were a true Christian, and an enlightened man, he would not oppose the passing of that measure which the Duke of Wellington said would benefit the State, by benefiting every individual belonging to it. (Hear, hear.) But it is given out that the Duke of Northumberland is possessed of great wealth, and it is expected that by laying out a little money, he will purchase the mean applause of the mob. They must indeed be a low and degraded mob whose applause could be purchased by a few pence; they must be a base mob who would sell their country for a mess of pottage; who would give up their only inheritance, their attachment to the land of their nativity, for so contemptible a return. I have too high an opinion of the very humblest of my countrymen, to suppose for a moment, that this can possibly be the case; and I am convinced that the cold calculation in Peel's office, will utterly fail. (Hear.) The Duke of Northumberland comes here because he is irreclaimable; because he is not enlightened, and cannot be converted; and I will ask if his mind were open to conviction, what was the meaning of removing Lord Anglesey? That high-minded man was neutral between the parties-he put down faction; but he did not mistake for a faction those who were struggling for the blessings of liberty. The Duke of Northumberland will become the tool of the baneful faction; and he will display his impartiality, as the Mail has it, by favouring one side, and by endeavouring to put us down. I say endeavouring, for we cannot be put down. (Cheers.) They may pass another Algerine Act; they may prevent us from meeting in this room; but are not our chapels open; and is there any law to prevent a layman from preaching for an hour and a half after the last mass? (Laughter.) Is there any law to prevent ten or fifteen persons from dining together? 500 may also dine at the same time and place. (Cheers.) Fifty persons may join over tea and cakes, so may fifteen hundred. (Hear.) Tea and Tract Societies are the favourite meeting places of the Biblicals; we, too, can have ours. (Hear.) They may extinguish the Habeas Corpus, but they cannot put us down whilst there is a remnant of the Constitution remaining. As long as they leave a single shred of the constitution nailed to the mast, so long shall the little crew of old Erin stand by her, and fearlessly bide the pelting of the storm of persecution. (Loud cheers.) Already have the Brunswickers given unequivocal indications of the state of things which we are about to endure. (Hear, hear) Have they not had two mighty meetings in Monaghan, which were followed by the most horrible outrages on the unoffending Catholics? Was not the King's Mail stopped on the highway, and a Barrister threatened with murder, for merely performing his professional duty; and if that duty had been performed when the coach passed by, Mr. Randal Kernan would have been murdered by the Orangemen of Fermanagh. (Hear.) There were guards and passengers in the coach, yet we have not heard of any step taken by the authorities to investigate the atrocity, and bring the guilty parties to justice. During the administration of Lord Wellesley, it was the habit to send down King's Counsel on such occasions; but it does not appear that Lord Leveson Gower has deemed it necessary to pursue such a course relative to the outrages in Monaghan and Fermanagh. (Cries of hear, hear, hear.) If in a Catholic country, Protestants were treated in the manner that Catholics were treated in the North, how would the Catholics who sanctioned such proceedings be exclaimed against by Protestants. (Hear, hear.) Deservedly would they be exclaimed against, and no Protestant would be more ready than I should be to call out for punishment upon the miscreants, who could be guilty of such atrocities. (Hear, hear.) But there is another case; it has been stated in the newspapers; a gentleman named Taylor, a Magistrate, an Orangeman, and a Brunswicker; to the house of this gentleman, Catholics had to fly for protection from the Orangemen; the house was surrounded by them. Mr. Taylor went out to expostulate; was he respected? No, he was knocked down by the Orangemen; they surrounded the house, and insisted upon admission; luckily, the tumult attracted the attention of the police to the spot, and but for that circumstance, there would have been an indiscriminate massacre of every one in the house; one Catholic who was found outside, was nearly cut in pieces by the Orangemen. These facts I state upon the authority of young Mr. Taylor, who has published them in the newspapers, and I mean on Thursday to bring forward a motion for a particular petition on the Monaghan outrages. (Hear, hear.) I have said that the system of Brunswickism cannot last, unless, indeed, Mr. Peel be determined on an extermination, to which Horners may have been supposed to have said grace, and the people are to be given up to the infernal furies that at present infest the country. (Hear, hear.) We should say to Parliament that the Catholics are unarmed, (it is proper that they should be so,) but you should protect them from massacre, or you should at least suffer them to defend themselves. (Cheers.) I have thus thrown out my thoughts in the shape of a notice. (Hear.) It is my wish to disabuse the public mind of a delusion attempted to be practised upon it with respect to the Duke of Northumber

land. He cannot be coming here for good; for if good were to be done, who was sở able to accomplish it as the Marquis of Anglesey? (Hear, and cheers.)

