ledge which boy receives from boy), the mass of collected opinions, the intelligence in common, among the few and narrow members of an ordinary boarding-school ?"—pp. 75, 76.

The Christ's Hospital or Blue-coat boy, is declared to have a distinctive character of his own; there is pride and modesty in it, his very garb, antique and venerable, feeds his self-respect. "Within his bounds he is all fire and play; but in the streets he steals along with all the self-concentration of a young monk. He is never known to mix with other boys, they are a sort of laity to him ;"which seems to us to be the happiest description of what those singular boys have ever appeared by their gait and manners to us.

He goes on to say that the Blue-coat boy is a religious character, though not always untinged with superstition. His turn for romance is also declared, which may arise from an excess of society with each other, and defect of mingling with the world. He is even apt to run out into ceremonial observances, which is induced, we presume, by the regularity of forms observed in the institution, and their ancient style. And yet, at a school like Christ's Hospital, where the boy is neither entirely separated from home, nor again exclusively under its influence, the best feelings, the filial for instance, are brought to a maturity which they could not otherwise have attained. But leaving such speculations as rather belong to the question of the comparative advantages of a public over a private education in general, the author gets back to his favourite school, and finely indicates the character of the boys, in reference to their decent and warm respect for such as stand in a position like relationship to them in the school.

"And I will say, that when I think of the frequent instances which I have met with in children, of a hard-heartedness, a callousness, and insensibility to the loss of relations, even of those who have begot and nourished them, I cannot but consider it as a proof of something in the peculiar conformation of that school, favourable to the expansion of the best feelings of our nature, that, at the period which I am noticing, out of five hundred boys there was not a dry eye to be found among them, nor a heart that did not beat with genuine emotion. Every impulse to play, until the funeral day was past, seemed suspended throughout the school; and the boys, lately so mirthful and sprightly, were seen pacing their cloisters alone, or in sad groups standing about, few of them without some token, such as their slender means could provide, a black riband, or something to denote respect and a sense of their loss. The time itself was a time of anarchy, a time in which all authority (out of school hours) was abandoned. The ordinary restraints were for those days superseded; and the gates, which at other times kept us in, were left without watchers. Yet, with the exception of one or two graceless boys at most, who took advantage of that suspension of authorities to skulk out, as it was called, the whole of the body of that great school kept rigorously within their bounds, by a voluntary self-imprisonment; and they who broke bounds, though they escaped punishment from any master, fell into a general disrepute among us, and, for that which at any other time would have been ap plauded and admired as a mark of spirit, were consigned to infamy and

reprobation: so much natural government have gratitude and the principles of reverence and love, and so much did a respect to their dead friend prevail with these Christ's Hospital boys above any fear which his presence among them when living could ever produce. And if the impressions which were made on my mind so long ago are to be trusted, very richly did their steward deserve this tribute. It is a pleasure to me even now to call to mind his portly form, the regal awe which he always contrived to inspire, in spite of a tenderness and even weakness of nature that would have enfeebled the reins of discipline in any other master; a yearning of tenderness towards those under his protection, which could make five hundred boys at once feel towards him each as to their individual father."pp. 83-34.

We do not wonder that the Blue-coat boy yields to none in affectionate recollections of the place where he was bred up, and in hearty recognitions of old schoolfellows. The author's genius and cha. racter seem to have been perfumed, so to speak, for life, with the simplicity, the grandeur, and antiquity of the hospital. Towards the conclusion of his Recollections his heart overflows with most appropriate remembrances, while he classifies and characterises his contemporaries, enumerating many pleasant and some painful circumstances. Even the things that administered to their vanity are fondly thought of. "The hem-stitched bands and town-made shirts, which some of the most fashionable among us wore; the town-girdles, with buckles of silver, or shining stone; the badges of the sea-boys; the cots or superior shoe strings of the monitors; the medals of the markers (those who were appointed to hear the Bible read in the wards on Sunday morning and evening), which bore on their obverse in silver, as certain parts of our garments carried in meaner metal, the countenance of our founder, that godly and royal child, King Edward the Sixth, the flower of the Tudor name the young flower that was untimely cropt as it began to fill our land with its early odours-the boy-patron of boys-the serious and holy child who walked with Cranmer and Ridley-fit associate, in such tender years, for the bishops and future martyrs of our church, to receive, or (as occasion sometimes proved), to give instruction." In such a school was Charles Lamb's genius fostered. With one other burst of chastened but passionate fondness of recollection for his favourite Hospital, we close our paper, trusting, that if any of our readers are strangers to the writings of such a man, they will now be induced to repair to them as undefiled wells of language, sentiment, and morals, beautified and set off as they are by the peculiar charms of simplicity, original quaintness, and warmth.

