strangely constituted

arbiters of taste.

Not long after this first publication of her poems, the next great

event of her life took place--her introduction to Captain Hemans. "The

young poetess was then only fifteen, in the full glow of that radiant

beauty which was destined to fade so early. The mantling bloom of her

cheeks was shaded by a profusion of natural ringlets, of a rich golden

brown; and the ever-varying expression of her brilliant eyes gave a

changeful play to her countenance, which would have made it impossible

for any painter to do justice to it." No wonder that so fair a being

should excite the admiration of a gallant captain. And the love on

both sides was ardent and sincere: it supported the absence of three

years; for Captain Hemans, soon after their introduction, was called

upon to embark with his regiment for Spain. On his return, in 1812,

they were married. Of their domestic happiness, or unhappiness,

nothing is said; but six years after, in 1818, we are simply told that

the Captain went to Rome--and never returned. The separated pair never

met again.

"To dwell on this subject," says her biographer, "would be

unnecessarily painful; yet it must be stated, that nothing like a

permanent separation was contemplated at the time, nor did it ever

amount to more than a tacit conventional arrangement, which offered no

obstacle to the frequent interchange of correspondence, nor to a

constant reference to their father in all things relating to the

disposal of her boys. But years rolled on--seventeen years of absence,

and consequently alienation; and from this time to the hour of her

death, Mrs Hemans and her husband never met again."

We are not in general anxious to pry into the domestic afflictions of

any pair whom wedlock has mismatched. If we feel a little curiosity to

know more than the sister has told us, in this instance, it is merely

from a wish to learn how far the poetic temperament of Mrs Hemans

could be assigned as the real cause of her matrimonial unhappiness.

Did the Captain grow weary of the society of one whose feelings were

pitched in too high a key for him to sympathise with?--was there too

much of poetry mingled with the daily food of life?

"Men, by St Thomas! cannot live like bees."

Did he yearn for something more homely, as she, on her side, yearned

for something more elevated? Had he been made to feel that he did not

approach the ideal of her imagination, and that the admiration she

once had given was withdrawn? Or should we say of her, in lines of her

own:--

There are hearts

So perilously fashioned, that for them

God's touch alone hath gentleness enough

To waken, and not break, their thrilling strings.

Of this perhaps some future biographer may tell us. There are many

passages in her poetry which show an intense longing for the sympathy

of other minds; which show that, while her feelings were of a rare

order for their refinement and elevation, she yet sought--what for

such a one it was difficult to obtain--for the kindred sympathy of

others. She could not worship her goddesses alone. This tendency of

mind many of her verses indicate; and there is one sweet little poem

where, if our fancy does not mislead us, she secretly reproves herself

for having exacted too much in this respect from others: we do not say

from any one in particular, for the verses bear reference to a

brother, not a husband. Yet some personal reminiscence, or regret of

this kind, might lead to the strain of thought so beautifully

expressed in the following lines:--

KINDRED HEARTS.

Oh! ask not, hope not thou too much

Of sympathy below;

Few are the hearts whence one same touch

Bids the sweet fountains flow:

Few--and by still conflicting powers,

Forbidden here to meet;

Such ties would make this life of ours

Too fair for aught so fleet.

It may be that thy brother's eye

Sees not as thine, which turns

In such deep reverence to the sky

Where the rich sunset burns:

It may be that the breath of spring,

Born amidst violets lone,

A rapture o'er thy soul can bring--

A dream, to his unknown.

The tune that speaks of other times--

A sorrowful delight!

The melody of distant chimes,

The sound of waves by night;

The wind that, with so many a tone,

Some chord within can thrill--

These may have language all thine own,

To _him_ a mystery still.

Yet scorn thou not, for this, the true

And steadfast love of years;

The kindly, that from childhood grew,

The faithful to thy tears!

If there be one that o'er the dead

Hath in thy grief borne part,

And watched through sickness by thy bed--

Call _his_ a kindred heart!

But for those bonds all perfect made,

Wherein bright spirits blend;

Like sister-flowers of one sweet shade,

With the same breeze that bend;

For that full bliss of thought allied,

Never to mortals given--

Oh! lay thy lonely dreams aside,

Or lift them unto heaven.

We follow no further the events of her biography. We have here all

that reflects a light upon the poems themselves. That Welsh life among

the mountains--the little girl with her Shakspeare in the

apple-tree--that beauty of fifteen, full of poetry and enthusiasm and

love--marriage--disappointment--and the living afterwards, with her

children round her, in a condition worse than widowhood;--here is all

the comment that her biography affords on her sweet and melancholy

verse.

And how vividly the verse reflects the life! How redolent of nature is

her poetry! how true her pictures of mountain, and forest, and river,

and sky! It requires that the reader should have been himself a long

and accurate observer of rural scenes, to follow her imagination, and

feel the truth of her rapid and unpretending descriptions. It is

singular how, without the least apparent effort, all the persons she

brings before us are immediately localised on the green earth--trees

wave around them, flowers spring at their feet, as if this were quite

natural and unavoidable. How sweet a part does the quiet charm of

nature take in the piece called

THE VOICE OF HOME TO THE PRODIGAL.

Oh! when wilt thou return

To thy spirit's early loves?

To the freshness of the morn,

To the stillness of the groves?

The summer birds are calling

The household porch around,

And the merry waters falling

With sweet laughter in their sound.

And a thousand bright-veined flowers,

From their banks of moss and fern,

Breathe of the sunny hours--

But when wilt thou return?

Oh! thou hast wandered long

From thy home without a guide;

And thy native woodland song

In thine altered heart hath died.

Thou hast flung the wealth away,

And the glory of thy spring;

And to thee the leaves' light play

Is a long-forgotten thing.

There is something very touching in the simplicity of these pleasures,

contrasted with what imagination immediately suggests of the career

and the tastes of the prodigal.

One great spectacle in nature alone, seems strangely to have lost its

fascination upon our poetess--she never kindled to the sea. She seemed

to view it as the image only of desolation and of ruin; to have

associated it only with tempests and wreck, and have seen in it only

the harmless waste of troubled waters. More than once she adopts a

scriptural phrase--"And there shall be no more sea," as an expression

of singular joy and congratulation. We question whether a single

reader of her poems has ever felt the force of the expression as she

did. The sea, next to the sky, is the grandest and most beautiful

thing given to the eyes of man. But, by some perverse association, she

never saw it in its natural beauty and sublimity, but looked at it

always as the emblem of ruthless and destroying power. In _The Last

Song of Sappho_, it is singular how much more the dread sea, into

which Sappho is about to fling herself, possesses her imagination than

the moral tempest within of that hapless poetess:--

Sound on, thou dark unslumbering sea!

Sound in thy scorn and pride!

I ask not, _alien world_, from thee

What my own kindred earth has still denied.

. . . . .

Yet glory's light hath touched my name,

The laurel-wreath is mine--

With a lone heart, a weary frame,

O restless deep! I come to make them thine!

Give to that crown, that burning crown,

Place in thy darkest hold!

Bury my anguish, my renown,

With hidden wrecks, lost gems, and wasted gold.

And with what an indignant voice, and with what a series of harshest

epithets, does she call upon the sea to deliver up its human prey, in

the fine spirited poem, called--

THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP.

What hidest thou in thy treasure-caves and cells,

Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious main?

Pale glistening pearls and rainbow-coloured shells,

Bright things which gleam unrecked of and in vain!

Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy sea!

We ask not such from thee.

Yet more, the depths have more!--what wealth untold,

Far down, and shining through their stillness, lies!

Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold,

Torn from ten thousand royal Argosies!

Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful main!

Earth claims not _these_ again.

Yet more, the depths have more!--thy waves have rolled

Above the cities of a world gone by!

Sand hath filled up the palaces of old,

Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry--

Dash o'er them, ocean! in thy scornful play!

Man yields them to decay.

Yet more! the billows and the depths have more!

High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast!

They hear not now the booming waters roar,

The battle-thunders will not break their rest.

Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave!

Give back the true and brave.

Give back the lost and, lovely!--those for whom

The place was kept at board and hearth so long!

The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom,

And the vain yearning woke midst festal song.

Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'er-thrown,

But all is not thine own.

To thee the love of woman hath gone down;

Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head--

O'er youth's bright locks, and beauty's flowery crown;

Yet must thou hear a voice--Restore the dead!

Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee!

Restore the dead, thou sea!

But if she loved in nature, pre-eminently, the beautiful and the

serene--or what she could represent as such to her imagination--it was

otherwise with human life. Here the stream of thought ran always in

the shade, reflecting in a thousand shapes the sadness which had

overshadowed her own existence. Yet her sadness was without bitterness

or impatience--it was a resigned and Christian melancholy; and if the

spirit of man is represented as tossed from disappointment to

disappointment, there is always a brighter and serener world behind,

to receive the wanderer at last. She writes _Songs for Summer Hours_,

and the first is devoted to Death! and a beautiful chant it is. Death

is also in Arcadia; and the first thing we meet with in the land of

summer is the marble tomb with the "Et in Arcadia Ego." One might be

excused for applying to herself her own charming song,--

A WANDERING FEMALE SINGER.

Thou hast loved and thou hast suffered!

Unto feeling deep and strong,

Thou hast trembled like a harp's frail string--

I know it by thy song!

Thou hast loved--it may be vainly--

But well--oh! but too well--

Thou hast suffered all that woman's heart

May bear--but must not tell.

Thou hast wept and thou hast parted,

Thou hast been forsaken long;

Thou hast watch'd for steps that came not back--

I know it by thy song!

By its fond and plaintive lingering

On each word of grief so long,

Oh! thou hast loved and suffered much--

I know it by thy song!

But with this mournful spirit we have no quarrel. It is, as we have

said, without a grain of bitterness; it loves to associate itself with

all things beautiful in nature; it makes the rose its emblem. It does

so in the following lines to

THE SHADOW OF A FLOWER.

'Twas a dream of olden days,

That Art, by some strange power,

The visionary form could raise

From the ashes of a flower:

That a shadow of the rose,

By its own meek beauty bowed,

Might slowly, leaf by leaf, unclose,

Like pictures in a cloud.

. . . . .

A fair, yet mournful thing!

For the glory of the bloom

That a flush around it shed,

And the soul within, the rich perfume,

Where were _they_?--fled, all fled!

Naught but the dim, faint line

To speak of vanished hours--

Memory! what are joys of thine?

Shadows of buried flowers!

We should be disposed to dwell entirely on the shorter pieces of Mrs

Hemans, but this would hardly be just. There is one of her more

ambitious efforts which, at all events, seems to demand a word from

us. _The Vespers of Palermo_ is not perhaps the most popular, even of

her longer productions--it is certainly written in what is just now

the most unpopular form--yet it appears to us one of the most vigorous

efforts of her genius. It has this advantage too--it can be happily

alluded to without the necessity of detailing the plot--always a

wearisome thing, to both the critic, and the reader: every body knows

the real tragedy of the Sicilian Vespers. The drama is unpopular as a

form of composition, because the written play is still considered as a

production, the chief object of which is missed if it is not acted;

and the acting of plays is going into desuetude. When the acting of

tragedies shall be entirely laid aside, (as it bids fair to be,)--that

is, as an ordinary amusement of the more refined and cultivated

classes of society--and the drama shall become merely a class of

literature, like all others, for private perusal--then its popularity,

as a form of composition, will probably revive. For there is one order

of poetry--and that the more severe and manly--which seems almost to

require this form. When an author, careless of description, or not

called to it by his genius, is exclusively bent on portraying

character and passion, and those deeper opinions and reflections which

passion stirs from the recesses of the human mind, the drama seems the

only form natural for him to employ.

