The fecond part of this appeal contains a brief hiftory of the rife and progress of the finking fund, from which it plainly appears, that its powers have been well understood, though it has been fhamefully mifapplied and perverted. The finking fund, fays the Author at the clofe of his hiftory, and every true lover of his country will join in the lamentation, that facred blefsing-once the nation's only hope-was, after an exiftence of about eleven years, prematurely and cruelly destroyed by its own parent. Could it have efcaped the hands of violence, it would have made us the envy and the terror of the world, by leaving us at this time, not only tax-free, but in poffeffion of a treafure, greater than was ever enjoyed by any kingdom. But let me not dwell on a recollection fo grievous *." ART. VI. The History of the Life of King Henry the Second, and of the Age in which he lived, in five Books. To which is prefixed, a Hif tory of the Revolutions of England, from the Death of Edward the Confeffor to the Birth of Henry the Second. By George Lord Lyttelton. Vol. III. 4to. 11. 10 s. 6d. Dodley. 1771. WE E have more than once had occafion to do juftice to the merits of this noble Author. In our account of the former parts of the Hiftory of Henry the Second, we mentioned, in particular, the honour Lord Lyttelton has reflected upon his rank, by his literary abilities, and by employing his time in a manner fo greatly fuperior to what is ufual among perfons in high life; and therefore we fhall now proceed, without farther preface, to the confideration of the work before us, which is at length brought to its intended completion. The fecond volume having concluded with the affaffination and character of the famous Becket, the third opens with a relation of the steps taken by Henry to prevent the murder of the Archbishop, the extreme concern he expreffed at it, and the measures he pursued to foften the court of Rome, and to prevail upon the Pope not to proceed to a fentence of excommunication. The bad effects which the King forefaw from fo unhappy a termination of his difputes with Becket, fixed on his mind fuch a gloom, that, till forty days had paffed over, he abftained from all diverfions, all exercife, and all bufinefs; he heard no caufes, he received no petitions from his fubjects; but remained folitary within the walls of his palace, often fighing, and repeating to himfelf thefe words, alas! alas! that this mifchief fhould have happened! It appears, however, that Henry continued to think of Becket's behaviour as he had juftly thought before, notwithstanding the forrow he thewed for the murder of that turbulent prelate: Since the above article was written, a fecond edition of the Doctor's Appeal has appeared, with large additions, nor did the King fuffer himself to remain in a torpid state. His active spirit revived, and fortune now offered to him a fair opportunity, which his wifdom gladly feized, of prefenting a new object to the attention of the public, and fhewing himself to his fubjects in a very different light from that of a penitent, with all the majefty of a Prince enlarging the bounds of his hereditary empire by the acquifition of a great and very ancient kingdom, which, though far more defirable than any other to England, had not ever, hitherto, been under the fceptre of any English monarch. He refolved to add Ireland to his regal do. minions, and hoped to do it without refiftance or bloodfhed, by the terror of his arms, and from the general difpofition of the Irish themfelves to fubmit to his government. Previous to Lord Lyttelton's account of the war in Ireland, he has premifed (as he had before done with regard to Wales) a fhort view of the hiftory and ftate of that country, from the earliest times down to those when Henry was invited thither by the concurrence of many extraordinary events. In delineating the hiftorical antiquities of the island, his Lordship makes confiderable ufe of Usher, Ware, and O Conor, and adheres to the teftimony of Bede, that the Scots of the western parts of North Britain were a colony out of Ireland, the proper country of the Scots. As our noble Author compofed his work before the publication of Mr. Macpherson's Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, he has informed the public, in one of the notes fubjoined to the Appendix, that he is now induced to confider the authority of Bede as more doubtful than he had hitherto thought it, and to affirm nothing with certainty concerning the migration of Irish Scots into Britain. He leaves, therefore, the whole controverfy about this dark part of the Scotch and Irish antiquities to thofe of the two nations who are mafters of the language that was common to both nor is it a controverfy that will speedily be decided, as writers of confiderable abilities have already appeared in oppofition to Mr. Macpherfon's hypothefis. But of this more hereafter, when we come to speak of the publications to which we now allude. From the view which is