in the aggregate, was not too large, and that all its assumed excess would vanish on a better distribution.

But, to suit his present purpose· which was nothing more or less than just to satisfy his Irish allies -- his lordship now tells us, that each benefice must stand on its own merits; or, in other words, that those which have too much must be diminished, while those which have too little must not be increased the reciprocity, as it is an Irish question, being "all on one side."

Consider for a moment, then, whether this principle can be established in Ireland without being instantly adduced, and with powerful effect, in England also. We have in England many anomalies, which every true friend of the church would rejoice to see removed. We have some benefices with but trifling duties, and revenues of 1000l. or 2000l. a-year; and we have many others, with great and overwhelming demands on the time and exertions of the incumbent, while their incomes are miserably scanty and insufficient. On the whole, to use Lord John's own argument, the revenues of the Church, in the aggregate, are certainly not more than sufficient; and all that is needed is a better distribution.

But once establish the principle of the "appropriation clause" in Ireland, and how long will it be before its application to England also is found out? Decide that the large livings with small duty in Ireland are to be diminished in emolument, while the small livings with large duty are not to be increased, and can any one imagine that an equally beautiful scheme will not be concocted, before three years are over, for England also?

There are, doubtless, in England, as well as in Ireland, benefices which, taken by themselves, would shew an unquestionable "surplus." Often the most populous parish is, for that very reason, the least lucrative. Nay, we have known it actually to occur, that in a parish which was formerly of comfortable income and small labour, the rapid spread of buildings and vast increase of population has operated, by driving agriculture away, to reduce the income of the rector to a mere trifle, while it augmented his labours at least twenty-fold. And we doubt not that the converse would be found

good one, because the population is small, and the land wholly employed in agriculture.

Adopt, then, Lord John Russell's principle, and we shall immediately be told that there are parishes here and parishes there, with large revenues and scarcely any parishioners. And when we meet this with the common-sense reply that there are many more which have large duties and scarcely any incomes, and that we are ready to go into the question of a better distribution, we shall be reminded of the case of Ireland, and told that it would be absurd to apply the income of an agricultural parish in Cumberland to augment the too narrow revenues of a manufacturing curacy in Yorkshire; but that "each tub must stand on its own bottom;"-in other words, that those who lacked might continue to lack; but that those which had a "surplus' must give up that surplus to a fund for education," or some other stalkinghorse invented for the occasion.

But we need not pursue the subject any further. There is no doubt that, could the scheme succeed in Ireland, it would quickly succeed in England also. But it can never be tolerated in either. The whole is a system of cheating and knavery; and the more it is scrutinized the more gross and intolerable will its attempted delusions appear. Mean

while, be it thoroughly understood, that to a sober consideration of the question of distribution, we, as Conservatives, are not at all opposed; that, without advocating any theoretic scheme of equalization, we should be glad to see, both in Ireland and England, the poorer benefices enlarged, and, where practicable, by means derived from the richer ones. But to any such one-sided and hypocritical proposal as the "appropriation clause," by which the pauper curacies were to be left as they were, and the wealthy rectories confiscated to a nonecclesiastical use, we declare, in the name of the honest and clear-sighted people of England, unrelenting and unchangeable warfare.

"Well," said a Whig, one day, "but some of you go further, and tell us that there will be no surplus at all: now, if you are perfectly convinced that this will be the case, I cannot understand why you should make such a fuss about the matter. Upon this hypothesis, the bill will do you no harm; why, atlet is moss onietly ?”

"Because," said his Conservative friend, "it involves a principle fraught with every possible evil. If you find your neighbour's hand in your breeches' pocket, you do not stop to think whe

ther or not he is likely to find any thing there; but you tell him, without arn instant's hesitation, Take your hand out, sir! take it out, sir! this instant, sir! or !'"

