days after the offence was committed. Chastellar refused spiritual aid, and walked with a firm step from his prison to the place of execution. "If I am not without reproach, like my uncle, the Chevalier de Bayard," said he, "I am at least as free from fear." In a state of paganish enthusiasm he ascended the scaffold, and, instead of a prayer, recited Ronsard's Ode to Death. His last thoughts were on the object of his frantic passion; his

last words before he submitted to the fatal stroke were, "Adieu! most lovely and cruel of princesses."

Francis, Chastellar, Darnley, Rizzio, Bothwell, Norfolk-all who loved this womandied in early youth, by secret assassination, by open violence, on the scaffold, or in prison.

A Fortnight in Ireland. By SIR FRANCIS ONE more volume from the great word-painter of the day. Sir Francis, having watched out the last smouldering spark in his faggot of very dry French sticks, sets diligently to work to warm himself at a fire of Irish peat.

in

Fourteen eventful days has Sir Francis Head spent in Ireland. He started from Holyhead, and arrived in a dense fog-probably that identical dense fog of English ignorance which his mission was to disperse. Arrived in the wonderful city, he mounts on horseback, and, with a running footman in the shape of a gossoon whom he has retained in order to protect him from that gossoon's brethren, wanders up and down the streets, and speculates upon the purposes of the public buildings he passes. The secret influence which attaches us to his footsteps, which makes us listen while he tells us that he went to the Lord Lieutenant's in a car; that the boys of Dublin will dive deep into the mud of the Liffey to bring up a sixpence; that the "godless" colleges boys stand in a row and font la queue order to get a drink from the pump-the secret that Sir Francis has found out is, how "propriè communia dicere." No man draws, colours, varnishes, frames and glazes, a common-place like Sir Francis Head. A little beggar brat runs after his car; that beggar brat goes bodily into the baronet's black note-book, and there. he thrives and fattens, beautifies, and grows witty, until, having gone in at Sir Francis' hornbook, and come out at the ivory gate of Albemarle street, he spreads conviction that the Irish roads are peopled with barefooted angels; that honesty, beauty, innocence, sprightly wit, infantine gaiety, lighthearted mirth, enlightened toleration, acute observation, decorous respect for authority, are all natural qualities in every Irishman, woman, and child, and lurk like primroses under every hedge.

Our author's plan is, first to wander about the streets of Dublin, then more closely to examine the public institutions of the city-the Tyrone House National Education Establishment, the general constabulary force, and the Dublin police-gathering in his loose pockets and ready memorandum-book oral statements, written tables, and printed particulars, all tied

B. HEAD, Bart. up and indorsed every night, and preserved by the materials whence the Albemarle Street volume was to be spun.

London: Murray. 1852.

From Dublin, all of a sudden he makes a dash to Maynooth. He has no further introduction than his visiting-card; but this is how he is received.

THE VICE-PRESIDENT.

In a few minutes the door from the entrance-hall opened, and in walked the Vice-President, in his black gown. He appeared to be about forty years of age: he was tall, light, and active, with a countenance not only

exceedingly clever, but particularly mild and pleasing. He had my card in his hand; and I had scarcely apologised for calling upon him, as a complete stranger, when he replied, "You were Governor of Canada ?" I And, rather to my surprise, he answered, "I was." then added, "And you have taken the part of Louis

Napoleon ?" As I did not want to enter into that subject, I briefly said, "I had;" muttering to myself at the moment, Well, you read the Times at all events." "Do you want," said he, "to see our College ?"

66

Of course I did; but as I was particularly anxious that he should not consider I had come merely from private curiosity, I at once took my black note-book out of my pocket, and opening it, and displaying to him some ten or fifteen pages of pencil writing, I said very gravely, "I yesterday took these notes of the system of Irish education pursued in Marlborough Street, Dublin. If you see no objection, I desire to take similar notes, not on theological subjects, but on the general management of this college."

For a moment I fancied I saw a very small cloud of reflection flit across the sunshine and serenity of his countenance; but it had scarcely vanished when he said, with great kindness of manner, "I will shew you every thing myself."