given of the ancient ftate of Ireland, we shall only felect part of what Lord Lyttelton hath advanced concerning the characters of its inhabitants. The manners of the Irish, as we find them defcribed by contemporary writers, were, at this time, very favage. They tilled few of their lands, though naturally fruitful; nor had they any induftry or skill in mechanics or in manufactures, but wore garments coarfely made of the black wool of their fheep, and lived chiefly on the flesh and milk of their cattle, or on wild roots and herbs. Their houfes were fuch as could be eafily raifed and eafily taken down, according as the convenience of hunting or fishing, or removing their cattle to different paftures, or the fudden incurfions of a bordering enemy, might occafionally induce them to change their abode; and therefore were not built with brick or ftone, nor ufually with folid beams of wood, but with twigs of ofier or wattles covered over with thatch. Even thofe of their Kings themfelves differed only from these in being more fpacious; fo that a cattle of ftone, erected at Tuam by Roderick O Conor, was called by his people, aftonished at the novelty of it, the wonderful caple!- Their chief fecurity lay in their patient enduring of the moft fevere hardships. From their childhood expofed to cold, to wet, and to all the inclemency of the feafons, they fuffered little by wanting that protection against them, which is neceffary for men not fo hardily educated in more civilifed countries. Thus their bogs, woods, and mountains, were citadels to them, which foreign troops, not enured to the way of living in fuch places, could not eafily force. And hence they defpifed all those arts which have a tendency to enervate, either the body, or the mind; abhorring to dwell in great cities, or to fhut themfelves up within the walls or forts, or to exchange the rough freedom of unpolished barbarifm for the decent reftraints of politenefs. The only elegance they indulged in their whole courfe of life was the ancient custom, derived from their most remote ancestors, of entertaining their guests, with the mufic of the harp; in playing upon which Giraldus Cambrenfis affirms they greatly excelled his countrymen the Welsh: but the Scots of North Britain (as the fame author confeffes) had, at the time when he wrote, the reputation of no lefs excelling them, though they had learnt their art from them. Every chief had his harper, who was Ekewise a poet, or bard, and fung the exploits of the family to which he, belonged, at all their feats. This office was hereditary by the old cuftom of Ireland. The fon, however ill he might be qualified for it, fucceeded to the father, and with his profeffion inherited a portion of land from the demefne of his lord. The fongs of the bard had usually more power to incite and inflame, than the mufic of the harp to foften or mitigate the ferocity of the chief: fo that even this recreation, which feems to indicate fomething gentle and approaching to politenefs in the temper of the Irish, contributed to keep up that turbulent fpirit, averfe to order and peace, which no prince, or legiflator, that their country ever produced, had fufficient kill to controul. They were exceedingly jealous of their women. Giraldus Cambrenfis accufes them of not ufing to contract any regular marriages, with the proper forms of the church, and of frequently marrying, in their own uncanonical manner, the widows of their brothers, or feducing them without marriage. It was a practice among them to give their children to be nurfed and bred up in other families, by a kind of adoption, while they themfelves tock in others, whom they foltered in like manner, from a notion that more love was thus produced, and a clofer alliance contraced, than even by the neareft ties of blood. This unnatural interchange was purchafed of the richer by the meaner fort of people, and proved indeed a ftrong connection between the former and the latter, as well as a cement of more extenfive and factious confederacies between powerful families, which thus transferred to each other all all the ties of paternal and Clial affection. They likewife held, ta the flame of reason and religion, that the fpiritual affinity, contracted between thefe who were fponfors together for a child at his baptifm, obliged them ever afterwards to and by one another in all things lawful and unlawful. For the confirmation of this league, which they called compaternity, and of other compacts between them, they often received the facrament of the Lord's Supper, and afterwards drank each other's blood. Thus even the most holy rites of Christianity, mixed with barbarous fuperftitions, became to the Irish folemn fanctions of evil combinations very dangerous to the public! • The ancient Celts were accustomed to fwear by their arms; and the Irish nied the face oath, which remained among them much longer than the times of which I write; but they feared moft to be perjured when they had fworn by the crofters