unfavourable to steady progress as are some of their traits; reduced, as they unhappily are, by all the wrongs we have indicated, in large degree, to degradation,—are naturally unfit for self-government. We cannot believe it, when we remember how they led Europe in civilization between the 6th and 10th centuries; when we read such testimonials to their character as that of the honest Sir John Davies, the first English Justice who near three hundred years ago, administered law over all Ireland. There is,' he affirms, 'no nation under the sun, that love equal and indifferent justice better than the Irish, or will rest better satisfied with the execution thereof, although it be against themselves.'* We cannot believe that a people so loyal as the Irish have been to their faith,-so true to their ancestors and so recuperative to struggle for country and independence after all the disasters of ages, so endowed, in the language of the old chronicler already quoted, 'in mind and body, with extraordinary abilities of nature,'-so proverbial for mother-wit, so patient to labour, so genial, generous, and brave, and so gifted with genius,-are ordained to be forever the victims of hostile foreign domination. We do not believe that the countrymen of Swift and Sheridan, Moore and Grattan, Burke and Moira and Wellington, are inherently unfit to be entrusted with the regulation of their own affairs, according to their own judgment, for the protection of their own interests, and the development of their own happiness.

Only as looking to this have we respect for the revival of the old Pagan, Irish, military brotherhood, known as 'Fenianism,' which is so noisily agitating the world. If the liberation of Ireland be their honest aim, it is so far, doubtless, good. But their means and measures seem woefully disproportioned to the vast achievement. And besides, we cannot but regard with extreme distrust an organization, which threw the weight of its influence on the side of aggressive despotism, when these Southern States were struggling for the right of self-government. There is probably just foundation for the allegation which has * Plowden, Hist. Vol. I, p. 20.

repeatedly been made in even Northern publications, that the wily representatives of Northern policy wheedled Irish leaders, and through them, the uninformed people, into the belief that if they would aid in conquering the South, the power of the United States should be afterwards exerted in freeing Ireland from the British yoke. Scarcely otherwise is the strange phenomenon to be explained, of a people so thoroughly experienced in the miseries resulting from remorseless tyranny, devoting themselves to the horrible task of fastening those miseries upon another nobly struggling, and hitherto free people. It can scarcely be doubted, that but for the countless thousands of foreigners, of whom the Irish formed so large a proportion, and that always the bravest, thus inveigled into the Northern armies, our great Southern endeavour to perpetuate the principles of our fathers, and defend under them our dearest rights, would have proved a grand success. The Northern people alone, thrice our numbers as they were, would have been easily defeated to the end, as with all the world to help them they so often were, by the heroic resolution of . our people, striving for faith, home, country and honour.

That the wretched Irish, however, should under any temptation, have so extensively made common cause with falsehood and despotism here, will be to them a lasting reproach. Nor only so, but it must inevitably recoil upon them in suffering. Indeed, it has already done so; for how woefully do they find themselves deceived by the ises of deliverance which bribed them into this shameful cause! Ill, however, as they deserve for this, and sorely as they will rue it, deliverance will, we trust, one day be theirs, and ours, and the heritage of all the oppressed.

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ART. II.-History of the Atlantic Cable. By H. M. Field, D. D. 1866.

It is usually best to delay the biography of a man until his life is closed and its events and results can be summed up;

but the biography of an enterprise should always be prepared while it is successful. And as the chances in favor of the continuity of a telegraphic line are in the inverse ratio of the length of that line, the history of a strand two thousand miles long can not be too speedily written. So, though the work under consideration was published but six or eight weeks after the Atlantic Cable touched shore, we can not charge Dr. Field with undue haste in issuing his very interesting narrative.

In fact he had upon this point a warning too impressive to be neglected. When the Telegraph of 1858 was set to work, Mr. Cyrus Field was honored with an ovation when he reached New York. The streets and public buildings were so imprudently illuminated that the City Hall caught fire and was saved with difficulty. Then there was a reception at the Crystal Palace, a presentation of gold boxes, a torch-light procession at night, a banquet next day, and numerous speeches to suit the occasion, by Lord Napier, the Mayor of New York and others. At that very time the Cable was lying dead. Doubtless the inopportune information had not reached Mr. Field until the glorification. was over. Warned by this contretemps, the author of the history of the telegraph has wisely lost no time in putting forth his volume, and he has made it so interesting that even should the Cable die to-morrow (absit omen) his book will live for some time at least.

