cordial heartiness of one revering his memory, and yet we are at no loss for abundant attestation to the truth of our remarks concerning his dangerous surplusage of irrepressible zeal-zeal which did more than provoke his personal calamity, for it occasioned the widespread misery of multitudes who were in no wise participants of his erroneous principles. Richard Cameron appears to have started in his ministerial career under the influence of views which, to say the least, have more affinity to the relentless rigours of the law, than to the mild mercies of the blessed gospel; and which, we think, serve to account for what we temperately termed his "austerities." The following is Howie's amicable account of his earliest mission as a minister of Christ's gospel. "After he was licensed, they sent him at first to preach in Annandale. He said, How could he go there? he know not what sort of people they were. But Mr Welch said, Go your way Ritchie, and set the fire of hell to their tail!" This, it may be said, is characteristic of the times, and we do not deny it; but then it also serves to account for the troubles of the times, seeing that the passions of men, instead of being kept in check by the gentle glory of the gospel, were, on the contrary, lashed into darker rage by undue religious fervour. The sole business of a minister of the gospel is scripturally set forth in a brief record concerning a mission of Philip, and its happy results. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. And there was great joy in that city. The gospel is a proclamation of present, perfect, and eternal redemption to all who believe in the Son of God. The exposition of that wonderful mystery does not admit of being mingled with temporal themes; for no human occurrences can have any control over God's word, which liveth and abideth for ever. In casting a reverted glance on religious disputations which have led to disastrous public movements of a political character, we shall soon see that the origin of those fatal controversies which issue in deadly strife, is not traceable to the gospel, but to a departure from the simplicity that is in Christ. And this, again, must be ascribed to the frailty of our fallen nature, which is prone to let slip what can alone quell its corruptions. We do not think a whit the worse of Richard Cameron for his errors, which carried their own punishment along with them; but we demur to that objectionable partiality which would transform errors into excellencies, and thus perniciously propagate false rules of conduct.

Since writing the foregoing strictures, we have chanced to light upon a passage in Wodrow which strikingly confirms our conclusions. In consequence of Cameron's violent proceedings, whole districts were desolated where his acts were unknown. Troops were sent by order of the Council to the west and south, and the conduct of Cameron was the pretext for military excesses. They pretended," says Wodrow, "to seek after Mr Richard Cameron and his followers; but under this colour all were again oppressed who had been denounced fugitives for non-compearance at courts. And, in short, all non-conformists were harassed, the whole country was depopulated, and dreadful severities and oppression committed."

LORD CLARENDON BETWEEN TWO RIVAL REVIEWS.

The two great political parties which have long struggled for supremacy in Great Britain were, until the last forty years, content to confine their contentions within the walls of Parliament, and the press was hardly more than the agency for diffusing their debates, and assailing or vindicating Whig or Tory sentiments. But on the establishment of the Quarterly Review (of which Canning was by far the most powerful promoter), a new field for party strife was intellectually opened, and the fourth estate (as the press has been somewhat unconstitutionally dubbed) assumed a part in influential political discussion, which it has never since relinquished. The Whig Review then was pitted against the Tory Review, and, although the former has occasionally coquetted with radicalism, and the latter has been attenuated into conservatism, yet still the "ancient grudge" subsists between the Edinburgh and the Quarterly, and the feuds of their respective factions are as bitterly fought in printed pages as in parliamentary harangues. Indeed, party enmity is so vigorous on both sides, and questions of a political cast are discussed with such implacable adherence to Whiggish or Conservative dogmas, that in nine cases out of ten the hostile arguments, like an equal array of positive and negative quantities in algebra, mutually destroy each other. A sample of this exterminating process is to be found in the mode of managing the subject named at the head of this article. In the foreview of the coming session, it is deemed desirable that the public should be

primed with certain articles of charge against the Earl of Clarendon, founded on his alleged misconduct as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; therefore the Quarterly is instructed to get up a sharp accusatorial article, which may serve as a handy little text-book in either house of Parliament when the trial comes off. On the other hand the Whig government must have their own literary arsenal well supplied with shot and shells, to be poured in upon the adverse ranks, not only to scatter Lord Clarendon's assailants, but to hide him, if necessary, in a smoke of their own raising. We have read with due attention the articles fulminated by the political scribes of the Edinburgh and Quarterly, concerning the well-known conflict at Dolly's Brae, and the result upon our mind is a complete mystification of the whole matter, so as to leave it in as much obscurity as the controversy regarding the Man in the iron mask, the authorship of Junius, or the birth-place of Homer. With such pertinacity does the Quarterly insist upon bringing in Lord Clarendon as a delinquent, and so resolved is the Edinburgh to leave him out as a ruler-that, according to the Tory oracle, his Excellency is a most guilty viceroy, and, according to the Whig fountain of wisdom, the Lord Lieutenant is as pure as unsunned snow. Finding it impossible to reconcile these contrarieties, we determined to renounce the rival reviews with a spice of the spleen which made Mercutio 66 cry out, a plague on both your houses." The plain truth is, that the two articles adverted to are evidently prepared per order, and are as little to be relied upon as a lot of Birmingham blunderbusses, made for the African market. The Quarterly scribbling is got up in very good style, and embellished with woodengravings, illustrating the campaign of Maghermayo, and, from internal evidence, the minute nothingness, and ineffective research, coupled with a decided love of sneering inuendo-we are very much inclined to attribute the manufacture of this article to the right hon. editor of Boswell's Johnson. The Edinburgh essay bears no stamp of superiority-it is a mere pleading to prove that every one in Ireland was wrong except the possessors of power, who, being Whig rulers, must, of course, expect to be extolled in a Whig Review.

