schools, which seemed so many bee-hives in swarming time; I was only in the Catholic part of Ireland, and have not quite information enough to conclude what I rather presume to be true, that it is to the zeal inspired by religious persecution that this singular effect is to be ascribed. The instance would for the present appear to be one on their side of the argument, who deny the advantages of education; but the good fruits, I am convinced, will be reaped in due season. It was during the persecution of the Presbyterians in Scotland, that their system of parish education was founded and organized, and the lower orders of that country remained for many years after the union in a state of wretched beggary, idleness, and insubordination. Fletcher of Salton's description of them would pass for too high colouring in describing the present Irish. They are, generally speaking, unemployed and lawless; and the greatest political evil of Ireland is their excessive number. Nothing seems likely to remedy this but that change in the occupation of landed property by the breaking down of vast territories held by Absentees into smaller estates, and the reverse process of converting the present fractions of leasehold into large farms, which will take place in the natural progress of wealth. It is a revolution which will cause some violent struggles, on the part of the displaced tenantry; and there have been already some proofs of the change having commenced, and of the struggles which attend it. This progress of agriculture in Ireland will be accelerated, I expect, by two circumstances, which may be regarded as accidental. The peculiar circumstances of England in respect of population and wealth give Ireland a near and vast market for grain; and Sir John Newport's Act has rendered the trade quite free. The other circum stance is, that the rebellion of 1798 has led both government and the country gentlemen of Ireland to pay an extraordinary attention to the improvement of their roads, which are better in that country and more numerous, than in almost any other. The late unexpected turn of things here will probably bring your Grace sooner to town than you intended. I have not heard how the King is to-day, but I have good reason to believe that he was worse yesterday than was publicly given out. The pains taken at Windsor to conceal the real extent of his illness, only make one believe it to be much more severe and serious. Believe me, my dear Lord, Most faithfully yours, FRA. HORNER. LETTER CLXI. TO DUGALD STEWART, ESQ. My dear Sir, Lincoln's Inn, 16th November, 1810. I was much chagrined, upon my coming to London, to find that no copy of the Bullion Report had been sent to you from the Vote Office, though I wrote from the circuit expressly to desire it, and I had taken for granted that it had been sent. It is now out of print; but there is a copy which I have lent to a gentleman who is now in Yorkshire, and which, as soon as I can recover it, I will send to you; if I should not be fortunate enough to procure another sooner. I hope you have got Huskisson's tract, and pray let me know if you have Mr. Blake's which is very good; the subject has produced much discussion in England, and I have no doubt will, within a year or two, be practically settled agreeably to our views. Every day, I hear of converts. You could not do me a greater favour, than by commu nicating to me what particular points there are in the doctrine stated by the committee, on which you either entertain a different opinion, or feel difficulties; for myself I will own, that there are a few instances, in which I think the argument has not yet been placed accurately upon the right grounds, as there are some in which I contented myself (in drawing my part of the Report) with assuming what might have been deduced from principles, but not without an air of more theory and general speculation than I thought it prudent (on account of my own situation) that the Report should bear. I suppose it is with respect to the wages of labour, and the pay of the army and navy, that you wish we had spoken out more fully, and followed out the consequences of our reasoning. I think the time will come when all those consequences ought to be explained without reserve; but in first breaking the subject, against the prejudices of a large portion of the English public, and against the arts of misrepresentation, which Government and the Bank were sure to put in practice, it seemed more advisable to rest the argument upon those grounds with which it was most difficult to mix any topics of declamation; and the more so, as a single hint, with respect to those other momentous consequences of a depreciated currency, is more than sufficient for all who are already acquainted with the principles of such subjects. I was in the minority last night against the renewed adjournment. The difference among us upon that motion, though it may be represented as party disunion, will have no bad consequences; I rather think the contrary. The constitutional principle is saved by so strong An adjournment of the House for a fortnight was proposed by the Government, on account of the King's illness. — ED. the style and the matter of it; delighted with it all. The composition is softer and more flowing than in his former writings, and has less of that emphasis and strain which gives a hardness to some parts of the Philosophy of the Mind. He is particularly satisfactory to me, in what he states with respect to Berkeley's speculations and those of Horne Tooke. Ever, my dear Murray, FRA. HORNER. P. S. Use all your influence with Jeffrey and with Brougham to keep out of the Edinburgh Review those party declamations, which are destroying its influence with the public. Let them leave the last word to the Quarterly Review, and break off from this useless warfare at once. LETTER CLIX. TO J. A. MURRAY, ESQ. My dear Murray, Salisbury, 7th August, 1810. It was quite a pleasure to me to receive a letter from you again. I could not help fancying sometimes you might be unwell; though, upon the whole, I satisfied myself that you must be busy. I will certainly give you the meeting in Dublin, and on the earliest day on which I can reach it. I must of course remain till the Somerset Assizes are almost over, which will not be till Friday the 31st instant. I calculate that if I am not disappointed in places, and have an ordinary passage, I may land at Dublin early in the morning of the 4th. You cannot rely upon me however for that day. If you should come there sooner, I hope you will see as much as you can, that we may be off for Killarney without delay; which I agree with you ought to be our chief object. I have a great curiosity to see something The lawyers will probably of an Irish court of justice. be upon their circuits at that time; but you may as well ask if the Recorder's Court at Dublin has any sittings. Most affectionately yours, FRA. HORNER. LETTER CLX. TO HIS MOTHER. My dear Mother, Killarney, 13th September, 1810. We came here last night, having made two days of it from Limerick, and rather tiresome ones; I had the pleasure, upon my arrival, to find your letter of the 5th instant, which had been forwarded to me from Dublin, together with one from Warwick. I hope you got the note from Dublin; which I wrote immediately after I landed, that you might be relieved from your fears about the deep sea. I was very lucky in being able to reach it, the very day we had fixed as the first that we had a chance of meeting; by travelling two nights in the mail, and being fortunate enough to get on without delay either at Birmingham or Shrewsbury; at both which places I changed coaches. I left Bristol on Monday evening at seven, and was at Holyhead on Wednesday about two in the afternoon. The packet sailed about an hour afterwards; but we were three and twenty hours upon the passage, and near twenty of those were to me hours of mortal sickness: I thought of poor Jonah in the whale's belly, and fancied myself in as bad a plight, as I lay in my crib with nothing to relieve me in my nausea, but the sighs of sympathising Welsh, Irish, and Scotch around me, men, |