should take into custody all Papists that should presume to come into the gallery! (Commons' Journal, vol. iii. fol. 976.) During this reign, the English Parliament legislated as absolutely for Ireland as they do now for Rutlandshire-an evil not to be complained of, if they had done it as justly. In the reign of George I. the horses of Papists were seized for the militia, and rode by Protestants; towards which the Catholics paid double, and were compelled to find Protestant substitutes. They were prohibited from voting at vestries, or being high or petty constables. An act of the English Parliament in this reign opens as follows:- Whereas attempts have been lately made to shake off the subjection of Ireland to the imperial crown of these realms, be it enacted,' &c. &c. In the reign of George II. four-sixths of the population were cut off from the rights of voting at elections, by the necessity under which they were placed of taking the oath of supremacy. Barristers and solicitors marrying Catholics are exposed to all the penalties of Catholics. Persons robbed by privateers during a war with a Catholic state, are to be indemnified by a levy on the Catholic inhabitants of the neighbourhood. All marriages between Catholics and Protestants are annulled. All Popish priests celebrating them are to be hanged. This system,' (says Arthur Young) has no other tendency than that of driving out of the kingdom all the personal wealth of the Catholics, and extinguishing their industry within it! and the face of the country, every object which presents itself to travellers, tell him how effectually this has been done.'-Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii. p. 48.

Such is the history of Ireland-for we are now at our own times; and the only remaining question is, whether the system of improvement and conciliation begun in the reign of George III. shall be pursued, and the remaining incapacities of the Catholics removed, or all these concessions be made insignificant by an adherence to that spirit of proscription which they professed to abolish? Looking to the sense and reason of the thing, and to the ordinary working of humanity and justice, when assisted, as they are here, by self-interest and worldly policy, it might seem absurd to doubt of the result. But looking to the facts and the persons by which we are now surrounded, we are constrained to say that we greatly fear that these incapacities never will be removed, till they are removed by fear. What else, indeed, can we expect when we see them

opposed by such enlightened men as Mr. Peel-faintly assisted by men of such admirable genius as Mr. Canning,-when royal dukes consider it as a compliment to the memory of their fathers to continue this miserable system of bigotry and exclusion, when men act ignominiously and contemptibly on this question, who do so on no other question,-when almost the only persons zealously opposed to this general baseness and fatuity are a few whigs and reviewers, or here and there a virtuous poet like Mr. Moore? We repeat again, that the measure never will be effected but by fear. In the midst of one of our just and necessary wars, the Irish Catholics will compel this country to grant them a great deal more than they at present require, or even contemplate. We regret most severely the protraction of the disease, and the danger of the remedy; but in this way it is that human affairs are carried on!

We are sorry we have nothing for which to praise administration on the subject of the Catholic question-but, it is but justice to say, that they have been very zealous and active in detecting fiscal abuses in Ireland, in improving mercantile regulations, and in detecting Irish jobs. The commission on which Mr. Wallace presided has been of the greatest possible utility, and does infinite credit to the government. The name of Mr. Wallace, in any commission, has now become a pledge to the public that there is a real intention to investigate and correct abuse. He stands in the singular predicament of being equally trusted by the rulers and the ruled. It is a new era in government, when such men are called into action; and, if there were not proclaimed and fatal limits to that ministerial liberality— which, so far as it goes, we welcome without a grudge, and praise without a sneer-we might yet hope that, for the sake of mere consistency, they might be led to falsify our forebodings. But alas! there are motives more immediate, and therefore irresistible; and the time is not yet come, when it will be believed easier to govern Ireland by the love of the many than by the power of the few-when the paltry and dangerous machinery of bigoted faction and prostituted patronage may be dispensed with, and the vessel of the state be propelled by the natural current of popular interests and the breath of popular applause. In the mean time, we cannot resist the temptation of gracing our conclusion with the following beautiful passage, in which the author alludes to the hopes that were raised at

another great era of partial concession and liberality-that of the revolution of 1782,-when, also, benefits were conferred which proved abortive, because they were incomplete-and balm poured into the wound, where the envenomed shaft was yet left to rankle.

And here,' says the gallant Captain Rock,-'as the free confession of weaknesses constitutes the chief charm and use of biography—I will candidly own that the dawn of prosperity and concord, which I now saw breaking over the fortunes of my country, so dazzled and deceived my youthful eyes, and so unsettled every hereditary notion of what I owed to my name and family, that-shall I confess it?-I even hailed with pleasure the prospects of peace and freedom that seemed opening around me; nay, was ready, in the boyish enthusiasm of the moment, to sacrifice all my own personal interest in all future riots and rebellions, to the one bright, seducing object of my country's liberty and repose.

