the kings of England have more reason to fear the foreign influenced Irish than the kings of France to fear the foreign influenced French, considering the Pope's claim to the dominion of Ireland.' In 1762 the Hibernia Dominicana' of the titular Bishop Burke adopted a similar view. And as late as the death of the last Stuart, who, as Dr. Doyle informed the Parliamentary Committee, had always nominated the Irish bishops, this right of nomination lapsed to the Pope, motu proprio,' upon the very same ground, and he exercises it to this day. It is on this principle that the cardinal who presides over the affairs of Ireland is styled the Cardinal Protector of the Kingdom of Ireland, and that the establishment of bishops is kept up in Ireland, though not in England. The Pope himself is the feudal lord. The bishops assume the title of lords, as barons holding under him. The people of Ireland are called by him his 'vassals;' and the bishops call their inferior clergy'subjects.' The clerical oaths are all framed on the principles of feudalism. And though at present the existence of another title is tolerated,' and oaths of obedience to another head are indulged,' nothing will extort from the priests of Ireland a full, fair, and unreserved abandonment of the Popish claim. Every word they utter must be sifted; and they must be forced, by all the arts of cross-examination, to a precise meaning; and yet after all, by some play on the word 'lawful,' or 'obedience,' or fidelity,' or by some mental reservation, they will escape, and laugh at the government, which imagines they can be tied down by such cobweb threads as these. It is a most painful thought, but it is true. Men smile at the notion of a Pope-an old man sitting amidst the ruins of an effete city, without armies, or revenues, or fleets, or personal influence even with his own subjects-and yet claiming the kingdom of Ireland. But they would not smile if they saw the real arms with which it is to be seized; the cool, thoughtful, designing, deep-planning, all-daring arm of Jesuitism. This is the Popery against which we have to fight; and who is the man to speak of such a foe with a laugh or a sneer? Once more, before we conclude for the present, we suspect there is another series of operations in Ireland which well deserve attention; we mean the various openly organised bodies, by which the system of agitation has been kept up, both before and after the passing of the Relief Bill. Mr. Wyse, an impartial witness, expressly distinguishes them from popular, tumultuous' move ments: The Catholic [i. e. Romanist] Association was of a very different order. It had a method in its madness, and an object in its tumult, which a close observer and a constant attention only could discern; it was was not possible to combine in the same mass greater powers of popular excitation, more undisputed sway over the popular heart, and more minute attention to the nice machinery, by which the details of public business (the business of many millions of men) require to be conducted. Neither was it a mere ebullition from the rank passions and the turbulent ambition of modern times: it was of long, and slow, and patient growth; its strength was not known, until it had been brought into direct collision with the government; it was not even fully appreciated by the very hands which wielded it, until its temper had been brought out by hostile attack. It was then suddenly perceived that a body had been growing up unnoticed, without the constitution, which might in its due season disturb from its foundations the constitution itself, co-extensive with the immense majority of the population, and reflecting, in its utmost energy, the entire form and pressure of the popular mind.'-Wyse, Hist., vol. i. Introduction, p. v. Remarkable words-perfectly descriptive-perfectly true even in the seeming inconsistent statement that it reflected the popular mind-without having a popular origin. It first impressed the people, and then reflected the impression.* And the whole history which Mr. Wyse has given from 1759, down to 1829 (and the story might well be carried on to 1840), presents a series of similar paradoxes. The people, we are told, were labouring under the heaviest grievances-and yet it was a work of the greatest difficulty to rouse them from their apathy. The grievances most felt were those which affected the nobility and priests, and yet the nobility and priests (the old class of priests remember) studiously kept aloof from the movements which were intended to emancipate them. The Friends of civil and religious liberty combined to put down the circulation of the Scriptures, and a combined system of education as carried on by the Kildare Society. The Brunswick Clubs were furious bigots, and yet no Catholic experienced violence from them.' The Protestants were bent on maintaining a tyrannical ascendency, and yet it was proved to a demonstration, that a large proportion of Protestant rank, wealth, and intelligence, was ranged on the side of justice and conciliation.' Again, the secret associations throughout Ireland had no connexion with this open organisation, and yet, when the open force appeared, the secret melted away; when it disappeared they were expected to revive; and violent and vicious as they were, a few words of friendly advice from the Association restored tranquillity to the local insurrections.' Mr. Wyse is spoken of by those who know him as an honourable, intelligent man. He must feel that these are contradictions perplexing to most readers: but the history which he has given is indeed * See also a singular passage, p. 89. curious. curious. Let a man study it carefully,-observe the characters by whom the movement was first planned,* the history of the veto, the remarkable change of organisation in 1793, the difficulties respecting the disappearance of the funds, and especially a note § showing that this is no singular occurrence in such bodies in Ireland—the frequent schisms, when the rude honest violence of the democratical spirit, which another power beyond it was employing for its own purpose, began to overrun its bounds, as in the first establishment of Maynooth, when the democrats proposed a scheme of education without religion, and the bishops privately betrayed them, and obtained exclusive possession of Maynooth. Again the connexion of the Catholic Committee with the Rebellion of 1798, their frequent communications with foreign countries, the details of secret organisation, delegacies, parochial affiliated committees—the general tone of their opinions, as latitudinarian and democratical as any which Jesuitism has ever assumed,—and at the same time bigoted to religion, and controlled by some secret hand which prevented the democratical spirit from bursting out into the destruction of Popery. Then add the character and proceedings of their leader. History should not descend into personality; but let a thoughtful person study