And so the Vice-President shewed him every thing. What astonished him most, however, was, that they have a whole room full of Bibles at Maynooth, in every language, and of every translation. They have also every controversial book, not excepting Grotius, Calvin, or Calmut. Moreover, they eat a bullock and sixty sheep every week, and gave the author a very good dinner, and some "super-excellent port and sherry ;" and yet, notwithstanding all these strong symptoms of orthodoxy, the baronet insists that it is the very den of asceticism, and the torture-house of young minds. Oddly enough, however, he ends by deciding that the grant ought not to be taken away or reduced.

From Dublin our author started on his "tour." This tour may be best described as a little circle at the end of a long railway. Mayo and Galway, as all our readers ought to know, but as at least half of our English readers we fear do not know, are on the western coast of the island, nearly due west from Dublin. It was up in the mountains of the extreme west, among the bare cliffs that break the Atlantic wave which has rolled three thousand miles without meeting an obstacle-among the wilds of Connemara, where, in the days of Dick Martin, no queen's writ ran-among the high Benna-Beola, or Pin mountains, which burst the banks of clouds as they journey heavily from the west, and draw down copious and too frequent rains;-it was among these that Sir Francis Head went to study Ireland. Until he gets there he has no eyes for scenery or statistics. He takes the train as far as he can, establishes himself in an empty coupé, perhaps pulls down the blinds. Even when he is compelled to abandon this luxurious coupé, and to trust himself to a car, he takes small note until he has got well through Tuam, which he accomplishes at a gallop, and finds himself in the wild country.

Thenceforward he addicts himself for several wet days entirely to car-driving and questioning. His two principal authorities are the post-boys and the police. To the latter he had a circular letter of introduction, and by their aid it is that he has been enabled, in so short a time, to fill so many pages with facts and figures. The police, after all, seem to have told him little more of Ireland than the opposite of what the travelling fellow of All-Souls wrote back to his college as his description of France. Sir Francis Head learned from the policeman that the women were very virtuous, and the whiskey very heady; information which was perhaps intended alike to inform his judgment and to influence his conduct. Furthermore, the police gave the curious questioner to know that they have often to go seven miles for their tea and sugar; that they do not fight among themselves; and that they are not allowed to go out fishing. This is about the sum of the intelligence obtained from the police.

The car-drivers seem to have had a cheap bargain of Sir Francis. We wish Mr. Doyle would do us the favour to sketch us an old gentleman with a carpet-bag and a note-book, squeezed uncomfortably into the small front driver's seat of an Irish car, cramping the car-driver, and at the same time eagerly questioning him, and writing down his answers.

Take the following as a sample of a cardriver's ideas upon Lord Lucan's evictions.

as, twisting my neck, I turned half way towards him, "A great number of poor people," said I to the driver, appear to have been turned out of this country.' "A good dale, Sir," he replied, keeping his eye fixed steadily on his horse.

"Do you think the new system will answer?

I do, yere Arnh'r! Until the last five or six years they niver had a grane (grain) crap in this county. "Have you lived all your life in this neighbourhood ?"

"Indade I have, Sir. They are taking great pathron (pattern) from the gintlemen who are coming into this counthry. All the paple (people) wants is a little instruction."

"Of what description?" I inquired.

their lands. "Yere Arnh'r! they didn't know how to reclaim When these English gintlemen came into the counthry, and they saw how they were draining their land and digging it up, they took pathron from them, and are now improving every other thimselves."

"How have you been living ?" I inquired.

"For eleven years in the hotil. In summer I drive the car to support four of us. In winter we have nothing to do. Divil a hap'orth can we gain."

We here met a fine bareheaded boy riding behind two panniers full of peat on a horse with a straw crupper, and, in lieu of one of Wilkinson and Kid's double bridles, a straw halter.

"The potatoes," I observed to my driver as I pointed to the black-topped leaves of a small quantity growing by the road-side, "seem to be failing a good deal." "Yes, they did," he replied.

It does not appear to have occurred to Sir Francis Head that this poor hanger-on at an hotel much frequented by Englishmen was at once humouring and humbugging the Sassenach

tourist.

