"Rose. O Betty, I never wish to be rich, but when I see such ladies as her that can make so many people happy, and are so willing to do it.

Betty. We stood before Mrs. Belmour while the judge examined the thread; and when she called me to her and gave me the wheel, and the cloak, and the cap, with her own hand, sure I did not know where I was standing, nor what I said! but I know she wished me joy, and bid me use my wheel well.

"Rose. Well, my dear Betty, I must wish you joy too, though I can't do it so genteelly as Mrs. Belmour.

"Betty. Oh! mother, honey, I think more of your commendation than the lady's itself, though she is so grand, and so beautiful, and so good; and it is you I am obliged to for my cloak, my wheel, and my cap. If you had not taught me to spin, and watched to make me spin an even thread, I might have come off with no premium, or have been ashamed to go at all."

We have now finished our extracts, and although we have not been able to quote, or even to allude to, the twentieth part of the entertaining passages in this interesting work, we trust that we have in some degree elucidated the benevolent intention of the authors. The evil has been set forth, and the antidote plainly pointed out. The bane, a lazy and ignorant peasantry; the antidote, good example, fostered and encouraged by the notice and protection of the higher orders.

But how does Ireland stand in these respects?

The Irish gentleman, to whose pamphlet we have before referred, states, that "The nobility and affluent gentry spend much or all of their fortunes or time in England; leaving their places to be filled in the country by hired agents; in the city, by a plebeian aristocracy: the former, solely engaged in increasing and collecting rents, can have little conciliatory power with the people; and the influence of the latter tends rather to increase than diminish the political danger."

"A great evil: not because the country is drained by remittances, but because she is widowed of her natural protectors. The loss is not of money, but manners; not of wealth, but of civilization and peace." The parochial clergy, so great a link in the chain of society in England, who alone are sufficient, when they do their duty, to preserve peace, order, and contentment among the lower orders, can fulfil no such office in Ireland. "Ireland is divided into 2,500 parishes, melted down into 1,200 benefices, on which there are about 1,000 churches. The 1,200 beneficed clergy of these 2,560 parishes, where are they? one-third of them are not resident-absentees from their duties, and mortmainers upon the land." "The law has never thoroughly mingled itself with Ireland; there lately were, perhaps still are, districts

impervious to the king's writs; castles fortified against the sheriff; and legal estates invaded by force of arms; contumacies, not frequent indeed, but from which an inquirer will deduce, not unfairly, ordinary disrespect for the law. This in civil cases: in criminal, (how large a share of our jurisprudence,) witnesses not unfrequently suborned, intimidated, or murdered; juries subdued; felons acquitted: in common transactions, the administration by justices of the peace sometimes partial, generally despised and unsatisfactory." "The blame is not easily apportioned; much is in the pride and folly of the gentry; much in the native perverseness of the people; much in the indifference of the govern ment; something in an indiscreet nomination of magistrates." The effect, however, is easily ascertained, and we refer to the following picture of servility, which we suppose cannot be exceeded in Poland or in Russia, as a specimen.

"As your honour plases." "Sure whatever your honour decrees me." "Its not for the like of us to be speaking to your honour's ho"I'd let your honour walk over me, before I'd say a word, good or bad."-Edgeworth's Notes, p. 332.

nour."

Again:

"Plase your honour, I know it was not the tree that I cut, that turned your honour again me; tho' I beg your honour's pardon for that same, which I did, not knowing it was on your honour's land at all; for I thought it was on the mearing betwixt you and counsellor Flannigan, that voted against your honour, else I would never have touched it, had I known it was your honour's; and this is what them that informed again me to your honour knew as well as myself and heller. But plase your honour it was not the cutting that donny stick of a tree that set your honour again me, I am sure and sinsible, for it was what your honour was tould, concerning what I said about voting for your honour's frind, by one in the parish of Killospugbrone, that had a spite again me since last Holentide was two year, on account of a foal of mine, that he went and swore kicked his cousin's

A gentleman of the name of O'Connor, descended from a monarch of Ireland, took it into his head that he had a better right to a certain estate than the real owner, whose title was as just and legal as that of the Duke of Bedford to the domain of Woburn. Possessed with this notion, Mr. O'Connor collected several hundred peasants, armed with muskets and pitchforks, placed himself at their head, and actually took possession of the land in question; which he held until he was ejected by superior force. Yet no prosecution was ever carried on against him, or any of his followers, for this act of violence; and this proceeding was countenanced by many persons above the condition of peasants, who actually furnished O'Connor's adherents with provisions. If that expedition had succeeded, it was the intention of many others to have recovered estates in the same summary way. Our readers will of course conclude, we suppose, that all this happened a century or two ago. It is a fact well known to have happened in the county of Roscommon, in the year 1786; and the detail is to be found in the records of the Irish parlament.

mare, coming from the fair of Tubberscanavan; which, plase your honour, he did not kick no more than myself standing here prisent, plase your honour, did; but he, on account of that kick she got"She! Who?

"The mare, plase your honour. He had a grudge again me. "He! Who?

"The man from the parish of Killospugbrone I was telling your ho nour of, that owned the mare that was kicked by the foal, plase your honour, coming from the fair of Tubberscanavan; and which was the whole reason entirely of his informing again me about that switch of a tree; andit was just that made him strive so to belie me behind my back, to turn your honour, that was my only depindence, again me. Bad luck to him! and all belonging to him for rogues, and thieves, and slanderers, as they are, saving your honour's favour, and ever was, and will be; and all their breed, seed, and generation, and that's no slander any how."-P. 340.