The achievement which is the subject of this book, well merits to have its history written, for it is a very great achievement; and for the same reason the authors and accomplishers of it deserve to have their names recorded with due praise. Nor will that praise be meted out to them solely in the measure of the utility of the task accomplished. There are men to whom the difficulties attendant upon an undertaking are precisely the strongest incitements to attempt it, and upon these they base their claim to the world's applause-a claim admitted to be valid even by those who do not participate in the spirit of the claimants. To this feeling we must ascribe the otherwise unaccountable efforts, begun at a very remote period and continued to

the present year, to discover under the burning heats and amid the malarious poison of the tropics, the sources of the Nile a discovery which, if made, could at most only secure geographical accuracy in a minute point, where error does no appreciable harm, and where the value of accuracy, compared with the cost of attaining it, is almost zero. And. the Frigid Zone has its parallel Quixotry in the search for the North-West passage; which, if found, could not be passed in any subsequent voyage with less hazard than attended the original discovery.

There were, unquestionably, difficulties overcome in the successful laying of the Atlantic Cable, and the object aimed at is a useful one; but neither was the difficulty, nor is the utility, so great as Dr. Field supposes; though we are far from intending to charge him with any wilful exaggeration, or to depreciate the real merits of his brother, the hero of the narrative.

The difficulties to be encountered in the attempt to make a telegraphic communication across the Atlantic, may be classified in the inverse order of their magnitude, as Scientific, Mechanical, and Administrative.

The questions to be answered by science were two. Can the line be deposited securely at the bottom of the Ocean, and can electric signals be transmitted under water, through so long a line? These inquiries were of course preliminary, and Mr. Field seems not to pretend to any scientific knowledge. He had been a merchant-a very energetic one, no doubt, and a very successful one, certainly, for he had while yet a young man, retired from business with an ample fortune. Indeed one would suppose that he had not found much time for any studies unconnected with his business, inasmuch as his brother tells us that when in 1854 the conception of an Oceanic Telegraph arose in his mind, he was not aware that the idea had ever occurred to any one before. It was well known, however, to those at all conversant with the subject, that, as early as 1843, Professor Morse, in a communication to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, had distinctly affirmed that a telegraphic communication on the electro-magnetic

plan may with certainty be established across the Atlantic Ocean.'

Nothing can be simpler or more practical than the genesis of his great enterprise in the mind of Mr. Field, as given by our author. It seems, a Mr. Gisborne, of Newfoundland, had visited Mr. C. Field in New York, for the purpose of interestin g him in a scheme to construct a telegraph across the island of Newfoundland, and to connect it with the mainland of America, in order to expedite the communication of news between England and the United States. 'After he left, Mr. Field took the globe which was standing in the library and be gan to turn it over. It was while thus studying the globe that the idea first occurred to him that the telegraph might be carried further still and made to span the Atlantic Ocean.' It is an evidence of the very practical character of Mr. Field, that having raised a question which he could not answer himself, he promptly' sought information from the highest authority on such subjects.

'The project of an Atlantic Telegraph involved two problems: Could a Cable be stretched across the ocean? And if it were, would it be good for anything to convey messages? The first was a question of mechanical difficulties, requiring a careful survey of the ocean itself, fathoming its depth, finding out the character of its bottom, whether level, or rough and volcanic; and all the obstacles that might be found in the winds that agitate the surface above, or the mighty currents that sweep through the waters below. The second problem was one less mechanical, but (and ?) more purely scientific, involving questions as to the laws of electricity, not then fully understood, and on which the boldest might feel that he was venturing on uncertain ground.'

The next morning he wrote two letters upon the subject; one to Lieutenant Matthew F. Maury, then at the head of the National Observatory at Washington, asking if a wire. could be laid on the bottom of the Atlantic, between the United States and England. Mr. Maury replied at once thaf, 'in so far as the bottom of the deep sea is concerned,'