the conditions represented by the great philosophical satirist of Athens, Aristophanes,¶ as requisite in hiring a demagogue, and their perfect union in one individual now living-let him remember the admirable skill with which Jesuitism has ever selected its instruments, and bent them to its purpose-then consider the utter impossibility of such a character exercising any permanent influence in an enlightened state of society, unless supported by some secret power beyond him, as the demagogues of Athens were supported-and that this power in Ireland cannot be the priests, who are evidently only instruments in the hands of this power-and that it is not the people, for the people are in the hands of their priests-that neither is it the aristocracy nor the gentry, for they all repudiate the connexion-neither is it a Roman Catholic spirit in the mass of his followers, for the maxims of this man would destroy Popery, as much as they would the Church-think again that some extraordinary power must be exerted to raise the tax imposed for his payment-that this tax does not originate with the people, for the collection of it is compulsory, sometimes under the terrors of the horsewhip'-nor with the priests, for a movement simultaneous like this must have its directory without.-Put together these facts, and many other minute 6 See especially the characters of Mr. Scully, vol. i. p. 153, and Dr. Dromgoole, p. 162. † Page 166. Page 105. || Page 113. points in the secret and public history of this person, and, we think, that one explanation, perhaps only one, can be found of them-whether it is correct or not, we do not presume to say, but it might be worth while to inquire if it exists in the archives of the Propaganda. And here we must pause for the present. We have touched but one branch of a wide subject, every part of which throws light on another part, and all should be studied together. But if the inquiry is once commenced, the development will proceed easily, That some power of a mysterious and alarming nature is now, and has been for years, working in the heart of Ireland, no one can doubt: of its whole extent readers will form but a very inadequate conception from our previous hints, without studying another very important branch of the Papist system in that unhappy country, to which we shall ask their attention in our next Number. But if even a doubt may have been raised in their minds as to the real state of Ireland, and the security of the empire, as connected with it, something will have been gained. ART. V-1. On the Employment of Children in Factories and other Works in the United Kingdom and in some foreign Countries. By Leonard Horner, F.R.S., Inspector of Factories. 1840. 2. Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on the Act for the Regulation of Mills and Factories. 1840. WE E have some reason to be gratified by the appearance of Mr. Horner's pamphlet. While it shows many imperfections of detail, it affirms the success of mercy by statute; and declares, on a retrospect of the last seven years, the commencement of many of those great and good results which we were called fools and zealots for venturing to prophecy. Well do we recollect the clamour; the awful predictions of a ruined trade and a starving population; commerce flying to foreign shores; England depressed; France exalted in the scale of nations; with every terrible inference that ingenuity could draw from Tyre, Zidon, Carthage, and Holland. Were we frightened by such arguments? Not at all; we had one great and quickening principle, comfortable and true as revelation itself (for it is deduced from it), that nothing which is morally wrong can be politically right.* We have now undertaken a new but similar task; new in its objects, *Quarterly Review, vol. lvii. P. 443. but but similar in its principles; and we invite from all, the confidence which experience has justified, in the re-assertion of truths, which are ever, and under all circumstances, the same. But let us first hear Mr. Horner. The law,' says he, which was passed in 1833, to regulate the labour of children and young persons in the mills and factories of the United Kingdom, has been productive of much good. But it has not, by any means, accomplished all the purposes for which it was passed. The failures have mainly arisen from defects in the law itself; not in the principles it lays down, but in the machinery which was constructed for the purposes of carrying the principles into operation.'—p. 1. of 'Had all the remonstrances,' continues the inspector, which were made, been attended to, the children would have been left with but a scanty measure of protection; and we may,, in some degree, judge of the value of those which were yielded to, by the experience of the working of those enactments which were persisted in. It was confidently predicted that, by limiting the employment of children of eleven years age to eight hours a-day, the most serious losses would accrue; that when, in the following year, the act should apply to children of twelve, the difficulties and evil consequences would be vastly increased; and that, if it were attempted to enforce the restriction as far as thirteen, a very large proportion of the mills in the country must of necessity stop. Government were applied to to prevent the impending evil; the inspectors were appealed to by the government, and they stated that the assertions had been so often and so confidently made to them, that they could not venture to set up their opinions and their then limited experience in opposition to them. The President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Thomson, was prevailed upon to propose to parliament that the restriction to eight hours' daily work should be limited to children under twelve years of age; but, happily, parliament was firm, and would not yield. And what was the result? Not a single mill throughout the United Kingdom stopped a day for want of hands.' ~p. 3. It is very satisfactory,' adds Mr. Horner, 'to know that the act is now viewed by a great majority of the respectable mill-owners, their managers, and, as far as I have had an opportunity of learning, by the most considerate and best-disposed among the workpeople themselves, with a very different feeling from what it was at first. I have had abundant testimony that the law is not only not felt to be oppressive and detrimental to trade, but, on the contrary, has been productive of great good, by introducing a steadiness and a regularity which did not exist before. Many mill-owners have said to me- "We find no fault with the act, except that we are not all placed by it on the same footing, in consequence of the evasions which our neighbours may and do practise with impunity; and if the law will not reach them, it ought to be made to do so. '—p. 4. Such are the valuable statements of the inspector in reference to the past operation of legislative interference in this matter. Let |