choice than to live or to die with Great Britain. I think, indeed,' he continues, that Great Britain would be ruined by the separation of Ireland; but as there are degrees even in ruin, it would fall the most heavily on Ireland. By such a separation Ireland would be the most completely undone country in the world; the most wretched, the most distracted, and, in the end, the most desolate part of the habitable globe.'

In the mean time we congratulate the Government upon the vigilant and impartial administration of the law, which has for the present removed even the possibility of a contest. Had Mr. Bright succeeded in enlisting the democracy of England and of Ireland together under his banners, he would have been indeed a formidable power in the State. As it is, the prosaic positive character of English ultra-liberalism and the fiery and imaginative turbulence of the Celt have refused to amalgamate. But this incapacity of assimilation has not prevented Mr. Bright from using language as atrocious as ever disgraced O'Connell in his worst days. In a letter to some political friend at Exeter he had the malignity to insinuate that, if Ireland were a thousand miles away from us, all would be at once changed. Justice would be done, or the landlords would be exterminated by the vengeance of the people.'! If the letter was intended for publication, no terms of censure can be sufficiently indignant. If it was not, the incautiousness of Mr. Bright's correspondent is singularly reprehensible.

Notwithstanding this wicked piece of petulance, the agitation in the two countries must henceforth proceed in parallel courses and under different leaders. Irishmen tell us that none of us understand Ireland, and that only a select few among themselves do. It is most improbable that the same demagogue will ever for any length of time lead Irish and English mobs, whatever extension of the constituency it may or may not be deemed advisable to make; but in England it will be the duty of any and every Government to prevent supreme authority from falling into the hands of a class such as is typified by the Municipality and State Legislature of New York. At the same time everything should be done that can be done, without tame or timorous concessions, to inspire in the working classes-not in the Operative Unions but in the working men themselves and their families—a love for their country and its institutions. In this good work individual and legislative effort may well combine. The increased enforcement of sanitary provisions-theincreased opportunities of thrift and economy-means for saving, and guarantees for saving securely-increased and improved means of useful education-all these are appliances for strength

An

ening and augmenting the patriotism of the English working man. We should wish to see our labouring classes imbued with a spirit of reverence and love for their country-a general knowledge of its varied history, trials, dangers, glories, and successes; so that they might feel that in being born English subjects they had received no mean and paltry heritage. Any one who has read the school-books most in vogue in the common schools of the United States knows how completely truth and modesty have been sacrificed to the one object of elevating the fame and destinies of the American Republic in the eyes of the youth of the country. But no one familiar with America can fail to have observed how completely that object has succeeded. American farmer's or blacksmith's boy may know nothing else; but he knows two things-how to work a sum in multiplication, and how to cite the history of his country-the American version of it, at all events. He may have, indeed, an inaccurate and perplexed view of universal history. He may be under the impression that there was nothing great or grand in the whole of time till the War of Independence, and that no exploits of Cæsar or Napoleon are comparable to those of Sherman and Grant. But he has with his lessons imbibed a profound notion of the greatness of his country and of its claims upon his devotion. The poorest American operative has hopes and aspirations for the United States and their influence such as few Englishmen below the middle classes venture to conceive for England. Why should not the sons of our smiths, carpenters, and glaziers, receive in their youth some general notion of their country's past history? Why should they not be taught to feel that it is something to be of the race and lineage of the Raleighs, the Blakes, the Nelsons, the Shakspeares, Miltons, Pitts, and Cannings? Why should they be left to the trading demagogue, whether of the platform or of the press, to learn from him that they are serfs, the rulers of their country oppressors, and its institutions a cheat? If they were better instructed and educated—not educated above their position but up to it-every sound Conservative would see in them trustworthy and respectable candidates for the franchise, and they themselves would cheerfully qualify for the franchise.

The Conservative ideal of society is in entire harmony with the traditionary predilections of the Irish. It contemplates a diffusion of the governing influences and social graces over all the area of production, so that labour may everywhere be cheered by the presence of the results of labour. It takes account of the shows and splendours of authority; and recognises the laws of sympathy and sentiment as agencies just as effective in their way as the

laws

laws of wages and capital. It would de-centralise rather than further gather to the centre; and would make the circulation of state wealth felt in the extremities of both countries. It appreciates the vast social value of courtesy and respect for national feeling; and the very corner-stone of its policy is stability and permanence of possessions. The chiefs of the Cabinet are men of letters, familiar with the power of intellectual sympathy to soften, to blend, and to harmonise. For the first time in Irish annals, two Irish noblemen are at the head of Irish affairs; and we are well convinced that no Englishman, worthy of the name, will suffer any touch of jealousy to cross his mind if the future Sovereign of the United Kingdom should also, for the first time in her annals, assume the duties, and claim the rights in popular affection, of a resident Irish gentleman.

ART.

THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

ART. I.-1. The Correspondence of King George the Third with Lord North from 1768 to 1783. Edited from the originals at Windsor, with an introduction and notes, by W. Bodham Donne. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1867.

2. Memoirs of the Life and Reign of King George the Third. By J. Heneage Jesse. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1867.

THES

HE personal character of King George the Third, as well as the leading political events of his reign, have been for various reasons so frequently brought under the notice of the readers of this Journal, that we may spare ourselves on this occasion the trouble of adding another elaborate essay on these subjects to those already produced. We shall assume the general familiarity of the public both with the subjects themselves and with the spirit in which we have generally treated them, and content ourselves with such observations as may be called forth by the contents of the works before us, forming, in different ways, supplementary additions to the wealth of information and commentary which late years have brought forth.

Mr. Jesse's work is merely what we should call, if the words might be used without irreverence, a book-maker's speculation, put together by an industrious and practical compiler in the historical line. Notwithstanding the occasional garnish of a few fragments of manuscript authority, and even four 'unpublished letters' of Horace Walpole to Selwyn (when shall we have the last fruits off this very old tree?), it contains nothing substantial except what is woven out of those many volumes of Diaries and Correspondence of this reign, which are in every one's hands. But having, in the exercise of critical justice, said thus much, we are bound to go some way farther, and to add that a more agreeable, readable, and really interesting compilation has seldom fallen into our hands. It is a book which the reader lays down with sincere feelings of gratitude to the writer for having enabled him to while away some hours in pleasantly furbishing up his acquaintance with many a well-known, but always attractive, passage of recent history, and renewing many a familiar line of thought. And we do not doubt that numVol. 122.-No. 244. bers

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