The author proceeds to contrast the tithe system of England with that of Ireland, and to point out the disadvantageous condition of the tithe-payers in the latter country, the summary methods of exaction to which they are exposed, and the enormous charges with which the law proceedings load the smallest sums. A charge of six shillings, if it is not immediately paid, and has to be levied by distress, will, according to a calculation given, be swelled up to the amount of above £.6.; and by these enormous exactions, the peasantry are ground down to the earth. Their whole crop is sold to satisfy the tithes, and the miserable Occupier turned out, with his wife and children, to beg or steal, or to starve. The whole of this system, with all its cruel details, are clearly set forth in this ingenious work, and are well calculated to make an impression, and to cause those who are without the sphere of this oppression to reflect seriously on the whole system. The grievance is obvious; its effects in the continual heartburnings, discontents, seditions, murders, and fire-raisings, are equally so. And we may ask, Is there no remedy for all this complication of misery? Is it absolutely necessary that the whole land should be filled with discontent and wretchedness, in order to furnish forth the splendid trappings of the Protestant Church? Could not this Church abate somewhat of its claims? Could not spiritual instruction be procured to the Protestants at less expence? These are questions that must occur to every one; and they are questions that must be answered, for this evil cannot go on for ever increasing. Some check must be given to it ere long; some inquiries must be made into this case of Irish oppression, and some remedy applied; that the harrassed land may at last have a chance of peace, and some respite from its long-continued woes.

The transactions which took place in Ireland, from the time when the Parliament acquired its independence, till the Union, are sketched in the most lively colours of wit and fancy, and in a tone of reprobation that seems sufficiently strong. The writer lays bare the

gangrened parts of Ireland's policy, with all the severe calmness of a practised operator. He does not halve matters. There is nothing conciliatory to opponents. His language is, throughout, that of firm and fearless hostility, and the seasoning of wit only renders the whole more cutting and piquant. It gives no relief to the gloomy colouring of the picture. He dwells strongly on the corruptions by which, after the evil of the American war, Ireland was governed, and of which he draws the following lively picture:

The British Minister, no longer able to govern us by his Attorney-General, was driven to the more circuitous and expensive mode of ruling us by our own Parliament; and a course of corruption was now boldly entered into a sort of frank, Lothario spirit, was adopted by the Government, which seemed to say,

"Think'st thou I mean the shame should be concealed ?" and which soon succeed

ed in making political profligacy fashionable.

Had it been a regular trade-wind of Corruption, blowing steadily from the usual Tory quarter, servility would have been at least consistent, and might have even pretended to honesty, on the ground of having but one paymaster. But, just about this time, those Titans, the Whigs,

had succeeded more than once in scaling the Olympus of office, and, though speedily hurled down again, they remained long enough, each time, to puzzle both patriots and courtiers considerably, and to produce such a confusion in their votes and opinions, as made it no easy matter to distinguish one party from the other.

At length, however, Toryism and Corruption resumed their full and undisturbed empire. A regular market was opened at the Castle, and the price of every service, down to single votes on particular questions, was ascertained and tariffed with the most tradesmanlike accuracy. So little decency did the Government observe in these transactions, that the At torney General (afterwards Lord Clare) did not hesitate, on one occasion, when some of the train-bands of the Court had the expense that would be incurred in joined the Opposition, to hint broadly at buying them back again.

He afterwards comes to the year 1793, when Lord Fitzwilliam was sent over to Ireland to grant emancipation to the Catholics,-when Mr Grattan, and all his friends, were

seen in the van of administration,when suddenly the scene was overcast,-when Lord Fitzwilliam was recalled,-when the Protestant ascendency, from some unexplained cause, revived in full power,-when Mr Pitt was baffled in his schemes with regard to Ireland, and when the fatal rebellion in 1798 broke out, which paved the way for the Union, an event on which he dwells with no satisfaction.