But as we happen to be neither Whigs nor Tories—but are devoted to the interests of Truth, whether it affect one or other faction-it shall be our aim to lay a condensed statement of this Maghermayo" untoward event," before our readers, and the more

so, as it is sure in a very few days to engross the attention of many persons in and out of Parliament. The melancholy affair popu larly known as the bloodshed and horrible havock at Dolly's Brae, cannot be understood without casting a reverted glance at the state of Ireland about fifty-five years ago. At that period Great Britain was in a fearful conflict with republican France, troubled with democratic movements in England and Scotland, and above all menaced with a rebellion in Ireland, which originated in Ulster, but which when organised there, upon revolutionary principles, was caught up by Roman Catholic discontent-the product of oppression-and in a short time became the common cause of the anti-protestant population of an insurrectionary island! On referring to Lord Castlereagh's correspondence with the English ministers, it will be at a glance discerned, how perilous was the state of Ireland— how precarious the preservation of British supremacy-and how manifold were the demands upon the military force of the empire, so as to cramp the competency of the executive to suppress by its regular, serried strength, the widely-ramified conspiracy of Irish traitors. In this dilemma, the Government sought for succour among the protestants of Ireland, and very specially among that large class of them who possessed what were then honourably deemed Orange principles, i. e. principles which were associated not only with King William's successful championship of civil liberty in England, but with the absolute assertion of Protestant ascendancy in Ireland! To be an Orangeman and a loyalist, were, in effect, synonymous terms-for in proportion as rebellion ripened, the ranks of the insurgents were palpably recruited with Roman Catholic multitudes-who thus became confronted with Orangeism. The Government speedily organised corps of yeomanry, simply by the distribution of arms; for each corps elected its own officers, and maintained its efficiency by domestic constitution and self-acquired discipline. It is easy for men in these days of altered polity to treat Orange associations as national nuisances —but we can remember, as if it were but yesterday, how exclusive was the dependance which the Government placed on the support of their Orange auxiliaries—and how devoted was the zeal of partisans whose loyal help was inflamed by their Orange predilections. We freely admit that the position of a government is false and dangerous which constrains them to call forth the antipathies of one class to subdue the revolt of another class; but the

exigencies of the state were assigned as the ground of that policy which invoked the aid of Orange loyalty to prostrate Ronan Catholic conspiracy. Years rolled on, darkened with two rebellions which cast a melancholy shade upon Irish history, and during which the Orangemen-with all their faulty fervency-strenuously sustained British rule in Ireland, and thus contributed to uphold the integrity of the empire. At length the star of Napoleon grew pale before the military glory of Great Britain, and the conquerors of Waterloo rendered unnecessary any future aid from Orangemen in quelling civil commotions in the sister island. In the further march of events the Roman Catholic disabilities were removed, and the enfranchised religionists became the allies, by compact, of a Whig Government. The Orange associations were now discountenanced-censured, and underwent a voluntary disbandment. But to their credit be it spoken, the Orange party did not renounce their principles because power and influence were no longer blended with the Orange cause. Precisely as the Roman Catholics, groaning under a wicked penal code, clave with more tenacity to the creed which provoked oppression; so the fidelity of true-hearted Orangemen to the principles of their institution shone out more conspicuously when neglect and opposition overtook them. We cordially wish that Orangeism, with every other fatal ism, were extirpated from the social system of Ireland; but our wishes do not blind us to the fact that Orange associations-Orange demonstrations— Orange processions, were once held in honour; and that the British Government solicited, sued for, valued, and acknowledged, the services of a great body, which subsequently met with slight, and even marked emnity from successive Whig Administrations! And here we find ourselves landed on the battle-field of Dolly's Brae. After forty-five years, not of tranquillity, but of absent rebellion in Ireland, the long (and through Whig connivance) the unrepressed agitation of O'Connell, produced its proper fruitsfirst sedition, and then imperfectly-organised insurrection. The crisis was a sharp and trying one, and it fell to the lot of Lord Clarendon to overcome a sterner Irish "difficulty" than ever hampered Sir Robert Peel's statesmanship. We have never been the unscrupulous adulators of Lord Clarendon, so that our testimony may be more readily received when we declare our conviction that his administration, taken as a whole, merits a very high degree of praise. An Italian physician has written a work to