ing confidence which makes truth and its advocates appear quite spiritless and unworthy of attention. The intellect of all classes is kept in continual excitement by paradoxes so intimately connected with men's passions and interests, that it is difficult to seize a quiet pause for inculcating the most obvious common-sense principles. The turbulent Irish agitators who are always in want of some fresh fuel to heat their furnace, laid hold some years since of the question commonly called Tenant Right; and by dint of clamour and bluster, they contrived to make people believe that next to food, it was the article most needed for the comfort and prosperity of all nations. Ulster is the paradisaical region where this splendid boon is, it seems to be found in perfection; and therefore we hailed with no small satisfaction an opportunity afforded us of scrutinizing in Armagh, Tyrone, and other northern counties, the practical working of so great a blessing. The first discovery of importance we made, was, that Tenant right is, in plain English, no right at all. It is a usage which owes its origin to the settlement of Ulster in the reign of James I., when that five times confiscated country, at length assumed the aspect of civilization and culture. In proportion as property became secure, the incentive to improvement pervaded even humble possessions; and at length the progress of prosperity showed itself in the shape of a conventional custom which usurps the name of tenant right. If the small holder of land is desirous of quitting his petty farm, he looks out for a successor who is willing to give him the most money for his good will, i. e. investiture in the tenancy, subject to the consent of the landlord. The first element of the landlord's concurrence is the complete clearance of all arrears of rent; and upon many estates there is a further condition, viz, that all debts due by the outgoing tenant to parties residing on the estate, shall be liquidated. The bargain, if sanctioned by the landlord, then matures into fulfilment, and is carried out under the auspices of the agent, with whom the money is deposited; and who primarily sets apart sufficient to clear off the landlord's claims, then pockets something on his own account, makes a dividend among the departing farmer's home creditors, and finally hands the balance, if balance there be, to the swain now forsaking his former fields. And is this all, cries some angry agriculturist who has been terribly touched with the Irish ravings on the grand subject of tenant right. Yes indeed, good friends Fallowfield or

Turnip-top; there is not a jot or tittle more in the mystery of tenant right, than what we have endeavoured to explain for your edification. We watched the whole exercise of this mighty privilege, as it was marked out by several cases that fell under our observation; and we could never detect any greater benefits than those we have described. Nevertheless, we are not willing to under-rate them. There is advantage both to landlord and tenant in an available arrangement which consults for the interests of each, and which promotes useful change. Still tenant right does not rise above the level of provincial usage; and herein we would say its chief excellency consists. A kindly, but rough adjustment takes place between landlord and tenant, and the social system is thereby strengthened and improved. But what do our blind reformers struggle to effect? They want to stamp tenant right with the stern sanction of law; and to substitute litigation for amicable agreement. We hold that a tenant can have no rights connected with land, save those which are freely conceded by the will of the proprietor. This is the true doctrine of landed possessions. Proprietors may be despotic, narrow-minded, churlish, or ignorant of their own true interests; but we totally deny and distrust the interposition of law between landlord and tenant. All that legislation can properly accomplish is to enforce the fulfilment of lawful contracts; but to dictate the matter or mode of those contracts is a death-knell to the just rights of property. It is in this spirit that we are anxious to plead the cause of the poor. We have never shrunk from visiting with emphatic censure all systematic attempts to oppress the humble tillers of the soil; we have pointed out the mischief and misery of compulsory emigration; we have shown the injustice and impolicy (reacting upon proprietors themselves) of withholding from small cultivators a sufficient proportion of land; we have earnestly inculcated the wisdom and generous expediency of granting leases to all who are accepted as tenants, and who are capable of turning land to good account; but it never once entered into our head that any of those errors could be averted, or those advantages attained, by means of any law or laws which all the lawyers in the empire should concur in framing. Our expectation lies in a totally different direction. We are of opinion that very many proprietors of the soil will awaken to the dangers and difficulties of their present position, and exercise the good sense which God has given them to

