When Mr. Lancaster finds a little boy with a very dirty face, he sends for a little girl, and makes her wash off the dirt before the whole school; and she is directed to accompany her ablutions with a gentle box of the ear. To us, this punishment appears well adapted to the offence; and in this, and in most other instances of Mr. Lancaster's interference in scholastic discipline, we are struck with his good sense, and delighted that arrangements apparently so trivial, really so important, should have fallen under the attention of so ingenious and so original a man. Mrs. Trimmer objects to this practice, that it destroys female modesty, and inculcates in that sex a habit of giving boxes on the ear.

to the destruction of the good and fear of which is one curb upon the great, by fixing upon talents the in- follies and eccentricities of human nadelible stigma of irreligion. It matters ture. Such an object it would be imnot how trifling and how insignificant possible to effect, even if it were useful the accuser; cry out that the Church Put a hundred boys together, and the is in danger, and your object is accom-fear of being laughed at will always be plished; lurk in the walk of hypocrisy, a strong influencing motive with every to accuse your enemy of the crime of individual among them. If a master atheism, and his ruin is quite certain; can turn this principle to his own use. acquitted or condemned, is the same and get boys to laugh at vice, instead thing; it is only sufficient that he be of the old plan of laughing at virtue, is accused, in order that his destruction he not doing a very new, a very diffibe accomplished. If we could satisfy cult, and a very laudable thing? ourselves that such were the real views of Mrs. Trimmer, and that she were capable of such baseness, we would have drawn blood from her at every line, and left her in a state of martyrdom more piteous than that of St. Uba. Let her attribute the milk and mildness she meets with in this review of her book, to the conviction we entertain, that she knew no better that she really did understand Mr. Lancaster as she pretends to understand him and that if she had been aware of the extent of the mischief she was doing. she would have tossed the manuscript spelling-book in which she was engaged into the fire, rather than have done it. As a proof that we are in earnest in speaking of Mrs. Trimmer's simplicity, we must state the objections she makes to one of Mr. Lancaster's punishments. "When I meet," says Mr. Lancaster, “with a slovenly boy, I put a label upon his breast; I walk him round the school with a tin or a paper crown upon his head." "Surely," says Mrs. Trimmer (in reply to this), "surely it should be remembered, that the Saviour of the world was crowned with thorns in derision, and that this is a reason why crowning is an improper punishment for a slovenly boy!!!"

Rewards and punishments. Mrs. Trimmer objects to the fear of ridicule being made an instrument of education, because it may be hereafter employed to shame a boy out of his religion. She might, for the same reason, object to the cultivation of the reasoning faculty, because a boy may hereafter be reasoned out of his religion: she surely does not mean to say that she would make boys insensible to ridicule, the

"When a boy gets into a singing tone in reading," says Mr. Lancaster, "the best mode of cure that I have hitherto found effectual, is by the force of ridicule.-Decorate the offender with matches, ballads, (dying speeches if needful); and in this garb send him round the school, with some boys before him crying matches, &c., ex actly imitating the dismal tones with which such things are hawked about London streets, as will readily recur to the reader's to Jews more on account of the manner in memory. I believe many boys behave rudely which they cry 'old clothes,' than because they are Jews. I have always found excellent effects from treating boys, who sing or tone in their reading, in the manner described. It is sure to turn the laugh of the whole school upon the delinquent; it provokes risibility, in spite of every endeavour seldom known a boy thus punished once, to check it, in all but the offender. I have for whom it was needful a second time. It is also very seldom that a boy deserves both a log and a shackle at the same time. Most boys are wise enough, when under one

punishment, not to transgress immediately, | being a burden or constraint to the lest it should be doubled."-(pp. 47, 48.) This punishment is objected to on the part of Mrs. Trimmer, because it inculcates a dislike to Jews, and an indifference about dying speeches! Toys, she says, given as rewards, are worldly things; children are to be taught that there are eternal rewards in store for them. It is very dangerous to give prints as rewards, because prints may hereafter be the vehicle of indecent ideas. It is, above all things, perilous to create an order of merit in the Borough School, because it gives the boys an idea of the origin of nobility, "especially in time: (we use Mrs. Trimmer's own words) which furnish instances of the extinction of a race of ancient nobility, in a neighbouring nation, and the elevation of some of the lowest people to the highest stations. Boys accustomed to consider themselves the nobles of the school, may, in their future lives, from a concert of their own merits (unless they hare very sound principles), aspire to be nobles of the land, and to take place of the hereditary nobility."

