of a slave, his master was more a slave, or at least more worthy of being one. Epictetus, tho' small, deformed, and hump-backed, possessed a strong, noble, elevated soul. His master gave him an unmerciful blow on one of his legs, he told him in a very cool, mild manner, not to break it, this irritated the barbarian, who redoubled his blows and broke it. The philosopher an swered him as if he felt it nor, "did not I tell you that you would break it at last." Domitian expelled him, but he returned after the death of that Emperour, and acquired a great reputation. Adrian loved and esteemed him, Marcus Aurelius also. Arrian, who wrote the history of Greece, a native of Nicomedia, distinguished himself under the reign of Adrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius, was a disciple of his, pub. lished four books of his discourses; the work is entitled the Enchiridi oh or Manual. The morality of this book is worthy of a christian; the pure light of Paganism could not ascend higher. The greatest Saints, St. Augustin, S. Charles Borromeus read it with pleasure, and the greatest libertines reaped much benefit from it. An ancient monastery (according to F. Mour. gues*) adopted it as their rule *Michael Mourgues a French Jesuit, horn in Auvergne, a man of great abilities, taught thetoric and mathematics in his order with great eclat, died 1730, aged 70. He was held in the highest estimation for his probity, integrity, purity of manners, and writings. The principal are, his theological plan of Pythagorism, 2 vol. in 8vo full of erudition. ad, a parallel of the Christian morality with that of the ancient philosophers. Bouillon, 1769, in 12. The Author proves the supenority of the Gospel. At the end of this work is the Christian paraphrase of the Maual of Epictetus; this paraphrase is very Lacient, it has been composed by an Anchoret of the east, in the Greek language; it has been unknown until the beginning of the when by chance, it happened to fall into the bands of F. Mourgues, who undertook the translation. 18th century, with very little modifications. The poet Rousseau, judged Epictetus too harshly, when he passed sentence on his book in the following lines: Dans son flegme simulé, Je decouvre sa colere. This slave had the soul of a wise man, always content and happy in his very slavery. "I am," he said, "in the place that providence has appointed for me; to lament would beffeading providence." The two hinges of his morality are, to know found within himself the resources how to suffer and to abstain. He requisite to practise the first maxim. He considered it as the mark of a others suffering the same evils as bad heart. to be consoled at seeing others suffering the same evils as demned to lose your head, must the we do. What! he says, if conrest of mankind suffer the same Punishment. According to his prin cipies, the study of philosophy required a pure soul. A consummate libertine desired to acquire the knowledge he dictated to his disciples: "senseless being," said he, 66 what art thou about? must not you cleanse and purify the vessel otherwise it shall get spoiled. He before you put any liquor into it; compared Fortune to a mistress that prostitutes herself to her valets.— poverty of making us miserable and We are wrong when we accuse tnhappy, No, he says, 'its our own ambition, our own insatiable desires, that really render us miserable. Were we masters of the Universe. we would not be happy. Nemo sua sorte contentus. Reason alone can effect that. He maintained the immortality of the soul, ZZ 2 without without which there can be neither virtue nor morality. Arrian tells us that the following is the prayer he wished to say when dying, "Lord, have I violated your commandments? have I abused the presents and gifts you made me? have not I submitted my senses, wishes, and opinions to you? have I ever complained of you? have I ever accused your providence? 1 have been sick because you wished so, so have I; I have been poor because you have wished so; I have been contented with my poverty; I have been in an humble state because you wished so, and I never desired to quit it; have you ever seen me repining or murmuring I am still ready to undergo whatever you order me. You wish I should quit this great scene? 1 quit it, and return you a thousand mest humble thanks, for having deigned to permit me to see your works, and expose to my view the admirable order with which you rule the Universe." Epictetus died under Marcus Aurelius, at a very advanced age. The earthen lamp he used in his philosophical lucubrations, was sold shortly after his death, for 3000 drachms. The best editions of his works, are those of Leyden, 1670, 24 vol. in 8vo. cum notis variorum; of Utrect, 1711, in 4to. of London, 1739 and 1741, in 2 vols. in 4to. Rev. Francis Mourgues and Abbè Bellegarde, have translated them into French; there is also another translation by M. Dacier, Paris 1715, 2 vol. in 12mo. " To pardon men, notoriously and flagrantly wicked, who glory in their crimes, and only want for liberty, that they may again practise their enormities, would be to share in their guilt." MR. EDITOR, MELANCHOLY and deplorable the reflection must be, that to the great disgrace of human nature, such a monster as Jemmy O'Brien, was permitted to wear the form of mortality- and that speech was lent him but to be instrumental in the destruction of all who come "within the whiff and wind of his fell breath."