The opinion we have ventured to express on the inevitable decease of

the acting drama--of tragic representations--as a general amusement of

an age increasing in refinement, will probably subject us, in certain

quarters, to an indignant reproof. Shakspeare, and the legitimate

drama! seems, with some, to have all the sacredness of a national

cause. Shakspeare, by all means--Shakspeare for ever! eternally!--only

we would rather read him--if we could creep up there--with little

Felicia Browne, in the apple-tree. Shakspeare supports the stage--so

far as it remains supported--not the stage Shakspeare. And can he

support it long? Consider what sort of amusement it is which tragic

representation affords--for of comedy we say nothing--consider that it

must either thrill us with emotions of a most violent order, (which

the civilised man in general avoids), or it becomes one of the saddest

platitudes in the world. Your savage can support prolonged ennui, and

delights in excitement approaching to madness; your civilised man can

tolerate neither one nor the other. Now your tragedy deals largely in

both. It knows no medium. Every body has felt that, whether owing to

the actor or the poet, the moment the interest of the piece is no

longer at its height, it becomes intolerable. You are to be either

moved beyond all self-control, which is not very desirable, or you are

to sit in lamentable sufferance. In short, you are to be driven out of

your senses, one way or the other. Depend upon it, it is a species of

amusement which, however associated with great names--though Garrick

acted, and Dr Johnson looked on--is destined, like the bull-fights of

Spain, or the gladiatorial combats of old Rome, to fall before the

advancing spirit of civilisation.

But to Mrs Hemans' _Vespers of Palermo_. It was not the natural bent

of genius which led her to the selection of the dramatic form; and

when we become thoroughly acquainted with her temperament, and the

feelings she loved to indulge, we are rather surprised that she

performed the task she undertook with so much spirit, and so large a

measure of success, than that she falls short in some parts of her

performance. Nothing can be better conceived, or more admirably

sustained, than the character of Raimond de Procida. The elder

Procida, and the dark revengeful Montalba, are not so successfully

treated. We feel that she has designed these figures with sufficient

propriety, but she has not animated them; she could not draw from

within those fierce emotions which were to infuse life into them. The

effort to sympathise, even in imagination, with such characters, was a

violence to her nature. The noble and virtuous heroism of the younger

Procida was, on the contrary, no other than the overflow of her own

genuine feeling. Few modern dramas present more spirit-stirring

scenes, than those in which Raimond takes the leading part. Two of

those we would particularly mention--one when, on joining the

patriot-conspirators, and learning the mode in which they intended to

free their country, he refuses, even for so great an object, to stain

his soul with assassination and murder; and the other, where, towards

the close of the piece, he is imprisoned by the more successful

conspirators--is condemned to die for imputed treachery to their

cause, and hears that the _battle_ for his country, for which his

spirit had so longed, is going forward. We cannot refrain from making

a quotation from both these parts of the drama. We shall take the

liberty of omitting some lines, in order to compress our extracts.

The conspirators have met, and proclaimed their intended scheme--

_Sicilians._ Be it so!

If one amongst us stay the avenging steel

For love or pity, be his doom as theirs!

Pledge we our faith to this.

_Raim._ (_rushing forward indignantly._) Our faith to _this!_

No! I but _dreamt_ I heard it: Can it be?

My countrymen, my father!--Is it thus

That freedom should be won?--Awake!--awake

To loftier thoughts!--Lift up, exultingly,

On the crowned heights, and to the sweeping winds,

Your glorious banner!--Let your trumpet's blast

Make the tombs thrill with echoes! Call aloud,

Proclaim from all your hills, the land shall bear

The stranger's yoke no longer!--What is he

Who carries on his practised lip a smile,

Beneath his vest a dagger, which but waits

Till the heart bounds with joy, to still its beatings?

That which our nature's instinct doth recoil from,

And our blood curdle at--ay, yours and mine--

A murderer! Heard ye?--Shall that name with ours

Go down to after days?

_Mont._ I tell thee, youth,

Our souls are parched with agonising thirst,

Which must be quenched though death were in the draught:

We must have vengeance, for our foes have left

No other joy unblighted.

_Pro._ O, my son!

The time has passed for such high dreams as thine:

Thou knowest not whom we deal with. We must meet

Falsehood with wiles, and insult with revenge.

And, for our names--whate'er the deeds by which

We burst our bondage--is it not enough

That, in the chronicle of days to come,

We, through a bright "For ever," shall be called

The men who saved their country.

_Raim._ Many a land

Hath bowed beneath the yoke, and then arisen,

As a strong lion rending silken bonds,

And on the open field, before high heaven,

Won such majestic vengeance as hath made

Its name a power on earth.

_Mon._ Away! when thou dost stand

On this fair earth as doth a blasted tree,

Which the warm sun revives not, _then_ return

Strong in thy desolation; but till then,

Thou art not for our purpose;--we have need

Of more unshrinking hearts.

_Raim._ Montalba! know,

I shrink from crime alone. Oh! if my voice

Might yet have power among you, I would say,

Associates, leaders, _be_ avenged! but yet

As knights, as warriors!

_Mon._ Peace! Have we not borne

Th'indelible taint of contumely and chains?

We are _not_ knights and warriors: Our bright crests

Have been defiled and trampled to the earth.

Boy! we are slaves--and our revenge shall be

Deep as a slave's disgrace.

_Raim._ Why, then, farewell:

I leave you to your counsels. What proud hopes

This hour hath blighted!--yet, whate'er betide,

It is a noble privilege to look up

Fearless in heaven's bright face--and this is mine,

And shall be still. [Exit.

Our other extract is from a later scene in the drama, which we think

very happily conceived. Raimond, accused of treachery, and condemned

to die by his own father, is in chains and in prison. The day of his

execution has arrived, but the Sicilians are called on to give battle

before their gates; he is left alone, respited, or rather forgotten,

for the present. His alternation of feeling, as he at first attempts

to respond to the consolations of the priest Anselmo, and then, on

hearing of the battle that is being fought for his country, breaks out

into all that ardent love of glory, which was the main passion of his

soul, is very admirably expressed.

_Ans._ But thou, my son!

Is thy young spirit mastered, and prepared

For nature's fearful and mysterious change?

_Raim._ Ay, father! of my brief remaining task

The least part is to die! And yet the cup

Of life still mantled brightly to my lips,

Crowned with that sparkling bubble, whose proud name

Is--glory! Oh! my soul from boyhood's morn

Hath nursed such mighty dreams! It was my hope

To leave a name, whose echo from the abyss

Of time should rise, and float upon the winds

Into the far hereafter; there to be

A trumpet-sound, a voice from the deep tomb,

Murmuring--Awake, Arise! But this is past!

Erewhile, and it had seemed enough of shame

To sleep _forgotten_ in the dust; but now,

Oh God! the undying record of my grave

Will be--Here sleeps a traitor! One whose crime

Was--to deem brave men might find nobler weapons

Than the cold murderer's dagger!

_Ans._ O my son!

Subdue these troubled thoughts! Thou wouldst not change

Thy lot for theirs, o'er whose dark dreams will hang

The avenging shadows, which the blood-stained soul

Doth conjure from the dead!

_Raim._ Thou'rt right. I would not.

Yet 'tis a weary task to school the heart,

Ere years or griefs have tamed its fiery spirit

Into that still and passive fortitude

Which is but learned from suffering. Would the hour

To hush these passionate throbbings were at hand!

_Ans._ It will not be to-day. The foe hath reached

Our gates, and all Palermo's youth, and all

Her warrior men, are marshalled and gone forth.

Thy father leads them on.

_Raim._ (_starting up._) They are gone forth!

my father leads them on!

All--all Palermo's youth! No! _one_ is left,

Shut out from glory's race! They are gone forth!

Ay, now the soul of battle is abroad--

It burns upon the air! The joyous winds

Are tossing warrior-plumes, the proud white foam

Of battle's roaring billows! On my sight

The vision bursts--it maddens! 'tis the flash,

The lightning-shock of lances, and the cloud

Of rushing arrows, and the broad full blaze

Of helmets in the sun! Such things are

Even now--and I am here!

_Ans._ Alas, be calm!

To the same grave ye press--thou that dost pine

Beneath a weight of chains, and they that rule

The fortunes of the fight.

_Raim._ Ay, _thou_ canst feel

The calm thou wouldst impart, for unto thee

All men alike, the warrior and the slave,

Seem, as thou say'st, but pilgrims, pressing on

To the same bourne.

_Vittoria_, who had taken a leading part in the conspiracy, now rushes

in, bringing the intelligence that the Sicilians are worsted--are in

flight. Procida still strives--

But all in vain! The few that breast the storm,

With Guido and Montalba, by his side,

Fight but for graves upon the battle-field.

_Raim._ And I am _here_! Shall there be power, O God!

In the roused energies of fierce despair.

To burst my heart--and not to rend my chains?

Vittoria, however, gives orders for his release, and he rushes forth

to the field, where he turns the tide of battle, and earns that

glorious death he sighed for.

The failure of the play at Covent Garden theatre was attributed,

amongst the friends of the authoress, to the indifferent acting of the

lady who performed the part of Constance. In justice to the actress,

we must confess she had a most difficult part to deal with. There is

not a single speech set down for Constance, which, we think, the most

skilful recitation could make effective. The failure of Mrs Hemans, in

this part of the drama, is not very easily accounted for. Constance is

a gentle, affectionate spirit, in love with the younger Procida, and

the unfortunate cause of the suspicion that falls upon him of being a

traitor. It is a character which, in her lyrical effusions, she would

have beautifully portrayed. But we suppose that the exclusion from her

favourite haunts of nature--the inability of investing the grief of

her heroine in her accustomed associations of woods, and fields, and

flowers--the confinement of her imagination to what would be suitable

to the _boards_ of a theatre--embarrassed and cramped her powers.

Certain it is, she seems quite at a loss here to express a strain of

feeling which, on other occasions, she has poured out with singular

fluency and force. Constance has no other manner of exhibiting her

distress but swooning or dreaming, or thinking she must have been

dreaming, and recovering herself to the remembrance of what no mortal

so situated could ever have forgotten--the most common, and, to our

taste, one of the most unfortunate expedients that dramatists and

novelists have recourse to. We are loath to quote any thing half so

uninteresting as instances of this practice; we shall content

ourselves with giving, in a note below, two brief passages to

exemplify what we mean.[1]

1: Vittoria has told Constance that Raimond is to die; she then leaves

her with the priest Anselmo--

_Con._ (_Endeavouring to rouse herself._) Did she not say

That some one was to die? Have I not heard

Some fearful tale? Who said that there should rest

Blood on my soul? What blood? I never bore

Hatred, kind father! unto aught that breathes;

Raimond doth know it well. _Raimond! High Heaven!_

_It bursts upon me now!_ and he must die!

For my sake--e'en for mine!

Is it very probable that a person in the situation of Constance should

have to go this round of associations to recall what had just been

told her, that her lover was to be tried for his life?

