CURWEN, J.C. Observations on the State of Ireland, principally directed to its Agriculture and Rural Population; in a series of Letters, written on a tour of that country.

Two volumes in one. London: Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 47, Paternoster-Row, 1818. First edition. Octavo. pp. (1) xx, 435, xii, 355. Contemporary full tree calf, covers framed by a gilt floral chain-link roll; spine divided into six panels by gilt roll tooling, titles on contrasting black morocco labels; compartments decorated in gilt with floral ornaments; board edges hatched in gilt; cream endpapers. Minute loss to spine-ends of volume one. Joints slightly rubbed but overall a very good, handsome set. Very scarce.
Bradshaw 7784. Goldsmiths’ Kress 22011.
John Christian Curwen (1756-1828), an English Whig politician, undertook his tour of Ireland in 1813-14. A landowner and reformer, he was deeply concerned with questions of agriculture, population, and social improvement. His letters, published here in book form, provide a vivid contemporary account of rural Ireland in the years following the Napoleonic Wars and on the eve of the catastrophic famine decades later. Curwen records his observations with a degree of sympathy unusual among English commentators of the period. He notes the misery of Irish cabins, the insecurity of tenants, and the effects of absentee landlords, but he also commends the warmth, generosity, and hospitality of the people. The work offers valuable insights into agricultural practices, the linen and woollen industries, and the economic difficulties facing both peasantry and gentry. His remarks on Ireland’s social condition anticipate themes that would dominate political debate in the ensuing decades, poverty, emigration, and the land question. Curwen describes the poverty he witnessed with compassion: “The Irish peasant, however, though poor in what the world calls riches, possesses that in his cabin which the mines of Peru could not furnish ... and the traveller will find in the possession of its inhabitants a warmth of heart - an overflowing of the kindness of domestic affections, and the purest joys of life ... “ (vol. I, p. 169). However, he prophetically laments that “the whole system is radically wrong; the hope of its change for the better, remote ... a failure in the potatoe crop, which Heaven avert! would nearly absorb the whole resources of the country to subsist its population; which, at the best of times, is burthensome, but by such a casualty may become destructive.” (vol. II, p. 42).

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