ISLE OF.

Man, Isle of.

lies between 54° and 55° N. lat., and 4° and 5° W. long., in the middle of the Irish Sea, and nearly equidistant from the shores of England, Scotland, and Ireland. It is about thirty miles in extreme length, and eleven miles at its greatest breadth; but the latter varies considerably, as its coasts are in many places deeply indented by the sea, and converge at their northern and southern extremities into narrow points. Whilst some, therefore, estimate its superficial contents at only 220 square miles, others make it a little less, or 130,000 acres.

At its southern extremity, and separated from it by a narrow channel of only a few hundred yards across, is a little island named the Calf. It is about three miles in circumference; its precipitous coasts rise high above the level of the sea, and its scanty vegetation does little more than afford food for a few sheep and rabbits; and a shepherd's family, and the keepers of the two light-houses, are its only human inhabitants. These light-houses were erected by the Commissioners of Northern Lights, from the same humane concern for the safety of the storm-tossed mariner which induced them to raise a similar structure, equal in elegance and utility, on the most northerly point of the main island. Like the Calf, the greater part of Man presents to the sea a bold and rocky coast. Its bays, however, are both numerous and spacious, and the anchorage in many of them is extremely good; but as none of them is land-locked, or even completely protected by elevated headlands, vessels ride there in safety only in offshore gales; and the sailor must too frequently shun them when the winter's tempests sweep that dangerous sea.

For certain civil and ecclesiastical purposes, it is divided into a northern and a southern district: each of these contains three sheadings, and the whole island is again thrown into seventeen parishes. Its towns are Castletown, Douglas, Peel, and Ramsay. The first of these is a clean and neat town, being the capital of the island, the residence of the lieutenant-governor, the seat of the legislature and courts of law, and adorned in its centre by a fine old Gothic fortress, round which are entwined many heart-stirring associations. Douglas is the chief seat of commerce; it is larger than Castletown, and the style of its buildings is finer; where they have risen within the last two years. Close to it is Castle Mona, once the princely residence of the Duke of Atholl, but now a very spacious and elegant hotel. In feudal times Peel was a place of considerable note; and, till very lately, the herring fishery was briskly carried on there; but it is now remarkable only for its ancient castle, which it too much resembles in its own ruinous condition. Ramsay is also much less than Douglas; but it is a thriving and spirited little town, and would be no despicable rival to the other, were it less restricted in its trade. All the towns are built on the alluvial deposit at the mouths of the principal rivers, where they flow into the sea at very nearly opposite parts of the island. They have all tide-harbours, piers, and harbour-lights; and they are connected by excellent roads with each other, and with the villas, villages, and little hamlets which thickly enliven and adorn the scenery of the adjacent country.

The climate of the Isle of Man is rather variable, moist, and windy. Compared with the countries around it, its winters are mild and open, and its summers cool. Snow seldom lies many hours. Its fields during the whole of winter generally wear a spring-like appearance; and the extreme cold of an English winter is never felt. A meteorological journal was long kept by the late Receiver-General Stuart, at his residence, Villa Marina, situated on the shore of the Bay of Douglas; and the annexed tables were prepared and circulated amongst his private friends, by that truly upright officer and accomplished gentleman.

General State of the Weather for 1831.

