MR. INGLIS is a vivacious and a veracious tourist; but if he supposes that his mind was not under a Whig bias when he undertook his travels through Ireland, he deceived himself, much more than he can possibly deceive the simplest of his readers. We, however, are always well pleased when an observer of ordinary intelligence and candour undertakes to give a picture of our poor country at the present time; because, where our statements might appear exaggerated, his disclosures must be unsuspected.

The pages, as they appear before us, seem to have been written as he went along. This is not quite as we should have advised. In a journey like that described, impressions made at the commencement are frequently corrected by subsequent observation and experience; and a digested result of all that he had seen or heard can only be fully and fairly given when the whole has been brought quietly and steadily under one comprehensive survey. But, writing as he has done, not only “currente calamo," but "currente rota," his pages are a mixture of statistical truth and complexional falsehood, for which we should feel ourselves called upon to inflict upon him a severe castigation, if they did not also contain unexceptionable evidence that this has arisen more

from oversight and from intellectual deficiencies, than from prejudice or ill intentions.

We do not venture to say that he was instructed by the late government to undertake this tour and write these volumes, nor yet that he was induced so to do from any desire to recommend himself to their favour; but his views and principles seem marvellously to coincide with those of which many amongst them would cordially approve; and we have little doubt that they will be quoted in parliament, for the purpose of recommending some of their nostrums for the pacification and the improvement of Ireland. We shall not, therefore, measure the attention which we propose to bestow upon them, so much by their intrinsic worth, as by the currency which they may obtain and the mischief they may do amongst that class of empyrical experimentalists, by whose meddling and mischievous ignorance our poor country has been of late so much afflicted.

The principal measures which Mr. Inglis considers indispensible to render Ireland happy and prosperous, are, poor laws, and a provision for the Roman Catholic clergy. Upon each of these, in the course of the following pages, we will say a few words; and we do not think that the reasonings and ob

VOL. V.

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servations of our guide should cause any material deviation from the views and the principles on those important subjects which we have, on former occasions, disclosed and propounded.

An English tourist in this country had need to be especially on his guard against first impressions. The aspect of much that he will witness in our rural districts, is so very different from that to which he has been accustomed at home, that he must needs suppose the difference, in point of comfort, is as great as that which appearances would seem to indicate. And yet, the natural would err widely from the true conclusion. Much of the misery in Ireland is apparent, not real; and many of the privations under which the people labour, and which, to a stranger, would seem to imply so much suffering, proceed from an utter indifference about comforts and decencies, which, in England, would be deemed indispensible, and which a very ordinary effort of industry or ingenuity would be more than sufficient abundantly to supply. An Irish cabin is, in many instances, a concentration of all that is filthy and inconvenient. It would seem constructed much less with reference to the shelter of the human beings who are housed under its roof, than of the brute animals which are domesticated amongst them. It may, in fact, be not inaptly defined, a seminary for the education of pigs. And yet, how easily might its structure be improved, and its comforts augmented! But Paddy is satisfied with it as it is. What was good enough for his father is good enough for him. He would be ashamed, and think it savoured of unbecoming pride, if he aspired to the possession of a habitation less in keeping with the dunghill at his door, than belonged to all who went before him; and, therefore, he neither taxes his body nor his mind for contrivances by which his own condition might be raised much above that of his grunting inmate. He and the pig have hitherto got on very well together; the latter is, besides, regarded as a benefactor; and it is not in Paddy's nature to give a cold look to an old acquaintance. Much, therefore, of the misery in which he seems to be involved, is apparent, and not real; nor, while his ideas continue such as they are, could

it be remedied by any superinduction of comforts and decencies, which shortsighted benevolence might accumulate around him. Often have we seen the experiment tried, and rare indeed are the instances in which it could be said to be even partially successful. The condition of the Irish peasant is on a level with his notions; and any circumstantial exaltation which he might be made to experience, must be of no avail, unless his notions also could be raised to the level of his condition. A kind-hearted landlord in the south of Ireland was one day so touched by the sight of a poor family, who were sitting in their wretched cottage around a meal of dry potatoes, that he gave them an unlimited order upon a dairy, not two miles distant from their habitation, for as much milk as they desired. He was curious, after three months, to look at the state of his account with the dairyman, and found, to his surprise, that, during that period, they had not drawn on him to the amount of ten shillings!