Mr. STEELE, after disproving and reprobating certain rumours, which had circulated in reference to the Clare election, said-I am one of those who consider it a matter of extreme importance that the Representative of Ireland should be accompanied by as numerous and respectable a body as possible, of the clergy and gentry of Ireland, when he goes to take his seat in the Imperial Parliament. (Cheering.) I now beg to state, that without consultation with any one except O'Gorman Mahon, I this morning did myself the honour of waiting upon his Grace, the Catholic Arbhbishop of Dublin, Dr. Murray, and he was pleased to give me permission to state here this evening, that if any of the Clergy under his jurisdiction shall wish to accompany Mr. O'Connell, that they have his fullest sanction. (Loud cheeering.) In addition to the names which I have already mentioned on the last day of meeting, I beg to mention the names of Mr. Scully, of Cashel, and Mr O'Connell and Mr. O'Sullivan, of Limerick. (Cheering.) Sir, since I have risen, I cannot repress an impulsion to say something about the letter of the Duke of Wellington to his Grace the Duke of Leinster, and the consequences which that letter must inevitably generate. With respect to the letter itself, I can only describe it truly by saying, that it is most impertinent. (Hear, hear, hear.) But there are cases in which men can contrive to be exceedingly impertinent without subjecting themselves to personal responsibility, by steering their course in writing and speaking within certain limits, in which they are borne out by official situation. Such is the case of the Duke of Wellington. He has written the Duke of Leinster a most in pertinent letter, of which his Grace the Duke of Leinster cannot, however, take any personal hold. (Hear, hear.) Well, be it so; it will do us service. I, Sir, am one of those who do not at all deplore many things which have befallen our body which at the time they happened, inflicted a great deal of exasperation. Why? I will tell you; because the Catholic body of Ireland was, in former times, so torpid that it only required the mighty working of the mighty mind of him who formed this Association, to rouse them to action; the working of that man who has in him mighty elements for effecting mighty purposes; but it was also most useful that there should have been some collateral causes in operation to produce in our body politic that kind of salutary inflammation which has been attended with results so stupendous, that they are not limited in their operation to our own country, nor to the empire, nor even to Europe, but, thank God Almighty, they are now, as you have heard this evening, in the New World, as well as the Old, and the people of America sympathise in spirit with the oppressed Irish Catholics, though the billows of the mighty Atlantic roll between the two countries. (Cheers.}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Mr. SHEIL-I give notice that I shall, on Tuesday next. move a vote of thanks to the Americans, who have sent us a further remittance of 1000 dollars from New-York. This contribution offers a wide field for observation. It is one of the trans-Atlantic results of the Catholic Association. My object is not barely to express our thankfulness to our auxiliaries in America, but to point to the wide ramifications into which the effects of this strange institution have branched. Let the government look to it. (Cheers.) We have attracted the attention not only of the empire, but of the chief nation of another hemisphere. This statement might at first appear to be tinctured with exaggeration. My answer to the charge is the letter of Dr. Macnevin. What! will the government of these countries allow a system of wrong to go which produces such results? The Catholic rent is levied in New-York. Is it wise to permit Irish grievances thus to occupy American contemplation? But it is not to the United States that this sympathy for Ireland is confined. The colonies of England Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Canada are all concurring in a zealous participation in this great question. Associations formed upon this great pattern of discontent are rising up in the American dependencies of Great Britain. (Cheers.) A newspaper has been sent to Montreal, containing dissertations, in the French language, upon the wrongs of Ireland. (Loud cheers.) Does it never occur to the overnment that they are creating the ultimate means of organised disaffection abroad, while they are thus nurturing this confederacy of discord at home? (Cheers.) The Catholic Association is a model which the Colonies of England are already beginning to copy. (Loud cheers.) The Canadians are meeting to redress our grievances-will they not at last meet for the relief of their own? (Long, continued cheering.) Thus the government is encouraging bad political habits in the empire. Why are not these views pressed upon them? It is said that the Catholic question is worn out-no such thing. It is an inexhaustible fountain of wrong, and

