titled "Tubber Derg, or the Red Well." This story possesses the strong recommendation of being founded upon facts.

Owen M'Carthy was an Irish farmer, who having derived his descent from a long line of ancestry, had principles and feelings which gave to his character and conduct an elevation that distinguished him from all those of his neighbours who possessed an equal rank with him. He was remarkable for industry and probity, and was always looked up to as one ever disposed to sympathize with and succour the poor. His life, therefore, was useful in the fullest sense of the word. He had no real property, but rented a small farm, which, as is usual in Ireland, was held under a high rent. Up to the year when peace commenced, 1814, McCarthy was a punctilious rent payer; but very soon afterwards he was unable to continue so, and by degrees his condition became worse. In fact, he fell a victim to that general embarrassment into which the agricultural interests had rapidly sunk after 1814. At last he was laid low on the bed of sickness and poverty, his mind and body shattered at once. Still the half yearly gale of rent was exacted with scrupulous severity, even at a time when the poor farmer was scarcely able to maintain his family. Wasted in energy, reduced to penury, himself, his wife and children destitute of the means of support, his farm neglected, his house going to ruin, where was the unhappy man to direct himself? The author, after contemplating the scene of wretchedness, thus breaks out:

Ye vile and heartless landlords, who see not, hear not, know not those to whose heart-breaking toil ye owe the only merit ye possess― that of rank in society-come and contemplate this virtuous man, as unfriended, unassisted, and uncheered by those who are bound by a strong moral duty to protect and aid him, he looks shuddering into the dark cheerless future! Is it to be wondered at that he, and such as he, should, in the misery of his despair, join the nightly meetings, be lured to associate himself with the incendiary, or seduced to grasp, in the stupid apathy of wretchedness, the weapon of the murderer? By neglecting the people, by draining them, with merciless rapacity, of the means of life; by goading them on under a cruel system of rack rents, ye become not their natural benefactors, but curses and scourges, nearly as much in reality as ye are in their opinion."—p. 365.

The project crossed M'Carthy's mind of proceeding to Dublin, seeking an interview with his landlord, and laying his case before him. He parted from his family in an agony of grief, and went on his weary road. Arriving at the residence of his landlord, McCarthy, poorly clothed, was refused admittance by the pampered menial who opened the door; he pressed his suit, but the servant, in rejecting his advances, pushed him from the door so violently, that the poor tenant came with his head against the ground. The accident proved serious; M'Carthy was brought into the hall, where he afterwards had an interview with the landlord. The

dialogue which ensued between them is too characteristic to be omitted:

"Who are you, my good man?' said Mr. S.

"Owen looked about him rather vacantly, but soon collected himself, and replied, in a mournful and touching tone of voice- I am one of your honour's tenants, from Tubber Derg; my name is Owen M'Carthy, your honour-that is, if you be Mr.

And pray what brought you to town, M'Carthy?'

"I wanted to make an humble appale to your honour's feelins, in regard to my bit of farm. I and my poor family your honour, have been broken down by hard times and the sickness of the sason.-God knows how they are.'

"If you wish to speak to me about that, my good man, you must know I refer all these matters to my Agent-go to him; he knows them best; and whatever is right and proper to be done for you, he will do it. Sinclair, give him a crown, and send him to the Dispensary to get his head dressed. I say, Carthy, go to my Agent; he knows whether your claim is just or not, and will attend to it accordingly.'

"Plase your honour, I've been wid him, and he says he can do nothin' whatsoaver for me. I went two or three times, and couldn't see him, he was so busy; and when I did get a word or two wid him, he tould me there was more offered for my land than I'm payin': and that, if I did not pay up, I must be put out-God help me!'

"But I tell you, Carthy, I never interfere between him and my tenants.'

"Och, indeed, and it would be well both for your honour's tinants and yourself, if you did, Sir. Your honour ought to know, Sir, more about us, and how we're thrated. I'm an honest man, Sir, and I tell you so for your good.'