The "second reformation" in the west is a

subject upon which all religionists feel so strongly, that we make no apology for transferring to our columns our author's description of it, although the extract is rather long.

THE SECOND REFORMATION."

I asked him from whom I could obtain the most cor

rect account of the numerous conversions to Protestantism which of late years had been effected in the West of Ireland? In compliance with my wishes he at once conducted me to two gentlemen who appeared to be well conversant with the subject.

The serious mistake which the English Government made long ago was appointing Protestant clergymen who could not preach in Irish to localities in which the naIn those localities,

tive language was in current use.

as well as in all others, a zealous Catholic priest has naturally always deemed it his duty by every means in his power to keep his own flock separate from those of a different creed; and as the same policy was not pursued by the Protestant clergy, it follows, of course, that from the latter creed than to it. conversions, if any, were more likely to be effected

As death, however, is said to level all earthly distinction, so did the famine in 1846 bring the suffering munication. The poor, when they saw the tenderness

Catholics and the Protestant clergy into close com

A CAR-DRIVER ON EVICTIONS.

which they practically found to be so different from what it had been represented to them. But the greatest success has been among the Roman-Catholic children, who, having in like manner originally been forced by famine to congregate around the Protestant clergy, have had the Bible put into their hands, and by it and by the schools have subsequently been converted.

The innumerable conversions which, from their commencement in the little island of Achil in 1835 to the present day, have been effected in the West of Ireland, from Achil to Dingle, and from Dingle to Oughterard, in the counties of Donegal, Cork, Kerry, and even in Dublin, have been most extensive and extraordinary. For instance, in the town of Westport there are now three Protestant churches, and five more in the parish, extending over an area of 153,675 acres. At Clifden the conversion burst out so rapidly that already by far the greater portion of the inhabitants are Protestants. Indeed, the extent of the change that has been effected is sufficiently demonstrated by the recent violence of the Roman-Catholie priesthood, especially against education; for, as may be well imagined, it is impossible to have educated, as has been the case, nearly half a million of children for twenty years on the National System I have described, without producing immense effects. The Sisters of Mercy zealously combine with the priests to stop the movement, and their efforts are extraordinary. In short, every engine is brought to bear against this alarming conversion; a regularly organised denunciation is levelled against all aiders and abettors of the Protestant missionaries, as well as against every one who affords them any countenance whatever. Any Roman Catholic who listens to a Protestant clergyman, or to a Scripture Reader, is denounced as a marked man, and people are forbidden to have any dealings with him in trade or business, to sell him food, or buy it of him. For instance, a shoemaker at Westport lately seceded from the Catholic Church; the Sisters immediately offered him 27. a-week, which he refused. Not a journeyman dared work for him. A priest went round to every man that dealt with him, until only one person would sell him leather; in short, he lost his custom, and rapidly came to a state of

starvation.

It is, however, only fair to state, that by the RomanCatholic priesthood it is declared, that of this extraordinary amount of conversion, which they do not attempt to deny, almost the whole has been effected by what they call "the meal system;" and accordingly they sneer at those who have deserted them as "jumpers," belonging to what they term "the stirabout religion."

I must say, however, that I highly approve of this stirabout movement.

It would, no doubt, be extremely satisfactory if, among the followers of different creeds, the question of religion could be left entirely to find its own level according to its own intrinsic merits; and if this calm judgment could practically be obtained, I believe the Protestant religion would gain all it could possibly desire. But there exists no religion whose ministers are immaculate. On the contrary, excited by zeal and enthusiasm, they but too often contend one against another, until, in the case of Protestants and Catholics, not only has much angry language been used throughout Ireland, but in a late instance, over the body of a dying convert to Protestantism, the two ministers, as is notorious, actually came to blows. As the subject, therefore, is not, and cannot be, one of calm unruffled judgment, it appears to me, that instead of there being any harm, there is much good in the benevolent Christian practice that has lately been adopted by the Protestant missionaries in Ireland, of offering a wholesome breakfast of meal to all indigent children who may be desirous to attend their schools; for what can more clearly demonstrate to young people the inestimable advan

tages of the Christian faith than that its ministers and supporters should openly practise the charity they preach, so powerfully recommended as follows by St. Paul ?

