it can originate, is decidedly the weakest, in wealth, population, and all effective resources-and probably never will venture on the experiment without foreign assistance. But it must be at once apparent how the introduction of this unhallowed element darkens all the horrors of the prospect. We are far from making light of the advantages it might give in the outset. By the help of a French army and an American fleet, we doubt not that the separation might be accomplished. The English armies might be defeated or driven from its shores-English capitalists might be butchered-the English religion extirpatedand an Irish Catholic republic installed with due ceremony in Dublin, and adopted with acclamation in most of the provinces of the land. Under the protection of their foreign deliverers this state of triumph might even be for some time maintained. But how long would this last? or how can it be imagined that it would end? Would the foreign allies remain for ever, on their own charges, and without interfering with the independence or the policy of the new state which they had thus been the means of creating? If they did, it would, after all, be but a vassal republic-a dependency on a more distant and still more imperious master-an outlying province of France-a military station from which to watch and to harass England, and on which the first burst of her hostilities must always be broken-and exposed, of course, in the mean time, to all the license, the insolence, the rigour, of a military occupancy by a foreign and alien soldiery. But this, it is plain, could never be more than a temporary measure. The defenders and keepers of the Hibernian republic would in no long time make peace with England, and quarrel, both with their new subjects and with each other-and then would come the renovated, the embittered, the unequal struggle with that exasperated power. Weakened as England might be by the separation, it would be absurd to suppose that she would not still be a tremendous overmatch for Ireland, single-handed;—or that this new state, wasted and exhausted by the war of her independence, could supply the means of making and equipping a fleet, or appointing an army, such as would be required to make head against this formidable antagonist. Though the great majority of her people, too, might be zealous for maintaining her independence, it is obvious that England would still have in her bosom a body of most formidable allies. The most intelligent, the most wealthy, the most politic and sagacious of her inhabitants, are at this moment in the English interest;-and, however sweeping and bloody the proscription by which they were overthrown, multitudes would still remain, with means and influence sufficient to render their co-operation most

perilous in a contest for its restoration. Even if left to her own resources, we have little doubt that the country would soon be a prey to civil wars, plots, and insurrections, which the want of skill and experience in the new rulers, as well as the state of their finances, would aggravate into an universal disorder. It is no easy thing to settle a new government amicably, even where there is no foreign interference:—and, in Ireland, from the temper of the people, and the circumstances which would leave less than an ordinary proportion of men of rank, education, and personal authority in the bands of the successful party, the difficulty would probably be insurmountable. It is impossible, however, not to suppose that England would eagerly avail herself of those dissensions, both by intrigue, corruption, and force, and equally impossible to doubt that she would succeed, if not in regaining her supremacy, at least in embroiling the unhappy country which was the subject of it, in the most miserable and interminable disorders.

The sum of the matter is, that there could be no peace, and, consequently, no prosperity or happiness for Ireland, as a separate and independent neighbour to England. Two such countries, after all that has passed between them, could no more live in quiet and comfort beside each other, than a wife who had eloped from her husband, could live again in the bosom of his family, as a mere friend or visitor-having her expenses supplied, and her society enlivened by the frequent visits of her seducer: Nor can any lesson of prudence be addressed to the fiery and impatient spirits who may now meditate in Ireland the casting off of their ties with the sister island, more precisely applicable to their prospects and condition, than the warnings which a friendly adviser would address to an exasperated matron, whose domestic grievances had led her to contemplate such a fatal step. By the aid of some flattering admirer, she may indeed accomplish the separation, and plunge her undeserving husband and his innocent family into mourning, and misery, and disgrace. Under the protection of her new champion, she may even live for a time in splendour and triumph. But that union, in itself unhallowed, must end in discontent and wretchedness. If the paramour continue to live with her, it is certain, from all example, that he will speedily prove more imperious and tyrannical than her lawful lord, and make her pay for his degrading protection ten times more, in comfort and independence, than she had ever been asked to give before. But the probability is, that he will speedily desert her-and then, feeling the utter impossibility of living with her exasperated family on any terms of friendly intercourse, what would remain for her, in her weakness, but the ne

cessity of submitting to any seclusion, and to any miserable allowance, that her alienated husband might, in his anger or his pity, appoint for her? The counsel, then, that any faithful and even partial friend would give her, must be to bear much from her husband, rather than venture on so desperate a remedy; to turn her thoughts rather to conciliation, than recrimination or revenge; to avoid as much as possible all causes of reasonable or unreasonable offence-and, above all, to have her interest secured by sufficient provisions in her marriage articles, and to trust to the legal and temperate interference of the trustees appointed to enforce them.

Such are the warnings which we would address to the offended and exasperated party, in whose vindictive and rash proceedings the catastrophe we have been contemplating must originate. But though we certainly think they must appear convincing to any calm spectator, it is not the less probable that they could be of little avail with the inflamed and excited party, unless they were seconded by conciliatory and gentle measures on the part of the supposed offender. Nor are there wanting motives sufficiently urgent and imperious to make such measures, in all sound reason, indispensable. In the event of a war for independence, Ireland would probably be the scene of the greatest carnage, havoc, and devastation-and, in the end, we think her lot would be the most deplorable. But to England also, it is obvious that such a contest would be the source of unspeakable calamity, and the signal, indeed, of her permanent weakness, insecurity, and degradation. That she is bound, therefore, for her own sake, to avert it, by every possible precaution and every possible sacrifice, no one will be hardy enough to deny-far less, that she is bound, in the first instance, to diminish the tremendous hazard, by simply doing justice and showing mercy to those whom it is, in all other respects, her interest, as well as her duty, to cherish and protect.

are.

