not in any ways germain to the water-burners, passingly furnished with the elements of schoolcraft. Well,-when this academy was established, the Inverness folk, being not only the Areopagites of a Gaelic town but of the Gaelic capital, and the capital in which the very purest English is spoken " to boot and boot," would needs have a professor of Gaelic; and such was the thriving of the Gaelic class in a country thirsting almost above every other for education, from the necessity that the majority of those that wish to live are under of leaving it, that before ten years had elapsed there was not one Gaelic student, and the salary was transferred to a professor of very different matters, who knew not one word of the language. This, we fear, is to be taken as the experimentum crucis against the chance of making the Gaelic language a matter of polite education, or, after a generation or two, of any sort of education in Scotland; and with the changes that have taken place in the economy of things there, and the way in which Highlanders and Lowlanders are mixed together, we are unable to see any great public benefits that could arise from extending and perpetuating the Gaelic tongue. It is true, as is the case with all languages, there are many idiomatical passages in it, the spirit of which cannot be rendered in any other tongue, and that some of these are very pithy and expressive; but in the loss of the language no part of the useful knowledge of mankind would be lost, not a single leaf would be out of the book of essential information; and, therefore, as the people are the only valuable thing about the language, and as they have never appeared to suffer by translation into English, we are not sure but that the sooner it goes down to oblivion the better.

Until that shall be the case, however, and it must come and not be forced, the education of the common people in Gaelic is both a praiseworthy and a necessary task; and the zeal of many persons of eminence in Scotland, and of none more than Principal Baird of Edinburgh, deserves every commendation. The power of reading contains in itself the germ of its own increase; and of those that learn, in the Gaelic schools, to read the few books that have been translated into that language, there are many that will not rest satisfied there, but extend their knowledge to the stores that are contained in the English language. This is, unquestionably, the grand point to be aimed at. Sameness of speech conduces more to the unity, the strength, and the improvement of a kingdom than any other single circumstance, because then the whole range of the kingdom is alive to every subject. If the inhabitants of all the counties in England and Scotland carried on their correspondence in their vernacular dialects, there would be many mistakes and blunders in business, which are prevented by the uniformity of the written language. Among the Celtic population of the southern part of the island, there are more remains of a literature than among those of the north. It seems doubtful, however, whether the Welsh be altogether so intellectual a people; and though they be very industrious, they have never added very much to science, or even to the higher departments of literature; and as their country is narrow, and there is a great deal of intercourse with it on all sides, it seems doubtful

whether it would be wise to stay the decline which that intercourse must cause in the Welsh language.

The Celtic population of Ireland are in a situation somewhat different they are far more numerous; they have to contend with disqualifications; and less attention has been paid to their education.

The total population of Scotland and Wales, taken together, does not exceed three millions, of which only a very small portion, probably not half a million in the two countries, are ignorant of the English language; while there is hardly a point in them at which a knowledge of that language may not be easily and, especially in Scotland, cheaply acquired. In Ireland, on the other hand, there are, according to the parliamentary returns, which confessedly do not contain the whole population, nearly four millions that understand nothing but Irish; and there are perhaps a million more who have emigrated to the great towns in Britain, who, though many of them can speak English, yet prefer their native tongue, as the vehicle of their conversations with each other. Thus there is a population equal to that of a considerable kingdom; among whom the means of instruction in literature and the useful arts are not circulated. That people, too, have had, and though it be " laid on the shelf," as it were, have still a literature. It is true that they may not have

been the instructors of the western world to the whole extent that the expounders of Irish history contend, any more than the Carthaginian speech in the Roman play is Irish, as stated by General Vallancey, or than, as others have said, the Irish can converse freely with the Basques, although the whole vocabulary and much of the grammar of the two languages be different; but still there are Irish manuscripts, written in an Irish character, and there is every probability that they were at one time more numerous.

