65 CATHOLIC CHARITIES. To thee is the poor man left: thou wilt be the helper of the Orphan... Ps. xx. On the first Sunday in Lent a SERMON was preached by the Rev. On Low-Sunday a SERMON will be preached at St. Patrick's On Midlent Sunday a SERMON was preached, at the Portuguese Chapel, by the Rev. WM. MORRIS; at the Spanish Chapel, by the Rev. J. PICQUOT; at the Bavarian Chapel, by the Rev. Dr. ARCHER, at the Sardinian Chapel, by the Rev. Jos. SILVEIRA; at St. Mary's Chapel, Moorfields, by the Rev. J. ROLFE, for the Benefit of the ASSOCIATED CATHOLIC CHARITIES for educating, clothing, and apprenticing the Children of poor Catholics, and providing an Asylum for destitute Male Orphans.-The Associated Charities have five great Schools; two near Moorfields, one near Lincoln's Inn Fields, and two in Marylebone. OBITUARY. Have pity on me! have pity on me! at least you my friends.••••Job xix. Miss SOPHIA HAVERS, Daughter of William Havers, Esq. of Bacons, near Ingatestone Hall, on the 7th February. ROBERT WHEBLE, Esq. Uncle to James Wheble, Esq. of Woodley Lodge, 8th February, aged 79. Rev. THOS: BADDELEY, at Cresswell, Staffordshire, on the 18th February, aged 36; Founder of the Institution for the Education of Clerical Students for the Midland District Mission, and the Author of A Sure Way to find out the True Religion; which small Compendium of Controversy has raised to his Memory a durable Monument of his Learning, Zeal, and Piety. Sir THOMAS CONSTABLE, Bart. of Tixall, in Staffordshire, and Burton Constable, in Holderness, Yorkshire, at Ghent, on the 25th February. Mrs. ANN CROSS, of Oxford-street, suddenly, on the 7th March. Keating and Brown, Printers, 38, Duke-street, Grosvenor-square, THE CATHOLIC SPECTATOR, Travels in Ireland, in the year 1822, exhibiting brief sketches of the moral, physical, and political state of the country; with reflections on the best means of improving its condition.". By THOMAS REID, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, and Surgeon in the Royal Navy, &c. Longman and Co. London, 1823. pp. 375. The lamentable state of society in Ireland has long engrossed the deep attention and sympathies of the intelligent and benevolent people of England. The dearth of correct and dispassionate representations of the true condition of that unhappy island, had hitherto forbid the growth of general feeling for the unparalleled sufferings of a virtuous, oppressed, yet loyal people; and instead of the luxuriance of concord, the tares and useless thistles of wild intolerance deformed the face of one of the fairest portions of creation. The British people have now received an undisguised, unbiassed, and manly view of the state of Ireland, in the volume entitled as above; nor can a more pleasing duty devolve upon the Spectator anxious to promote the general interests of the empire, than to draw the public attention to the work of Mr. Reid. The author is a distinguished member of his profession, and equally well known for his philosophical attainments. and philanthropic exertions in the cause of justice and humanity: the book before us is a striking proof that this statement will be sanctioned by the opinion of every one who will give it a perusal. The matter of the volume is arranged with ability, with regard to the end in view, namely; to trace the sorrows of the sister island from their source: to point No, 3 K out the specific causes; the progress of the evils that have so long afflicted that unhappy country; the direct effects upon its society arising from the cruel and unwise system there pursued for many centuries; and the dreadful consequences that must ensue, should such a state of things be suffered to continue. A people, like the Irish, possessed of singular sensibilities, and estimating, in just indignation, the injustice exercised over them, will appear to every reflecting mind a dangerous portion of the state, unless something be done towards conciliation. The recent palliatives offered by Parliament, to alleviate the agonizing recollection of the past by lightening the pressure of present poverty, induce a hope that the time is rapidly approaching when the wisdom of England will decide, with one voice, that the miseries of Ireland shall no longer endure, One great source o the evils complained of is the transfer of property from the ancient possessors to the modern occupants, and the inquiry in this respect is temperate, judicious, and satisfactory. The work is divided into three parts. The first gives a luminous view of the history of Ireland, from the earliest periods of its colonization, down to the period of the UNION. When it is stated, that the essentials of that 70 Reids Travels in Ireland, important history are