promote their truest interests, in equitable unison with the interests of their dependants. Protection-the monopoly of the home market of corn subsistence-is irrevocably passed away, so as to cast a dark shade of either folly or fraud upon those misguided men who would agitate for its possible restoration. The potato is also gone; not, indeed, in the sense of a total discultivation of that valuable esculent; but the system which was founded on the long recognised fact, that potatoes had become the staple food of the petty holders of land, is on the eve of annihilation. Ask any well-judging proprietor of land, whether he thinks it practicable that a family can be sustained now upon the produce of two, or three, or four acres of land, and he will at once admit that this is entirely out of the question; and therefore rent is equally out of the question. Soon-fearfully soon-it will be urgently pressed upon proprietors whose cultivable land is loaded with small tenants, What are we to do? Our answer to such a query is, Do justly-examine whether, among your presently distressed dependants, there are not many persons to whom additional land for reclamation might not be safely granted on such terms as would stimulate honest effort. If a rich man plans the reclamation of large breadths of idle land, his instrument of enterprise is capital, wherewith he can put in action the labour of others; but the poor man's capital is his industry; and how effectual is the energy such humble reclaimers of land, may be witnessed at this hour, on some of the rocky ranges that overhang the eastern shores of Sutherland; and under every kind of disadvantage, it may be added-for the Duke of Sutherland, influenced by exceedingly bad advisers, rigidly refuses leases except to his colossal sheep-farmers, who bestride the straths formerly fertilised by numerous small occupants. We may here remark that we can never see the reasonableness of drawing a distinction between the large and the small holder of land, in the matter of leases. What confuses the mind of many a theorist, is the constant harping upon capital, as if no man is worthy of any certainty of tenure, except he can swagger at an auction sale with an overflowing purse, replenished, it may be, by virtue of a cash-credit from a too credulous bank! Capital, sound, unborrowed command of money is no doubt an excellent thing in farming, as well as in every other productive pursuit ; but we presume that all capital must be the result of the twofold element-industry, coupled with self-denying thrift.

of

Give a poor man such a prospect of assured permanence as shall draw forth his industry and skill in reclaiming, cultivating, and improving an allotment suited to his powers, and you will secure the same proportional amount of profitable labour bestowed on land, as can be reckoned upon from richer and more extensive cultivators. 'Tis true, you must not look for the agricultural marvels of Auchness, as described by canny Caird of Baldoon; but there may be good farming where there is no grand farming; and the lowly lot of the many may prove safer than the splendid pretensions of the few. Speculative high farming is shown to be occasionally attended with severe vicissitudes; and when a farm of 500 or 600 acres is returned abruptly upon the hands of a proprietor, inconvenience is much more severely felt than ever can be experienced in consequence of pressure upon small farmers. It may also be fairly inquired, whether high farming is ultimately so beneficial to landlords? We do not profess to be stored with much agricultural knowledge; but we know this much, that high farming must necessarily be exhausting in its stimulative processes. Bad farming may certainly stint the productive powers of the soil; but it is equally true, that the forced exuberance of successive seasons may lead to the impoverishment of land, just about the time when it comes into the repossession of the proprietor.

We have indulged in these somewhat desultory observations, in order that the part we have so honestly and independently taken, in pleading the cause of the poor and the oppressed in the Highlands, may not be exposed to misconstruction. The doctrine we hold is simply this-that the interests of landlord and tenant are inseparable; and that whoever foments feuds between parties so closely connected, is an enemy to social tranquillity and improvement. We have always maintained, that a judicious and liberal proprietor fills a patriarchal position, than which nothing can be more honourable, or more calculated to diffuse prosperity and happiness. There can be no necessity for Acts of Parliament to better the relation which should subsist between the generous landlord and the grateful tenant. It is on this account, too, that we quarrel so lustily with the Scottish system of thrusting factors into the place of their principals. We are not for dispensing with factors. On the contrary, we deem it needful that a large proprietor should employ a trustworthy mediatorial manager, who should devote himself to the useful details practically belonging to

the administration of property. But we are for considering such persons as responsible servants; not mongrel masters; not iron functionaries, armed with authority which they abuse, and favoured with facilities which they wrest to purposes of sordid oppression, and personal aggrandisement. We hope it will not be thought egotistical that we should advert to some prevalent misapprehensions of our published strictures regarding mismanaged proprietorship. Because we found fault with Lord Macdonald's partial sacking of Sollas, and his Lordship's sheriff-constrained agreements to secure compulsory emigration: because we stigmatised the heartless conduct of Mr Baillie towards his starving serfs at Glenelg or honestly deplored the infatuation of a really kindnatured laird-Mr Lillingston of Lochalsh: becaused we ventured to strip off the tin-foil which is made to glitter on the Sutherland Coronet of the "good Duke," and showed up the hollowness and fallacy of Mr Loch's pretended " improvements,"—we would caution our readers from rashly assuming that we intended to frame a general indictment against the important body of Highland proprietors. That there may be something to blame with the best of them, men of sense and candour would be the first to acknowledge; but indiscriminate censure of a whole class never can be consistent with truth and fairness; and therefore we disclaim that sort of desolating discontent, which roves "from Dan to Beersheba," and finds nothing for honest approval. Another charge against us, is the alleged impossibility of a stranger being competent to form a judgment upon local themes; and, that, in short, we have scribbled about what we are thoroughly ignorant of. Our only reply shall be couched in the remark, that a stranger may be capable of passing a just judgment upon facts; and that, although strangership may be a bar to minute information, it is, upon the whole, favourable to one usefully exercised quality, namely, IMPARTIALITY.

QUACK D'ISRAELI'S LATEST NOSTRUM.

WE entertain a very moderate respect for the regular state physicians, who are so handsomely feed for physicking this plethoric empire; but we have an absolute loathing of the Mock Doctors, who, having taken democratic degrees, and shuffled themselves into a sort of sham professional notoriety, are continually