Whatever may be the subjects of those manuscripts, even though they be all monkish legends, they are valuable, as they would throw some light upon times and people with regard to whom we are very much in the dark. The very zeal with which, down to the seventeenth century, the English are said to have sought to destroy or conceal the manuscript libraries of Ireland, tends to throw an interest over them. Scattered over many parts of Europe, disjointed by the loss or destruction of works belonging to the chain, rendered dim by that portion of fable and allegory, which prevailed when all were ignorant and credulous but the few, and these few could not escape a very considerable portion of the contagion-the whole of the ancient literature of Ireland has not yet been brought before the public in a perfectly authenticated state. As is the case, too, with many of the songs and melodies, the question between the Irish and the Scottish claims has not been perfectly settled; and though there may have been little connexion and intercourse between the north and east of Scotland and Ireland, there was, unquestionably, a good deal between the south and west. At a very early period, Ireland appears to have had a disposable population as well as now; but whether from absolute excess, or from squabbling, it would not be easy to determine. Without entering at all into the question of the settlement of the Celtic Hibernians in Scotland, the kingdom of the

Dalriads, or the magnificent capital of Beregonium upon the banks of Loch Linnhè, it is certain that within the period on which there is some light thrown, the hills of Athol were peopled by the Clan Donoughly, subsequently called Robertsons; that they were a savage and ferocious people, generally under the law of the bishops of Dunkeld, and at times carrying their predatory incursions to the very altar in the cathedral, even when the prelate was celebrating the most solemn rites of his church. That affords no confirmatory evidence of the learning and piety of the great body of the Irish; but as the meridian of these is placed some centuries back, it is not to be taken as evidence of the contrary.

A little book, having Christopher Anderson as the author's name, which has just been published at Edinburgh, combines, in a short compass, a good many curious particulars regarding the ancient and present condition of the Irish Celts; and as its avowed object is to promote the mental culture of that numerous and rapidly multiplying people, by finding them books and education, and oral instruction in their native tongue, the laudableness of the attempt may justify not only a good deal of enthusiasm, but some over-statement and hyperbole. We do not mean to assert that Mr. Anderson's book has these imperfections in a high degree, or even that it has them at all; but, as the English public have commonly been in the habit of receiving works on the antiquities and former glory of Ireland cum grano salis, it is as well to name the caveat.

Having mentioned that, we shall not enter upon the antiquarian part of the matter; it is too long for a magazine, and no inference drawn from it can be useful to the present age. The grand object is to elevate the character of the Irish population; and though we are very sure that education alone, be it in what language it may, would not altogether and of itself effect that object, yet we are very ready to admit it not only as an element, but as one of the principal and primary elements, without which the others would not be effective.

From the incapacity of the Native Irish peasants to read, and their being, by their language, shut out from the floating history of the time, which men acquainted with it take as part of the rule of their actions, they are thrown upon their own resources and the squabbles and occurrences of their localities; and there can be but little doubt that the causes of all their squabbles and animosities at home, as well as of their herding together and preserving their rude appearance, their turbulence, and their misery, even in the centre of the British metropolis, are to be found in their standing excluded, by that language which they understand best, and in which they will therefore speak whenever they can, from the literature and working of the rest of society.

The object to be attained is very obvious :-these people must, in some way or other, be taken into society,-be made to see what is going on, to know what has gone on; to learn the sequence of cause and effect, and its use in the guidance of man in life. This, and this alone, can take them out of the dominion of the immediate impulses of their passions, the source to which most of what

