country, as originating in a conviction, that the existence of the present, or of any state-connected Church, but especially the existence of the present, must be the greatest obstacle to the national regeneration of Ireland. Were the 'people of this country not disorganized by sectarian feuds, they would be strong enough to effect that regeneration. But the State-Church, or politico-religious garrison planted by England amongst us, to gain a part of the inhabitants to support her unjust ascendency by enabling them to plunder and oppress the rest, and to divide all in the name of religion, must first be rooted out--for then, and not till then, can all sects be perfectly equalized--as such, united among themselves--and, as united among themselves, able to regain that national independence which England, through their domestic discord alone, either was able to deprive them of, or is able to withhold from them. Till the two cats in the fable disagreed about the cheese, the monkey was not able to come in and reconcile their differences by taking it all to himself. And, if Catholics and Protestants were as united in 1800 as in 1782,--which, but for the causes of division, springing from the existence of an Established Church, they must have been,-we well know what little chance there would have been, of the monkey transfer of our domestic legislature to the other side of the Channel.

With respect to the verses at the commencement of the volume, the author ventures to hope, that the very small proportion which they bear to the rest of the book, and the fact of their having been copied, in several instances, by others, from the sources through which they originally appeared in print, may be deemed at least some excuse for their being thought worthy of collection in the present shape. Even, on such trifles, various opinions will of course be formed, though none, he trusts, except as to the writer's political principles, from any thing that may appear in those few passing effusions,-originating, like all pro

ductions of the kind, from mere impressions and circumstances of the moment, as different at different times as the dates of the respective pieces. Thus, it will be seen, as well from the date of November, 1836, to the song on the Temperance Society, as from the various allusions which it contains, that it could not have been the author's design to ridicule that great moral reformation produced in the national habits by the invaluable exertions of the Rev. Mr. Matthew, whose success, in such a noble cause, may be regarded by Irishmen as the strongest test, as the surest precursor, that still "greater things shall they do." The song in question was written at a time when the Temperance Societies were looked upon by the author as being very little, if any thing better, than insidious confederacies of saintly humbug, veiling some plans for tampering with the religious belief of the people, under a mere outward profession of aiming to ameliorate their condition by the destruction of intemperance; a notion, the more natural on the part of the author, from the class of persons to whom any participation in those societies was then chiefly, if not totally, confined. The revolution which has since taken place, and has converted what the writer regarded as a mere inroad of the restless spirit of biblical proselytism into a grand Irish moral movement, was not foreseen by him at the time the verses alluded to were written, nor even when they were printed; but, being printed, they had to be left where they stood. This, it is hoped, will be a sufficient apology for the appearance of those lines. Indeed, of teetotalism, amongst those who find by experience that they know not where to stop, it can hardly be requisite for the author to express his humble approbation. The system is no other than that so long acted upon by Doctor Johnson; a man, whose intellectual and moral eminence would do honour to any country and religion. Finding, as we are told, that he could practise abstinence, but not temperance," he became a water-drinker; abstaining, for several

years, from the use of any intoxicating liquor. And the resolution which HE found necessary, others, similarly affected, may well consider themselves bound to observe.*

The critical and historical remarks in the paper on the comparative merits of " David's Lament for Saul and Jonathan," and Wolfe's "Lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore," may possess some attraction for those who prefer literary to political disquisitions.

In the postscript to the verses, headed "Nabis and the Union," some curious, though hitherto unobserved analogies between the results of the spirit of Anti-Unionism in this country and in Scotland are pointed out, and commented upon. A remarkable official testimony is given as to the predominance of Anti-Unionism in Ireland over every other political feeling. An inquiry, as regards the Tory or Chartist idea of maintaining a Union by "physical force," is made with respect to the proportion of soldiers and sailors contributed by Ireland to the English army and navy since the period of the American war. An outline is then drawn of her various capabilities for national or self-legislative independence, illustrated by a comparison of her superior size, in geographical square miles, to that of the greater number of the existing states of Europe. A brief survey is next taken of the peculiar military strength and defensibility of the country against any thing in the shape of a hostile invasion. A review follows, of the causes through which the various alleged conquests of this country were effected, and the price which they cost-this review being more full in reference to the great struggle of the Revolution from 1688 to 1691, so grossly misrepresented to the world, as an instance of the Irish having "fought badly at home," by those Williamite libellers, who have hitherto been almost exclusively cited and believed as authorities on the subject. A still further proof is presented of the folly or cowardice that would assign this island no higher rank than that of a * Boswell's Life, p. 275, 367, 452, &c. Jones's edit.

