CLV. Kinsale. and army. Kinsale, to the south of Cork, occupies a re- BOOK markable situation: it stands upon a mountain, and the principal street makes the circuit of the town, and receives at a great number of points the extremities of all the other streets the harbour is circular and sheltered by hills: it is sufficiently spacious to contain large fleets; a fort built by Charles II defends the entrance, and in time of war it is visited by ships returning from Asia and America, but the prosperity of Cork has deeply injured its commerce: at present it subsists by fishing, and employs annually more than 300 vessels in this business: during the fine season it is much frequented for sea bathing, and notwithstanding its decay, has not less than 10,000 inhabitants. It was here that James II landed on his return from France in 1688. Youghall, another maritime town, 10 leagues east of Cork, is a little less populous than the preceding: a shoal at the entrance of the harbour prevents large vessels from entering it. Waterford, at the bottom of a bay, where the waters of Waterford. the Suir and Barrow unite, is free from the inconvenience of Youghall: and has a harbour advantageously situated for commerce loaded vessels may come up to a long and wide quay at the town, and there are 70 sail employed here in the Newfoundland Bank fishery: but as a balance to these advantages, Waterford consists of nothing but narrow streets, and the air of the place is unwholesome. Ireland. Although Ireland is inferior to England in point of educa- General tion, industry, commerce, and especially agriculture; - al- view of though the wretched Irish labourer has no food beside that root which has gained for this country the name of the Land of Potatoes, yet the island possesses the fruitful germ of future prosperity; a proof of this may be found in the increase of its products within less than half a century, particularly that of its population. In 1726 the number was 2,309,000. Increase of population. In 1827 it amounted to 7,672,000.* A more recent enumeration carries the amount to 8,500,000. We thus have the extraordinary fact of a population nearly quadrupling in less than a century: this would imply an immensity of • According to M. Cesar Moreau, French consul at London. BOOK ed Men. resources, or a great depopulation during the troubles and revolutions which have so long agitated the country. One would be disposed to think that the humidity of the atmosphere which maintains so fresh a vegetation in Ireland had also an effect in purifying the blood: few people are so handsome as the Irish: this remark applies not only to the higher classes, but in the country may be found under the rags of squalid poverty, tall and robust men, and females whose regular features and blooming complexions might be the envy of the belle of Dublin. The Irish nobility, disdaining generally all productive occupations, addict themselves to luxury and expense, but the wealthiest part of the nation is composed of numerous English and Scotch families belonging principally to the manufacturing and trading class, and dwelling chiefly upon the eastern and northern coasts of the island. The population of Ireland is composed of the great mass of the aborigines, separated from the rest of the inhabitants by their manner of living, their language and their degradation, and habituated to the oppres sions of their landlords: - of the wealthy Irish whose manners and language do not differ from those of the English: -of Scotch presbyterians, the descendants of those who fled from the persecution under James I, and his successors, and settled with their manufactures on the northern shores of the island; and of English traders who have spread business and activity over the eastern shores. Ireland, as may be judged by the names which we have had occasion to cite in describing the cities, has produced a Celebrat great number of celebrated men. In the 7th century the subtilties of scholastic theology had acquired a reputation for some of her ecclesiastics, but the troubles which distracted the country prevented literature and science from resuming their empire here till the 17th century: at that epoch, archbishop Ussher obtained a distinction for his useful labours: Boyle extended the sphere of physical science: Steele associated his pen with that of Addison: Congreve enriched the theatrical repository with several witty comedies, some of which are still acted: Swift gained from Voltaire the title of the Rabelais of good society: Sloane, an able physician, cultivated botany with success: Berkeley applied him. CLV. self to the study of the exact sciences, and shed new light BOOK upon metaphysics: Sterne, by the originality which marks his writings, gained an European reputation. Parnell acquired celebrity by his light and playful poems, and Goldsmith, as a poet, novelist, historian, and naturalist: while Burke, Sheridan, Flood, Grattan, and many others have shone in the halls of legislation. geous posi Islands. The geographical position of the British Islands has ne- Advantacessarily raised the commercial power of the United King- tion of the dom to a degree of prosperity beyond any thing which an- British tiquity exhibits to us. It has long been customary to compare the naval power of Great Britain to that of Carthage, but nothing will establish the pretended resemblance. Scated upon a continent, Great Britain would never have attained the preponderance she now exercises. If her two great islands formed but one, the same advantages would not have arisen. The extent of her coasts maintains an immense maritime population, and removes the apprehension of any rival in the empire of the seas. Were an invasion to be feared, no enemy would be sufficiently powerful to subjugate her territory. The secret