Literary Provincial Societies.We could much wish that a general delegation of the different societies, which exist in the counties for literary and philosophical purposes, were appointed to meet every three years in some central place, in order to direct the publication, at the common expense, of such of their transactions as might appear worthy of such distinction. We are assured that many papers exist in the Institutions at Glasgow, Manchester, York, and other places, which, if they were given to the world would materially contribute to the progress of science. It is to be lamented that some steps are not taken in order to establish a more constant intercourse between societies, which have, for the most part, the same objects in view. Rapid Writing.-A young Italian of the name of Galli, who is now in this country, is said to have invented a most ingenious machine, to be played upon by the fingers like a piano, by means of which any person may copy an entire volume in the same space of time that he would take to read it. Farther, by the use of this instrument not only one, but many copies may be made of a speech during the period of its delivery, and a blind man may work it as well as any other individual. Posture of Students.-Keep the trunk erect, and the limbs as nearly as possible in a natural and easy position, while you are reading or writing. Those who constantly pursue literary labours in a standing position, generally enjoy uninterrupted health; if you prefer sitting, measure the distance between the place of the elbow, as it comes upon the back of your chair, and the surface of the seat. The surface of the desk should be no more than about three inches higher above the surface of the seat than this place of the elbow. Education in America.-Most of the states in the Union provide for education, by means of funds, or annual appropriations from the state treasury. The western states, generally have a section of land in each township for the support of schools. New York secures the education of about 500,000 children for the annual sum of 95,000 dollars. Printing in Schools. It has been well suggested that children should be taught to spell by being required to set types for books. We have heard that at a school in Massachusets the female pupils print a newspaper! Effect of the Corn Laws.-It has been calculated that the consequence of the restrained system, which has prevailed since 1815, has been to diminish the home growth of corn very materially upon the average of the five last years, and that the diminution is going on to a most serious extent. Manzoni.-This writer, one of the best of whom Italy can boast at the present day, and of whom she might not have been ashamed in the golden age of her literature, has recently published the fourth edition of his defence of the morality of the Catholic religion,-a masterly piece of reasoning and eloquence, which is much admired upon the continent, and deserves to be known everywhere. St. Simonism.-The sect which exists in France under this title, ought hardly to be called a religious one; it is rather an association, whose object is to establish a system of social and political economy, upon the principles which are known to be adopted in our own country by the Utilitarians, from whom they differ but by a few slight shades. Reason in Birds.-As a case in point, in support of the opinion advanced by Dr. Drummond (see Art. VII. in this number) and others, that the lower orders of the creation possess a certain faculty of reasoning, superior to mere instinct, we may mention that Dr. Steel, who lives near the sources of the Saratoga, has stated that he has seen the swallows that frequent its banks, often alter the construction, and even the situation of their nests, to suit them to circumstances which may best secure their young from their natural enemies. Rewards of Merit -The French have in the institution of the Legion of Honour, a very cheap mode of conferring very acceptable distinctions. The cross of the Legion was much prized by Sir Thomas Lawrence, who received it during his mission to the continent; and we observe from the newspapers that it has lately been bestowed upon Baron Humboldt, Thorwaldsen, and Berzelius. Royal Society of Literature.The public have been acquainted for some time with the fact, that the royal annual donation of 1000 guineas, which was regularly presented to ten associates by his late Majesty, is henceforward to be discontinued. We own that we do not regret this so much as many of our contemporaries; for we cannot but think that royal pensions are but a very questionable mode of securing independence to the literary character in a free country. The cases of some of the individuals are indeed to be lamented, as the sum of 100 guineas per annum is to them of considerable consequence. But if their pensious should be continued during their lives, we hope that the system will cease altogether with them. Its natural tendency is to corrupt and debase literature. Viper's Grass. Experiments which have been recently made in France, shew that viper's grass is quite as good as mulberry-leaves, for the sustenance of silk-worms. Cholera Morbus.-The public mind is apparently not so much agitated with fears of the approach of this pestilence to our shores, as one would have expected. So much the better, as freedom from anxiety and apprehension is itself one of the very best preventatives against the malady. Indeed there is reason to believe that its malignity has been much exaggerated, although it is satisfactory to know that the government have taken all possible precautions on the subject. The quarantine is so strictly enforced, that the captain of a merchant vessel who violated it recently, has been fined in the sum of 5001. A medical commission has been sent to Riga to report upon the state of the malady at that place, and a medical board has been appointed, under the sanction of government, to watch its progress, if it should, unhappily, find a footing in England. TO CORRESPONDENTS. T. B. may be assured that his work will be noticed in due course. If he will cast his eye over our present number, and count the works which are reviewed in it, he will see that we have not been idle during the last month. N. B. Authors who are desirous of having their works noticed in this journal, should carefully instruct their publishers to send us the earliest impressions. Unles books are forwarded in good time, they must, of necessity, be postponed. THE MONTHLY REVIEW. AUGUST, 1831. ART. I.-1. First Fruits, Ireland.—Return to an Order of the Honour able House of Commons, dated 8th December, 1830;—for a Return prepared by the Remembrancer of First Fruits, containing a List of the several Dignities, Benefices, and Parishes in Ireland; Arranged in the order of Dioceses and Counties, with the names of the several Dignitaries and Incumbents in 1812; adding thereto, an Account of all Promotions and Alterations made and returned into the First Fruits Office, from the month of August, 1812, to the present time; stating the name and time of admission of each Dignitary and Incumbent so promoted and removed, and distinguishing Livings, taxed to and paying First Fruits, from those Exempt by Statute, and those not taxed; with the estimated annual value of every Dignity, as far as the same can be ascertained, and of every Benefice and Parish, as specified in the Returns made under the Tithe Composition Act. