seems a matter of mere prudence to provide thus far for the decent education and bare comfort of a body of 500 priests, who were certain to have more influence over the Irish people than all other persons together. Yet the public consternation was excessive. The Dissenters pushed an opposition almost as loud and formidable as on the factory-education clauses. Public meetings to remonstrate against the measure were held over the whole kingdoma violent one at the London Tavern leading the way. Upwards of a hundred of the merchants, bankers, and traders of London signed the requisition for this meeting. The first resolution declared the proposed grant to be a renunciation of the Protestantism under which the empire had flourished; and the mover took upon him to declare that the grant was directly opposed to the revealed will of the Creator.' The Dublin Protestant Operative Association demanded the impeachment of the prime-minister. Some members of parliament were called on by their constituents to resign their seats; and the table of the House groaned under the mass of petitions against the measure. The truth was, this measure was an express discountenancing of the 'Protestant ascendency' in Ireland; while in England it at once provoked the fears of the vast body of Dissenters about the spread of the Romish faith, and their jealousy about government endowments of religion. Not a few advocates of the measure were heard to say that it was now becoming necessary to endow all ministers of every faith and denomination. The external agitation was reflected within the walls of parliament in a debate of three nights in the Lords, and six in the Commons, on the second reading of the bill. It passed, however, on the 16th of June, amidst protests from five bishops and three lay peers, who objected to it on the grounds that it provided for the maintenance of religious error, and for opposition to the Reformation; and that it countenanced the notion that religious truth was a matter of indifference to the state.

A more important measure, tending to the great object of abating religious rancour in Ireland, met with resistance from an opposite quarter. In the royal speech at the opening of the session, the sovereign recommended to the

best consideration of parliament the policy of improving and extending the opportunities for academical education in Ireland.' The ministers were prepared with their plan, which was brought forward by Sir James Graham, on the 9th of May. The national education system in Ireland was working well; but its host of 400,000 pupils included only children, and, as yet, children of the poorer classes, though it was extending upwards. It was desirable to enable those who had sat side by side on the school-benches, as yet untouched by the religious bigotry which was the curse of the country, to continue the education which had begun so favourably; and also to provide for the same harmony being extended to all classes of society. The government therefore proposed the establishment of three colleges, in the north, west, and south of Ireland, in which a liberal and comprehensive academical education should be opened to young men of every religious denomination, without distinction. There could, of course, be no theological professorships founded by the government; but every facility was afforded for the voluntary establishment of such in connection with the colleges. As for the question whether these new colleges should be incorporated into a new university, or whether Trinity College, Dublin, should, without invasion of her present Protestant rights, be enabled to admit the new colleges into incorporation with her as a university-this was for parliament to decide upon. After much debate, earnest but less violent than that on the Maynooth question, the measure was carried, by a vote of 177 to 26 in the Commons, and without a division in the Lords-the question of the university arrangements being left over till the views of the governing powers of all the colleges could be obtained. The bigots among the Catholic clergy were the foes in this case. The cry about 'godless education was loud, and has been long.

The new institutions have ever since gone by the name of the 'godless' colleges among the fanatics of the Romish faith, and some few of the Protestant Church; and by much painstaking, and prodigious misrepresentation, the less enlightened of the Catholic priesthood at length obtained from the conscientious but weak pope, Pius IX., a

rescript against these colleges, as places of education of the Catholic youth of Ireland. The measure was, and is, however, all-important as throwing the onus of religious exclusiveness on the Catholic portion of society in Ireland; and as a distinct pledge that the imperial government was at last exercising an impartial sway over its subjects of differing faith. The sum proposed for the erection of the three colleges was £100,000; for their maintenance— that is, the salaries of officers, and the prizes for the encouragement of learning--£18,000 per annum. In each college there was to be a principal, with a salary of £1000; and ten or twelve professors, with salaries of £300 a year, Residences were not provided; but the principal of each college would live within the walls; and the modes of residence of the students were to be under safe regulation, under the act. The power of appointment and removal of the professors was to rest with the crown, as was obviously fitting in a case which involved party-feelings to so great an extent. The preparations for these new institutions were immediately begun. It must be left for time to show how they work.

