are, those, in which the fish deposit their spawn, and that during the whole close-time or breeding season, when the salmon, by law, ought to be undisturbed, their safety, and that of the shoals which are to supply the demand of the next season, must rely upon the protec tion afforded them at that period. Accordingly, all nets and other obstructions are removed from the river, and the fish ought to be permitted to ascend to the very heads of the streams uninjured, for the purpose of depositing the spawn. The plain handwriting of Nature, as well as the regulation of municipal law, seems to prohibit the killing of the fish at this season, when they are said to be foul, are most uncomely to look upon, and even when smoked (the only mode of using them) are accounted a very unhealthy and deleterious food. The penalties are also very high, sufficiently so to prove totally ruinous to the class of persons by whom the laws of close-time are infringed. Yet neither the fears of punishment nor of poison have any effect in preserving the spawning fish, which are destroyed in the upper parts of the river, and the brooks and streams by which these are fed, with a degree of eagerness which resembles a desire to retaliate upon those who engrossed all the fish during the open season by destroying all such as the closes time throws within the mercy of the high country. The propries tors and better class of farmers do not indeed partake in these devastations, but they witness them with perfect indifference, perhaps not without a sense of gratified revenge. As they neither have the amusement of angling, nor the convenience of a fish for their tables, when the salmon are in season, it is not of the least personal consequence to them whether the breed is preserved or destroyed, and they are as indifferent to it as a man who has no game of his own, is to the extent of poaching on a sporting squire's manor.1 The proprietors of the lower fisheries, the only persons whose purses are interested, may, indeed, prosecute offenders in the proper courts; but the country in which the spear and torch are so actively employed during the black-fishing, as this species of poaching is called, is wild, mountainous, and thinly inhabited, so that it is difficult to obtain such proof of delinquency as is requi site for conviction. If water-bailiffs are sent from a lower part of the river, they must encounter, as strangers employed in an ob noxious office, much difficulty and even danger. If they desire to engage officers within the district for this species of preventive service, the office will not be accepted by any with the purpose of discharging its duties with the necessary activity, in a case where the whole peasants of the country make common cause, and where the gentry are totally indifferent. It is only by enlisting these last in the cause, that a predominant authority, constantly exerted, might probably lessen this great evil. For two or three years after the last Tweed act was passed, we believe the laws were better better kept both at the mouth of the river and in the upper country. But at present the destruction of the spawning fish is universal, and joined to the engrossing activity with which the fish are prevented from ascending in the lawful season, must necessarily compel the salmon to leave the river; for even the strong instinct which induces the salmon to return to the stream in which it was bred, will give way under such unremitting persecution as the river at present undergoes-while, to use a vulgar but expressive phrase, the two classes of persons inhabiting the upper and lower banks are burning the candle at both ends.' Neither do the upper and lower heritors, as they are called in Scotland, play for equal stakes. It is true the occupation of Halieus and his philosophical companions are nigh lost in the upper districts. But the loss is that of sport merely; whereas that which may be suffered at the mouth of the river shall affect patrimonial interest, to the extent of several thousands a year. The most probable mode of redeeming these fisheries from almost sure ruin would, perhaps, be a compromise, by which the upper heritors should be admitted to share such a portion of the fish for their sport and their table as they formerly enjoyed-they, on the other hand, exerting themselves, as they have the means of doing, to prevent or punish those who transgress during closetime. But we have no expectation of such an agreement. If, for example, it were proposed to afford a free use of twenty-four hours per week in addition to those already conceded between Saturday and Sunday night, it would probably be difficult to induce the inferior proprietors to sacrifice one-sixth part of their immediate weekly gains even for the probability of securing from destruction the fishery out of which these gains arise. Or, indeed, if the proprietors of the lower fisheries took a more expanded view of their own interests, and judged it worth while to make a partial sacrifice to preserve the whole, it might still be found difficult or impossible to reconcile their tenants, whose interest is of a temporary character, to submission to a loss which should affect their profit immediately, in order to secure the prosperity of the fisheries at a period when they might be let to other persons. We are happy, therefore, that a sport which we have admired is recorded in Salmonia-where the descendants of those who have witnessed or shared it will read of it with the same feelings wherewith the present generation peruse accounts of the chase of red or fallow deer, wild boars, or wild cattle All once our own,' I We must now conclude with the parting address of the Cory phæus of Salmonia to his party, p. 270. I have made you idlers at home and abroad, but I hope to some purpose; and I trust you will confess the time bestowed upon angling has has not been thrown away. The most important principle perhaps in life is to have a pursuit a useful one if possible, and at all events an innocent one. And the scenes you have enjoyed the contemplations to which they have led, and the exercise in which, we have indulged, have, I am sure, been very salutary to the body, and, I hope, to the mind. I have always found a peculiar effect from this kind of life; it has appeared to bring me back to early times and feelings, and to create again the hopes and happiness of youthful days.' R. Southey. ART. X.-1. A Letter to an English Ldyman on the Coronation Oath, &c., and the Present Claims of the Roman Catholics in Ireland. By the Rev. Henry Phillpotts, D.D., Rector of Stanhope. London. 1828. 2. The Coronation Oath, considered with Reference to the Principles of the Revolution of 1688. By Charles Thomas Lane, Esq., of the Inner Temple. London. 1828. 3. The History of the Policy of the Church of Rome, in Ireland, from the Introduction of the English Dynasty to the Great Rebellion. By William Phelan, D.D. Dublin. 1827. 4. Substance of Two Speeches, delivered in the House of Commons on May 10th, 1825, and May 9th, 1828. By Sir Robert Harry Inglis, Bart. London. 