| Months | Medium of Thermometer | Wind, Number of Days | Weather, Number of Days | Rain Fallen | |--------------|-----------------------|----------------------|-------------------------|-------------| | | A. M. | P. M. | N. | S. | E. | W. | Rain | Snow | Fair | Inches. 100 Parts | | January | 37 | 37 | 7 | 7 | 16 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 21 | 2 | 55 | | February | 39 | 42 | 5 | 13| 2 | 8 | 11 | 4 | 13 | 4 | 27 | | March | 44 | 45 | 6 | 4 | 8 | 13| 12 | 1 | 18 | 5 | 21 | | April | 48 | 45 | 9 | 5 | 14 | 2 | 8 | ... | 22 | ... | 72 | | May | 54 | 50 | 5 | 4 | 22 | | 4 | 1 | 26 | ... | 36 | | June | 60 | 53 | 4 | 21| 2 | 3 | 5 | ... | 26 | ... | 30 | | July | 60 | 57 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 5 | 8 | ... | 23 | 2 | 31 | | August | 62 | 58 | 12| 5 | 5 | 9 | 8 | ... | 23 | 1 | 81 | | September | 56 | 53 | 5 | 13| 7 | 15| 12 | ... | 18 | 5 | 24 | | October | 55 | 56 | 3 | 14| 13 | 11| 16 | ... | 15 | 4 | 22 | | November | 45 | 44 | 15| 7 | 1 | 7 | 12 | 6 | 12 | 7 | 78 | | December | 45 | 45 | 13| 16| 1 | 1 | 11 | ... | 20 | 2 | 80 | | General medium | 50 | 49 | 93| 118| 99 | 75| 114 | 14 | 237 | 37 | 57 |

Highest state of thermometer...........77

Lowest..................................26

REMARKS, 1831.

March 11. Strong aurora borealis. 13. Violent lightning, 8 p. m. Sept. 29. Thunder and lightning.

Nov. 15 and 16. Extraordinary thunder and lightning. Several sheep destroyed in the island. Dec. 9. Lightning,—no thunder. 10. Ditto, with thunder. General Remarks.—Fahrenheit's thermometer was situated on a northern exposure, and always out. The observations were taken at nine o'clock A.M., and at eleven o'clock P.M. With reference to the wind, "the prevailing point of the day is taken." If any rain, snow, or sleet fell during the day, it was not considered fair.

The Manx mountains have rather an imposing appearance, whether as seen from the sea, or as viewed from the highest summits. They almost bisect the island diagonally in a line running from its north-east to its southwest shore. One of them rises to upwards of 20,000 feet above the level of the sea. They are green to their tops; for the most part gently rounded towards the south, but sinking abruptly on the alluvial plains of the northern district. To the south and north of this mountain range the country has a very different appearance. Hills prevail in the former part, and the land is generally better adapted for feeding than for cropping. The surface of the latter is nearly level, or gently undulating; and the sand, marl, and morass of which it is composed, resting on a substratum of gravel and diluvial boulders, is, to a very great extent, covered with crops that do equal honour to the soil and to the farmer.

In the stratification of its rocks there is nothing uncommon, and the variety of its minerals is far from being considerable. Of the primary rocks, granite in some places may be seen rising to the surface, whilst masses of quartz and hornblende are to be met with frequently both above and below it. Slate, graywacke, and graywacke slate, passing into old red sandstone; black and gray limestone, greenstone, and clinkstone, passing into basalt, comprehend its transitional formations. The slate is often found of a quality that fits it for the covering of houses; and is met with, too, of such a fibrous structure, as to make, in lengths of six and eight feet, excellent piles, posts, and lintels. The steps at the great entrance to St Paul's are of the black limestone of Man. It admits of a fine polish, and is much used for tomb-stones and chimney-pieces. Its gray limestone is also good; it abounds in organic remains; and, happily for the interests of Manx agriculture, its beds occupy as much of the southern extremity of the island as the strata of its marl do of the opposite one. Copper and lead are the only metals which have yet been discovered in its mines. Three of these are in full operation. One is conducted at the risk of several public-spirited individuals belonging to the island; the others by an English company; and all of them are carried on with much enterprise and success.

There are no lakes in Man. Its larger morasses, too, have been all reclaimed. Springs and rivulets of the purest water everywhere abound. The largest of its rivers, however, like the island itself, is only a small one, short in its course, and very variable in size, as drought or rain happens to prevail. Plenty of trout are still to be found in its streams; but the salmon and salmon-trout have almost ceased to frequent them.