In the days of our ancestors, superannuated spinsters, effete matrons, and wives at last hopeless of offspring, were wont to subside into tolerably harmless, and, not unfrequently, useful members of society. The maidens might be, peradventure, soured by their disappointment-addicted generally to envy and uncharitableness too little indulgent to the passionate devotion of the young girl for her lover -unjust in their appreciation of the finer and nobler qualities of the other sex-but let us honestly declare (and the experience of every man will furnish him with an example from the precincts of the paternal hearth), this lay only as an incrustation, which Time had wrought upon the surface; beneath, there was an infinite fund of loving-kindness, which was ever and ever drawn upon for the benefit of those who needed care, or solace, or support the young, the afflicted, the poor. But the utility of the elderly matron was alloyed by no shew of repining at her lot. Her duties in one capacity having been discharged, other duties befitting her time of life, and equally honourable, claimed her care; she became naturally the instructor and guardian of her children, or grandchildren, or nearest of kin - of the representatives in the world, now and long after she may have sunk to her peaceful grave, of those upon whom the dearest and most fervent affections of her heart had been bestowed. Contrariwise, however, in these days of spurious ambition, kind maiden-aunts and good grandmammas are quite out of fashion; the quiet of a home, the unostentatious performance of kindly works, the deep regret of the family circle over the gentle and beloved dame seasonably gathered to her rest, are rarely regarded as adequate re

wards for the toils of Life's evening and night, and too often are despised altogether. We have of late many instances in which the spinster, desperate of matrimony, and the matron or widow, whose day of fruitfulness is gone by, would seem to consider herself unsexed, and thereby qualified to enter upon a new and peculiar career. Safe against the blandishments of woman, the violence of man; secure against

"the heartach,

And all the natural shocks the flesh is heir to;"

so far as passion is concerned, they would seem to think, in defiance of the allegory, that albeit having of old made choice of the favours of Venus, they have now attained the protection and inspiration of the goddess of Wisdom, and that the gifts of Juno must naturally follow: they accordingly assume forthwith all the oracular importance of a Tiresias. In common with all forms of intellectual inquietude, this is displayed after many fashions; but, certainly, its most offensive form is in book-making and travelmongering. The trunk of the effete fig-tree that will not condescend to be a bench, can hardly, if it be capable of taking another form, escape that of an obscene deity.

Certainly it is abundantly ludicrous to see an old woman denying to her age its needful rest, and trotting about the world with a note-book in her hand, and presuming to treat of matters wherewith sex, habits, education, power, and grasp of intellect, alike forbid the possibility of her being wellacquainted. But, in my mind, the very worst specimen of this class of old women-errant is she who rejoices in the appropriate name of Frances Trollope. We used to think Lady

Morgan bad enough, but she is really quite charming in comparison with Mrs. Trollope. Her ladyship's faults were those of ignorance and vulgarity; but then, decidedly, she was clever, smart, and quick-sighted to a degree, with an exquisite sense of the ridiculous, and a relish and love for fun. The humorous spirit of the old play-actor, Owenson, was strong within her; and her books of travels were always amusing for when you could not laugh with her, you were sure to laugh at her. We think, however, she mistook her path in literature. We know nobody who ought to be able to write so good an Irish farce: we wish (if she have not played out her part in this phantasmal scene) that she would try her hand at one-perhaps it is not yet too late. With respect to Mrs. Trollope, however, she is as vulgar- we should say, more vulgar, than miladi, but that we hold that in vulgarity there are no degrees; and she is more ignorant; she is quite as vain, quite as presumptuous, quite as affected; she determines every thing, from a political constitution to the cut of a petticoat, from the character of a warrior and a statesman to that of some play-acting buffoon, from the genius of a poet down to the talent of some doctrinaire scribbler, with the same desperate hardihood born of vanity and ignorance. But of Lady Morgan's better qualities she has few, and these in a low degree. She flounders sadly in her attempts at smartness and wit; her gaiety is not natural; it appears the result of painful and unseemly effort; it reminds you always of a Dutch-built old woman, with her wrinkles caulked with carmine, trying to skip about and giggle like a girl. Her humour is cumbrous, and not of a right breed. She is grossly partial, and very unprecise in her statements of facts. Her estimate of character, whether in reference to multitudes or individuals, is invariably absurd, unjust, or wilfully unfair. She evidently writes always not from a love of truth, nor even a love of writing, but to answer some purpose of her own-to gratify malice or promote her private interest. She was first brought into notice by a book about America, at which the British public, in despite of their better feel

