Chapter IV (9)

The causes which produced the extraordinary, and at first sight unaccountable, depopulation of the country districts, not only in Italy, but in Gaul, Spain, and all the European provinces of the Roman empire, are explained by Guizot in his _Essays on the History of France_, and have been fully demonstrated by Sismondi, Thierry, and Michelet. They were a natural consequence of the municipal system, then universally established as the very basis of civilization in the whole Roman empire, and may be seen urging, from a similar cause, the Turkish empire to dissolution at this day. This was the imposition of a certain fixed duty, as a burden on each municipality, to be raised, indeed, by its own members, but admitting of no diminution, save under the most special circumstances, and on an express exemption by the emperor. Had the great bulk of the people been free, and the empire prosperous, this fixity of impost would have been the greatest of all blessings. It is the precise boon so frequently and earnestly implored by our ryots in India, and indeed by the cultivators all over the East. But when the empire was beset on all sides with enemies--only the more rapacious and pressing, that the might of the legions had so long confined them within the comparatively narrow limits of their own sterile territories--and disasters, frequent and serious, were laying waste the frontier provinces, it became the most dreadful of all scourges; because, as the assessment on each district was fixed, and scarcely ever suffered any abatement, every disaster experienced increased the burden on the survivors who had escaped it; until they became bent down under such a weight of taxation, as, coupled with the small number of freemen on whom it exclusively fell, crushed every attempt at productive industry. It was the same thing as if all the farmers on each estate were to be bound to make up, annually, the same amount of rent to their landlord, no matter how many of them had become insolvent. We know how long the agriculture of Britain, in a period of declining prices and frequent disaster, would exist under such a system.

Add to this the necessary effect which the free circulation of grain throughout the whole Roman world had in depressing the agriculture of Italy, Gaul, and Greece. They were unable to withstand the competition of Egypt, Lybia, and Sicily--the storehouses of the world; where the benignity of the climate, and the riches of the soil, rewarded seventy or an hundred fold the labours of the husbandman. Gaul, where the increase was only seven-fold--Italy, where it seldom exceeded twelve--Spain, where it was never so high, were crushed in the struggle. The mistress of the world, as Tacitus bewails, had come to depend for her subsistence on the floods of the Nile. Unable to compete with the cheap grain raised in the more favoured regions of the south, the cultivators of Italy and Gaul gradually retired from the contest. They devoted their extensive estates to pasturage, because live cattle or dairy produce could not bear the expense of being shipped from Africa; and the race of agriculturists, the strength of the legions, disappeared in the fields, and was lost in the needy and indolent crowd of urban citizens, in part maintained by tributes in corn brought from Egypt and Lybia. This augmented the burdens upon those who remained in the rural districts; for, as the taxes of each municipality remained the same, every one that withdrew into the towns left an additional burden on the shoulders of his brethren who remained behind. So powerful was the operation of these two causes--the fixity in the state burdens payable by each municipality, and the constantly declining prices, owing to the vast import from agricultural regions more favoured by nature--that it fully equaled the effect of the ravages of the barbarians in the frontier provinces exposed to their incursions; and the depopulation of the rural districts was as complete in Italy and Gaul, before a barbarian had passed the Alps or set his foot across the Rhine, as in the plains between the Alps or the Adriatic and the Danube, which had for long been ravaged by their arms.