Only one little brassica, called the simbrium Monensis, distinguishes the Manx from the British Flora. Owing to the extreme mildness of the climate, many plants thrive exposed all the year in the open shrubberies, that can be preserved only in the greenhouses of countries in a much lower latitude. Trees are scarce in Man, and the deficiency forcibly attracts the notice of every stranger. Thriving plantations, however, are rising fast round every villa; horticulture is much attended to; and the fruits of its graperies and pineries are both excellent and abundant.

The animal kingdom has nothing in it peculiar to the island. Horses of an active and hardy breed; sheep, small, coarse woolled, and well flavoured; pigs and black cattle; are there, as in England, the common stock of every farmer. Hares are rather scarce. The Calf and many parts of the island abound in rabbits. Beasts of prey, and venomous reptiles, if ever indigenous, are now never seen.

Manxmen are tinctured a little with the pride of ancestry. They do not, indeed, lay claim to that extreme antiquity for their race which is demanded by some nations; nor are their traditions interwoven with any of those beautiful mythologies by which the absence of truth is almost atoned for in the histories of others. There are of their writers, however, who have amply availed themselves of the legendary tale; and, if credit is to be given to their recitals, a long succession of magicians, druids, saints, and seakings, ruled in Man many ages before the time at which this brief sketch of its history begins.

Cæsar speaks of Mona, Pliny of Monobia, Ptolemy of Monaecia or Monoidea, Orosius and Beda of Menavia, and Nennius of Eubonia, in a manner distinctly indicating that the island was known in their days by each and all of these different names. Whether Man, its present appellation, be a contraction or a corruption of any of these, or more immediately derived from the ancient British words Mon, isolated, or Manaw, a little island; from the Saxon man, among; from Maune, the surname of St Patrick; from the Manx moony, solitary, rough, uncultivated; or from Mannia Macler, the name of the greatest of its traditionary kings; is still one of those questions which remain for its antiquaries to investigate and decide.

It is likely that long before the tenth century Man participated largely in all the chances and changes of the barbarous seats around it; that its people were alternately the friends, the foes, and the subjects of the Scottish and Irish chiefs, and the petty princes of the heptarchy; but it is then only that a gleam of its true and continued history first breaks upon us, as the conquest and the residence of some of the Scandinavian seakings. A series of these, to the number of twenty-four, were undoubtedly its sovereigns until beyond the middle of the thirteenth century. About that time Alexander of Scotland obtained possession of it by force of arms; and after his death, and during the reigns of the Edwards and the first Bruce, it was alternately possessed by the English and Scottish monarchs. From an early part of the fourteenth until the beginning of the fifteenth century, the sovereignty of Man passed through the hands of various English and Scottish nobles, who held it as the vassals of their respective kings; and it was at last bestowed by Henry IV. under the same conditions, on Sir John Stanley. It remained with his descendants until towards the middle of the eighteenth century, when it passed by the female line from the Derby into the Atholl family. Between that period and 1829 it was gradually shorn of many of its feudal honours; but it was then that government purchased from the late Duke of Atholl the whole of his remaining rights, titles, revenue, and patronage, in his lordship of Man, for £430,000.

It was in 1726 that the first act of parliament was passed to purchase the island from the Earl of Derby. Powerful influence, however, put off the sale until 1764, when a Duke of Atholl disposed of his sovereign rights in the island, all his civil patronage, and the two castles of Peel and Rushen, for £70,000, to which sum was afterwards added an annuity of £2,000 to his duchess. His title of Lord of Man, his manorial rights, his patronage of the bishopric and parish livings, mines and minerals, treasure-trove, and other privileges, were all reserved. From a conviction, also, on the part of government, that a hard bargain had been driven with his predecessor, the late duke obtained a perpetual grant of the fourth of the nett customs revenue of the island, and was also appointed its governor-general. Little more than another score of years had passed when further changes took place. The large sum already mentioned was paid down; every vestige of its lord's rights were bought up; and the Isle of Man was elevated from the state of a feudal appanage, to the prouder, and we hope, happier condition of a British colony.

