discharging them. That the Marquis of Sligo and Sir R. A. O'Donel have duly discharged similar rates. They resolve further, " that similar lists were furnished to the office of the Earl of Lucan for the electoral divisions of Westport and Clare Island by the collector in January, 1846, and by the solicitor in July, 1846, of which only £10. has been discharged by his lordship's bailiff." Here is the lord lieutenant of the county with his "poor-rates' due for twelve months in the county of Mayo, where, but for the generosity of strangers, one-half the population would be cut off by famine. The landlords, therefore, are not fit to be entrusted with the exclusive care of the body, and still less with that of the soul. The effect of the contemplated change, would be to make the board of guardians almost exclusively Protestant, whilst the vast majority of the paupers are Catholics. In the county of Londonderry, where the Catholics form a large majority of the population, there is not a single Catholic magistrate. In Antrim there are only two, neither of whom is an ex officio poorlaw guardian, for the magistrates would never think of being guilty of such a gross act of vulgar liberality as to elect them. In Down, Armagh, Tyrone, Cavan, &c., there are very few Catholic magistrates, not one of whom is an ex officio guardian. Nor are the Catholics the only persons excluded by the magistrates; for the liberal Protestants share the same fate. The Marquis of Headfort, Sir William Sommerville, and a vast number of others, some of whom are the largest landed proprietors in the Union, have been excluded by the magistrates on account of their politics alone. There has been already, in many cases, a great deal of bickering about interference with the religion of the children; and if their consciences be put under the control of the ex officio guardians, and of the elected ones who will agree with them and give them a perpetual majority, we can assure the government and the people of England that the law will be worse and more inoperative than it is at present.

With regard to out-door relief, the people of Ireland should insist on its being afforded (1.) to the aged and infirm, and to the permanently disabled; (2.) When a family becomes temporarily destitute on account of the illness of one of its members, on whom it depended partially or wholly for support; (3.) In cases of urgent necessity; (4.) The pauper should have power to proceed against

the relieving officer or inspector, or whatever he may be called, if he refuses relief. In these respects we only want the Irish poor-law to be perfectly assimilated to the English. We approve of the change in the law which will bring the new chief commissioner and the present commissioners, who are to be called inspectors, with their underlings, more immediately in contact with the executive government. We also approve of the provision by which each electoral division shall be obliged to support its own poor, provided the rate does not exceed 2s. 6d. in the pound, and that whatever exceeds that amount shall be levied off the Union at large. If the new poor-relief bill should be such as we have here desired, we would consider a vagrancy act not only a useful but a necessary enactment. The character of the bill will mainly depend on the conduct of the Irish people; and we are glad to find by the account of a meeting of the farmers and land-owners of Armagh, Down, and Antrim, held in Belfast on the 28th of Feb. that the Protestant and Presbyterian ministers of the North, are joining with the priests of the South, in calling on Parliament to give out-door relief to the poor, and to protect the tenantry from the tyranny of the landlords. At the Belfast meeting, the following resolution was moved by the Rev. Dr. Montgomery, one of the leading Presbyterian ministers of Ulster:-"That under proper restrictions to prevent idleness and imposition, a poor law, authorising out-door relief in food to the able-bodied, seems indispensable in this country, where in certain districts and at certain seasons, adequate employment cannot be obtained. That no poor law, however, can permanently benefit Ireland, or prevent the increase of present evils, which shall not contain, I. A law of settlement. II. A vagrant act to suppress mendicancy. III. A provision for extensive emigration. IV. A clause compelling each electoral division to support its own poor, instead of the contemplated measure of placing the support of the ablebodied upon the rates of the whole union." The resolution for giving the tenantry legal protection against the landlords, or in other words, for extending by law to the other parts of Ireland the invaluable "tenant right" which the petitioners themselves enjoy by custom, was moved by a Protestant clergyman, the Rev. F. Blakely. "Resolved, that from our knowledge of the state and views of this country, we give it as our united and deliberate judg

ment, that a law containing provisions enabling tenants to claim the occupation of their farms at fair rents, without reference to valuable improvements; or legally to demand reasonable compensation for such in case of dispossession, or of non-agreement between landlord and tenant, would mutually benefit both the owners and occupiers of the soil, and through them better the condition of the working classes by increasing a general demand for labour-we therefore trust that Parliament will postpone the discussion of the landed property bill until after the introduction of the promised ministerial measure respecting Irish tenantright which measure will, we hope, be based upon the suggestions in the report of the landlord and tenant commission, and confirm to the occupiers of land through all Ireland, those rights which are now enjoyed by custom in the province of Ulster, and particularly in this locality. The chairman of the meeting, Guy Stone, Esq., a magistrate of the county Down, said: that "in the North of Ireland the tenant right was respected, and to that one thing above all others, he attributed the prosperity of the North over the South and West, but as the tenants did not know who would succeed the present landlords, it was highly desirable that the tenant right, or in other words, the right of compensation for valuable improvements, should be secured to the tenants."