One thing we take to be evident, and it is the substance of all that can be said on the subject, that things are fast verging to a crisis, and cannot, in all probability, remain long as they The Union, in short, must either be made equal and complete on the part of England-or it will be broken in pieces and thrown in her face by Ireland. That country must either be delivered from the domination of an Orange faction, or we must expect, in spite of all our warnings and remonstrances, to see her seek her own deliverance by the fatal and bloody career to which we have already alluded-and from which we hold it to be the height of guilt and of folly to hesitate about withholding her, by the sacrifice of that miserable faction.

Little, however, as we rely, without such co-operation, on the effect of our warnings, we cannot end without again lifting our feeble voice to repeat them-without conjuring the lovers of Ireland to consider how hopeless and how wretched any scheme of a permanent separation from England must necessarily be, and how certainly their condition must be ameliorated by the course of events, the gradual extinction of the generation in whom the last life-use of antiquated oppressions is now centred, and the spread of those mild and liberal sentiments, to which nothing can so much contribute, as a spirit of moderation and patience in these who have so long suffered from the want of them. By the Union, such as it is, we think the axe has been laid to the root of the old system of oppression and misgovernment in Ireland-and though its branches still look green, and afford shelter to the unclean birds who were bred, and have so long nestled in their covert, the sap ascends in them no longer, and the whole will soon cease to cumber the ground, and to obstruct the sight of the sky. In these circumstances, the only wise and safe course is to watch, and gently to assist the progress of their natural decay. If, in some fit of impatience, the brands are thrown into the mouldering mass, and an attempt made to subject the land at once to the fatal Purgation of Fire, the risk is not only that the authors will perish in the conflagration, but that another and a ranker crop of abominations will spring from its ashes, to poison the dwellings of many future generations.

We may seem to have forgotten Mr O'Driscol in these general observations: and yet they are not so foreign to his merits, as they may at first sight appear. His book certainly does not supply the desideratum of which we spoke at the outset, and will not pass to posterity as a complete or satisfactory History of Ireland. But it is written at least in a good spirit; and we do not know that we could better describe its general scope and tendency, than by saying, that they coincide almost entirely with the sentiments we have just been expressing. The author, we have recently understood, is a Catholic; but we had really read through his work without discovering it, and can testify that he not only gives that party their full share of blame in all the transactions which deserve it, but speaks of the besetting sins of their system with a freedom and severity which no Protestant, not absolutely Orange, could easily improve on. We needed no extrinsical lights, indeed, to discover that he was an Irishman,-for, independent of the pretty distinct intimation conveyed in his name, we speedily discovered a spirit of nationality about him, that could leave no doubt on the subject. It is the only kind of partiality, however, which we can detect in

his performance; and it really detracts less from his credit than might be imagined,-partly because it is so little disguised as to lead to no misconceptions, and chiefly because it is mostly confined to those parts of the story in which it can do little harm. It breaks out most conspicuously in the earlier and most problematical portion of the narrative, as to which truth is most difficult to be come at, and of least value when ascertained. He is clear, for example, that the Irish were, for many centuries before the conquest of Henry II., a very polished, learned, and magnificent people-that they had colleges at Lismore and Armagh, where thousands upon thousands of studious youth imbibed all the learning of the times-that they worked beautifully in gold and silver, and manufactured exquisite fabrics both in flax and wool-and, finally, that the country was not only more prosperous and civilized, but greatly more populous in those early ages, than in any succeeding time.

We have no wish to enter into an idle antiquarian controversy-but we must say that no sober Saxon can adopt these legends without very large allowances. It is indubitable that the Irish, or some of them, did very anciently fabricate linen, and probably also some ornaments of gold; and it would appear, from certain ecclesiastical writers of no great credit, that they had among them large seminaries for priests,—a body possessing, in those ages, no very extraordinary learning, even in greater communities. But it is at least equally certain, that they were entirely a pastoral people, unacquainted with agriculture, holding their herds as the common property of the clan, dwelling in rude huts or wigwams, for the most part deplorably ignorant, and, in spite of their priests, generally practising polygamy and other savage vices. But what chiefly demonstrates the bias under which our author considers those early times, is his firm belief in the great populousness of ancient Ireland, and the undoubting confidence with which he rejects all the English accounts of their barbarism, even in the times of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. A pastoral country never can be populous-and one overrun with unreclaimed bogs and unbroken forests, still less than any other. More than twothirds of the present population of Ireland undoubtedly owe their existence to the potatoe; and men alive can still point out large districts, now producing the food of more than a million of new inhabitants, which they remember in their primitive state of sterile and lonely morasses. Without potatoes, without corn, turnips, or cultivated grasses-with few sheep, and with nothing, in short, but roving herds of black cattle, if Ireland had a full million of inhabitants in the 10th or 12th century, she had