rife and establishment of England's fovereignty over Ireland, together with an account of the impofition of the penal laws, under which the Irish papifts at prefent labour, the author obferves that, however political the latter might formerly have been, it is now high time to diftinguish between the penal laws against papifts, and thofe of the teft. The only principle, fays he, to which the penal laws heretofore enacted can, at this day, owe their continuance, is that which their title avows to have been the object chiefly aimed at in enacting them; namely, to prevent the farther growth of popery. Of their utility in this refpect, he remarks, we have no other proof than the inconfiderable number of converts to popery, that have been made fince thofe laws were made. The prevention of the converfion of the Irish Roman Catholics to proteftantifm, however, he obferves, has been rendered effectual by the impolicy of fuch laws.

"Poverty and ignorance are infeparable adjuncts. The power of fuperftition is always greateft on the minds of the ignorant. By keeping the body of thofe people poor, we have, at the fame time, kept them in profound ignorance.

"By means of their poverty and ignorance, they are entirely in the power of their priests, whofe fordid policy teaches them, that the beft means of preferving their own pitiful livelihood, is to infufe fu perftitious ideas of religion into the minds and paffions of a wretched vulgar.

"Ignorant and illiterate people feldom look forward to poffible benefits and reverfionary advantages: none but the blind can overlook the bleffings and comforts that are offered to them, and laid in their way. While, therefore, the papists have no immediate inducements to acquire knowledge, they will remain what they are. Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obftat res angufta domi.

Let them but once be poffeffed of fome fhare in that property which is a chief object of our juridical fyftem, and they will become ambitious to acquire a knowledge of thofe laws upon which its fecurity depends. They will have a thoufand new inducements to polish themselves in every refpect. The clouds of ignorance will be difpelled. They will qualify themselves to fit on juries, and to decide upon queftions in which they have a permanent intereft. They will aim at having a right to join in fending to parliament those who are to provide laws to regulate and bind their newly-acquired poffeffions. Such whofe induftry hall happen to be crowned with any extraordinary share of wealth, will afpire at being held in the rank of gentlemen. They will be ambitious of pufhing themfelves into confequence and credit, of exerting their talents and abilities for the public good, and of attaining the honour and profit of public employments. They will be induced to obtain feats in the national fenate, and to affist in making those laws in which they will have then fo great a concern: and to do all this they must become protestants."

In which account, the author takes occafion, and we think jufly, to reprehend Mr. Justice Blackstone and Mr. Barrington, for advancing fome inconfiftent and oppreffive doctrines, refpecting the power of the British crown and legislature over the kingdom of Ireland.

Admitting the profeffed to be the fole intent of thofe laws, it is to be confidered, therefore, whether the repeal of them may not tend more to convert papists into proteftants, than to prevent the converfion of protestants to popery. With regard to more enlarged views, our author remarks that poverty, ignorance and flavery are the only fruits the abfurd laws against the papifts hitherto have produced, or probably ever will produce. "The Irish catholics," fays he, “neither are nor can be enemies to the ftate, nor to the family now on the throne, otherwife, or longer, than we oblige them to be fo, and treat them as if they really were. Confider them as friends and good fubjects and they will become fuch." This conduct however may perhaps be premature. That fuch huniane and charitable methods, as our author recommends, fhould be used to make them become proteftants, we admit; but, till they really are fuch, it may not be quite fafe or prudential to confider them as friends and good fubjects. The Romish religion has too great a mixture of human policy interwoven in its tenets, to admit of its profeffors being hearty in the caufe of a proteftant government; and this writer himself owns, that there is nothing to which people more pertinacioufly adhere than to their re ligious tenets, be they ever fo abfurd and mistaken. We agree with him, nevertheless, that they fhould, for that reafon, be weaned by degrees from their fuperftitions, and led to embrace the protestant religion by the most gentle and lenient means. Pueris dant cruftula blandi doctores, elementa velint ut difcere prima. All this is right, and yet we think children should be actually weaned before they are fuffered to go alone. The prefent penal laws are certainly impolitic and inhuman, but whether a partial or total repeal be moft expedient, is not for us to determine.

