upon by the author as being very little, if any thing better, than insidious confederacies of saintly humbug, veiling some plans for tampering with the religious belief of the people, under a mere outward profession of aiming to ameliorate their condition by the destruction of intemperance; a notion, the more natural on the part of the author, from the class of persons to whom any participation in those societies was then chiefly, if not totally, confined. The revolution which has since taken place, and has converted what the writer regarded as a mere inroad of the restless spirit of biblical proselytism into a grand Irish moral movement, was not foreseen by him at the time the verses alluded to were written, nor even when they were printed; but, being printed, they had to be left where they stood. This, it is hoped, will be a sufficient apology for the appearance of those lines. Indeed, of teetotalism, amongst those who find by experience that they know not where to stop, it can hardly be requisite for the author to express his humble approbation. The system is no other than that so long acted upon by Doctor Johnson; a man, whose intellectual and moral eminence would do honor to any country and religion. Finding, as we are told, that "he could practise abstinence, but not

temperance," he became a water-drinker; abstaining, for several years, from the use of any intoxicating liquor. And the resolution which HE found necessary, others, similarly affected, may well consider themselves bound to observe.*

The critical and historical remarks in the paper on the comparative merits of "David's Lament for Saul and Jonathan," and Wolfe's "Lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore," may possess some attraction for those who prefer literary to political disquisitions.

In the postscript to the verses, headed "Nabis and the Union," some curious, though hitherto unobserved analogies between the results of the spirit of Anti-Unionism in this country and in Scotland are pointed out, and commented upon. A remarkable official testimony is given as to the predominance of Anti-Unionism in Ireland over every other political feeling. An enquiry, as regards the Tory or Chartist idea of maintaining a Union by "physical force," is made with respect to the proportion of soldiers and sailors contributed by Ireland to the English army and navy since the period of the American war. An outline is then drawn of her various capabilities for national or self-legislative independence, illustrated by a comparison of her supe

Boswell's Life, p. 275, 367, 452, &c. Jones's edit.

rior size, in geographical square miles, to that of the greater number of the existing states of Europe. A brief survey is next taken of the peculiar military strength and defensibility of the country against any thing in the shape of a hostile invasion. A review follows, of the causes through which the various alleged conquests of this country were effected, and the price which they cost-this review being more full in reference to the great struggle of the Revolution from 1688 to 1691, so grossly misrepresented to the world, as an instance of the Irish having "fought badly at home," by those Williamite libellers, who have hitherto been almost exclusively cited and believed as authorities on the subject. A still further proof is presented of the folly or cowardice that would assign this island no higher rank than that of a province, by a contrast of her superior resources for political greatness, compared with several of the most eminent states in ancient and modern history. A demonstration is made of the monstrous pecuniary drain imposed upon Ireland by England, against the terms, as well as through the medium, of the so-called Act of Union; and the essay concludes with a glance at what the author considers MUST be the finally separate destiny of the two islands, unless the unjust,

ruinous, and intolerable usurpation by England of the national rights of Ireland, through the nefarious job of a bribed, anti-national legislature, shall be surrendered,—if not from motives of political honesty or common justice, yet from the prudential considerations involved with the fact, of two-thirds of the English military force being natives of the same insular territory of 32,201 square miles, which presents a recruiting population of 2,000,000 more at home, at once becoming more numerous, and, from the present system of the connexion between their country with England, more discontented, every day.

The observations on our military history— made for the purpose of testing, in the most conclusive way, the truth of the assertion as to our having "always fought badly at home," by examining how much TIME and MONEY Our principal wars with England cost, even disunited as we were,-have been included in this volume by the advice of a literary friend, who was of opinion, that the number of facts, and reasonings founded on facts, contained in those remarks mere mems. loosely thrown together as they are, more fully refute the above-mentioned discreditable notion, and place many circumstances of the great war of the Revolu

tion between King James and the Prince of Orange in a more honorable light for the country than has yet been done by any Irish writer. That some of those mems. on the subject of that war, though intended to correct the faults of other writers, might be considerably improved, is freely admitted.* For, amidst the great difficulty of gaining an admittance to

*

Thus, in page 265-6, for "the loss of the besieged," at Derry, "being, according to Walker, about 3,200 men," should be substituted "the loss of the regimented garrison—the whole of those who perished DURING the Irish blockade, or without including any who died from its effects AFTER the place was relieved, being estimated, on Williamite authority, at no less than 10,000!" Again, the full complement of fighting men in the town, which the Duke of Berwick merely speaks of as "above 10,000," is made 2,000 more, or 12,000 in all, by a contemporary Protestant authority. The calculation, too, at p. 351-8, from a passage in Story, of Ginckle's battering train before Athlone, at but 29 cannon and 6 mortars, is to be corrected by the testimony of one of his own officers, (whose work could not be consulted when the above calculation was made,) into "50 battering cannon and 8 mortars ;" so that the Dutch General, with his 12 field-pieees, had 70 guns there

a statement by which the " 47 guns and mortars," (inclusive of field-pieces) at p. 334, may likewise be altered. The Dutch list, also, of William's foot regiments in Ireland, in 1691, makes them, with the exception of the Danes, 780, instead of 705 men, each; which would add considerably to the amount of Ginckle's army at Aughrim. Such particulars, however, only serve to show, that, unlike the Williamite defamers of Ireland, (who, by the way, are as remarkable for virulent and unscrupulous misrepresentation as any Jacobite or Irish accounts we have are for an adherence to truth,) the author has kept considerably within, rather than gone beyond, what facts would justify, in his criticisms on those libellers.