of the English power first began to be under- Historical stood by Elizabeth. Called to the throne at a period when Review. the religious reformation which marked an important era, as political reformation characterizes the present, had been obstructed in its progress under the short and bloody reign of Mary, this great princess placed herself at the head of the movement which had drawn all minds within its influence. Unjust and cruel toward Mary Stuart, the political difficulties of her situation can hardly palliate the enormity of her crime, but in other respects we cannot too much admire the grandeur of her conceptions. It was she who laid Elizabeth. the foundations of the English power: who first despatched ships to circumnavigate the globe, and who, after sending colonies to both Indies, laid the foundation of that company, which, though useless perhaps at present, has been one of the chief causes of the prosperity of British commerce. Skilful in turning the peculiarities of the English constitution to her advantage, she had the talent to govern despotically without offending the nation, to restore order BOOK CLV. James I. and economy among the finances, and to give a new impulse to trade and commerce. The accession of James VI, of Scotland, to the English throne, under the name of James I, was attended with the advantage of uniting without violence, two crowns which the common interest should have placed on the same head. His reign was disturbed by plots which ceased only with the Stuarts, but exterior quiet Charles I. favoured the operations of trade. Charles I, after sundry acts of indecision, weakness, and despotism, died upon a scaffold, before the eyes of a people who had learned, by the tragical end of Lady Jane Grey and Mary Stuart, to witness the fall of a crowned head without shuddering. Under Cromwell. the protectorate of Cromwell, the English navy attained to a degree of power and reputation, which earned a title of glory not to be withheld from this cruel and crafty usurper. Charles II. Charles II, restored to the throne of his ancestors, confirmed the abolition of the feudal laws, encouraged commerce and agriculture, and founded the Royal Society of London, but his luxuries and pleasures led him into foolish expenses, to meet which he espoused the Infanta of Portugal with the sole desire of enjoying her rich dowry. He sold Dunkirk to France for 25,000 pounds sterling, and compromised the interests of England by joining Louis XIV, in the undertaking to destroy the Dutch power: his despotism and extortions prepared a hew revolution, which was accelerated by the pretensions of the Jesuit party, and the distrust of the protestants: victims on both sides fell upon the scaffold, James II. and James II, in the midst of these troubles, forerunners of civil war, succeeded his brother, shocked the prejudices of the nation upon political and religious liberty, and fled from the kingdom at the approach of William of Orange. Enlightened by the experience of the past, the parliament, in decreeing the crown to the son-in-law of James, drew up the celebrated Bill of Rights, which restrained the royal power within its just limits: the two houses retained the manage ment of the public expenses, and the king that of the civil list. In vain Louis XIV, actuated by his attachment to the catholic religion, generosity towards an unfortunate prince, and hatred of William, placed at the command of James his money, soldiers, and ships: the battles of the Boyne and William III. Aghrim, in which this prince showed neither the courage nor presence of mind so necessary to a king, took away from him the hope of ever reconquering his throne. Finally, after a reign of thirteen years, in which, for the maintenance of expensive wars with France, he was obliged to resort to loans, William died, leaving the kingdom burthened with a debt of 48 millions of dollars, or ten times the amount of the debt in 1688. BOOK CLV. Anne, the daughter of James II, in placing Marlborough Anne. at the head of the army, saw the national glory revive in the victories of Blenheim and Ramillies, while the battles of Oudenarde and Malplaquet caused that of Almanza to be forgotten. Under her reign, Newfoundland, Hudson's Bay, Minorca, and Gibraltar, were acknowledged to belong to the English. Conformably to the act of succession, the house of Brunswick furnished, in 1714, a new dynasty to House of Great Britain. George I, and George II, had to struggle Brunswick. against the bold enterprises of Charles Edward, the grandson of James II, till the battle of Culloden, which, in 1746, overthrew the party of the Pretender, and delivered England from civil war, and the fears of a new revolution. Toward the middle of the reign of George I, the private fortunes of many individuals were ruined by the South Sea scheme, as it happened in France at the same time, from the financial system of Law. The reign of George II, longer, and more abounding in important events, witnessed the renewal of that rivalry between Great Britain and France, which had subsequently such important effects upon the political system of Europe. The former consoled herself for the loss of the battle of Fontenoy, and the disasters of the Duke of Cumberland in Flanders, by her successes on the ocean and in India, and by the capture of the island of Goree, and the conquest of Guadaloupe and Canada. Under these favourable auspices George III, succeeded to George III. the throne of his grandfather in 1760. Born in England, he possessed a great advantage over his predecessor, and was the idol of the nation. A war which had broken out in 1755, between France and England, was continued for three years longer, and when the former had suffered the loss of her fleets, and the latter so far exhausted her finances as to |