Constance, in order to save him by surrendering herself, rushes to the

tribunal, where this mock trial is taking place. Their judges sentence

both. Constance swoons in the arms of Raimond, and then ensues this

piece of _unaffecting_ bewilderment.

_Con._ (_slowly recovering._)

There was a voice which call'd me. Am I not

A spirit freed from earth?--Have I not pass'd

The bitterness of death?

_Ans._ Oh, haste, away!

_Con._ Yes, Raimond calls me--(_There he stands beside her!_)

He, too, is released

From his cold bandage. We are free at last,

And all is well--away! [_She is led out by Anselmo._

It ought to be borne in remembrance, however, that the _Vespers of

Palermo_, although not the "first" with respect to publication, was

the first written of Mrs Hemans' dramatic works. It was produced in

solitude, and away from the bustle of theatres, and, be it also

confessed, probably with a very scanty knowledge of what

stage-representation required. Indeed, the result proved this to be

the case. The _Siege of Valencia_, written on a different principle,

although probably even less adapted for stage representation,

possesses loftier claims as a composition, and, as a poem, is

decidedly superior. Its pervading fault consists in its being pitched

on too high a key. All the characters talk in heroics--every sentiment

is strained to the utmost; and the prevailing tone of the author's

mind characterises the whole. We do not say that it is deficient in

nature--it overflows alike with power and tenderness; but its nature

is too high for the common purposes of humanity. The wild, stern

enthusiasm of the priest--the inflexibility of the father--the

wavering of the mother between duty and affection--the heroic devotion

of the gentle Ximena, are all well brought out; but there is a want of

individuality--the want of that, without which elaboration for the

theatre is vain, and with which, compositions of very inferior merit

often attract attention, and secure it.

Passing over _Sebastian of Portugal_, and the two or three sketches in

the _Scenes and Hymns of Life_, as of minor importance, _De Chatillon_

is the only other regular drama that Mrs Hemans subsequently

attempted. Unfortunately for her, the _Vespers_, although long prior

in point of composition, had not been brought out when the _Siege of

Valencia_ was written; and, consequently, she could not benefit by the

fate and failure which was destined for that drama. This is much to be

lamented, for _De Chatillon_, as a play, far exceeds either in power

and interest. The redundancies in imagery and description, the

painting instead of acting, which were the weaker side of its

precursors, were here corrected. It is unfortunate that it wanted the

benefit of her last corrections, as it was not published till some

years after her death, and from the first rough draft--the amended

one, which had been made from it, having been unfortunately lost. But,

imperfect in many respects as it may be found to be, it is beyond

compare the best and most successful composition of the author in this

department. Without stripping her language of that richness and poetic

grace which characterises her genius, or condescending to a single

passage of mean baldness, so commonly mistaken by many modern

dramatists as essentially necessary to the truth of dialogue, she has

in this attempt preserved adherence to reality, amid scenes allied to

romance; brevity and effect, in situations strongly alluring to

amplification; and, in her delineation of some of the strongest as

well as the finest emotions of the heart, she has exhibited a

knowledge of nature's workings, remarkable alike for minuteness and

truth.

When we consider the doubtful success which attended the only drama of

Mrs Hemans which was brought out, we cannot wonder that she latterly

abandoned this species of writing, and confined herself to what she

must have felt as much more accordant with her own impulses. The most

laboured of all her writings was _The Forest Sanctuary_, and it would

appear that, in her own estimation, it was considered her best. Not so

we. It has many passages of exquisite description, and it breathes

throughout an exalted spirit; but withal it is monotonous in

sentiment, and possesses not the human interest which ought to have

attached to it, as a tale of suffering. To us _The Last Constantine_,

which appears to have attracted much less attention, is in many

respects a finer and better poem. Few things, indeed, in our

literature, can be quoted as more perfect than the picture of heroic

and Christian courage, which, amid the ruins of his empire, sustained

the last of the Cæsars. The weight of the argument is sustained

throughout. The reader feels as if breathing a finer and purer

atmosphere, above the low mists and vapours of common humanity; and he

rises from the perusal of the poem alike with an admiration of its

hero and its author.

_The Last Constantine_ may be considered as the concluding great

effort of Mrs Hemans, in what of her writings may be said to belong to

the classical school. She seems here first to have felt her own power,

and, leaving precept and example, and the leading-strings of her

predecessors, to have allowed her muse to soar adventurously forth.

The _Tales and Historic Scenes_, the _Sceptic_, _Dartmoor_, and

_Modern Greece_, are all shaped according to the same model--the

classical. The study of modern German poetry, and of Wordsworth,

changed, while it expanded, her views; and the _Forest Sanctuary_

seems to have been composed with great elaboration, doubtless, while

in this transition state. In matter it is too flimsy and etherial for

a tale of life; it has too much sentiment and too little action. But

some things in it it would be difficult to rival. The scenery of

Southern America is painted with a gorgeousness which reminds us of

the Isle of Palms and its fairy bowers; and the death and burial at

sea is imbued with a serene and soul-subduing beauty.

Diminishing space warns us to betake ourselves again to the lyrics and

shorter pieces, where so much poetry "of purest ray serene" lies

scattered. Of these we prefer such as are apparently the expressions

of spontaneous feelings of her own to those which are built upon some

tale or legend. It happens too, unfortunately, that in the latter case

we have first to read the legend or fable in prose, and then to read

it again in verse. This gives something of weariness to the _Lays of

Many Lands_. Still less fortunate, we think, is the practice Mrs

Hemans indulges in of ushering in a poem of her own by a long

quotation--a favourite stanza, perhaps--of some celebrated poet. We

may possibly read the favourite stanza twice, and feel reluctant to

proceed further. For instance, she quotes the beautiful and well-known

passage from Childe Harold upon the spring, ending with--

I turned from all she brought to all she could not bring;

and on another occasion, that general favourite, beginning--

And slight, withal, may be the things which bring;

and then proceeds to enlarge upon the same sentiments. Her own strain

that follows is good--but not _so_ good. Is it wise to provoke the

comparison?--and does it not give a certain frivolity, and the air of

a mere exercise, to the verse which only repeats, and modifies, and

_varies_, so to speak, the melody that has been already given? Or if

the quotation set out with is looked on as a mere prelude, is it good

policy to run the risk of the prelude being more interesting than the

strain itself? The beautiful passage from Southey--

They sin who tell us love can die, &c.,

is too long to be quoted as merely a key-note to what is to follow,

and is too good to be easily surpassed.

But this is a trifling remark, and hardly deserving of even the little

space we have given to it. It is more worthy of observation, that Mrs

Hemans, a reader and admirer of German poetry, contrived to draw a

deep inspiration from this noble literature, without any disturbance

to her principles of taste. A careful perusal of her works, by one

acquainted with the lyrical poetry of Germany, will prove how well and

how wisely she had studied that poetry--drawing from it just that

deeper spirit of reflection which would harmonise with her own mind,

without being tempted to imitate what, either in thought or in manner,

would have been foreign to her nature.

We fancy we trace something of this Teutonic inspiration in the poem,

amongst others, that follows:--

THE SILENT MULTITUDE.

A mighty and a mingled throng

Were gathered in one spot;

The dweller, of a thousand homes--

Yet midst them voice was not.

The soldier and his chief were there--

The mother and her child:

The friends, the sisters of one hearth--

None spoke--none moved--none smiled.

There lovers met, between whose lives

Years had swept darkly by;

After that heart-sick hope deferred,

They met--but silently.

You might have heard the rustling leaf,

The breeze's faintest sound,

The shiver of an insect's wing,

On that thick-peopled ground.

Your voice to whispers would have died

For the deep quiet's sake;

Your tread the softest moss have sought,

Such stillness not to break.

What held the countless multitude

Bound in that spell of peace?

How could the ever-sounding life

Amid so many cease?

Was it some pageant of the air,

Some glory high above,

That linked and hushed those human souls

In reverential love?

Or did some burdening passion's weight

Hang on their indrawn breath?

Awe--the pale awe that freezes words?

Fear--the strong fear of death?

A mightier thing--Death, Death himself,

Lay on each lonely heart!

Kindred were there--yet hermits all,

Thousands--but each apart.

In any notice of Mrs Hemans' works, not to mention _The Records of

Woman_ would seem an unaccountable omission. Both the subject, and the

manner in which it is treated especially characterise our poetess. Of

all these _Records_ there is not one where the picture is not more or

less pleasing, or drawn with more or less power and fidelity.

Estimated according to sheer literary merit, it would perhaps be

impossible to give the preference to any one of them. Judging by the

peculiar pleasure which its perusal gave us, we should select, for our

favourite, _The Switzer's Wife_. Werner Stauffacher was one of the

three confederates of the field of Grutli. He had been marked out by

the Austrian bailiff as a fit subject for pillage; but it was to the

noble spirit of his wife that he owed the final resolution he took to

resist the oppressor of his country. The whole scene is brought before

us with singular distinctness. It is a beautiful evening in the Alpine

valley,--

For Werner sat beneath the linden tree,

That sent its lulling whispers through his door,

Even as man sits, whose heart alone would be

With some deep care, and thus can find no more

Th' accustomed joy in all which evening brings

Gathering a household with her quiet wings.

His wife stood hushed before him, sad, yet mild

In her beseeching mien,--he marked it not.

The silvery laughter of his bright-haired child

Rang from the greensward round the sheltered spot,

But seemed unheard; until at last the boy

Raised from his heaped up flowers a glance of joy,

And met his father's face; but then a change

Passed swiftly o'er the brow of infant glee,

And a quiet sense of something dimly strange

Brought him from play to stand beside the knee

So often climbed, and lift his loving eyes,

That shone through clouds of sorrowful surprise.

Then the proud bosom of the strong man shook;

But tenderly his babe's fair mother laid

Her hand on his, and with a pleading look

Through tears half-quivering, o'er him bent and said,

"What grief, dear friend, hath made thy heart its prey,

That thou shouldst turn thee from our love away?

"It is too sad to see thee thus, my friend!

Mark'st thou the wonder on thy boy's fair brow,

Missing the smile from thine? Oh, cheer thee! bend

To his soft arms, unseal thy thoughts e'en now!

Thou dost not kindly to withhold the share

Of tried affection in thy secret care."

He looked up into that sweet earnest face,

But sternly, mournfully: not yet the band

Was loosened from his soul.

He then tells how the oppressor's envious eye "had been upon his

heritage," and to-morrow eve might find him in chains. The blood

leaves her cheek, and she leans back on the linden stem, but only for

a moment; the free Alpine spirit wakes within her--

And she that ever through her home had moved

With the meek thoughtfulness and quiet smile

Of woman, calmly loving and beloved

And timid in her happiness the while,

Stood brightly forth, and steadfastly, that hour--

Her clear glance kindling into sudden power.

Ay, pale she stood, but with an eye of light,

And took her fair child to her holy breast,

And lifted her soft voice, that gathered might

As it found language:--"Are we thus oppressed?

Then must we rise upon our mountain-sod,

And man must arm, and woman call on God!

"I know what thou wouldst do;--and be it done!

Thy soul is darkened with its fears for me.

Trust me to heaven, my husband; this, thy son,

The babe whom I have borne thee, must be free!