Domestic slavery conspired with these evils to prevent the healing power of nature from closing these yawning wounds. Gibbon estimates the number of slaves throughout the empire, in its latter days, at a number equal to that of the freemen; in other words, one half of the whole inhabitants were in a state of servitude;[17] and as there were 120,000,000 souls under the Roman sway, sixty millions were in that degraded condition. There is reason to believe that the number of the slaves was still greater than this estimate, and at least double that of the freemen; for it is known by an authentic enumeration, that, in the time of the Emperor Claudius, the number of citizens in the empire was only 6,945,000 men, who, with their families, might amount to twenty millions of souls; and the total number of freemen was about double that of the citizens.[18] In one family alone, in the time of Pliny, there were 4116 slaves.[19] But take the number of slaves, according to Gibbon's computation, at only half the entire population, what a prodigious abstraction must this multitude of slaves have made from the physical and moral strength of the empire! Half the people requiring food, needing restraint, incapable of trust, and yet adding nothing to the muster-roll of the legions, or the persons by whom the fixed and immovable annual taxes were to be made good! In what state would the British empire now be, if we were subjected to the action of similar causes of ruin? A vast and unwieldy dominion, exposed on every side to the incursions of barbarous and hostile nations, daily increasing in numbers, and augmenting in military skill; a fixed taxation, for which the whole free inhabitants of every municipality were jointly and severally responsible, to meet the increasing military establishment required by these perils; a declining, and at length extinct, agriculture in the central provinces of the empire, owing to the deluge of cheap grain from its fertile extremities, wafted over the waters of the Mediterranean; multitudes of turbulent freemen in cities, kept quiet by daily distribution of provisions at the public expense, from the imperial granaries; and a half, or two-thirds, of the whole population in a state of slavery--neither bearing any share of the public burdens, nor adding to the strength of the military array of the empire. Such are the discoveries of modern philosophy, as to the causes of the decline and ultimate fall of the Roman empire, gleaned from a few facts, accidentally preserved by the ancient writers, apparently unconscious of their value! It is a noble science which, in so short a time, has presented such a gift to mankind.

Guizot has announced, and ably illustrated, a great truth, which, when traced to its legitimate consequences, will be found to go far towards dispelling many of the pernicious innovating dogmas which have so long been afloat in the world. It is this, that whenever an institution, though apparently pernicious in our eyes, has long existed, and under a great variety of circumstances, we may rest assured that it in reality has been attended with some advantages which counterbalance its evils, and that upon the whole it is beneficial in its tendency. This important principle is thus stated:--

"Independent of the efforts of man, there is established by a law
of providence, which it is impossible to mistake, and which is
analagous to what we witness in the natural world, a certain
measure of order, reason, and justice, without which society
cannot exist. From the single fact of its endurance we may
conclude, with certainty, that a society is not completely
absurd, insensate, or iniquitous; that it is not destitute of the
elements of reason, truth, and justice--which alone can give life
to society. If the more that society developes itself, the
stronger does this principle become--if it is daily accepted by a
greater number of men, it is a certain proof that in the lapse of
time there has been progressively introduced into it more reason,
more justice, more right. It is thus that the idea of political
legitimacy has arisen.

"This principle has for its foundation, in the first instance, at
least in a certain degree, the great principles of moral
legitimacy--justice, reason, truth. Then came the sanction of
time, which always begets the presumption of reason having
directed arrangements which have long endured. In the early
periods of society, we too often find force and falsehood ruling
the cradles of royalty, aristocracy, democracy, and even the
church; but every where you will see this force and falsehood
yielding to the reforming hand of time, and right and truth
taking their place in the rulers of civilization. It is this
progressive infusion of right and truth which has by degrees
developed the idea of political legitimacy; it is thus that it
has become established in modern civilization. At different
times, indeed, attempts have been made to substitute for this
idea the banner of despotic power; but, in doing so, they have
turned it aside from its true origin. It is so little the banner
of despotic power, that it is in the name of right and justice
that it has overspread the world. As little is it exclusive: it
belongs neither to persons, classes, nor sects; it arises
wherever the idea of right has developed itself. We shall meet
with this principle in systems the most opposite: in the feudal
system, in the municipalities of Flanders and Germany, in the
republics of Italy, as well as in simple monarchies. It is a
character diffused through the various elements of modern
civilization, and the perception of which is indispensable to the
right understanding of its history."--(_Lecture_ iii. 9, 11;
_Civilization Européenne_.)

