At another time:

Boswell. "Pray, Mr. Dilly, how does Dr. Leland's History of Ireland sell?"

Johnson. [Bursting forth with a generous indignation.] "The Irish are in a most unnatural state; for we see there the minority prevailing over the majority. There is no instance, even in the Ten Persecutions [of the Christians,] of such severity as that which the Protestants of Ireland have exercised against the Catholics. Did we tell them we have conquered them, it would be above board; to punish them by confiscation, and other penalties, as rebels, was monstrous injustice. King William was not their lawful sovereign; he had not been acknowledged, by the Parliament of Ireland, when they appeared in arms against him."

In looking for the causes of Irish degradation, the philosophical principle applies, to seek for no more causes than are sufficient to produce the phenomena. We think that the history of Ireland, fairly examined, shows sufficient causes for her present condition, without resorting to any theoretical inferiority of the Celt to the Anglo-Saxon.

There seems much reason to suppose, with many writers, that a majority of the people of Ireland are, after all, of Anglo-Saxon origin, the descendants of the successive English colonies settled in Ireland. Previous to the Reformation, all the English, as well as native Irish, were, of course, Catholics. A very great portion of the descendants of those English settlers in Ireland have become Catholic. It is said that nearly all the descendants of the Cromwellian settlers now belong to that sect. There is no question that the proportion of Catholics to Protestants has been rapidly increasing since near the commencement of the reign of Charles the Second to the present time.

How far the great increase in the proportion of Catholics, notwithstanding the great wealth of one church and the poverty of the other, may be explained by the following extracts we leave our readers to judge. It is a subject of much importance to the clergy and people of the different religious sects in our own country.

O. Driscoll says, in his History of Ireland:

"The extreme anxiety of the Church of England to preserve its connection with the crown was not surprising. The established religion of England is the religion of the rich and polite; but, as these classes are rarely religious, the church has little hold upon society, whatever may be its importance as a parliamentary, or

state machine. Deprived of the countenance of government, the Episcopal church would lose almost all its support. The middle and lower orders of the people hang loosely upon it, or are scattered among the sectaries.

"The Church of England has never been able to attain what that of Rome has so perfectly accomplished-to be the religion of the rich and poor. The secret, perhaps, is to be found in the grand spectacle of the sacrifice which the Roman Church presents in her celibacy, which gives her ministry the semblance, if not the reality of a vocation; while the British Church has all the appearance, and in many cases the reality of a mere profession.

"The Reformed Church, too, had, in the outset, the taint of impure motive. The great men of the Reformation had little other object in view than the plunder of the old establishment. Nor, when the new church had accumulated wealth, was the contrast favorable, which she presented, with the old. The old establishment, like the new, had been greedy of wealth, but had used it differently. Notwithstanding many abuses, the poor were provided for; at her expense the sick and the stranger had provision made for their wants. Her Orders of Charity were multiplied as the exigencies of the people increased. Mansions of hospitality were erected for the wayfarer in the desert. Her 'missions' extended over the globe, and were often zealous and devoted. At home, her tenants lived in ease and abundance, on her domains, and hardly felt the light rents they paid, while she reared everywhere costly and beautiful churches at her own expense, and without charge to the people, for the worship of God and the ornament of the country.

"All this was changed at the Reformation. With the purer doctrines of the Reformed Church, came an increase of the burdens of the people. Charity and zeal (odd effect) seemed extinguished by the truth. The poor, and the sick, and the stranger, were left to the tender mercies of the parish officers; the missions ceased; the Orders of Mercy were no more; the expense of building churches was thrown upon the laity; a new and meaner order of architecture showed the melancholy change which had taken place. The tithe was collected with severity; and the pastors and the flock exhausted their animosities in the courts of law."

But to what purpose is it to remind us of the laws now repealed? Because, though many of the bad laws are repealed, the consequences remain. The evil that men do lives after them, and the laws passed the last century must have had a much greater share in forming the present Irish character, than all the laws and acts of government since that time. A nation, degraded and demoralized by conquest, confiscation

of property, a bad social system, and centuries of misgovernment, is not easily renovated. Is it to be expected that an ignorant, idle, turbulent, and vicious population will, by a mere repeal of bad laws, become industrious, provident, moral, and intelligent? The supposition is contrary to all history and experience; to all the laws, so far as they are known, which regulate the human mind in individuals and communities. Though most of the bad laws are repealed, their spirit and disastrous effects remain in full vigor. The Irish have, for centuries, been taught by sad experience to regard the government as their enemy, and, practically, they cannot be said now to enjoy its benefits.

But it may be said that the present generation and present government of England are not responsible for the conduct of their ancestors and predecessors. True, so far as they do not put themselves in the way of reformation, and so far as they do what they can to redress the wrongs of Ireland. What is the remedy, is the important question for the British government. Unluckily, here, we apprehend that the maxim of law will not be found correct: that there is no wrong without a remedy.

