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lations had then been stimulated to the highest point of their excess. The artificial demands created by the war had opened channels for the trade in provisions and corn to an extent which, a few years before, would not have been believed to be possible; and even now, though we cannot but remember such things were," they seem scarcely credible. The cotton trade, though comparatively a new creation, was in full vigour; the eventful occurrences of the campaigns of 1812 and 1813 had led to a stagnation of the manufacturing industry of Germany, and left the Irish linen merchant in almost undisputed possession of the market. These and several subordinate circumstances concurred to extend the commercial and agricultural efforts of Ireland, far beyond the limits which even the most sanguine speculators had considered attainable; and the period of Mr. Curwen's visit coincides pretty exactly with the point of their greatest extension; but a fiery trial was in reserve, and was then about to be applied. From that period all has been disappointment, bankruptcy, ruin. The political changes of Europe may be considered as operating each in their turn to her disadvantage; the sudden transition from war to peace produced a syncope in her commerce and agriculture, from which the patient under any circumstances could scarcely have recovered; commercial distress led to pecuniary losses, both public and private, immense in their amount; the individual sufferings which these produced are incalculable; famine followed in the train, aggravated in many districts by a total deprivation of fuel, and pestilence is now bringing up the rear, fatal, wide-wasting, and unrestrainable. Mr. Curwen has delineated with great accuracy what he saw in Ireland, under the circumstances of her sudden and unlooked-for prosperity: the manner in which she has borne her reverse of fortune deserves to be as forcibly recorded. Could the story of her sufferings, and of the unrepining patience with which they have been endured by the mass of the population, be told in all its details, it would, we think, prove to the most sceptical, that, though we are accustomed to look down from the elevation to which our superior refinement is supposed to have raised us, on the half naked and half savage sons of our sister island, yet mud-reared walls and squalid attire may afford a shelter to some of the best feelings of our nature; feelings to which the comparatively well-clad, well-lodged, and well-fed peasantry of our own villages are fast becoming

strangers.

Mr. Curwen makes a very comprehensive tour, embracing all the most interesting points in the island. We shall not attempt to follow him in the order of his diary, but endeavour to lay. before our readers a summary of the principal circumstances

which seem most to have attracted his attention; his opinions as to the causes which may be assigned as producing the evils under which Ireland actually labours; and his suggestions of remedies, either as means of partial alleviation, or as tending to general improvement. The miserable style of farming still pursued in this country, and the obstinate adherence of its cultivators to plans and implements demonstrably bad, strike Mr. Curwen, as they do every new comer, at the first moment of his landing; nor had the surprise and regret they were calculated to produce lost their impression when he reimbarked at Donaghadee. These feelings, however, were accompanied by astonishment at the inexhaustible fertility of the soil, which even the worst and most pernicious modes of culture, followed up with unremitting pertinacity, are unable entirely to subdue. We shall give under one view several of our traveller's observations with reference to this point, made in widely distant parts of the country. In the county of Down, he remarks that,

"The average produce of wheat, per Irish acre,* is estimated at twenty-six Winchester bushels-barley, thirty-five bushels-oats, twenty-five bushels-and from one thousand to fifteen hundred stone of potatoes, which would give an average of three hundred and sixty. two bushels and a half. Their mode of cropping is so unmercifully severe, that if the soil did not possess uncommon fertility, a system of such exhaustion as three white crops in succession, without the application of any manure, must soon reduce it to a state of sterility. Yet here the practice is considered as gentle treatment!" (Vol. i. p. 109, 110.)

In the county of Meath:

"It is a practice in many parts of Ireland to let land in con-acres; when held under this denomination, the tenants, as I observed in a former letter, are under no control as to the mode of cropping or treatment of their farms. In these cases the rents are always high, extending from eight to ten pounds the acre. Reasoning from the experience acquired in England, one might fearlessly pronounce that such practices as this system not only permits, but encourages, must be destructive to the land. This, however, is not here the case; for a little rest restores it to its pristine fertility and friability, and enables it to receive all the meliorating influences of the atmosphere. In this circumstance appears an essential difference between the soils of England and Ireland." (Vol. ii. p. 166.)