ings, were something amused, because it pandered to some unworthy prejudices which we cannot as yet quite help entertaining towards our transatlantic brethren. It was overmuch belauded by some people, yet surely nothing could be more manifestly unjust than her strictures upon the Ame ricans generally-nothing more audacious than her pretending to draw general conclusions from the experience she enjoyed, and the opportunities that were afforded to her. Although she travelled in company with an individual, whose opinions and conduct ought to have excluded her from all decent society-although she travelled in the least civilised parts of a newly populated country, she pronounced opinions upon American society, and America generally, with astounding confidence. An American traveller who landed in the Hebrides, and journeyed as far forth as Aberdeen, might just as honestly have written about England and English society. It was impossible, however, not to laugh at some of the scenes she described; not that she shewed any ability in depicting them, but because they were new, and in themselves intrinsically amusing, as exhibiting traits of semicivilisation. But stories touching them lay all about her; and no man can dine in company with a good-humoured and pleasant Yankee, without hearing ten times better stories than any she has told. Materials, too, of pleasantry, such as she has imported from over-sea, lie here at home, ready to the hand of the writer of ability. Witness the several interesting tales that Galt has founded upon the peculiarities of disposition and manners of certain of our own fellowsubjects, that dwell within a couple of days' journey of the metropolis.

Mrs. Trollope, we believe, has done other things besides travels " to order," as the tradesman's phrase runs, for the booksellers; but if these had their hour, it was very noiselessly: and they now repose, as an Homeric pleonast might say, "mute in silence" on the shelves of the circulating library. Her last work, however, like unto the first with which we are acquainted, is a Book concerning Men and Manners: it is entitled Paris and the Parisians in 1835. That it was written "to order,"

and for an especial purpose, we have little doubt; that it was represented by herself, and expected by certain others, to produce "a sensation" in England, and to operate upon public opinion, we have just as little doubt. That this might be well suspected, she is evidently aware; that people must be astonished at the statements she makes, the opinions she professes, the conclusions at which she arrives, she knew right well: but she was prepared for it-most probably provided, beforehand, with satisfactory consolation for it-and so she is determined to put a brazen face on the matter. Here is her explanation in her preface; we shall quote it entire, and give her the full benefit of it:

"From the very beginning of reading and writing-nay, doubtless from the very beginning of speaking-Truth, immortal Truth, has been the object of ostensible worship to all who read and to all who listen; and, in the abstract, it is unquestionably held in high veneration by all yet in the detail of everyday practice: the majority of mankind often hate it, and are seen to bear pain, disappointment, and sorrow, more patiently than its honoured voice, when it echoes not their own opinion.

"Preconceived notions generally take a much firmer hold of the mind than can be obtained by any statement, however clear and plain, which tends to overthrow them; and if it happen that these are connected with an honest intention of being right, they are often mistaken for principles: in which case, the attempt to shake them is considered not merely as a folly, but a sin.

"With this conviction strongly impressed upon my mind, it requires some moral courage to publish these volumes; for they are written in conformity to the opinions of perhaps none; and, worse still, there is that in them which may be considered as contradictory to my own. Had I, before my late visit to Paris, written a book for the purpose of advo cating the opinions I entertained on the state of the country, it certainly would have been composed in a spirit by no means according in all points with that manifested in the following pages; but while profiting by every occasion which permitted me, to mix with distinguished people of all parties, I learned much of which I was (in common, I suspect, with many others) very profoundly ignorant. Í found good where I looked

for mischief, strength where I anticipated weakness, and the watchful wisdom of cautious legislators most usefully at work for the welfare of their country, instead of the crude vagaries of a revolutionary government, acting only in leading blindfold the deluded populace who trusted to them.

"The result of this was, first, a wavering, and then a change of opinion, not as to the immutable laws which should regulate hereditary succession, or the regret that it should ever have been deemed expedient to violate them, but as to the wisest way in which the French nation, situated as it actually is, can be governed; so as best to repair the grievous injuries left by former convulsions, and most effectually to guard against a recurrence of them in future.

"That the present policy of France keeps these objects steadily in view, and that much wisdom and courage are at work to advance them, cannot be doubted; and those most anxious to advocate the sacred cause of well-ordered authority amongst all the nations of the earth, should be the first to bear testimony to this truth."

