the reign of George I., the horses of rounded, we are constrained to say, Papists were seized for the militia, and that we greatly fear that these incaparode by Protestants; towards which cities never will be removed, till they the Catholics paid double, and were are removed by fear? What else, incompelled to find Protestant substi- deed, can we expect when we see them tutes. They were prohibited from opposed by such enlightened men as voting at vestries, or being high or Mr. Peel-faintly assisted by men of petty constables. An act of the En- such admirable genius as Mr Canning, glish Parliament in this reign opens when Royal Dukes consider it as a as follows:-"Whereas attempts have compliment to the memory of their been lately made to shake off the sub- father to continue this miserable system jection of Ireland to the Imperial of bigotry and exclusion, when men Crown of these realms, be it enacted," act ignominiously and contemptibly on &c. &c. In the reign of George II. this question, who do so on no other four-sixths of the population were cut question,-when almost the only peroff from the right of voting at elections, sons zealously opposed to this general by the necessity under which they were baseness and fatuity are a few Whigs placed of taking the oath of supre- and Reviewers, or here and there a macy. Barristers and solicitors marry-virtuous poet like Mr. Moore? We ing Catholics are exposed to all the repeat again, that the measure never penalties of Catholics. Persons robbed will be effected but by fear. In the by privateers during a war with a midst of one of our just and necessary Catholic State, are to be indemnified wars, the Irish Catholics will compel by a levy on the Catholic inhabitants this country to grant them a great deal of the neighbourhood. All marriages more than they at present require, or between Catholics and Protestants are even contemplate. We regret most annulled. All Popish priests celebra- severely the protraction of the disease, ting them are to be hanged. "This and the danger of the remedy; 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, tells him how effectually this has been done." (Young's Tour in Ireland, Vol. II. p. 48) 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 Such is the history of Ireland - for on which Mr. Wallace presided has we are now at our own times; and the been of the greatest possible utility, only remaining question is, whether and does infinite credit to the Governthe system of improvement and con-ment. The name of Mr. Wallace, in ciliation begun in the reign of George any commission, has now become a III. shall be pursued, and the remain-pledge to the public that there is a real ing incapacities of the Catholics re-intention to investigate and correct moved, 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 sur 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 them, like the pillars of Palmyra towering in a wilderness!-when I reflected on all mission of discord which I had undertaken, this, it not only disheartened me for the 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! led to falsify our forebodings. But virtues, without which the loftiest talents alas! there are motives more imme- stand isolated in the moral waste around diate, 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 meantime, we cannot resist the temp-soon drew me out of this false light of hope tation 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 interests in all future riots and rebellions, to the one bright, seducing object of my country's liberty and repose. mentary dazzle by which I was affected, "My father, however, who saw the mo 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."" BENTHAM ON FALLACIES. (E. REVIEW, 1825.) The Book of Fallacies: from Unfinished Papers of Jeremy Bentham. By a Friend. London. J. and H. L. Hunt. 1824. THERE are a vast number of absurd "When I contemplated such a man as and mischievous fallacies, which pass the venerable Charlemont, whose nobility readily in the world for sense and was to the people like a fort over a valley-virtue, while in truth they tend only elevated above them solely for their defence; to fortify error and encourage crime. who introduced the polish of the courtier into the camp of the freeman, and served Mr. Bentham has enumerated the his country with all that pure, Platonic most conspicuous of these in the book devotion, which a true knight in the time before us. 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 Whether it be necessary there should be a middleman between the cultivator and the possessor, learned economists have doubted; but neither gods, men, nor booksellers, can doubt the necessity of a middleman between Mr. Bentham and the public. Mr. Bentham is long; Mr. Bentham is occa sionally involved and obscure; Mr. they were. The real feeling should be, Bentham invents new and alarming not, can we be so presumptuous as to expressions; Mr. Bentham loves divi- put our opinions in opposition to those sion and sub-division - and he loves of our ancestors? but can such young, method itself, more than its conse-ignorant, and inexperienced persons, quences. Those only, therefore, who as our ancestors necessarily were, be know his originality, his knowledge, expected to have understood a subhis vigour, and his boldness, will recur ject as well as those who have seen so to the works themselves. The great much more, lived so much longer, and mass of readers will not purchase im- enjoyed the experience of so many provement at so dear a rate; but will centuries? All this cant, then, about choose rather to become acquainted our ancestors is merely an abuse of with Mr. Bentham through the me- words, by transferring phrases true of dium of Reviews - after that eminent contemporary men