No principle ever was announced of more practical importance in legislating for mankind, than is contained in this passage. The doctrine is somewhat obscurely stated, and not with the precision which in general distinguishes the French writers; but the import of it seems to be this--That no system of government can long exist among men, unless it is substantially, and in the majority of cases, founded in reason and justice, and sanctioned by experienced utility for the people among whom it exists; and therefore, that we may predicate with perfect certainty of any institution which has been generally extended and long established, that it has been upon the whole beneficial, and should be modified or altered with a very cautious hand. That this proposition is true, will probably be disputed by none who have thought much and dispassionately on human affairs; for all human institutions are formed and supported by men, and unless men had some reason for supporting them, they would speedily sink to the ground. It is in vain to say a privileged class have got possession of the power, and they make use of it to perpetuate these abuses. Doubtless, they are always sufficiently inclined to do so; but a privileged class, or a despot, is always a mere handful against the great body of the people; and unless their power is supported by the force of general opinion, founded on experienced utility upon the whole, it could not maintain its ground a single week. And this explains a fact observed by an able and ingenious writer of the present day,[20] that if almost all the great convulsions recorded in history are attentively considered, it will be found, that after a brief period of strenuous, and often almost superhuman effort, on the part of the people, they have terminated in the establishment of a government and institutions differing scarcely, except in name, from that which had preceded the struggle. It is hardly necessary to remark how striking a confirmation the English revolution of 1688, and the French of 1830, afford of this truth.

And this explains what is the true meaning of, and solid foundation for, that reverence for antiquity which is so strongly implanted in human nature, and is never forgotten for any considerable time without inducing the most dreadful disasters upon society. It means that those institutions which have descended to us in actual practice from our ancestors, come sanctioned by the _experience_ of ages; and that they could not have stood so long a test unless they had been recommended, in some degree at least, by their utility. It is not that our ancestors were wiser than we are; they were certainly less informed, and probably were, on that account, in the general case, less judicious. But time has swept away their follies, which were doubtless great enough, as it has done the worthless ephemeral literature with which they, as we, were overwhelmed; and nothing has stood the test of ages, and come down to us through a series of generations, of their ideas or institutions, but what had some utility in human feelings and necessities, and was on the whole expedient at the time when it arose. Its utility may have ceased by the change of manners or of the circumstances of society--that may be a good reason for cautiously modifying or altering it--but rely upon it, it was once useful, if it has existed long; and the presumption of present and continuing utility requires to be strongly outweighed by forcible considerations before it is abandoned. Lord Bacon has told us, in words which can never become trite, so profound is their wisdom, that our changes, to be beneficial, should resemble those of time, which, though the greatest of all innovators, works out its alterations so gradually that they are never perceived. Guizot makes, in the same spirit, the following fine observation on the slow march of Supreme wisdom in the government of the world:--

"If we turn our eyes to history, we shall find that all the great
developments of the human mind have turned to the advantage of
society--all the great struggles of humanity to the good of
mankind. It is not, indeed, immediately that these efforts take
place; ages often elapse, a thousand obstacles intervene, before
they are fully developed; but when we survey a long course of
ages, we see that all has been accomplished. The march of
Providence is not subjected to narrow limits; it cares not to
develope to-day the consequences of a principle which it has
established yesterday; it will bring them forth in ages, when the
appointed hour has arrived; and its course is not the less sure
that it is slow. The throne of the Almighty rests on time--it
marches through its boundless expanse as the gods of Homer
through space--it makes a step, and ages have passed away. How
many ages elapsed, how many changes ensued, before the
regeneration of the inner man, by means of Christianity,
exercised on the social state its great and salutary influence!
Nevertheless, it has at length succeeded. No one can mistake its
effects at this time."--(_Lecture_ i. 24.)

In surveying the progress of civilization in modern, as compared with ancient times, two features stand prominent as distinguishing the one from the other. These are the _church_ and the _feudal system_. They were precisely the circumstances which gave the most umbrage to the philosophers of the eighteenth century, and which awakened the greatest transports of indignation among the ardent multitudes who, at its close, brought about the French Revolution. Very different is the light in which the eye of true philosophy, enlightened by the experience of their abolition, views these great distinctive features of modern society.

"Immense," says Guizot, "was the influence which the Christian
church exercised over the civilization of modern Europe. In the
outset, it was an incalculable advantage to have a moral power, a
power destitute of physical force, which reposed only on mental
convictions and moral feelings, established amidst that deluge of
physical force and selfish violence which overwhelmed society at
that period. Had the Christian church not existed, the world
would have been delivered over to the influence of physical
strength, in its coarsest and most revolting form. It alone
exercised a moral power. It did more; it spread abroad the idea
of a rule of obedience, a heavenly power, to which all human
beings, how great soever, were subjected, and which was above all
human laws. That of itself was a safeguard against the greatest
evils of society; for it affected the minds of those by whom they
were brought about; it professed that belief--the foundation of
the salvation of humanity--that there is above all existing
institutions, superior to all human laws, a permanent and divine
law, sometimes called Reason, sometimes Divine Command, but
which, under whatever name it goes, is for ever the same.

