intellectual strength. As an
equity lawyer, he had won reputation; as a judge there had been more
appeals from his decisions than from all the other judges of the bench.

The appointment of Lord John Russell to the foreignoffice, while Lord
Palmerston was placed in the home-office, was regarded as an absurd
inversion of their appropriate positions, and the arrangement was
considered as an unwarrantable concession by Lord Aberdeen to the vanity
of the ex-premier. Events justified the suspicions and dislikes of the
public, except in the instance of Lord Palmerston, who proved himself to
be the most efficient home-minister the country ever possessed.

The Irish appointments were very unpopular amongst the Protestants in
Ireland, and among those in England who gave themselves any concern
about Irish appointments. The Irish ministry of Lord Derby was greatly
superior to that of Lord Aberdeen, in talent, moral standing, and
influence in the country where their functions were to be sustained.

With the adjournment of the house closed the parliamentary history of
1852.

IRELAND.

The distracted state of Ireland was, as usual, a source of uneasiness
to the empire. There was, indeed, no insurrectionary movement, but
the spirit of agrarian outrage continued, and numerous murders were
perpetrated of a most savage nature--the country people conniving at
the crimes, and secreting the criminals. These evils were, to a great
extent, provoked by the unjust state of the law between landlord and
tenant. Efforts were made in parliament to mitigate the injustice and
oppression to which the tenantry in Ireland were subjected; but the
landed interest in England upheld that in Ireland in resisting all
melioration.

Religious intolerance continued to agitate every other malady of
Ireland. Indeed this was the _fons et origo mali_, for it deprived
honest men and patriots of opportunity to combine for their country's
freedom and prosperity. During the elections caused by Lord Derby's
dissolution of parliament, the priests incited the populace, in some
places, to acts of disturbance and violence. At Six Miles Bridge the
soldiery were attacked while protecting voters in the free exercise of
their franchise. Proceedings were taken against a Roman Catholic priest
for the part which it was alleged he took in those disturbances. Public
opinion considered him to have been the cause of the outbreak, but the
tory government, anxious for party