they are but imperfect advocates who cannot find newness in events. True it is that the old abstract arguments are worn out; but incidents are coming in as their substitutes. Does America furnish no new materials for the advocate of Catholic freedom? (Cheers.) Does the gathering of the Catholic rent in New-York fford no fresh topic of adjuration? Are the colonial results of the question of so little value that they cannot be pressed upon the mind of England? I intend to take up the question in this new fashion, and, with that intent, I give notice that I shall, on Tuesday next, move a vote of thanks to the subscribers to the Catholic rent in the United States. (Cheers.) JOHN LAWLESS, Esq. was then called to the Chair, and thanks having been returned to the Rev. Mr. L'Estrange, the meeting adjourned.

POSTSCRIPT.

IRISH SHIELD OFFICE, 30th March, 1829.

By the Ship HERALD, which arrived at Baltimore on Friday last, English papers have been brought down to the Sth ultimo, furnishing the speech of the King and an account of the opening of the British Parliament. The whole of the King's speech, or rather the speech of Wellington and Peel, is so singularly enveloped in the clouds of ambiguity and obscureness, that it is difficult to discern its meaning through their rhetorical mists. But it is easy to fathom their hostile policy towards Ireland, as that is shrouded in no sophistry, nor masked in Machiavelian disguise; It is not the Dove of Conciliation it sends forth to persecuted Ireland, but deliberately flings the firebrand of insult on the wounded feelings and combustible indignation of seven millions of enslaved people. If the pile is kindled, it will only be extinguished by an ocean of blood. Let Wellington pause ere he proceeds farther in his crusade against Catholic Ireland, whose sufferings and wrongs cry to heaven for vengeance! The blood of the martyred Ney is already on his head; it remains to be seen whether he will imbrue the hands which he stained at the instance of the heaven-accursed Bourbons, with the gore of the "bravest of the brave," in a parricidal attempt on the life of his country's freedom. Neither he, nor Peel can put down the CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION; that body is IRELAND PERSONIFIED; it is the rock on which FREEDOM shall erect her temple. Attempt to attack it, my Lord Duke, and your army will be annihilated like the swoln surge that bursts its rage on the flinty precipices of Kerry. The Catholic Association has planted in Ireland the serpent's teeth, which at their nod and bidding will spring up in millions of armed hosts, to resist oppression.

A conditional and restricted emancipation will not allay the discontents of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. Their religion, for which they have suffered through ages of persecution, shall be as free, and unfettered, and chainless as the breeze. Heaven and the dictates of conscience have pronounced its laws immutable and eternal, and by those laws alone shall it be governed; no English king shall ever be its head-no British Cabinet shall ever appoint its ministers.

For refusing to sanction a royal supremacy, a Bishop Fisher, a Sir Tomas Moore, and a Primate of Ireland, suffered martyrdom. Can Wellington and Peel suppose that the Catholics of the nineteenth century are not animated with the same spirit of devotion to their creed, which swayed the heaven-touched souls of these victims of tyranny?

It will be seen by the following extract from the Delphian speech of the British Ministers, that every effort will be tried to suppress the great nucleus, around which the hopes and sympathies of seven millions cling so tenaciously-the CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION. The state of Ireland has been the object of his Majesty's continued solicitude. His Majesty laments that in that part of the United Kingdom. an ASSOCIATION should still exist which is dangerous to the public peace, and incompatible with the spirit of the constitution; which keeps alive discord and ill will amongst his Majesty's subjects; and which must, if permitte to continue, effectually obstruct every effort permanently to improve the condition of Ireland. His Majesty confidently relies on the wisdom and on the support of his Parliament, and his Majesty feels assured that you will commit to him such powers as may enable him to maintain his just authority. His Majesty recommends, that when this essential object shall have been accomplished, you should take into your deliberate consideration the whole condition of Ireland; and that you should review the laws which impose civil disabilities on his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. You will consider whether the removal of those disabilities can be effected consistently with the full and permanent security of our establishments in

church and state; with the maintenance of the Reformed Religion, established by law, and the rights and privileges of the Bishops and of the Clergy of this realm, and of the church committed to their charge. These are institutions which must ever be held sacred in this Protestant kingdom, and which it is the duty and the determinatian of his Majesty to preserve inviolate."

