some millions of British handicrafts, in want of bread, education, raiment, and lodging!

In contrast with the apathy in this direction, what a spectacle is presented in another, in which the apparatus of vulgar delirium is sought to be worked under the highpressure impulse. We allude, of course, to the howl raised against the Maynooth College grant. Many will, doubtless, be provoked to laugh, others to gnash the teeth, or curl the lip, at human folly, perversity, and knavery. For ourselves, the scene is neither unpleasant nor unedifying. In England, and, indeed, in all countries, different classes resort to different modes for diversifying the monotony of existence. Members of Parliament have their parliamentary session, frequently an arduous one; sportsmen have their hunting season; there is also the fashionable season, the yachting season, and of late years the clergy have regularly had their season, their champs de Mai! We never, however, knew them so hard pressed for a missionary pretext as on the present occasion, and never, in our experience, do we remember to have witnessed a plain public question obscured by so much misrepresentation and furious nonsense.'

For proof, we have only to look the matter calmly and steadily in the face, to consider its character, object, and policy.

In the first place, the grant to Maynooth College is not a new grant. No new principle, no new object of charge, has been brought forward. It is only proposed to augment the former annual allowance, because experience had proved it inadequate to its exigency. But the grant is affirmed to be an endowment, and then, urge a numerous class of its opponents, though we are content to tolerate Romanism, we are not prepared to endow it.

Very well, gentlemen, you are quite right. Like yourselves, we have no love for Popery, nor any wish in any way to encourage it. But why do you give a wrong, if not a bad, name? A pecuniary grant like the present is very different indeed from an endowment. It is not even a grant for life, nor a term of years; and though Parliament may vote it this year, it may, if it think fit, and without breach of contract, next year rescind it. Call you this an endowment? An endowment is a very different mode of settlement. It is a provision made in land or other indefeasible source of revenue for the perpetual maintenance of an institution, and which can never be violated without violating the rights of private property. No such irrevocable condition pertains to the Maynooth grant, and the charging it upon the Consolidated Fund does not

deprive Parliament of control over it, nor any member of the right or liberty yearly to make a motion for its discontinuance. It only effects an arrangement of convenience, by removing a trivial question from the routine of sessional altercation, thereby leaving more time for the supervision of railway bills, the state of the poor, academical learning, and other matters imperatively demanding Legislative at

tention.

Dismissing this verbal deception for getting up the steam, let us come to a more serious misrepresentation, in which the additional allowance to Maynooth is held forth as for a religious purpose, tending to the encouragement of Romanism; that it is, in fact, the small end of the wedge which Ministers are covertly trying to insert, preliminary to a general provision for the Catholic clergy of Ireland.

Of course, nobody in their senses believe that the antiCatholic Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Goulburn, or Sir James Graham cherish any prepossessions in favour of Popery. They have emphatically disclaimed this interpretation of their intentions; they have denied that their proposition is part of a more extended scheme for the general maintenance of the Irish priesthood. For our part, we are inclined to believe them; and the heads of the Catholic body have declared that if a State provision were offered, it would not be accepted. However this might be, we think it is not likely to be offered; or, if offered, not obtained, contemporary with the maintenance of the existing sinecure enormity of the Protestant Establishment. Two State churches at once-one paid for out of the taxes, and the other out of tithes-would be rather too serious an inroad on the pocket, if not on the Protestant feelings of John Bull.

Leaving these speculative surmises, let us come to facts. The Maynooth grant is plainly not religious, but is, and always has been, educational; and all that has been spouted and written upon its religious tendency is wholly irrelevant. The grant has usually been £9000 per annum, sometimes more, and which it is proposed to augment to 26,000 per annum; so that the difference between a yearly allowance of £9000 and £26,000, payable by this most opulent nation, has given rise to the current hubbub; for the grant itself, we repeat, is no novelty of the Premier, but has been uninterruptedly continued for half a century.

Neither is the augmentation any sudden thought or device of Ministers. It was shadowed forth, if not distinctly announced, last session, in consequence of an urgent appeal from the Catholic hierarchy, setting forth the inadequacy for

educational purposes of the existing income of Maynooth. That it is insufficient, and that its insufficiency is the ground for the projected augmentation, and not any Popish or Jacobite plot, for the introduction either of the Pope or the Pretender, a short statement will prove.

Maynooth College was established in 1795, under the highest Protestant auspices. Owing to the war, catholic students could not resort to the Continent for education; and, as the war had been begun by King George, Pitt, Grenville, and Dundas, it seemed reasonable they should open another resource. This was the origin of the institution, and of its connexion with the State: it was a compensatory substitute, and, doubtless, the orthodox statesmen just named, embraced the opportunity as a favourable junction, thinking it better the Irish priests should imbibe loyalty at home, than republicanism at Douay or St. Omer's.

With the rapid increase of the population of Ireland, and the more than proportionate increase of Romanism, despite of the rich Protestant Church kept up to protest against it, the demand for priests increased, and the primitive allowance for their tuition became insufficient. Of this insufficiency, both for the needful repair of the college-building, and the bare support of the professors and students, the proofs are clear.