"And pray, Sir,' said the Agent, stepping forwards, for he had arrived a few minutes before, and heard the last observation of M'Carthy-' pray, how are they treated, you that know so well, and are so honest a man?— As for honesty, you might have referred to me for that, I think,' he added.

'' Mr. M- -,' said Owen, we're thrated very badly. Sir, you needn't look at me, for I'm not afeerd to spake the truth; no bullyin', Sir, will make me say any thing in your favour that you don't desarve. You've broken the half of them by severity: you've turned the tenants against yourself and his honour here; and I tell you now, though you're to the fore, that, in the course of a short time, there'ill be bad work upon the estate, except his honour here, looks into his own affairs, and hears the complaints of the people; look at these resates, yer honour, they'll show you, Sir-.

"Carthy, I can hear no such language against the gentleman to whom I entrust the management of my property; of course I refer the matter solely to him-I can do nothing in it.'

"Kathleen, avourneen!' exclaimed the poor man, as he looked up despairingly to heaven- and ye, poor darlins of my heart! Is this the news I'm to have for yees whin I go home? As you hope for mercy, Sir, don't turn away your ear from my petition, that I'd humbly make to yourself. Cowld, and hunger, and hardship are at home before me, yer

honour. If you'd be plased to look at these resates, you'd see that I always paid my rent, and 'twas sickness and the hard times--.'

"And your own honesty, industry, and good conduct,' said the Agent, giving a dark and malignant sneer at him. Carthy, it shall be my business to see that you do not spread a bad spirit through the tenantry much longer. Sir, you have heard the fellow's admission. It is an implied threat that he will give us much serious trouble. There is not such another incendiary on your property-not one, upon my honour.'

"Sir,' said a servant, dinner is on the table.'

"Sinclair,' said his landlord, give him another crown, and tell him to trouble me no more.' Saying which, he and the Agent went up to the drawing-room, and, in a moment, Owen saw a large party sweep down stairs, full of glee and vivacity, among whom both himself and his distresses were as completely forgotten as if they had never existed.”pp. 377-380.

McCarthy returned home, but it was only to witness the sufferings of his destitute family. For a year longer he struggled on, and then was compelled to turn mendicant with his family. Here is nothing more than the true history of many an Irish peasant; he is stricken with poverty, he is converted from an industrious cultivator of the soil into a wandering beggar, who necessarily becomes an addition to the unprofitable burdens of the country. The mendicants of Ireland are supported chiefly by the middling and lower classes; the gentry and proprietors have no share in finding subsistence for the countless multitude of paupers who swarm over that country. Hence the opposition of those proprietors to the institutions of poor laws, the inevitable effect of which must be to equalize the amount of the tax necessary for the maintenance of the poor. The author asks, with justice, if it is to be endured with common patience, that a man, rolling in wealth, shall feed on luxuries, for which he does not hesitate to pay the highest price, and yet be excused from contributing to the removal of the miseries of a people by whose labour he is enabled thus to gratify his appetites.

There are in Ireland peculiar reasons for stemming the tide of pauperism. The mendicants, particularly the habitual ones, are capable, and have proved so from time immemorial, of communicating corruption to the most ignorant portion of the people. They carry with them tales of fiction, old stories, prophecies, and old sayings, all tending to impress the lower orders with the notion that a new day for Ireland is shortly to spring up, when riches will be placed in the hands of those who at present are poor. The influence which these tales and sayings produce on a people with such ardent imaginations as the Irish will easily be estimated. The beggars then compose in effect a well organized agency for the corruption of the poorer orders, and in not a few instances they scatter the elements of discord and hatred amongst neighbours. The abolition of such a class as this, is by no means the only reason,

although it is a very sufficient one, for the establishment of poor laws in Ireland.

The author pursues the further history of Owen McCarthy, which happily takes an auspicious turn towards the close, for by the most rigid perseverance and industry, the worthy man ultimately contrived to regain the occupancy of the farm which he formerly held, and to settle his family in some sort of comfort.

