which I have, within these five years, visited, I thought it expedient, openly from this place, to state this opinion; hoping that my judgment being founded not upon secret whisperings or private communications, but upon the solemnity of public trials and the authenticity of criminal records, may have some weight towards suggesting the expediency of resorting to other means of tranquillizing Ireland, than those hitherto resorted to banishment, the rope, and the gibbet. These expedients have been repeatedly tried; and have, by the acknowledgment of those who have used them, hitherto proved ineffectual. And here I must intreat, that I may not wilfully be mistaken and purposely misunderstood by any man or class of men. I mean not to question in the slightest degree, the prudence of the Irish government in introducing, or the wisdom of the legisla. ture in enacting, those laws; they may be suitable (for any thing I know to the contrary) to the existing state of things in some of these Counties, where the discharge of my public duty has not yet called me. In others, although it may not be immediately necessary to put them into active operation, the notoriety of their existence in the Statute Book may be a wholesome warning to the turbulent and audacious. But having, in addressing you, taken occasion to give you my opinions upon different subjects (the statement of which, however erroneous those opinions should appear to be, may produce some good, by soliciting the attention of the enlightened men in both countries to the same subjects), I feel myself more especially called upon

by a sense of public duty, to say few words to you upon the scope and objects of these Bills-I say more especially called upon, by reason of those important, though contradictory publications, in the Wexford Journals now laid before me, and to which I have already adverted. Whence that contradiction of sentiment could originate, between persons resident in the same county, and having (one would imagine) equal opportunities of information, it is not for me to conjecture; but its indisputable existence in the months of March and April last (subsequently to your last Assizes), calls upon me briefly to explain to you the purport of those Acts, which some of you may deem it expedient to call into ac tive operation. With one of those Acts you have had a former acquaintance. It is the old Insurrection Act, which, after having perished, is now revived and re-enacted for Ireland. The other is called the Peace Preservation Bill. The Insurrection Act consists, as you all know, of a complete suspension of the English Constitution-of English law-of the Trial by Jury. Under these new laws, taken together, any seven magistrates may meet, and recommend the county or district to be proclaimed by the Lord Lieutenant as being in a state of disturbance. When the Proclamation has once issued, every person must stay at home after a certain hour. You are to have the assistance of a learned Serjeant from town, who may send abroad offenders in a summary way.

Gentlemen, I have seen times, when persons, who thinking the lives named in their tenants' leases were lasting somewhat too long,

have, by the aid of such a law, found means to recommend a trip across the Atlantic, to the persons thus unreasonably attached to life; and thus achieved the downfall of a beneficial lease, and a comfort able rise of their income in consequence. Such things have occur red: I have known the fact.

Gentlemen, I may be told, that the state of the country requires its re-enactment. It may be so I am not in possession of the secrets of the Castle. A desperate state of things calls for desperate remedies.

Gentlemen, the other Act of Parliament is the Peace Preservation Bill. It is a wholesome mode of administering the old powers, already vested by law in the magistrates. Any seven magistrates may recommend the application of this remedy; and either for the county at large, or any particular barony or district in the county. If their recommendation should be acceded to by the Lord Lieutenant, this Bill comes into immediate operation. Now, you are to meeta head magistrate is to be appointed, at a salary of pool. a year; he is also to have a house and offices -his clerk is to get a salary of 150l. a year-the constables are to get sool, a year each ; any seven of your magistrates may get all this done. But listen to one thing more-the disturbed district is to pay the expense of the whole.

Gentlemen, I have trespassed long upon your attention; but I hope, from the tranquil state of your county, that I have not unaptly chosen the present season for making these observations. See the necessity of some public discussion of those subjects, in order to extinguish all exaggeration and

misrepresentation.

I need not

travel far back for a curious instance. I have seen to my surprise, in The Courier newspaper, a story of myself, which has been copied into The Pilot. It is so very short that I shall read it :-" Such is the disturbed state of Ireland, that one of the Judges of Assize, upon the Leinster circuit, Mr. Justice Fletcher, in coming from Kilkenny to Clonmel, was pelted by stones in the town of Callan, and owed his safety to the dragoons that es corted him."