The pathetic defcription, which our author gives of the wretched fituation of the Irish peasants in general, is truly ditreffing, and if it be owing, as he plaufibly afferts, to the restraints laid on the trade of the Irish by Great-Britain, it will be both politic and humane in the British legiflature to remove them: for, as this writer afks,

"Can the partial interefts of a few manufacturing towns in England, countervail the general and deftructive ruin of an extenfive nation? If, by increafing the wealth of Ireland twenty-fold, some small inconvenience may be felt by a few perfons and places in England, is that confideration equivalent to the greater benefits England would derive from our increase of wealth? It were as prepofterous to take from the reft of England all the advantage of commerce and manųfactures, to promote the trade and interefts of Manchester and Birmingham, as to check the trade of Ireland with a view of increafing that of England. Is not England the fea to which all the wealth of Ireland regularly flows through numberless channels; and (as the grateful ocean does, by the wife order of nature) fhould not England repay thofe golden ftreams, thereby to preferve and enlarge, not to leffen its own ftore? The drying up of the fountains from which fuch precious currents naturally fpring, or ought to fpring, will but defeat and disturb the due courfe of things, and may poffibly end in convulLive eruptions.

"Ireland

Ireland fhould be confidered, in every point of intereft and policy, as a part of England itself, although poffeffed of a peculiar legiflature of its own. It fhould be confidered as a principal foundation-ftone of the crown; as a part of the fame rock on which GreatBritain itself stands; and as a chief fupport of those hands that must manage the reins by which a vastly extended empire is to be governed. We have fufficient warning in the fituation of things, that every measure ought to be fought out and adopted, which shall ftrengthen and enlarge that bffis of British confequence, domeftic power: that fo, by having ever in our hands the means to fupport and protect our colonies and remote dominions, we may ever fecure their allegiance and obedience to us, by their affection to their own interests."

ART. XVII. The Speech of Edmund Burke, Efq. on moving his Refolu tions for Conciliation with the Colonies, March 22, 1775, 2s. 6d. Dodfley.

4to.

Admirers as we are of rhetorical abilities, and useful as we think them, when properly exerted, we cannot help regretting its having become the fashion for public orators to make long fpeeches; the me rit of which is generally estimated by the length of time the speaker has been upon his legs. We are perfuaded that the inclination, to in dulge this folly and figure away in the eyes of the gallery, has induced many a member, of the Lower Houfe, to difplay the volubility of his tongue and the extent of his knowledge, far beyond the neceffity or propriety of the occafion. We are forry, however, to fee a fenator of Mr. Burke's acknowledged fuperiority of talents, laying hold, like a tyro, of every opportunity to open his budget of knowledge hiftorical, political, claffical, commercial, philofophical and natural. We should do him injuftice not to own that, in the speech before us, he has made a fufficient difplay of this kind; but we cannot help declaring that the tout enfemble, the whole favours of that genuine fimplicity, he affects fo much to admire, just as much as a quaker's plain fuit refembles the drefs of a modern macaroni, or the ancient garb of Jofeph's coat of many colours. His plan, indeed, he tells us," has nothing of the fplendor of the project, which has Been lately laid upon the table by the noble lord in the blue ribband.*"" It has nothing to recommend it to the pruriency of curious eats."What a flap, this, at the Quidnuncs in the gallery, particularly thofe in petticoats, whofe prurient curiofity is well known, more than once, to have embarraffed this honourable member in the fame place! There is nothing at all new or captivating in it.”— No, this we will anfwer for; the expedients propofed are as trite and hackneyed as fimplicity itself, and it will captivate neither the mother country nor her children the Americans. But this, it is to be obferved, is all our fpeechifier aims at; plain good intention."—— "Refined policy ever has been the parent of confufion; and ever will be fo, as long as the world endures."-Yet we cannot fay of this oration, funt verba et voces, prætereaque nibil: its object is peace. -Peace! Yes.

Lord North.---What a pity Mafter Burke has not a blue ribband! Though, perhaps, a red one, a green fath, or even a yellow back-string, might suffice. VOL. I.

"The

"The propofition is peace.-Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negociations; not peace to arife out of univerfal difcord, fomented, from principle, in all parts of the empire; not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions; or the precife marking the fhadowy boundaries of a complex government. It is fimple peace; fought in its natural courfe, and its ordinary haunts.—It is peace fought in the spirit of peace; and laid in principles purely pacific.” What pulpit oratory! Is Mr. Burke going to turn political methodif*? Or did he mean to fhew contempt to his auditors, in thus addreffing them in the 'Squire Falfe-peace-tile of John Bunyan?-We remarked, on occafion of a foriner fpeech of this gentleman's, that in recommending pacific measures at all events, he avoided entering on the right of taxation t. In the prefent fpeech he takes the fame method.