Again, from an inland district near Somerville:

"It is not uncommon here to have seven crops of oats in succession: instances are reported of lands being thus employed for twenty years without interruption; and what renders this fact still more remarkable, the latter crops are said to have been productive and profitable.

*The Irish acre is to the English as 7 to 44 nearly.

Old

grass lands are considered equal to the growth of potatoes without manure, and to the production of four or five crops of oats afterwards. A gentleman, who occupies a considerable farm in the neighbourhood, amused me by stating that he had already taken from his land five or six white crops; that he thought of doing something by way of melioration to the soil, and was disposed to sow the next crop of oats with clover as preparative to manuring it; which, I afterwards understood, was to be effected by a dressing of hot lime. Fortunate indeed are the proprietors and occupiers of soils capable of sustaining a system of such exhaustion. The common rotation of cropping is wheat, oats, fallow, potatoes, clover, all without the application of any manure!" (Vol. ii. p. 176, 177.)

From the neighbourhood of Navan he writes,

"As an instance of the power of vegetation on this farm, a field which had borne an admirable crop of wheat, and which was cut in August, was immediately ploughed for another crop of the same grain. The prodigious quantity of grass which it immediately produced caused a delay in sowing the wheat, that the abundant herbage might be fed off with cattle; and it is now reploughing for the seed: had I not had an opportunity of seeing it, I should have deemed such a statement apocryphal." (Vol. ii. p. 279, 280.)

These accounts of the natural advantages with which the country abounds, contrasts woefully with the actual condition of the agricultural, or rather if we would speak accurately, the rural population; for neither will the numbers actually engaged in the labour of tillage, nor the portion of time devoted to the purpose, give them reasonable claims to be called agricultural. On this subject Mr. Curwen dilates frequently and at length: indeed, to ascertain the actual condition of this class of the inhabitants, formed the main object of his tour; and he has furnished many sketches from the life, which must be very striking to all who from personal knowledge are enabled to recognize their fidelity: while to those who know the Irish peasantry, as they know the Esquimaux, from the accounts of travellers, they will serve to increase the collection they may already possess of descriptions of the human animal under all conceivable modifications.

"On our visits to several of their cabins, I became taught that there existed gradations; and possibly as many in the scale of necessity as in that of superfluity.

"In human abodes, where the presence of a chimney is an acknowledged luxury, the absence of all other necessary appendages to such a residence, which according to our ideas of household conveniences are required to make life even supportable, may be easily imagined. "These mansions of miserable existence, for so they may truly be described, conformably to our general estimation of those indispensable comforts requisite to constitute the happiness of rational beings, are most commonly composed of two rooms on the ground floor, a most

appropriate term, for they are literally on the earth; the surface of which is not unfrequently reduced a foot or more, to save the expense of so much outward walling. The one is a refectory, the other the dormitory. The furniture of the former, if the owner ranks in the upper part of the scale of scantiness, will consist of a kitchen dresser, well provided and highly decorated with crockery-not less apparently the pride of the husband, than the result of female vanity in the wife; which, with a table-a chest-a few stools and an iron pot, complete the catalogue of conveniences generally found, as belonging to the cabin ; while a spinning-wheel, furnished by the Linen Board, and a loom, ornament vacant spaces, that otherwise would remain unfurnished. In fitting up the latter, which cannot, on any occasion, or by any display, add a feather to the weight or importance expected to be excited by the appearance of the former, the inventory is limited to one, and sometimes two beds, serving for the repose of the whole family! However downy these may be to limbs impatient for rest, their coverings appeared to be very slight, and the whole of the apartment created reflections of a very painful nature. Under such privations, with a wet mud floor, and a roof in tatters, how idle the search for comforts!" (Vol. i. p. 111-113.)

