of the commission imply that the landed proprietors of the sister country are intrinsically worse than the corresponding class in England. The English landowner, with all the comfort and security which he derives from a thriving neighbourhood and a loyal tenantry, has but few of those temptations to desert and encumber his property which surround the unfortunate victim of Tenant-right Conspiracies, nocturnal depredation, agenticide, sectarian riots, and cabbage garden revolutions. It makes a material difference as regards the inclination of a country gentleman to reside upon and improve his estate, whether punctual payments and respect for law secure to him the possession and enjoyment of the income derived from it, or whether his property lies in a district where order is preserved only by the presence of some 30,000 troops, and when, on any considerable diminution of these numberless mysterious unions, all the lawless fraternity, which Sidney Smith described as the bloody boyhood of the Bog of Allan,' would start into predatory and insurrectionary life. In speaking of the Irish landlords we are bound carefully to consider how far their misfortunes have been a natural consequence of the condition of that country, and how far that condition has itself been the result of Imperial misgovernment.

"The prosperity of the north, which, as the Irish papers inform us, unconscious of the compliment they are paying to Her Majesty's service, is clearly evidenced by the fact that 'no recruits are to be had in Belfast for glory or money,' does not appear to be accompanied by a corresponding improvement in the south and west of Ireland. Yet even in these districts, the poor-rates have sensibly diminished, and the demand for agricultural produce has improved. That a more marked amelioration has not taken place in that country, is probably to be attributed to that ruinous drain of the population with which it has long been affected, and which is every day augmenting.

"Numbers of tenant-farmers, whose energies and whose money were essential to the re-establishment of prosperity, have left, and are leaving the country; and while we may

expect that a great requisite for the resuscitation of Ireland, viz. capital, will be gradually introduced, there is danger that a scarcity of labour may seriously obstruct its beneficial operation.

ON THE IRISH AGRICULTURAL LAW REPORT.

In a Paper on the Irish Agricultural Law Report, Lord Hobart writes:

"We view, with peculiar interest, every indication of the rise and progress of a more energetic and self-relying spirit; and among the various signs of this improved feeling which have from time to time come under our notice, few have given us more satisfaction than we have derived from a perusal of the report recently issued of the proceedings during the year 1850 of the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland. The prospect of an ameliorated social condition, which that document holds out, is to us far more gratifying because less likely to prove deceptive, than that afforded by the mere fact of diminishing poor-rates, or of increasing sales of encumbered estates.

"An Irish traveller will perceive that the system of farming on the other side of the Channel is immeasurably inferior to that practised in this country, and that an increase of agricultural skill is what is most wanted, both to render cultivated lands more productive and to bring waste lands into cultivation.

The end of this review necessarily took into account the condition of feeling as it then referred to the proposed Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. The legislation and controversial disputes which resulted from that unhappy subject have produced their own remedy, and it may be wiser not to reopen a controversy which has always embittered the relations between England and Ireland in the past. The reaction produced by recent legislation must in time conciliate both countries; but the beauty of the following

VOL. I.

D

paragraph which predicted the course of events need not be omitted. The prediction has been literally fulfilled.

"In the present temper of the public mind it may, perhaps, seem idle to point to a repeal of the Titles Act as the proper remedy for the evil; yet we are convinced that, at no very distant date, such will be the opinion of a large number of the statesmen and politicians who unresistingly acquiesced in the measure of last session. The progress of enlightened liberality has, indeed, received a check which must have painfully surprised all steady supporters of the cause of justice and toleration; but every day's experience and reflection will contribute to restore the tone of the national mind, and to remove the cloud under which prejudice and passion have temporarily hidden from view the beauty and truth of religious liberty."

IRISH POOR-LAW REPORT.

At the end of a review, on the Irish Poor-Law Report, the summary has a forcible bearing on recent discussions: "That desperate competition for the possession of the soil, which is the effect of the 'cottier' and 'conacre' systems, leads to the offer of exorbitantly high rents, the payment of which is never for a moment seriously contemplated by the bidder, and which indeed it is absolutely impossible that he should pay. The tenant, therefore, whether farmer or labourer, is almost invariably in debt to his landlord. Under such circumstances, any improvement of his land would merely go to enrich the latter; for all that the occupier produces, over and above the wretched provision which he calls 'necessaries' of life, is absorbed in the rent. Consequently, his only inducement to labour is the fear of ejectment, or rather of the starvation which would ensue. Of this solitary motive to industry the Poor-Law deprived him, and a further deterioration of his character was the inevitable consequence; while, at the same time, the augmented pressure upon capital, caused by the poor-rate, diminished his chance of receiving remunerative employment. The evil, however, appears at length to be working out its own

cure.

The vast amount of emigration to America, which is now in progress, is opening the field to English and Scottish enterprise, and is preparing, we can scarcely doubt, more prosperous times for Ireland. We may hope that a period is at last approaching when Bishop Berkeley's naïve query, 'whether there be any nation on the earth so beggarly destitute as the Common Irish,' will have lost its melancholy and shameful significance. Yet even when all visible traces of the recent terrible calamity shall have passed away, it will be impossible to reflect without bitter regret, on the fact that death and wholesale depopulation were the only remedies which effectually extirpated the malady."

DEMAND ON IRISH UNIONS.

"Nothing, surely, could have been more utterly reckless, or less worthy of experienced statesmen, than the Public Works Act of 1846. Grant that there was but little time for thought, whilst the necessity for action was immediate; still, was there no conceivable method by which the Irish people might be fed in one year without necessarily subjecting them to want of employment in the next? Was there no possible mode of ensuring some return for the sums which were so copiously lavished? It was urged that the object of the Act was not to construct useful works, but to supply the people with food. The people were to be fed. How they were to be fed, or at what cost to the country, was of very little consequence. This open avowal of a total disregard of all economical considerations-this confession that no deliberation was thought necessary as to the most beneficial method of performing an act of humanity—is a complete admission of all the charges brought against the Government. The people were to be fed-it mattered little whether by operations of tillage, which would pay a fair percentage on the outlay, or by roads which were never to be completed, and, if they were, would never be used.

'Even, then, on the supposition that far more decided symptoms of recovery from distress than any which are yet apparent presented themselves in Ireland, we should be

opposed to the immediate and rigorous exaction of these claims. But, in the present condition of that country, any inclination to the side of severity is peculiarly to be deprecated. That condition is one the social and political importance of which can hardly be over-estimated. There are probably few who have had either the ability or the leisure to take a well-grounded view of its probable effect on the destinies of civilised nations, more especially upon those of Great Britain. We have yet hardly recovered from the amazement caused by the sight of a great nation leaving the land of its birth and the institutions of its fathers. The phenomenon, however, seems now to be pretty generally considered as one which is not much to be lamented, and that large class of persons by whom all social evils are attributed to superabundance of population are disposed to regard it with unmixed satisfaction. For ourselves, we are unable to see so copious and sustained a flow of the very heart's blood of the empire without anxiety and misgiving; and ignoring the critical and alarming circumstances of the sister country will not add to a reputation either for good feeling or for political sagacity."

The extracts which follow are from private letters, written to me or to members of the family. They have been selected with an idea of preserving features which show something of the combination of power and charm which were characteristic of Lord Hobart's mind. The care with which opinions were maintained only so far as they stood the test of truth and reason, and the absence of selfinterest, speak for themselves and are in harmony with the whole character of his official career. Descriptions of scenery are given which are too artistic to be lost.

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS WRITTEN ABOUT THE YEAR 1850-51.

"I have seen enough of the world to feel how vain and unsatisfactory are its pleasures and occupations. Even