England the tenure in many districts is 21 years. Why, then, should 61 years be spoken of as necessary in Ireland? What would be the effect upon the tenant of such a tenure, and how would the legislation enforcing it operate upon the landlord? In many cases, Lord Dufferin tells us, the only reason for which a lease is desired is to obtain a document on which money can be raised, or an extravagant charge for younger children effected. The lease in such instances, by giving immunity from responsibility, instead of stimulating the industry of the occupier, "too often acts as a premium on idleness." Although, as a principle, it is better land should be let on lease, it must not be supposed that it is always for the tenant's benefit to get a lease, or that tenants always wish one. Then as to the landlord, the difficulties of preventing sub-division are even at this moment serious. If the landlord should be forced to give a long lease, with the alternative of taking the land into his own hands, of course he will refuse the boon to all tenants who are in debt, who are not industrious, or who in any way whatsoever stand in such a position as to render the granting of a lease to them undesirable, and here again is the observation already made illustrated, that the friends of the tenant, who interpose to prevent a free and fair bargain between him and his landlord, by means of compulsory regulative legislation, are really his enemies. In the contest which they establish, in place of existing relations, between the law and the landlord, the tenant alone can suffer.

"The consequences of forcing leases by Act of Parliament are sufficiently obvious. Hitherto, one of the chief accusations brought against the Irish proprietor has been his indifference to the character and the solvency of his tenant, and in order to correct this indifference, it is proposed to abolish the priority of his claim on the rent, and to reduce him to the ranks of an ordinary creditor. If, therefore, under these circumstances he is precluded from letting his land, except under a thirty-one years' lease, an inexorable necessity will be imposed upon him to exclude from such a permanent arrangement those of his existing tenants who are in debt, or who are likely to fall into embarrassment during the obligatory term. Now perhaps the tenantry of no estate in Ireland is more prosperous

than my own; yet my agent informs me, that unhappily more than a third of the farmers upon my property are under heavy pecuniary obligations through the country, in addition to those incurred towards myself. At present their creditors are aware that to drive them from their farms by the application of any premature pressure would only reduce to a minimum their own chances of receiving payment. My own inclination is to give them every opportunity to extricate themselves from their difficulties; and though the position of affairs is not satisfactory, nor can the ultimate destiny of many of these persons be doubtful, a reasonable amount of forbearance on my part, may save some, and greatly mitigate the hardship of their situation to the rest.

"If, however, I found myself suddenly called upon by Parliament to lease away my estate for a whole generation, matters would be brought to a crisis, and in selfdefence I should be forced (very much against my will) to exclude from the intended benefits of the arrangement every single individual circumstanced as I have described. No landlord could be expected to grant a lease to a bankrupt, or to enter into a contract with a person incapable of fulfilling its obligations.

"But in addition to those of my tenants who are actually in debt, there are a certain number who are so destitute of capital, -so unskilful, -occupiers of such small and inconvenient patches, -so near the

verge of ruin, as to be very unfit recipients of a lease. However unwilling I might be to continue them in their present holdings until an opportunity shall occur of establishing them as labourers, or or of enabling their sons to emigrate, or of converting the old people into pensioners, a very different arrangement would be necessary if Parliament held a pistol to my head, and left me no choice but to give them 31 years' leases, or resume possession of my land. Now if these undesirable contingencies might arise on a prosperous estate in Ulster, it is scarcely necessary to indicate what would be the consequences of such anomalous interference by Parliament in the south and west of Ireland."

But we must draw to a close our passing remarks on a volume which is much more than a refutation of the charges preferred against Irish landlords, by one who will not be accused of want of sympathy with the tenantry and people, and who, above all other qualities, manifests in his work that candour which is lamentably absent in the discussion of Irish questions. Lord Dufferin did not think his task accomplished when he

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stated that, for the emigration which is superficially complained of, the landlords are not blamable: he went further, and his retrospect of the economical history of Ireland; his careful review of the proposals of Mr. Butt and others for the alteration of the law of tenure; his investigations as to the rate of wages in different parts of Ireland, in contrast with former times; and the large quantity of valuable matter added, make the book the standard one on the question. If writers and speakers on Irish landlordism were only animated in all cases by an honest desire to arrive at truth, and did not regard the subject as merely the property of party politics, a hope might be entertained that such a work would greatly tend to allay that agitation which interferes with the growth of enterprise and the flow of capital into the country. It has been objected that Lord Dufferin's volume is simply a plea for things as they are, but it is not proper to describe it thus, although things as they are seem vastly better than things as Mr. Butt and others would have them to be. Lord Dufferin declares his object to have been to "establish truth and to advocate justice." The proper settlement of every question,

[July.

and the true interests of every class, must be promoted by establishing truth. The doctrine that Ireland is to to be be saved saved by by the sacrifice of the rights of property, as a violation of truth and justice, would aggravate all existing difficulties. This statement, in principle obviously sound, the author has justified by a full examination of the effects which would flow from all the changes most commonly proposed; but he by no means shuts the door against improvement in legislation, or disputes the need of it. All that is contended for is that it shall be based on truth and equity, and this the interests of the tenant require even more than do those of the landlord. It cannot but be regarded as a hopeful circumstance to see a nobleman of Lord Dufferin's great ability and experience devoting so much time and attention to the thorough examination, in detail as well as in principle, of a subject so intricate and perplexing. The uselessness of the House of Lords has lately been the theme of a journalist of large influence, but as long as its members contribute such works as that before us to the assisting of the business of practical legislation, and follow them up by wise counsels in their Chamber, the charge must fail.

THE Sclavonians having made their entry into Europe later in time than the Celts or their disturbers, the Teutons, it is natural to expect that their oral fictional literature would possess more of the original character of that which was known in Central Asia before it sent forth its colonies. The excursions of the Celtic races were longer, and the disturbances received by them from their hardheaded Teuton neighbours, were neither small nor few. Their original oral literature is consequently more likely to have been affected by changes made in their outward circumstances and new social arrangements. The romantic history of the early Celtic settlers in the British Islands and the west of Gaul, their strange relations with each other, and with the Teutonic peoples, and the picturesque scenery of their settlements, so varied by mountain, vale, lake, and sea-coast, occupied the attention of the imaginative people to the disadvantage of the early lore brought from the east. There were not so many, nor such powerful causes to make the principal Sclavonian family, the Russians, forget their early fireside lore. Hence we find their remains in that department of literature to correspond more closely to the fictions common to all the Indo-European people, and destitute of those peculiarities which distinguish several Celtic and Scandinavian stories.

As many of our readers as wish to obtain a full supply of Russian stories, are directed to look for a collection translated into German, with a preface by Jacobus Grimm, and published at Leipzig, 1831. Any one understanding Russ will find abundance of Folks-books at Moscow, containing the tales about to be related, and many others; one of the best collections being the Nowosselje. But if he prefer the German, he is referred to the edition named, or to a new collection of the oldest Russian stories, by Johannes R. Vogl, Vienna, 1841. The manufacturers of the German Year Books generally admit one or two Russian stories. Like the storytellers of other countries, the Russians take the liberty of blending two or three of the old standard tales into one, or dividing one long narrative into two. In the tale that follows, the reader versed in our own folk lore will find portions of the Royal Servants of the "Wexford Stories" (DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE), Carleton's Three Tasks, and also of the "Volundr Saga." From reading German versions of several of the Russian tales, we are satisfied that no people of Europe enjoy their fireside stories with greater relish than the peasants who call the Czar their Father.

RUSSIAN STORIES, NO. I.; KING KOJATA.

"King Kojata's beard was so long

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