We are delighted to see these two measures united, outdoor relief for the poor and the protection of the tenant right for the farmer. Let the "Irish party unite for carrying these into effect, and we will believe in them. But they will do no such thing-they will oppose both one and the other; and if the Irish people put their trust in them they will be grievously deceived. But if without trusting to any party, the Irish demand these things for themselves, the English people and the English Parliament are just in the humour to grant them. This would indeed be a mighty revolution-the poor would no longer die of hunger-the farmer would no longer be treated as a serf, but would have an interest in the land he tills; and the landlords finding that they must support the poor, would join the people in demanding for this, their chief original object, the surplus revenues of the monstrous church establishment in Ireland. If the present opportunity be allowed to pass, without advantage being taken of it, in all likelihood so favourable a one will not again occur for a century. To

the Irish people therefore we say, "Ask now, and ye shall receive."

ART. VI.-1. "The Geraldines."

By FATHER DOMINIC O'DALY, Portuguese Ambassador at the Court of France. (Library of Ireland.) Dublin 1847.

2.-Historical Works of Nicholas French, D. D. Bishop of Ferns. Dublin 1847.

THE

HE publication of these little histories at the present imperial crisis, gives to contemplative minds, abundant matter for reflection. They are histories of Irish Revolutions, written by dignitaries of the Catholic Church, who denounce, as might naturally be expected, the penal laws and confiscations, but profess conscientious allegiance to the King of England. Nothing but conscience, could have suggested this singular allegiance, because when they wrote they were honoured in the courts of foreign princes, and had little hope of ever returning to their country. Their loyalty did not mean, a right to devour the people in the name of God and the king; it was not love for England, so long as England allowed them to plunder; it was the pure allegiance of duty, like that which has ever since animated their successors in the Irish Catholic Church.

Revolution is again at its work in Ireland. The people starve, and the proprietors are generally bankrupt. The descendants of the conquerors of 1601, 1650, 1690, pauperised by their own extravagance, must take their true place in society, from the operation of an efficient Poor Law, which in a few years will teach them the duties of proprietors. In this consummation the enthusiastic Catholic would recognise the avenging arm of God; he would say that the "Geraldines," and the "Sale and Settlement of Ireland," were reproving angels, appearing. at this awful crisis to announce that sooner or later even in this world, great national crimes beget great national punishments. But the statesman, and the man who looks. to the future, be he statesman or not, will leave these considerations upon God's retributive justice to others, and

taking a salutary lesson from the past, will endeavour to see how the great problem may be solved, how Ireland can prosper and the Imperial connexion be preserved.

Dominic O'Daly, the author of the Geraldines, took the Dominican habit in the convent of Tralee, but being forced to fly from his country, he was raised by his great talents and capacity for business, to a high place in the councils of the King of Spain. He was charged with a secret mission to Charles I., Charles II., and Innocent X., and when Portugal threw off the Spanish yoke in 1640, he was selected by John IV. as ambassador to the King of France. Three bishoprics, Braga, Coimbra, and Oporto, were offered to him at different times-but refused. He loved his humble habit, and wished to devote himself exclusively to his own countrymen, for whom he founded the Irish College, Lisbon, and other continental establishments. He wrote his history of the Geraldines, after the subjugation of Ireland by Cromwell; when she suffered such wrongs as rarely occur in the annals of the world. O'Daly felt these wrongs as a priest and an Irishman; he pours out his fervid soul in deploring and denouncing them-but the word "separation," never escapes him; the cool head of the Ambassador, controuls the fiery aspirations of the Irishman; the historian of the great Anglo-Irish nobles, checks the rebel wish of the persecuted friar.

"Elizabeth, this far-famed English Queen, has grown drunk on the blood of Christ's martyrs, and like a tigress has she hunted down the Irish Catholics, exceeding in ferocity and wanton cruelty the Emperors of Pagan Rome. So far was it from her intention not to persecute the Catholics for religion sake, that she inflicted the punishment of death on all those who refused to take the oath of supremacy. Usurping as she did the headship of the Church in spirituals, she would be nothing less than the head of both. Truly for my own part, I recognise Elizabeth as the Queen of England; for her person, I entertain respect, nor do I envy her her fair fame; but in treating such matters as are intimately interwoven with her public life, religion, truthfulness, and honour, counsel me to conceal nothing. When not more than six years old, this woman excelled not alone all the princesses of her time in profound knowledge of the Latin Tongue, but even those of her own sex of inferior condition throughout the kingdom; nor will I gainsay her knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures, or her intimate familiarity with the controversies of her day. But I suffer not a woman,' saith the apostle, 'to teach nor to use authority over man, but to be in