think the conduct of certain claffes may have given rife to general and confequently injurious condemnation.'

The inhabitants of Ireland Mr. Young divides into three claffes. The firft are perfons of rank and confiderable property; the fecond, country gentlemen, and renters of land; the last class confifts of those in still lower fituations. In characterizing the last, the circumftances which struck our traveller moft in the common Irish were, vivacity, and a great and eloquent volubility of speech; one would think they could take snuff and talk without tiring till doomsday. They are infinitely more chearful and lively than any thing we commonly fee in England, having nothing of that incivility of fullen filence, with which fo many Englishmen feem to wrap themselves up, as if retiring within their own importance. Lazy to an excefs at work, but fo fpiritedly active at play, that at burling, which is the cricket of favages, they fhew the greateft feats of agility. Their love of fociety is as remarkable as their curiofity is infatiable; and their hofpitality to all comers, be their own poverty ever fo pinching, has too much merit to be forgotten. Pleafed to enjoyment with a joke, or witty repartee, they will repeat it with fuch expreffion, that the laugh will be univerfal. Warm friends and revengeful enemies; they are inviolable in their fecrecy, and inevitable in their refentment; with fuch a notion of honour, that neither threat nor reward would induce them to betray the secret or person of a man, though an oppreffor, whofe property they would plunder without ceremony. Hard drinkers and quarrelfome; great liars, but civil, fubmiffive and obedient. Dancing is fo universal among them, that there are every where itinerant dancing-mafters, to whom the cottars pay fix-pence a quarter for teaching their families. Befides the Irish jig, which they can dance with a most luxuriant expreffion, minuets and country dances are taught; and I even heard fome talk of cotillions coming in.

• Some degree of education is alfo general; hedge fchools, as they are called (they might as well be termed ditch ones, for I have feen many a ditch full of scholars), are every where to be met with where reading and writing are taught. Schools are also common for men ; I have feen a dozen great fellows at fchool, and was told they were educating with an intention of being priests. Many ftrokes in their character are evidently to be ascribed to the extreme oppreflion under which they live. If they are as great thieves and liars as they are reported, it is certainly owing to this caufe.'

I

After doing juftice to the politeness and urbanity of those in the more elevated ranks of life, he concludes with a race of people, against whom, as may be collected from many different parts of this volume, he feems to have a particular spleen. must now come, fays he, to another clafs of people, to whofe conduct it is almoft entirely owing, that the character of the nation has not that luftre abroad, which, I dare affert, it will foon very generally merit: this is the clafs of little country gentlemen; tenants, who drink their claret by means of profit rents; jobbers in farms; bucks; your fellows with round hats, edged with gold, who hunt in the day, get drunk in the evening, and fight the next morning. I fhall not dwell on a

fubject

fubject fo perfectly difagreeable, but remark that these are the men among whom drinking, wrangling, quarelling, fighting, ravishing, &c. &c. &c. are found, as in their native foil; once to a degree that made them the peft of fociety; they are growing better, but even now, one or two of them, got by accident (where they have no bufinefs) into better company, are fufficient very much to derange the pleasures that refult from a liberal converfation. A new fpirit; new fashions; new modes of politeness exhibited by the higher ranks are imitated by the lower, which will, it is to be hoped, put an end to this race of beings; and either drive their fons and coufins into the army or navy, or fink them into plain farmers like thofe we have in England, where it is common to fee men with much greater property without pretending to be gentlemen. I repeat it from the intelligence I received, that even this clafs are very different from what they were twenty years ago, and improve fo faft, that the time will foon come when the national character will not be degraded by any fet.

• That character is upon the whole refpectable: it would be unfair to attribute to the nation at large the vice and follies of only one clafs of individuals. Thofe perfons from whom it is candid to take a general estimate do credit to their country. That they are a people learned, lively and ingenious, the admirable authors they have produced will be an eternal monument; witness their Swift, Sterne, Congreve, Boyle, Berkeley, Steele, Farquhar, Southerne, and Goldfmith. Their talent for eloquence is felt and acknowledged in the parliaments of both the kingdoms. Our own fervice, both by sea and land (as well as that unfortunately for us) of the principal monarchies of Europe, fpeak their fteady and determined courage. Every unprejudiced traveller who vifits them will be as much pleafed with their chearfulness, as obliged by their hofpitality: and will find them a brave, polite, and liberal people.'