When I reached Waterford, I was still more surprised to see one newspaper lamenting that I had been "shot at," but another protested that it was all a gross falsehood. Now, what was the truth? As I passed through Callan, an escort of a few dragoons attended me. This escort, by the bye, is one of the mischiefs of those alarms, a mischief which never occurs in England. There, the Gentlemen of consideration in the county come out to meet the Judge, with led horses and equipages, and with every suitable mark of respect and attention; not, indeed, paid to the Judge individually, nor desired by him, but an attention and respect due to the law, which the Judge comes to administer. But what was the case in Kilkenny? The High Sheriff not appearing at all, perhaps as a duty beneath him, or for some other reason; the SubSheriff unwilling enough to be burdened with the trouble, and anxious to get rid of us; two or three miserable Bailiffs, mounted upon wretched little horses, brandishing an enormous length of halbert, resembling so many Cossacks in every thing but utility,

2 M 2

and

and attended by an escort of four or five dragoons, (for the Sheriff is not at the expense of paying the dragoons.) Indeed, where needy or penurious High Sheriffs are nominated, and where the office of Sub Sheriff becomes an affair of indirect management, an improper and inefficient attendance upon the Circuit Judges is generally to be expected. However, thus attended, (or rather unattended) we drove through Callan; when a boy, about seven years old, flung a stone idly, either at the SubSheriff, or at the dragoons, or both. This was the entire outrage. I did not hear of it, until long afterwards, when the newspaper paragraphs led me to the inquiry; but my servants are ready to vouch the fact upon oath. This story, with prodigious exaggeration, has been since officiously circulated through out the empire, in order to shew, that this country is in such a state of disturbance, that the going Judge of Assize was pelted with stones, or shot at, and in imminent danger of his life. Can any instance more strongly illustrate the propriety, nay, even the necessity, of a full and unreserved statement of the true and actual condition of Ireland, than the extraordinary currency which this paltry fabrication has received, and the avidity with which it has been magnified into a momentous and alarming event.

Gentlemen, I may, perhaps, be warranted in feeling a personal indignation at the mischievous abuse, of my name, thus attempted, for the purpose of vilifying the country; and, possibly, this impression may have partly led me to enter into the copious details and

observations with which I have this day troubled you.

Gentlemen, if you should feel that any of these observations are founded in truth and reason you will give me, at least, the credit of upright motives for those, from which you may differ. I can have no other motive, indeed, than a hope of doing some public good, by inciting other persons to useful and meritorious actions. Other Judges have very frequently, and with great propriety, charged va rious Grand Juries upon the ge neral state of this country, its disturbances, and the cause of its commotion; and some of them have ascribed those disturbances and commotions to a general spirit of disaffection and sedition. IfI have a very different and far more consolatory view of the same subject, it cannot be improper or un becoming my functions, to take the like opportunity of stating my judicial opinions, of enumerating the several causes, which in my fixed judgment have generated those disturbances, and have retarded peace and prosperity in this country; and distinctly pointing out the remedies and correctives proper for terminating all those mischiefs, and allaying all discon tents. These considerations will, I trust, vindicate as well the mo tives as the propriety of my conduct in this respect, through every scrutiny, and against every cavil.

Gentlemen, you will now retire to your Jury room, and there dispose of such bills, and other offi cial business, as shall come before you. Let all your private affairs, your settlements with tenants, your canvassing of freeholders, and such occupations, be postponed to ano

ther

doctrines of Grace, Faith, Justification, Sanctification, and Predestination go, these several points were called after him Calvinism. He became the great doctor of his age. O le grand homme ! Il n'y a ancien a comparer a lui. Il a si bien intendu l'escriture. Solus Calvinus in Theologicis: exclaims, even Joseph Scaliger.