When I contemplated such a man as the venerable Charlemont, whose nobility was to the people like a fort over a valley-elevated above them solely for their defence; who introduced the polish of the courtier into the camp of the freeman, and served his country with all that pure, Platonic devotion, which a true knight in the times of chivalry proffered to his mistress;-when I listened to the eloquence of Grattan, the very music of freedom-her first, fresh matin song, after a long night of slavery, degradation, and sorrow;-when I saw the bright offerings which he brought to the shrine of his country,— wisdom, genius, courage, and patience, invigorated and embellished by all those social and domestic virtues, without which the loftiest talents stand isolated in the moral waste around them, like the pillars of Palmyra towering in a wilderness!-when I reflected on all this, it not only disheartened me for the mission of discord which I had undertaken, but made me secretly hope that it might be rendered unnecessary; and that a country, which could produce such men and achieve such a revolution, might yet-in spite of the joint efforts of the government and my family-take her rank in the scale of nations, and be happy!

'My father, however, who saw the momentary dazzle by which I was affected, soon drew me out of this false light of hope in which I lay basking, and set the truth before me in a way but too convincing and ominous. "Be not deceived, boy," he would say, "by the fallacious appearances before you. Eminently great and good as is the man to whom Ireland owes this short era of glory, our work, believe me, will last longer than his. We have a power on our side that 'will not willingly let us die;' and, long after Grattan shall have disappeared from earth,-like that arrow shot into the clouds by Alcestes, effecting nothing, but leaving a long train of light behind him,-the family of the Rocks will continue to flourish in all their native glory, upheld by the ever-watchful care of the legislature, and fostered by that nursing-mother of Liberty,' the Church."'

GRANBY. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1826.)

Granby. A Novel in Three Volumes. London, Colburn, 1826.

THERE is nothing more amusing in the spectacles of the present day, than to see the Sir Johns and Sir Thomases of the House of Commons struck aghast by the useful science and wise novelties of Mr. Huskisson and the chancellor of the exchequer. Treason, Disaffection, Atheism, Republicanism, and Socinianism-the great guns in the Noodle's park of artillery -they cannot bring to bear upon these gentlemen. Even to charge with a regiment of ancestors is not quite so efficacious as it used to be; and all that remains, therefore, is to rail against Peter M'Culloch and political economy! In the mean time, day after day, down goes one piece of nonsense or another. The most approved trash, and the most trusty clamours, are found to be utterly powerless. Twopenny taunts and trumpery truisms have lost their destructive omnipotence; and the exhausted commonplaceman, and the afflicted fool, moan over the ashes of imbecility, and strew flowers on the urn of ignorance! General Elliot found the London tailors in a state of mutiny, and he raised from them a regiment of light cavalry, which distinguished itself in a very striking manner at the battle of Minden. In humble imitation of this example, we shall avail ourselves of the present political disaffection and unsatisfactory idleness of many men of rank and consequence, to request their attention to the Novel of Granby-written, as we have heard, by a young gentleman of the name of Lister,* and from which we have derived a considerable deal of pleasure and entertainment.

The main question as to a novel is-did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten, and twelve for eleven? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not-story, lan

* This is the gentleman who now keeps the keys of Life and Death, the Janitor of the world.

guage, love, scandal itself, cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that, or it does nothing. Now Granby seems to upto answer this test extremely well; it produces unpunctuality, makes the reader too late for dinner, impatient of contradiction, and inattentive,-even if a bishop is making an observation, or a gentleman lately from the Pyramids, or the Upper Cataracts, is let loose upon the drawing-room. The objection, indeed, to these compositions, when they are well done is, that it is impossible to do any thing, or perform any human duty, while we are engaged in them. Who can read Mr. Hallam's Middle Ages, or extract the root of an impossible quantity, or draw up a bond, when he is in the middle of Mr. Trebeck and Lady Charlotte Duncan? How can the boy's lesson be heard, about the Jove-nourished Achilles, or his six miserable verses upon Dido be corrected, when Henry Granby and Mr. Courtenay are both making love to Miss Jermyn? Common life palls in the middle of these artificial scenes. All is emotion when the book is open-all dull, flat, and feeble when it is shut.

Granby, a young man of no profession, living with an old uncle in the country, falls in love with Miss Jermyn, and Miss Jermyn with him; but Sir Thomas and Lady Jermyn, as the young gentleman is not rich, having discovered, by long living in the world and patient observation of its ways, that young people are commonly Malthus-proof and have children, and that young and old must eat, very naturally do what they can to discourage the union. The young people, however, both go to town-meet at balls-flutter, blush, look and cannot speak -speak and cannot look,-suspect, misinterpret, are sad and mad, peevish and jealous, fond and foolish; but the passion, after all, seems less near to its accomplishment at the end of the season than the beginning. The uncle of Granby, however, dies, and leaves to his nephew a statement accompanied with the requisite proofs-that Mr. Tyrrel, the supposed son of Lord Malton, is illegitimate, and that he, Granby, is the heir to Lord Malton's fortune. The second volume is now far advanced, and it is time for Lord Malton to die. Accordingly Mr. Lister very judiciously despatches him; Granby inherits the estate-his virtues (for what shows off virtue like land?) are discovered by the Jermyns-and they marry in the last

act.

Upon this slender story, the author has succeeded in making