that their brotherhood is the result of very strong resemblance in mind and feeling. Mr. Jesse begins with an account of Thames fishing, and shows how even the most wily inhabitants of its gentle tide may be taken with the greatest ease and the most perfect certainty, We regret our inability to record any of the mighty trout which have been landed from this river; but we cannot resist mentioning the following deed in the article of salmon :—

"October 3, 1812, at Shepperton Deeps, Mr. G. Marshall, of Brewer Street, London, caught a salmon with single gut, without a landing-net, weighing twenty-one and a quarter pounds."

This is the way that a salmon ought to be caught.

Mr. Jesse next proceeds to discuss the method of trolling in Staffordshire, and intersperses his account with some prettily told stories, for which we regret that we have no room, though Cleaveland Hall, and various other attractions, beckon us onward. Next comes the "Perch Fishing Club," and then the "Two day fly-fishing on the banks of the Test." "The Leckford Fishing Club" is the next on the tapis, and they introduce some very interesting hints and instructions to anglers. To this follows fishing for the grayling, and a visit to Oxford. Then the "country clergyman" figures onward to the end of the book. We have known many a country clergyman, who thrashed the waters like a very Gideon, but thrashed them in vain; and who, consequently, would have given the "tithe of his own tithes," for the tithe of the information contained in Mr. Jesse's book. It is even a lighter book in the playful parts than "Salmonia," by the late Sir Humphry Davy; and when the two parties bring their tackle into action, if they had been on the same water at the same time, we certainly should have preferred taking our dish of fish with Mr. Jesse.

But we must break from this engaging subject; for we could write a month without exhausting it. Angling is a delightful sport, and fishing a most lucrative employment; and individuals and the country cannot be too grateful to Mr. Yarrell and Mr. Jesse for their two most instructive and delightful books.

ART. XI.-Report of a Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Royal Dublin Society. Ordered to be printed in

the Session of 1836.

HE present state of Ireland is said to be a political anomaly. The contrary is the fact. Were the country different from what it is, were it prosperous and tranquil, after centuries upon centuries of systematic mismanagement, it might indeed be pronounced an anomaly, a contradiction to every principle of sound

reasoning, and to every deduction of common sense. Many of our modern economists, in their eagerness to apply some favourite specific, look no farther than the prominent results, which force themselves first on their attention. In their hurry to effect an instantaneous cure, they prescribe merely for the symptoms, and then are astonished that the remedies, that have succeeded in cases apparently similar, should here prove utterly ineffectual, if not pernicious. The truth is, that the causes of the disease lie infinitely deeper than these persons imagine. The virus of corrupt legislation has been so long suffered to work its way through the system, that it has infected every pore and fibre of the body politic; and it is not, therefore, by ordinary means, or by the application of ordinary remedies, that we can hope to see the malady removed, and the health of the patient permanently restored.

To account for the miseries of Ireland, it is not necessary to lead the enquirer back to the earlier periods of British connexion. An impartial review of the circumstances of the country, since the revolution in 1688, will sufficiently explain its present situation; and we think the reader, as he peruses the history, will wonder, not that the people are wretched, and the land impover ished, but that the wretchedness and poverty of both are not infinitely more deplorable.

The Revolution is one of the great eras of Irish history. At that time, the country changed masters. The change was radical, -not merely the substitution of one dynasty for another, of a Nassau for a Stuart, of a Whig for a Tory domination: it extended over the whole surface, it affected every acre of the soil, and penetrated to the hearth even of the poorest cottier. The wars of 1641 and 1688, occasioned, with a few insignificant excep tions, a sudden and violent transfer of the landed property of the whole kingdom. The old possessors, whose interests, and habits, and feelings, had been identified with those of the great mass of the population, by the tenure of centuries, were at once ousted; a swarm of hungry adventurers, the refuse of the army, or the dregs of the London shopkeepers, was introduced; and the scenes, which, in another clime, and in another age, had marked the subjugation of the Red Indians, were re-enacted, in the seventeenth century, on the shores of Ireland.

The new settlers, having obtained possession of the soil, partly by the expatriation of the native wealth, spirit, and intelligence of the country, and partly by the removal, into remote and barren districts, of those who wanted either the spirit or the pecuniary means to emigrate, proceeded to secure the permanency of their tenure by a series of laws, most elaborately and ingeniously concocted between the Parliaments of Dublin and Westminster, for the

eradication of what still lingered of the manufactures, the agriculture, the education, and the religion of the people. In this task they proceeded with equal energy and success. They had nothing, in fact, to restrain them. Laws, made by the new settlers for the purposes of ignorant and tyrannical domination, were responded to by others, framed in their mother country in a kindred spirit of blind oppression and selfish monopoly. On both sides, they were passed as soon as proposed. Nothing remained to check the insolence and cruelty of the tyrant. The Irish were conquered, depressed, and prostrate. Existence was the only right allowed them, and even this was rather tolerated than acknowledged. "The law," says one of the English lawyers, sent over to fill a vacancy on the Irish Bench, "the law does not recognise the existence of a papist in the country."

