even the present was scarcely full enough for the craving of a spirit that cried ever "Forward."

What might be made of that night's success-how best should it be turned to account!-these were the thoughts which beset him, and many were the devices which his subtlety hit on to this end. There was not a goal his ambition could point to, but which came associated with some deteriora

ting ingredient. He was tired of the Continent, he hated England, he shuddered at the Colonies. India, perhaps, said he, hesitatingly-India perhaps might do. To continue as he was to remain in office, as having reached the topmost rung of the ladder-would have been insupportable indeed; and yet how, without longer service at his post, could any man claim a higher reward?

ISAAC WELD, ESQ., M.R.I.A.,

VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL DUBLIN SOCIETY, ETC., ETC..

THE year that is just past has swept away with it its full quota of the great and the good. The casualties of life, ordinary and extraordinary, and the slow-wasting hand of time have each done their allotted work. Amongst those whom the inexorable hand of Death has withdrawn from amongst us, one there was whose claims upon the grateful recollection of his country are too numerous and too long-existing to be readily forgotten in Ireland; whose long life, from the earliest morn of its manhood to the calm and honored close of its evening, was devoted to those pursuits and studies that, while they elevate and accomplish the man himself, advance and benefit the human family. But the names of such men as Isaac Weld do not always find a place in the great records of a nation's history. Like him there are in the world many labourers who, by their active and useful lives, toil to advance the great work of humanity, yet leave not their names inscribed as master-builders upon the edifice which they assist to rear and to beautify. But they, too, shall have their chroniclers; and their names shall be found written upon monuments less conspicuous indeed, but yet not less enduring-monuments that stand not in the great thoroughfares of the earth, but in some of those pleasant bye-ways that all along and in every age lead into the broad causeways, and pour into them rich streams of human thought and human action-some temple of science, some work of art, some volume rich in thought and in the stores of travel and of wisdom. Such a monument we would now raise to the memory of Isaac Weld. Elsewhere he has already received ampler illustration. But while, in the peculiar sphere of his life-long labours, he shall not fail of full honors, be it ours to give larger publicity to his talents and his worth.

The family of Weld, though not originally Irish, was transplanted hither about two centuries ago. The first of the name who settled here was the Rev. Edmund Weld, who accompanied Oliver Cromwell to Ireland, and established himself at Blarney, in the county of Cork, where he took charge of the Independents of the district. It would seem this Edmund had come from America, whither his father Thomas, a Protestant clergyman of great piety and learning (descended from an ancient Dorsetshire family) had emigrated from England at the close of the 16th century, having resigned two livings there rather than abandon his principles at the time when conformity to the mode of worship and church government as established by the State was first enforced. The branch of his family that took root in America still bears fruit there, and the name is to be found in the records of Harvard College, and as ministers in the Northern States. From Edmund Weld sprang Nathaniel, who was born in 1660, and was admitted as a preacher in the twentyfirst year of his age, and ordained co-pastor of New Row conjointly with the Rev. Nathaniel Mather, in February, 1682. The troubles in the reign of King James drove him, with many other ministers, out of Ireland in 1688. He took refuge in London, where he met with uncommon acceptance as a preacher, and had liberal offers to induce him to remain. But no worldly prospects could tempt him to abandon that flock to whom he was justly dear, and whon to

the last he loved with the truest affection. On the settlement of affairs by William the Third he returned to his country and his people, amongst whom he laboured with unremitting zeal (accompanying them to their present place of worship in New Row) till his death in February, 1783. The learned antiquarian Dr. Leland preached his funeral sermon, which was published by the desire of the congregation. So high was the estimation in which this good man was held, that the congregation kept open the appointment of his successor for two years, in order that his son Isaac might fill it. In this course they were abundantly rewarded by the learning and piety of him whom they selected. Named after the great Newton, the intimate friend of his father, Isaac received the best preparatory education which Dublin could afford, and finished his studies at Glasgow and London, studying theology in the latter place under the celebrated Dr. Benson. Upon his ordination in 1732, he followed up the ministry of his father till his death in 1778, a period of forty-six years. It is not a little remarkable that Dr. Isaac Weld discharged, in the case of Dr. Leland, the same office which the latter had performed for the Rev. Nathaniel Weld, by preaching the sermon on the occasion of the funeral of that distinguished scholar.