And the sweet memory of our pleasant hearth

May well give strength--if aught be strong on earth.

"Thou hast been brooding o'er the silent dread

Of my desponding tears; now lift once more,

My hunter of the hills, thy stately head,

And let thine eagle glance my joy restore!

I can bear all but seeing _thee_ subdued--

Take to thee back thine own undaunted mood.

"Go forth beside the waters, and along

The chamois' paths, and through the forests go;

And tell in burning words thy tale of wrong

To the brave hearts that midst the hamlets glow,

God shall be with thee, my beloved!--away!

Bless but thy child and leave me--I can pray!"

It is ever thus with all her women,--gentle, courageous, full of

self-devotion, and, alas! of sorrow and suffering. This is her ideal

of woman, from which she rarely departs--a heart, overflowing with

tenderest affection--ill-requited--yet refusing to receive any earthly

boon as a substitute for the returned affection it seeks. Fame is no

compensation--

Away! to me, a woman, bring

Sweet waters from affection's spring.

Genius when she sings to Love is made to say--

They crown me with the glistening crown,

Borne from a deathless tree;

I hear the pealing music of renown--

O Love, forsake me not!

Mine were a lone dark lot,

Bereft of thee!

They tell me that my soul can throw

A glory o'er the earth;

From thee, from _thee_, is caught that golden glow!

Shed by thy gentle eyes,

It gives to flower and skies

A bright new birth!

_Genius singing to Love._

It is not often we find the superstitions of dark and ignorant ages

dealt with in so gentle and agreeable a manner as by Mrs Hemans. She

seizes, in common with others, the poetic aspect these present, but

diffuses over them, at the same time, a refinement of sentiment

gathered entirely from her own feelings. A subject which from another

pencil would have been disagreeable and offensive to us, is made by

her graceful touches to win upon our imagination. Witness the poem

called _The Wood Walk and Hymn_; we will quote the commencement of it.

WOOD WALK AND HYMN.

"Move along these shades

In gentleness of heart--with gentle hand

Touch--for there is a spirit in the woods."

WORDSWORTH

FATHER--CHILD.

_Child._--There are the aspens with their silvery leaves

Trembling, for ever trembling; though the lime

And chestnut boughs, and these long arching sprays

Of eglantine, hang still, as if the wood

Were all one picture!

_Father._--Hast thou heard, my boy,

The peasant's legend of that quivering tree?

_Child._--No, father; doth he say the fairies dance

Amidst the branches?

_Father._--Oh! a cause more deep,

More solemn far, the rustic doth assign

To the strange restlessness of those wan leaves!

The cross, he deems, the blessed cross, whereon

The meek Redeemer bow'd his head to death,

Was framed of aspen wood; and since that hour,

Through all its race the pale tree hath sent down

A thrilling consciousness, a secret awe,

Making them tremulous, when not a breeze

Disturbs the airy thistle down, or shakes

The light lines of the shining gossamer.

An eminent critic in the _Edinburgh Review_ has spoken of the neatness

and perfect finish which characterise female writers in general, and

Mrs Hemans in particular. Now, these qualities imply a certain

terseness and concentration of style, which is no more a peculiarity

of all authoresses than of all authors, and which we should not

pronounce to be peculiarly characteristic of Mrs Hemans' poetry. To us

it often appears wanting in this very conciseness; we occasionally

wish that some lines and verses were excluded--not because they are

faulty in themselves, but because they weaken the effect, and detract

from the vigour of the whole: we wish the verses, in short, were more

closely packed together, so that the commencement and the close, which

are generally both good, could be brought a little nearer to each

other. It is not so much a redundancy of expression, as of images and

illustrations, that we have sometimes to complain of in Mrs Hemans.

She uses two of these where one would not only suffice, but do the

work much better. There is a very pleasing little poem, called _The

Wandering Wind_: we will quote--first, because it is thus pleasing;

and, secondly, because we think it would have been rendered still more

so had there been somewhat more of concentration and terseness in the

style. The lines which we have printed in italics, and which contain

the pith and marrow of the whole, would then have struck upon the ear

with more distinctness and prominence.

THE WANDERING WIND.

The wind, the wandering wind

Of the golden summer eves--

_Whence is the thrilling magic_

_Of its tones amongst the leaves?_

Oh! is it from the waters,

Or from the long tall grass?

Or is it from the hollow rocks

Through which its breathings pass?

Or is it from the voices

Of all in one combined,

That it wins the tone of mastery?

The wind, the wandering wind!

No, no! the strange, sweet accents

That with it come and go,

They are not from the osiers,

Nor the fir trees whispering low.

They are not of the waters,

Nor of the cavern'd hill,

_'Tis the human love within us_

_that gives the power to thrill._

They touch the links of memory

Around our spirits twined,

_And we start, and weep, and tremble,_

_To the wind, the wandering wind!_

The verses beginning "I dream of all things free" might also be cited

as an instance of this tendency to over-amplify--a tendency which

seems the result of a great affluence of poetical imagery. This would

be a more powerful poem merely by being made shorter. We wait too

long, and the imagination roves too far, before we arrive at the

concluding lines, which contain all the point and significance of the

piece:--

"My heart _in chains_ is bleeding,

And I dream of all things free."

Of the measures and the melody of a lyrical poet something is expected

to be said. But what we feel we have chiefly to thank Mrs Hemans for

here is, that, in the search after novelty and variety of metre, she

has made so few experiments upon our ear, and that she has not

disdained to write with correctness and regularity. She has not

apparently laboured after novelties of this kind, but has adopted that

verse into which her thoughts spontaneously ran. An author who does

this is not very likely to select a rhythm, or measure, which is

incongruous with the subject-matter of his poem; nor, do we think,

could many instances of such a fault be detected in Mrs Hemans.

We will close our extracts with a strain that fairly exemplifies the

serene and lucid current of sentiment, and the genuine natural pathos,

of our poetess. It is thus she makes the Hebrew mother sing to her

first-born, whom she has devoted to the Lord.

Alas! my boy, thy gentle grasp is on me;

The bright tears quiver in thy pleading eyes;

And now fond thoughts arise,

And silver cords again to earth have won me,

And like a vine thou claspest my full heart--

How shall I hence depart?

How the lone paths retrace where thou wert playing

So late along the mountains at my side?

And I, in joyous pride,

By every place of flowers my course delaying,

Wove, e'en as pearls, the lilies round thy hair

Beholding thee so fair!

And oh! the home whence thy bright smile hath parted,

Will it not seem as if the sunny day

Turn'd from its door away!

While through its chambers wandering, weary-hearted,

I languish for thy voice, which past me still

Went like a singing rill?

Under the palm-tree thou no more shalt meet me,

When from the fount at evening I return,

With the full water urn;

Nor will thy sleep's low dove-like breathings greet me,

As midst the silence of the stars I wake,

And watch for thy dear sake.

And thou, will slumber's dewy cloud fall round thee,

Without thy mother's hand to smooth thy bed?

Wilt thou not vainly spread

Thine arms when darkness as a veil hath wound thee,

To fold my neck, and lift up, in thy fear,

A cry which none shall hear?

What have I said, my child? Will _He_ not hear thee,

Who the young ravens heareth from their nest?

Shall He not guard thy rest,

And in the hush of holy midnight near thee,

Breathe o'er thy soul, and fill its dreams with joy?

Thou shalt sleep soft, my boy.

I give thee to thy God--the God that gave thee

A well-spring of deep gladness to my heart!

And, precious as thou art,

And pure as dew of Hermon, He shall have thee,

My own, my beautiful, my undefiled!

And thou shalt be His child.

"Therefore farewell! I go--my soul may fail me,

As the hart panteth for the water brooks,

Yearning for thy sweet looks.

But thou, my first-born, droop not, nor bewail me,

Thou in the Shadow of the Rock shalt dwell,

The Rock of Strength--Farewell!"

We must now draw to a conclusion. One great and pervading excellence

of Mrs Hemans, as a writer, is her entire dedication of her genius and

talents to the cause of healthy morality and sound religion. The

sentiment may be, on occasion, somewhat refined; it may be too

delicate, in some instances, for the common taste, but never is it

mawkish or morbid. Never can it be construed into a palliative of

vice--never, when followed out to its limits, will it be found to have

led from the paths of virtue. For practical purposes, we admit that

her exemplars are not seldom too ideal and picturesque. The general

fault of her poetry consists in its being rather, if we may use the

term, too _romantical_. We have a little too much of banners in

churches, and flowers on graves,--of self-immolated youths, and

broken-hearted damsels;--too frequent a reference to the Syrian

plains, and knights in panoply, and vigils of arms, as mere

illustrations of the noble in character, or the heroic in devotion.

Situations are adduced as applicable to general conduct, which have

only occurred, or could only have occurred, in particular states of

society, and are never likely, from existing circumstances, to occur

again. Far better this, however, than a contrary fault; for it is the

purpose of poetry to elevate, and not to repress. Admitting that the

effervescence is adventitious, still it is of virtuous growth, and

proceeds from no distortion of principle. If not the reflection of

human nature as it actually is, it is the delineation of the _fata

morgana_ of a noble mind--of something that occurs to us "in musings

high," and which we sigh to think of as of something loftier and

better, to which that nature would willingly aspire. We can readily

conceive, that to a woman of the exquisite taste possessed by Mrs

Hemans, any attempt at the startling or _bizarre_, either in

conception or subject, was a thing especially to be avoided. We do not

mean to imply by this, that, as every true poet must have, she had not

a manner of her own. To this honour, no author of our day has higher

or less equivocal claims. She knew what to admire in others, but she

felt that she had a mission of her own. To substantiate this, we have

only to suppose her productions blotted out from our literature, and

then remark whether or not any blank be left; for, wherever we have

originality, we have accession. We admit that originality is of all

shades and grades, from a Burns to a Bloomfield, from a Crabbe to a

Clare--still the names of the second and the fourth are those of true

poets, as well as those of the authors of "The Cottar's Saturday

Night," and "Sir Eustace Gray,"--Parnassus, as Dr Johnson observes,

having its "flowers of transient fragrance, as well as its cedars of

perennial growth, and its laurels of eternal verdure." In the case of

Mrs Hemans, this question is set at rest, from her having become the

founder of a school, and that only eclipsed in the number of its

adherents and imitators by those of Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth. In

America especially has this been the case; a great part of the recent

poetry in that country--more particularly that of its female

writers--has been little more than an echo of her _Records of Woman_,

and _Lays of Many Lands_, and lyrical strains; and, from Mrs

Sigourney--"the American Mrs Hemans"--downwards, there are only

corroborative proofs of a Cisatlantic fact, that no copyist, however

acute and faithful, has ever yet succeeded in treading on the kibes of

his master, far less of outstripping him in the struggle for

excellence.