boys, that Mr. Lancaster has made it quite pleasant and interesting to them, by giving to it the air of military arrangement; not foreseeing, as Mrs. Trimmer foresees, that, in times of public danger, this plan furnishes the disaffected with the immediate means of raising an army; for what have they to do but to send for all the children educated by Mr. Lancaster, from the different corners of the kingdom into which they are dispersed, to beg it as a particular favour of them to fall into the same order as they adopted in the spelling class twenty-five years ago; and the rest is all matter of course

We think these extracts will sufficiently satisfy every reader of common sense, of the merits of this publication. For our part, when we saw these ragged and interesting little nobles, shining in their tin stars, we only thought it probable that the spirit of emulation would make them better ushers, tradesmen, and mechanics. We did, in truth, imagine we had observed, in some of their faces, a bold project for procuring better breeches for keeping out the blasts of heaven, which howled through those garments in every direction, and of aspiring hereafter to greater strength of seam, and more perfect continuity of cloth. But for the safety of the titled orders we had no fear; nor did we once dream that the black rod which whipt these dirty little dukes would one day be borne before them as the emblem of legislative dignity, and the sign of noble blood.

Order.-The order Mr. Lancaster has displayed in his school is quite astonishing. Every boy seems to be the cog of a wheel-the whole school a perfect machine. This is so far from

Jamque faces et saxa volant.

The main object, however, for which this book is written, is to prove that the Church Establishment is in danger from the increase of Mr. Lancaster's institutions. Mr. Lancaster is, as we have before observed, a Quaker. As a Quaker, he says, I cannot teach your creeds; but I pledge myself not to teach my own. I pledge myself (and if I deceive you, desert me, and give me up) to confine myself to those points of Christianity in which all Christians agree. To which Mrs. Trimmer replies, that, in the first place, he cannot do this; and, in the next place, if he did do it, it would not be enough. But why, we would ask, cannot Mr. Lancaster effect his first object? The practical and the feeling parts of religion are much more likely to attract the attention and provoke the questions of children, than its speculative doctrines. A child is not very likely to put any questions at all to a catechising master, and still less likely to lead him into subtle and profound disquisition. It appears to us not only practicable, but very easy, to confine the religious instruction of the poor, in the first years of life, to those general feelings and principles which are suitable to the Established Church, and to every sect; afterwards, the discriminating tenets of each subdivision of Christians may be fixed upon this general basis. To say that this is not enough,—that a child should be made an Antisocinian, or an

Antipelagian, in his tenderest years, may be very just; but what prevents you from making him so? Mr. Lancaster, purposely and intentionally, to allay all jealousy, leaves him in a state as well adapted for one creed as another. Begin; make your pupil a firm advocate for the peculiar doctrines of the English Church; dig round about him, on every side, a trench that shall guard him from every species of heresy. In spite of all this clamour you do nothing; you do not stir a single step; you educate alike the swineherd and his hog; and then, when a man of real genius and enterprise rises up, and says, Let me dedicate my life to this neglected object, I will do everything but that which must necessarily devolve upon you alone,-you refuse to do your little, and compel him, by the cry of Infidel and Atheist, to leave you to your ancient repose, and not to drive you by insidious comparisons, to any system of active utility. We deny, again and again, that Mr. Lancaster's instruction is any kind of impediment to the propagation of the doctrines of the Church; and if Mr. Lancaster were to perish with his system tomorrow, these boys would positively be taught nothing; the doctrines which Mrs. Trimmer considers to be prohibited would not rush in, but there would be an absolute vacuum. We will, however, say this in favour of Mrs. Trimmer, that if every one who has joined in her clamour had laboured one hundredth part as much as she has done in the cause of national education, the clamour would be much more rational, and much more consistent, than it now is. By living with a few people as active as herself, she is perhaps somehow or another persuaded that there is a national education going on in this country. But our principle argument is, that Mr. Lancaster's plan is at least better than the nothing which preceded it. The authoress herself seems to be a lady of respectable opinions, and very ordinary talents; defending what is right without judgment, and believing what is holy without charity.

PARNELL AND IRELAND.* (E. REVIEW, 1807.)

lics.

Historical Apology for the Irish Catho-
By William Parnell, Esquire.
Fitzpatrick, Dublin, 1807.