The executive department of the government of the Isle of Man is carried on by a lieutenant-governor, who is the captain-general of the island, and also presides in the upper chamber of its legislature, and in most of its judicial assemblies. He acts on all important occasions by advice of the council, which consists of the bishop, attorney-general, the two decemsters, receiver-general, water-bailiff, clerk of the rolls, archdeacon, the two vicars-general, and its clerk. Decemsters are of great antiquity and high authority in Man. Formerly depositaries of the lex non scripta, they are still the interpreters of the law of the land, in doubtful cases, to all the other authorities. The receiver-general is also an ancient and important officer. He was the lord's treasurer, the chief receiver of rents and revenues, and paid all the salaries and wages of the lord's retainers. Water-bailiff is an officer synonymous with judge of admiralty; he was at one time also collector of the customs under the receiver-general. By the clerk of the rolls were entered all pleas and proceedings before the lord; and he is the keeper of the most important records of the courts and the government. Besides the officers now enumerated, there is a high bailiff in each of the four towns; a seneschal, who looks after the enrolments of all the lord's tenants; a coroner in each of its shadings, who performs many of the duties of a sheriff; a moar, who is a kind of parish officer; and from a dozen to twenty constables. All these appointments emanate directly or indirectly from the Home Office.

No act of the imperial parliament, however applicable it may be to every part of the united kingdom, extends to the Isle of Man, except that island be expressly mentioned in it. Its own legislature consists of two chambers; the council, and the house of keys. The latter is a self-elected assembly, consisting of twenty-four members, who hold their seats for life. They are in no way responsible to the people. The presence of thirteen is required to give validity to their acts. It discharges both legislative and judicial functions; and, whilst sitting in the latter capacity, its members often decide, as judges, in appeal cases of their own, brought up to it from the lower courts. Luckily for the unfortunate litigant who has not a seat or friends in the house of keys, a further hearing, and a reversal of their judgment, may be obtained from the king in council. As a legislative assembly, it originates laws; and, if thirteen or upwards of its number approve, the bill is transmitted to the council. There it may be thrown out; but if favourably received, it is laid before the king, whose assent is seldom refused. Last of all, it must be promulgated by the lieutenant-governor, who does so, seated in great state, on the top of an ancient tumulus called the Tynwald Mount, round which are collected, at the same time, the council, the keys, the officers of government, and, generally, a numerous concourse of the people. Hence its laws are commonly called Acts of Tynwald.

One small volume contains the whole of these laws; and the lawyers of the island practise in the double capacity of attorneys and barristers. Where their own laws are silent, the judges are much influenced by the decisions of the English courts. Lord Coke says, that "its laws are such as scarce to be found anywhere else." The drift of the remark is not very obvious. It is true that there are Manx enactments still in force which prevent a tailor from leaving the island without permission of his lord, and which threaten banishment, as vagrants, to all Scotch men and Irish women found in it; but it is equally certain that these, and many such like elements of folly and injustice, which its code undoubtedly contains, had then too many and too faithful counterparts in a statute-book with which the learned lord was still better acquainted. It is also gratifying to think that most of the absurd laws have fallen into desuetude in Man, and are to be regarded as proofs of a state of manners no longer existing in that island.

The proper revenue of the island consists of three branches; of customs, harbour-dues, and insular taxes. Duties levied on certain goods imported are the sources of the first; charges on vessels and boats that have enjoyed the benefit of its harbours, form the second; and the last consists of small taxes levied on dogs, carriages, and public houses. The customs average from £20,000 to £25,000 per annum; out of them all the government officers' salaries are paid; and a yearly surplus of from £12,000 to £15,000 is remitted to England. It is in the repairs of harbours, roads, and bridges, that the money collected under the other two heads is expended; and the outlay is regulated by commissioners and committee-men appointed for the purpose. In each of the four towns there is a customhouse; but they are all subordinate to the one in Douglas. The treasury nominates the officers of customs; the collectors of the local taxes are appointed by insular influence. Since the Duke of Atholl's remaining rights in the island were entirely bought up by government, there are also certain lord's land and mine rents, tithes, and fines and forfeitures, which are collected and managed by the crown agent, a gentleman who represents there the commissioners of woods and forests.