Now, in the first instance, to appreciate Mrs. Trollope's sincerity, we should, after reading this, like to know how many months, weeks, or days, she lived in Paris; and this determiued, be the time long or short, certainly in perusing her volumes we are warned by her own statement to remark, and consider curiously, by what process it was her old convictions became first disturbed, and finally overthrown; and upon what materials, as a foundation, she has erected the superstructure of her new opinions. Unless we can see good reason for the change, we shall be compelled to conclude that an intellectual miracle has been performed upon her, through the agency of that respectable Saint, Louis Philippe; who, notwithstanding her magniloquent kindness, in our poor opinion stands a most excellent chance of being converted into a martyr. ̓Αχλὺν δ ̓ αὖ τοι ἀπ ὀφθαλμῶν ἔλον η πρίν

επήεν,

form of breathing human flesh. There are, we fancy, just a sufficient number of exceptions, in the persons of antiquated Carlists, to approve the general rule. Mrs. Trollope has chosen to put her work into the form of letters, as did Miss Helen Maria Williams in the bygone days of the great revolution. We suppose it must have been in deference to this patroness of Colonel Egalité that the choice was made, because otherwise a form less inviting or expedient could not have been taken the fact of writing to publish destroys the very essence of a letter. Farewell, then, to the freedom, the ease, the unreservedness, which characterise the communication of the friend abroad to the one, or to the few, he loves at home! The style is sure to be slip-shod, at one time, from an affectation of ease; bombastic, at another, from an affectation of earnestness, excitement, enthusiasm. It can never be natural. Besides, now-a-days, public letter-writing from Paris is a very common-place occupation; it brings one into comparison, if it reduce you not to the category of, the ordinary newspaper correspondent : and, sooth to say, Mrs. Trollope's effusions, though poured forth at a burst, can claim no superiority over the dribblings of O. P.Q., or any other lettered contributor to the journals. The choice of topics is pretty much the same, and these are the things that excite "the sensation" of the hour: abuse of some, puffing of others, scandal of people whom the world happens to know, reviews of soldiers and of books, theatres, exhibitions, public places, pageants, &c. ; all such matters as continuously set, or rather keep the Parisian multitude of systematic idlers agape. With the exception of certain speculations, moral, political, literary, and philosophical, the waifs and strays of Parisian society, to be picked up by every sojourner, and which are too old and musty to suit the purposes of the diurnal scribbler, there is no difference between him and Mrs. Trollope, save that he or she may peradventure be of a sex, and breathes forth unostentatiously each day that which Mrs. Trollope, after the labour of months, pencil in hand, obliges the town withal in one grand report. We have accordingly done Miss Williams injustice, albeit she did

paring her work with the volumes before us. She wrote at a time of great events, when the throes of Paris shook all Europe. She wrote concerning matters still involved in doubt, and still invested with a terrific interest. Her opinions were erroneous, but they were perfectly sincere; she had means of acquainting herself with the facts of which she wrote; she was on terms of familiar intercourse with the leaders of that party whose principles she shared and whose cause she advocated. Mrs. Trollope does not venture even to insinuate that she is intimate either with the son of Egalité or the chiefs of the party that support him; nor, it is clear, had she any other of the advantages above enumerated. She came to Paris simply and solely to make a book, and to make the most of it; and, as we have already hinted, doubtless she had good reasons for the way in which she made it. No! but there are a couple of volumes of Letters on Paris, to which hers bear a strong resemblance. They were published some thirty years ago, and were the work of a hack littérateur, an essayist, playwright, political spy, &c., called Kotzebue. It appears, that whenever he buried a wife (there are two cases recorded against him) he betook himself to the French capital and made a book, which he published in the form of letters addressed to a fair friend. We have now before us a translation of his work of 1803, which is adorned by a singularly amusing gloss. Poverty suggesting a labour which might be productive, although ungenial, or the despotism of an imperious bibliopole, compelled some patriotic Parisian to translate the German's letters into choice French but mark his vengeance! Whenever he discovered Kotzebue in any statement which he conceived to be erroneous or untrue- - whenever, in short, he differed in opinion with his author, he took the opportunity of writing a note upon the subject; and in this he never failed to attribute to him some base motive, and to inveigh against him in terms of personal abuse at once grotesque and gross. Would it not, in these days of literary industry, be a speculation worthy the enterprise of some Knight of the Pen in la Jeune France, to get up a translation of Mrs. Trollope's work with such like ap

3 We commend