are, I believe, the most corrupt, abandoned people in the nation. But now that I am upon this worthy subject of human nature, I will inform you of a few particulars relating to the discovery of Otaheite. ' p. 180.

There is another curiosity here, Mr Bruce. His drawings are the most beautiful things you ever saw, and his adventures more wonderful than those of Sinbad the sailor,-and perhaps as true. am much more afflicted with the account you send me of your health, than I am at the corruption of your ministers. I always hated politics and I now hate them ten times worse; as I have reason to think that they contribute towards your ill health. You do me great justice in thinking, that whatever concerns you, must inte. rest me; but as I wish you most sincerely to be perfectly happy, I cannot bear to think that the villanous proceedings of others should make you miserable: for, in that case, undoubtedly you will never be happy. Charles Fox is a member at the Turk's Head; but not till he was a patriot; and you know, if one repents, &c. There is nothing new, but Goldsmith's Retaliation, which you certainly have seen. Pray tell Lady Charlemont, from me, that I desire she may keep you from politics, as they do children from sweetmeats, that make them sick. ' p. 181, 182.

We look upon these extracts as very interesting and valuable; but they have turned out to be so long, that we must cut short this private branch of the history. We must add, however, a part of Lord Charlemont's account of Mr Burke, with whom he lived in habits of the closest intimacy, and continual correspondence, till his extraordinary breach with his former political associates in 1792. Mr Hardy does not exactly know at what period the following paper, which was found in Lord' Charlemont's handwriting, was written.'

This most amiable and ingenious man was private secretary to Lord Rockingham. It may not be superfluous to relate the following anecdote, the truth of which I can assert, and which does honour to him and his truly noble patron. Soon after Lord Rockingham, upon the warm recommendation of many friends, had appointed Burke his secretary, the Duke of Newcastle informed him, that he had unwarily taken into his service a man of dangerous principles, and one who was by birth and education a papist and a jacobite; a calumny founded upon Burke's Irish connexions, which were most of them of that persuasion, and upon some juvenile follies arising from those connexions. The Marquis, whose genuine Whiggism was easily alarmed, immediately sent for Burke, and told him what he had heard. It was easy for Burke, who had been educated at the university at Dublin, to bring testimonies to his protestantism and with regard to the second accusation, which was wholly founded on the former, it was soon done away; and Lord Rockingham, readily and willingly disabused, declared that he was perfectly sa

tisfied

tisfied of the falsehood of the information he had received, and that he no longer harboured the smallest doubt of the integrity of his principles; when Burke, with an honest and disinterested boldness, told his Lordship that it was now no longer possible for him to be his secretary; that the reports he had heard would probably, even -unknown to himself, create in his mind such suspicions, as might prevent his thorougly confiding in him; and that no earthly consideration should induce him to stand in that relation, with a man who did not place entire confidence in him. The Marquis, struck with this manliness of sentiment, which so exactly corresponded with the feelings of his own heart, frankly and positively assured him, that what had passed, far from leaving any bad impression on his mind, had only served to fortify his good opinion; and that, if from no other reason, he might rest assured, that from his conduct upon that ocsasion alone, he should ever esteem, and place in him the most unreserved confidential trust- -a promise which he faithfully performed. Neither had he at any time, nor his friends after his death, the least reason to repent of that confidence; Burke having ever acted towards him with the most inviolate faith and affection, and towards his surviving friends with a constant and disinterested fidelity, which was proof against his own indigent circumstances, and the magnificent offers of those in power. It must, however, be confessed, that his early habits and connexions, though they could never make him swerve from his duty, had given his mind an almost constitutional bent towards the popish party. Prudence is, indeed, the only virtue he does not possess; from a total want of which, and from the amiable weaknesses of an excellent heart, his estimation in England, though still great, is certainly diminished.' p. 343, 344.

We have hitherto kept Mr Hardy himself so much in the back ground, that we think it is but fair to lay before the reader the sequel which he has furnished to the preceding notice of Lord Charlemont. The passage is perfectly characteristic of the ordinary colloquial style of the book, and of the temper of the author; though the concluding paragraph is rather a stronger instance of bathos, produced by good nature, than he often exhibits.

Thus far Lord Charlemont. Something, though slight, may be here added. Burke's disunion, and final rupture with Mr Fox, were attended with circumstances so distressing, so far surpassing the ordinary limits of civil rage, or personal hostility, that the mind really aches at the recollection of them. But let us view him, for an instant, in better scenes and better hours. He was social, hospitable, of pleasing access, and most agreeably communicative. One of the most satisfactory days perhaps that I ever passed in my life, was going with him, tête à-tête, from London to Beconsfield. He stopped at Uxbridge, whilst his horses were feeding; and, happening to meet some gentlemen, of I know not what militia, who ap