"Then the church commenced a great work--the separation of the
spiritual and temporal power. That separation is the origin of
liberty of conscience; it rests on no other principle than that
which lies at the bottom of the widest and most extended
toleration. The separation of the spiritual and temporal power
rests on the principle, that physical force is neither entitled
to act, nor can ever have any lasting influence, on thoughts,
conviction, truth; it flows from the eternal distinction between
the world of thought and the world of action, the world of
interior conviction and that of external facts. In truth, that
principle of the liberty of conscience, for which Europe has
combated and suffered so much, which has so slowly triumphed, and
often against the utmost efforts of the clergy themselves, was
first founded by the doctrine of the separation of the temporal
and spiritual power, in the cradle of European civilization. It
is the Christian church which, by the necessities of its
situation to defend itself against the assaults of barbarism,
introduced and maintained it. The presence of a moral influence,
the maintenance of a Divine law, the separation of the temporal
and spiritual power, are the three great blessings which the
Christian church has diffused in the dark ages over European
society.

"The influence of the Christian church was great and beneficent
for another reason. The bishop and clergy erelong became the
principal municipal magistrates: they were the chancellors and
ministers of kings--the rulers, except in the camp and the field,
of mankind. When the Roman empire crumbled into dust, when the
central power of the emperors and the legions disappeared, there
remained, we have seen, no other authority in the state but the
municipal functionaries. But they themselves had fallen into a
state of apathy and despair; the heavy burdens of despotism, the
oppressive taxes of the municipalities, the incursions of the
fierce barbarians, had reduced them to despair. No protection to
society, no revival of industry, no shielding of innocence, could
be expected from their exertions. The clergy, again, formed a
society within itself; fresh, young, vigorous, sheltered by the
prevailing faith, which speedily drew to itself all the learning
and intellectual strength that remained in the state. The bishops
and priests, full of life and of zeal, naturally were recurred to
in order to fill all civil situations requiring thought or
information. It is wrong to reproach their exercise of these
powers as an usurpation; they alone were capable of exercising
them. Thus has the natural course of things prescribed for all
ages and countries. The clergy alone were mentally strong and
morally zealous: they became all-powerful. It is the law of the
universe."--(_Lecture_ iii. 27, 31; _Civilization Européenne._)

Nothing can be more just or important than these observations; and they throw a new and consoling light on the progress and ultimate destiny of European society. They are as original as they are momentous. Robertson, with his honest horror of the innumerable corruptions which, in the time of Leo X. and Luther, brought about the Reformation--Sismondi, with his natural detestation of a faith which had urged on the dreadful cruelties of the crusade of the Albigenses, and which produced the revocation of the edict of Nantes--have alike overlooked these important truths, so essential to a right understanding of the history of modern society. They saw that the arrogance and cruelty of the Roman clergy had produced innumerable evils in later times; that their venality in regard to indulgences and abuse of absolution had brought religion itself into discredit; that the absurd and incredible tenets which they still attempted to force on mankind, had gone far to alienate the intellectual strength of modern Europe, during the last century, from their support. Seeing this, they condemned it absolutely, for all times and in all places. They fell into the usual error of men in reasoning on former from their own times. They could not make "the past and the future predominate over the present." They felt the absurdity of many of the legends which the devout Catholics received as undoubted truths, and they saw no use in perpetuating the belief in them; and thence they conceived that they must always have been equally unserviceable, forgetting that the eighteenth was not the eighth century; and that, during the dark ages, violence would have rioted without control, if, when reason was in abeyance, knowledge scanty, and military strength alone in estimation, superstition had not thrown its unseen fetters over the barbarian's arms. They saw that the Romish clergy, during five centuries, had laboured strenuously, and often with the most frightful cruelty, to crush independence of thought in matters of faith, and chain the human mind to the tenets, often absurd and erroneous, of her Papal creed; and they forgot that, during five preceding centuries, the Christian church had laboured as assiduously to establish the independence of thought from physical coercion, and had alone kept alive, during the interregnum of reason, the sparks of knowledge and the principles of freedom.