Who can see a gleam of hope beaming for Ireland in the preceding extract?

ORIGINAL PATCH WORK.

EPITAPH ON AN ACTOR. An eccentric Gentleman in Dublin, who was a great admiaer of an actor of the name of Thomas Jackson, caused, after his death, an event that occurred in 1802, a marble monument to be erected to his memory, in the church yard of Drumcondra, inscribed with the following epitaph.

"Sacred to the memory of THOMAS JACKSON, Comedian, who was engaged December 21 1748, to play a Comic cast of characters in this great Theatre, the World, for many of which he was prompted by nature to excel. The season being ended, his Benefit over, the charges all paid, and his accounts closed, he made his exit in the tragedy of Death, on the 17 of March 1802, in full assurance of being no more called to Rehearsal; where he hopes to find his forfeits all cleared, his cast of parts bettered, and his situation made agaeeable by him who paid the great stock debt for the love he bore to performers in general.

THE RULING PASSION. A Lady's beauty is dear to her in every situation: in sickness and even in death. A lady in Dublin a few years ago who was celebrated for the loveliness of her personal charms being in the last stage of consumption, and whenton the point of death her attendants were rubbing her temple with hungary water to rouse her from a swoon, she as soon as she recovered her senses, entreated them to desist for that application would wither her complexion, and make her hair grey!”

THE DRAMA.

MADAME FEROn, and the MESDAMES KNIGHT AND AUSTIN.

These three ladies have been elevated by popular opinion, to the loftiest eminence of operatic celebrity in this country. Indeed it cannot be denied, but that they respectively possess a high assemblage of those vocal powers, that tend to give effect to the voice of song, and spirit and force to the characters of the English opera. We confess we are not among the admirers of Madame Feron, because her "sounds are not an echo of the sense;" her Italian imitations, her prolonged shakes, and strained quivers can never convey feeling, or passion, for instead of agitating the soul, and thrilling the sensibility, her unaffecting harmony

"Plays round the head, but comes not near the heart."

But we do not deny her claims to negative merit, as a singer; her vocal science and management are of high order and accuracy, still her voice wants that compass, which is requisite to display its power in elevated tones of liquid and mellow modulation. As to her personations, they are never marked by force of character, or striking individuality; nor is there beauty or expression in her singing, it fails in conveying feeling, or touching pathos to the heart; nor can it delineate love, deep, and inextinguishablehopeless despair, or tumultuous and overwhelming joy.

MRS. KNIGHT, we think, in soft modulation of voice, and luxuriant richness of tone, is unrivalled in America.

It is not a matter of wonder, therefore, that we hear with so much delight and interest the siren songstress whose voice has been rendered by cultivation, at once the vehicle of tbought, feeling, and diversified melody.

Mrs. Austin, as a vocal performer, has merited and received applause. She possesses a good figure an expressive countenance, and a clear and powerful voice. Her songs are often impassioned, and affecting.

As these three ladies, have, as singers, received the tribute of applause, from the unanimous voice of criticism, we will endeavour to ascertain the degree of commendation to which each is entitled, by estimating their comparative merits. The task is not, we are aware, an easy one, and it is with diffidence that we submit the following remarks to the judgment of our readers. To begin then with something like a criterion.

