time. The victim at the altar drops down suddenly, even among the sacrificing priests; the ox dies in harness at the plough, and subsequently the very bird is described as falling down, headlong and dead, while on its airy flight. But this last notice may now prepare us for the strange extension of the plague, as told in the poetic narrative. After the cattle, dogs are first mentioned as affected by it; then pigs, then horses. The most favourable circumstances had no power to avert or stop contagion, neither the shade of groves, nor the soft pastures, nor the purest streams. The temperance of animals as opposed to the intemperance of man is beautifully applied, but spoken of as all in vain to secure deliverance. Dryden's translation or paraphrase of this singular passage may be introduced as a specimen of his mode of dealing with the subject. Speaking of the ox, he writes: "Now what avails his well-deserving toil And yet he never supped in solemn state, No dreadful dreams awaked him with His pains by day secured his rest by night." But to continue the list of affected animals. Those of a wilder nature were attacked-the wolves and the stags. Then the fish suffered on the neighbouring shore-refuting, if true, the statement of naturalists that contagion does not touch the inhabitants of the sea while in their own domain. The seal too, and the serpent tribe was attacked, even in its clefts and hiding-places. And two lines of very remarkable beauty speak of the birds as destroyed by the pesti 1 This gives occasion for those lovely and touching lines of the original: "It tristis arator, Morentem abjungens fraternâ morte juvencum, Atque opere in medio defixa reliquit aratra." lence-falling headlong, as before noticed, in their flight: "Ipsis est aer avibus non æquus, et illæ Præcipites altâ vitam sub nube relinquunt.” 546, 7. And thus ends the sad catalogue of destructions as reigning in each element where life can exist in earth, water, and air. There is a grand description, towards the end, of the terror and helplessness which attended them-of the incapacity of the ablest physicians to afford relief, as being at their wits' ends. And it is curious to observe the burial of the cattle mentioned as a lesson only learned after a long time of pestilence, and as the only mode of arresting destruction on the largest scale (1. 558).1 Neither could any part of the animal be used for any purpose whatsoever. The hides and the wool are specially described as affected with contagion, and if used, brought on sure and fearful death. The narrative and its accompaniments thus abruptly end. How much of fable there is in it-how much of traditional exaggeration as to the animals whom the contagion seized-how much of positive exact truth and accuracy, we have no adequate means of ascertaining. Notwithstanding a few vague statements to the contrary, which have found their way into the papers, this specific plague in our own day has hitherto been confined to one specific race of God's creatures and gifts to man among our domestic animals, but that a valuable and important one. seen whether it will mains to be continue thus limited. There can be no certainty. In the vegetable kingdom the potato disease was followed by that among the vines and other plants and trees. But let there be all hope and confidence in Him, who is described as the Preserver both of man and beast: while being forewarned we shall be fore1 So Dryden : most It re "Sheep, oxen, horses fall, and heaped on high The differing species in confusion lie; Till warned by frequent ills the way they found, To lodge their loathsome carrion under armed; and even from a poet's narrative of not far less than two thousand years ago, and telling of things, ancient even then, we of this century may learn some lessons for ourselves, and carefully attend to the food, the cleanliness, and general condition, in a sanitary way, of all those precious and most useful creatures, on which so much of our wealth and comfort depends. The excitement of the present moment, and the state and prospects of England, as affected by the Cattle Plague, though at present touching one race alone,-namely, that of our herds-reminds us of its importance, as it were with a trumpet-tongue. The Queen's Speech, the debates in the Lords and Commons, the employment of all the highest capacities of our most distinguished countrymen on one particular and most grave visitation, may remind us of the well-known Scriptural history (1 Kings viii. 5), where the King went one way and his Prime Minister another, through the land (as the King said) "that we lose not all the beasts." Their distresses and perils were from want of water; ours are from disease. Theirs needed all the full development of national and public energy; so do ours also. FRANCIS TRENCH. ISLIP RECTORY, Feb. 17. THE NEW IRISH DIFFICULTY. BY J. HERBERT STACK. WHEN a popular writer in this country wishes to sum up all the demerits of a system, a practice, or a man, he has recourse to that crushing word "unEnglish." Leaving Mr. Matthew Ar nold to discuss with " our countrymen' whether the applicability of that epithet conclusively settles a dispute, I may point out that the Fenian conspiracy appears at first sight to be essentially "un-Irish". --a characteristic that many will consider a recommendation. Instead of the old boisterous agitations, vague in their aims, and only practical in the collection of money, we have the new movement silent enough on Irish soil, practically definite in its main purpose, and, marvellous to say, freely spending money on its military and civilian proselytes. It is also remarkable that in Ireland itself it displays none of that old wild-goose oratory that used to excite the hearty laughter of the English press; it has none of that "hifalutin," and thoroughly Hibernian writing that furnished spicy extracts for the Dublin correspondents of the London papers; nor has it a which excited the admiration of literary Englishmen even amid the troubles of 1848. In many other respects it is the very reverse of those former Irish agitations which were 66 racy of the soil." It is under the ban of "the Church :" the soggarth aroon (" priest-darling!") of the old Irish songs is the avowed enemy of the new cause. Again, for the first time in Irish history, it is purely democratic. Any one who remembers