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 30th March, 1831. 2. The Institution and Abuse of Ecclesiastical Property. By the Rev. Edward Hull, M.A., 8vo. pp. 214. London: Cadell. 1831. 3. The English and Jewish Tithe Systems compared in their Origin, their Principles, and their Moral and Social tendencies. By Thomas Stratten. 12mo. pp. 280. London: Holdsworth and Ball. 1831. THE time is fast approaching, when the whole system of the church established by the authority of law in England and Ireland, must of necessity undergo a thorough revision, and submit, perhaps, from the same imperative cause, to more than one fundamental alteration. Men do not often begin to write and publish their thoughts upon a subject of great importance, in which the whole community is directly or indirectly interested, until they find that it has been very generally discussed in many of the private circles of which that community is composed. The grievance is first felt, one neighbour speaks of it to another, they find that their ideas run pretty much in the same channel. The topic is mentioned with greater confidence, it is frequently introduced into conversation, it is much dwelt upon in all its bearings, it VOL. 11. (1831.) No. IV. 2 I seizes the attention of the more cultivated minds, and is made the theme of letters in the newspapers, of pamphlets, and finally of elaborate works, drawn up with great care, in which arguments are derived from theology, history, law, and every other source which can be made to bear upon the question. These works give rise to controversy, the matter becomes the subject of public opinion one way or the other, and finally the legislature is obliged to take it up, and deal with it in a manner that may be most conformable to the general interests. Much, but as yet not all, of this, has already taken place with regard to the church, which the authority of parliament, not the power of persuasion, has planted in this country and in Ireland. The people of Scotland had the courage to defend and to preserve, against the attempted interference of the legislature, that form of worship to which they gave the preference. The people of Ireland were not equally fortunate in their resistance; they could not prevent the English government from seizing upon their cathedrals and other sacred edifices, and bestowing enormous endowments upon the Lutheran form of religion; but they never accepted it, never conformed to it as a people. It long has been, and still is among, but not of them, an isolated institution, which is every day losing a portion of its comparatively few disciples, and very likely soon to crumble into ruins. Nor would there be any thing in such a consummation as this, as indeed a high authority has intimated, which would be calculated to affect the union now subsisting between the three kingdoms; even if we suppose the people of England to remain attached to the religion which is now established amongst them. When we recollect that they have so long been united with the Scotch, who differ from them upon many essential points of religion, there is no reason to apprehend that they might not continue in the same bonds of harmony with the Irish, (from whom, indeed, they have also differed hitherto almost as much as from the Scotch,) although the Anglican church in Ireland should be shorn of its unmerited splendour. Nay, we should go farther and express our firm conviction, that if the Catholic church, the church of so large a majority of the people of Ireland, should be established in that country, this circumstance would rather strengthen than impair the political union which connects it with Great Britain; it would make the Irish feel that their rights were respected, and that they were upon terms of just equality with the Scotch and English portions of the imperial federation; it would have a reciprocal effect upon the people of England, who would be thus taught to honour the fidelity and constancy of a nation, which no wars of extermination and persecution, no instruments of tyranny or torture of law, could turn aside, even for a moment, from the path of religion in which their forefathers, acting on the example of hundreds of generations, had placed them. Of this, however, another time. At present our attention is forcibly directed to the striking picture which the parliamentary return, relating to the payment of First Fruits in Ireland, exhibits of the actual condition of the established church in that country. The "First Fruits" in Ireland mean a certain proportion of the first year's profits of the spiritual preferments, according to a recorded valuation, which proportion originally formed part of the revenues of the crown, but has been since, by various acts of parliament, vested in a board for the purpose of building churches and glebe houses, and augmenting small livings. It is no part of our object to inquire into the reasons why some dignities and benefices have been taxed for this impost, while others have been exonerated from it, or whether the sums which it has produced ought to have been larger, or whether they have been properly applied. We use the return as an account, imperfect though it be in many respects, of the enormous and unjustifiable opulence of the established church in Ireland; we shall collect from it, as far as it goes, the number of acres of land which are actually appropriated to that church, and the amount of money income which it enjoys; and we shail moreover be enabled by it just to glance at the precious system of ecclesiastical patronage that flourishes in that country, whereby favoured individuals hold, not two, but ten, and sometimes twelve and fifteen benefices, if not more, at one and the same time. The reader should know that, proceeding upon the basis of the ancient hierarchy, the modern church has divided Ireland into four provinces, Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, in each of which it has placed an archbishop and a certain number of bishops. The return commences with the diocess of Armagh, in the province of that name, which diocess, including the archbishopric, contains seventy-nine ecclesiastical benefices, and counts, in glebe and see lands, no fewer than seventy-eight thousand two hundred and thirty-six acres. The number of pluralists amongst the incumbents clearly demonstrates the very limited labours which they undergo, for when we find one man holding four or five parishes, the natural conclusion is that there are few Lutherans in the district, otherwise he could not attend by possibility to their spiritual necessities. Thus, for instance, the Rev. Elias Thackeray was, in 1820, vicar of five different parishes; William Henry Foster, in 1822, vicar of three and rector of one; James Edward Jackson, in 1823, vicar of five parishes and rector of one; Charles Le Poer Trench, in the same year, rector and vicar of six parishes; Arthur Ellis, in 1826, rector of one and vicar of five; not to mention many other pluralists upon a minor scale. It was the desire of the House of Commons that the value of the benefices, universally, should have been included in the return; but this has seldom been done, as the parties, for reasons which they best understand, have omitted to give certificates to that effect in almost every case of importance. Of the six parishes enjoyed by Le Poer Trench, we have here the valuation of only three, amounting to about 8007. per annum. Of |
