soil, is rich, but like it also, it is overrun with weeds. It should be the task of the natural protectors of the poor

of the lords of the soil, to eradicate this noxious growth, and sow good seed in its place.

THERE is no greater source of vexation, violence, trouble, and misery to the Irish peasantry, than the system by which they are permitted to vote at elections for members of parliament, under the pretence of being freeholders of forty shillings a-year. We say pretence, because it is quite notorious that the mass of persons who vote as possessing a freehold property of two pounds a-year, are not bona fide freeholders at all. They themselves do not know what the meaning of a freehold is; they have a lease, and a knowledge that a vote is attached to it upon the taking of an oath or two, which oaths they frequently hold it a matter of conscience to take, without any particular inquiry as to the meaning of what they are swearing. They possess no one requisite upon earth which a reasonable man would say, should entitle them to a vote. As to property, we repeat that it is all a falsehood; they have no property, except the clothes upon their backs, and these they may justly call their own, only because the law does not allow their apparel to be taken for the payment of their debts. They almost universally owe more rent than they are able to pay, and if it be the policy of the law of England that men who have not a clear possession of forty shillings a-year, should not vote for members of parliament, then the usurpation of the privilege by these nominal freeholders is a direct violation of that policy. Even in England, where the forty shilling qualification is generally a bona fide possession, it is by no means clear that it is sufficiently high. Hume, in noticing the statutes of the 8th and 10th of Henry VI. (A.D. 1430), limiting the elective franchise to such as possessed at least 40s. yearly in land, above all taxes and burdens, observes, that this sum was equal to at least L.20 of the currency of his time, and that it would have been very desirable that the spirit of the law had been maintained by raising the nominal amount of the limitation to keep pace

with the depreciation of the value of money. The observation applies to our own times with redoubled force. With the Grecian politicians it was an established maxim, as we learn from both Plato and Aristotle, that to qualify a man for any share in the government of his country, it was requisite he should possess the means of living independently, and of enjoying some degree of leisure. By the census of the Athenians taken in the time of Demetrius Phalareus, it appears, that of upwards of five hundred thousand inhabitants, not more than twenty-one thousand possessed any voice whatever in the legislation of the state; and of these, by far the greater number, namely, all who were not possessed of lands producing more than two hundred measures annually, had only a vote in the election of magistrates, and in the general assembly of the people. Of the other inhabitants four hundred thousand were slaves, and the rest disqualified as foreigners, freedmen, or under age. In Ireland we find that of a population of 6,800,000, two hundred and ten thousand enjoy the privilege of voting for members of Parliament, of which number 184,000 are forty shilling freeholders. So that that constitution which was deemed the nearest approach to a perfect democracy that civilized society would admit of, and which in effect from that very circumstance terminated in its own destruction, vested political power in a proportion of its members not very far exceeding the relative number of those who are already armed with this weapon in Ireland; a number too which is liable to be increased to an almost indefinite amount. It is evident that the less a state is advanced in civilisation and improvement, the more unfit is the mass of the people to be intrusted with the exercise of political functions; and this circumstance establishes a plain line of distinction between Great Britain and Ireland, which would free from any imputation of impropriety the es

tablishment of different standards of limitation in these different parts of his Majesty's dominions; but at present while the standard is nominally the same, it is practically and in effect much smaller in Ireland than in Great Britain, and we have the preposterous anomaly of political privilege extended the more widely among the people who have made the less progress in civility, and the art of living together in society.

To the ruinous system of forty-shilling freeholds may, in a great degree, be referred the distressing evils of small farms, occupied by a pauper tenantry. By this system it became the political interest of landlords to do that which was alike injurious to their estates, and to the decency and morality of those upon them; and it became the private interest of the tenants to establish their claim to vote by open and shameless perjury.

Bad as the case always was, it is now worse than ever. The poor peasant in Ireland never knew any thing like independence; his poverty put him at the mercy of his landlord, his religion at the mercy of the Priest. While these two powers did not directly interfere with each other, there was some chance of managing them. If the tenant could not pay the landlord, he could oblige him with his vote, for which favour due allowance was made, and time was granted for the payment of his rent; and the Priest, though he might inculcate that the landlord deserved to go to a warmer place than Parliament for his opinions about the Catholic Church, did not venture to insist, that the tenant should fly in his landlord's face, and tell him so that he should refuse him his vote, while he was unable to pay his rent. But now the Catholic Priests do venture upon this course. The Clergy of the Church of Rome throughout Ireland are eagerly and busily engaged in politics; and having, for political purposes, dissevered the little tie of friendly connexion which did subsist between the landlords and their poor tenantry, the latter are left to all the misery which attends upon abject poverty, accompanied with the enmity of the only person whose forbearance can alleviate it.