IF ever a nation exhibited symptoms
of downright madness, or utter stu-
pidity, we conceive these symptoms
may be easily recognised in the conduct
of this country upon the Catholic ques-
tion. A man has a wound in his great
toe, and a violent and perilous fever
at the same time; and he refuses to
take the medicines for the fever, because
it will disconcert his toe! The mourn-
ful and folly-stricken blockhead forgets
that his toe cannot survive him!—that
if he dies, there can be no digital life
apart from him; yet he lingers and
fondles over this last part of his body,
soothing it madly with little plasters,
and anile fomentations, while the neg-
lected fever rages in his entrails, and
burns away his whole life. If the com-
paratively little questions of Establish-
ment are all that this country is capable
of discussing or regarding, for God's
sake let us remember, that the foreign
conquest which destroys all, destroys
this beloved toe also. Pass over freedom,
industry, and science-and look upon
this great empire, by which we are
about to be swallowed up, only as it
affects the manner of collecting tithes,
and of reading the liturgy—still, if all
goes, these must go too; and even, for
their interests, it is worth while to con-
ciliate Ireland, to avert the hostility,
and to employ the strength of the
Catholic population. We plead the
question as the sincerest friends to the
Establishment ;- - as wishing to it all
the prosperity and duration its warmest

I do not retract one syllable (or one iota) of what I have said or written upon for Ireland was emancipation, time and the Catholic question. What was wanted justice, abolition of present wrongs; time for forgetting past wrongs, and that consuch oblivion wise. It is now only difficult tinued and even justice which would make to tranquillise Ireland, before emancipation it was impossible. As to the danger from Catholic doctrines, I must leave such apprehensions to the respectable anility of these realms. I will not meddle with it.

ing always, what these advocates seem to forget, that the Establishment cannot be threatened by any danger so great as the perdition of the kingdom in which it is established.

advocates can desire,—but remember- | Ireland between the Reformation and the grand rebellion in the reign or Charles the First. The celebrated conquest of Ireland by Henry the Second, extended only to a very few counties in Leinster; nine-tenths of the whole We are truly glad to agree so entirely kingdom were left, as he found them, with Mr. Parnell upon this great ques-under the dominion of their native tion; we admire his way of thinking; princes. The influence of example was and most cordially recommend his as strong in this, as in most other inwork to the attention of the public. stances; and great numbers of the The general conclusion which he at- English settlers who came over under tempts to prove is this:-that religious various adventurers, resigned their presentiment, however perverted by bigotry tensions to superior civilisation, cast off or fanaticism, has always a tendency to their lower garments, and lapsed into moderation; that it seldom assumes the nudity and barbarism of the Irish. any great portion of activity or enthu- The limit which divided the possessions siasm, except from novelty of opinion, of the English settler from those of the or from opposition, contumely, and native Irish, was called the pale; and persecution, when novelty ceases; that the expressions of inhabitants within the a government has little to fear from pale, and without the pale, were the any religious sect, except while that terms by which the two nations were sect is new. Give a government only distinguished. It is almost superfluous time, and, provided it has the good to state, that the most bloody and sense to treat folly with forbearance, pernicious warfare was carried on upon it must ultimately prevail. When, the borders-sometimes for something therefore, a sect is found, after a lapse - sometimes for nothing-most comof years, to be ill-disposed to the Go-monly for cows. The Irish, over whom vernment, we may be certain that the sovereigns of England affected a sort Government has widened its separation by marked distinctions, roused its resentment by contumely, or supported its enthusiasm by persecution.

The particular conclusion Mr. Parnell attempts to prove is, that the Catholic religion in Ireland had sunk into torpor and inactivity, till Government roused it with the lash: that even then, from the respect and attachment which men are always inclined to show towards Government, there still remained a large body of loyal Catholics; that these only decreased in number from the rapid increase of persecution; and that, after all, the effects which the resentment of the Roman Catholics had in creating rebellions had been very much exaggerated.

In support of these two conclusions, Mr. Parnell takes a survey of the history of Ireland, from the conquest under Henry, to the rebellion under Charles the First, passing very rapidly over the period which preceded the Reformation, and dwelling principally upon the various rebellions which broke out in VOL. I

of nominal dominion, were entirely governed by their own laws; and so very little connection had they with the justice of the invading country, that it was as lawful to kill an Irishman as it was to kill a badger or a fox. The instances are innumerable, where the defendant has pleaded that the deceased was an Irishman, and that therefore defendant had a right to kill him;— and upon the proof of Hibernicism, acquittal followed of course.