of fome of their fainted Bishops, or by the bells in their churches, believing that divine ven. geance would inftantly attend the breach of foch oaths.' Henry the Second, foon after he came to the crown, had formed the defign of undertaking the conqueft of Ireland; but having no title on which he could poffibly found a legal claim to that ifle, nor any reasonable caufe of war with the nation, he endeavoured to fupply thefe defects, by colouring his ambition with a pretence of religion. Accordingly, he fent John of Salisbury with letters to Pope Adrian the Fourth, wherein he defired the fanction of the papal authority to justify his intention of fubduing the Irish, in order to reform them. The King's letters eafily procured an epiftle or bull, to which we refer our Readers, as it affords a curious fpecimen of the high and impudent claims of the Roman Pontiffs at this period, and of the deference that was paid to these claims by the wifeft and ablest princes, when fuch acquiefcence coincided with their views of intereft or ambition. ་ After fome remarks on this bull, Lord Lyttelton juftly ob ferves, that, upon the whole, like many before and many fince, it was the mere effect of a league between the papal and regal powers, to abet and to affift each other's ufurpations: nor is it eafy to fay,' continues his Lordship, whether more diflurbance to the world, and more iniquity have arifen from their acting conjointly, or from the oppofition which the former has made to the latter. In this inftance the best, or indeed the fole excufe, for the proceedings of either, was the favage ftate of the Irifh, to whom it might prove beneficial to be conquered, and broken thereby to the falutary difcipline of civil order and good laws,' Though Henry had meditated fo early the conqueft of Ireland, many years paffed before he could feriously turn his thoughts towards that country. In the mean while, the bull which he had obtained from the Pope was laid up among the archives of his realm, to be brought forth at a convenient fea fon; and about the end of the year 1167, an event happened, the confequences of which opened to him a way to that fovereign dominion over the Irifh, which he, foon afterward, acquired, and which has never fince been quite loft, though for a long time ill maintained, and too often ill exercised by his fucceffors, kings of England.. The circumftances which afforded Henry an opportunity of interfering in the affairs of Ireland, and the operations of the war in that country are diftinctly and fully related by our noble Hiftorian; but we pass them over, and come to the King's reconciliation with the court of Rome, which, in the year 1172, was concluded on the following conditions: 1. That, in the courfe of the next twelvemonth from the approaching feast of Pentecoft, the King fhould give fo much money as the Knights Templars fhould deem fufficient to maintain two hundred Knights for the defence of the Holy Land during the term of one year. But that, from the next Christmas-day, he fhould take the Crofs himself for the term of three years, and the following fummer go in perfon to the Holy Land, unless the obligation were dif penfed with by Pope Alexander himself, or his Catholic fucceffors. Nevertheless, if, from the preffing neceffity of the Chriftians in Spain, he fhould go thither to make war against the Saracens, he might in that cafe defer his journey to Jerufalem, for fo much time as he fhould fpend in fuch an expedition. 2. That he neither should hinder himself, nor fuffer others to hinder, appeals from being made freely, with good faith, and without fraud or evil intention, in ecclefiaftical causes to the Roman pontiff; fo that they may be tried and determined according to his judgment, Yet with a provifo, that if any appellants were fufpected by the King, they fhould give him fecurity, that they would not attempt any thing to the prejudice of bim or his kingdom. 3. That he fhould abfolutely give up thofe conftitutions or cuftoms, which had been introduced in his time against the church of his kingdom, 4. That, if any lands had been taken from the fee of Canterbury, he should fully reftore them, as they were held by that fee a year before Archbishop Becket went out of England. 5. That to all the clergy, and laity of either fex, who had been deprived of their poffeffions on the account of that prelate, he should Jikewife restore thofe poffeffions, with his peace and favour.' Such were the conditions of Henry's abfolution; and Lord Lyttelton obferves, that, all circumftances confidered, they appear to be better conditions than the King had reason to expect for the moft inconvenient and troublefome injunction, that of taking the Crofs, he might hope to get rid of, by a papal difpenfation, grounded on excufes which time and various incidents might afford. To the church he gave up nothing, by the terms of this agreement, which he had not before propofed to yield for, in the conteft with Becket, he had fre quently |