Like all original writers, Mrs Hemans has her own mode and her own

province. In reading the poetry of Wordsworth, we feel as if

transferred to the mountainous solitudes, broken only by the scream of

the eagle and the dash of the cataract, where human life is indicated

but by the shieling in the sheltered holm, and the shepherd boy, lying

wrapt up in his plaid by the furze-bush, with his "little flock at

feed beside him." By Scott we are placed amid the men and things of

departed ages. The bannered castle looms in the distance, and around

it are the tented plain--the baron and his vassals--all that pertains

to "ladye-love and war, renown and knightly worth." We have the

cathedral-pomp, and the dark superstition, and the might that stands

in the place of right,--all the fire and air, with little of the earth

and water of our elemental nature. The lays of Wilson reflect the

patriarchal calm of life in its best, and purest, and happiest

aspects--or, indeed, of something better than mere human life, as the

image of the islet in the sunset mirror of the lake is finer and

fairer than the reality. Coleridge's inspiration is emblemed by ruins

in the silver and shadow of moonlight,--quaint, and queer, and

fantastic, haunted by the whooping owl, and screamed over by the

invisible nighthawk. Campbell reminds of the Portland vase, exquisite

in taste and materials, but recalling always the conventionalities of

art.

When placed beside, and contrasted with her great cotemporaries, the

excellences of Mrs Hemans are sufficiently distinct and

characteristic. There can be no doubt of this, more especially in her

later and best writings, in which she makes incidents elucidate

feelings. In this magic circle--limited it may be--she has no rival.

Hence, from the picturesqueness, the harmony, the delicacy and grace,

which her compositions display, she is peculiarly the poet of her own

sex. Her pictures are not more distinguished for accuracy of touch

than for elegance of finish. Every thing is clear, and defined, and

palpable; nothing is enveloped in accommodating haze; and she never

leaves us, as is the trick of some late aspiring and mystical

versifiers, to believe that she must be profound because she is

unintelligible. She is ever alive to the dignity of her calling, and

the purity of her sex. Aware of the difficulties of her art, she

aspired towards excellence with untiring perseverance, and improved

herself by the study of the best models, well knowing that few things

easy of attainment can be worth much. Her taste thus directed her to

appropriate and happy subjects; and hence it has been, as with all

things of sterling value, that her writings have not been deteriorated

by time. They were not, like the ice-palace of the Empress Catherine,

thrown up to suit the whim of the season, or directed to subjects of

mere occasional interest, to catch the gale of a passing popularity.

Mrs Hemans built on surer foundations, and with less perishable

materials. The consequence is, that her reputation has been steadily

on the increase. Of no one modern writer can it be affirmed with less

hesitation, that she has become an English classic; nor, until human

nature becomes very different from what it now is, can we imagine the

least probability that the music of her lays will cease to soothe the

ear, or the beauty of her sentiment to charm the gentle heart.

ON THE MISERIES OF IRELAND, AND THEIR REMEDIES.

In resuming this subject, we feel that we cannot be justly accused of

going out of our own province, or of meddling with matters which

concern only our neighbours. In the present state of this country, we

not only recognise the people of Ireland as our fellow-subjects, but

we practically feel, as we ought to do, that their miseries are

reflected upon us. This might be illustrated in various ways, but

there is one illustration which comes peculiarly home to all people of

this country at this moment. Much has been said and written, of late

years, on the sanitary condition of the great towns of this country,

and on the importance of thorough cleansing and draining, as a

preservative against the epidemic diseases which have so often lately

afflicted, and in some instances nearly decimated, our population; and

when we state that, in the neighbouring city of Glasgow, during last

year only, the mortality was one in nineteen of the population, and

that the number of deaths exceeded the number of births by more than

sixteen thousand,--that the mortality from fever, in particular, is

known very generally to fall upon those who, in a worldly point of

view, are the most valuable lives in society, and that a new and still

more appalling epidemic is already among us--we have surely said

enough to show that there cannot be a more important or serious object

of contemplation, or of inquiry, than the means of purification and

sanitary improvement of such graves of the human race, as so many

parts of that and others of our great towns are at this moment.

It is equally certain that "atmospheric impurity" has been justly

charged as the most general and effective of all the causes, which so

depress the vital energies as to dispose the living human body to

suffer, and sink under, such visitations of Providence.

But, in order to understand how this prolific cause of evil acts on

the human race, it is necessary not only to look to the draining,

sweeping, and cleaning of streets, courts, and closes, but to enter

the houses, and attend to the "conditions of existence" of their

inmates, in the lowest and most unhealthy portions of all our great

towns. When we do this, we find that, in all those houses which are

the chief seats of epidemic disease, there are congregated together in

small and dirty rooms such masses of destitute human beings, usually

ill-clothed and inadequately protected from cold, that it is mere

mockery to speak of improving the atmosphere of their rooms,

especially during the night, by any appliances to the streets or

courts from which they are entered, or even by any means of

ventilation to which, at least in cold weather, the inmates will

submit.

It is even in vain that we issue directions for the cleansing of the

rooms, or regulations, in the case of lodging-houses, for limiting the

number of persons to be taken into them, or that we form model

lodging-houses, in which a certain number of persons may be decently

accommodated. All such measures have a good effect on a certain number

of the people; but those among whom the epidemic diseases are always

found making most progress have no means of availing themselves of

these advantages: they can no more pay for clean or well-aired rooms

than they could pay for any of the luxuries of civilised life. "Their

state of destitution binds them firmly to one description of

locality," and forces them to congregate together in masses,

necessarily implying such a contamination of the atmosphere in which

they live, as no such measures can counteract for six hours.

Now, if we inquire further into the history of the inhabitants who

live crowded together in this miserable way, we shall find, no doubt,

a certain number, in every great town, in whom this state of

destitution is the result of disease, death of relations, or personal

profligacy; and of the best means to be adopted to limit the evils

resulting from these causes, we do not propose to speak at present,

only observing that they may be and are met much more effectually in

some countries and some towns than in others. But we maintain, also,

with perfect confidence, from much personal observation and many

inquiries, that at this moment, in all the great towns of this

country, the most numerous class of the destitute poor, among whom

epidemic diseases prevail--from whom they extend to other ranks of

society, and by whose illness or death their families become a burden

on all other ranks--are not more profligate or less deserving of

compassion and assistance than the great body of our labouring

classes, and have no distinctive peculiarity but this, that _they are

Irish_.[2] Many of them have had possession of bits of land, others

have been labourers, or are families of labourers: they have formed

part of that enormous immigration of human beings, from Ireland to

Britain, which has been going on for many years, which has given Irish

labourers to all our public works, has formed an Irish quarter in

every one of our great towns, and has impressed all the promoters of

our schemes of philanthropy with the intimate conviction, that "if we

would cut off the sources of mendicity and misery, we must _first cut

off Ireland_;" _i. e._, looking on the Irish as fellow-subjects, if we

wish to perform towards them, or towards all who suffer in common with

them, the great Christian duty of charity, we must endeavour to

ascertain and counteract, in Ireland itself, whatever causes have

swelled that flood of poverty and destitution which has been so

prolific of evils to us.

[2] The numbers of Irish in the fever wards of the Royal Infirmary

Edinburgh, in 1847, were, to the number of native Scotch, as 100 to

38; and in the fever hospitals of Glasgow, as 100 to 62; and the

number of Irish were to the number of English in those wards, in both

towns, as 100 to less than 2.

Now, without entering on any abstruse discussions, either metaphysical

or economical, we think it quite possible to state certain principles,

drawn from observations of human nature, and generalised in the same

manner as any general truths in physical science, by which the

phenomenon in question may be explained; and the only truly effective

remedies that can be devised for the present peculiarly miserable

condition of Ireland must be applied and regulated.

In the present state of that country, all her peculiar sufferings may

be ranked under the single head of redundant population, or, what is

the same thing, an overstocked labour market,--a population greater

than is required for all the works, productive or unproductive, for

which the possessors of capital, or the richer classes generally, are

willing to pay; and, in consequence, great numbers of the lower

classes whose employment is precarious, whose wages are scanty, whose

mode of life is irregular and debased, who are continually liable to

disease from poor living and insufficient clothing, and whose

sufferings under disease and destitution are greater, and extend their

effects more among the higher classes in their own country, and among

neighbouring nations--England, Scotland, even America--than those of

any other nation in Europe. As long as this miserable condition of the

Irish poor exists, it must be regarded both as a national disgrace,

indicating that, notwithstanding the boasted excellence of our

constitution, the British government is really less effective as

regards one-third of its subjects, in securing the main object of all

governments, _ut cives feliciter vivant_, than that of any other

civilised country.

Now, whatever secondary causes for a redundant population may be

assigned, all who attend carefully to the subject must admit that the

great, primary, and fundamental cause for it in all countries is, the

power of reproduction granted by nature to human beings, and which is

capable of multiplying the species more rapidly than the means of

their subsistence can be increased.

If it be true that this is a general law of human nature, and yet

that, in other countries, where ample time and opportunity have been

afforded for similar indications of redundant population to show

themselves, these are altogether absent, the first question for

consideration is not, why are not the resources of Ireland more

developed, but why has not the population accommodated itself better

to the resources that exist? Comparing Ireland with other countries

long inhabited, we find that in many others,--viz. in Switzerland, in

many districts of England, in Sweden, Norway, &c.,--although the

resources of the country and the demand for labour are small, the

population has accommodated itself to them; it has remained nearly

stationary for ages, or has gradually increased only as the

productions of the country and the demand for labour extended; and the

miseries of redundant population are comparatively unknown.

Continuing this line of inquiry, we observe that the most powerful and

the only desirable check on population, by which it is habitually

restrained from passing the limits which the demand for labour may be

regarded as imposing, is that to which political economists give the

name of _moral restraint_, by which we know that men and women, in all

ranks of society, may frequently, and, to a certain degree, uniformly

limit the reproduction of the species greatly within the bounds of its

possible increase, rather than allow their progeny to incur any

imminent risk of descent in the scale of society, and of abject

destitution.

If we next inquire what are the circumstances in which this beneficial

limitation on our population operates most efficiently, and what are

those which counteract its influence, we shall find distinctly and

unequivocably--whether we limit our observations to individuals, where

we can assure ourselves of the most influential motives of conduct, or

extend our views to large communities, and so avoid the fallacies

attending partial collections of facts--that the only security for the

existence of moral restraint is the habit of comfort, and the feeling

of artificial wants which that habit gradually imposes on the human

mind; and that those who are brought up in a state of destitution, who

are themselves strangers to that habit and feeling in early life,

hardly ever look forward to the means of securing the supply of these

wants for their children, and yield to the instincts of nature, as to

the propagation of their species, almost as blindly and recklessly as

animals do.

If this be so, it is obvious that the first subject for consideration,

as to the social state of any country, and the only means by which we

can hope to avert the evils, which the known tendency of human nature

to multiply more rapidly than the means of its subsistence would

otherwise involve, is to extend and secure the habit of comfort among

the poorer classes of society, and preserve them from sinking into

those habits of alternate physical suffering and reckless indulgence,

which abject destitution implies. And we have the more confidence in

this conclusion, as it is in strict accordance with the distinct,

authoritative, and frequently repeated injunction of Scripture, as to

the duty of those who have the means, to supply the wants of the poor.

This being so, the question as to the means of preventing or

correcting the evils of redundant population in any country, resolves

itself simply into the question, how the lower ranks of society there

may be best and most permanently preserved in habits of comfort? And

this question, likewise, is held to be sufficiently decided by

experience.