In the same liberal and enlightened spirit Guizot views the feudal system, the next grand characteristic of modern times.

"A decisive proof that, in the tenth century, the feudal system
had become necessary, and was, in truth, the only social state
possible, is to be found in the universality of its adoption.
Universally, upon the cessation of barbarism, the feudal forms
were adopted. At the first moment of barbarian conquest, men saw
only the triumph of chaos. All unity, all general civilization
disappeared, on all sides was seen society falling into
dissolution; and, in its stead, arising a multitude of little,
obscure, isolated communities. This appeared to all the
contemporaries nothing short of universal anarchy. The poets, the
chroniclers of the time, viewed it as the approach of the end of
the world. It was, in truth, the end of the ancient world; but
the commencement of a new one, placed on a broad basis, and with
large means of social improvement and individual happiness.

"Then it was that the feudal system became necessary, inevitable.
It was the only possible means of emerging from the general
chaos. The whole of Europe, accordingly, at the same time adopted
it. Even those portions of society which were most strangers,
apparently, to that system, entered warmly into its spirit, and
were fain to share in its protection. The crown, the church, the
communities, were constrained to accommodate themselves to it.
The churches became suzerain or vassal; the burghs had their
lords and their feuars; the monasteries and abbeys had their
feudal retainers, as well as the temporal barons. Royalty itself
was disguised under the name of a feudal superior. Every thing
was given in fief; not only lands, but certain rights flowing
from them, as that of cutting wood, fisheries, or the like. The
church made subinfeudations of their casual revenues, as the dues
on marriages, funerals, and baptisms."

The establishment of the feudal system thus universally in Europe, produced one effect, the importance of which can hardly be exaggerated. Hitherto the mass of mankind had been collected under the municipal institutions which had been universal in antiquity, in cities, or wandered in vagabond hordes through the country. Under the feudal system these men lived isolated, each in his own habitation, at a great distance from each other. A glance will show that this single circumstance must have exercised on the character of society, and the course of civilization, the social preponderance; the government of society passed at once from the towns to the country--private took the lead of public property--private prevailed over public life. Such was the first effect, and it was an effect purely material, of the establishment of the feudal system. But other effects, still more material, followed, of a moral kind, which have exercised the most important effects on the European manners and mind.

"The feudal proprietor established himself in an isolated place,
which, for his own protection, he rendered secure. He lived
there, with his wife, his children, and a few faithful friends,
who shared his hospitality, and contributed to his defence.
Around the castle, in its vicinity, were established the farmers
and serfs who cultivated his domain. In the midst of that
inferior, but yet allied and protected population, religion
planted a church, and introduced a priest. He was usually the
chaplain of the castle, and at the same time the curate of the
village; in subsequent ages these two characters were separated;
the village pastor resided beside his church. This was the
primitive feudal society--the cradle, as it were, of the European
and Christian world.

"From this state of things necessarily arose a prodigious
superiority on the part of the possessor of the fief, alike in
his own eyes, and in the eyes of those who surrounded him. The
feeling of individual importance, of personal freedom, was the
ruling principle of savage life; but here a new feeling was
introduced--the importance of a proprietor, of the chief of a
family, of a master, predominated over that of an individual.
From this situation arose an immense feeling of superiority--a
superiority peculiar to the feudal ages, and entirely different
from any thing which had yet been experienced in the world. Like
the feudal lord, the Roman patrician was the head of a family, a
master, a landlord. He was, moreover, a religious magistrate, a
pontiff in the interior of his family. He was, moreover, a member
of the municipality in which his property was situated, and
perhaps one of the august senate, which, in name at least, still
ruled the empire. But all this importance and dignity was derived
from without--the patrician shared it with the other members of
his municipality--with the corporation of which he formed a part.
The importance of the feudal lord, again, was purely
individual--he owed nothing to another; all the power he enjoyed
emanated from himself alone. What a feeling of individual
consequence must such a situation have inspired--what pride, what
insolence, must it have engendered in his mind! Above him was no
superior, of whose orders he was to be the mere interpreter or
organ--around him were no equals. No all-powerful municipality
made his wishes bend to its own--no superior authority exercised
a control over his wishes, he knew no bridle on his inclinations,
but the limits of his power, or the presence of danger.