comprised in 144 quarto pages, the reader will, perhaps, be surprised to look at the terms just applied to this portion of the volume, yet is it not too much to say that it is unquestionably the best epitome of the history of that antient nation hitherto given. The second part exhibits recent views of the condition, chiefly of the Irish poor; and that embraces 9-tenths of the whole population! His descriptions are appalling, The third part includes his reflections on what the author had seen in the year 1822, during his humane and expensive excursions. Unconnected with party, or the influence of misrepresentation, he traversed the island, viewed every thing worthy of note, and judged for himself. The honest and the disinterested portion of Englishmen are truly indebted to this enlightened observer for the pains he has taken to disabuse them of their ancient errors with regard to their virtuous, patient, and industrious neighbours. From a feeling that in detaining our readers from a direct acquaintance with the merit of this important publication, we hasten to lay before them some extracts in illustration of the foregoing remarks. The matter of the historical part is so long before the public, that it would appear a waste of our columns and of our readers time, to give much from the authors pages; let it suffice to say, that he has brought into the field, in support of the ancient chronicles of Ireland, hitherto unheard of proofs, of such extreme value to antiquarian inquiry, and so satisfactory in evidence, that they appear sufficient to shake that disbelief which has hitherto pre vailed against the pretensions of the Irish to high origin, As it might, perhaps be tedious to do otherwise, reference is directed to the sixth page of the volume. At page 66, (chapter iii.) the author goes into his subject with his wouled dispatch; he says, speaking of the state of Ireland generally: "The principle on which English dominion was originally established in Ireland, must, from its very nature, have, repressed the energies of the people, and prevented them from benefiting of the vast advantages which the country presented. Henry II. brought with him pretensions which, wisely directed, would have rendered his reign propitious, and the annexation of the Irish to his English subjects permanently prosperous to both nations; but his political necessities compelled him to deprive them of the happy consequences of union and equal rights, by throwing the one into the hands of the hands of needy adventurers, whose interest it was to isolate their acquisitions, and form a dangerous medium between both. The successors of Henry weakly followed his example." After a quotation from Sir John Davies, pointedly applicable to the argument, shewing the abuse which the great landed proprietors made of their influence over both king and people, when 66 they persuaded the King of England that it was unfit to communicate the laws of England unto them; that it was the best policy to hold them as aliens and enemies, and to prosecute them with a continual war:" the author proceeds to say: "Not content with carrying in the year 1822, into effect this horrid proscription, they grew jealous of one another, filling the country with dissension, revolution, and bloodshed, through an over anxiety for extending their individual possessions, and making the nolumus hunc regnare the law of the hour, and tracing their landmarks with the sword. How, it may be asked, could such men maintain even the semblance of good government, or indeed any government, at all? With what minds could they be supposed to legislate for the people amongst whom they held such jarring turbulence? The fact is, they became so degenerate, so rudely arrogant and restive, as to disdain meeting in parliament, or submit to be bound by any form of law whatever. Their conduct was marked by absurdity still more mischievous. They terrified or influenced the persons who did assemble on such occasions, to pass enactments of such a nature as to make the terms law and justice far from synonimous; their coarse intrigues perpetually thwarted the deputies, and rendered every endeavour of government nugatory. They went further; frequently usurping the reins of state, and by the most perverse and wilful mismanagement, ma'confusion worse confound king ed." In circumstances like these, the people were treated merely as the means of promoting the factious purposes of those powerful lords, and consequently, a disposition to military strife and restless tumult was encouraged in place of their ancient mild and merciful character. Their original, but simple institutions were corrupted, and no reformation of manners, or 71 substitution of better laws was attempted