1828. 5. Letters to a Friend on the State of Ireland, the Roman Catholic Question, and the Merits of Constitutional Religious Distinctions. By E. A. Kendall, Esq., F.S.A. Dublin. 1828. 6. Letters to His Majesty King George the Fourth. By Captain Rock. London. 1828. 12mo. 7. Captain Rock Detected; or, the Origin and Character of the recent Disturbances; and the Causes, both Moral and Political, of the present alarming Condition of the South and West of Ireland, fully and fairly considered and exposed. By a Munster Farmer. London. 1825. 12mo. 8. Protestant Principles: exemplified in the Parliamentary Ora tions of Royal Dukes, Right Rev. Prelates, Noble Peers, and Illustrious Commoners; with the Constitutional Declarations of Irish Protestants, against the Roman Catholic Claims. To which is prefixed an Address to the Protestants of Great Britain and Ireland. London. 1827. 1 ththa is author, oncerning state of N that dialogue concerning the state of Ireland, which shows political sagacity than with poetical genius, one of the interlo cutors notices, as prevalent in those days, an unhappy opinion that through the fatal destiny of that land, no purposes whatsoever which are meant for her good, will prosper, or take good effect; 'which, " 'which,' saith the speaker, whether its proceeds from the very genius of the soil, or influence of the stars on that Almighty God hath not yet appointed the time of her reformation; or that he reserveth her in this unquiet state still, for some secret scourge, which shall by her come unto England, it is hard to be known, but yet much to be feared.' This melancholy opinion, which, while it prevailed, was likely to paralyse good intentions, and prevent good purposes, has been disproved by time; insomuch that if we looked for examples of the great benefit which wise measures may produce, even when undertaken under circumstances the most unfavourable, they might be found in the history of Ireland. The plantation of Ulster may be instanced in proof of this; because a race of colonists were settled there who had been educated in the Protestant faith, and accustomed to obey the laws, or at least to acknowledge their authority-the condition, moral and physical, of the inhabitants is so much better there than in any other part of Ireland, that it has not been found necessary to enforce the Insurrection Act in any of the counties then planted there by James I. It is an Irish author who says, that for its superior civilization, the comfortable circumstances of the peasantry, and what he calls the moral more than the legal policy of the province, Ulster has more the aspect of an English than of an Irish county.'. The introduction of the linen manufactory is another instance, the staple trade of Ireland, and that to which, in those parts where Ireland may be called prosperous, it owes most of its prosperity! Two facts relating to that manufactory are worthy of special remembrance : Strafford, who introduced it, and expended upon the experiment no less a sum than thirty thousand pounds of his own fortune, was rewarded by hearing the measures, which he had taken in furtherance of this most useful design, charged against him' as grievances by the Papists and Puritans of the Irish parliament, who conspired against his life. The other noticeable circumstance is, that Ireland, upon which the Romish religion has brought, and is bringing, so many and such tremendous evils, has, in the single case of this its staple trade, incidentally derived great t:benefit from it: the perfection of that manufacture was brought about by the revocation of the edict of Nantes; goternment having aided with adequate funds, for carrying it on, a Huguenot, whose family had been, for many generations, linenmanufacturers at St. Quintins. The church of Ireland affords a third example :When Laud and Strafford undertook to reform, almost indeed to re-edify that church, it was said, by an Irishman, that the king's priests were as bad as those of the pope. They were described as an unlearned clergy, which had not so much as the outward form of churchmen to cover themselves with, nor their persons 3 persons anyways reverenced or protected. The church had been so impiously preyed upon by persons of all sorts, that its ministers were reduced to suchoutter poverty and contempt, assis (said Strafford)a most lamentable and scandalous thing to see it among Christian commonwealths. From this state they were raised, when Charles II. (it is one of the few redeeming acts of his reign) carried into effect his father's intentions, and restored that church property which the crown had appropriated. From that time, the church of Ireland has held its becoming rank among the Protestant churches its clergy have become not merely respectable and respected, but eminently useful, supplying, as far as in them lay, by their presence, and, to the extent of their means, by their beneficence also, the want of a resident gentry: so that, at this time, when their Establishment is attacked more violently and - more virulently than it has ever been since the great rebellionthey may rest with confidence upon their own deserts, as well as upon the strength and justice of their cause. Here, then, are -three measures which, counteracted though they have been by the evil stars of what hitherto may too truly be called an ill-fated land, nevertheless have prospered to the full scope of the expectations wherewith they were undertaken. A fourth we have recently seen in the Tithe Commutation Bill, a measure in which greater political sagacity and ability were manifested than in any other of our times: for it was steadily pursued by the statesman that brought it forward, with little encouragement from those with whom he acted; and against much opposition, as well from those who deprecated it, because, in their opinion, it did too much, as from those who condemned it for attempting too little. The bill, how-ever, was carried through with excellent judgment, and it has already worked so well that it is in a fair way of putting an end to that particular cause of complaint, which, in all latter presentments of the grievances of Ireland, had been made to hold the most prominent place. 2nd 10026 boniqeden ofr But the wisest statesman by whom that country was ever goyerned has observed, that ' a hard task it is to do good for them who are obstinately set to do ill for themselves. If it has been shown by experience that well-considered purposes for the good of Ireland will prosper there and take good effect; and that neither the genius of the soil, nor influence of the stars, have prevented the good-seed, which has been sown there, from bringing forth abundant fruit, on the other hand, the seeds of evil have been so profusely scattered, the ground is so well prepared for them, and the crop has been so carefully nurtured through all the stages of its growth and progress, that one of the ablest and wisest of those men who have written with reference to the existing position of 1 |