is bad in the uneducated Irish character, and most of what is bad in any uneducated character, can be traced. Everybody that has found him at home must have noticed that when Pat is pleased, he is one of the most happy, harmless, gleesome, and kind fellows that can be met with. If he should know ever so little, what he knows he knows well, and he can point it with the most exquisite and unexpected humour. Little pleases him too. His lodging and his food, and, in some places, up to a very recent time, his clothing too, were the same as those of his pig. Not very many years ago, a friend of the writer of this article spent some time in the wilds of Cunnemara, where, he found, on warm days, persons who were married and had children going about without a rag upon them; and yet they were as innocent as anchorites (probably a good deal more so), and, while passion lay still, as merry as grigs. When marched into Galway, armed with shillelaghs (by the way, these used to be among the most expensive furnishings of Mr. Martin's election, and for the last one he is said to have denuded his estate of timber), in the same way and with the same feelings as other unlettered men are led by those chiefs whom they consider as the first, or, rather, the only great men on earth, their passions were no doubt up; but then, in their state of information, the cause in which they were engaged had all the attractions of a national one, and the row with cudgels in the street of Galway had to them all the interest and importance of a Waterloo. If you would have men to extend the bounds of that which they shall call their country, and cease from local hostility and acrimony, you must bring them knowledge and feelings, which they cannot acquire by their own experience at the place where they were born.

In the Highlands of Scotland, in Ireland, and every where that they have been found, the Celts have ever been a clannish people, devoted to their chief and party, and ready to enter into any hostility in the cause and for the honour of these. But this, so far from being a bad trait in their character, is a most valuable one: it shows that there are in them both talents and feelings; and these have only to be educated to the proper extent, to make them as attached members of the state, as they are of the little party to which, in their unlettered condition, their attachment is confined.

Still, however, whatever may be the value of the materials that are said to be wrapped up in the Irish language,-whatever may be the copiousness of the language itself,-and whatever may be the present expediency, or even necessity, of giving the four millions of persons by whom that language is spoken, the elements of knowledge in it, whatever, also, the admirers of the language itself may say, about the impropriety, the impolicy, or the cruelty of its abolition, the education of the Irish in the Irish language can never, in the judgment of sound philosophy, be regarded as any other than an intermediate and preparatory measure. The grand object in every state ought to be to break down the distinctions among its subjects, so as to make them one people, and so that the whole range of the country should be patent to the talents and industry of all. Upon this principle, those who speak the Irish language should be taught

to read, not that they may continue to read in Irish,-but that by learning the faculty of reading, along with their fellow-countrymen, they may be induced to acquire the same faculty in the same language.

Mr. Anderson expresses a wish that the " Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge" should prepare cheap elementary books for the Irish, printed in the native character. According to his own account, however, somebody must precede the Society, in order to teach the people how to read; and here we are met by the question whether it would be best to teach them to read a language which, largely as it is spoken, is confined to certain classes of the Irish population; or to read one which, besides opening to them the whole stores of English literature, would be a passport all over the United Kingdom? This question admits of considerable argument; and as we must stop somewhere, we shall not now enter upon it.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF VIRGINIA WATER *.

THE work before us is the first Number of a Series of Sketches made upon the spot, of the extensive grounds near Windsor Great Park, known by the name of Virginia Water. We are glad to revive the recollections of some very beautiful scenery, with which we are familiar ;-the more particularly so, as since this place has become, as this book expresses, "the favourite and frequent retreat of his most Gracious Majesty," a somewhat Asiatic jealousy has prevented all intrusion within these sacred walks. There was a time, indeed, when Virginia Water was really profaned by the presence of prizefighters, who were accustomed to train in the secluded alleys that bordered the lake;—and it was, therefore, quite necessary that the privilege of admission to the grounds should be withdrawn from the inn to which these persons resorted. But we should have thought that the King of a free people might, without the slightest interference with his individual pleasures, have allowed a regulated admission, such as formerly existed, to the most romantic grounds within a hundred miles of the metropolis. However, chaque à son gout. All strangers, however respectable or distinguished for their taste or acquirements, are rigidly excluded; and Mr. Delamotte has therefore given something to our pleasures, by the publication of the very agreeable sketches which he has had the good fortune to be permitted to make.

Virginia Water was planted, and the lake executed, under the direction of Paul Sandby, at a time when this part of Windsor Forest was the favourite residence of Duke William of Cumberland. The artificial water is the largest in the kingdom, with the single

*Illustrations of Virginia Water, and the adjacent scenery. By W. A. Delamotte, Jun. Drawn on stone, by W. Gauci.