Madame Murat, with a view to obtain some compensation from her for the severe losses which he sustained by embarking with her husband. She answered him at first with many expressions of sympathy, and promises of assistance as soon as her circumstances would enable her to do so. These promises were repeated from time to time by herself, as well as by Marshal Macdonald, who appears to have the chief control of her household. She found the means to purchase a very considerable estate in Austria; but she at length stated that the expectations of her children, and the expenses of her establishment, prevented her from doing any thing for Franceschetti. The correspondence continued down to 1823, and adds one more to the many instances already on record, that no services, no sacrifices, are sufficient to secure the gratitude of those who have been bred in courts. The French government had at length the humanity to place Franceschetti on the half-pay list as a retired colonel, and this is the only fund upon which his large family have to subsist. Doubless he is much to blame for his imprudence in having risked their little property upon so wild an adventure.

ART. IX.

L'Hermite en Irelande; ou Observations sur les Mœurs et Usages des Irlandois au commencement du XIX siecle. 2 Tomes, 12mo. 118. Paris: Pillet ainé. London: Treuttel and Wurtz. THIS forms part of a very pleasing collection of works illustrative of French, English, Italian, and Spanish manners. They are written in a light and popular style; the customs of the different countries of which they treat are generally elucidated rather by anecdotes than by essays; and if now and then we encounter a misrepresentation, we are inclined to excuse it in a writer who seems so well pleased with himself and every thing around him.

Doubtless he does not always rigidly sustain his character as a hermit, for he appears to be better acquainted with the world, and to feel a greater interest in its affairs, than seems meet for an anchorite. In the difficult science of love too he is, strange to say, a perfect adept; and though we are bound to suppose his hair to be "silvered o'er with age," yet he writes of the emotions of the heart with all the fervour of early manhood. Further, he is by turns a historian, a politician, an antiquary, a philosopher, and a travelier. In the latter capacity he shines with great lustre, for he transports himself at will from the Appenine to the Pyrennees, and thence to the Galties in Tipperary; hermit though he be, he seems almost to have the power of ubiquity, and to be very fully informed on every subject which can interest his readers.

His style is simple and fluent, without aiming at any higher degree of excellence. The topics which he selects for illustration, are those which are best calculated to display the peculiarities of each country; and they are handled in a concise, animated, and judi

cious manner. We are disposed to think that, as French schoolbooks, these productions ought to supersede many of the dull and tiresome works which are now in use. They hardly deserve to be placed in a library as books of reference; but as sources of desultory amusement, joined to a fair proportion of instruction, they can be nowhere out of place.

Our 'hermit,' in taking Ireland for his theme, has chosen a perplexing and melancholy subject. What remains to be said of a country whose principal pride seems to consist in the contemplation of her ruins? America boasts of what she is to be, England of what she is, but Ireland can only feel pride in looking far, very far, back on what she has been. Her connection with this country would have been of incalculable advantage to both parties, if she had been treated from its commencement with any thing like justice. She was blessed with a fertility in soil, with a prolific abundance of men, distinguished by their industry, their talents for war or peace, who stood always ready to serve this country with every thing which she could possibly have wanted in order to promote her security and glory, and nothing was required to bring forth the flower of their strength but the summons of the trumpet. Every field of battle that has been trodden, in either hemisphere, for the last five hundred years, has attested the fidelity of Ireland to this country; and yet what has she received as her reward? Injustice, oppression, spoliation, laws that would disgrace the barbarians of Sumatra―these have been the consequences of her conscientious adherence to Great Britain.