Amongst the citizens of Dublin, nearly a century from the time in which we write, was one not less distinguished for his great information and ability, than for his urbane and attractive manners and elegant deportment and appearance. This was Isaac Weld, the son of the good doctor whom we have just been noticing. He was the associate of the first men of the day, who held him in esteem. A few who knew him in his later years-a very few indeed-still survive, and one of the last who has passed from amongst us, the late Lord Plunket, has borne testimony to the intellectual attainments and accomplished manners of Isaac Weld. The third child of this gentleman was a son-the two former having been daughters-and that son was the late Isaac Weld, the subject of our present memoir. He was born on the 15th of March, 1774, at the residence of his father in Fleet-street, in the city of Dublin; and we may justly assert that, springing from such an ancestral stock, he had hereditary claims to attain to a something more than common growth in moral, intellectual, and physical development. To aid in that development was the anxious care of his father, and the boy had scarcely attained his seventh year when he was sent to the celebrated school of Mr. Samuel Whyte of Grafton-street, at which some of the most distinguished Irishmen of the age, including Richard Brinsley Sheridan the dramatist and Thomas Moore the poet, have been educated. From this he passed to the seminary of the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, of Palgrave, near the village of Diss, in Sussex, whose connection through his wife with the Aikens rendered his establishment one of the most distinguished in England, and gave young Weld the opportunity of forming acquaintance with many young men of high birth and great talents, some of whom afterwards acted conspicuous parts upon the theatre of life, amongst them the late Lord Denman, Chief Justice of England, and Sir William Gell, the distinguished topographer. Here young Weld remained for six years, and even amid such competitors he acquired a high character for diligence and the acquisition of all kinds of learning in school, as well as for activity and intrepidity out of it. But his excellent father was not content with affording him even these high educational advantages. A higher instructor still was sought for him, and he was placed as a private pupil with the well-known Dr. Enfield of Norwich, under whose careful and kind tuition the mind of the young man expanded widely, and became plentifully stored with classical and scientific erudition.

Norwich was, at that period, the abode of many families distinguished as well for their great devotion to literary pursuits as for their hospitality; amongst these, and especially in the distinguished families of the Taylors and the Martineaus, he was ever a welcome guest. To the latest days of his lengthened life, Mr. Weld would dwell with delight on the recollection of the years spent in Suffolk and Norfolk; and in a more diffuse narrative of his early years, he feelingly records the attachments which so firmly bound him to his kind friends at Diss and Norwich.

Mr. Weld was about nineteen years of age when he left Norwich and returned to his father's house. Few young men had made better use of the

great advantages afforded to him in his days of pupilage, and we are assured that he was esteemed, even in the intellectual society of which Dublin was then composed, a man of excellent accomplishments and of great promise. To these were added the graces of person and manners, which made him a general favourite whose acquaintance was everywhere sought. But while he did not reject the pleasures and gaieties of the brilliant reunions of our city, he had ever a higher purpose than mere pleasure. He was a diligent cultivator of literature and science; he frequented the society of the learned, witty, and able men which our Irish parliament then attracted to the metropolis, and spent much of his time in study. The habits and tastes of Mr. Weld were, however, essentially active; and mornings of sedentary study, or evenings of social relaxation could not satisfy the requirements of either his mind or his body. After a sojurn of two years with his parents, his love of adventure and travel became so strong that he solicited and obtained permission to undertake what in those days was a perilous and unusual tour, that of traversing and investigating the continent of America. To this course he was in an especial degree directed, rather than to pursue the more beaten track of European travel, by the idea which his early developed sagacity had conceived, that in the progress of events then impending in this country, the time was probably not far distant when the Irish people would be led to emigrate in large numbers; and he justly thought that the United States, then but a few years in possession of their independence, as well as our rising provinces of Canada, would prove the surest and safest homes of refuge. How thoroughly his anticipations were realised the history of the times attests. With such objects in view, Mr. Weld embarked for Philadelphia in September, 1795, having then just attained his majority. One who, in this our day of rapid and luxurious locomotion both by sea and land, either contemplates or accomplishes an American tour, will not very readily conceive or appreciate the perils and difficulties of him who, sixty years ago, in ill-appointed sailing ships beat and tacked against winds and currents upon that tedious voyage of many weeks, which he now happily and securely accomplishes in a few days, wafted not on the capricious wings of the winds, but impelled by the breath of the genius of steam; or the fatigues and trials of him who, through primeval forests and almost roadless districts, pioneered the rout along which he of today is swiftly borne upon the railway, by pleasant homesteads, smiling stretches of cultivated lands, and cities risen into opulence and civilisation. The contrast is as instructive as it is interesting, and it is somewhat curious that the opportunity of instituting this comparison has been afforded us by Charles, the half-brother of Mr. Weld, who, forty years his junior in birth, and nearly sixty years subsequent to him in his travels, visited in the space of a summer vacation* most of the scenes which had occupied his more adventurous brother two years of the most vigorous period of life. Upon his return to his native land in 1797, Mr. Weld found the country on the eve of a rebellion, and we find him, as might be expected, ranging himself in the ranks of those who were determined to maintain the British constitution, and taking his place in the "lawyers' corps" then raised in Dublin-a body which, whatever might have been its military efficiency, was beyond all doubt the most learned, witty, and social in his majesty's service. It was not till the first day of the year 1799 that his travels were published by Stockdale of London. The success of the work was as rapid as it was complete, and its author at once took his place amongst the highest as a man of letters. Not only did it pass through numerous editions in England, but it became a standard work abroad, and translations of it were to be found everywhere in France, Germany, and Holland. Mr. Weld has himself given us some account of its success, in a paper published by him shortly before his death upon another subject, to which we mean to advert, and from which we take now an extract :