In February of this year, a report was presented by the commissioners of inquiry, sent out in 1843, to investigate the law and practice in respect to the occupation of land in Ireland. Much expectation was excited by the appointment of the Devon commission--as it was called, from the Earl of Devon being at the head of it-and the expectation was kept up by the eagerness of multitudes of persons connected with the proprietorship and occupation of land in Ireland, to give evidence before the commission. They came in crowds to tell what they knew, and thought, and felt; and it was hoped that now, at last, light would be obtained as to what was to be hoped and feared, and what could be done. The information obtained was extensive and valuable; and large practical use might soon have been made of it, in the form of proposed legislation, but that the famine was approaching, which put aside all considerations but how to prevent the whole rural population from dying of hunger. Though the time has not arrived for making use of the disclosures of this report, and though much of it may be actually superseded by the

operations of calamity, it remains a token of solicitude for the regeneration of Ireland on the part of the ministers in office during its preparation.

During the decline of Mr. O'Connell's power, and the rising conflict between his repeal-party and that which was to be headed by Mr. W. Smith O'Brien, while want was becoming aggravated, and famine was approaching, the amount of outrage in Ireland increased so grievously, that ministers introduced a Coercion Bill early in the session of 1846. The bill was framed strictly for the protection of quiet members of society-permitting the viceroy to award compensation to the maimed, and to the families of the murdered, under the attacks at which the measure was aimed. Under it, disturbed districts might be proclaimed, and night-meetings within them prevented. The bill passed the Lords easily, but was vehemently disputed, and at last lost, in the Commons, where party-feeling ran high amidst the final agitation about the corn-laws, and the hopes and fears about the going out of the Peel ministry. It was generally understood that the defeat of ministers on this Coercion Bill-so mild of its class-was occasioned by a combination of parties; and the speeches of Lord G. Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli, universally reprobated for their spirit, were regarded as manifestations of the real reasons of the result. At the moment when the Corn-law Repeal Bill was passing the Lords, the second reading of the government bill for Ireland was refused by a majority of 292 to 219, after a delay of five months, which would have been seriously injurious to the operation of the bill, if it had passed. The division took place on the 26th of June, three days before the announcement of the retirement of the Peel administration-a retirement which might have been rendered necessary by the failure of this measure, if it had not been, as was well known, determined beforehand, as a natural consequence of the carrying of the measure for which Sir R. Peel had returned to power -the repeal of the corn-laws.

We must look further back for the deciding cause of the retirement of the Peel administration. Before the end of 1845, it was clear that the potato-crop in Ireland was likely to be utterly destroyed by blight. Men whose vision

was bounded by political party-spirit endeavoured to persuade others as well as themselves, that the avowed alarm of the cabinet for the food of half a nation was little more than a device to get the corn-laws repealed with the least possible difficulty; but men of more enlightenment and a more simple conscience had faith in the earnestness of the minister, in the reality of his solemnity, in the sincerity of the solicitude which marked his countenance and his voice, and in the truth of the abundant evidence which he laid before parliament of the probable extent of the approaching calamity. It was all too true. The work of preparation for a new age for Ireland was taken out of human hands; and a terrible clearance of the field of Irish soil and society was about to be made for the efforts of future apostles, and the wisdom of future legislators. The virtues of two parties of rulers were not, however, to be in vain. Under them the great truth had appeared that the causes of Irish misery were not political, but social; and both had done what they could to purge out the spirit of religious and political rancour which had hitherto poisoned every public benefit, and aggravated every social woe, of that unhappy country.

CHAPTER IX.

Church Patronage in Scotland-The Veto Law-The Auchterarder Case-The Strathbogie Case-Position of the Church Party-Lord Aberdeen's Bill-The General Assembly-Its Memorial-Reply of Government-Quoad Sacra Ministers-Petition of the Assembly -Failure-Preparations for Secession-The Secession-Counter Proceedings-Act of Separation-Spirit of the Movement-The Religious World in England--Troubles in the Church-OxfordTractarian Secession-Death of Dr. Arnold-Death of Sydney Smith -Augmentation of Clergy-Colonial Bishoprics-Consolidation of Sees Struggles of Government and Church-Dissenters' Chapels Bill-Relief to Jews.

THE ecclesiastical disturbances, whose beginnings have been noticed, were by this time becoming of the gravest import. Scotland was affording as complete an exemplification as the world has seen of the perplexities attendant