to all the penalties of Catholics. Persons robbed by privateers during a war with a Catholic State are to be indemnified by a levy on the Catholic inhabitants of the neighbourhood. All marriages between Catholics and Protestants are annulled. All Popish priests celebrating them are to be hanged. "This system" (says Arthur Young) "has no other tendency than that of driving out of the kingdom all the personal wealth of the Catholics, and extinguishing their industry within it! and the face of the country, every object which presents itself to travellers, tells him how effectually this has been done.”— Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii. p. 48.

Such is the history of Ireland-for we are now at our own times; and the only remaining question is, whether the system of improvement and conciliation begun in the reign of George III. shall be pursued, and the remaining incapacities of the Catholics removed, or all these concessions be made insignificant by an adherence to that spirit of proscription which they professed to abolish? Looking to the sense and reason of the thing, and to the ordinary working of humanity and justice, when assisted, as they are here, by self-interest and worldly policy, it might seem absurd to doubt of the result. But looking to the facts and the persons by which we are now surrounded, we are constrained to say that we greatly fear that these incapacities never will be removed till they are removed by fear. What else, indeed, can we expect when we see them opposed by such enlightened men as Mr. Peel-faintly assisted by men of such admirable genius as Mr. Canning, when Royal Dukes consider it as a compliment to the memory of their father to continue this miserable system of bigotry and exclusion, when men act ignominiously and contemptibly on this question, who do so on no other question,-when almost the only persons zealously opposed to this general baseness and fatuity are a few Whigs and Reviewers, or here and there a virtuous poet like Mr. Moore? We repeat again, that the measure never will be effected but by fear. In the midst of one of our just and necessary wars, the Irish Catholics will compel this country to grant them a great deal more than they at present require or even contemplate. We regret most severely the protraction of the disease, and the danger of the remedy; but in this way it is that human affairs are carried on!

We are sorry we have nothing for which to praise Administration on the subject of the Catholic question-but it is but justice to say, that they have been very zealous and active in detecting fiscal abuses in Ireland, in improving mercantile regulations, and in detecting Irish jobs. The commission on which Mr. Wallace presided has been of the greatest possible utility, and does infinite credit to the Government. The name of Mr. Wallace, in any commission, has now become a pledge to the public that there is a real intention to investigate and correct abuse. He stands in the singular predicament of being equally trusted by the rulers and the ruled. It is a new era in Government when such men are called into action; and, if there were not proclaimed and fatal limits to that ministerial liberality-which, so far as it goes, we welcome without a grudge and praise without a sneer-we

might yet hope that, for the sake of mere consistency, they might be led to falsify our forebodings. But alas! there are motives more immediate, and therefore irresistible; and the time is not yet come when it will be believed easier to govern Ireland by the love of the many than by the power of the few-when the paltry and dangerous machinery of bigoted faction and prostituted patronage may be dispensed with, and the vessel of the state be propelled by the natural current of popular interests and the breath of popular applause. In the meantime, we cannot resist the temptation of gracing our conclusion with the following beautiful passage, in which the author alludes to the hopes that were raised at another great era of partial concession and liberality— that of the revolution of 1782-when, also, benefits were conferred which proved abortive, because they were incomplete-and balm poured into the wound, where the envenomed shaft was yet left to rankle.

"And here," says the gallant Captain Rock-"as the free confession of weakness constitutes the chief charm and use of biography -I will candidly own that the dawn of prosperity and concord, which I now saw breaking over the fortunes of my country, so dazzled and deceived my youthful eyes, and so unsettled every hereditary notion of what I owed to my name and family, that—shall I confess it—I even hailed with pleasure the prospects of peace and freedom that seemed opening around me; nay, was ready, in the boyish enthusiasm of the moment, to sacrifice all my own personal interest in all future riots and rebellions to the one bright, seducing object of my country's liberty and repose.