to succeeding ages. philosopher has been washed, trimmed, Whereas (as we have before observed) shaved, and forced into clean linen. of living men the oldest has, cæteris One great use of a Review, indeed, is paribus, the most experience; of geneto make men wise in ten pages, who rations, the oldest has, cæteris paribus, have no appetite for a hundred pages; the least experience. Our ancestors, to condense nourishment, to work with up to the Conquest, were children in pulp and essence, and to guard the arms; chubby boys in the time of stomach from idle burden and unmean- Edward I.; striplings under Eliza ing bulk. For half a page, sometimes beth; men in the reign of Queen for a whole page, Mr. Bentham writes Anne; and we only are the whitewith a power which few can equal; bearded, silver-headed ancients, who and by selecting and omitting, an ad- have treasured up, and are prepared to mirable style may be formed from the profit by, all the experience which hutext. Using this liberty, we shall en-man life can supply. We are not disdeavour to give an account of Mr. puting with our ancestors the palm of Bentham's doctrines, for the most part talent, in which they may or may not in his own words. Wherever any ex-be our superiors, but the palm of expression is particularly happy, let it be considered to be Mr. Bentham's :the dulness we take to ourselves. perience, in which it is utterly impossible they can be our superiors. And yet, whenever the Chancellor Our Wise Ancestors-the Wisdom of comes forward to protect some abuse, our Ancestors the Wisdom of Ages or to oppose some plan which has venerable Antiquity- Wisdom of Old the increase of human happiness for Times. This mischievous and absurd its object, his first appeal is always to fallacy springs from the grossest per- the wisdom of our ancestors; and he version of the meaning of words. Ex- himself, and many noble lords who perience is certainly the mother of vote with him, are, to this hour, wisdom, and the old have, of course, persuaded that all alterations and a greater experience than the young; amendments on their devices are an unbut the question is, who are the old? blushing controversy between youthand who are the young? Of indivi- ful temerity and mature experience!— duals living at the same period, the and so, in truth, they are, only that oldest has, of course, the greatest ex-much-loved magistrate mistakes the perience; but among generations of young for the old, and the old for the men the reverse of this is true. Those young and is guilty of that very who come first (our ancestors) are the sin against experience which he attriyoung people, and have the least ex-butes to the lovers of innovation. perience. We have added to their We cannot, of course, be supposed experience the experience of many to maintain that our ancestors wanted centuries; and, therefore, as far as wisdom, or that they were necessarily experience goes, are wiser, and more mistaken in their institutions, because capable of forming an opinion than their means of information were more these wise ancestors will turn out to be grossly ignorant. "Take, for example, any year in the reign of Henry the Eighth, from 1509 to 1546. At that time the House of Lords would probably have been in possession of by far the larger proportion of what little instruction the age afforded: in the House of Lords, among the laity, it might even then be a lordships were all of them able so much as question whether, without exception, their to read. But even supposing them all in the fullest possession of that useful art, political science being the science in question, what instruction on the subject could they meet with at that time of day? limited than ours. But we do confi- | art of reading, and their proficiency emdently maintain that when we find it ployed in the reading of newspapers,) the expedient to change anything which very highest and best informed class of our ancestors have enacted, we are the experienced persons, and not they. The quantity of talent is always vary ing in any great nation. To say that we are more or less able than our ancestors, is an assertion that requires to be explained. All the able men of all ages, who have ever lived in England, probably possessed, if taken altogether, more intellect than all the able men now in England can boast of. But if authority must be resorted to rather than reason, the question is, What was the wisdom of that single age which enacted the law, compared with the wisdom of "On no one branch of legislation was any the age which proposes to alter it? What book extant from which, with regard to the are the eminent men of one and the circumstances of the then present times, any useful instruction could be derived: other period? If you say that our distributive law, penal law, international ancestors were wiser than us, mention law, political economy, so far from existing your date and year. If the splendour as sciences, had scarcely obtained a name : of names is equal, are the circum- in all those departments, under the head of stances the same ? If the circum- quid faciendum, a mere blank: the whole stances are the same, we have a supe- literature of the age consisted of a meagre riority of experience, of which the chronicle or two, containing short memorandums of the usual occurrences of war difference between the two periods is and peace, battles, sieges, executions, revels, the measure. It is necessary to insist deaths, births, processions, ceremonies, and upon this; for upon sacks of wool, other external events; but with scarce a and on benches forensic, sit grave speech or an incident that could enter into men, and agricolous persons in the the composition of any such work as a hisCommons, crying out "Ancestors, tory of the human mind - with scarce an Ancestors! hodie non! Saxons, attempt at investigation into causes, chaDanes, save us! Fiddlefrig, help us!racters, or the state of the people at large. Howel, Ethelwolf, protect us!"