into effect, than that of the Popery Laws, which was at once sanguinary, unjust, impolitic, and selfish, in the last degree. For the accuracy of this description, we do not appeal to the more indignant and glowing publications of the Catholics themselves, but to such a temperate and argumentative commentary as the formal tract of Mr. Burke, inserted in the 5th volume of his Works. "We found the people," says that upright statesman, "as we call them, heretics and idolaters:-we have rendered them slaves and beggars: two hundred years, dreadfully spent in experiments to force the Irish to change their religion, have proved fruitless-Ireland is still full of penalties and full of Papists. By so much violence in conquest, and so much tyranny in regulation, we have reduced them to a mob, and we must not then be astonished, that when they come to act at all, they act like a mob, without temper, measure, or foresight."

We should not venture to assert that the Irish are now fit for self-government, but we are persuaded that their unfitness arises, in great part, from the oppression to which they were so long subjected nor do we suppose that they would be benefited, on the whole, by a separation from Great Britain. Their ablest and warmest friends and advocates, among the statesmen of both countries, emphatically-and we believe, sincerely-declare in favour of the supremacy of England, and the continuance of the Union. As for our author's opinion that no people on earth could be so easily tranquillized and governed as the Irish, it appears to us widely remote from the fact. The lawless and tumultuary habits of a great portion of them; their extreme poverty; the increasing redundance of the population; and their antipathy to the English-would render it, whatever honest and vigorous efforts might be made, extremely difficult to tranquillize and govern them, and constitute obstacles which it is not in the power of the British cabinet to remove, within a short period of time. Their dispositions verify the maxim, that if the laws, or the rulers, are the enemies of the people, the people will be the enemies of the rulers and the laws. We could not fail to perceive, in Ireland, the absolute hatred which the great majority entertain against the English; and no one, acquainted with the history of their connexion, could be at a loss to account for the prevalence of that sentiment. Seeing the religion which they adore vilified and persecuted, they naturally detest those to whom they refer the odious system; and from such hands they reject. or elude all plans of social, as well as religious reformation. It is known and felt by too many of them, that their nation is contemptuously disregarded, or unsparingly derided, by the mass of the English. The Irish members of the British Parliament experience, even in that body, that spirit of lofty indifference or disdainful mockery, which annoys and chafes the object more

than direct, animated hostilities. No pains have been taken to soften the reciprocal aversion: very few of the English have visited Ireland, for the purpose of ascertaining and reporting her condition, while they throng the "highways and byways" of the Continent in the course of our tour in that country, we encountered but one English gentleman travelling there from liberal curiosity or a desire of information; and he carried with him a stock of national arrogance and religious prejudice, and a propensity to sneer, sufficient to deprive his inquiries of their proper success and effect, and his errand of all public usefulness. The British philanthropists have traversed every accessible country of the globe, in search of objects of relief and amendment; they have established missions in the most distant and heathenish lands; they have expended vast sums and incredible pains, for the moral advantage of Asia, Africa, and Polynesia; but, comparatively speaking, they have overlooked their nearest neighbours, their fellow-subjects and Christians of Ireland, who needed all the aid which the most unfortunate physical, social, and political condition could be supposed to require; and whose improvement and reconciliation would have proportionably strengthened the foundations, and cemented the whole structure, of the British power.

Sir Jonah Barrington says little or nothing, either of Catholic Emancipation, tithes, or the Catholic priesthood; but enough of the Orange associations, to convince his reader that much of the present discord and misrule is due to those bodies and their abettors. The tithes have been always enumerated among the chief grievances of the nation. Grattan, in his admirable speech on "the state of Ireland," (August 13, 1807,) exclaimed-"Tithes have been the principal source of all past disturbances: tithes gave rise to the Hearts of Steel;' tithes called together the Right Boys;' tithes were the cause of the White Boys;' tithes were the cause of the Peep-of-day Boys;' tithes were the cause of the Threshers;' tithes were in a manner a kind of watchword, to summon the oppressed to act in common cause against their oppression." Abolition, modification, commutation, and various other remedies, have been proposed, urged, and debated to satiety, and relief seems as far distant as ever.

With regard to the Catholic priesthood, they are vastly more respectable and loyal, in general, than they are represented to be by their Orange adversaries, and their immediate religious rivals and censurers. On this head, we write from some personal observation, and the testimony borne to their merits by members of the British Parliament, of both sides, who spoke from extensive personal knowledge. Their situation is still what it was justly stated to be towards the end of the last century. If they endeavour by their influence to keep a dissatisfied laity quiet,

they are in danger of losing the credit which they possess, by being considered as the instruments of a government adverse to the civil interests of their flock. If they let things take their course, they are represented as colluding with sedition, or at least tacitly encouraging it. If they remonstrate against persecution, they are declared to propagate rebellion: if they defend their own tenets, and endeavour to maintain their parishioners in their faith and observances, against a mighty scheme of impeachment and proselytism, they are stigmatized as ambitious bigots, ever ready to thwart the benevolent views of the government, and resolute to exclude all genuine Christianity from their sphere of action. While it is acknowledged that they possess immense and indestructible influence, scarcely any thing is done to conciliate them, so as to win a portion of that influence for British interests; but the more ardent Protestant polemics, and the Orange politicians, perpetually assail their doctrines, and heap opprobrium on their character and conduct. Mr. Burke has contended-and, as we think, demonstrated-that in Ireland, the Roman Catholic religion should be "upheld in high respect and veneration," as it is in Canada, by the British government; since it is the only instrument by which attachment to the British rule can be produced, or disaffection removed. Protestant ascendency in Ireland, according to the real meaning and drift of the politicians who most employ the phrase, is now the same as of old-"neither more nor less than the resolution of one set of people, to consider themselves as the sole citizens in the commonwealth, and to keep a dominion over the rest by reducing them to absolute slavery under a military power; and thus fortified in their ascendency, to divide the public estate, which is the result of general contribution, as a military booty, solely among themselves."