The history of the period, now before us, affords ample proof of the state of destitution to which these proceedings speedily reduced the country. Swift, in his "Short View of the State of Ireland," written in 1727, tells us, that "the want of industry of the people is not altogether owing to our own fault, but to a million of discouragements." "Ireland," continues he, "is the only kingdom I ever heard of, either in ancient or modern story, which was denied the liberty of exporting their native commodities and manufactures, wherever they pleased, except to countries at war with their own prince or state. Yet this privilege, by the superiority of mere power, is refused us, in the most momentous parts of commerce; besides an act of navigation, to which we never consented, pinned down upon us, and rigorously executed. Those who have the misfortune to be born here, have the least title to any considerable employment." Two years afterwards, the overflowings of his proud and sensitive heart, at the still increasing wretchedness of his country, burst forth in that most caustic and biting satire, sent into the world under the attractive title of, "A modest Proposal for preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from being a Burthen to their Parents or Country, and for making them beneficial to the Public." In this "modest proposal," he recommends that the "children of the poor may be offered in sale to the people of quality and fortune, as an article of food. A child," says he," will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and, when the family dineth alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish; and, seasoned with a little pepper and salt, will be very good boiled, on the fourth day, especially in winter. . . . I grant," continues he, in the same tone of bitter sarcasm, "that this food will be somewhat dear, and, therefore, very proper for landlords; who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have

the best title to the children." The act of Primate Boulter, passed about the same period, to compel each landholder to till five out of every hundred acres in his possession, affords a grave and serious confirmation of the hideous picture revealed to us in the scourging irony of Swift.

A simple mode of remedying the ruinous effects of the measures adopted by the new settlers, would have been to retrace their own steps, to break down the artificial barriers which they had so industriously erected, and to allow the great natural energies of the people full scope. But the new and unwilling connection, which had grown up between landlord and tenant, forbade this proceeding. In the country whence they had emigrated, these terms conveyed an idea of all that was fostering and endearing, a reciprocity of kindly feelings based upon a reciprocity of interests, an interchange of paternal protection and grateful, cordial obedience. In Ireland, it was the reverse of all this: it was the iron bond of master and slave. Terror was the ruling principle-severity, unqualified by any gentle feeling, the instru ment. The landlord looked on every cottier as a lurking enemy: the tenant viewed the proprietor as an usurping tyrant. The former gave employment only because his lands would otherwise be worthless: the latter yielded his labour only as a desperate alternative against starvation. From elements so anti-social, what was to be looked for but a continuance of bitter, ill-disguised enmity? In such a state of things, to relax the rigour of penal and prohibitory legislation, would have been, in the opinion of the ruling caste, to let loose the famished tiger. Yet the country could not remain in its present condition. It was running rapidly to ruin. The wretchedness of the tenants was recoiling upon the landlords, and the landlords were already beginning to smart sorely under the reaction.

At this conjuncture, a few well-meaning individuals, who saw the evil, and doubtless felt its pressure upon themselves, laid their heads together; and, according to the usual custom among wellmeaning people, agreed that something must be done." This something, however, meant anything that would not trench upon the system of coercive legislation, which they, in common with their party, deemed essential, not merely to their welfare, but even to their very existence. Half measures, the usual resource of little-minded politicians, were, therefore, resorted to. A thousand plans were proposed, a thousand expedients were adopted; and the political empiricism of the time rose at once to the heyday of its glory. Among a variety of other schemes, it was thought possible to effect the revival of the agricultural and manufacturing interests of the country, by means of a society, which should

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diffuse instruction on these subjects by its publications, and stimulate emulation by medals, premiums, and other such excitements. Hence arose the Dublin Society, in 1731, not more than thirty years after the final prostration of the native energies and capabilities of the country, consequent upon the decisive action off La Hogue. This association, though limited in numbers, and not very remarkable for rank or influence, entertained ideas sufficiently magnificent of its own capabilities. The number of associates was, for several years, less than a hundred; yet it was to be an association for the general improvement of Ireland, and the name, by which it was to be designated, was that of " The Dublin Society for improving Husbandry, Manufactures, and other useful Arts and Sciences." It was one of the fundamental rules, that every member should specifically apply himself to the furtherance of some particular branch of its operations. In 1749, it obtained the charter of incorporation, under which it still continues to act; and, for some years previously, it received an annual grant of £500 from the king's privy purse, which was afterwards so considerably augmented, as to give an average of £5000 during a series of years. In some instances, the grant amounted to £10,000. The money, thus entrusted to it, was chiefly expended in premiums, some for improvements in agriculture, others for the reclamation of waste lands, for planting, for the fisheries, for new or improved branches of manufacture, for inventions of every description, for ingenious works of art, and for investigations, both statistical and antiquarian, connected with the country. Subsequently to the Union, it received an annual parliamentary grant of £10,000, which was continued, at that rate, till 1819, when it was first reduced to £7000, and afterwards, in 1830, to something more than £5000. At the last named period, its operations were, to a certain degree, contracted by the formation of another society, exclusively agricultural, which also received a large grant of public money. But, as the extension of public liberality to the newly-formed body was not made at the expense of its precursor, the only effect, produced by it on the Dublin Society, was, that the time and money, hitherto devoted to agriculture, were diverted to other objects, and that the fine arts received a more enlarged share of its attention. Latterly, the objects to which the Society has chiefly devoted itself, have been the advancement of the useful and ornamental arts, and the diffusion of a knowledge of natural history and physical science. To promote the former, schools of elementary instruction in the art of drawing were, in the first instance, established, and a collection of statues and casts was made: to advance the latter, a botanical garden, a museum, and a repository for models