The number of professors is ten, and the stipend of the best paid does not exceed £120 a year. These are the Parliamentary salaries, which the professors are precluded from augmenting, as is the practice on other foundations, by fees; and out of such beggarly incomes are men of learning and diversified acquirements left to find, if they can, the means of sustenance, and of maintaining a respectable social position.

At present there are in the institution about 440 scholars. Of these, 130 are named 'pensioners,' being individuals who pay a certain sum on admission, and are expected to provide for their own support. There are, beside, the free students, whom the state professes to maintain. To each of these happy youths is allowed, upon an average, £23 per annum. From this sum of £23 a deduction is made for repairs and other incidental expenses of the college; and then out of the residue the student has to find his college dress, the furniture of his room, and his commons; that is, his victuals and drink!

Under such bountiful provision, it is almost needless to add, that the appearance and general condition of this State foundation is worse than that of a parish workhouse under the unreformed system. The building itself resembles a barrack, and is thoroughly dilapidated. Its inmates corre

spond with external appearances-impersonations of lazy, discontented squalor, as want of food, money, clothing, emulative occupation, and cheering prospects-for they have no Lambeth, Durham, or Winchester mitre in the distancetend to make people. For want of room or bedclothes, it does not appear which, they huddle together several in a bed, like the miserable outcasts located in St. Giles's, in the cellars of Liverpool and Manchester, or the wynds of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Such is the nursery-such the State alimony-for students destined to the pastoral office, to train the Irish people in sentiments of religion, morality, and allegiance to Queen Victoria! It cannot excite surprise that the results are frequently the reverse of their ostensible mission; they would not be priests, nor human beings of any description, were it otherwise.

It would be wiser policy to withdraw the Parliamentary allowance altogether, than continue the existing pittance. In this case, the Catholic laity might bestir themselves, and raise funds, as they have been urged to do, for the education of their clergy independent of Government. But the existing allowance is a mockery-just enough to neutralize private benevolence, without being a substitute for it. To this course, however, there are objections, in its tendency to widen the breach between the two countries-to exasperate, in lieu of conciliating, the Irish. Better far, we think, the plan of Ministers, of listening to the petition of the Catholic prelacy, complying with its prayer-enlarging, in place of withdrawing, the public grant-and steadily supporting it in face of the very unreasonable high-church and sectarian clamour got up against it.

Contrary to the anticipations of these extremes of religionists, our impression is, that a more liberal endowment of Maynooth would tend to convert the Irish nation, to diffuse Protestantism, rather than Catholicism. This is our sincere conviction, and it is this that strongly induces us to support Ministers. According to our reading, we have found Popery allied with poverty, intellectual abasement, idleness, apathy, and vice; in a word, with national degradation. These are the besetting evils in Ireland, and how are such evils to be most effectually combatted? Most assuredly by enlightening the minds, improving the habits, and elevating the character of her accredited models, teachers, and guides. The scale of Maynooth College ought to be expanded in every respect, in its revenues, structure, discipline, and academical institutes. It ought to be made the national university, just as Catholicism

ought to made the national religion. Apparently, this would be encouraging Popery; virtually, it would be encouraging Protestantism, and raising an entire community nearer to the Protestant standard in heart, habits, and mind, through the instrumentality of teachers, formed on a system very different to the present, that of an English charity school.

But the political is the most important aspect of the Maynooth question. For a long period, Ireland has been in a state of civil rebellion, under the sullen guise of passive resistence. This is a condition that it was necessary without delay to grapple with, not only for Ireland's benefit, but England's benefit, and the unity and aggregate strength of the empire. We feel no apprehension of external dangersno fear of President Polk, Monsieur Thiers, or anybody, single or confederated. The power of Britain is quite competent to face these perils, were they far more menacing and momentous. She wields two mighty arms; with one, if need be, she could hold Ireland by the throat; and, with the other, smite to the earth any foreign foe that dared to meddle in our unhappy quarrels.

But though open force may be combatted, it is hard to govern a nation hostile in faith, in heart, and mind. A reign of love is sweeter, easier, more lasting, and profitable than a reign of terror. Beside, it is the era of law and justice, not of despotic forms, and almost everywhere people have ceased to be tyranized over by arbitrary imprisonments, dungeon, and gagging bills. They govern themselves, and rulers can only exercise power through their instrumentality. They form the real executive, legislative, judicial, and municipal authorities of the State; constitute its judges, magistracy, jurors, and constabulary. Without their co-operation the laws cannot be administered, cannot be executed, and, of course, will not be obeyed.

It is hardly choice, therefore, but necessity, that prescribes a conciliatory procedure towards Ireland. It need not, however, be urged-it has begun, and the first fruits are not discouraging. The formidable confederacy of clergy, laity, and physical force united against the English Government, if not English connexion, is already broken. Catholic prelates are no longer hostile, but willing to co-operate for Ireland's weal. Even the lion-agitator (never a real lion though, only the roar of the king of beasts), is settling down, and having his claws pared, if not drawn. The acquiesence the Whigs could only bribe, or compound for, has been won or extorted by a successful union of firmness and favour, aided, doubtless, by circumstances in the natural death or ex