"The very compass and magnitude of the school, its thousand bearings, the space it takes up in the imagination beyond the ordinary schools, impresses a remembrance, accompanied with an elevation of mind, that attends him through life. It is too big, too affecting an object to pass away quickly from his mind. The Christ's Hospital boy's friends at school are commonly his intimates through life. For me, I do not know whether a

constitutional imbecility does not incline me too obstinately to cling to the remembrances of childhood; in an inverted ratio to the usual sentiments of mankind, nothing that I have been engaged in since seems of any value or importance, compared to the colours which imagination gave to everything then. I belong to no body corporate such as I then made a part of."-p. 88.

ART. XII.-Instruct; Employ; Don't Hang Them. By JOHN PITT KENNEDY. London: Boone. 1835.

THIS work is as energetic and practical, as its title is pithy and plain. The author hesitates not to condemn the negligent and mischievous conduct of public men and landed proprietors of Ireland; nor to hold up to admiration measures calculated to produce general benefit. In his prefatory dedication he addresses individually and by name a number of well known characters, all of whom have been benefactors to Ireland. Among these there are the Duke of Wellington, who, he admits, in one instance followed the dictates of justice and judgment; Daniel O'Connel, whom he characterises as the most uncompromising and able defender of the Irish people; and the memory of the late Arthur Young, whose manly advice and practical information, offered to the public in the year 1780, would, if attended to, have prevented most of the evils that have since oppressed this country. He urged that "the Irish should be protected and employed, not hanged." A number of other eminent persons are addressed, and their individual or peculiar services are announced in the compliments paid to them; but not one of all those names pleased us more, or intimated more clearly the nature of the author's healing measures, than the one first addressed, viz. William Blacker, "who in his management of land, has introduced the most rapid and efficient practical system hitherto offered for improving the condition of his countrymen.'

The first chapter in this work contains general reasoning on the state of Ireland; in which the author endeavours to trace to their sources the employment of every class of the community, and to show for whom people so employed labour; as also, what has called such employments into existence. The two great heads of agriculture and manufactures are viewed according to the divisions in which those under them fall, in order that the comparative numbers of the population dependant directly or indirectly upon them may be perceived. Mr. Kennedy makes use of "Porter's Statistical Tables," which have been completed by order of Government, from parliamentary returns made under the Population Act of 1831 from which he obtains as a result regarding the population of Ireland, that an immense superiority of numbers are dependant upon agriculture, compared with those dependant upon other means; being nearly as forty-five to one, and by a farther examination of the subject, that the small number employed in manufactures are

generally skilful in their respective arts, and regular in their conduct, while the enormous majority employed in agriculture, are ig norant to a proverb of their trade and are the most lawless. Now, we like this method of approaching his subject; it savours so much of evidence and facts, as to indicate a road to a practical remedy. We must quote some observations that go a considerable way into the state of Irish agriculture, and the causes of its inferiority.

"We know, with respect to the manufacturing classes, that the demand for their labour can only be increased by increasing the number, or improving the condition of the consumers, upon whom they depend; that consequently, there are no palpable means by which their condition can be directly improved. We know, upon the other hand, that the agricultural classes are, not only in want of profitable employment, which there is the power, if there were the inclination to give them; but also, that they are unskilful as compared with neighbouring nations, in a degree that can only be accounted for when we reflect that a law existed, until of late years, virtually prohibiting any evidence of agricultural industry, skill, or providence-a diabolical law, one clause of which prescribed a limited period for leases, and that, at every new contract for land, two thirds of the improved yearly value created by the tenant, should be exacted as rent by the landlord. We know that this law (and such a law was probably never enacted by any other government), affected nearly the whole of the Irish people; and, that no adequate effort has been made, either by the government, or the land proprietors, since its repeal, to counteract its fearful effects.