province, by a contrast of her superior resources for political greatness, compared with several of the most eminent states in ancient and modern history. A demonstration is made of the monstrous pecuniary drain imposed upon Ireland by England, against the terms, as well as through the medium, of the so-called Act of Union; and the essay concludes with a glance at what the author considers MUST be the finally separate destiny of the two islands, unless the unjust, ruinous, and intolerable usurpation by England of the national rights of Ireland, through the nefarious job of a bribed, anti-national legislature, shall be surrendered,-if not from motives of political honesty or common justice, yet from the prudential considerations involved with the fact, of two-thirds of the English military force being natives of the same insular territory of 32,201 square miles, which presents a recruiting population of 2,000,000 more at home,—at once becoming more numerous, and, from the present system of the connexion between their country with England, more discontented, every day.

The observations on our military History-made for the purpose of testing, in the most conclusive way, the truth of the assertion as to our having "always fought badly at home," by examining how much TIME and MONEY our principal wars with England cost, even disunited as we were,— have been included in this volume by the advice of a literary friend, who was of opinion, that the number of facts, and reasonings, founded on facts contained in those remarks— mere mems. loosely thrown together as they are,—more fully refute the above-mentioned discreditable notion, and place many circumstances of the great war of the Revolution between King James and the Prince of Orange in a more honourable light for the country than has yet been done by any Irish writer. That some of those mems. on the subject of that war, though intended to correct the faults of other writers, might be considerably improved, is freely

admitted. For, amidst the great difficulty of gaining an admittance to so many documents as it is absolutely necessary to consult, in order to form more than a superficial opinion on almost any point of such a “vexato questio” as our modern story, in which the unscrupulous malignity of a hostile sect and country has been almost the exclusive source of any intelligence as to details, and has been as industrious as it has been determined to misrepresent an obnoxious religion and injured nation in almost every particular, who could see his way to more than a portion of truth at a time? This remark is more particularly applicable to some of those observations in reference to King James, that have been made under the influence of the ideas generally entertained of him, through the accounts of his enemies; ideas, from which nothing but a long, laborious, and difficult acquaintance with the scattered and scarce records, to which access must be obtained in order to form a true conception of his conduct, and a full exposition of the varied, curious *Thus, in page 225-6, for "the loss of the besieged," at Derry, being, according to Walker, about 3,200 men," should be substituted "the loss of the regimented garrison—the whole of those who perished DURING the Irish blockade, or without including any who died from its effects AFTER the place was relieved, being estimated, on Williamite authority, at no less than 10,000!" Again, the full complement of fighting men in the town, which the Duke of Berwick merely speaks of as "above 10,000," is made 2,000 more, or 12,000 in all, by a contemporary Protestant authority. The calculation, too, at p. 285-9, from a passage in Story, of Ginckle's battering train before Athlone, at but 29 cannon and 6 mortars, is to be corrected by the testimony of one of his own officers, (whose word could not be consulted when the above calculation was made,) into "50 battering cannon and 8 mortars; so that the Dutch general, with his 12 field-pieces, had 70 guns there—a statement by which the "47 guns and mortars," (inclusive of field-pieces) at p. 274, may likewise be altered. The Dutch list, also, of William's foot regiments in Ireland, in 1691, makes them, with the exception of the Danes, 780, instead of 705 men each; which would add considerably to the amount of Ginckle's army at Aughrim. Such particulars, however, only serve to show, that, unlike the Williamite defamers of Ireland, (who, by the way, are as remarkable for virulent and unscrupulous misrepresentation as any Jacobite or Irish accounts we have are for an adherence to truth,) the author has kept considerably within, rather than gone beyond, what facts would justify, in his criticisms on those libellers.