The quantity of absolute misery which this cruel policy of the Catho

lic agitators in Ireland has occasioned, is very great, while the handle which it has afforded for making the ordinary process of the law appear a political persecution on the part of the landed proprietors, has been in another way productive of the very worst effects. If a gentleman's tenants vote differently from him, and he afterwards proceeds to enforce payment of rent, which he should have received a year or two previously, and would have proceeded for, no matter how the tenant had voted, a clamour is set up about his private affairs, as if the recovery of his property had necessarily any thing to do with political hostility; and thus men who never had, nor ever wished to have, any thing to do with party politics, are held up on political grounds as monsters of oppression, and get disgusted with a country where ignorance and political rancour combine to produce continual discord in society.

In many instances since the last general election, proprietors, whose lands have gone out of lease, have not given freehold renewals, in order to avoid the annoyance of having a political quarrel with their tenants at every election; and the tenants are very glad to be left without a privilege, the exercise of which would be likely to make an enemy either of their landlord or their priest. The danger of this practice is, that it may have the effect of giving an undue preponderance at elections to Catholic proprietors, who omit no opportunity of maing forty-shilling freeholders; however, while the proportion of Catholic landed proprietors remains so inconsiderable as it is at present, it may be safely met, by making as many freeholders as possible, of such a rank in society as to be above the terrors of priestly authority. A complete reform in the system of elections in Ireland is extremely desirable, both as to the amount of qualification, and the manner of ascertaining and exercising it. The fraud which is carried on, according to the present system, is, as we have said, quite manifest. No man is hardy enough to assert that the mass of voters, at Irish elections, are really freeholders of even forty pence a-year, though they have gone through the forms which the law requires for freeholders of forty shillings; and certainly

"It's very odd!" These words have been haunting us like a tune. "It's very odd!" Every being, thing, and incident which we meet with, seems to combine to fix them upon our mind. They rushed upon us this morning, when dressing ourselves at the house of a worthy friend. Things went wrong -the razor was to us like Mrs Brulgruddery's dear Dennis; it "brought tears into our eyes'-shirt-pin mislaid-sleeve buttons do.; and divers other minor miseries of human life did we endure, marvelling somewhat that they should have so combined to come together. So we solaced ourselves with ejaculating, "It's very odd!" and descended to the breakfast parlour, where our young friend Mr Robert held full possession, and was invigorating himself by whipping his top, contrary to the lex loci, upon a new Kidderminster carpet.

"Whip away, my boy," said we. "It's very odd!" replied he. We thought indeed it was, and felt as though the young urchin were mocking us; but, on inquiry, it seemed that he could not comprehend why the top should spin when he whipped it ; and, when he ceased flogging, make its escape, by running off like a live thing, into some corner, as it were, for repose.

Having read Emerson on this thaumatropical proceeding, and, moreover, conned some of the modern juvenile Encyclopædias, which account for many unaccountable things, we did seriously incline to expound the said my stery unto the youth, who listened attentively for at least a minute and a half, and then evinced strong symptoms of a preference in favour of practice versus theory, and flogged away. We had spoken of a centrifugal power or impetus, and our oral lecture being suspended, proceeded mentally to solve unto ourselves, or recall to memory, the arcana of those wondrous laws, by which tops, balls, and the great globe itself, are kept spinning. In five minutes, that globe and the system to which it belongs, were behind us, at an immeasurable distance-beyondbeyond-and far away were other tems-it was too much. "Reason reeled." So, selecting a comet, we began

sys

to ponder upon its eccentric course. With some degree of humility be it confessed, that it hath been unto us a delight occasionally to disport ourselves, as a Triton among the minnows, in the shallows of this world; and we have reaped the usual advantages, a fair proportion of self-confidence, or modest assurance. So we wrestled manfully awhile with the difficulties to which we had presumptuously elevated ourselves, and consequently soon became enveloped in a most especially fuliginous maze of mystery. We began to apprehend that, in a few years, or may hap centuries, one of the said comets might come down, tail on end, with dire intent, upon this globe, and - just at this moment the parlour door opened gently, and the gentle lady of the house entered. "It's very odd,” said she, after the usual "good morning," "It's very odd, my dear Robert. There is the long gravel walk, and the yard, and the barn, and the nursery, which are all much better places for spinning your top than here, upon a carpet; yet this is the third morning I have found you-There! it has tumbled down again!"-"It is very odd," said the boy." Not at all, my dear," replied his mamma ; "it becomes entangled in the carpet-it would spin very well upon the plain boards."-"Ah! but, mamma," quoth young Hopeful," the centrifugallic force operates above the carpet.' these words, the good lady looked in our corner, with a glance of mild reproach, which seemed to say,—“ So, you have been swimming my poor child out of his depth again? It's very odd!"-" Don't be alarmed, dear madam," said we, Robert was too intent upon his play, or the whole should have been explained to him. Now, however, he understands that the top is kept spinning, upon the same principle, as this world revolves upon its axis.'

66

At

"Yes!" replied Master Robert, "and I've been thinking about it, while you thought I was only playing, and I've made it all out-there's the pole it spins upon that Captain Parry went to find the end of: but, my stars! what a big whip it must be !" Our worthy host the Rector entered