in their room. The native princes, still mindful of their hereditary wrongs, took occasional advantage of the impolicy of these contentions to regain their rights, but with a lamentable loss of national prosperity, their endeavors tending still more to augment the miseries of the country, without effecting aught of public good; because the English lords, aspiring to the whole, refused to enter into any compromise which might secure the native chieftains even in a part, or admit of any amelioration of the moral condition of the people, an injustice the most cruel and barbarous they could commit.". The above question may serve to shew, in a remarkable degree, one of the early sources of that turbulent spirit which has disgraced the venerable reputation of Milesian ancestry. Beggared, (as shall be shown,) degraded, and abused without any feeling of remorse for base injustice and inglorious falsehood, is it,-can it be matter of surprise that a good and generous race, thus instructed by the "great lords," should evince a disregard of the laws? The case is applicable to the present day. Listen to the words of Mr. Reid; from his journal, p. 160. "21st. (June,) I visited the village of Aughnacloy, which I was sorry to see declining rather than improving. It, too, has felt the times. It was a flourishing little town about twenty years ago: poverty and wretchedness are now its distinguishing features. Thence I proceeded to the town of Balligawly, and the improvements thereabouts are considerable, under the immediate 72 exhibiting brief sketches of the care of its proprietor, Sir John Stewart; but there is still great room for improvement beyond the skill necessary for meliorating the surface of the soil; human beings are there,-a prouder concern for a benevolent and wise landlord than the paltry benefits directly arising from houses and farins ever so numerously multiplied. Thence I proceeded through an isolated district called the Truagh which is properly the Connemara of Ulster. The description given from Spenser p. 56. (of the historical part) applies originally to this quarter; here still are seen the reliquia of that wasteful period. I had often travelled through this wild district when a boy, and although pretty well acquainted with the manners, customs, and genius of its inhabitants, I must acknowledge my inability to give any thing like a correct sketch of them. In such a picture many of the vices and virtues, many of the brightest as well as darkest shades which characterize both civil and savage man would appear contrasted. The eye glistening with grateful sensibility at the sounds of condolence lights up the furrowed feature with intelligence; but that divine expression of an innate gem is suddenly clouded with a recollection of debasement; and the grief that all talent in that state is as dross, settles round the heart, and fastens there in a perpetual gloom, For kindness, generosity, and bravery-capability of undergo ing excessive privation without complaint; quickness of apprehension, and charity to strangers, -often sharing their last potatoe with those whom they never knew till then, all these they have from a bountiful providence, who has stamped many such valuable qualities of social life upon their unsophisticated, unenlightened nature; to that they owe every thing that makes their state comparatively happy,-to man (the great lords) they are indebted for nothing but their vices. With minds wholly uncultivated, who can wonder that their good qualities are so seldom developed, or rendered useful? Treated as they have always been, with more than neglect, can any one be surprized, however he may lament the fact, that they associate themselves in mutual dread of aggression, the result of ignorance and traditionary terror; and from clans and parties, out of which issue outrageous broils, aggravated by little enmities, and rendered doubly demoralizing by intoxication, the mischievous materials for which, are every where at hand ? It were well if these petty disputes among themselves went no further; but they afterwards, in appealing to justice indulge in the utmost asperity of recrimination, and too frequently is the sancti. ty of an oath disregarded, when the resentment of the moment is at its height.” The allusion to the materials, the mischievous, the demoralizing materials for intoxication shall follow the extract about to be given: p. 162. "Almost every cabin is de.. corated with a pit before the door, for the reception of the sweepings of the house and every sort of filth, which, from the rains and the foul water of washing and other domestic uses, is generally in a half fluid state throughout the winter, and emits an intolerable exhalation in the |