'Nothing can be more erroneous than the idea commonly entertained of an Irish bog by those who are unacquainted with the country. Bogs furnish not only fuel but food; a great proportion of most of them is capable of cultivation, and of bearing very tolerable crops of grain. The most enviable site for a cabin is by the side of a highway adjoining to a bog. Cabins are found to extend along the roads for miles together when contiguous to a bog-whence with less labour a supply of fuel may be obtained by the cottiers, who have thus an opportunity of cultivating, at little expense, a part of them, and also of extending their efforts in the same way; a disposition which seems to be an inheritance, and to increase as it descends from father to son. Little doubt can be entertained that by these means, in process of time, the whole may be reclaimed; and when that shall be effected it is difficult to conjecture what will become of so redundant a population. Ireland appears to me as exhibiting a strong resemblance to the rude northern nations, and a hasty approximation to the state of them, previous to the bursting forth of their people, and overwhelming the more southern parts of Europe. Were a million of the inhabitants to emigrate at this day, this number, though great, would scarcely make a perceptible void in Ireland. The population must be increasing in a most rapid manner, if we are to judge by the numerous cabins which were erecting, and the dilapidation or abandonment of so few of them." (Vol. i. p. 136, 137.)

We visited a cabin in the neighbourhood of Navan, about four o'clock, and found the family at dinner. The party consisted of a man, his wife, and seven children. Potatoes, their only fare, were placed in a wooden bowl on a stool; the elder children ate with their parents, the younger feasted out of an iron pot on the floor. Appetite seemed to give a relish to the food, while a small jug of butter-milk

was reserved to crown and complete the repast. In reply to some inquiries I made as to his wages, the poor fellow observed, "Our fare is well enough, and satisfies us all; my only concern is, that I cannot earn sufficient to cover the nakedness of these poor children; could I clothe them, I should be happy! The whole family, it is true, was indeed in a most ragged condition-pity it should be so! It is not in appearance only they suffer, but real misery must be endured by each individual, from the severity of cold. By the aid of his pig, and what manure the children could collect from the road, he was annually enabled to plant about a rood of potatoes, for which he paid after the rate of five pounds an acre for the land; but when manure is furnished by the landlord, the rent is doubled.

"The hopeless despondency which seemed to pervade the hearts of this poor family, spoke in most emphatic, though painful language, to our feelings-deeply is their lot to be lamented, and the more as it arises out of circumstances they have neither ability to correct, nor power to control, and which there is little reason to hope can be easily remedied." (Vol. ii. p. 161-163.)

It is impossible to contemplate such a state of society as this, without setting ourselves immediately to inquire into the causes which have produced and rendered permanent such a mass of moral and physical evils. The knowledge which is now so generally diffused on all subjects relating to the science of political economy, will enable many of our readers at the first glance to detect all the appearances which betoken a redundant and unemployed population: and with this solution many perhaps may rest satisfied, but in our view it by no means goes far enough to be deserved to be considered satisfactory. According to the theory, we should have expected that some of the checks which nature has provided to keep down such a redundancy, would have operated in full force before the inferior class had descended so low in the scale of misery. An opposer of Mr. Malthus's opinions might be disposed to ask, and perhaps in a tone of triumph, where now are your preventive and positive checks, from whose operations you taught us to expect results almost as certain as those which are produced by the physical laws of the universe? why are they not called into action in this case, where every generation seems only to propagate a race more wretched than themselves, still destined to find in each lowest deep a lower deep of misery?

Mr. Curwen's inquiries furnish us with abundant means to answer this objection; for they point out the circumstances which are in action sufficient to counteract, nay almost to suspend, the influences of the established checks to population. These circumstances arise, in the first place, out of certain natural facilities for procuring sustenance which Ireland, unhappily for herself, has within her reach; and, in the second place, from the

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