We are aware that Catholic Emancipation,-the primary claim and topic of the day,-would not prevent the excessive increase of the inhabitants, nor supply them with work, wealth, or knowledge; and that its importance, relatively to the common questions of public economy, is considerably exaggerated; but it would be the concession of a positive right, the redress of an old wrong, the abolition of odious and baneful distinctions, the destruction of the most efficient topic of sedition, the removal of the deepest complaint, and of the chief impediments to the fair trial of other correctives and means of propitiation. When a people are of a turbulent spirit, the best way to bring them into the temper and habit of order, is not, assuredly, to leave them a substantial, irritating, and degrading cause of remonstrance. The franchises which the Catholics claim are, to use the language of Burke, "drawn out of the vital stamina of the British Constitution:" the refusal of them is a continued outlawry from that Constitution: while they are denied, no professions of good will,

or expedients of politic kindness, will find credit or due correspondence; and the demagogues, and disaffected from other motives, will never want a plausible pretext for sounding the trumpet of sedition or rebellion.

ART. VIII. Die Poesie und Beredsamkeit der Deutschen, von Luthers Zeit bis zur Gegenwart. Dargestellt von Franz Horn. A History of the Poetry and elegant Prose of the Germans, from the time of Luther to the present. Three vols. 8vo. Berlin. Vol. III. 1824.

NATIONAL literature varies with national character. It is the public display which a nation makes of its intellectual resources and achievements. It treasures up for coming generations the sentiments which influence social intercourse, and give an impulse to generous action; which lead to the erection of monuments of lasting grandeur, and in their turn are fostered by works of public magnificence. The aspect under which the world is contemplated, the colouring imparted to imagination by climate, government, and private manners, are here represented with fidelity. Literature may, indeed, promote patriotism and cherish public virtue; the Muse may, with her divine inventions, mould the character of a nation after a favourite model of ideal excellence; but the beauty, concentrated in the model, must have already existed in the people. The rudiments of the desired perfection must lie in surrounding realities, and it is in the nation, that the qualities are gathered, which imagination combines and vivifies. The hearts of the many will not be moved, except the appeal be made to passions which are already strong, and gratify tastes and awaken sympathies which are already formed.

In the literature of a nation, we then behold a fair exhibition of national peculiarities; and for this reason among others, it commends itself to the attention of enlightened curiosity. Our age cannot be charged with indifference to the general interests of humanity, nor with slothfulness in its efforts to become acquainted with the various tribes by which the earth is occupied. Under the auspices of a reasonable spirit of inquiry, the currents and paths of all the oceans have been explored; and there is hardly a part of the accessible world, from which intelligence has not been received. The cannibal of the South Sea Islands has been visited by Christian philanthropy; and the miserable inhabitant of the Arctic regions, finds competitors in his dangerous pursuit

of game. The prairies of our Western World have not stayed the steps of the emigrant; and soldiers of European distinction have done service to the swarthy princes of inner Africa, under their own burning sun. The very skulls of men have not been left to manure the earth, but have been gathered into cabinets, if so, perchance, any thing more might be learnt, illustrating the natural history of man. Thus universal and earnest is the desire to know something of the inhabitants of every land. And are we then to be indifferent to those intellectual productions, on which the moral character of a nation is impressed? Into whatever region a man may be thrown, he should not neglect the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the language and literature of its inhabitants; be it Kamtschatka or the polished Persia, Japan or Portugal. The literature of a nation is the just object of attention, independent of literary excellence.

Foreign literature is full of interest from its variety, as well as from the light it sheds on the study of man. Genius remains always the same principle; the highest gift which a benevolent Providence confers on its favourites. But how differently has it ripened under the grateful splendour of an Italian sky, and in the chilling climate of the North; at the court of Louis, and on the soil of Germany! at Edinburgh and Ispahan! at Vienna and Washington! And this variety gives relief to the inventions of each nation, and an interchange of fictions is a reciprocity of benefits and literary gratifications. There are few themes of censure more general than the extravagant creations of oriental fancy, and the gorgeousness of the style in which those wild inventions are related. And yet the general inference is unjust. In regard to literary fictions, not less than precious articles of commerce, the East has given to the West more than it has received. It has peopled the air with sylphs, and filled the world of man with magic agencies; it gave many a strange tale to be wrought into beautiful shape by the more careful European artist; and furnished a theme to many an active imagination. In the Fairy Queen, to glance only at English literature, something of its manner was incorporated with Spenser's sweetness and melancholy; and if it be not enough to add the example of Pope, we may ask, whose fancy needed less than Shakspeare's the support of foreign inventions? And yet the story of the Merchant of Venice is of Eastern origin, and the Tempest and the Midsummer Night's Dream borrow their charms from the brilliant legends of the East. Thus it is, that while learning rewards its possessors, the stores which it collects and dispenses, contribute to the general instruction and amusement. These influences are remote; the nations of Europe, so closely connected by situation and political ties, are constantly exerting an influence on each other.

The result of such common interest is favourable not to the