A moment's reflection is enough to show that there can be no claim on

the higher ranks in any country to place the poor--_i. e._, those who

are unable to work from age, sex, or infirmity, or who are unable to

find work--on a better footing than the lowest of those who can

maintain themselves by labour, and that any such attempt would

speedily tend to disorder and do injury to the whole frame of society,

and especially to the working classes; but it is confidently

maintained, that a country in which these classes are regularly and

uniformly preserved, by the contributions of the higher ranks, from

falling into lower habits than those which prevail among the poorest

of the people who maintain themselves by regular labour,--is also that

in which the population will adapt itself most strictly to the demand

for labour--remaining, if necessary for this purpose, quite stationary

for ages together.

There are different modes in which the contributions of the rich for

these purposes have been received and applied; but it may be stated

with perfect confidence, as the result of experience, that the only

truly and uniformly effectual means is, to give them the security and

uniformity of a legal enactment. For several ages, the general mode

throughout Europe was through the intervention of the Christian

church, for "the distribution of alms and food by the clergy was not

merely a voluntary charity, but was a legal obligation. It was a rule

of ecclesiastical discipline throughout Europe, and was a condition

expressed in all the grants by which they held their possessions, and

in every appropriation of benefices to the regular orders." The

maintenance of the religious houses was thus the poor-law of the

Middle Ages; and when their property was alienated, the necessity of

another law, to secure the same object, soon became manifest

throughout the greater part of Europe.

We need not inquire how it has happened that no such law for the

benefit of the poor has succeeded to the alienation of the church

lands from the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, during the long

interval that has elapsed between that event and the present time;

but, on the contrary, that various laws, securing to the higher ranks

the undisturbed possession of their property, and repressing all

claims of the lower ranks, have succeeded to that change. It is enough

for our purpose to state the fact, and to observe that, consistently

with the principles above stated, all the results which have followed

were naturally to be expected. That unprofitable but important portion

of every social fabric--the poor, as distinguished from the working

classes--has been left to precarious and insufficient charity. The

consequences have been, a general reduction of the diet, clothing,

lodging, and whole habits of the whole lower classes; frequent

destitution, and its uniform attendant, a peculiar liability to

epidemic diseases; much vagrancy and mendicity; the general prevalence

of an irregular, precarious, reckless mode of life; a general failure

of the grand preventive check on population; a continually-increasing

redundancy; a minute subdivision of the land to support this

redundancy, and a ruinous competition for these small portions of

land, keeping the cultivators of the soil in a constant dependence on

the proprietors; much voluntary emigration; and, both among the

emigrants and the lower orders at home--all feeling these miseries,

but few of them rightly comprehending the cause--a blind hatred at

their rulers, very generally diffused. In thus asserting the powerful

operation of this legal neglect of the poor in producing the miseries

of Ireland, it is not, of course, intended to deny that various causes

have co-operated in different parts of the country--_e. g._, the

ignorance of the people, and the effect of the Roman Catholic

religion in checking, rather than encouraging, any habits of thought

or reflection; the absence of so many proprietors, and their habitual

estrangement from the cultivators of the soil; political excitement,

and the bad passions generated by it and religious dissensions: all

these have been injurious; but the experience of other nations may

show us that they could not have produced this specific effect on

population, if they had not been aided by that general predisposing

cause of redundancy--_neglect of the poor_.

This state of things has, however, naturally rendered residence in

Ireland much less agreeable to the feelings of the proprietors of the

soil, than residence in almost any other country. Those sufferings of

their neighbours and dependants, which the laws of other countries

would have imposed on them the duty of mitigating at their source,

have, in consequence, fallen rarely under their personal observation;

while the frauds and falsehoods by which poverty, when taking the form

of mendicity, always attempts to arrest attention and procure

sympathy, have been constantly obtruded on them. Add to this, that

they have continually been told that the peculiarity of their

situation, which absolved them from any legal obligation to relieve

the wants of their poor--which secured to them the rights of property,

and released them from its obligations--was a wise and judicious

regulation, and a great advantage to themselves and their country; and

without attributing to the Irish proprietors, and particularly to the

absentees, more carelessness or selfishness than we must all admit to

be a common attribute of human nature, we can easily understand that

the general conduct of the Irish proprietors and capitalists must be

such as to aggravate, instead of relieving, the miseries resulting

from the over-population of their country.

To this state of things we do not pretend to apply a single specific;

but we assert with confidence, that experience has sufficiently

demonstrated the efficacy and expediency of several powerful remedies,

and that, by the combined influence of these, a gradual improvement

may be certainly obtained.

The first step has been already taken in the enactment of a

law--unfortunately delayed till nearly half a century had elapsed

after the union with England,--probably imperfect, and brought first

into operation at a time of famine, therefore beginning to act in the

most unfavourable circumstances possible, but by which the right to

relief, under circumstances of destitution, is granted to every

description of the poor. By the gradual operation of this law,

correcting the habits of vagrancy and mendicity, it maybe expected

that the process of degradation hitherto extending among the Irish

poor may be corrected, and the same motives which, in other nations,

are found to restrain excessive population, will gradually be

introduced. But a more immediate effect of the law is on the views and

habits of the proprietors. When the aged poor, the sick poor, the

widows and orphans, and the unemployed poor, become immediately a

charge on the land and capital of the country, it becomes the obvious

and undoubted interest of every proprietor and capitalist, first, to

throw all obstacles in his power in the way of early marriages, and

excessive reproduction of the species; and, secondly, to exert himself

to procure for the existing population as much as possible of

remunerative employment. Such employment as he would hardly regard as

remunerative, with a view only to his own profits, becomes an object

of real importance to him, when the alternative is the maintenance of

able-bodied labourers in idleness. That these motives are already

operating extensively among the Irish proprietors, appears from their

general complaint of the hardship of being obliged to maintain the

poor in unremunerating employment, and from their increased anxiety to

clear their estates of cottars and small crofters, among whom the most

rapid redundancy of population shows itself. If the law is firmly and

steadily administered, they will not be allowed to rid themselves of

the burden of these poor; and the true question will be, Whether they

are to maintain them in idleness, or devise for them reproductive

labour? Thus it may be hoped that the resources of the country will be

gradually developed, and its power of supporting industry be increased

contemporaneously with a diminution of vagrancy and mendicity, and an

improvement of the habits of the people.

But it must be observed, that this expectation proceeds on two

suppositions--_first_, That resources not yet developed for the

maintenance of industry do exist in the country; and, _secondly_, That

the proprietors have the means and the knowledge necessary to enable

them to avail themselves of these. The first of these, we are fully

assured, is truly the case; but the latter supposition, although we

may expect it to be realised in the course of time, is certainly very

far from being an element in the existing condition of the country;

nor can it become so within such a time as would be requisite to

enable us to reckon on it as a means of meeting a pressing emergency.

And although the newly-enacted Irish Poor-Law is equally just as that

under which all English proprietors have for centuries held their

possessions, yet it must be admitted that, in the present

circumstances of Ireland, as to redundancy of population, it must fall

with peculiar severity on that country, and that, in some districts,

the sacrifice thus required of the proprietors--particularly on such

of them as may not comprehend the means which we believe to be in

their power, for the improvement of the country--may almost amount to

a confiscation of their property.

Now, if the foregoing exposition of the main cause of the redundant

population in Ireland is correct, it follows that the legislature of

this country, which has so long approved and sanctioned that state of

the laws which withhold from the suffering population of Ireland the

right of relief, as it has shared the national sin, ought also to

share the sacrifices by which the consequences of that sin may be

expiated. For a time, therefore, and particularly after the famine

which has befallen their country, the proprietors and capitalists in

Ireland may reasonably expect a certain amount of aid from the

legislature of England (granted, of course, with proper safeguards

against abuse or misapplication), to enable them to perform their

newly-prescribed duties towards their own poor.

Now, there are two modes of relief, both to the proprietors and the

poor in Ireland, which may be afforded by government, or rather which

may be aided and directed by government, to a much greater degree than

has been yet done--certainly at a much less expense than the

relief-works of the year 1846, when several millions, contributed from

the British treasury, were expended on the roads in Ireland, with an

injurious rather than beneficial effect;--and the results of which, if

they are carried into effect with common prudence, may be expected to

be so distinctly beneficial, as assuredly to reconcile the British

public to the expenditure.

The first is Emigration to the colonies, on a larger scale than has

been yet undertaken, and with a more earnest desire, on the part of

government, to make it a really effective means of relief than has

been yet shown--the arrangements to be made, and the vessels to be

contracted for and victualled, at the public expense, and the

emigrants, therefore, having no further pecuniary burdens imposed on

them than the means of supporting themselves from the time of their

landing until they can procure employment. Even this last difficulty

of emigrants may undoubtedly be much lessened by a little pains, and a

little well-directed expense, on the part of the colonial governments,

to ascertain during the winter season, and make known to those

arriving in spring, the precise districts where there is the most

demand for their labour; and it seems impossible to doubt that, if

there were a regular provision made by government, for a few seasons,

for receiving, from the different parts of Ireland, families

recommended by the clergy of all persuasions in the different

districts, as proper for emigration, and unable to afford the

passage-money, and for removing these families at the public expense

to Canada or Australia--directing them at once to the proper points--a

very considerable relief could be afforded to the most crowded

districts in Ireland, at the same time that the danger of such

sufferings during the passage, and after arrival in the colonies, as

befel too many of the emigrants of 1847, and deterred too many of

their countrymen from following their example, may be almost certainly

avoided.

Emigration, however, even on these terms, (which it is certainly

within the power of government to arrange,) should only be recommended

to those who can command the means of tolerably comfortable

outfitting, and subsistence for a short time after their arrival in

the colonies. For a much larger number of the Irish poor, the resource

so perseveringly advocated by Mr P. Scrope and others, is the only one

yet shown to be really available, viz., their employment on some of

the waste lands, ascertained to be reclaimable, which abound in

Ireland itself. The improvement of these, chiefly by spade labour,

would give employment to nearly all the labourers now in Ireland; and,

when reclaimed, they might be divided into allotments of from five to

eight acres each, which should afterwards become the property of the

men by whose labour they have chiefly been reclaimed, on the payment

of a moderate quit-rent.

There may be some difference of opinion as to the details of this

plan, and particularly as to the kind and extent of the direct

assistance which the government should give; and we know that in all

countries, and perhaps more especially in Ireland, there will be a

disposition on the part of many persons to avail themselves of and to

abuse this public aid, by no means confined to the poorest classes of

society, and against which it behoves a beneficent government to be

constantly on their guard. The simplest mode of procedure seems to be,

that the waste lands destined for this purpose (and on which

government officers, employed at a great expense to the public, have

already reported)--should be purchased by government, by compulsion if

necessary--in all the distressed parts of the country; that these

should be presented to the different poor-law unions, on condition of

their being reclaimed by the labours of their able-bodied paupers, and

in conformity with plans to be proposed, and the execution of which

shall be superintended by persons employed by government. The

preliminary operations of drainage, and of making roads for the

benefit of these lands only, may likewise be undertaken by government;

and with this aid, and under this direction, it is reasonable to

expect, that the operations by which certain of the waste lands are to

be reclaimed, and the unions to be gradually provided with productive

farms, let to industrious cottars, may serve as a model for similar

improvements by individuals. There are difficulties of detail, which

the government of the United Kingdom may be expected to foresee and to

surmount. But as to the principle that it is wise and right for the

legislature of Britain;--nay, that it is incumbent on that

legislature, looking to its duty towards all classes of the people, to

the extent of misery in Ireland, and the disgrace and injury thereby

brought on itself, to the legal neglect of the poor in Ireland, so

long sanctioned by the British legislature, and to the deficiency of

capital actually existing in that country,--to direct and aid the

operations by which its surplus population may be reduced, and its

resources for the maintenance of population in future may be

augmented; and that these operations, if skilfully conducted, must

eventually lead to a great increase, both of wealth and of happiness,

in Ireland and in the colonies,--are propositions which we hold to be

fully demonstrated, and which, we think, the periodical press of this

country cannot at this moment be better employed than in keeping

constantly before the public, and impressing, by all possible means,

on the attention of the legislature. The property of those lands

remaining, in part, in the poor-law unions, the produce raised on them

will contribute to the support of the poor, and the relief of the

rate-payers in Ireland, in all time coming.

