prone to argue with something of the temper of the Cardinal Mazarin, who, when a poor man, appealing to him, said, “Sir, I must exist," is reported to have replied, that he did not see any necessity that he should.

Society depends upon the principle that all shall live. I sicken when I listen to the owners of thousands making speeches upon the impropriety of early marriages, and the multiplication of the poor in Ireland, as though, instead of a fertile land, the country was a besieged town, where policy might propose some scheme "to vent their musty superfluity." Prudence and humanity may wish to restrain the birth of beggars-but the North American savage, who is condemned to a life of misery by her stronger husband, whose toils and privations are such as often to induce her to put to death her female offspring, that they may not live to endure the hardships of her lot,-goes only a short step far ther than these legislators, who, in stead of removing the causes of poverty, sternly denounce it as the just and necessary consequence of youthful unious-and, unmindful of the strongest impulses and the tenderest feelings of the heart, desire the poor to remain unwedded till the brightest season of life has passed away. I doubt if, in every view of the question, they are not mistaken; and, I believe, the only effect their doctrine produces is that of hardening the hearts of the rich, and turning men's thoughts from devising means for alleviating that which they prefer declaring irremediable. I believe there has not been one unit the less in the increasing number of our population, for all that Mr. Malthus and his followers have written.

I live within nineteen miles of Dublin, and personally know nothing of the most wretched parts of Ireland; yet what I see here you would

scarcely credit. This is quite a corn district, which, of course, is favourable in affording employment; the neighbouring fishing towns, although they have but few boats in compari son to what you might suppose their proximity to the Dublin market would support, still maintain a considerable number of families, so that anything I can relate to you will, in fact, convey no sample of what really is the degree of suffering poverty in Ireland, I believe some political economists say that the Roman Catholic religion is productive of mendicity; whether it is so or not I shall not examine; but it most undoubtedly fosters a degree of charity which is equally striking as the want which it relieves. I am told nearly all the families of the men who go to England and Scotland for the harvest, live, during the absence of their husbands and fathers, by begging-and I can well credit it from what I see here. You will meet a woman with scarcely any other clothes than a patched and ragged cloak, followed by three or four children-generally, indeed, with one of them on her back-a tin kettle and a small sack carried by the biggest ;-she tells you her hus band "is gone to look work; she has tired out her own people; or she has none to look to her; and she is walking the world, begging her bit, for God's sake ;"* and she will often return at night to the tempora ry lodging she has secured, with her sack full of potatoes, which may have been collected from the small farmers, or by twos and threes at the houses of the poorest inhabitants. I know several widows who have, for a constancy, entirely existed, together with their children, on the benevolence of their neighbours. "Looking their bit," is a regular phrase to denote this way of living. But imagine what it is!-the scanty meal of cold potatoes, or the wretch

fore, you need not wonder is placed at their door, for it is their riches, will frequently procure them land on which to set potatoes, that will chiefly support them through the year. Farmers give their worn-out quarter or half-quarter of an acre of land to those who can manure it; and if, by labour and the sale of the pig, the rent of the cabin has been paid, and enough potatoes procured for seed, the man is in a thriving state, aud his family, though, in the spring of the year, they may have subsisted on one meal a day, and are never halfclad, may still be considered very well off.

ed fire, which is made of "sprigs," (that is, bits of furze pulled from the few fences that offer even that,) and morsels of manure, which have been dried to supply the fuel necessary to boil the small refuse potatoes which they glean, if I may so term it, from the general digging of the neighbouring crops !Think of such a family, on a winter's day, wandering along the country with not always the degree of covering necessary for decency, never that sufficient for warmth ;—look at the bare legs, mottled blue with cold, and scarred with burns which they have scarcely felt, when, in their eagerness to profit by the permission to warm themselves, they have almost put their limbs into the fire!-The mother deploring the existence of her children, and looking with double sadness at the inclemency of a day of storm, when they must remain within their cabin, destitute both of food and warmth-their bed, on which they try to sleep away some of the hours of misery, a heap of worn-out straw, without other covering than the tat tered cloak, a piece of an old sack, or, may be, the remains of a blanket, which you would think too vile a rag to hang out amongst your peas as a scarecrow! This is no fancy-drawn picture-I know several families equally destitute.