The objects which the author has in view are the amelioration and improvement of Ireland, and from the specimens which we have given of his work, the reader will be able to comprehend the manner in which he seeks to prove the necessity of such improvement. He shows in the most satisfactory manner that the painful condition in which Ireland is at this moment placed, arises primarily from the complete state of independence in which the rich are with respect to the poor, and that, consequently, the first measure to be adopted, with the view of saving Ireland from her present situation, and laying the foundation of internal peace, is the introduction of a judicious system of poor laws.

Arr. III. The East India Sketch Book; comprising an Account of the present State of Society in Calcutta, Bombay, Sc. 2 Vols. London : Richard Bentley, New Burlington-street (late Colburn and Bentley). 1832.

INDIA has been an object of curiosity with Europeans from the days of Alexander the Great to the present. The Greeks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English, have successively established themselves in her fairest plains or noblest ports; and it is suspected by some politicians, that at present Russia looks with an eye of jealousy on our Eastern possessions. Under these circumstances, we turn our attention to India with feelings of interest and affection: the more so, indeed, because the approaching consideration of the Company's charter seems, in our mind, to involve the question of life or death to our power in the East.

All government, to use the expression of Hume, is the creature of opinion; and the same sentiment has been repeated, we find, by our author in reference to our possession of India. But if the maxim be true in countries where the governments are the growth of the soil, it is much more so where they are exotic: if it is applicable to states where the powers of dominion are vested in natives, it is doubly applicable to those in which the same powers are exercised by strangers.

These considerations have induced us to select the East India Sketch Book as offering a subject worthy of the attention of our

readers at the present time. The author of it appears to be a practical man an officer of the Indian army; and whether the idea of the work was suggested to him by that of Washington Irving, or by Mrs. Trollope's more recent sketch of the Domestic Manners of the Americans, it contains some very lively pictures of Indian and Anglo-Indian life.

But before we submit more particularly our opinions on these subjects to the notice of our readers, we will call their attention to the author's sentiments on two points relating, as it seems to us, very intimately to the stability of our Indian power. We allude to our character with the natives, and the cultivation of our language in India:

"The respect," says the author, "entertained by the natives for our superior prowess, our acquirements, and our science, is doubtless a grand, a principal security for the preservation of our influence here. Another powerful cause exists in the heirship of implacable enmity and hatred that exists between the Mussulman and Hindoo population, who seem never to lose, the first the haughtiness and tyranny of conquerors, and the latter the vindictive feelings of the conquered and oppressed. It would be difficult to find a motive sufficiently strong to unite them in enterprise, far less to ensure that unanimity amongst their leaders-that faith and secrecy on which the success of every combination-especially of every conspiracymust depend."-Vol. i. p. 94.

But however gratifying it may be to hear that our power is founded in the main upon the estimation in which we are held, it would be prudent, in our opinion, to consolidate it by introducing the English language exclusively into our courts of justice:

"You will not," says the author, now for the first time meet with the opinion that the greatest reform capable of being made in Indian courts of justice, would be the rendering of the English language the medium by which all legal business is transacted. Such an innovation would be hailed by the natives as the dawning of a new æra, replete with invaluable blessings to himself and his race. As we hold this country by the bond of opinion more than by the fetters of power, it is well for the continuance of our rule, that through all his adversities, amidst all the imperfections of our system, a Hindoo has still almost unlimited faith in the integrity of actions emanating immediately from Europeans... . ... I am persuaded

that the introduction of the English language as the medium of all law official business, would diffuse satisfaction amongst an overwhelming aggregate of this population. The best incentive would be found to direct the pursuits of the higher classes to the cultivation of English literature, and in time this would descend to the lower grades."-Vol. ii. pp. 23, 24.

As the majority of those who go in an official character to India have no intention but to tarry there until they have acquired the means of returning and living at home, it is the more necessary that we should strengthen every tie of connexion between the countries. Our countrymen, indeed, regard India as a sort of cara