the Repeal agitation of 1843, and the movement of 1848, must remember the earnest desire of the agitators to obtain as leaders, or to enrol in their ranks, men of social standing. O'Connell advertised again and again for Protestants and men of property, and the Young Irelanders never professed any hostility to the aristocracy. Indeed, the great agitator himself was, as regards European politics, a Legitimist pur sang-a staunch adherent of the elder Bourbons, and so ready to uphold foreign and despotic rule in Italy, that his youngest and favourite son was an officer of Austrian dragoons. To crown all, we have in this new development a strong tinge of tached itself to any public movement on Irish soil. Silent, practical, unpoetical, unsectarian, democratic, and Socialistic, Fenianism has unexpected characteristics that entitle it to more consideration than the former frothy agitations, so "un-English" in manner and aim that they excited sometimes amusement, sometimes annoyance, sometimes anxiety, but very seldom alarm, attention, or respect. It would still, however, be a mistake not to recognise that the new conspiracy is the "natural child" of the old agitations. In France we see how the Republican party of the last French revolution contributed its dregs to make the fierce Socialist faction of June, '48; in fact, when a party despairs of success in legitimate politics, it enlists adherents by promising to the masses material advantages and sensual gains. The leaders of the Fenians in 1866 are men who were, so to speak, the sergeants and corporals of the army of agitators in 1848; but in addition to that old cry for Irish independence which attracts the sympathy even of many of the middle classes, they conciliate IrishAmericans by proclaiming a republic, and stimulate the agrarian passions of the peasantry by promising a distribution of land. Herein lie some of the complexities of the situation. Inasmuch as Fenianism is known to be Socialistic, to aim at immediate plunder, at enriching the poor by despoiling all who have property, and at re-distributing farms and estates, it is feared by every wellto-do shopkeeper, every thriving farmer, every industrious artisan. But, inasmuch as it stands in the place of the old agitations that enlisted the sympathy of three-fourths of the Irish people, it is looked on with a kind of half-admiration-not that the middle classes fear Socialism less, but that they dislike England more. Again, the Roman ·Catholic clergy denounce the new secret society, but there is not a single Fenian outburst against "English rule" that could not be paralleled from past pastorals of Irish Catholic bishops, and past fore, though it is a servile war, carried on by the dregs of a political army disbanded eighteen or twenty years ago, yet opinion in Ireland cannot forget that that army was once officered by the middle classes, was blessed by the Catholic clergy, and had for its enemy the same old English foe. To the staid Irishman of 1866 the Fenian is a reckless, vagabond younger brother, who revives some old feud with a rival family; the middle-aged gentleman does not like the revival, knows also that the youngster is a vaurien, a profligate, and a rake: but he cannot help a kind of naughty sympathy for the young rascal who so bitterly and effectively brings up again the feelings that once stirred his own young blood, and that still have power to harass the old enemy of the house. Herein lies one of the greatest sources of Fenian strength. That a Celtic race, attached to the soil, should sooner or later develop a Socialistic longing for the re-distribution of land is natural, almost inevitable; but were there in Ireland to-day a middle-class of farmers and shopkeepers politically and religiously well-affected, Fenianism would be effectually suppressed by public opinion, or, if needful, by the batons of such special constabulary as overawed the Chartists of 1848. That such an organization is utterly out of the question in Ireland; that the Government does not dream of employing it; that the middle classes never offer their services; is one of those negative advantages of Fenian sedition that must be taken into serious account. When English writers say that the middle classes in Ireland are "loyal," and "friendly to law and order," they are right if they merely mean that they are not enrolled Fenians, and have a wholesome horror of Fenian plunder and Fenian confiscation, and that they value tranquillity and law; but if they mean that the Irish shopkeepers and artizans could be entrusted with arms to maintain order, or would make personal sacrifices to help the police, they are greatly mistaken. London furnished, in 1848, to assist the authorities; nobody now proposes anything of the kind in Dublin, Waterford, or Cork. Chartism in England, in 1848, would have been a serious fact had the bourgeoisie given even a passive sympathy to Feargus O'Connor. But, while Fenianism is undoubtedly the illegitimate offspring of the extinct agitations, it has in addition the practical agrarian element, which never before made part of an Irish agitator's programme. O'Connell first sought Catholic Emancipation, and was triumphant in 1829. He then made war upon Tithes, and won a partial victory in the transference of the tax from the occupiers to the owners of the land—a mere shifting of the burthen, but a quietus to the agitation of the day. He next sought Repeal not heartily-but with an arrière pensée that, if he obtained “Justice to Ireland," he would give up his extreme demand. His seceding sons, the Young Irelanders, sought national independence. Their successors, led by Mr. John Sadleir, demanded tenant-right, and the new National Association demands that and separate Roman Catholic education. In none of these is there any of that practical agrarian sedition which is the basis of the Fenian programme. The tenant-right, demanded by modern agitation, is a measure opposed, no doubt, to that freedom of contract which characterises all the relations between English owners and occupiers of the soil, but it resembles Fenianism only as the Factory Act resembles the Socialism of Fourier or Cabet. The extreme demand of the National Association is, that improvements made by the tenant in his holding, with or without the landlord's consent, should be paid for, according to an