All religious sects are tolerated in Man; but its establishment is connected with the Church of England. It is a diocese in the province of York; but its bishop has not a seat in the house of peers. His double title of Sodor and Man has its origin in one of those ages so fertile in materials for antiquarian guess-work. Some will have it that Sodor is derived from Sotor, the ancient name of a village in Iona; others allege that it is a contraction of the Danish word Sodoroce, significant of the Hebrides, which the Scandinavian rovers approached generally from the north. and said to have been at one time under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Manx bishops; whilst more than one, with equal propriety, maintain that it was applicable only to a little island off Peel, and formerly called Sodor, on which a lordly castle once stood, containing the cathedral in which many of its bishops were consecrated, and the cemetery where the dust of most of the wise, and the brave, and the noble of the land was deposited.

The bishop is assisted in ecclesiastical matters by an archdeacon, two vicars-general, a registrar, and a summer-general. The livings of the clergy arise chiefly from tithes; the patronage, from the bishopric downwards, with the exception of three in the gift of the diocesan, is vested in the crown. The revenue of the church of Man is a good one, and amply sufficient to maintain all its clergy comfortably, were it only a little more equitably divided. At present, some of its parish ministers, in humility, simplicity, zeal, piety, and poverty, are not a little like the fishermen of Galilee. A respectable and numerous body of the islanders are Wesleyan Methodists. Whitefield has also a few followers. The Church of Scotland has a chapel in Douglas; the English Independents or Congregationalists have also one; and the Roman Catholics have one there, and another in Castletown. Before the present bishop was consecrated to the see of the Isle of Man, not a few of its churches were miserably dark, and damp, and ruinous. Under his auspices several churches have been rebuilt, and all of them greatly improved. Dr Ward has been the chief mover, too, in the erection of a college in the neighbourhood of Castletown, which is now attracting pupils from all parts of the empire.

Its parish schools are likewise improving. Too many of them, like its churches, have long been wretched hovels, unskilfully taught, ill attended, and the teachers badly paid.

Such a state of things is to be ascribed chiefly to the bulk of the peasantry of Man not yet feeling sufficiently the importance of education. In the towns, however, and in their neighbourhood, there are many excellent seminaries. Classical and commercial education, drawing, dancing, and singing, are there taught to the children of the wealthy by well-qualified masters; and the children of the poorer classes are not less ably and amply provided for by day schools, Sunday schools, charity schools, and schools of industry. Reading-rooms, circulating and public libraries; book, music, and missionary associations; temperance societies; and not less than four spiritedly conducted newspapers; testify that religion, literature, and politics, are not left amongst the Manx mountains without their organs.

The population of the island has no doubt varied greatly at different periods of its history; but whilst some writers, even in sober prose, tell us of halcyon days, "when every rood of ground maintained its man," and when its fleets and armies were the terror of all the surrounding nations, others allege that its families, so lately as the sixteenth century, amounted to only six or seven hundred; and that, in the following one, the sum total of its inhabitants was considerably below three thousand. Perhaps equal disregard should be paid to all these statements. Subsequent returns, on much better authority, assign for 1726, 14,027; 1757, 19,144; 1784, 24,924; 1791, 27,913; and the census of 1831, on which alone any dependence can be placed, rates it at 40,958. That census was obtained, at the expense of government, by persons disposed and qualified to make a correct one; and it is probable that the only alteration it admits of, in 1836, is a considerable increase in the population, and in the number, size, and elegance of their dwellings.