The work concludes with a short summary of the present state of the Catholics, and of the practical effects that have followed from the relaxation of the penal laws; and on this subject there is, in his remarks, a tone of moderation and good sense which well deserves the attention of the Legislature. The privileges conceded to the Catholics in 1793 were the freedom of the elective franchise, the freedom of corporations, their eligibility to be grand jurors, to act as barristers, &c. With regard to the elective franchise, he shews that it was a hasty and injudicious concession, and that it was too much extended. The more enlightened Catholics did not wish the right of election to be extended so low as the forty-shilling freeholders. They wished a higher qualification, in or der to exclude the mere Catholic mob, uneducated and ignorant, and incapable of any rational exercise of their political rights. This concession, therefore, our author considers injudicious, more especially when the enlightened Catholic was still excluded from Parliament. With regard to the other privileges of corporation, &c. the Catholics, he informs us, are as effectually excluded as ever from all these offices which the letter of the law opens to them, by the exclusive spirit still prevailing among their Protestant Lords, who can, at their pleasure, either open or shut the gates of political power. No law, to be sure, now excludes them from corporations; but it requires a special grant from the Protestant Members to make them free of these corporations; and this, in the true exclusive spirit which has so long been the bane of Ireland, they withhold from them; so that the concession by the Legislature is illusory;-it really confers nothing, the law being de

feated in its practical application to society. The stream of freedom, which spreads fertility over the land, is choaked up in its course, and never reaches the Catholic grounds, which remain still a barren waste amid the smiling landscape around. The same evil principle poisons most of the other concessions. A Catholic may be chosen to sit in grand and petty juries, but the fact is, that he is not so chosen. The power lies with the Sheriff, who, being a Protestant, conceives it proper still to exclude the Catholic; and in some countries no Roman Catholic has ever been on a jury when one of his own religion was to be tried. It is a great mistake, then, to suppose that Catholic emancipation, as it is called, only applies to the higher Catholics. The restrictive laws, still in force, exclude them, not merely from being Members of Parliament, Lord Chancellors, Judges, Attorneys-General, King's Counsel, Masters in the Chancery, &c., and from the higher offices in the army, but they operate in the daily detail of domestic life; the exclusion from all corporate offices, amounting to about 5000, through all Ireland, is not only a serious evil, but it is a degradation, a real practical degradation, on which basis of law there has been reared up in the manners a large superstructure of Protestant insolence. These exclusions diminish the importance of the Catholics in society; they lead to an extensive detail of practical oppression, which is summed up by this writer in the following striking observations, with which we shall conclude the account of his work:

The same evil principle of Orangeism and Intolerance pervades all the Corporate Towns in Ireland,-which may be reckoned, if I recollect right, at 115 in number; and when to this general operation of the spirit of the law against its letter

we add the actual enactments which ex

clude the Catholic from all Corporate Offices,-from any share whatever in ties, which, unjust, partial, and exclusive, those municipal privileges and immanias they are in their nature, become aggravated, in their very worst features, by being thus narrowed to a small favoured Sect, we may have some idea of the extent to which the penal spirit spreads itself through Ireland, and how univer.

satisfied, is not borne out by the fact, -that the boys at the High School are not now rightly educated. The impression which this assertion is so well calculated to make on the public is farther strengthened by many particulars in the course of the Statement; such as, that the system which has been promulgated by the Directors of the Academy is to be an improvement on that already employed in the High School, where the Directors consider it to be "defective." There is nothing, as far as we can see, in the whole Statement, which can have the effect of removing this evident implication to the prejudice of the old seminary, (an explanation which, we think, would have been no more than fair to the Masters,) and, in as far as we have been the medium of circulating this unfounded supposition, we retract what we said formerly in coincidence with this Statement of the Directors. This we do, not merely without reluctance, but with great pleasure. On particular inquiry, we find that the same system which, for the last ten years, has been the subject of frequent and high commendation by inany of the Academy Subscribers themselves, is now acted upon with some amendments, and with equal success. In fact, the High School of Edinburgh was never better taught than it now is; and there are as brilliant scholars among the boys now, as ever appeared under the tuition of its present Masters, or any of their predecessors.

When on this part of the subject, we may remark, that although the expediency of establishing the new seminary is rested chiefly upon the supposed excess in the numbers attending the High School, yet the Scheme, now exhibited by the Directors, actually contemplates, and is calculated on the supposition, that there will be a greater number of boys under the same number of Masters in the New Academy, than there are under the High School Masters at present. This looks a little inconsistent. "The crowded state of many of the Classes in the High School, (See Statement, p. 21,) having been one of the causes which led to the establishment of the Aca

demy, we have thought proper to fix a limit to the admission of scholars. We propose that the number in each of the four junior Classes shall not exceed 110, and that the Rector's Class shall not exceed 160, making the total number at the School 600; unless, when, by the union of the boys of the 6th year with those coming to the Rector from the 4th Class, his Class shall exceed 160. If, by that union, his Class amounts to 160, he is not to be permitted to increase it by boys entering at the School for the first time from other seminaries."