peared

peared to be perfect strangers to him, he entered into discourse with them at the gateway of the inn. His conversation, at that moment, completely exemplified what Johnson said of him-" That you could not meet Burke for half an hour under a shed, without saying that he was an extraordinary man. He was, on that day, altogether uncommonly instructive and agreeable. Every object of the slight est notoriety, as we passed along, whether of natural or local history, furnished him with abundant materials for conversation. The House at Uxbridge, where the treaty was held during Charles the First's time; the beautiful and undulating grounds of Bulstrode, formerly the residence of Chancellor Jefferies; and Waller's tomb in Beconsfield churchyard, which, before we went home, we visited, and whose character, as a gentleman, a poet, and an orator, he shortly delineated, but with exquisite felicity of genius, altogether gave an uncommon interest to his eloquence; and, although one-and-twenty years have now passed since that day, I entertain the most vivid and pleasing recollection of it. He reviewed the characters of many statesmen. Lord Bath's, whom, I think, he personally knew, and that of Sir Robert Walpole, which he pourtrayed in nearly the same words which he used with regard to that eminent man, in his appeal from the Old Whigs to the New. He talked much of the great Lord Chatham; and, amidst a variety of particulars concerning him and his family, stated, that his sister, Mrs Anne Pitt, used often, in her altercations with him, to say, "That he knew nothing whatever except Spenser's Fairy Queen. "And," continued Mr Burke, " no matter how that was said; but whoever relishes, and reads Spenser as he ought to be read, will have a strong hold of the English language. " These were his exact words. Of Mrs Anne Pitt he said, that she had the most agreeable and uncommon talents, and was, beyond all comparison, the most perfectly eloquent per son he ever heard speak. He always, as he said, lamented that he did not put on paper a conversation he had once with her; on what subject I forget. The richness, variety, and solidity of her discourse, absolutely astonished him.

But I restrain myself. Before I take leave of this truly eminent man, so long connected with Lord Charlemont, and whose fame, as an author and philosophic statesman and orator, of the highest rank, is now so stabilitated! let me add, (and it is a slight tribute to modest and retired worth to add), that Mrs Burke appeared to me a lady of uncommonly mild, gentle, and most engaging manners.." p. 344-346.

We should turn now to the public or historical part of Me Hardy's performance; which comprises a lively and almost dramatic representation of every thing that befel Ireland, from the year 1750 to the period of the Union. We do not, however, propose to make any such dangerous experiment on the patience of our readers, as to present them with an abstract of all

this history. A very few short notices, and occasional remarks, are all that our abilities or our limits enable us to supply.

In the end of the reign of George II, Ireland still exhibited the appearance of a country that had been recently subdued by a jealous and injudicious conqueror. The Catholics, who formed by far the greatest part of the population, were reduced--to express it in one word-to the condition of alien enemies ;incapable of any civil rights, and only exempted from actual inflictions by the forbearance of those among whom they lived. In point of political rights, the Protestants were not much better off. Though publicly acknowledged as an independent kingdom in the time of Henry VIII, and permitted to have a national Parliament at least since the days of Elizabeth, it enjoyed, at the period of which we are speaking, none of the be nefits, either of national or even provincial freedom. The Parliament, the nomination to which was restricted to still fewer hands than in the borough elections of England, was elected only once in each reign, and was only dissolved by the demise of the Crown. By what was called Poyning's law, passed in the time of Henry VII, as interpreted by usage, and the 3d and 4th of Philip and Mary, no bill could be passed or adopted in that Parliament, until it had been approved of by the Lord Lieutenant and his privy council-by him transmitted to the King and Council in England-and returned with their approbation; and by the 6th of George I. it was enacted, that the King and Parliament of England might make laws to bind the kingdom and people of Ireland. Thus, it was first provided, that no laws should be passed but such as had been previously recommended by the King and his English council; and then it was openly stated, that the English Parliament should, of itself, make such laws for the governmeut of Ireland as to them in their wisdom might seem proper.

Such was the state of political scrvitude in which Ireland was then placed; and the practical effects of it were such as might have been expected. By various acts passed in the reigns of Charles II, King William aud Queen Anne, Ireland was as completely excluded from all commerce with the British colonies, as if she had been a foreign and hostile nation. She was directly prohibited frem importing into England various articles of provisions and raw produce; and her woollen trade, which had been her great staple, was completely annihilated, by an act of the British Parliament, laying on a duty on the entry of Irish woollens, equivalent to an entire prohibition.

Such was, for nearly a century, the degraded state of Ire

land 1;

land; and so habituated and familiar had men of all desriptions become with the idea of her perfect insignificance, that many of the most liberal and enlightened statesmen that England has ever known, seem to have regarded her interests as something too trifling and worthless, to be entitled to any share of their attention. Swift himself, to whom she is far more indebted than to any other individual of his age, makes the following simple, but most emphatic confession, in one of his letters to Lord Bolingbroke The truth is, we never had leisure to think of that country while we were in power!' The country thus forgotten by others, was not very mindful of itself. An English faction was allowed to domineer as in a conquered province; and the Parliament, which made a part of their splendour, was scarcely so far honoured as to be made an instrument of their power. The ordinary entry in the journals of the Lords was, Prayers.-Ordered, That the Judges should be covered. -Adjourned.' And, in the House of Commons, while there was scarcely a debate in the Session, such a degree of formality and decorum was observed, that one member who came into the House suddenly, on his arrival from the country, obtained for life the nickname of Tottenham in his Boots,' because he had ventured into this august assembly in his travelling habiliments.

It would be long to tell by what means, and by what degrees, this unhappy kingdom at length regained a part of its rights. The writings of Swift did something, in the long-run-but the progress of intelligence, and the increase of wealth among the body of the people, did more. The Irish gentlemen, better educated, and more familiar with the spirit of English liberty, began to feel the burden, and to resent the indignity of English domination. The mere increase of the population which they supported, rendered their estates of greater value and importance; and the dawnings of commercial enterprise and opulence, though grievously repressed by the unjust and rigorous policy of England, began, especially in the North, to display some of their natural tendencies in favour of political freedom and independence. Early in the reign of the present King, various political pamphlets, written in a bold and patriotic style, aroused the attention of the public; and almost the first indication of national spirit that was manifested by this turbulent nation, was exhibited in the zeal with which petitions were everywhere presented for abridging the duration of Parliament, in the year 1768. The aristocracy, and those who regarded themselves as already secure of a seat for the life of the reigning prince, were generally hostile to this measure,-and the local government was decidedly against it. The zeal and clamour of

the