"Sir, I think you must perceive, that I am refolved this day to have nothing at all to do with the queftion of the right of taxation. Some gentlemen ftartle-but it is true: I put it totally out of the queftion. It is lefs than nothing in my confideration. Í do not indeed wonder, nor will you, Sir, that gentlemen of profound learning are fond of difplaying it on this profound fubject. But my confideration is narrow, confined, and wholly limited to the policy of the question. I do not examine, whether the giving away a man's money be a power excepted and referved out of the general truft of government; and how far all mankind, in all forms of polity, are intitled to an exercise of that right by the charter of nature. Or whether, on the contrary, a right of taxation is neceffarily involved in the general principle of legiflation, and infeparable from the ordinary fupreme power? Thefe are deep questions, where great names militate againft each other; where reason is perplexed; and an appeal to authorities only thickens the confufion. For high and reverend authorities lift up their heads on both fides; and there is no fure footing in the middle. This point is the great Serbonian bog, betwixt Damiata and Mount Cafius old, where armies whole have funk. I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, though in fuch refpectable company."

The reader, also, who would not wish to be loft in a bog, even in the refpectable company of our orator, may as well take leave of him; for, if he be not in an abfolute bog, he is environed with quickfands, that shift about to all quarters and leave him but a very uncer tain footing.

ART. XVIII. The Speeech of Lord Lyttleton, on a Motion made in the House of Lords for a Repeal of the Canada Bill, May 17, 1775. 4to. TS. Ridley.

We have here a fample of fenatorial oratory of a very different kind to the preceding; this being as fpirited, pointed and concife, as

We hope, at leaft, he does not mean to play the game in politicks which some have done in religion. And yet, if he be in fee with Mr. Dodfley, thefe balf-crown fpeeches fell well, and have an ugly look. They are a heavy tax on the prurient curiofity of the publick. But our orator will have nothing to do with the right of Jaxation. "He hates going into the distinction of rights. He abominates the found of them. He confiders only the policy."

+London Review for January, page 56.

the

the other is ftudied, elaborate, and diffuse. It is not for us to decide on the juftice and propriety of the arguments advanced by the noble fpeaker, but to exhibit fuch a fpecimen as may induce our readers to perufe the whole, and judge for themfelves. The clamour, that has been raised by the oppofition against the Quebec bill or Canada act, has been so very general, and the ftate of popery and flavery, into which the inhabitants of that colony are faid to be reduced by it, has been fo induftriously aggravated, and reprefented to the public, that it was no wonder a repeal of it was moved in parliament by the patriots in the minority. It was in the debate on this occafion that Lord Lyttleton diftinguifhed himfelf, in a manner by no means unworthy of his promifing abilities. His exordium, as it fhould be, is without affectation*, pertinent and proper.

"At the conclufion of this long and laborious feffion of parliament, when the unhappy divifions fubfifting between England and America feemed, by the joint wifdom of both houfes, to converge towards conciliation, I am greatly furprised that, the noble and learned Lord fhould come forth again to scatter abroad the feeds of diffention, and, not content with that refiftance to the legislature, and to the law of England, which prevails over all British America, fhould now endeavour to involve the Canadians in the common revolt ; eftablishing as a leading principle, by which your Lordships may be induced to repeal this bill, that thofe for whofe emolument it was made are the moft diffatisfied with it-that they groan under the preffure, and confider it as a moft intolerable grievance PAINTING their diflike to it with the strongest colours of rhetoric, and, by these groundless infinuations, wifhing to deprive them of all thofe beneficial advantages, they most gratefully acknowledge to have received, by the equitable fyftem of jurifprudence obtained from the parlia ment of England.

"My Lords, however bright may be the eloquence, and however dark the purpose, of that noble and learned Lord, I truft he will fail in his attempt; and though ftrong was the arm that directed this fhaft againft the vitals of the conftitution, though the point was envenomed, and though it was aimed at a mortal part, I truft, my Lords, it will fall blunted to the ground, without endangering the fafety of the commonwealth, or affecting the true intereft of the kingdom."

His Lordship needed no great forefight to prove a true prophet in this particular. The attempt has failed, though apparently foftered by fome of the first and most respectable perfonages in the kingdom. Whether they were all equally in earnest, or had any fuch dark purpofe, in feconding fuch attempt, as is here imputed to the learned Jaw Lord who first moved it, is a matter to be queftioned; at leaft as much fo as the fincerity with which the noble author of the prefent fpeech oppofed it. His Lordship's general fenfe of the bill' is given in a few words.

The noble Lord has told your Lordships, that the bill which passed last feffion for establishing a government in Canada, was a bill A firiking defect in Mr. Burke's fpeech; which differs in this respect from his Lordship's, as that of Terrellian from St. Paul's.' • abhorrent

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