Vainly did Wenefrede chide the old servants for indulging in loud and repeated bursts of grief; but, on reaching the bier, she was too much overcome by her own silent sorrow to be able to utter a word. Eleanor, after repeating a short prayer, turned to a servant who was standing near her with a basket on his arm, filled with small white loaves. She took several of them in her hand, and offered them across the coffin to poor women assembled on purpose to receive them. This custom, once universal at funerals in North Wales, as well as the one that is described in the following page, of offering spiced wine or ale, is evidently of Jewish origin; for Tobit, in his instructions to his son, says, Pour out thy bread on the burial of the just;' and Jeremiah, when speaking of the utter desolation that should fall upon the Jews, declares, "Neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father, or their mother.' Hosea also speaks of 'the bread of mourners.'

"All the white bread having been distributed, a servant, holding a silver salver, on which stood a large tankard of the same metal, came forward and presented the tankard, which was filled with hot ale richly spiced, to Eleanor. She tasted a few drops, and was on the point of handing it, as she had previously done the bread, to the first person who should come forward to receive it; when the tankard fell suddenly from her hand, and she uttered a low scream on perceiving that it was the hand of the stranger, who styled himself Howell Llewelyn, that was stretched forth to take it from hers. The stranger, on witnessing the confusion he had occasioned, drew back with a look of sorrow and contrition that interested in his favour those who beheld it. All present now fell on their knees, and the clergyman repeated the Lord's Prayer. Six of the nearest relations of the deceased then lifted up the bier, and proceeded towards the church, followed by the long train of distant relatives, friends, and old servants, who chanted a funeral hymn, which was repeated by the echoes from the mountains in mournful cadence. It was a sorrowful sight to see grey-headed men weeping like infants, and sad to know that they wept, not alone for the loss of the best of masters, but from an apprehension of the evils to come, now that Eleanor Llewelyn filled her father's seat. The procession having entered the church-yard, the bearers stopped and laid down the bier; all present knelt around it, and the clergyman once more repeated the Lord's Prayer."

We have now only to add, that there is much to be learned from the three volumes before us, and we shall be glad to meet the fair author again in the fields of literature.

149

ART. VIII.-The Nation, 1846. The Times, 1846. The Standard, 1846. The Dublin Evening Mail, 1846.

Freeman's Journal, 1846.

The Dublin

THE affairs of Ireland are of so complicated a nature, that we may truly say, with a pleasant writer of the time, that "if you pull one set of things right, you presently find you have pulled another set of things wrong." No sooner do you, in your own mind, redress the grievances of the Roman Catholic population, than you discover you have, by the same hand, aggrieved the Protestant population; attend to the manifest oppressions complained of by the former class, and you will see that the only means of relieving them will involve the exercise of arbitrary measures, amounting, in some cases, to tyranny over the latter; redress all the grievances and oppressions suffered by the poor tenantry of Ireland, and you will at once upset the laws of the land; enforce the just rights of labour and industry, and you interfere, perhaps unjustifiably, with the rights of property; make absentees pay a tax in proportion to their rents, and you must establish a sort of preliminary inquisition for the coercion of landlords. No doubt by this rise and fall of things, this alternation of interests, this fact of one man's good being another man's injury, is by no means confined to Ireland,—it is a worldwide fact. All we mean to say is, that at the present time Ireland is the one illustration and example of this fact which exceeds all others, and something must be done.

To discuss any question of the future state of Ireland, any probable changes in its government and in the condition of the people, it is impossible to shut our eyes to the extension of the Repeal agitation, and the great increase of funds which have been contributed to that movement. Scarcity of food, poverty and rags in their worst degree-nothing has prevented, even the most wretched districts, from sending in their regular contributions to the repeal rent of every successive week. It is true, that the most wretched and needy individuals have not assisted in these subscriptions, but absolute inability, and nothing else, has prevented them. A sufficient number, by some means or other, and whatever may have been their condition, have contrived to scrape up money every week for this purpose. Even while we write this, and while accounts of distress are continually pouring in from the provinces, the repeal rent for the last week (ending Saturday, May 30th) amounted to no less than

£355. 16s. To such persevering demonstrations as these among great masses of people, and with such results before us, we can only say, as the Times long since said of the Anti-Corn-Law League, that the Repeal Agitation is "a great fact."

That any sane person could have advocated the separation of Ireland from England, situated as the two countries are, geographically and in other respects, is difficult to believe, and would be quite incredible did we not know that political leaders occasionally aim at something preposterous, with a view to obtaining something reasonable as a modification and amendment of the demand. To look at the map, to understand the common principles of gravitation, to call to mind the history of all islands in the proximity of islands or continents of superior power and influence, to consider the expediencies as well as advantages of all commercial relations, these and a hundred other considerations, all crowd upon the mind in attestation and illustration of the impossibility of the mere idea of separation being tolerated by the understanding. Nor do the friends of Ireland contemplate such a thing; even the O'Connell party, and all the Repealers as a body, boldly disclaim any such project in contemplation. If a furious handful of the Young Ireland party sometimes talk in a strain that seems to "trumpet" in this direction, it is only for effect, and to let off a little of the political steam that oppresses them and must find a vent. Nobody really has any such view in his mind, and we have only alluded to it because there are many persons in England who, not being aware of the actual condition of mind among the Irish Repealers, have thought otherwise.

