signing an adequate cause. For what is it that makes one people lazy, and another active and industrious? It is not the physical influence of the climate, (though perhaps where the difference of latitude is great, it may have some slight effect on the human constitution;) it is motive presented to the mind that makes a nation laborious and rich. A nation is made up of individuals, and as every individual will exert himself in proportion to the stimulus which he has to exertion, so will a whole nation be industrious, in proportion as it has encouragement to industry. Now, as it regards Ireland, the three general causes which retard the improvement of a people, political arrangement, national religion, and inveterate prejudice, will be found to unite.

First, with regard to national religion: and here let it be observed that I call the Roman Catholic the national religion, though it is not the established, since it is professed by the great body of the people. There is one way in which this is evidently injurious to the industry and morals of those who are under its influence; I refer to the many days of idleness and dissipation which it prescribes. This was remarked by Arthur Dobbs, who wrote a treatise on the improvement of Ireland eighty years ago: referring to the holidays, he says,

"these they spend in idleness, to the loss of the public and their own detriment, half starving their families by not working a competent part of their time. Nor would it be a detriment, if we lessened the number of our own legal holidays, and had more working days: for since the original intention of them is not complied with, to frequent the church for instruction and prayers, the public ought not to suffer the loss, by their making it a cloak for idleness and debauchery."

"I shall here beg leave to make a gross computation of the loss the nation sustains by the great number of our holidays and by the still greater number of the popish holidays.'

"There are twenty-six popish holidays kept in England, more than the thirty-two kept by our law but by our Irish calendar I apprehend, there are many more; for in an almanack I have seen some time ago, in which the popish holidays were distinguished, I have observed at least forty-nine more than our law allows; considering also that the common Irish papists keep St. Patrick's day, his wife's, and wife's mother's, with many others equally ridiculous, I believe that number is of the least. However, as in all my computations, I have endeavoured to be within the truth, I shall here only suppose them twenty-six as in Eng

land, and form a calculation from that number. I observed before, that there are at least 1,669,644 persons in Ireland. I suppose of this number 1,200,000 are papists of all ages; and 600,000 of these capable of gaining five pence per day, one day with another, by service, labour, manufacture, or spinning; there being then twenty-six popish holidays, each person loses ten shillings and ten pence, which multiplied by the number of labouring persons, amounts annually to £225,000, lost to the kingdom by the popish holidays alone.-These days are now spent in debauchery and rioting, by those who ought to labour; whilst perhaps their children are half starved at home, or turn idle, and beg and steal, to support themselves. Would it not then be more reasonable to lessen the number of our own legal holidays, by taking away such days as keep up the spirit of division and parties among us; than to connive at the idling away of those not allowed by law, which the papists do at present to the great prejudice of the kingdom."

It is not, however, on the influence of holidays in directly preventing labour and diminishing the national wealth, that I feel disposed to place most stress, but on their tendency indirectly to produce idleness and immorality.

A man who spends a sixth of his whole time at the amusements of holidays, at fairs, and wakes, and funerals, and perhaps on all these occasions drinks whisky to excess, is not very likely to acquire those habits of sobriety, and plodding industry, which in any condition are highly useful, but which, in that of a working man, are essential to competence and comfort. It is not merely the time that is spent idly, it is the manner in which it is spent that chiefly affects national morals, and consequently national wealth. It is probable that in a country such as Scotland, where the people observe the Sunday with religious veneration, and consider every species of levity and intemperance on that day with abhorrence, there is as much work performed in the course of the year, as though every seventh day were devated to labour. In this case, there is not only an abstinence from those excesses which form bad habits, but there is attention given to the precepts of that pure religion, which forms those that are virtuous and useful. In many counties of Ireland, the Sunday may be added, as it respects the catholic population, to the number of pernicious holidays, since they generally spend the greater part of it, not in acts of devotion, but in drinking, and dancing,

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and fighting. * The morning, indeed, by some, may be employed at chapel, where the priest unfortunately seldom thinks it necessary to impart any instruction, further than an occasional lecture on the heinous and damnable sin of not punctually paying his dues, which contributes little to the edification or improvement of his flock.

From all this idleness arises the habit of drinking spirituous liquors to excess; or rather, the one and the other operate as cause and effect. The quantity of whisky consumed by the lower orders of the Irish, is so great, as to render the relation of the fact almost incredible. At funerals, in some parts of Ireland, there are many gallons of whisky placed in the church yard, where those who are present at the interment drink often to inebriation. The consequence in all such cases is frequently a battle-As to a wake, whole nights and days are spent in drinking; the people whose relation is dead are impoverished; and those who attend lose their time, their health, and their morals: from the time the person is dead till he is interred, whisky is perpetually drunk, and the whole business is concluded by complete intoxication. The fairs present a scene

*This remark in its application is obviously to be restricted to the inferior orders of the people.