The work was received with great favour; and before the year was out a second edition

.

A Vacation Tour in the United States and Canada in 1854, by Charles Richard Weld, Esq. London: Longmaus and Co., 1855.

appeared. The first one was in 4to, with numerous plates from my own original sketches; the second in two volumes 8vo, with folded plates; other editions followed in the same form; and at a later date editions in single volumes, in cheaper style, calculated for more general circulation. The work, translated into French, was handsomely got up in Paris, in three volumes 8vo, with reduced copies of the plates, better than the originals. Two German translations were made; one by the late M. Koenig of the British Museum, the other by Madame Hertz, a celebrated linguist whom I had the pleasure in after years of becoming acquainted with in Rome. Both of these translations, as I have been informed, went through several editions; and while travelling in Holland I was surprised to see my work in a bookseller's window, translated into Dutch, in three portly volumes, with copies of all the plates in the original size. The periodicals of the day, both at home and abroad, abounded with quotations from my book, so that my name became known beyond all that I could have anticipated. I was introduced at the Institute of France as the author of a book of travels in America. My private acquaintances were greatly extended, and some of my most valuable connexions in life were then formed.

Let us add to this, that the Historical and Literary Society of Quebec elected him a member of their body.

Mr. Charles Weld, in the volume by him to which we have already alluded, thus speaks of the work of his elder brother :

Fifty-five years ago a very remarkable book was published, entitled Weld's Travels in America, which passed through several editions. It was also translated into various European languages-twice into German; and in short the book was regarded as the great authority of the period on American subjects. The travels extend over three years, 1795-7, and embrace a very large portion of the United States and Canada. In fact there can be no question that the colonization of Canada was mainly promoted and influenced by this book.

Accompanied by a faithful servant, Mr. Weld, sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, or in canoe, made his way through vast forests or along rivers or lakes; narrowly escaped shipwreck on Lake Erie, and experienced all the adventure incident to passing through an unsettled country, while in the cities and towns he mixed in the best society, and had the honour and pleasure of knowing Washington.

Now when the reader learns that the author of this celebrated work is still living and in possession of his intellectual vigour, and moreover that I am his half-brother, it will, I venture to think, add to the interest of this book if a contrast be occasionally drawn between the state of things in America fifty-five years ago, and what it is at the present time.

It will be seen that, within a generation, where he had to camp out and trust to friendly Indians for safe conduct through the interminable wilderness, railways are now established -"air lines," along which the traveller is borne in a straight direction for hundreds of miles through forests; and on the broad waters where he had to hire small barks to convey him to his destination, swift steamers, which may be called huge floating hotels, are now universal.

We may observe that, notwithstanding the many who have since travelled through America and written upon it, the book of the elder brother is still one which will be read with interest, as conveying one of the truest pictures of what that country was half a century ago, and the most graphic delineations of those great features of scenery, which, in the progress of civilisation, have undergone but little change.

