n shivered and fell to the ground.

An abused and indignant soil repudiated the ungrateful race that had
exhausted and degraded its once exuberant bosom. The land refused
to hold those who would not hold the land on terms of justice and of
science. All the economical palliatives and political pretences of
long years seemed only to aggravate the suffering and confusion. The
poor-rate was levied upon a community of paupers, and the 'godless
colleges' were denounced by Rome as well as Oxford.

After a wild dream of famine and fever, imperial loans, rates in
aid, jobbing public works, confiscated estates, constituencies
self-disfranchised, and St. Peter's bearding St. James's in a spirit
becoming Christendom rather than Europe, time topped the climax of Irish
misgovernment; and by the publication of the census of 1851, proved that
the millions with whose evils no statesmen would sincerely deal,
but whose condition had been the pretext for so much empiricism, had
disappeared, and nature, more powerful than politicians, had settled the
'great difficulty.'

Ere the publication of that document, the mortal career of Sir Robert
Peel had closed, and indeed several of the circumstances to which we
have just alluded did not occur in his administration; but the contrast
between his policy and its results was nevertheless scarcely less
striking. It was in '45 that he transmitted his most important 'message
of peace' to Ireland, to be followed by an autumnal visit of her Majesty
to that kingdom, painted in complacent and prophetic colours by her
prime minister. The visit was not made. In the course of that autumn,
ten counties of Ireland were in a state of anarchy; and, mainly in
that period, there were 136 homicides committed, 138 houses burned, 483
houses attacked, and 138 fired into; there were 544 cases of aggravated
assault, and 551 of robbery of arms; there were 89 cases of bands
appearing in arms; there were more than 200 cases of administering
unlawful oaths; and there were 1,944 cases of sending threatening
letters. By the end of the year, the general crime of Ireland had
doubled in amount and enormity compared with the preceding year.

CHAPTER IV.

_The Cure for Irish Ills_

LORD GEORGE BENTINCK had large but defined views as to the policy which
should be pursued with respect to Ireland. He was a firm supporter of
the constitutional preponderance allotted to the land in our scheme of
government, not from an