338 THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. [CHAP. VI' 



He had two papers read at the Royal Society, one 

 on a ' New Mineral, consisting of Alumine and Water,' 

 and the other on a ' New Mode of Analysing Minerals 

 containing Fixed Alkali by Boracic Acid,' and for these 

 and his other papers he received the Copley medal. 



In September he thus wrote to Davies Gilbert : 



I came from Ireland by the Western Road about a fort- 

 night ago. 



The Irish are a noble race degraded by slavery and 

 bearing the insignia of persecution extreme savageness or 

 the lowest servility. Yet they are ingenious and active, 

 and seem to me to possess all the elements of power and 

 usefulness ; but amongst the lower orders there is a most 

 unfortunate equality, destructive of all great and efficient 

 exertion, and amongst the higher classes the greatest degree 

 of activity is awakened only by the desire of imitating 

 the English, and that not so much in their virtues as in 

 their luxuries and follies. 



And to his friend Poole he wrote, October 9 : 



I have very much to say about Ireland. It is an island 

 that might be made a new and a great country. It now 

 boasts a fertile soil, an ingenious and robust peasantry, and 

 a rich aristocracy, but the bane of the nation is the equality 

 of poverty amongst the lower orders. All are slaves with- 

 out the probability of becoming free. They are in the 

 state of equality which the sans-culottes wished for in 

 France, and until emulation and riches and the love of 

 clothes and neat houses are introduced amongst them there 

 will be no permanent improvement. 



Changes in political institutions can at first do little 

 towards serving them ; it must be by altering their habits, 

 by diffusing manufactures, by destroying middle men, 

 by dividing farms, and by promoting industry, by mak- 



