pital school in Oxmantown for the sons of decayed citizens of Dublin; Wilson's Hospital in Westmeath; Oldcastle, in Meath; Disrael's School, in Carlow; besides a number of others dispersed throughout various parts of the country.

The education of the lower classes has been long an object of parliamentary attention. So far back as 1537, an Act was passed requiring every incumbent of a parish to take an oath, on admission to his benefice, to teach an English school or to cause one to be taught. The provisions of this Act have been thought by many to be sufficiently complied with by the allowance of an annual stipend of 21. to the parish clerk, or to some other individual who teaches or professes to teach a school; and, in many instances, notwithstanding the solemnity of the condition attached to it, it has been wholly inoperative. The general principle has latterly attracted the peculiar attention of the legislature; but the modes of management have been desultory and variable, and the results unsatisfactory. Grants of public money, to a very large amount, were given to two self-constituted associations. One of these, formed in 1811, under the name of the Kildare Place Society, and consisting of a number of respectable individuals chiefly resident in Dublin, received an annual grant which was gradually augmented to 25,000l. They embodied themselves on the express condition of affording literary information, without any interference with the religious opinions of the pupil. But, having subsequently required that the reading of the Bible should form an essential part of the school studies, and this innovation being resisted by the Roman Catholic hierarchy as contrary to the tenets of their church, which deems the assistance of the clergy necessary for the salutary perusal of the sacred volume, the operations of the society were impeded, and its usefulness as an organ of national education neutralised. The other association, the Society for the discountenancing of Vice, composed chiefly of clergymen of the Established church, also received an annual grant of between 5,000l. and 10,0007.; but as, in addition to the condition introduced into the Kildare Place Society, it required the introduction of the Protestant Liturgy, and other devotional treatises, it was deemed still more objectionable. Besides these grants, a sum of from 4,000l. to 5,000l. was entrusted to the lord-lieutenant to be dis posed of at his discretion for the purposes of education. The general repugnance to the proceedings of these societies led to a total alteration of the system. The grants were withdrawn in 1831; and a single grant was vested in a Board of Commissioners for National Education, consisting of the Protestant and Catholic archbishops of Dublin, with sundry noblemen, clergymen, and gentlemen nominated by the Crown. They were formed into a corporation in 1845, and have power given them to hold lands to the value of 40,000l. a-year, to receive gifts and bequests, &c. The commissioners appear to have discharged their important duties with great zeal, and with the most exemplary impartiality. The schools they assist in establishing, though opposed by the bigots of both factions, appear to be making the most satisfactory progress; and will, no doubt, be productive of great public benefit. We subjoin an account of the progress of the National schools since their commencement in 1833:

Abstract Account of the number of Schools connected with the National System of Education in operation in the different Provinces of Ireland in 1845, showing the number of Children on the Rolls, the number of Teachers, &c.

A society for educating the children of the poor in connection with the Church of England, was founded in 1839. It is supported wholly by voluntary contributions; and had, in 1845, 1811 schools and 100,755 pupils.

The Sunday School Society, formed in 1809, for the moral and religious instruction of children unable to attend schools on week days, had in connection with it, in 1846, 2,962 schools, attended by 22,980 teachers and 244,503 pupils. It is maintained wholly by voluntary contributions.

The other principal seminaries of public foundation for the instruction of the lower classes, are the charter schools, founded in the beginning of the last century. Their chief object was the conversion of the Catholic population through the medium of religious and literary instruction. The chief means adopted was the abstracting of the children from their parents when very young, and rearing them in nurseries; whence they were drafted at a proper age into schools, where they were lodged, fed, clothed, and instructed in the elements of literature, and in the practical knowledge of the simpler processes of agricultural and manufacturing industry. In the transfer, or, as it was styled, "transplantation," care was taken to remove them as far as possible from their parents. When of sufficient maturity, they were apprenticed to protestant masters. The plan, though highly patronised and supported by large private donations and bequests, and by still larger grants of public money, proved a complete failure. The number of schools in the most flourishing periods was but thirty-nine, including four nurseries;

and not maintaining at any one time more than 1,600 children. Abuses of great enormity, notwithstanding the existence of a central board of control in Dublin, and of local boards in the neighbourhood of each school, were found to have crept in. Parliament, therefore, withdrew the grant, leaving the society to carry on its affairs out of its private income, which in 1808 amounted to upwards of 10,000l. annually. The number of elementary schools founded by charitable associations, or by donations and bequests of benevolent individuals, are too numerous to admit of a specification even of their names and localities.