"It is necessary to dwell upon this point, not for the mere satisfaction of scolding at by-gone Irish governments; but, as exhibiting in itself a sufficient cause for all that agricultural ignorance, that poverty, improvidence, with the consequent opposition to law, and rebellion against government so common in Ireland, and which many, from want of reflection, attribute to a constitutionally defective nature in the people themselves. Yet this law was but one of a code, of which every item had a similar tendency: the degradation of the original inhabitants. It was most fortunate that a small favoured class was introduced amongst them exempt from these persecutions. But for the contrast thus exhibited, they might have remained ignorant of the extent of their wrongs, and tamely bent their necks to the yoke. We must at least acknowledge the merit due to their incessant resistance to that injustice and oppression which they had not the power to remove."-pp. 4, 5.

The author is earnest in his endeavours to point out plain external causes for the many imperfections that exist among a maligned people, attributable to the defective social arrangements mposed by vicious government, and not to inherent evil or incapacity amongst the people. At any rate, there can be no question about the fact of the Irish agriculturalists being generally ignorant of their profession, that numbers of them are without employment, at the same time that millions of acres around them are waste and unproductive. The author's strong conclusion therefore is, that their condition is susceptible of improvement, first by increasing their skill in their art, and secondly, by giving employment upon

waste land to those who are idle. He maintains from practice that these ends are easy of attainment-that they can be effected at a very small expense, and in a short time-that they must be attended with enormous profit to every one concerned.

Having found that forty-five out of every forty-six of the Irish population are dependant directly or indirectly upon agriculture, Mr. Kennedy deducts those who are thus indirectly connected with the art, and divides the remainder into three classes, following up the division with some observations, the soundness of which is unquestionable, yet seldom has their truth been perceived and acted upon. His classification and remarks, run thus :

"1-The well-fed class of land proprietors, agents, &c. “2—The ill-fed working class.

"3-The half-starved unemployed class.

"It would appear that the Irish government and the Irish land proprietors are ignorant that the first of the above classes, the land proprie tors, have the absolute control of the land, upon which nearly all are dependant for life. That the injurious effect of their conduct upon the moral and physical condition of their countrymen has earned for them the odium and contempt of the civilized world, whether that effect may have been produced by the active exercise of their power to do evil, by the omission to exercise their power to do good, or by the union of both.

"It would appear that the Irish government and the Irish proprietors are not aware that the ill-fed working class are ill fed, because they are grossly ignorant of the art of agriculture, upon which nearly all are dependant; and because, at the same time that much is exacted of them, no means are employed by those whose duty and interest it is-by those who have the power, and who alone have the power, to remove this ignorance, and to teach them how such exactions are to be met-to teach them, what would be easily taught, how they might derive three times the produce they at present derive from the same land and labour. How, in short, they might live in comfort and plenty, instead of want and misery.

"Are the Irish government and Irish land proprietors ignorant, that, whilst the third or half starved unemployed class are barely kept alive by the charity of the ill-fed working class-that whilst they are fruitlessly imploring of the well fed rich class an opportunity to support themselves by their labour, this same rich class does possess millions of uncultivated and unoccupied acres capable of profitable cultivation. That the cultivation of these waste acres by the present unemployed agriculturists would be highly beneficial to the proprietors themselves: to the poor, who would be thus employed: to those who are now employed, and who would be relieved from the necessity of supporting a numerous poor: to the labour market generally, by establishing a just proportion between the demand for employers and the demand for labourers: to the payers of English poor rates and taxes: to English labourers: in short to every class of the community except the anarchists, the military, the police, the crown lawyers, jailors, Jack Ketches, and gibbet makers."-pp. 9-10.

Want of agricultural skill, and want of agricultural employment,