It happens, rather unexpectedly to us, we confess, that the arrangement thus projected allows to each of the Masters in the junior Classes 110 pupils; while, at present, the average number of boys in the four lower Classes of the High School is only 105; so that the new system does not, by any means, get quit of the most formidable-looking objection which the Directors ascribe to the High School. Indeed, the Academicians cannot adopt any scheme for improving on the plan of the High School, which is not equally within the reach of the latter; and it was proposed by the Magistrates, we have been told, to supply additional Teachers, whenever the numbers in attendance at the High School should be such as to render that an expedient measure. It is quite plain, therefore, that, as regards the limitation of numbers, the Directors of the Academy have not realized any improvement, and that, if excessive numbers be an evil in the High School, that evil may be aggravated in the Academy, upon the plan of its system exhibited in

their Statement.

The next point to which our attention is naturally drawn, is the distribution of time, and the hours allotted to the different branches of education; and here, we humbly think, the projected system for the Academy is exceedingly vulnerable, and any thing but an improvement. In considering these two seminaries as contrasted with each other, and in canvassing the claims of the Academy to improvements on the plan of education at the High School, we must always keep in mind that the

latter is strictly and exclusively a Classical Establishment; and that it does not form, and has never been, any part of its system, to combine with its operations tuition in English, Arithmetic, Mathematics, &c. It is avowedly Classical; and although it be surrounded with all sorts of Private Schools, in which these other branches are well taught, the High School, according to its present plan, does not, and we hope never will, admit any mixture of these with its proper objects. In comparing the Scheme of the Academy, therefore, with the system of the High School, we must keep the Classical department in view, as the only part which is fairly susceptible of comparison, and as the model on which improvements have been made.

In the First Class, and year, of the Academy, there are to be only 2 hours a-day devoted to Latin, which, for five days in the week, (Saturday being thrown out,) makes ten hours in the week.

In the Second Class there are 2 hours at one meeting for Latin, and at another, 1 for Latin and Geography; so that, deducting the quarter for Geography, there will be only 3 hours a-day for Latin, being 15 hours per week.

In the Third Class, for Latin, Greek, and Geography, three days a-week, 24 hours are allowed. Two days in the week, 1 hour and three quarters, making, in whole, 19 hours per week; so that, supposing the half of that time occupied in Greek and Geography, there will be 10 hours per week for Latin.

The fourth year, 3 hours every day are to be devoted to Latin, Greek, and Geography, or 224 hours per week, from which, if one half be taken for the two latter branches, 11 hours will remain for Latin.

The fifth and sixth years, and Classes, are somewhat mystified; but, if we understand the arrangement, there are to be 24 hours every day for Latin and Greek, being 11 hours per week for both; and as three days are to be devoted to Greek, the hours for Latin, during the two last years of attendance, will be limited to 8 hours a-week.

Such is the proposed distribution of time for Classical Studies at the

New Academy. In the High School, it is at once more simple, and less liable to exception. Even in the shortest winter day, and stating only the minimum, the time devoted by the Master in each class, to teaching, is four hours a-day, at two meetings -or twenty-two hours in the week; so that, unless the Teachers of the New Academy are to be endowed with some charm, by which they can convey more knowledge to their pupils in ten, and fifteen, and eleven hours, than the High School Masters can communicate in twenty-two hours per week, devoted to the same studies, the projected change furnishes a strong presumption against the innovation. Supposing, in courtesy, that the Masters of the New Academy shall be equal in their professional qualifications to the Masters in the Old School,—and there is no reason to assume that they are superior,

and supposing the numbers and capacities of the boys to be equal, there is a preponderance of chances in favour of the Classes where the greatest portion of time is bestowed on what is professed to be the great and leading object of both Schools, viz. instruction in Latin, with such an addition of Greek as the tender years of the boys fit them for acquiring, while in attendance at either of the seminaries. The first three years at the High School are devoted to Latin exclusively; and the fourth, fifth, and sixth years, a portion of the long hours of teaching there is appropriated to Greek; but as the division of time for Greek, and for Latin, in the New Academy, has not yet been announced, it is needless to compare the two plans, where they cannot be minutely contrasted. One thing, however, is quite certain, that a greater portion of time is allowed in the High School for Greek and Latin, than the prospectus of the Academy plan holds out to expectation. And from all we have learnt, either in our own experience, or by information from practical Masters, it is better to defer the commencement of Greek until the fourth year, when a boy may have surmounted the difficulties of his elementary studies in the Latin language, than to involve him, while yet struggling with those difficulties, in a premature task