| Towns and Parishes | Inhabited Houses | Families | Houses Building | Houses not inhabited | Families in Agriculture | Trade &c. | All Others | Males | Females | Total | |--------------------|------------------|----------|----------------|----------------------|------------------------|-----------|------------|-------|---------|-------| | Douglas | 794 | 1458 | 9 | 12 | 40 | 455 | 963 | 2985 | 3801 | 6786 | | Castletown | 318 | 469 | 2 | 30 | 19 | 209 | 241 | 961 | 1101 | 2062 | | Ramsey | 303 | 419 | 6 | 16 | 1 | 172 | 246 | 765 | 989 | 1754 | | Peel | 288 | 412 | 0 | 30 | 7 | 146 | 259 | 787 | 942 | 1729 | | German | 295 | 314 | 7 | 27 | 216 | 57 | 41 | 907 | 884 | 1791 | | Patrick | 390 | 412 | 5 | 42 | 238 | 63 | 111 | 1096 | 1099 | 2195 | | Marown | 242 | 258 | 5 | 12 | 153 | 57 | 48 | 581 | 635 | 1216 | | Conchan | 251 | 276 | 1 | 19 | 135 | 44 | 97 | 705 | 777 | 1482 | | Braddan | 318 | 340 | 1 | 8 | 255 | 58 | 27 | 925 | 1002 | 1927 | | Santon | 138 | 145 | 1 | 8 | 107 | 28 | 10 | 398 | 400 | 798 | | Malew | 482 | 519 | 3 | 44 | 238 | 93 | 188 | 1342 | 1436 | 2778 | | Arbory | 261 | 271 | 3 | 4 | 136 | 62 | 73 | 750 | 761 | 1511 | | Rushen | 520 | 560 | 6 | 22 | 182 | 111 | 267 | 1863 | 1369 | 2732 | | Michael | 246 | 260 | 1 | 20 | 113 | 8 | 139 | 612 | 705 | 1817 | | Jurby | 198 | 199 | 1 | 2 | 177 | 8 | 14 | 526 | 571 | 1097 | | Ballaugh | 279 | 279 | 0 | 6 | 89 | 100 | 90 | 685 | 726 | 1411 | | Bride | 183 | 190 | 1 | 6 | 102 | 34 | 54 | 536 | 503 | 1039 | | Ayre | 386 | 412 | 3 | 12 | 182 | 136 | 94 | 928 | 1051 | 1979 | | Maughold | 259 | 313 | 2 | 3 | 104 | 54 | 155 | 657 | 684 | 1341 | | Loman | 318 | 350 | 4 | 14 | 180 | 66 | 104 | 917 | 906 | 1823 | | Andreas | 395 | 403 | 1 | 15 | 379 | 15 | 9 | 1122 | 1095 | 2217 |

In a land so situated, so frequently conquered, devastated, and ruled, by the marauding bands of other countries, it is vain to seek for traces of its earliest inhabitants. There cannot be a doubt, however, that those who have at present the best claims to be considered as the aborigines of its soil are a small branch of that great Celtic family, the scattered remains of which are now to be found only in the remote islands and the mountain fastnesses of kingdoms perhaps once their own. For a dialect of the Gaelic is still the ordinary language of the peasantry of Man; and there are many amongst them who are strangers to every other tongue. In their persons the men are generally stout and well made. During the late war, it was observed that, whilst the Manx soldier was surpassed in height by the British and Irish troops, any company of its fencibles covered a greater space of ground than the same number of men belonging to the other regiments. The ancient attire of blue cloaks and felt hats has given place amongst the Manx females to a more becoming dress; and, whether at home or abroad, they need feel no apprehension from a comparison with the same ranks in the neighbouring countries. The Manx peasant is lively, honest, frugal, obliging; he is well lodged, clothed, and fed; and he might be much happier were he less addicted to strong liquors and litigation. His fondness for the latter, however, arises far more from a prodigious anxiety to be thought always in the right, than from a disposition to overreach his neighbour. The small farmers, who are also, in most instances, the proprietors of the fields they cultivate, greatly impair their means of comfort by too early marriages; it is not uncommon for three or four generations of a family to be located and supported upon the same little property. Amongst the gentry, the manners, the hospitality, and the elegancies of English life prevail to an extent which a stranger to them and their country could not easily imagine. The gas-light, steam-boat, and water companies, and the joint-stock and savings banks of the capital, have all their humble representatives in the towns of Man. Nor are even the medical and soup dispensaries of England without their well-supported counterparts in her little imitator.