"When I contemplated such a man as the venerable Charlemont, whose nobility was to the people like a fort over a valley-elevated above them solely for their defence; who introduced the polish of the courtier into the camp of the freeman, and served his country with all that pure, Platonic devotion which a true knight in the time of chivalry proffered to his mistress ;-when I listened to the eloquence of Grattan, the very music of Freedom-her first, fresh matin song, after a long night of slavery, degradation, and sorrow ;-when I saw the bright offerings which he brought to the shrine of his country-wisdom, genius, courage, and patience, invigorated and embellished by all those social and domestic virtues, without which the loftiest talents stand isolated in the moral waste around them, like the pillars of Palmyra towering in a wilderness !—when I reflected on all this, it not only disheartened me for the mission of discord which I had undertaken, but made me secretly hope that it might be rendered unnecessary; and that a country which could produce such men and achieve such a revolution, might yet-in spite of the joint efforts of the Government and my family-take her rank in the scale of nations, and be happy!

"My father, however, who saw the momentary dazzle by which I was affected, soon drew me out of this false light of hope in which I lay basking, and set the truth before me in a way but too convincing and ominous. Be not deceived, boy,' he would say, 'by the fallacious

appearances before you. Eminently great and good as is the man to whom Ireland owes this short era of glory, our work, believe me, will last longer than his. We have a power on our side that "will not willingly let us die;" and, long after Grattan shall have disappeared from earth-like that arrow shot into the clouds by Alcestes, effecting nothing, but leaving a long train of light behind him-the family of the ROCKS will continue to flourish in all their native glory, upheld by the ever-watchful care of the Legislature, and fostered by that "nursingmother of Liberty," the Church.''

WATERTON'S WANDERINGS.

Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States, and the Antilles, in the Years 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824; with original Instructions for the perfect Preservation of Birds, &c., for Cabinets of Natural History. By CHARLES WATERTON, Esq. London: Mawman. 4to. 1825.

MR

R. WATERTON is a Roman Catholic. gentleman of Yorkshire, of good fortune, who, instead of passing his life at balls and assemblies, has preferred living with Indians and monkeys in the forests of Guiana. He appears in early life to have been seized with an unconquerable aversion to Piccadilly, and to that train of meteorological questions and answers, which forms the great staple of polite English conversation. From a dislike to the regular form of a journal, he throws his travels into detached pieces, which he, rather affectedly, calls Wanderings-and of which we shall proceed to give some

account.

His first Wandering was in the year 1812, through the wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, a part of ci-devant Dutch Guiana, in South America. The sun exhausted him by day, the mosquitoes bit him by night; but on went Mr. Charles Waterton!

The first thing which strikes us in this extraordinary chronicle, is the genuine zeal and inexhaustible delight with which all the barbarous countries he visits are described. He seems to love the forests, the tigers, and the apes ;-to be rejoiced that he is the only man there; that he has left his species far away; and is at last in the midst of his blessed baboons! He writes with a considerable degree of force and vigour; and contrives to infuse into his reader that admiration of the great works, and undisturbed scenes of Nature, which animates his style, and has influenced his life and practice. There is something, too, to be highly respected and praised in the conduct of a country gentleman who, instead of exhausting life in the chase, has dedicated a considerable portion of it to the pursuit of knowledge. There are so

many temptations to complete idleness in the life of a country gentleman, so many examples of it, and so much loss to the community from it, that every exception from the practice is deserving of great praise. Some country gentlemen must remain to do the business of their counties; but, in general, there are many more than are wanted; and, generally speaking also, they are a class who should be stimulated to greater exertions. Sir Joseph Banks, a squire of large fortune in Lincolnshire, might have given up his existence to double-barrelled guns and persecutions of poachers-and all the benefits derived from his wealth, industry, and personal exertion in the cause of science, would have been lost to the community.

Mr. Waterton complains, that the trees of Guiana are not more than six yards in circumference-a magnitude in trees which it is not easy for a Scotch imagination to reach. Among these, pre-eminent in height rises the mora-upon whose top branches, when naked by age, or dried by accident, is perched the toucan, too high for the gun of the fowler ;-around this are the green heart, famous for hardness; the tough hackea; the ducalabali, surpassing mahogany; the ebony and letter-wood, exceeding the most beautfful woods of the Old World; the locust-tree, yielding copal; and the hayawa and olou-trees, furnishing sweet-smelling resin. Upon the top of the mora grows the fig-tree. The bush-rope joins tree and tree, so as to render the forest impervious, as, descending from on high, it takes root as soon as its extremity touches the ground, and appears like shrouds and stays supporting the main-mast of a line-of-battle ship.