66

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."- COR. Xiii.

But it is said, "Meal is a bribe, and people ought not to be bribed to change their religion."

But a slated house is a bribe, desks are bribes, benches are bribes, books are a bribe, pens are a bribe, ink is a bribe, yellow soap is a bribe, a towel is a bribe; and accordingly, if little children are to find all these articles for themselves, how barren and uncharitable is the invitation that is made to them! But the poor of Ireland have not the money to pay for these elements of education; and if, therefore, it be absolutely neces sary for the rich to provide their children with a comfortable schoolroom, wash their faces and hands, and give them books, ink, pens, and paper, surely there can be no great sin in filling their poor little hungry stomachs as well as their empty heads.

of

I therefore most earnestly and fervently hope that all who are friendly to the Irish will promote the good cause of supplying these distant schools with meal. In this friendly effort the rich Protestant has the power contributing infinitely more, and consequently of producing infinitely more effect, than the poorer Catholic; but while religious antagonism ought, generally speak. ing, to be condemned, in this struggle the poor chil dren, whichever way the scale may preponderate, are sure to be gainers by the contention; and with this prayer and recommendation in their behalf, after the toils of my journey, I must now wish my gentle reader "Good night."

Here is a description of one of the crazy barks in which the Irish peasantry flee away across the Atlantic. The horrors of the middle passage can scarce be greater than these wretched human beings must endure before they reach their land of promise.

AN EMIGRANT SHIP.

"

"Oh yes, yere Arn'r," he replied; we take the goots and liver out o' um, and then they 'll keep a week."

But by this time we had got close to the black vessel, a "bark," over whose stern I observed hanging by the heels and gently vibrating twenty-five flaccid-looking cabbages, among which there appeared written in large white letters, "The Albion of Arbroath."

Over the gunwale were ranged a line of rustic faces, male and female, all quietly looking at us. In a few seconds, however, we were alongside, and I had scarcely stepped among the crowd when, the interest of my arrival having completely ceased, no one took the slightest notice of me: however, on one of the crew passing me, I begged he would tell the captain I should be glad to see him. In about five minutes he came up from below, told me he was very busy serving out provisions, but that I was quite welcome to go over the vessel, and he desired a sailor-boy to accompany me.

On the deck, besides a number of steerage passengers, were three or four women of superior garb, sitting rather indolently, reading. The boy told me the bark was registered at 302 tons; and he then led me down below between decks, which, as soon as I could see-for at first I fancied I was in almost utter darkness-appeared completely thronged with country people, very poorly but clean and decently dressed; in fact, it was evident they were all in their best

clothes.

On each side throughout the whole length of the vessel, without any curtains or compartments to separate them, were, one above the other, two tiers of berths, each 4 feet 8 inches broad by 5 feet 10 inches in length. Each of these beds was nominally for two people. "What do they pay for them ?" I asked the boy. "Those of full age pay 31. 108., under age, 31.," he replied.

"Whart I pay," exclaimed a female voice from a berth on my right, "for myself and two chilthren, one three and the other five, is 8l. 58. I have here, myself, my two chilthren, and another woman!"

Although I was thus loudly addressed, no one noticed me; in fact, they had not room to do so. In several of the berths I saw powerful-looking men lying indolently; the distance from their faces to the deck above them

was two feet seven inches.

After worming my way through a number of women, some of whom were erectly arranging their berths, others stooping to ferret into trunks, and others sitting placidly mending extremely old clothes, I came to the hold, down which a small gleam of sunshine from above was illuminating the red moist face of the captain, who, in a blue superfine jacket, blue foraging cap, and in a clean shirt, but without his stock, was very basily occupied in weighing out, and noting down in a book he held in his hand, meal for his passengers.

After saying but a few words-for I did not like to interrupt him-I proceeded onwards with the boy, who told me that in the several adjoining berths "cousins, friends, and families go together," until I came to a crowd, which for a few seconds obstructed me. "Come along out o' thart and let hum pass!" exclaimed the fine manly voice of an emigrant who had observed my predicament. Very shortly another poor fellow, fancying I belonged to the ship, came up to me and asked me something about meal. "This man," replied the sailorboy, "has nothing to do with you and my friend accordingly turned aside.