-Any cover for nonsense any veil for trash any pretext for repelling the innovations of conscience and of duty! - Even when at last, little by little, a scrap or two of political instruction came to be obtainable, the proportion of error and mischievous doctrine mixed up with it was so great, that whether a blank unfilled might not have been less prejudicial than a blank thus filled, may reasonably be matter of doubt. "If we come down to the reign of James the First, we shall find that Solomon of his time, eminently eloquent as well as learned, not only among crowned but among uncrowned heads, marking out for prohibition and punishment the practices of devils and "So long as they keep to vague generalities-so long as the two objects of comparison are each of them taken in the lumpwise ancestors in one lump, ignorant and foolish mob of modern times in the other the weakness of the fallacy may escape detection. But let them assign for the period of superior wisdom any determinate period whatsoever, not only will the ground-witches, and without any the slightest lessness of the notion be apparent (class being compared with class in that period and the present one), but, unless the antecedent period be comparatively speaking a very modern one, so wide will be the disparity, and to such an amount in favour of modern times, that, in comparison of the lowest class of the people in modern times, (always supposing them proficients in the objection on the part of the great characters of that day in their high situations, consigning men to death and torment for the misfortune of not being so well acquainted as he was with the composition of the Godhead. "Under the name of Exorcism the Catholic liturgy contains a form of procedure for driving out devils;-even with the help animates not only childhood, but also maturer age, can rarely or never be seen among the inhabitants of the United States."-(Excursion, pp. 502, 503.) tonishment as the Italians did when some more than we do, or more despise the Englishmen played at this finest of all pitiful propensity which exists among games in the Casina at Florence. Indeed, Government runners to vent their small that joyous spirit which, in our country, spite at their character; but on the subject of slavery, the conduct of America is, and has been, most reprehensible. It is impossible to speak of it with too much indignation and contempt; but for it we should look forward with unqualified pleasure to such a land of freedom, and such a magnificent spectacle of human happiness. These are a few of the leading and prominent circumstances respecting America, mentioned in the various works before us: of which works we can recommend the Letters of Mr. Hodgson, and the Excursion into Canada, as sensible, agreeable books, written in a very fair spirit. MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROCK. Memoirs of Captain Rock, the celebrated America seems, on the whole, to be a country possessing vast advantages, and little inconveniences; they have a cheap government, and bad roads; they pay no tithes, and have stage coaches without springs. They have no poor-laws, and no monopolies - THIS agreeable and witty book is but their inns are inconvenient, and generally supposed to have been writtravellers are teased with questions. ten by Mr. Thomas Moore, a gentle They have no collections in the fine man of small stature, but full of genius, arts; but they have no Lord Chan- and a steady friend of all that is honourcellor, and they can go to law with-able and just. He has here borrowed out absolute ruin. They cannot make the name of a celebrated Irish leader, Latin verses, but they expend immense to typify that spirit of violence and sums in the education of the poor. In insurrection which is necessarily geneall this the balance is prodigiously in rated by systematic oppression, and their favour: but then comes the great rudely avenges its crimes; and the disgrace and danger of America the picture he has drawn of its prevalence existence of slavery, which, if not in that unhappy country is at once timously corrected, will one day entail piteous and frightful. Its effect in (and ought to entail) a bloody servile exciting our horror and indignation is war upon the Americans-which will in the long run increased, we think,separate America into slave States and though at first it may seem counterStates disclaiming slavery, and which acted, by the tone of levity, and even remains at present as the foulest blot jocularity, under which he has chosen in the moral character of that people. to veil the deep sarcasm and substanA high-spirited nation, who cannot tial terrors of his story. We smile at endure the slightest act of foreign ag-first, and are amused-and wonder, as gression, and who revolt at the very shadow of domestic tyranny, beat with cart-whips, and bind with chains, and murder for the merest trifles, wretched human beings, who are of a more dusky colour than themselves; and have recently admitted in their Union a new State, with the express per- in the first volume of the Newgate mission of ingrafting this atrocious wickedness into their constitution! No one can admire the simple wisdom and manly firmness of the Americans we proceed, that the humorous narrative should produce conviction and pity-shame, abhorrence, and despair! England seems to have treated Ireland much in the same way as Mrs. Brownrigg treated her apprenticefor which Mrs. Brownrigg is hanged Calendar. Upon the whole, we think the apprentice is better off than the Irishman: as Mrs. Brownrigg merely starves and beats her, without any |