We, then, would say, that the great want under which our poor countymen labour, is the want of wants. They do not know the comfort of cleanliness, and that is the reason they do not want to be clean; they do not know the inconvenience of the hovels in which they are contented to live, and therefore it is that they are not better provided with habitations; they are unconscious of the misery of being ill clothed, and therefore it is that they are so often in rags; and their power of enduring privations, which would set Englishmen mad, induces them, too often, to dispense with the industry or the frugality by which these might be easily remedied or avoided. Unless this distinction between the two countries be duly fixed in his mind, an English traveller is very likely to be led astray, and to mistake the cause for the effect; and this is precisely the mistake into which we conceive Mr. Inglis to have fallen, when he recommended a system of poor laws for Ireland.

His pages furnish numerous instances of the truth of our statement, and by which he should himself have been better instructed.

says,

"It struck me," he "as I returned from Courtown and walked up

the street of Gorey, that the people looked less industrious than the population of an English town. Over almost every half-door somebody was leaning with crossed arms, and many others sitting at their doors, doing nothing. No doubt the little retail shopkeepers had some idle time on their hands; but English people, both men and women, generally find some little job to do: and when one sees the tattered coats and smallclothes, which in Ireland are worn even by others than beggars, and which ten minutes and a needle and thread would put to rights, unfavourable comparisons are apt to be made."

best of it."

Again he writes :

"Sitting in the evening at the window of the inn, (in the city of Cashel,) I saw a sight such as I never saw in any other part of the world—a lad, twelve years of age and upwards, naked in the street. I say naked.

I do not mean without a rag; but I mean so entirely in rags, that he might as well have been stark naked. All he had on him was a jacket and a few tatters of a shirt, hanging in stripes here and there. Public decency would not permit such a sight in England; and viewing such a spectacle, one is tempted to ask, is there no clergyman, no magis

trate, no decent man, who, for the sake of sheer modesty would throw a pair of trowsers to the ragamuffin?"

We may answer, many; but it is not quite so certain that the ragamuffin would continue to wear them. Again our author says:→

"There are not in Clonmel many able-bodied labourers out of employment. Destitute persons are, of course, here; and some mendicants, though the number is few, considering the size of the place. Labourers, however, live little better here than they do elsewhere; and a great part of the higher wages of artizans is spent in whiskey."

This wretchedness of the poor can never be remedied by poor laws, but

by removing the cause-namely, the low ideas of comfort, and the vicious habits of the people; and where these are not, poor laws will seldom be necessary. Take, for instance, the following account of a district in the county of Wexford :

"Before leaving Wexford I devoted a day to an excursion into the barony of Forth. This district and its inhabitants are familiar to every one in the south of Ireland, and are become bywords for all that indicate a superior order of things and a superior race of people."

"I found a country without any natural beauty, but with every thing else to recommend it. I saw universal tillage, good husbandry, and a comparatively comfortable people. The farm-houses and cottages for they are cottages rather than cabins are very thickly strewn; and, with few exceptions, the former are substantial, the latter clean and comfortable. I visited many of both-for anticipating and always finding, as I did everywhere in Ireland, a ready welcome, I left the car, crossed the fields, and unhesitatingly lifted the latch. The farther I travelled into the district the more

striking became its characteristics; and not only did I find the interior of the houses comfortable, but in the flowerpots and little ornamental gardens I recognised the traits which I have enume

rated.

In the husbandry of the district there was every thing to commend. The land was well laboured and clear; the crops of wheat and beans, the cultivation of which is extensively pursued here, were excellent; and a serviceable plough, with only two horses and one showed some knowledge of the economy of labour.

man,

"But it must not be imagined from what I have already said that the people of the barony of Forth are rolling in plenty, and that the condition of life is utterly different here from the rest of Ireland. The superior neatness, cleanliresult of a distinction in character than a ness, and apparent comfort, are more the distinction in condition. The pride of neatness and decorum has been a matter the children of the present day, whatever of tradition, and is rarely forgotten in dition. Neither, however, would I infer deterioration may take place in their conthat the difference is all external. perior industry and greater providence have produced among the farmers an improved husbandry, and perhaps a some.

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