The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-23 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

THE .EDIANBURGH RE VIE IV. No CLXX.
So singularly and inexplicably eetiquated is tl:e
opening article in this number—" Proposals for Ex-
tending the Irish Poor-law "—that any examination
of its character at this moment would he entirely
superfluous. The pressing necessities of Ireland, the
destitute, and in many particulars the insubordinate,
condition of its inhabitants, the famine with which
they are not merely threatened, but from the effects
ofwhich they are at present perishing, render any frigid
consideration of the insufficiency of past measures
for the diminution of pauperism in the sister eountry,
little less than an intended cruelty. This is not the
time to examine the merits of different schemes for
the organisation of society in Ireland—it is the time
to act in behalf of a starving population—it is the
time to adjure the Executive to be bountiful in their
efforts to alleviate.the sorrows of a helpless and pa-
tient peasantry—to call upon the resident and ab-
sentee landlords of that island to strive heart and
soul for the salvation of the very lives of their de-
pendants—to implore with the earnestness of sympa-
thising men for work fur the unemployed, for bread
for the hunger-stricken. We cannot, indeed, but
think that, this contribution to the Edinburgh Review
is the most misplaced, as it is very possibly one of the
best-intentioned, within our recollection. Ireland is
at this juncture, from Malin Head to Cape Clear, and
from Broad Haven to Carn,ore Point, one spectacle
of desolation and wretchedness :—lts potato-grounds
soddened with decomposition ; i:s streets filled with
bands of emaciated labourers; its provision-ware-
houses threatened with destruction; meal-bags torn
open on the highroads ; peaceable men pistokd on
their hearth=, or bludgeoned in their gardens ! That
is the present condition of that doomed country, ar.d,
such being the case, anything like a deliberate ana-
lysis of the cause of failure in the modes of internal
government, hitherto adopted for the amelioration ofitt
distresses, would be both inappropriate and ungene-
rous. For this reason we discard the article in ques-
tion without any further observation. Very dif-
ferent in all respects is the paper entitled " State and
Prospects of British Agriculture." The writer might,
however, more accurately have designated it the State
and Prospects of Scottish Agriculture, seeing that the
condition of the Lothians is the prominent object of
his consideration. This article is most practical,
most interesting, most encouraging. It is, in effect,
the journal of an observant agriculturist during a
pilgrimage through the northern provinces of
this island. Before his journey is commenced,
however, he asks, and answers, three questions, of
the highest importance. 177;4. "What has British
agriculture done ?" He maintains that its progres-
sive improvement during the last fifty years has im-
measurably outstripped that of all other countries,
whether American or European ; and that, notwith-
standing the increase of population, the average im-
portation of foreign corn up to the appearance of the
potato murrain was very little more than it was
twenty years since. Secondly, " What is it at present
doing ?" In responding to this inquiry, the reviewer
is very naturally more detailed, and (if we may say
so) more discursive. In order to satisfy his own
mind upon this particular, he has recently made an
elaborate tour of the island, and for the purpose of
satisfying the minds of his readers, he specifies the
result of his investigation. We recommend every
one to examine this portion of the Edinburgh Review.
It presents a panorama worthy of the
most laborious study. It carries us in ima-
gination from the bleak acclivities and
green bottoms of Caithness (where the spirit of agri-
cultural improvement has worked such miracles, that
last year a long lease of a farm at 1341. having just
expire 1, it has been since renewed at 8001. a year!)
to the red gravelly soil of Sutherland. It takes us to
a valley in Ross, where more than five quarters of
wheat and seven quarters of oats, per imperial acre,
are produced. It tells us how the writer encountered
cartloads of guano travelling across Strath Glass, and
how, in a village school in that wild district, he lis-
tened to a class of barefooted urchins creditably ex-
amined in agricultural chemistry It would be un-
just, however, to deteriorate from the interest of the
original narrative by extracting its skeleton. The
paper does the Reviewer infinite credit, both for the
perspicuity with which he has grouped so much
information together, and the labour that must
have been expended in its collection. It is
impossible after examining the veritable position
of our agriculturists, as the writer has done, after
having recognised the manner in which they avail
themselves of all the assistances of science, whether
chemical or mechanical, whether in artificial manures
or novel implements of husbandry ; it is impossible
after observing their almost universal enterprise and,
the success which invariably attends that enterprise, not
to feel a most,implicit confidence in the resources of
British agriculture. We might well exclaim with
this Edinburgh reviewer, " we feel a species of indi-
vidual gratitude towards those who reclaim the bleak
moss and the wild moor—who plant their feet firmly
on the quaking bog.—who give us the green hill-side,
in place of the purple heath, and, for the moorfowls'
cry, introduce the bleating of sheep ;" for all
these things have our farmers repeatedly accomplished
with the assistance of subsoil-ploughs, of liquid
manures, of lime, of drainage by tiles, and a hundred
other ingenious contrivances. Of the importance of
' a good system of drainage the reviewer is so
thoroughly convinced, that he declares himself satis-
fied that, within a single
millions ; year of its adoption,
suPPesing,
offo course anverage season, "five
quarter of a
the population has been grain more than
consuming would be raised ye in
this estimate is somewhat ex- • the habit of
To our thinking
g:reeoorintegi,erbeuct
aslucbutlraatecdt:
ing one-half from the surplu:
consumers.
England would, even then be
country, after having satisfied her homeen
Thirdly, then, inquires the writer—" Of what further
progress is agriculture capable ?" That he conceives
it to be capable of yet greater improvement, and that
to an extraordinary extent, will be obvious when we
quote his observation, " that the produce of the whole
island in corn may be doubled, by methods now
known, and in some districts profitably practised."
But the following passages will demonstrate yet
more clearly the opportunities for agricultural im-
provement, which he believes to exist in England,
notwithstanding all that has been hitherto accom-
plished.