When we speak of such consequences, it is a necessary supposition that the causes of them must have been of no very recent growth. Ireland suffers at this moment the accumulated pressure of the wrongs, that have been inflicted on her by the iniquitous course of government, under which she languished from the time of Henry II. down to the Union. If that measure had been acted upon according to Mr. Pitt's intentions, from 1800 to 1826, Ireland, instead of being the pity of the cultivated world, the country to which the words poor, "unhappy," "injured," "degraded," are proverbially applied, would have been at this day a resource to England in her commercial embarrassments, a copious and swelling fountain from which she might drink new life. But unhappily it was not until within these last seven years, that even the due administration of justice between man and man in that part of the empire was thought of any importance by the ministers of Great Britain. Some ameliorations have been attempted in other branches of the system prevailing in Ireland, but hitherto they have been resisted by the active intrigues of a party struggling for the remains of power, and with a degree of success which we must always expect them to maintain, so long as the local government of that country is in the hands of two officers equal, we may say, in authority, and opposed to each other in politics. But we are getting

into a dissertation, when our business is with the engaging volumes that lie before us.

The author requests his readers to believe that he is a hermit, about sixty years old, possessed of an independent fortune, and that he is not the sage who, much to the amusement of the literary world, has not long since traversed the Chausée-d'Antin and the provinces of France. That he is not M. Jouy every page of his work attests: there was no necessity whatever for his disavowal. He wants the piquant, epigrammatic, and, at the same time, highly philosophic turn of thought, which distinguishes the productions of that celebrated writer. Neither does he seem, like M. Jouy, to have gleaned from actual observation his knowledge of the manners which he describes. His acquaintance with Ireland appears to be entirely collected from books, and the anecdotes and traits of Irish character which are to be found in fugitive publications. It requires, however, considerable talent to put such gleanings together in a manner that will reflect a tolerably correct picture of the country, and this we hesitate not to say is done in the present work. Undoubtedly the author is betrayed by his personal ignorance of Ireland into some exaggerations; and, like all foreigners, he fails frequently to catch the peculiar features of a people, the most original perhaps on the face of the globe, whether we consider them in their grave or mirthful moments, the perpetrators or the victims of crime, the host or the guest, the rioters in luxury, or the patient sufferers of every description of privation. But this must be expected under the circumstances; and we feel too grateful to the author for calling the attention of his countrymen to an island, of which many amongst them have hitherto known little more than the name. He declares that he is the advocate of no party, that men of all opinions have access to his hermitage, that the whiteboy and the orangeman, the catholic and the protestant clergyman, captain Rock and a secretary of the Lord-Lieutenant (!!) are sometimes found seated side by side in his cell. Thus, he says, he becomes acquainted with every thing that passes in the world.

"When I speak of the world, however, I should inform my readers that the world, for me, is Ireland. What signifies it to me that the Spanish American colonies shall become independent, or remain oppressed by the yoke of the mother country, provided that in my island the crop of potatoes be abundant? Why should I afflict myself about the hostility which prevails in France between the liberals and the ultras, provided that I see the fire of intestine division which has so long raged in my own country extinguished by degrees? What interest can I take in the war between the Turks and Greeks, when auspicious symptoms induce me to hope I shall at length see the termination of that, which has been waged for so many centuries, almost incessantly, between the catholics and the protestants of unfortunate Ireland? Let me not at the same time be accused therefore of ignorance, or of indifference to the general interests of mankind; but I have immediately before my eyes too many objects to excite

my sensibility, to allow of its being strongly moved by those which I can perceive only through the assistance of a telescope.'-Vol. i. pp. 4, 5.