The fections on the corn trade and linen manufacture contain much interefting information. The author's inferences and arguments appear to be built upon documents of unqueftionable authority, taken from public records, or communicated by gentlemen of veracity and honour, many of whom being in office themselves, their communications ought to be confidered as authentic. Mr. Young's reafonings on thefe fubjects are much too complicated for us to give any fuccinct detail of them in the compafs of the prefent article Nevertheless, that our Readers may form fome idea of this Writer's commercial opinions, we fhall make no apology for laying before them the following paffage; and we the rather do it, because the indulgences lately granted to Ireland have awakened in fome minds an illiberal and groundless jealousy.

Relative to the other manufactures of Ireland, I am ferry to say, they are too infignificant to merit a particular a tention; upon the fubject of that of wool I mutt however remark, that the policy of England, which has always hitherto been hottile to every appearance of an Irish woollen manufacture, has heen founded upon the mean

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contractions of illiberal jealoufy; it is a conduct that has been founded upon the ignorance and prejudices of mercantile people, who, knowing as they are in the fcience which teaches that two and two make four, are loft in a labyrinth the moment they leave their counting-houses, and become ftatefmen; they are too apt to think of governing kingdoms upon the fame principles they conduct their private business on, thofe of monopoly, which, though the foul of private intereft, is the bane of public commerce. It has been the miftaken policy of this country to fuppofe, that all Ireland gained by a woollen manufacture would be fo much lofs to England; this is the true monopolizing ignorance. We did not think proper to draw thefe bands of commercial tyranny fo tight as to interdi&t their linens; we gave them a free trade; nay we import an immenfe quantity of Ruffian and German linen, and yet between this double fire of the Irish and foreigners has our own linen manufacture flourished and increased; it is the fpirit and effect of every fpecies of monopoly to counteract the defigns which dictate that mean policy. The rivalfhip of the Irish (if a rivalship was to enfue) would be beneficial to our woollen trade; as a faft friend to the intereft of my native country, I wifh fuccefs to thofe branches of the Irish woollens which would rival our own; a thousand beneficial confequences would flow from it; it would infpirit our manufacturers; it would awaken them from their lethargy, and give rife to the fpirit of invention and enterprize. How long did our old broad cloth trade fleep in the Weft, without one fign of life ftrong enough to animate a new purfuit; but a diffe. rent fpirit breaking out in Yorkshire and Scotland, new fabrics were invented, and new trades opened. A free Irish woollen trade would put our manufacturers to their mettle, and would do more for the woollen trade of England than any other meafure whatever. Our merchants think fuch a rivalfhip would ruin them; but do they think the French would not have reafon for fuch fears alfo? Have we not loft the Levant and Turkey trade through the obstinacy of our monopolifts? And why should not Ireland have a chance for fuch a branch as well as Languedoc? But fuch has been our narrow policy, with refpect to that kingdom, that we have for a century fat down more contented with the fuccefsful rival hip of France, than with the chance of an Irish competitor.

Whenever any queftion, relative to commercial indulgence to Ireland, has come into the British parliament, its friends have always urged the diftreffed ftate of Ireland as a motive. This is taking the ground of duplicity, perhaps of falfehood; they ought to be more liberal, and avow that their principle is not to relax the prefent laws as a matter of humanity to Ireland, but of right and policy to themfelves; to demand a free trade to Ireland as the best friends to Britain; to demand that France may be rivalled by the fubjects of the British empire, if thofe of one kingdom cannot, or will not do it, that thofe of another may.

'One would have reafon to fuppose, from the spirit of commercial jealouly among our woollen towns, that whatever Ireland got was loft to England: I fhail in a fucceeding fection infert a table, whic! will fhew that, in exact proportion to the wealth of Ireland, is balance of the Irish trade in favour of England. That kingd

one of the greateft cuftomers we have upon the globe; is it good policy to wish that our beft cuftomer may be poor? Do not the maxims of commercial life tell us, that the richer he is the better? Can any one fuppofe that the immenfe wealth of Holland is not of vaft advan tage to our manufactures; and though the Ruffia trade, upon the balance, is much against us, who can fuppofe that the increafing wealth of that vaft empire, owing to the unparalleled wifdom of its prefent emprefs, the first and most able fovereign in the world, is not an increafing fund in favour of British industry?'