When the English army mustered in any great strength, the Irish chieftains would do exterior homage to the English Crown; and they very frequently, by this artifice, averted from their country the miseries of invasion: but they remained completely unsubdued, till the rebellion which took place in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, of which that politic woman availed herself to the complete subjugation of Ireland. In speaking of the Irish about the reign of Elizabeth or James the First, we must not draw our comparisons from England, but from New Zealand; they were not

G

civilised men, but savages; and if we | which he put off as soon as he came in;

reason about their conduct, we must reason of them as savages.

"After reading every account of Irish history (says Mr. Parnell), one great perplexity appears to remain: How does it happen, that from the first invasion of the English, till the reign of James I., Ireland seems not to have made the smallest progress in civilisation or wealth?

"That it was divided into a number of small principalities, which waged constant war on each other, or that the appointment of the chieftains was elective,-do not appear sufficient reasons, although these are the only ones assigned by those who have been at the trouble of considering the subject: neither are the confiscations of property quite sufficient to account for the effect. There have been great confiscations in other countries, and still they have flourished; the petty states of Greece were quite analogous to the chiefries (as they were called) in Ireland; and yet they seemed to flourish almost in proportion to their dissensions. Poland felt the bad effects of an elective monarchy more than any other country; and yet, in point of civilisation, it maintained a very respectable rank among the nations of Europe; but Ireland never, for an instant, made any progress in improvement till the reign of James I.

and, entertaining the Baron after his best manner in the Latin tongue, desired him to put off his apparel, which he thought to be a burden to him, and to sit naked.

"To conclude, men and women at night going to sleep, lie thus naked in a round circle about the fire, with their feet towards it. They fold their heads and their upper parts in woollen mantles, first steeped in water, to keep them warm: for they say that woollen cloth, wetted, preserves heat (as linen, wetted, preserves cold), when the smoke of their bodies has warmed the woollen cloth.'

"The cause of this extreme poverty, and of its long continuance, we must conclude arose from the peculiar laws of property which were in force under the Irish dynasties. These laws have been described by most writers as similar to the Kentish custom of gavelkind; and, indeed, so little attention was paid to the subject, that were it not for the researches of Sir J. Davis, the knowledge of this singular usage would have been entirely lost.

"The Brehon law of property, he tells us, was similar to the custom (as the English lawyers term it) of hodge-podge. When any one of the sept died, his lands did not descend to his sons, but were divided among the whole sept: and, for this purpose, the chief of the sept made a new division of the whole lands belonging to the sept, and gave every one his part according to seniority. So that no man had a pro

and even during his own life, his possession of any particular spot was quite uncertain, being liable to be constantly shuffled and changed by new partitions. The consequence of this was, that there was not a house of brick or stone, among the Irish, down to the reign of Henry VII.; not even a garden or orchard, or well-fenced or improved field; neither village or town, or in any respect the least provision for posterity. This monstrous custom, so opposite to the natural feelings of mankind, was probably perpetuated by the policy of the chiefs. In the first place, the power of partitioning being lodged in their hands, made them the most absolute of tyrants, being the dispensers of the property as well as of the liberty of their subjects. In the second place, it had the appearance of adding to the number of their savage armies; for, where there was no improvement or tillage, war was pursued as an occupation.

"It is scarcely credible, that in a climate like that of Ireland, and at a period so far advanced in civilisation as the end of Eliza-perty which could descend to his children; beth's reign, the greater part of the natives should go naked. Yet this is rendered certain by the testimony of an eye-witness, Fynes Moryson. In the remote parts (he says), where the English laws and manners are unknown, the very chief of the Irish, as well men as women, go naked in the winter time, only having their privy parts covered with a rag of linen, and their bodies with a loose mantle. This I speak of my own experience; yet remember that a Bohemian baron coming out of Scotland to us by the north parts of the wild Irish, told me in great earnestness, that he coming to the house of O'Kane, a great lord amongst them, was met at the door by sixteen women all naked, excepting their loose mantles, whereof eight or ten were very fair; with which strange sight his eyes being dazzled, they led him into the house, and then sitting down by the fire with crossed legs, like tailors, and so low as could not but offend chaste eyes, desired him to sit down with them. Soon after, O'Kane, the lord of the country, came in all naked, except a loose mantle and shoes,

"In the early history of Ireland, we find several instances of chieftains discountenancing tillage; and so late as Elizabeth's reign, Moryson says, that Sir Neal Garve