In this passage the author, without intending it, has read a highly instructive lesson to the legislature and people of this country. It is but too true, that our fellow-subjects in Ireland entertain so much anxiety about the mere means of existence, and keep their feelings so ardently fixed upon one political object-their emancipationthat they have not a thought, or a wish, upon any of those topics which are every hour discussed in every part of Great Britain with the, most eager attention. This, in a country which is, or ought to be, governed by public opinion, is in itself an evil of great magnitude. When a measure of importance is agitated in Parliament, as for instance the slave trade, we see in England the counties and parishes and corporate bodies of every description enter warmly into the question, deciding upon it according to their sense of the general welfare, and expressing their opinion upon it to the legislature in clear and manly language. Sometimes they are wrong, and always so when they meet together under the influence of prejudice. But it is infinitely more conducive to the preservation of the rights and liberties of this nation, that the people should even be frequently erroneous in their decisions upon public questions, than that they should take no interest in them at all. If, like the people of Ireland, they were stripped of their best privileges, their sense of injury and of insult would be so intense upon that point, that they could not attend to any other grievance until those privileges were restored. It would harrass them throughout the day, it would be the dismal companion of their sleep by night, and, like our hermit, they would not think it of the slightest consequence to themselves, whether the colonies of Spanish America were enfranchised or enslaved, whether the Greeks or the Turks were triumphant. See then to what a state of humiliation, of abject insignificance, England would have been reduced, if such had been the apathy of the majority of her inhabitants! But see also Ireland actually existing in that humiliation, a mere nonentity among the nations of the earth, and a cypher in the quantum of public opinion in an empire of which it forms an integral part-an empire not only governed itself by the force and authority of mind, but influencing the whole civilized as well as the savage world, through the same miraculous instrument. Assuredly there is something wrong, and a great deal detrimental to the general interests, in thus placing one portion of a "kingdom," said to be "united," in a situation from which it can only utter one monotonous cry-"restore to us our liberties!".

It is impossible for any writer who pretends to treat of Ireland, not to make her political grievances the most prominent subject of his remarks. Our 'Hermit,' however, does not bestow upon them a disproportionate share of his work; he enters with considerable spirit into the minor characteristics of the country. We shall

translate some passages from one of his papers, entitled 'The Bandit,' which, so far as it goes, is at least in perfect keeping with the scene where the story is laid.

The cold and humid wind of a dark December night was blowing from the mountains called The Galties, in the county of Cork, when a postchaise, conveying a single traveller, was overturned near their base. Anxious as he was to continue his journey, his vehicle required repair, and he was under the necessity of seeking refuge for the night at the inn of a neighbouring village. When business compels a man to expose himself to the inclemency of the weather, the humblest roof that affords a shelter to poverty appears to him an enviable palace; and when Robert Carrol (such was the traveller's name) perceived, through the windows of the village tavern, a large fire blazing on the hearth, he felt more than ever the coldness of the air, and began to think that the accident which had occurred to him would not be without some compensation.

'Mr. Carrol was a young gentleman of a respectable family, but whose property was incumbered by considerable debts, contracted by his ancestors during several generations. It is easy for a rich family to get into debt, but it is very seldom that they can so easily meet the day of payment, and that day, sooner or later, inevitably comes. After liquidating all the incumbrances which were charged upon his patrimony, Carrol found it reduced almost to nothing. He had, however, a rich uncle, who possessed the power of leaving him a large fortune; but the old man's favour depended upon one condition, that all his whims and caprices should be followed without any hesitation or complaint. Carrol wished to go to the bar; his uncle was desirous of sending him to India, and never ceased to talk of the rupees which he had himself amassed. The young man, however, obtained permission to spend a year at the University of Dublin, his uncle thinking that this was an excellent school for forming the character, and for contracting habits of emulation, industry, and prudence. But circumstances defeat the best designs, and on this occasion they destroyed equally the hopes of the uncle and the nephew.

'Carrol formed an acquaintance in Dublin with the family of a rich merchant, who had a daughter for whom art could do nothing, so liberal to her was nature of every gift that could fascinate. Generally speaking, the Irish enter into trade only with the view of acquiring riches, and then of renouncing it. Hence it happens that the merchants bestow on their children an education similar, and sometimes even superior, to that which is given to persons of the first distinction. A well cultivated mind lent new charms to Fanny Conway, for intelligence is to beauty that which light is to a picture. Carrol, young, ardent, and enthusiastic, the first time he saw Fanny burned with the desire of seeing her again. His visits were repeated; he was agreeably received, and he never left her but she asked him when he would return. Growing bold in time, he at length mustered sufficient courage to declare the passion with which she inspired him, and he believed that he was at the summit of earthly felicity when he obtained from her a confession that she loved him. They communicated their sentiments to their respective families; but they experienced an opposition which they were far from expecting, and he was forbidden to see her again. Carrol's uncle did not like to hear of a project which had not originated with himself, and which militated against his design