It is only in recent times that the Manxman's attention has been turned to agriculture. The distracted state of his country under its own kings and feudal superiors; the small and uncertain holdings into which it was divided; his predilections for other and apparently more lucrative pursuits; his entire ignorance of all the new and more approved modes of management; and perhaps, too, that sloth which appears to be the common inheritance, in all countries and ages, of uncivilized man; prevented him from reaping those advantages from it which nature, or rather the God of nature, had placed within his reach. An alteration wonderfully for the better has since taken place in his views and his condition. For many years past a spirit of improvement has been rapidly diffusing itself amongst the Manx farmers. By the daily intercourse they enjoy with England, they now see and become impressed with the importance of better breeds of cattle, and more approved systems of cropping, than were known to their fathers; and many respectable farmers from England and Scotland are now settled in Man, who, along with their capitals, have imported into it an amount of agricultural experience and information still more valuable to their adopted country. It has thus happened, that although the soil of the island is generally very far from being rich, and its farms much smaller than is compatible with the fullest development of the agricultural capabilities of a country, still it is in a very thriving state; more than two-thirds of its surface are under cultivation; every year the corn-fields are making encroachments on the waste land, and the plantations creeping farther up the mountain side; and the cattle and corn it exports in considerable number and quantity are considered as second only to the best in the Liverpool market.

The salmon-fishings in the rivers of Man were at one time so productive as to form a considerable article of direct trade to the Mediterranean. It is long since they ceased to be of any importance, and the supplies for the inhabitants come from Scotland and Ireland. Nor is the herring-fishery so productive as it was even at the beginning of the present century. It employs about two hundred and fifty boats of from fifteen to thirty tons burden, and from 2000 to 3000 men. In some years, however, their failure is complete, and the loss to their families is a great and severe one. More successful years yield from 40,000 to 50,000 barrels. From a third to a half of these is consumed upon the island, and the remainder, in salted and smoked states, is exported. Owing to the falling off in the produce of the fishery, its uncertainty, its calling away the farmers from their rural occupations, when their presence is most needed in their fields, to the dissolute lives they too frequently lead whilst they are engaged as fishermen, many of the most intelligent and best friends of Man wish that the herrings would for ever take leave of its coasts. The same truly patriotic persons are equally urgent for the advancement of its deep-sea fishing, which has long been mismanaged and neglected.

For their manufactured goods, the inhabitants of the Isle of Man look principally to the workshops of England. The Manx linen has long borne a high character, and there is one establishment in the vicinity of Douglas where it is manufactured in considerable quantities. There are also a paper and a woollen-cloth manufactory, and several breweries. Many obstacles, however, prevent the rise of manufactures in Man; and it is still to be seen whether they are to be surmounted by those vigorous and laudable efforts which its people are now making to better both their moral and physical condition. The most obvious of these impediments are its fiscal regulations, and the probability that coal does not exist amongst its minerals. By an apparent excess of legislative interference in the former, the erection of distilleries in the island is strictly forbidden; and whilst the Manx manufacturer must pay, on the greater number of the articles he imports from England for the purposes of his business, a two and a half per cent. ad valorem duty, over and above all that is paid by the English merchant, he is annoyed with prohibitions, restrictions, and countervailing duties, when he attempts to carry the produce of his own industry into the British markets; and, owing to the entire absence of native coal-fields, the lead and copper of its mines must all be sent in the state of ores to the Welsh smelting furnaces.

