552 REMARKS ON THE DUBLIN REVIEW. 



we may class the articles under three heads : — politics, religion, and 

 science with its application. On the first class of topics — particularly 

 as the ultra-liberal side of Irish politics and the defence of Romanism 

 form a prominent feature in the Re/iew — our readers must not be 

 surprised to meet with a very zealous advocacy of the present go- 

 vernment of Ireland, and a depreciation of every effort made by 

 preceding viceroys and secretaries for the pacification of that unfor- 

 tunate and very ill-used country. We have not space to discuss 

 the merits of the paper, " Earl Mulgrave in Ireland , " but we ac- 

 knowledge a leaning to the side taken by the writer, especially on 

 the ground taken against Orange lod^^es; for we think that nothing 

 has caused so much bad feeling in Ireland, or has so much retarded 

 the progress of things towards that end which every true philanthro- 

 pist desires — peace, as the almost sanguinary stubbornness with 

 which the ultra-tory faction have persisted in maintaining, by the 

 employment of brute force, the ascendancy of Protestantism in a 

 country of which eleven-fourteenths are believers in the Roman 

 religion. We are no advocates for Romanism, for we believe that 

 we have a purer creed, and one that leads to more practical results ; 

 but still we acknowledge no civil power as being authorized to re- 

 strain the profession of religion, or to confine the opinions of our 

 countrymen; and we accordingly rejoice at the downfal of a party that 

 hasdone all that itcould do to thrust down the throats of the Irish peo- 

 ple opinions of whose truth the Spirit of God had not convinced them, 

 and that too by means that must have operated as an additional pre- 

 judice against the reformed religion. Oh, that a revival of the 

 peaceful spirit and the high moral character of a Melancthon, a 

 Cranmer, or a Bradford might replace the infuriate zeal and the 

 damaged reputation of a party zoho make religion a flimsy veil for a 

 bigoted political creed! Those true reformers would not have sighed 

 for the lost loaves aud fishes which the abject distress of Ireland 

 absolutely denies them ; they would rather have prayed daily that, 

 if in reality they were benighted and in error, they might be enabled 

 to decide on a right faith, and found their conduct on a firm basis, 

 and their happiness on proper grounds of merit. We should be the 

 last to deny the rights of the clergy to a maintenance ; but we see 

 no use in insisting on what the people cannot bestow if they were 

 willing, and still less of honesty in continuing to demand payment 

 for that which they do not perform. We quite agree with the re- 

 viewer that no question has so much interfered with the prospect of 

 settling Irish affairs ;.s the tithe question ; but we think that the re- 

 currence of a few scenes like that at Rathcormac — if healing mea- 

 sures are not adopted, they inevitably must recur — will cool the 

 energy of opposition demonstrated by some members of the Lords' 

 House of Parliament. Time will show. 



We next notice the review of " Rienzi." No sensible person 

 who has ever read that historical romance — and an excellent one it 

 is, which we have read with an attention seldom given to works pro- 

 fessedly of a light character — no one, we say, could be mistaken re- 

 specting the object of its author, who will not, we are sure, shrink 

 from the acknowledgment of his adherence to the Radical party — 