That the opinion we have thus given of the feasibility and of the

wisdom of the plan of bringing the idle hands of Ireland to bear on

the waste lands, is supported by men of thorough knowledge of the

subject, of all parties of the state, may be easily shown.

Preparations for such a measure were made, and plans of the drainage

requisite for the purpose were laid down, at an expense of nearly

£50,000 to the country, and deposited in the archives of the Irish

government, so long ago as 1814, by the Bog Commission. It was part of

the recommendation of the Poor-Law Inquiry Commission in 1836; it was

strongly recommended in the report by the Commission of Inquiry into

the Tenure of Land, presided over by Lord Devon; it has been

frequently proposed, and fully and ably discussed in various

publications both by speculative reasoners, and by practical men,--by

Mr Mill, in his standard work on Political Economy; by Mr Thornton, in

his pamphlets on Over-Population, and on Peasant Proprietorship; by Mr

Fagan, member for Wexford, in his work on the Improvement of Ireland

by means of her Waste Lands; by Mr Poulett Scrope, in several

pamphlets as well as speeches in Parliament, to which nothing like an

intelligible answer has been returned; by Mr Douglas, and several

other writers in England; by Mr French, and several other Irish

members; by public meetings in Ireland--one of them, of the

freeholders in Waterford, presided over by Lord Stuart de

Decies;--nay, it was announced in the beginning of 1847, under the

name of a Waste Lands Bill, by Lord John Russell, as an accompaniment

of his Poor-Law Bill, but withdrawn without any reason for the change

ever having been assigned. Whether this was done, as has been stated,

as a compromise with certain Irish landlords on their withdrawing

their opposition to the latter bill, or not, is a matter of small

importance to the country, although, certainly, of very considerable

importance to the character of any such landlords for judgment or

intelligence. A much stronger measure of what appears to them as

justice towards the cottar population of Ireland, has been strongly

recommended by several intelligent foreigners who have visited and

examined the country. But, without quoting any of these authorities in

favour of the proposal, let us merely ask what answer can be returned

to the following simple statements in support of it by an intelligent

and practical author:--"An addition of three million acres of

cultivable surface would be an incalculable advantage, and contribute

to the health, comfort, and happiness of millions of our

fellow-subjects. _We ought not to be behind the Chinese in this work

of civilisation._ During my recent examination of the middle and

northern districts of China, I noticed every where a great extent of

reclaimed land. Every inlet where the sea formerly encroached on the

land was embanked, drained, and cultivated. No capital or labour was

spared to augment the surface capable of yielding sustenance to man;

and I feel satisfied that, _if the extent of bog-land now existing in

Ireland were in the central provinces of China, five years would not

elapse without its being made fertile and productive_. Ought the

people of England or of Ireland to show inferiority to the Chinese in

the most requisite of all labour? Ought the government, in deference

to some abstract principle, to refuse the fulfilment of the first

natural duty--the providing food for its subjects?"[3]

[3] _Ireland before and after the Union._ By R. M. MARTIN, Esq., 3d

edit., p. 88.

Examples are not wanting in Ireland itself to show the feasibility of

this plan of relief to its poverty. "Mr Stuart French, of Monaghan,

has reclaimed three hundred acres of mountain-land in four years, and

raised its value from two shillings to thirty-five shillings per acre.

The entire cost was repaid by the crops in three years. Mr Reade, of

Wood-Park, county Galway, reclaimed five hundred acres of moorland and

mountain at a cost of from £10 to £17 per acre, which was repaid by

the crop of the second year, and the land, formerly worth two

shillings and sixpence per acre, now pays twenty shillings per acre

annually. This same Mr Reade, who has made the experiment on a large

scale, and can speak from experience, says, _there are 128,000 acres

of such reclaimable wastes in Galway, where thousands have died during

the past year_, and many are now (April 1848) dragging out a miserable

and useless existence. Mr Coulthurst, in county Cork, reclaimed a bog

farm for which the tenants could not pay four shillings per acre. The

drainage and reclamation cost £16 per acre, which was repaid before

the fifth year, and the land is now rated at the poor-law valuation at

£4 per acre. Sir Charles Sligh, Bart., and his amiable lady, have

effected great good on their estate in Donegal, by locating the

surplus population on the waste lands, and assisting the poor farmers

to cultivate them. This English family gave up their rents for two

years, and _permanent employment has been found for six times as many

persons as the land could formerly support; and its produce has been

multiplied tenfold_."[4]

[4] _Ireland before and after the Union._ By R. M. MARTIN, Esq., 3d

edit., p. 90.

It may be asked, why are these examples not followed? and doubts have

been thrown out as to the accuracy of the statements of the able

inquirers who have reported on the Irish waste lands, because they are

not actually reclaimed. One simple reason has been stated by Lord

Cloncurry, viz., that "arterial drainage on a large scale is

indispensable as a commencement, cutting through many properties,

deepening river-beds, perhaps to a considerable distance. Hence

government alone can set on foot such undertakings on that

comprehensive scale, and with that engineering skill, which is

necessary."[5] But a more general answer will suggest itself to any

one who knows the general habits and circumstances of the great Irish

proprietors. Many of them have not the habits of life or the knowledge

which would enable them to superintend or judge of such improvements;

and many more have not the means of encountering even the small

expense which will be requisite in their commencement. Further, it is

always to be observed, that, in the present state of the country,

another mode of greatly and rapidly improving the value of their

estates, without any such outlay either of skill or capital, always

presents itself to the Irish proprietors--viz., that of clearing their

estates of the cottar population, and throwing them into large farms,

to be cultivated in the improved English or Scotch style of

agriculture--or even into pasture; the objection to which is simply

that, in that case, they would not require for their cultivation more

than a third part of the population now located on them, and,

therefore, that this is a system relieving the landlords only, and

greatly aggravating all the evils which make the management of Ireland

an object of concern to the nation at large.

[5] MR SCROPE'S _Letter_ in the _Morning Chronicle_, April 26, 1848.

This leads us to consider the question, which is the most momentous of

any that can be proposed on this topic--If the plan of locating the

idle hands of Ireland on her waste lands is not adopted, what other

resource exists for the relief of the redundant population, which is,

as we have stated, so enormous and unquestionable a burden on England

and Scotland? It is clear that, in Ireland itself, as the law now

stands, two plans only are thought of, and if government does not

bring forward a third plan, one or other of these must quickly

predominate. Either the main body of the landlords, who are known to

be quite incredulous as to any improvements being effected by their

cottar tenants, must be allowed to pursue their own system of keeping

them on hand--_i.e._, only as tenants-at-will--and clearing their

lands of them as rapidly as possible, with a view to large farms or

sheep-pastures; or else that system must be adopted, which is demanded

generally by the tenantry and by the Roman Catholic priests in

Ireland, of giving to the tenants one form or other of what has been

called "fixity of tenure"--_i.e._, such security against a ruinous

rise of rent, or dispossession, as may induce them to exert all their

energies, and sometimes to bring forth concealed capital, for the

improvement of the soil, and, in many instances, for the reclamation

of wastes;--this party maintaining that the main cause of the

generally wretched condition of the cottars, and imperfect cultivation

of the soil, is not the indolence of the people, but their knowledge

that they are constantly liable to a rise of rent, or expulsion from

their farms, immediately on its being perceived that they are

effecting any improvement.

These are the two remedies for the existing state of matters in

Ireland, which these two parties wish to apply, and unless a third

plan be adopted by government, one or other of these must quickly

predominate. Now, let us consider the results to be expected in either

case.

If government does nothing, but merely protects, by an armed force,

the proprietors and their agents from the fury of the people, the

system of clearance of the estates will be more and more acted on; and

we must reckon on one-half or even two-thirds of the still existing

population on most of the estates being turned adrift. No doubt the

poor-law will make these outcasts a heavy burden on the proprietors;

and it is held by many, and very probably with justice, that, instead

of turning their cottar tenants adrift, and then having to deal with

them as unemployed poor, if they were to accord to them such a

tenant-right as exists generally, as a voluntary compact, in Ulster,

they might expect the poor-rate to be so much less, the cultivation so

to improve and extend, and the payment of rents to become gradually so

much more punctual, that their own condition would be gradually

amended. But it is certain that _this is not the view that they take

of their own position_ at this moment, nor that on which they will

voluntarily act; _for if it were, the tenant-right, or at least the

practice of granting long leases, would be as general_ in other parts

of Ireland as it now is in Ulster, or in Scotland.

This being so, the poor-law, giving the right to relief to the ejected

poor, must either be enforced or not enforced. If it is enforced, and

no other resource for the relief of those people is presented, there

is every prospect of many of the unions becoming bankrupt, and the

proprietors being involved in the ruin. We know that this consummation

is already proclaimed by many of the proprietors in Ireland and their

friends as nigh at hand; and the only advantage which in that case can

be said to be derived from the poor-rate is, that the ruin and

degradation, otherwise confined to the lower ranks, will have

extended, as in justice they should, to every class of society. Again,

if the poor-law is not enforced, and the redundant population is

thrown, as heretofore, on its own resources, we have _first_, that

_res pessimi exempli_--a law openly violated--that the rich may escape

its inflictions, and the poor be deprived of its protection; and

_secondly_, we have no other prospect before us but a continuance and

increase of all that misery, vagrancy, famine, and pestilence in

Ireland, and all that extension of these evils to the great towns of

England and Scotland, which have made our connexion with Ireland the

bane of this country.

On the other hand, if the legislature were to adopt the only effectual

means of restraining the clearances by the landlords--_i.e._, to grant

the desired boon of fixity of tenure, at the existing rent, to all the

tenants--or even absolutely require leases of a certain duration to be

given to them all--it cannot be denied that they would commit the

grave political offence of extensive interference not only with

portions of private property, (which, all admit, may be justly taken,

on reasonable compensation, for public objects,) but with the whole

income of many individuals. This offence is of such a character, that

we can hardly expect to see a measure involving it ever adopted by any

legislature in this country; and it must be confessed that, however

well adapted such a measure may be to the exigency of the present time

in Ireland, the precedent thereby established would go far to justify

many acts, as regards other possessions of property, which can hardly

be called by any other name than spoliation.