We have heard much of late of the evils of sub-letting, and a bill, I believe, is in force to remedy some of them. It has not fallen within my means generally to investigate the tenures on which the poor inhabitants hold their mud cabins; for, where I cannot relieve, I shrink from questioning the poor-their wretchedness I respect. But I know the great majority tell me they "live under a poor man ;" they often give, as rent, the heap of manure which they have collected and made with a diligence and success that you English could not comprehend might be achieved, where the proprietor of this source of profit possesses no animals but a few hens, or perhaps a pig. This dunghill, which, there37 ATHENEUM, VOL. 9, 2d series.

The scantiness or abundance of the potatoe crop is the chief criterion of the degree of starvation which is to be the lot of the majority. The farmers give in proportion; and the poor who have them of their own, or who purchase them, equally depend for comfortable subsistence on their abundance. In years where they have failed, I have known families, of which the father enjoys constant employment every day in the year, reduced to one meal in the twenty-four hours. What, then, is the degree of starvation of those who in abundant seasons depend on charity? Last spring, though there had not been an absolute failure of potatoes, they were very dear; and I will give you one instance of the sufferings endured by a family consisting of a man, his wife, and five children, the eldest a girl about twelve years old. The man, whose name is Donough, usually works with a farmer who feeds him, and gives him sevenpence a day; but in the scarcest part of the spring, the farmer diminished his number of labourers, and this poor man could find no employment. He left home to seek for work, and at the end of three weeks returned scarcely able, through weakness from want of food, to crawl to his door. His wife was not in a much better condition;-they begged from the neighbours, but what they got was only sufficient to preserve them from actual famine; they constantly pass

ple whom even misery cannot chill to the neglect of affection, though it renders them utterly careless of themselves? and what right have men to talk to such people of the necessary degradation and misery attendant upon early marriages? It is not the law of nature that entails such misery; the cause exists in the arbitrary arrangements of our laws and social system. I call aloud upon you who have the power to attract attention, to tell the public what is the state of misery in Ireland.

The Irish members may know more than they tell; ignorant of any positive scheme of radical improvement, they may advocate education, emancipation, emigration, and think too much interference hurtful to the

ON my arrival at Kioff from Moscow, Count Miloradowitch,† the Governor-General of the province, received me with that hospitable politeness which so eminently distinguishes the Russian nation. He was that day to give a dinner, in honour of the Emperor's birth day, which I was invited to attend.

internal condition of a country, leav ing individuals to take care of their own concerns. But, in my opinion of the poverty and misery of Ireland, it demands interference. The political grievances are rather symptoms than causes: they aggravate the malady no doubt, and demand instant attention-but, considered as partyquestions,-in which light they appear to me alone ever to be considered,-they strike not at the root of the evil. I wish to call your attention to Ireland, as a humane and philosophical man, not as a political partisan of any school. I fear my letter is too tedious to propitiate you

but I know your good heart, and I assure you it would bleed if you saw what I daily witness.

At five o'clock, I proceeded to the Government palace. This is a fine residence, and at the period here referred to, it had been furnished in most elegant style by Count Miloradowitch. The gardens, which were beautifully laid out, were open as a promenade to the inhabitants of Kioff. The dinner presented a specimen of the Count's munificent taste, and there was profusion without confusion. I had the good for tune to be seated next to Madame

Aglaée Davidoff, (before her mar

riage, Mademoiselle de Grammont,) and I thus escaped the dulness which so frequently attends a dinner of ceremony. We conversed about her family, who were known to me, and the fate of her uncles, Counts Armand and Jules de Polignac, who then excited general interest. We soon became intimate. We were both young and far from our native country, and fond recollections, common to us both, supplied the place of previous acquaintance.

Opposite to us, on the right hand of the Governor, there sat a young lady, whose beauty attracted my notice. The paleness of her interesting countenance was heightened by the contrast of her luxuriant dark hair, which descended in clustering ringlets on her neck. Her long eye