independent valuation, whenever the tenant is turned out. In England the same result is practically attained through good feeling and common sense, and a law of the kind in this country would be mischievous and absurd. But we can easily understand how a legislator, looking to the peculiar circumstances of Ireland, utterly unneeded in England, and utterly unsuited to the habits of the people, might possibly be productive of great political advantage and great practical good in an island with a history so unlike that of England, with an aristocracy very differently situated, and with a people different in race, and very dif ferent in the circumstances that have surrounded them for the last two hundred years. Let us consider briefly the contrasts that do exist between English and Irish rural society. In the first place, English landlords and Irish landlords are very unlike indeed in character, circumstances, and disposition. There are throughout Ire land many landlords of the English type-many who act in the same way and fulfil the same functions as the owners of the soil in Yorkshire, Warwickshire, or Kent; but, in the main, the Irish landlord is very unlike his English brother. The devotion to local duty, which characterizes the English country gentleman, is remarkable from any point of view. The heavy demands on the time of an Englishman, the head of "a county family," are taken as a matter of course by persons who have only observed English society; and his patient perseverance in local work is so very common, that it generally fails to excite surprise. The Grand Jury, the Quarter Sessions, the Magistrate's Bench, the County Hospital, the Board of Guardians, the Volunteers, the smaller charitable institutions, the neighbouring Reformatory, all constitute regular and serious demands on the English country gentleman - demands cheerfully and promptly met. promptly met. In addition, there are the host of irregular applications. day he must take the chair at a meeting for repairing a cathedral or building a new church. Another day he is asked to serve on the Committee for the Assize Ball. Every local testimonial would languish without his name and subscription; no charitable fund for coal, flannel, or soup is complete without his donation. In addition he finds that his own tenantry have peculiar One but bearance, but on his charity and good will, while his labourers give himself and his wife and daughters plenty to do, watching them through fevers or guarding them from absolute destitution. In fact a gentleman coming into a country estate in England finds himself suddenly surrounded by a host of near and poor relations not blood relationsmen, women, and children looking to him to discharge a hundred duties appertaining to his position. In no country in the world are these duties so manfully accepted and so faithfully discharged as in England: no gentry on the face of the earth work so hard as the owners of English estates. The English political system, with its constant tendency to decentralize power, throws this hard labour imperatively upon them; and they do their local work with many faults and many shortcomings, but with an amount of goodwill and industry unknown elsewhere. In France the country gentleman flies the provinces to become under every dynasty and régime an idler and a frondeur at Paris; and while that result is partially due no doubt to the bureaucratic centralization which gives to the Minister of the Interior and the Prefects the local work done amongst us by a crowd of authorities, it is also due to the spirit of the Celtic race-the aversion to dull, prosaic, routine work -the contempt for merely local business -the love of metropolitan pleasure, and the passion for personal enjoyment. In Ireland there is to some extent the same political system and the same characteristics of race, with, to a great extent, the same result. The country is ruled in the main from Dublin Castle : Lord Wodehouse has much more absolute and extended authority than Sir George Grey. Instead of the English country police, managed by the magistrates, there is one body of Irish constabulary drilled in the best military style, and ruled by a metropolitan commander-in-chief. Instead of the English country gentlemen who preside as Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, each Irish by the Crown, and acting in that capacity. There are also in several rural districts stipendiary magistrates controlling to a great extent the local bench; and in many other ways the administration of Irish affairs comes closer to the Parisian model than to that loose, indefinite control having its centre at Whitehall. Why this should be-why the Irish gentry have not been trusted by the Government to perform the local judicial work executed by the corresponding class in England,-is very easily understood by those conversant with the past history of Ireland. It would be a long story to tell in any completeness; in brief, it was found that Tory landowners, hating "Popery" so intensely that they thought petty persecution an essential part of the Protestant faith, could not be fully trusted with the magistracy and police of the land; and, for many years, the Roman Catholic population of Ireland has looked to Dublin Castle to guard it against excesses of local authority by unpaid magistrates-Protestants almost to a man. Here then we have partially the French centralization with partially the French result-the withdrawal of the landed gentry from the administration of local justice. The English landlord comes again and again into friendly contact with his tenantry and poorer neighbours he helps them in a thousand ways, and has both the will and the power to do so. There has, consequently grown up amongst us a kindly feeling connecting landlords, farmers, and labourers, in strong bonds of habit and locality. In Ireland there is little of the kind; the gentry, partly through the administrative system, partly through Celtic.readiness to shirk dull work and to seek pleasure in Dublin or abroad, are, in many cases, idlers or absentees, with a great gulf between them and the tenants and labourers on their estates. But is this sad result entirely due to the difference between Irishmen and Englishmen owning the soil Certainly not; there is also in Ireland the vast separation caused by sectarian dissen |