These are the considerations which lead us to believe that, in the

present circumstances of Ireland--a population having grown up in the

absence of any poor-law--with which a law, enacted tardily, and at a

most disastrous period, cannot be expected to cope--the newly-acquired

right to existence of the Irish poor must be aided and supported--as

was always desired by Mr P. Scrope, and all the more enlightened

advocates of that measure, and at one time proposed by the present

Premier--by another measure, on the part of government, whereby

_employment may be procured for them, the resources of the country

improved_, and the proprietors taught, by example much more

effectually than they can ever be by precept, how these duties, now

legally imposed on them for the benefit of the poor, may be made to

consist with improvement of their own position.

What is often said of the impolicy of government coming into the

market for the purchase and improvement of lands in Ireland, as

deterring private speculators from coming forward, and checking the

influx of really productive capital, would be a very fair allegation,

if the object in view were merely the economical one of raising the

value of the land and the income of the landed proprietors. But this

is not adverting to the real difficulty of the case, _the existence of

a redundant population_--the result of the causes above explained,

_but now possessing a legal right to existence in the country_--_much

more numerous than is required for that improved cultivation of the

soil, which would be the most obviously and rapidly profitable to the

proprietors_. The problem for solution is, not simply how to enrich

the country, but how to enrich it without exterminating any part of

this redundant population. This is no object for private speculators,

looking only to pounds, shillings, and pence; but it is, or should be,

an object of paramount importance to the government of a country, to

whom even an increase of wealth ought to be desirable, not for its own

sake, but because it is the essential condition, and therefore the

exponent, of an extension of human happiness; to whom, therefore, the

lives of the poor ought to be at least as sacred as the purses of the

proprietors and capitalists in Ireland.

Taking this view of the duty of government, we may cordially acquiesce

in the statement of Mr Thornton, quoted and approved by Mill, that the

great want of Ireland at this moment is, not the influx of capital (as

it might be if we were at liberty to disregard the lives of the

people, and look only to the wealth of the country,) but the

protection and encouragement of its industry, and such an increase of

its capital only as may be consistent with, or even produced by, an

increase of the labour of all its able-bodied inhabitants. And it is

because it is evident that the existing proprietors cannot in general

perceive how this is to be done, or command the means of doing it,

that the interference of government appears to be the only possible

means of rescuing that unhappy country from misery.

Many high authorities are fully convinced that the improvement of the

cultivated portion of the land, and even of the rents of the

proprietors, may be equally well effected by the _petite culture_, by

keeping the cottars in their places, and merely giving them

instruction as to cultivation, and security for a fair share of the

profits of the improvements they effect--as by clearing the land of

them, and enlarging the farms. All who have studied the subject, seem

to be agreed as to the very general "almost superhuman" industry of

peasant _proprietors_, in all parts of the world, and among all races

of men. "The idea of property, however," says Mr Mill, "does not

necessarily imply that there should be no rent, any more than that

there should be no taxes. It merely implies, that the rent should be a

fixed charge, not liable to be raised against the possessor by his own

improvements, or by the will of a landlord." "Give a man a secure

possession of a bleak rock," says Arthur Young, "and he will turn it

into a garden; give him only a nine-years' lease of a garden, and he

will convert it into a desert." It is accordingly stated by this

author, and by others, as the result of experience, that long leases,

at a low rent, will effect wonders, even in Ireland; and in proof of

this, Mr Mill refers to the example of a company, called the Irish

Waste Land Improvement Society, who have undertaken improvements in

Ireland, not by creating large farms, and cultivating them by hind

labour, but by farms only of a size sufficient for a single

family--giving, however, small advances of capital, and a temporary

security of tenure by thirty-one years' leases. Col. Robinson, the

manager of this Society, reports of their operations in 1845,--"These

245 tenants and their families have, by spade husbandry, reclaimed

and brought into cultivation 1032 acres of land, previously

unproductive waste, on which they raised, last year, crops valued at

£3896, being the proportion of £15, 18s. each tenant; and their live

stock, now on the estates, is valued, according to present prices in

the neighbouring markets, at £4162, being at the rate of £16, 19s. for

each--£1304, a sum equal to their present annual rent, having been

added since February 1844;" and he adds, "By the statistical tables

and returns, it is proved that the tenants, in general, improve their

little farms, and increase their cultivation and crops, in _nearly

direct proportion to the number of available working persons_ of both

sexes of which their families consist." The occupants of larger farms

than 20 acres, he states to be "a class too often deficient in the

enduring industry indispensable for the successful prosecution of

mountain improvements."[6] Mr Mill's general conclusion is, that

"under the new Irish Poor-Law there are no means for the landlords for

escaping ruin," (as has been stated above,) "unless, by some potent

stimulant to the industrial energies of the people, they can largely

increase the produce of agriculture; and since there is no stimulant

available so potent as a permanent interest in the soil, either the

present landlords, or their English mortgagees, to whom the estates of

the more impoverished landowners must inevitably pass, would find it

to their advantage, if not to grant at once this permanent interest to

their tenants, at least to hold out to them, the prospect of acquiring

it."[7] To the same purpose, Sir Robert Kane states his belief that

"there are not people enough in Ireland for the small-farm system" if

it were carried on in the manner which the experience of other

countries has shown to be practicable, and which requires only a

certain amount of instruction and of encouragement to the tenants, to

enable them to raise at least as much produce, and pay a better rent,

than large farms would do.[8] But although this appears a very

probable, as well as hopeful view, of the position of the cultivated

parts of Ireland, and of the prospects of individual proprietors

undertaking to reclaim the wastes, yet it is obvious that we can have

no security for the landlords taking this view of their position, and

that it would be a very questionable stretch of power to compel them

to act upon it. And what we wish particularly to urge is, that _it is

not necessary to come to any decision_ on the disputed question of the

grand or _petite culture_ as applicable to the _cultivated_ districts

of Ireland, because the _waste_ lands fortunately furnish a resource

which is _clear addition_ to the existing means of maintaining the

agricultural population, available at a small preliminary expense

only, which, we maintain, ought to be borne by the government of this

country. The redundant population being thus disposed of, all the

landlords will be left at liberty to try whatever modes of improving

their estates they may think fit--subject always to this salutary

check, that if by any of these modes they render an additional part of

the population redundant, they will be compelled, by the poor-law, to

pay more or less for them.

[6] _Mill's Principles of Political Economy_, vol. i. p. 387.

[7] Ibid. 398.

[8] _See the Large and Small Farm Question, considered in regard to

the Present Circumstances of Ireland._

The digest of Lord Devon's report shows, that there were in Ireland,

when it was drawn up, "326,089 occupiers of land, whose holdings were

under eight acres each, and that the consolidation of these small

holdings, up to eight acres, would require the removal of about

192,363 families; but, then, the _first_ class of _improvable waste

lands_ in Ireland (on which we wish to see them employed) would

furnish to all those removed families locations of about eight acres

each--or, the first and second qualities of improvable waste land,

taken together, would furnish them with locations of twenty acres

each." These facts seem fully sufficient to justify Mr Mill's

conclusion, (formerly quoted,) that if we "suppose such a number

drafted off to a state of independence and comfort, together with a

very moderate additional relief by emigration, the introduction of

English capital and farming over the _remaining surface_ of Ireland

(at least where the proprietors may think it necessary) would at once

cease to be chimerical."[9] At least we feel justified by these facts,

by all the statements here made, and by the authorities by whom this

plan has been recommended, in demanding that a measure which promises

so much relief, not only to the miseries of Ireland, but to the

various philanthropic designs in this country--which are so

continually thwarted by the influx of Irish poor--should be fairly and

openly canvassed; and that, if any serious objections can be stated to

it, they should be publicly brought forward and discussed.

[9] Mill's _Principles of Political Economy_, vol. i. p. 393.

As to the simply economical objection, on the score of the outlay that

would be required, we do not lay stress on the statement made on no

less authority than Lord Devon's Commission, that, in fact, it ought

to cost nothing; and that the improved rental of the land ought to

bring in a return of ten per cent on the capital invested in the

speculation. We may admit that this is too sanguine a view of the

matter--that the sums advanced by the government of this country will

probably be tardily and only partially repaid. Still, when we reflect

on the facts that have been stated as to the actual cultivation of

waste lands in Ireland, and on the concurrent opinion of so many able

and experienced men, who have examined the country carefully, and

report specifically on the facilities for the improvement of its

different parts, it seems impossible to doubt, that, if the

expenditure of the sums advanced by government is superintended and

controlled by the talent and experience which the country may expect

that the government can command, the repayment of a considerable part

of the outlay, particularly of that which may be advanced on the

credit of the poor-law unions, may be expected within a few years. And

even if there were ultimately a loss to the extent of one-half of the

£10,000,000, which has been stated as the probable expense of the

whole change, the money will at all events have gone to the immediate

relief of Irish suffering, and been better spent than what was

formerly voted for that purpose; and we cannot think that a nation

which spent a larger sum, only two years ago, in the mere relief of

the sufferings of the Irish people, without any attempt at

improvement, and very generally with a deteriorating (because not

previously considered) effect on the resources of the country--and

which spent £20,000,000 only a few years ago with very questionable

effect, but certainly without being grudged, in attempting to assuage

the sufferings, and raise the condition of the negroes in the West

Indies--can repent the loss of a fourth part of that sum, in an

attempt which can hardly by possibility fail of producing considerable

effect, to provide remunerative employment for the hordes of Irish

labourers in their own country, and arrest those grievous calamities

which their diffusion over this country has brought on themselves, and

on so many others who have come in contact with them.

In thus stating the grounds of a very decided opinion as to the

measure supplementary to the new poor-law, which is most essentially

required for Ireland, we do not of course mean to deny, that various

other means may be adopted, with more or less of good effect, in

furtherance of the same grand object. We have no doubt that both

religious and secular education are of the utmost importance to the

civilisation and improvement of every country; and although we do not

regard education, as some authors do, as the main remedy for the evils

of over-population, (being thoroughly persuaded that nature has

provided for this object more surely than education can, by that

growth of artificial wants in the human mind, which is the result and

the reward of pains taken to relieve suffering and secure comfort

during youth,) we are as anxious as any of our contemporaries for the

extension of education in Ireland. We believe that instruction in

agriculture, as well as encouragement to industry, is very much

needed in most parts of Ireland; and that measures for the direct

communication of such instruction, both to landlords and tenants, may

be very useful. We believe that in Ireland, as in this country, there

is great need of sanitary regulations; and we trust that the draining,

cleaning, and paving of the Irish towns will be regarded with as much

interest as similar purifications in England and Scotland. But we

think no one who reflects on the subject can fail to perceive two

truths, and to acknowledge their direct bearing on the subject of

Irish misery--_first_, that to a people nurtured in destitution and

amidst scenes of suffering, something of the great mental stimuli of

_employment_ and _hope_ must be applied, in order to enable them to

appreciate, or permanently to profit by, any kind of education; and,

_secondly_, that in the existence of laws securing sustenance to all

the poor of a country, and at the same time enabling the higher ranks

to exact labour as the price of that sustenance, we possess a security

such as no other social arrangements can afford, for habitual

attention to all means of bettering the condition of the poor, on the

part of those who have it in their power to apply those means, and on

whose exertions their successful application must necessarily depend.

Thus the poor-laws of Ireland, and the subsidiary measures for

procuring employment for the poor there, so far from being opposed to

any wise system of instruction, or of sanitary improvement, must be

regarded as in truth an essential preliminary to the truly beneficial

operation of any system that may be devised for either of these

purposes.

THE CAXTONS.

PART VIII.