This is precisely the sort of slave who, if the spring of oppres sion were suddenly unbent, or snapt in sunder by rebellion, would, without ceremony or compunction, riot in the blood of him, be fore whom he had been previously induced to cringe; and we, for ourselves, should much prefer the security to be derived from contented independence, which knows its rights, and will at all times fearlessly assert them in the face of power or oppres

sion.

All this cries aloud for reformation; but it is evident that many more years than we can now afford of anarchy and turbulence to Ireland must necessarily, on the present system, pass over our heads, before the evil can be completely removed. Something however, and that very essential, we are persuaded, may be immediately done. We are pretty confident that an improved spirit might be infused, by judicious measures, into the resident gentry; into that numerous class, which, not rich enough to commence absentees, have in truth the principal local authority of the coun try in their hands.

Cursory Remarks on Corpulence. By a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

[From the Monthly Mirror.]

"The whole Duty of Man" recommends men "not to pinch their bellies, to go smart;" but it is in the sense there intended,, and in another, too much practised. Not to be able to slip into a good-sized eel-skin is now to be out of the fashion-our belles

are straightened with steel plates to the great injury of their health, and our beaux wear stays till their bodies seem as little, and as lean, as ther wits. These tricks, however, are the invention of folly and affectation; and though they may make the appearance, cannot produce the reality-a healthy body moderately loaded with flesh. The tract before us professes to show how this desirable object is to be obtained, and, had it touched on the fashions above mentioned, would certainly have deemed them no fit ingredients in the recipe proposed.

The author, who has written an entertaining and interesting pamphlet on Corpulence, and its cure, prefaces his remarks with this observation:

"As it is probable, that the following pages may chiefly attract the attention of those whose 'em bon point' appearance denotes good temper, no apology need be made for offering a few observations to their consideration." P. 3.

We shall now afford our readers the advantage of some of the most important and amusing extracts.

"If the increase of wealth, and the refinement of modern times, have tended to banish plague and pestilence from our cities, they have probably introduced to us the whole train of nervous disorders, and increased the frequency of corpulence..

"Hollingshed, who lived in Queen Elizabeth's reign, speaking of the increase of luxury in those days, notices 'the multitude of chimneys lately erected; whereas, in the sound remembrance of some old men, there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of the realm.' How far corpulence has kept pace with the number of chimneys, I pretend not to determine; certain it is, that Hollingshed and his cotemporaries, furnish no account of the front of a house, or the windows, being taken away, to let out, to an untimely grave, some unfortunate victim, too ponderous to be brought down the staircase.

"The English nation has at all times been as famous for beef as her sons have been celebrated for bravery; and that they understood good living even in the earliest ages, we may learn from Cæsar, who, speaking of the diet of the Britons, says, 'Lacte et carne vivunt.'

'It has been conjectured by some, that for one fat person in France or Spain, there are a hundred in England. I shall leave to others to determine the fairness of such a calculation.

"That we may, however, approach, or even exceed it, no one will doubt, who reflects on the increasing improvements in the art of grazing, and the condescension of some modern physicians, who have added the culinary department to the practice of physic. And it ought not to be omitted, amongst the great events of the present era, that the combined efforts of nature, produced in the jubilee year 1809, the VOL. V. New Series.

36

fattest ox and most corpulent man ever heard of in the history of the world.

"It is undoubtedly a singular circumstance, that a disease which had been thought characteristic of the inhabitants of this island, should have been so little attended to. Dr. Thomas Short, in 1727, publish ed a Discourse on Corpulency; which, with a small pamphlet by Dr. Flemyng, and some occasional remarks in a few systematic works, will, I believe, be found to comprise all that has been said by the physicians of this country, on what Dr. Fothergill termed 'a most singular disease.'

"In answer to this we may be told that sufficient has been written for any man to be his own physician in this complaint, and that le régime maigre,' and Dr. Radcliffe's advice, of keeping 'THE EYES OPEN, AND THE MOUTH SHUT,' contains the whole secret of the cure." P. 5-8.

The omentum, situated in the front of the abdomen,

"I generally known by the term caul, and is a conspicuous recep tacle of fat in elderly people. In a healthy state it seldom weighs more than half a pound, but it has been found increased to many pounds. Boerhaave mentions a case of a man whose belly grew so large that he was obliged to have it supported by a sash; and had a piece of the table cut out to enable him to reach it with his hands. After death the omentum weighed thirty pounds." P. 13.

"A preternatural accumulation of fat in this part, cannot fail to im pede the free exercise of the animal functions. Respiration is per formed imperfectly, and with difficulty; and the power of taking ex ercise is almost lost; added to which, from the general pressure on the large blood vessels, the circulation through them is obstructed, and consequently the accumulation of blood is increased in those parts where there is no fat, as the brain, lungs, &c. Hence we find the pulse of fat people weaker than in others, and from these circumstances, also, we may easily understand how the corpulent grow dull, sleepy, and indolent." P. 14.

"The predisposition to corpulency varies in different persons. In some it exists to such an extent, that a considerable secretion of fat will take place, notwithstanding strict attention to the habits of life, and undeviating moderation in the gratification of the appetite. Such a disposition is generally connate, very often hereditary; and when accompanied, as it frequently is, with that easy state of mind, deno minated 'good humour,' which, in the fair sex, Mr. Pope tells us, 'teaches charms to last,

Still makes new conquests and maintains the last.'

Or when, in men, the temper is cast in that happy mould which Mr. Hume so cheerfully gratulates himself upon possessing, and consider as more than equivalent to a thousand a year, the habit of looking at every thing on its favourable side'-corpulency must ensue." P. 16, 17.