Whether Calvin was so great or good a man, as it was the fashion of the times to consider him, making no part of our inquiry, it is not necessary to deliver an ex

CAMBRIDGE.

doctrines maintained by him were those taught in England as the

University.

This, perhaps, might be the place for considering theological literature: but, however interesting, it would introduce more controversy, and must be more multifarious than suits our brevity: besides, theological matters will be occasionally interspersed throughout this history, and in some measure, have been anticipated already; the less, therefore, need be introduced here; the leading theological doctrines, on which the Reformation of the sixteenth century turned, being the same as those taught by Wickliffe, in the fourteenth. These doctrines being those afterwards maintained by Calvin, in his Institutions, concerning the knowledge of God the Creator," and "the knowledge of God the Redeemer," have been since called Calvinistic. For though Calvin's Institutions contains but little new, yet, being a judicious compilation of St. Augustine's works, so far as the

and, of course, were the theological doctrines of the University of Cambridge.

The Reformed, at first, or the pretended reformed, as the French Catholics used to call them, almost all favoured the doctrines of Calvin, and prided themselves in having as good a uniformity as the Church of Rome itself, that had taunted them with having no regular, uniform belief. They accordingly published a Concord of Faith, a Corpus Confessionum : these being all Calvinistic, and the confession of the Church of England being one among them, it follows, that the Church of England was, at the time, Calvinistic. To this may be added, what Mr. Collins says, and with truth, in a "that discourse of freethinking, our priests, for many years after the Reformation, were generally Calvinists or Predestinarians, is evident from the Bibles printed in queen Elizabeth's time, to which are often added an apology for predestination, answering the com

mon

science in Russia would have been to have sent young Russians who had distinguished themselves in the ordinary schools to some good seminary in Germany, and thence to an university where they might have prepared themselves for their destined career. Such persons as these, at their return, would certainly have furnished the best teachers for the institutions for the promotion of learning.

At present, on the contrary, the whole course of instruction from the normal schools upwards is radically faulty, because the encyclopedian method of teaching so prevalent in Germany has been introduced; by which method the pupil learns a little of every thing but nothing thoroughly, and at most acquires an historical notion of each science, which in the end proves of no further use to him, and which he very soon forgets. As long as the sciences have been cultivated in Russia, the mathematical have been considered as best adapted to the diffusion of knowledge in the country; but it was long since justly remarked by Schlözer, that no nation in the world was ever yet rescued from barbarism by the mathematics. Nature changes not her course; and it is by the arts and sciences, by the belles lettres and poetry, that the Greeks and Romans, the Italians, French, English, and Germans attained to so high a degree of civilization.

Another almost insurmountable obstacle which will long prevent Russia from making any progress in the sciences, lies in the political constitution. As there is no middle class in this country, the whole nation is divided into two parts, inasters and slaves ; and at present

in another way, into persons who are in the service of the state and such as are not. To the latter belong the vassals and tradesmen, who have neither inclination nor opportunity to cultivate their minds. The others are much too anxious to obtain honours and titles, which the service alone confers, to devote much time to the sciences. Every one strives at as early an age as possible to procure an appointment under the crown, for which he needs nothing but a good re commendation, and an acquaint ance with the Russian style of bu siness and the laws of the country. He has no encouragement to study the sciences, of which he knows nothing, and for which he thinks that he has no occasion. Till, then, a middle class of citizens shall arise in Russia no real diffusion of knowledge can be reasonably expected.

ACCOUNT OF TSCHERKASSE, AND

THE DON COSSACKS.

From the Same.

Tscherkassk, the capital of the Don Cossacks, is seated on the right shore of the Don, upon an island formed by the Akssai branch. We arrived at this place towards evening of the 1st of November, and took up our quarters in a roomy wooden house, the owner of which behaved with great civility. Since our departure from St. Peters. burgh we had travelled 1947 wersts or 257 German miles. Tscher kassk differs from all other towns in the mode of building; for, on account of the annual inundations, which commonly last from April to June, most of the houses of the town are erected upon high poles,