If it were asked what are the essential qualities of a good singer, common to all the different departments, in which the human voice can serve as the medium of giving expression to sentiment, the following four requisites would suggest themselves. A full, clear and flexible voice, capable of wide compass, and perfect in the modulation of its tones, a facility and nicety of articulation, a variety of ornament suited to the character of the music, and a characteristic and touching pathos. These four qualifications are indispensably necessary to lift a vocal performer to professional eminence. Madame Feron is no doubt deficient in many of the attributes of song. In pathetic music she seldom shows sensibility, and consequently, when she evinces no passion, it is impossible to communicate a spark of spirit from the collision of her apathy and supineness. When we are not, says Horace, affected ourselves, we cannot affect others. Though possessed of considerable facility of modulation, she scarcely ever varies her cadenzas upon a repitition. The lower notes of her voice are not so firm as those of Mrs. Knight, who yet must be classed inferior to her, in the strength and sweetness of the higher.

It is perhaps the bad tast of the day, which induces Madame Feron, to dwell so long and so frequently upon a shake, to the utter disgust of every admirer of chaste and appropriate ornament. The light of expression too, that faintly plays on her countenance, is always dimmed by that grimace, which is so peculiar to the performers of her country. On the whole, we must say that she is as inferior to Madame Malibran, as the lowest species of Lyric poetry is to the lofty epic.

Mrs. Knight has the art of placing her powers in a proper light, and her melodious strains touch the finest feelings of the heart. In fine she may be characterised as a brilliant singer, who can adapt her powers to the emphatic expression of the sublime, and the pathetic.

Mrs. Austin, in depth of voice and rapidity of execution, is only excelled in this country by the Mesdames Feron, and Knight; and in the dramatic music of the opera, she is often impressive and effective. Indeed her graceful gesture, blooming countenance, and elegant person, will always gild her defects with the rays of beauty, which never fail to dazzle the optics of CRITICISM.

Poetry.

AN OSSIANIC GARLAND,

FOR THE GRAVE OF THE LAMENTED MRS. M'GOWAN, the lady of Mr. B. M'Gowan of this city, whose premature dissolution on the 8th of March, has plunged the hearts of her inconsolable husband and bereaved parents into that deep affliction, which cannot be soothed by sympathy. She was, indeed, a bright example of filial piety and conjugal affection, who concentrated in the sphere of domestic life, all those amiable qualities and affable manners, that exalt the female character, and win the affection of friends and the esteem of acquaintance. Her soul was ever warm with the rays of benevolence, and alive to the vibrations of sensibility, which awoke her pity and solicitude for the distresses and woes of others.

"Short was her life-but ah, the thread how fine!

How pure the texture of each finish'd line !"

Oh! relentless and inexorable DEATH! why hast thou blighted with thy chilling breath, the verdure of happiness that had only bloomed in the first spring of adolescence, in a fond husband's heart? Why hast thou thrown thy dark clouds ove the nuptial horizon in which the sun of contentment so lately beamed in its roontide radiance?

Thou hast extinguished the torch of felicity in the husband's bosom, and withered and faded every green plant and fragrant blossom that decorated the pleasure-lit landscape of a FATHER's hope! Thou hast drawn the dark curtain of desolation over the earthly joys of two families, whom thou hast benighted in a moonless gloom of misery. Fell destroyer! what ravages dost thou make among the children of men! neither youth, beauty, genius, nor virtue is exempt from thy potent power! Could a union of the finest affections of the heart; could spotless innocence; could religious piety; could the most endearing manners, and the most exemplary conduct, in the most interesting relations of pri. vate life, excite thy pity or stay thy hand, MARIA M'GOWAN, instead of being as she, alas! now is, "a clod of the valley," would be the grace and ornament of the social circle, and the delight and hope of her husband and parents?

But silent she sleeps in her "narrow cell," the howling breeze moans in the cypresses that shade her grave with their solemn foliage, and rustles the grassy drapery that covers her bosom! Blow lightly on her grave, oh! ye winds! nor break the repose of her slumbers; touch not the green verdure that sorrows on her tomb, for she was as gentle as the dew-dropping rose that reclines from the beams of the sun; and the purity of her virtues was as white and unspotted as the Elysian lily.

Her pure benevolent spirit has past away like the dream of the dawn; it has dropped as the dewgems from the petal of the rose; but her memory is embalmed in the shrine of connubial and parental affection; it is preserved in the recollection of friendship, whose sympathy will often shed the tear of regret, when it presents her image in the mirror of retrospection.

April 1st. 1829.

FINGAL.