Ministers, and leading men of all parties, now appear anxious that something really effectual and permanent should be done for Ireland. The great "difficulty," however, is to determine what shall be done, and how every thing that is wrong shall be put in a fair way of becoming right, without doing wrong in fresh places. Previously to entering upon this examination, it will be requisite to take a glance-brief and stern, yet in no superficial or unsympathizing spirit, at the present condition of the people. We must next notice what the Government has done to meet this condition, and we shall then be in a better position to consider what further measures are practically necessary for the future welfare and order of the country.

Distress is no new thing in Ireland. It is not the less painful

In July, however, and nearly up to the latest period of the month, only £80 had been collected; we believe the rent may be considered, notwithstanding the above communication of our talented correspondent, to be in a state of rapid decline. (ED.)

on this account, and certainly the fact becomes the more serious, inasmuch as it shows that there is some rooted evil at work, and that the present state of things is not attributable to accidental causes. Lord Devon, Mr. Nicholls, M. Beaumont, every government commissioner, Mr. Foster, the Times' commissioner, and every other traveller in Ireland, natives, foreigners, and literary men of whatever political opinions, all have agreed in the actual and immediate presence of want and misery among the people. As to the causes of this state of things, there are no doubt a variety of opinions, but the majority are pretty well agreed upon the main point; viz. that in the absence of manufactures, there is a constant struggle for land, which raises the bidding for rents to a ruinous height; and that the payment of these high_rents carries all the best of the produce out of the country. Land is gambled for at home, and the winner sends the crops, which are his dearly-bought prize, to be consumed abroad. Mr. Foster says in his book, (see page 30,) that “the absence of capital tends to confine productive industry to the land. It is a law of nature that population increases, but the land does not increase: the land will yield but a certain amount of produce, which is limited; but the increase of population is unlimited." We must here pause to enter a protest against this application of Malthusian theories to the question of land and population in Ireland,-not that we dispute this theory as an ultimate result, but as one the fair application of which is so remote with respect to a country so imperfectly cultivated as Ireland at present is. So long as the vast tract of bog, which with other extensive desolations amounts to upwards of six millions of acres of waste land; and so long, in addition, as six or seven hundred thousand acres are lying under water with no effort at reclamation; while the food in the sea, by the want of the requisite fisheries, is left unappropriated, do not tell us that there is any propriety in bringing the Malthusian doctrine to bear upon Ireland in proof of the inevitable necessity for starvation. The necessity is a very long way off.

The following positions by the same writer are more admissible. "Being confined to the produce of the land for subsistence," says he, "an increasing proportion of that produce must necessarily be consumed as population increases, &c. It is manifest that, from this cause amongst others, that wealth cannot increase nor capital accumulate, to afford other means of employment. This condition, again, insures other evils,-intense competition for land, (the only means of subsistence,) want of employment, starvation, discontent, and disturbance. Disturbance carries with it insecurity, and insecurity drives away capital from the country,-drives away the only remedy for the

evil. These appear to me to be the evils, reacting upon and reproducing each other, under which Ireland has perpetually laboured. It is an unhappy circle of mischief, out of which all political disturbances have arisen." He also designates it as a circle of evils, of which "insecurity is the prime cause," and says, that capital, which the want of security drives away, is the only remedy; but the prime cause is manifestly a little further, to seek for what causes this insecurity? Simply this: it has been forgotten that the labourer, born upon the land, having no other means of support, must live by the land; but because the land has, for the most part, passed into alien hands, (and no sort of reproach or reflection is, of course, meant by this statement, which is only matter of history,) for this reason the great mass of the people, the descendants of the conquered Celtic race, are left destitute upon the soil where they are now in a condition little better than that of serfs. In their extreme difficulty in obtaining the commonest means of existence, a struggle ensues; the struggle of course produces a disturbance in the regular order and progress of affairs, and in the attempt to suppress this, and to maintain order in the very heart of disorder, a long train of evils is originated.

Having travelled through the provinces of Ireland some months since, and through the most distressed districts, and having witnessed the degraded and wretched condition of the people, it seemed to us, that when the Government became more fully and satisfactorily aware of this, and of the absolute necessity of disregarding all the contradictory statements of mere party-spirit, there would no longer be any hesitation as to efficient relief, and the immediate adoption of some measures of wise and benevolent policy for the future. The Government sent emisaries to inquire; and on their return with a full report, other inquirers were sent to inquire into the same facts. This was continued till it became ridiculously apparent that the whole business had turned into a system of inquirers into inquiries; and the officers thus employed were presenting a resemblance to squirrels in revolving cages, who work round and round with staring eyes and wasted energies, and have no chance of making the least progress beyond their prescribed circle. Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham then, "in the handsomest manner," stepped forward, with a full recognition of the immediate pressure of extreme distress among great masses of the people, and of the commencement of famine and fever in various districts and numerous parishes.

It was natural, that any one who had assisted in any degree to make known to the English public the actual condition of millions of the people in Ireland, should feel a deep interest in