The total number of pupils receiving instruction in public schools is stated by the Commissioners of Education to have been, in 1808, 45,590 Protestants, and 116,977 Catholics: total, 162,567. The number, stated in the returns of the enumerators employed in taking the census of Ireland in 1821, was 394,813; the distinction of religion was not noticed by them. In the returns of the Commissioners of Education, in 1824-6, the numbers are, Protestants, 142,168; Catholics, 408,285; those whose religious persuasion could not be ascertained, 10,096: total 560,549. According to a return of the Commissioners of Public Instruction, in 1835, the number of schools and scholars in Ireland, were as under :

A notion has been long current in Great Britain that the Irish poor are exceedingly ignorant. But this is certainly not the case now, nor has it been so for a lengthened period. If elementary knowledge, or the being able to read, write, and perform ordinary arithmetical operations be regarded as education, it is more generally diffused in Ireland than in England. "Where, in England," asks Mr. Bicheno, "could the Ordnance Surveyors find persons among the lowest class to calculate the sides and areas of their triangles, at a halfpenny a triangle, as they do in Ireland, and abundance of them?* However they may apply it, the Irish are honourably distinguished by their desire to possess information, and by the efforts they have made to acquire it. But until within these few years their education was very defective; and the books that were used in schools were not unfrequently of the very worst description. We believe, however, that these have now nearly disappeared; and the school books published by the Kildare Street Society, and more recently by the Education Commissioners, seem to be not merely equal, but superior to most of those used in schools in Great Britain. The ignorance of the people has little to do with the peculiar state of Ireland: their want of industry and providence, their confidence in those who least deserve it, and the violence so frequently done to their sense of justice, are the grand sources of the poverty and disorders that have so long disgraced the country.

CHAPTER II.-REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE.

SECT. 1. Revenue.

In early times the sovereigns of England, like those of most other feudal states, were the greatest landholders of the kingdom; their revenues consisting principally of the rents, services, &c., derived from their own lands, and partly of the fines, compositions, and other payments derived from the lands of others. But in the course of time the estates of the Crown were mostly alienated; and the diminution of the royal revenue thence arising being coincident with increased demands for the public service occasioned by the progress of society, and the consequently greater expense of government and defence, it became necessary to explore other sources of revenue. In early times it was usual for parliament to make grants of tenths and fifteenths; that is, to grant to the Crown a tenth or a fifteenth part of all the moveable property belonging to the subject. But there can be no doubt that they were but very imperfectly collected; and that the Crown never received anything like the real amount of these grants. The other ancient levies were of the nature of a land-tax; being called scutages, when laid on the tenants of knights' fees, hydages when laid on the occupiers of other lands, and talliages when laid on cities and boroughs. But these having gradually fallen into disuse, were followed by subsidies. The latter were not immediately imposed upon property, but upon persons in respect of their reputed estates, after the nominal rate of 4s. in the pound for lands, and 2s. 6d. for goods; and for those of

Mr. Bicheno's Report on Poor Laws, p. 41.

aliens in a double proportion. The existing land-tax grew out of the subsidy scheme; having originated in 1692, when a new assessment or valuation was made, by which a subsidy or land-tax of 1s. in the pound produced 500,000l. a-year of revenue. (See Blackstone, book i. cap. 8.)

•But these resources were but limited, and comparatively inconsiderable; and were wholly inadequate to meet the vast expenditure of modern times. The sum withdrawn from the public by means of taxes, and appropriated to the use of government, amounts at present (1846) to about 57,500,000/. sterling, and far exceeds in magnitude the public revenue of any other country. But it must not thence be inferred that taxation is here comparatively heavy. Its pressure is not to be estimated by the actual amount of the sum taken from the people and lodged in the coffers of the treasury; but by the mode in which taxes are imposed, and the ability of the people to bear them. In some countries taxes are imposed on certain classes only; and even where this inequality does not exist, they are often imposed on erroneous principles, and in a way that makes their assessment and collection peculiarly difficult and injurious. But in the United Kingdom taxation presses equally, or nearly so, on all classes; and without pretending to say that our system of taxation is perfect, or that it might not be materially improved, it appears, speaking generally, to be founded on sound principles, and is practically as little injurious as it could well be rendered. And if we compare the magnitude of our taxes with that of the national revenue whence they are derived, it will probably be found that the complaints of the peculiarly heavy pressure of taxes in this country are, in a great measure, without foundation. It is not to the influence of taxation, but to the expensive style of living, which prevails amongst us, and which luckily (for it is the grand incentive to industry and invention) pervades all classes, that the difficulty many individuals have in preserving their places in society is to be ascribed. Instead of supposing that the influence of taxation in Great Britain has been hostile to the increase of public opulence and private comfort, we incline to think it has had a precisely opposite effect. To the desire of rising in the world, the increasing pressure of taxation during the late war superadded the fear of being thrown down to a lower station; and the two together produced results that we should in vain have looked for from the unassisted agency of either. Oppressive taxes would have had an opposite effect; and instead of producing new displays of industry and economy, would have produced only despair and national impoverishment. But it was seen that the increase of taxation might be met by increased exertion and economy; and this increased exertion has, in fact, led to the production of a far greater amount of wealth than was required to meet the increased demands of the revenue collectors.

About two-thirds of the public revenue are derived from duties of customs and excise; and the rest from the property and income tax, the duties on stamps, the assessed taxes, and the post-office. With few exceptions, the duties seem to be judiciously selected; and though it be true that some of them would be more productive were they materially reduced, the defect is not in the selection of the articles on which to