We cannot difmifs this article without acknowledging our obligations to this agreeable Tourift for the information and entertainment which his publication has afforded us. We have met with little or nothing of that paffion for theory and paradox in which this Writer fometimes indulges himself. The work before us never could have appeared at a time when it would have been more worthy the public attention than at prefent.

With respect to England, her fifter ifland is at this moment an object of political magnitude much greater than she has ever been, fince the two islands were connected. With refpect to herself, the ftands in a predicament different in many respects from any that he was ever in before; as it will be entirely owing to want of fteadiness and virtue if the be now prevented from eftablishing her claim to what feems to be the indifputable birth-right of all mankind.

Should Ireland obtain and make ufe of thofe privileges which her own intereft and the real interefts of this kingdom point out to her, fhe will foon feel the advantages of them in the internal improvement that will gradually extend itfelf through the most uncultivated parts of her territories. Mr. Young's book may then anfwer the most important purposes: by pointing out what he has been, and the wretchednefs fhe has formerly experienced, it may teach her how to value the bleffings that will then flow in upon her; and the picture it will exhibit of her paft fituation may give an additional relifh to her prefent enjoyments.

ART. II. Eays on the Trade, Commerce, Manufactures, and Fisheries of Scotland; containing, Remarks on the Situation of most of the Sea-ports; the Number of Shipping employed; their Tonnage : Strictures on the principal inland Towns; the different Branches of Trade and Commerce carried on, and the various Improvements made in each: Hints and Obfervations on the Conftitutional Police; with many refting Articles never yet d General Infpector of 7 s. 6d. Edinburgh

world, that he was able in all cafes to discover the reach of ta lents of those with whom he converfed, and to adapt the nature of his arguments to their capacity; with men who had accuftomed themselves to reafon clofely, his arguments were clear, philofophical, and ftrictly logical; with thofe who were incapable of following a clofe chain of reasoning, he adopted a more popular and diffufive ftrain; and with others, whofe mental faculties were of a meaner class, he defcended still lower, fo as to adopt those arguments which alone were within their reach. But few are the men who are poffeffed of this verfatility of genius, and therefore, in general, one man is only capable of making himself agreeable to one fet of companions, who are nearly on a level, as to mental faculties, with himself; and his converfation is difrelifhed by all others, because his ftyle of reasoning is either above or beneath them. It is happy for fociety, that in every cafe of great moment, authors of different talents addrefs themselves to the public, each of whom difcuffing the matter in his own particular manner, adapts his reafoning to the capacities of those who are in the fame clafs with himself and as among mankind at large the clafs of accurate reasoners is very fmall in comparison with those who are incapable of investigating any fubject with a philofophical precifion, it usually happens that, in those difquifitions especially that are intended to engage the attention of the people at large, the beft written book is not the moft ufeful, as an inferior performance will more engage the attention of the multitude. Newton's Principia was not in general efteem, even among men of fcience, till it came to be explained in their own manner by perfons of inferior genius; and, were it not an invidious task, we could furnish a numerous lift of books that have afforded materials for many a popular performance, which, but for thefe neglected originals, could never have exifted. We only remark this, to fhew with what infinite wifdom the affairs of the univerfe are directed. Winds, ftorms, birds and infects, scatter the feeds of plants upon the surface of this globe, where they fpontaneously fpring up for the fuftenance of those animals which take no care for themselves; and the knowledge that is produced by the exertions of men of fuperior genius is, in like manner, happily diffeminated among mankind by the more feeble efforts of thofe whom nature has adapted to that inferior, though moft neceffary office.

The work before us is of that clafs which is merely adapted to the multitude. Instead of conclufions logically deduced from premiles eftablished on firm data, we meet with affertions uttered with great confidence. Nothing appears doubtful; and where it would be difficult to refute an oppofing argument, the reader is overwhelmed with a multiplicity of words, which al

though