The extent of Mr. Weld's travels in America was very considerable. He traversed the states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, and New York; thence he passed into the Canadas, desirous of obtaining correct information as to the state of those provinces; and of determining from his own immediate observations how far the condition of the inhabitants of the British dominions in America might be inferior, or otherwise, to that of the people of the States who had then thrown off the yoke of British rule, but were nevertheless previously common members of the same extensive empire. During the course of these travels Mr. Weld had the good fortune to form personal acquaintance with Washington, then the President of the United States, as also with the Vice-President Jefferson. His description of these men, especially the former, has for the reader of to-day scarce less attractiveness than for him, sixty years ago; and his remarks upon slavery, seen even under its most favourable circumstances, are still valuable and impressive; while his views and suggestions in reference to the encouragement of emigration to the Canadas are sound and sagacious. Though Mr. Weld's work brought him abundance of fame, it conferred little else upon him.

There is good reason to believe that the speculation was for many years a most profitable one to the publishers, but the author never received one shilling. This is no new story. Nor shall we here enter into the quarrels of authors and publishers. In the case before us, as in the majority of those which are accounted grievances, it is a question not of justice but of generosity. On the former score, Mr. Stockdale is unimpeachable; he took all the risk of the speculation, and was justified in appropriating to himself all its profits. Upon the latter, we should be slow to arraign him. Let us remember that publishers are men of business, and deal with literature as merchandize.

Shortly after this his first appearance as an author, and indeed arising from it, commenced his connexion with the Royal Dublin Society, in the proceedings of which institution he was destined in after years to take so active and useful a share, and to the highest honors and position in which he ultimately attained. In after years he thus adverts to the fact with his characteristic humility:

Unfortunately for myself, going to America when I only counted twenty years of age, I absolutely knew nothing of mineralogy or geology; and a few questions which were put to me after my return made me so thoroughly ashamed of my ignorance, that I resolutely went to work as soon as I had dispatched my book, and studied for two years diligently in the cabinets and laboratory of the Dublin Society, under the guidance of their able Professors.

Accordingly, on the 27th November, 1800, he was elected a member of that body, of which he afterwards became one of the honorary Secretaries, and subsequently a Vice-President, the office of President being invariably filled by the Viceroy.

Another result of his now well established character followed soon after. It attracted to him the notice of the government of the day, and, as he states himself, gave a new turn to his career in life, and changed his whole destinies. The circumstances are these. After the peace of Amiens a spirit for emigration to the United States of America-foreseen indeed by Mr. Weld-became very general in Ireland, especially in the northern provinces. It was of a different character from the emigration of the Celtic population in recent times, which has been designated an Exodus." It comprised the intelligent, the industrious, those who by their skill had acquired property, the classes whose loss to the country was most to be deplored. The government was sore upon the subject, and various measures were resorted to in order to check the emigration, but in vain. Upon the arrival of Lord Hardwicke as Viceroy in 1801, he sent for Mr. Weld, and told him that "his observations upon emigration in his work (which he had read in England), had particularly fixed his attention, and led him to desire a conference with its author." A long and unreserved discussion ensued, in which Mr. Weld fully explained his views on this important question, and frankly pointed out the error of government, in not directing the stream of emigration to our own American colonies instead of suffering it to flow to the United States. The result of the interview was that, at the request of the Lord Lieutenant, Mr. Weld undertook to draw up a compendium of those parts of his work which dealt with the subject of emigration. This he speedily accomplished, the book was printed by the government, and circulated by thousands through the principal emigration districts. The subject was still further kept before the public mind by various articles contributed by Mr. Weld to the periodicals both in England and Ireland, and thus mainly by his exertions colonization advanced in Canada, and the foundation was laid of that improvement and prosperity which are not at this day surpassed in any other of our colonies. We may as well follow out the history of this matter here for the sake of continuity, though it will lead us somewhat in advance in point of time; and we cannot do it better than by quoting from an able and eloquent memoir, recently read before the Royal Dublin Society, by L. E. Foot, Esq., one of its honorary Secretaries,—one who was so worthy to be Mr. Weld's colleague during many years of his life.

Hopes of government favour and patronage were now excited, sufficient to divert from other pursuits, and for some time they appeared to be realized. Mr. Weld's father held a lucrative office in the customs, and it became his earnest wish that his son should be associated with