The trade of the Isle of Man is regulated chiefly by the act 3 and 4 Guliel. IV. cap. 60. Its exports are corn, cattle, and other farm produce, lead and copper ores, herrings, and linen, to the English markets, where they are admitted free of duty, as if from any part of the united kingdom. The imports are coals and flax, cotton and woollen stuffs, hardware, wearing apparel, and household furniture; hemp, iron, and timber; spirits, coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco, and wines. The articles composing the first of these classes are duty-free on importation; those of the second, even when brought from England, pay a two and a half per cent. ad valorem duty; and the greater number of the third and fourth are liable to only about a fifth of the English duties, but they are much restricted in respect of quantity, time, and place of importation. It is thus that its import trade admits of no great augmentation; the foreign articles are intended to be confined entirely to the use of the island; they cannot be legally exported to the united kingdom; and the spirits, coffee, tea, sugars, tobacco, and wines, can be imported for the use of its families only under a license granted by the board of customs. These licenses are distributed annually by the lieutenant-governor; and although little errors may occasionally find their way into the apportionments, and the object of the law is occasionally defeated by those into whose possession they have fallen, still the system works well, and, with a few slight amendments that could easily be made, it is perhaps infinitely better both for the revenue and the island, than any other of the many that are every day suggested. All the trade of the island is carried on by a paper issue from three respectable banks; by a circulating medium of English gold, silver, and copper coinage; and by a copper currency peculiar to itself, amongst which are frequently to be seen the pence and halfpence of the once regal houses of Derby and Atholl. In the present year, 1836, one of these banking establishments has merged into an extensive joint-stock company bank, from which the most beneficial results are anticipated to both the commercial and agricultural interests of the island.

To him who delights in speculations on the early his Mansar. tory of the earth and its inhabitants, there are many objects of the deepest interest in the Isle of Man. In its peat-bogs and marl-pits there are frequently discovered, under a few feet of alluvial deposit, the trunks of sturdy oaks and fir trees, of a size no longer to be found growing on its surface; and entombed beside these vigorous memorials of other days, are the bones of those gigantic elks which had formerly browsed below their branches. These venerable groves have indeed ceased to exist; but the circle and the temple still remain, where the druids performed their sylvan rites; and the humble graves of the mistletoe worshippers can still be easily traced. Tumuli, barrows, cairns, mounts, mounds, and Runic monuments, are to be seen in all directions, either pointing out the spot where the warrior fought, or where the affections of roving Norsemen marked the last resting-place of their gallant chieftain.

Monasteries and nunneries, too, have left vestiges of their existence and their grandeur; whilst the ruins of one noble baronial castle, and the massive battlements of another frowning unscathed by the storms of nearly a dozen centuries, still more strikingly attest, that amongst the former families of this little island the best and worst feelings of our nature had all their usual manifestations. In such land, and amongst the descendants of such a people, it might fairly be expected that imagination would be found taking some of her loftiest flights, and that songs and poems would abound, in which the chivalrous deeds of its heroes were perpetuated and embalmed. But if any such productions of Manx bards ever existed, they have long since perished.

This little island is surrounded by a dangerous sea, which hourly traversed by a very valuable portion of our mercantile marine; and not a winter passes that its shores are not strewed with the wrecks of many noble vessels, and its waters do not become the untimely graves of many gallant men, whose lives might have been preserved to their country, had there been constructed there a great central harbour accessible in the worst weather and at the lowest tides. That central harbour the genius and benevolence of Sir William Hillary has devised; and the conception has obtained the sanction of the highest practical science in the warm approval of Sir John Rennie. For such a project the sum required is indeed a very large one; but a small tonnage duty, restricted to the passing vessel, would be fully commensurate for its completion; and the property saved by it in half a century would abundantly repay the outlay, and vindicate the wisdom of the measure. To England the Isle of Man would then become a cheap purchase and a truly valuable territorial acquisition, not more in the protection afforded to her commerce, than by rising, under her benign influence, from a once comparatively desert waste, the abode of the serf, the smuggler, and the profligate refugee, to be the rival of the average of her own counties in wealth, beauty, and intelligence.

Descriptions of the island have been published by Wal- dron, Feltham, Townley, Wood, and Bullock. The most recent and the best, however, are those by Dr Oswald and the Rev. Samuel Haining of Douglas.