"Another consequence, hitherto not sufficiently attended to, but
of vast importance, flowed from this society.

"The patriarchal society, of which the Bible and the Oriental
monuments offer the model, was the first combination of men. The
chief of a tribe lived with his children, his relations, the
different generations who have assembled around him. This was the
situation of Abraham--of the patriarchs: it is still that of the
Arab tribes which perpetuate their manners. The _clan_, of which
remains still exist in the mountains of Scotland, and the _sept_
of Ireland, is a modification of the patriarchal society: it is
the family of the chief, expanded during a succession of
generations, and forming a little aggregation of dependents,
still influenced by the same attachments, and subjected to the
same authority. But the feudal community was very different.
Allied at first to the clan, it was yet in many essential
particulars dissimilar. There did not exist between its members
the bond of relationship; they were not of the same blood; they
often did not speak the same language. The feudal lord belonged
to a foreign and conquering, his serfs to a domestic and
vanquished race. Their employments were as various as their
feelings and their traditions. The lord lived in his castle, with
his wife, his children, and relations: the serfs on the estate,
of a different race, of different names, toiled in the cottages
around. This difference was prodigious--it exercised a most
powerful effect on the domestic habits of modern Europe. It
engendered the attachments of home: it brought women into their
proper sphere in domestic life. The little society of freemen,
who lived in the midst of an alien race in the castle, were all
in all to each other. No forum or theatres were at hand, with
their cares or their pleasures; no city enjoyments were a
counterpoise to the pleasures of country life. War and the chase
broke in, it is true, grievously at times, upon this scene of
domestic peace. But war and the chase could not last for ever;
and, in the long intervals of undisturbed repose, family
attachments formed the chief solace of life. Thus it was that
WOMEN acquired their paramount influence--thence the manners of
chivalry, and the gallantry of modern times; they were but an
extension of the courtesy and habits of the castle. The word
_courtesy_ shows it--it was in the _court_ of the castle that the
habits it denotes were learned."--(_Lecture_ iv. 13, 17;
_Civilization Européenne._)

We have exhausted, perhaps exceeded, our limits; and we have only extracted a few of the most striking ideas from the first hundred pages of one of Guizot's works--_ex uno disce omnes_. The translation of them has been an agreeable occupation for a few evenings; but they awake one mournful impression--the voice which uttered so many noble and enlightened sentiments is now silent; the genius which once cast abroad light on the history of man, is lost in the vortex of present politics. The philosopher, the historian, are merged in the statesman--the instructor of all in the governor of one generation. Great as have been his services, brilliant his course in the new career into which he has been launched, it is as nothing compared to that which he has left; for the one confers present distinction, the other immortal fame.

Footnotes:

[1] Little girl--or girl, merely.

[2] Mr O'Connell stated in his speech, after "the liberation," that that most unexpected and miraculous event had been publicly prayed for in all the churches of Belgium.

[3] Taken from Lewis's Statistics of the Four Reformed Parliaments.

[4] The following account of the number of freeholders on the register, in 1837, when the number was largest, and in 1841, taken from Lewis's tables, will show an immense decrease in those counties completely under the control of the priests and agitators, and where their power is unassailable.

1837. 1841.
Clare, 3170 1785
Cork, 4180 3706
Galway county, 3074 1990
Galway town, 2084 1600
King's county, 1520 1078
Limerick city, 2813 1670
Limerick county, 2850 1893
Mayo, 1569 1064
Meath, 1850 1236
Roscommon, 2077 1059
Tipperary, 3460 2464
Waterford, 1494 802
Wexford, 3031 1739

All those counties and cities are, and always have been, represented by Radicals and Repealers; so that it appears the Repeal party are invariably best off where there are least freeholders, notwithstanding their constant complaints of what they suffer by the domination of the constituencies.

[5] Qualifying under the "solvent tenant test," (which was generally adopted by the Conservative barristers,) the claimant was obliged to swear and to prove that "he could obtain from a good and solvent tenant a clear yearly rent of ten pounds over and above what he paid himself," while the freeholder, qualifying under "the beneficial interest test," (which was acted on by the Whig and Radical barristers,) had only to prove that the crops and produce raised on his land by his own labour, yielded him a surplus of ten pounds over and above the amount of his rent.