There is reason to think that the English government is now more disposed to do justice to Ireland, and adopt some measures for her benefit, than at any former period. The very little effect produced by some measures from which great good was anticipated is somewhat discouraging, and reminds one of the following remarkable passage in Spenser's State of Ireland: "Marry, so there have been divers good plottes devised, and wise councils cast already, about reformation of that realm; but they say it is the fatall destiny of that land, that no purposes whatever which are meant for her good, will prosper, or take good effect; which, whether it proceed from the very genius of the soyle or influence of the starres, or that Almighty God hath not yet appointed the time of her reformation, or that hee reserveth her in this unquiet state still for some secret scourge which shall by her come into England, it is hard to be knowne, yet much to be feared.”

The following extract from the character of Bacon, in Campbell's "Lives of the Lord Chancellors," shows us the views of that great man concerning Ireland. When it is considered that this advice was given by Bacon before any English colonies were planted in America, the contrast now, between Ireland and the United States, might afford matter for grave re

flection, and perhaps instruction, to the present rulers of the British empire:

"The advice Bacon gave respecting Ireland is beyond all praise; and, never having been steadily acted upon, it is unfortunately highly applicable to our own times. On New Year's day, 1606, he presented to the king, (James the First,) as a' Gift,' a' Discourse touching the Plantation in Ireland,' saying to him, 'I assure myself that England, Scotland, and Ireland, well united, is such a trefoil as no Prince, except yourself, who are the worthiest, weareth in his crown;' and points out to him how, by liberality and kindness, the union might be accomplished. He displays a most intimate knowledge of the miseries of Ireland, their causes and cure. This desolate and neglected country is blessed with almost all the doweries of nature, with rivers, havens, woods, quarries, good soil, temperate climate, and a race and generation of men valiant, hard, and active, as it is not easy to find such confluence of commodities,- if the hand of man did join with the hand of nature: but they are severed, the harp of Ireland is not strung nor attuned to concord.'"

THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS IN RUSSIA.

IN a former number of this Journal we said something of the financial condition of Russia. We now propose to speak of the state of commerce and industry. Russia has advanced in a pretty regular and natural manner from pastoral life to agriculture; but this advance was not made by the voluntary efforts of free men, as in the United States of America, but by means of compulsory labor. The owners of land did not find willing laborers among its poor men, so they availed themselves of the base character of the usurper Boris Godunoff, who was czar from 1597 to 1605, and obtained a law that peasants residing on any estate should be attached to the soil, and forbidden for the future to remove from it. At that time, the land-owners, with their connections, formed the main portion of the Russian army, and it was only with their aid that the czar could retain the absolute power which he had acquired by murder and various other enormities. Since agriculture was not conducted by the hands of free men, it continued in a very imperfect state, and never flourished to a great degree; for men only work to the best advantage when they labor from

their own impulse. One need only look at Russia to be satisfied of this.

The intelligent advisers of Peter the Great seem to have known that agriculture, though the primitive source of national wealth, is not sufficient; so, accordingly, they took measures to open the next source of prosperity: namely, commerce. But here they almost wholly lost sight of the fact that men do nothing well without freedom. They thought they were managing shrewdly in advancing trade at the expense of agriculture. Accordingly, men, entirely or partially slaves, at the emperor's command, were forced to apply themselves to trade and manufactures, as before they were compelled to engage in agriculture the fruits of which others were to enjoy. The population of whole provinces was withdrawn from agriculture, which still needed their labor, in order to build a city, in the swamps of the Neva, which might serve as a commercial metropolis. After this had been done, at the cost of their lives, another decree collected in it the people of distant and interior provinces, and they were compelled to live there and apply themselves to commerce or mechanical arts, while the people of yet other regions had been taken as soldiers to conquer these swamps, and then defend them. The czar himself appeared in person, at the head of these mechanics, for, with his own hands, he worked as a carpenter, as a thresher, and a blacksmith. The rod, put in motion by the supreme hands of the czar, drove others to imitate his example.

Trade is inseparably connected with navigation. But the Russian, like the Jew, shuns the water. So the czar himself became a sailor, and, with his own hands, goaded his people on to imitation of himself. This was the beginning of Russian commerce; it promised no rich return, not even to be permanent. It was begun and continued by brutal violence. Yet, foolish and short-sighted as it may appear to any one who looks deeply, it is still continued to the present day. There has been established a brutal and sometimes a perfidious system of commercial policy, because nothing better could be built on a foundation so bad, and because one evil always brings another in its train.

After this rapid glance, let us see more minutely how affairs in Russia were brought to their present condition. Under Peter the Great, and his successors, the arms of Russia were carried to the East, to the Black Sea, and the Northern Ocean. Nothing seemed more likely to promote the commerce