Affixed to one of the berths I observed a placard of printed regulations, which I own appeared to me to have been concocted by some one not very conversant with the various indescribable désagrémens of a gale of wind; for instance, it ordained

"That all the passengers must be out of bed by seven o'clock A.M.; the children to be then washed and dressed: all to be in bed by ten P.M.

"That when the emigrants victual and cook for themselves, the overseer will see that each family has its regular hour at the cooking place.

That there be issued to each passenger three quarts of water, not less often than twice a-week. Bread, biscait, flour, oatmeal, and rice-in all, seven pounds per week. One-half of the supply to consist of bread or biscoit; and if potatoes be used, five pounds to be reckoned equal to one pound of bread-stuff.

"That the washing-days be on Monday and Friday. "No smoking, gambling, swearing, or improper language to be allowed.

"No sailor to be allowed between decks, except on duty," &c. &c.

After reading these regulations, and gazing on both sides, and as far as between decks my eyes could reach, at the men, women, and children, who in numerous groups, active, passive, and neuter, were apparently blocking up the thoroughfare, I could not help feeling very keenly how little they were aware of the discomforts of being jumbled together during a sea voyage, and, above all, of the tragic catastrophes that have so often in one relentless gulf buried the cares, sorrows, hopes, and lives of shipload after shipload of poor Irish emigrants, such as were now around me and before me, nursing infants, unpacking and repacking boxes, making beds, and engaged in numberless other little domestic arrangements. On a curtainless berth beside me, in extreme lassitude, sat a slight, elegant-looking

girl, of about seventeen, very poorly dressed: her elbows nearly touched each other-the backs of her hands rested on her lap, on which her eyes also listlessly reposed-her whole attitude appeared collapsed and unstrung. In fact, she was the personification of the word "EVICTION!"

We can find nothing else in this book that is at all novel.

The author's great conclusion is, that the priesthood of Ireland are the cause of the moral degradation of the country. In order to prove this, he fills half his volume with extracts from the Roman-Catholic newspapers, and with unacknowledged pilferings from the heavy" Blue Book" just published. He seems either to have borrowed or copied the very wood-blocks of coffins and notices, and Captain Rock and Terry Alt warnings, which we have already seen in that much cheaper and more authentic publication.

This has produced a strong remonstrance from Ireland, and a rejoinder from Sir Francis. The controversy involves those two topics of politics and religion which are especially eschewed by this merely literary journal. We content ourselves, therefore, with reproducing the documents.

House of Commons, Nov. 22.

SIR-In a book lately published by you, called A Fortnight in Ireland, and under the head of "Evidence collected by myself," speeches are ascribed by you to Catholic clergymen as having been made by them to their congregations from the altars of their churches. At pages 364, 365, you express yourself in these words:—

"Of the conduct and speeches of the Irish priesthood during the late elections, I received from gentlemen and persons of high character, who were present, and whose names, if called upon, I can produce, statements on the truth of which the reader may implicitly rely. I have not been requested by these individuals to withhold either their own names or the names of the priests, extracts from whose speeches I shall briefly detail.”

These passages having been obviously introduced with the view to obtain the currency of truth for subsequent statements which I take the liberty to disbelieve, I now call upon you, in redemption of your pledge, to furnish me with the names of your informants, the names of the Catholic clergymen, and the names of localities, as to the several speeches or extracts which you profess to give in pages 365 to 375 of your book; or should you wish me to limit my request, I am satisfied, for the present, to confine it to the speeches referred to in pages 365, under date the 27th of June 25th of July, 1st of August,

366,

369,

20th of May,

373, no date.

But the words you use there, and which you repeat at page 384 are, "I shall get the women to rip open their big bellies."

I beg, also, to be furnished with the names of the persons from whom, and upon whose guarantee of accuracy, you published the several notices, statements, and documents comprised under Division IV. of the head above referred to, and collected with such industry during your short visit to Ireland.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
VINCENT SCULLY.