-Yet surely savage and infernal as the monster was, those, who could not only connive at but aber and encourage him in his profligacies and his perjuries must be objects of ten thousand times more detestation and abhorrence. And yet 'tis as notorious as it is la. mentable, that not only a man, but men, (if the hellish associates of such a fiend as Jemmy O'Brien, deserve the name of men) were found capable of forging out for him, a POPE SIXTUS the FIFTH system of destruction for their fel low men; sharing in his counsels, directing his talents, and applauding his faithful and ingenious exe cution of their projects; secretly exulting in the blood, which he caused to flow, and glorying in the murders which their agent and ac complice had effected. The law in its great wisdom, considers all accessaries as principals in the horrid crime of murder, and regard it as a fundamental principle, that the more powerful, the more energetic the agents are, who set the infernal machine in motion, and guide it thro' all the dark meanders of its fatal course, are in proportion, to be considered as the real and active assassins, while the ruffian who bears the knife and inflicts the wound, is at best, but the the stalking horse of his diabolical companions. That such unprincipled, bloodthirsty, perjur'd profligates as Jemmy O'Brien, should be found amongst the vilest dregs of creation is, tho' deplorable, not to be wondered at. The outcast and abandoned, who have, perhaps, never thought upon a GOD but with mockery and irreverence- -nor breathed his name, but from the lip of blasphemy; wretches, on the minds of whom ne sacred nor solemn impression ever had been made, may well become callous to the commission of every crime, and treat with levity every divine ordinance, while they contemptuously trample on every tie of humanity and truth. But that there could be found, amongst those who are still the enlightened order of society, men of proud birth, high connexion, and splendid talents; men who appear at the altars of their God with affected reverence, who apparently profess the religion of Christ, and accept his sacraments, that such men as these can debase themselves, degrade their rank, belie their professions, polute their souls, and become the associ. ares of 64 alley-lurking villains," fills the mind at once with wonder and abhorrence; and surely Mr. Editor reasoning on these premises you cannot charge me with prejudice to your magazine, when I declare that I think the memory of Jemmy O'Brien (execrable as it is) has been treated with more severity than it merited; you should at least have divided the odium into three parts, and let no more than the very mipart, fall upon the sanctified head nor of that patriotic saviour of his country, Jemmy O'Baien; let the other two rest where they ought; namely, the first and greater part, is justly due to the then Gt, and the second, to the soul of the reli gious, the conscientious M---- -r, who abetted, comforted, and aided the the aforesaid Jemmy O'Brien in his virtuous and laudable executions, in exterminating such members of his fell adventurers--all for the love of his "bleeding country." Methinks the simile of a bomb-shell, is, on this occasion, not an unapt one; harmless in itself, it might rest quietly in the chimney-corner of the peasant, and perhaps supply poor Gilligan with a vessel to boil his pota. toes, when his own had been inhumanly sold by the Rev. Leslie Battersby, as the case has been so feelingly stated by your moderate and mortified friend Sir J. BBut the moment Gt had occasion to use this bomb in its hostile capacity; they easily become possessed of it by foul or fair means, and having amply charged it with combustible matter of every description, they committed the launching of it to the skilful and well-practised hand of the excellent and bumane Mr, who, true to his trust, inserts the fuse, commits it to the air, and directs its fall on the devoted heads of the wretched victims, whom his avarice, his sanguinary temper, or his private interests had thrown within his gripe Iwho then is in fault-the boinb. shell, the G-t, or the merciful Mr. Yours, GUSTAVUS, STATISTICAL STATISTICAL ESSAY, ON THE POPULATION AND RESOURCES OF IRELAND. BY WILLIAM J. MAC NEVIN. I PUBLISHED the following Statistical Essay in the Paris Argus of December the 17th, 1803, in order to prove how much the population and resources of Ireland exceeded the usual estimate of persons otherwise well informed. It is re-published here with some additions, because the facts it contains are not perhaps better known in America than they were in the capital of France, and in order to shew the folly, no less than the injustice of the British government, which has been hazarding every day for the last fifteen years, through the most iniquitious treatment, the loss of so essential a member of its empire. PERSONS having expressed doubts as to the amount of the population and other resources ascribed te Ireland, in the essay copied from the Moniteur into the Argus of November the 16th, the following details