" In Northumberland, if we cross the country from
Wooler to Morpeth, what an extent of improvable moor
asks to be reclaimed—of poor grass to be nourished—of
stiff clay to be subdued What sorrowful tales the craps
tell as we approach Newcastle ! flow spiritless and de-
pressed does all the land look which accompanies the
railway from Newcastle to York ! Is it the alleged over-
shadowing influence of clerical supremacy, or the sup-
posed readier road to wealth through its mines of coal,
that has rendered Durham an opprobium to English
agriculture ? The latter influence is unknown, the
former only in a less degree, in Yorkshire ; and yet the
water stagnates and sours in her flats and marshes, and
her moors are untouched by the drain and the subsoil
plough, and can scarely tell from experience how they
should look under the influence of lime and abundant
manure. The natives calumniate the soil ; yet how
strongly does the return it makes for any unusual labour
and skill speak for its willing capabilities, if the cultiva-
tor faithfully performed his part.
" Lincoln has much merit ; but she has more still to
do. Her stock-feeding will be improved—her manuring
will be cheapened and bettered—the drain will yet tra-
verse the country where its use has hitherto been un-
thought of ; and, both in Lincoln and in Norfolk a
deeper ploughing will hereafter, we think, be beneficially
introduced.

" In Northampton, Gloucester, and Somerset, the lies
clays are all, with isolated exceptions, still to drain ;
the same is true of the Oxford clays of Oxford, Berks,
and other counties ; and of the Weald clays of Sussex
and Kent. We might speak of the much-neglected hus-
bandry of Lancashire—of the comparative infancy still
of boneing in Cheshire—of the gaulting yet to be pro-
fitably performed in Huntingdon and lower Lincoln—of
the shallow draining of Essex, which does not admit of
the use of the subsoil plough—of the limited extension
of the turnip culture in Sussex—of the shallow plough-
ing so justly praised and practised in the moorlands of
Berkshire and Gloucester—of the undeveloped and as
yet little understood capabilities of the chalk soil of
Surrey and other southern counties ; and of the youth-
ful state of rural industry in the Devonian and Cornish
peninsula."
To those who are impressed with mournful antici-
pations in regard to the Possibilities of our native
agriculture, we commend this admirable article, con-
fident that it will prove a most salutary corrective. It
will testify, that the lovers of free trade are filled with
hopefulness, as much for the futurity of British agri-
culture as for that of British manufactures ; and that the
wonderful eminence already acquired by the latter is,
in the estimation of those despised political economists
eclipsed, if that be possible, by the former. " The Go-
vernment of British India" is a paper addressed parti-
cularly to our neighbours across the Channel, with the
intention of disabusing them of their many erroneous
impressions with regard to our dominions in Asia,
and especially of those promulgated by recent work
of the Chevslier de Warren. The paper is sensible
and independent. "Railways at Home and Abroad,"
is a contribution that was much wanted ; it accumu-
lates together a vast bulk of information previously
scattered in all sorts of directions, and presents a
clear bird's-eye view of that gigantic system which
promises to transform the whole character of society.
" Lives of Eminent Lawyers," is a review of two
biographical works, by W. N. Wesley, and W. C.
Townshend, already so familiar to the reading public.
" Grote's History of Greece," or at least the pre-
liminary portion of that history, has elicited from the
Edinburgh an article which will be devoured
with avidity by every classical student, par-
ticularly the passages in which the Re-
viewer maintains the individuality of Homer,
and not only his individuality, but the uniqueness of
the Iliad. The arguments of Mr. Grote to prove
that the original of that stupendous epic was an
Achilleis and not an Iliad are hero triumphantly re-
futed, and his extraordinary depreciation of the ninth
book indignantly contemned. With t tribute to the