Demerara yields to no country in the world in her birds. The mud is flaming with the scarlet curlew. At sunset the pelicans return from the sea to the courada trees. Among the flowers are the hummingbirds. The columbine, gallinaceous, and pesserine tribes people the fruit-trees. At the close of the day, the vampires, or winged bats, suck the blood of the traveller, and cool him by the flap of their wings. Nor has Nature forgotten to amuse herself here in the composition of snakes, the camoudi has been killed from thirty to forty feet long; he does not act by venom, but by size and convolution. The Spaniards affirm that he grows to the length of eighty feet, and that he will swallow a bull; but Spaniards love the superlative. There is a whipsnake of a beautiful green. The labarri snake of a dirty brown, who kills you in a few minutes. Every lovely colour under heaven is lavished upon the counachouchi, the most venomous of reptiles, and known by the name of the bush-master. Man and beast, says Mr. Waterton, fly before him, and allow him to pursue an undisputed path.

We consider the following description of the various sounds in these wild regions, as very striking, and done with very considerable powers of style.

"He whose eye can distinguish the various beauties of uncultivated nature, and whose ear is not shut to the wild sounds in the woods, will be delighted in passing up the river Demerara. Every now and then, the maam or tinamou sends forth one long and plaintive whistle from

the depth of the forest and then stops; whilst the yelping of the toucan, and the shrill voice of the bird called pi-pi-yo, is heard during the interval. The campanero never fails to attract the attention of the passenger; at a distance of nearly three miles you may hear this snow-white bird tolling every four or five minutes, like the distant convent bell. From six to nine in the morning, the forests resound with the mingled cries and strains of the feathered race; after this they gradually die away. From eleven to three all nature is hushed as in a midnight silence, and scarce a note is heard, saving that of the campanero and the pi-pi-yo; it is then that, oppressed by the solar heat, the birds retire to the thickest shade, and wait for the refreshing cool of evening.

66 At sundown the vampires, bats, and goatsuckers, dart from their lonely retreat, and skim along the trees on the river's bank. The different kinds of frogs almost stun the ear with their hoarse and hollow sounding croaking, while the owls and goatsuckers lament and mourn all night long.

"About two hours before daybreak you will hear the red monkey moaning as though in deep distress; the houtou, a solitary bird, and only found in the thickest recesses of the forest, distinctly articulates, 'houtou, houtou,' in a low and plaintive tone, an hour before sunrise; the maam whistles about the same hour; the hannaquoi, pataca, and maroudi announce his near approach to the eastern horizon, and the parrots and parroquets confirm his arrival there.”—(pp. 13—15.)

Our good Quixote of Demerara is a little too fond of apostrophising:"Traveller! dost thou think? Reader, dost thou imagine?" Mr. Waterton should remember, that the whole merit of these violent deviations from common style depends upon their rarity, and that nothing does, for ten pages together, but the indicative mood. This fault gives an air of affectation to the writing of Mr. Waterton, which we believe to be foreign from his character and nature. We do not wish to deprive him of these indulgences altogether; but merely to put him upon an allowance, and upon such an allowance, as will give to these figures of speech the advantage of surprise and relief.

This gentleman's delight and exultation always appear to increase as he loses sight of European inventions, and comes to something purely Indian. Speaking of an Indian tribe, he says,—

"They had only one gun, and it appeared rusty and neglected; but their poisoned weapons were in fine order. Their blow-pipes hung from the roof of the hut, carefully suspended by a silk grass cord; and on taking a nearer view of them, no dust seemed to have collected there, nor had the spider spun the smallest web on them; which showed that they were in constant use. The quivers were close by them, with the jaw-bone of the fish pirai tied by a string to their brim, and a small wicker-basket of wild cotton, which hung down to the centre: they were nearly full of poisoned arrows. It was with difficulty these Indians could be persuaded to part with any of the Wourali poison, though a good price was offered for it: they gave us