are offered in order to shew the grounds of some of the opinions set forth in that paper. The tax imposed until lately in Ireland on every hearth, commonly known by the name of the hearthmoney tax, gives very correctly the number of inhabited houses, of which returns were made to the commisssouers of the revenge. One of these, Mr. Jervis Bushe, found, by a calculation taken from the re. venue books, that the houses paying the duty amounted in 1788 to 650,000, without including bar. racks, hospitals, school-houses, or public buildings. But as it was a common practice with collectors to return houses as waste which paid the duty, for the purpose of sinking the money in their own pockets, Mr. Bushe aided by his official situation, instituted different other researches, and these left him of opinion that 60,000 houses more should be added to the official rebited houses. turns, making in all 710,000 inha From the mass of those, in which the inhabitants had been counted, there was taken indiscriminately 14,108, and the po pulation was 87,895; which gives somewhat more than 6 1-4 to each house. Consequently the popula tion of the whole must by the same ratio have been in 1788, 4,437,506, The authors of the Encyclopædia Britannica, article Ireland, compute the number of inhabitants to be 4.500,000. The interesting paper of Mr. Bushe on this subject, is inserted in the 3d volume of the transactions of the Irish Academy. The same gentleman found by the revenue books that the increase of houses from 1777 to 1788, was 173,058. The increase of houses from 1788 to 1799, was greater still; but this result was not in ei. ther case owing altogether to the building of new ones; it is to be in part ascribed to a greater accuracy obtained in the new order, however, to be within the most scrupulous bounds, we will take the increase of houses from 1788 down to the present time to be no more than 173,058, what it was found by enumeration to have been in the eleven years preceding 1788. The amount of houses will be then 883,000, and this, multiplied by 6 1-4, gives 5,518,750 for the actual population of the whole island. returns. In Another computation, though formed on different principles, will be found to give a similar result, The superficial contents of Ireland are to those of England and Wales as 27.457 is to 49.450; but the former country, on account of containing less waste land in proportion to its area, has a somewhat denser population. Now, as that of England and Wales, according to the last enumeration made two years ago, is 9.444.950, Ireland should have half that amount, and as much more as Ireland exceeds the one half of England and Wales in extent. This is 2,732 square miles which, multiplied by zoo, the populaton of every Irish square mile give 546,400 souls, and these, added to 4.722,475, the half of the population of England, make that of Ireland equal to 5,268.875. The county of Wexford alone furnished 40,000 fighting men in the insur rection of 1798, and if the proportion of that country to the rest of the island be considered, the amount of the population resulting from this estimate likewise cannot be less than 5,500,000. There is so near a coincidence between all these results, that we cannot reasonably deny their general correctness. As printed authorities will, however. be required in a case of this kind by strangers, much satisfaction will be received on the subject from the calculations of Chalmers, and from an excellent essay published by a member of the late Irish Parliament, at In the committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Addington stated the joint expences of England and Ireland for the year 1802, £.31,259,203, the 2-17 contributed by Ireland equal 3.677.554; to this must be added 2 17 of 1,174,401, for civil list and other charges on the consolidated fund, not relating to the public debr, equal for the share of Ireland to £138,164, and making altogether for her £3,815, 718 sterling. As to the advantages which England derives from Ireland in point of revenue, they were rated much too low in the essay given in the Moniteur; for their real amount would, it was feared, seem almost incredible to those who had not attentively considered that generally neglected country. Yet from efficial documents it appears that the amount of the receipts of the treasury in Ireland for the year ending the 5th of Jan. 1851, was 9,435.896 115. 8d.* Vide Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland. The part contributed by Ireland to the joint charges of the same year, as set forth by Mr. Corry, the Irish chancellor of the Exche quer, was £3,769,oco sterling, and for the Irish army on foreign service £360,0co more, amounting together to £4,129,000 sterling. The separate expenses of Ireland, including the interest of her debt contracted in support of England, were at the same time stated by Mr. Corry at £3,298,000 more, and the entire expenses of Ireland for that year at £7,427,000 sterling. All this was four years ago, but I find in the elaborate work of Mr. Jepson Oddy, the ordinary revenue and extraordinary resources constituting the public income of Ireland stated as follows, for the year ending the 5th of January, 1805: This 226,544 14 L 25,012 10 5 £4,374,26,8 5 |