Sir Francis B. Head, Bart.

Oxendon, Northampton, Nov. 23. SIR-I have this morning received your note of yesterday, dated "House of Commons," quoting from my Fortnight in Ireland eight lines, which you are pleased to term "my pledge, in redemption of which you call upon me to furnish you with the names of my informants, the names of the Catholic clergymen, and the names of localities as to the several speeches or extracts which I profess to give in pages 365 to 375 of my book."

Your quotation, however, from my book, consists of exactly one half of a paragraph, of which the following is the remainder :

"But, as in the investigation in which I have embarked, I have determined to avoid as much as possible all personalities, and as the evidence already produced-namely, that of the priesthood themselves - is undeniable, I feel that, in my own outline of the case, the public will not disapprove of my withholding, in a few instances only, the mention of such names, dates, and places, as might be injurious or offensive."

For these reasons I decline to hand over to the Irish priesthood, to those who in the present House of Commons represent them, or to any private individual, the few names, &c., you are desirous to obtain.

Were I to do so, I conscientiously believe that my informants would be denounced by the priests, and that their lives and properties might be in danger.

If, however, a Committee of either branch of the Legislature, or Her Majesty's Government, should deem it desirable that the names, dates, and localities you have referred to should be declared by me, I beg distinctly to state to you, and to those with whom you are politically connected, that, in obedience to such a call, I will at once divulge what my own judgment strongly advises me to conceal.

Recommending to your attention the fact, that I have brought forward as evidence against the Irish priesthood upwards of 200 of their own priests, whose names, speeches, and writings, I have published without the sinallest concealment,

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

Vincent Scully, Esq., M.P.

F. B. HEAD.

On the whole, this is a volume that may be skimmed through pleasantly enough. We need not insist upon the fact -for it is evident upon the surfacethe surface that the opportunities of the writer have been ludicrously unequal to the task he has undertaken.

Village Life in Egypt. By BAYLE ST. JOHN.

Chapman and Hall. 1852.

WERE we to pile together the various works that have appeared of late years upon the subject of Egypt and Palestine, we might readily construct a monument rivaling in magnitude, if not in durability, some of those that still frown on the waters of the Nile. The researches of Champollion, of Belzoni, of Bankes, of Buckhardt, and their immediate followers, seem to have given a more than ordinary stimulus to oriental travel; the result being, that we are probably at this moment far better acquainted with the statistics and peculiarities of Egypt and its singular inhabitants, than we are with many countries in our immediate vicinity.

Interesting as every thing connected with that region must ever be to all who experience any pleasure in historical rescarch, still it may safely be affirmed that, so far as relates to the land of Egypt and its population as they now exist, the subject has been fairly exhausted; and should any future wanderer, either from Upper or Lower Egypt, commit to the world an account of his adventures, we question whether he will be able to add much to the stock of knowledge already accumulated.

After a careful perusal of the works whose titles head the present notice, we took down at hazard from our shelves one of the many "Travels in Egypt" thereon in order ranged."

The book in question was published some forty years ago, but, for any thing that appears to the contrary, might, like Mr. James Augustus St. John's book, bear upon its title-page the imprint of 1853. The fathers of the present generation of Fellâhs seem, in their habits, tastes, and pursuits, not only to have resembled in every particular the earliest generations of which we have any record as closely as their descendants resemble them. Then the temples of Luxor and Karnak, the Pyramids, the Memnonium, and the ruins of Philæ, have evidently undergone as little change during the last half century as they seem to have experienced during the previous two thousand years. Indeed, a verbatim translation of the description Herodotus has given of the Pyramids would, with tolerable accuracy, describe their state at this very hour.

Notwithstanding this, however, the books before us will all repay perusal: the ideas that occur to a well-read and intelligent man upon the most ordinary matters that may come under his ken can never be altogether devoid of matter for reflection, if not for instruction.

We select from "Isis" the following characteristic passage on the

THEOLOGY OF EGYPT.

What the mummy is to the living body, that modern Egypt is, morally and politically speaking, to ancient