[6] In England, the right to vote is given to tenants at will paying £50 rent; it was proposed to grant it to those in Ireland who paid £30 rent.

[7] Two judges, who are _ex-officio_ members, may be Roman Catholics; the numbers would then stand seven and six.

[8] _Bailly's Memoirs._

[9] The Rev. Gregory Lynch of Westland Row, openly charges the agitating bishops with having _forged_ the signature of many priests to the protest which they have published against the Charitable Bequests Bill. See his letter, an extract from which is published in the Irish correspondence of _The Times_, 27th October.

[10] Extract from the speech of the Rev. Mr Henebury, as reported in the Irish correspondence of the _Times_ newspaper, July 3, 1844.

[11] _Kohl's Ireland_.

[12] The local newspaper.

[13] Irish correspondent of the _Times_, Nov. 1, 1844.

[14] _Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke_. Edited by Earl Fitzwilliam and Sir Richard Bourke, K.C.B. 4 vols. 8vo. Rivingtons, London.

[15] _Nelson's Despatches and Letters, with Notes_. By Sir Harris Nicolas.

[16] Ferguson.

[17] Gibbon.

[18] _Ibid_.

[19] Plin. _Hist. Nat._, xxxiii. 47.

[20] Mr James's Preface to _Mary of Burgundy_.

INDEX TO VOL. LVI.

Affghanistan, 133
general review of the question regarding, 135
motives for the expedition to, 136
means for effecting the objects sought, 141
comparison of the competitors for the throne, 142
resistance to taxation in, 148
causes of the British disasters in, 150, 151.

Agitation the cause of the evils of Ireland, 709.

Alison, Archibald, Esq., speech of, at the Burns' festival, 390.

Ancient canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, historical account
of the, 182.

Artist's morning song, the, from Goethe, 419.

Auckland, Lord, review of his Affghanistan policy, 133.

Aytoun, W. E., Esq., speech of, at the Burns' festival, 392.

Banking System, the Scottish, 671*.

Barrett, Elizabeth B., review of the poems of, 621.

Bell, H. G., Esq., speech of, at the Burns' festival, 389.

Blanc, M., his history of ten years reviewed, 265.

Bossuet, character of, as a historian, 789.

Braxfield, lord, letter relating to, 620.

Brenn, the, a Gaulish chief, career of, 471.

Bride of Corinth, the, from Goethe, 57.

Bruce, heart of the, a ballad, 15.

Burke, Edmund, review of the correspondence of, 745.

Burns' festival, account of the, 370
order of the procession, 373
the banquet, 376
speeches of Lord Eglinton, ib.
Professor Wilson, 378
Sir John McNeill, 388
H.G. Bell, Esq., 389
Archibald Alison, Esq., 390
W. E. Aytoun, Esq., 392
Colonel Mure, 393
Sir James Campbell, the Lord Justice-General, &c., 395
stanzas for, by Delta, 399.

Cabul, the war with, 133.

Campbell, Sir James, speech of, at the Burns' festival, 395.

Canal between the Nile and Red Sea, historical account of the, 182.

Castle on the mountain, the, from Goethe, 425.

Catania, 33.

Catharine of Russia, sketch of, 410.

Causes of the increase of crime, on the, 1
districts in which greatest, ib.
in the manufacturing districts, 6
strikes, 8.

Cavalier, the old Scottish, a ballad, 195.

Clarkson, sonnet to, 619.

Commitments for crime, tables of, 1, 2.

Cours de Littérature Dramatique, review of, 237.

Crime, causes of the increase of, 1
in the manufacturing districts, 6
increase of, by strikes, 8
by infant labour, 9
inefficiency of the proposed preventives of, 13.

Cupid as a landscape painter, from Geothe, 417.

Delphi, defeat of the Gauls at, 472.

Delta, stanzas for the Burns' festival by, 399
the tombless man, a dream, by, 583.

Doleful lay of the noble wife of Asan Aga, the, from Goethe, 67.

Don John and the heretics of Flanders, 36