tunate people. Not only was their land confiscated, all commerce and manufacture legally restricted, their religion made a crime, but premiums were put upon bribery and treachery. The feeling in England was carried to such an extreme that petitions were presented to prohibit Irishmen from catching herrings, because they might forestall English markets! According to Burke, "the Irish were treated as a race of savages who were a disgrace to human nature itself," and even the poet Spenser advocated their subjection by systematic starvation. The object of English rule seemed at first to wipe out the Irish race rather than their religion; later, it assumed the phase of a war of creeds.
It is shown by Mr. Lecky that the Irish were naturally tolerant. They harbored Quakers and Huguenots, sheltered Protestant clergymen, and did not indulge in the burning of witches. The English, on the contrary, were relentless persecutors, and although there was no summary destruction of Papists in Ireland, such as there had been of Protestants in Spain, yet the results of legislation were further reaching and more pernicious. "The law did not suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Roman Catholic." Every office and profession was closed to him; it was even a penal offense to pick up the crumbs of learning as an usher in a school. Land he could not buy, nor own a horse over the value of five pounds. He could not appoint a guardian for his own child, and if he married a Protestant, the ceremony was null and the priest who performed it could be hanged. The degradation of the Irish by this penal code was unparalleled, since it affected not a minority but three fourths of the population and was in force nearly a century. A perusal of the laws in the light of the present day is enough to make one blush for English ancestry. Judged even by the intolerance of the age, they were excessive and short-sighted, and form an indelible blot upon English government. The disputed character of Irish history necessitates frequent reference to original materials; these include the correspondence and records of the English and Irish Governments and a vast number of private papers and letters. The reader is thus enabled to judge the truth for himself, and, far from finding the narrative a dull one, is almost persuaded that he is in the current of events.
The limits of this work do not correspond to those of the History of England, previously issued. They include the rebellion of 1798, the legislative union of 1800, and the events of the two succeeding years, as properly belonging to the same epoch.
The Physiology of the Senses. By John Gray McKendrick, M. D., and William Snodgrass, M. B. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 318. Price, $1.50 net.
It is the aim of this book, which is one of the series issued under the name of University Extension Manuals, to give a succinct account of the functions of the organs of sense in man and the higher animals. The authors have refrained from discussing with fullness of detail either the comparative physiology of the senses or the numerous interesting questions of a psychological character that are connected with the study of the sensory mechanisms. The volume has been written so as to be readily understood even by those who have not made physiology a special subject of study. Some comparatively simple experiments have been given, by which the reader may test certain of the statements for himself. The last chapter is of a speculative character, being an attempt to elucidate the nature of the physiological basis of sensation. The volume is illustrated with one hundred and twenty-seven figures.
British Forest Trees and their Sylvicultural Characteristics and Treatment. By John Nisbet, D.Œc. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 352. Price, $2.60.
One more evidence of the growing attention that is being paid to forestry is furnished by the appearance of this work. It is devoted to what may be called the larger considerations of sylviculture, such as the choice of kinds of trees for plantations, the mixing of different kinds, so that they will help and protect each other, the proper density of forests, underplanting, etc., details of such matters as sowing, planting, and tending being omitted. The greater part of the volume is devoted to special considerations regarding the growth of individual
