sufficient reason for our giving up one of the bulwarks of the Constitution, the same will hold equally strong for our surrendering any other which it pleases them to demand. They can always plead the millions, and the disturbed state of the country, which the priesthood can always provide as an ever ready argument.

The late miracles of Prince Hohenlohe have, in some degree, opened the eyes of the British public to the intellectual value of the millions of Roman Catholic Ireland. We have seen people, calling themselves Bishops and Archbishops, writing pastoral letters, vouching the authenticity of the miraculous powers of this High German impostor-we have thousands of besotted creatures supplicating him for restoration of hands, and eyes, and speech, and everything but what they want most, brains. We have, proh pudor! newspapers filled with details of their grovelling superstitions -and newspaper editors frontless enough to advocate them. Nay, Mr North, this very Lawless himself, who was ashamed not to join in the expression of contempt for the imposition, while speeching in Glasgow, had what, if it had happened elsewhere, I should have called the incredible audacity, or stupidity, to print a defence of that imposition in his Irish newspaper, and the brazen forehead to call on the manly understanding of Protestant Ulster to prostrate itself in belief. But those who have long and carefully turned their attention to Irish affairs, did not need this additional instance of the mental degradation of the sister island. With characteristic esprit de corps, Sir R. Phillips finds the cause of the success of Hohenlohe in the fact, that in eleven counties out of thirty-two, there is no bookseller's shop in that country; a circumstance that strikes the worthy bibliopole as being awfully atrocious. Had he looked a little deeper, he would have found that the want of booksellers is an effect, not a cause, an effect of the gross ignorance of the population. That same ignorance makes them swallow mock-miracles, and listen open-mouthed to bloody prophe

cies.

Pastorini (Dr Walmerly, an English Catholic Vicar Apostolic, who wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse some fifty years ago, under that name,) has declared, that, in the year 1825,

heresy will be extirpated, with violent punishment and slaughter, all over the world. This piece of bigot stupidity, forgotten everywhere else, is fully believed by the low Irish. The book, printed on common paper, is circulated industriously among them in thousands, at a price barely sufficient to cover the cost of publication. Extracts of the most piquant parts are published separately-halfpenny brochures of that particular prophecy, are hawked about the streets-and it is one of the stimulants which keeps the whiteboys in full operation. The whole country is full of holy wells, holy stones, holy caves, holy waters, holy oils, holy bones,-all visited, or used, by devout pilgrims of the same cast of understanding as the worshippers of Juggernaut. And these are the millions whom we oppress by restraining, as a precautionary measure, their leading people from situations of high authority!

The

But here comes the argument which will be undoubtedly thrown in my face:-"You have first brutalized the people by misgovernment, and you are now abusing them for what is only attributable to yourselves." On behalf of the Tories I strenuously deny the fact. I am not a very sincere believer in the doctrine that ill government is the great agent in brutalizing any people; but, supposing it true, our withers are unwrung. WHIGS enacted the penal code-the WHIGS passed the laws pricing the head of a priest, and prohibiting a Papist to ride on a horse worth five pounds. When the Tories came into power, they relaxed these laws; and, sorry am I to say, they have been treated with great ingratitude. Their attachment to the Church of England renders them more obnoxious to the Roman Catholics than the Whigs, who, oppressive as they were, are acknowledged foes to the church, and, on account of that hatred, popular with its enemies. But let not Brougham or Denman lay the flattering unction to their souls, that their protegés forget who it is to whom they owe the code which they clamour against. I shall quote the very man who was buttering them at this dinner. Lawless, when a roaring member of that blatant beast, the Catholic Board of Dublin, wrote a stupid book which he thought fit to call a compendium of

Irish History. It is an insane diatribe against England, hatred against which country he carries so far as to murder its language, and mangle its orthography with merciless perseverance. It, however, is really a pretty fair picture of Roman Catholic feeling. What, then, does this gentleman say of the enactors of the penal code?" Had Austria," quoth the historian, "or Spain, interfered for the Catholics, the friends of religious liberty, observe the sneer, the friends of religious liberty in England, the WHIGS of England, would have been slow in giving to the British Monarch the necessary supplies to support him in his favourite object. THEY [the Whigs] required, as the condition of their zeal in his support, full and uncontrolled permission TO TORTURE THE IRISH CATHOLICS."-Lawless's Ireland, p. 484. There, Mr Brougham, there is your friend Lawless's recorded opinion of the services conferred on the Roman Catholics by the Whigs; and I can assure you that such is the feeling of the whole body. If the penal code, then, has done mischief, we know who is to blame. We are endeavouring to remedy that mischief as well as we can, but we are not quite certain that we would be warranted in putting the weapons of civilization into the hands of people, who would, in all human probability, use them for the purpose of fighting the battles of barbarism. Convince us that there is no danger of that, and our opposition is over in a

moment.

Lawless talked nonsense about the King's visit to Ireland, in the usual style of the orators of his party. These precious fellows have taken it into their head, that, because the King recommended harmony in the country, there was to be an end of all Protestant feeling-that the factious press was to be let loose in full tilt against all the institutions of the land-that corporations were to be abolishedthat the Protestant clergy should not preach Protestantism-that no tythe was to be paid-that churches were to be defiled, and churchyards intruded on, with complete impunity. The conciliation recommended was, with true Irish perspicuity, discovered to be a "reciprocity all on one side." The Whiteboys considered it as a token, that the gentry were to be delivered over to their tender mercies, bound

hand and foot. The Roman Catholic ecclesiastics regarded it as a licence for a saturnalia of insolent slander on the church. The bawling of the demagogue barristers, pleading for the cause of Erin, through patriotic pun, and desire to get puffed into business, became ten times more rabid and acrimonious. If the Protestants gave any symptoms of life, an outcry was raised that they were acting in opposition to the wishes of" our beloved King," by men who had illuminated their houses in triumph for the escape of the unhappy Queen, and whose whole lives had been occupied with venting merciless slanders against his father and himself. If they remained quiescent, a jubilant shout was raised that they, thank Heaven! were at last cowed into submission, never to arise again. Then the proceedings against the people concerned in the dirty playhouse-riot-the blowing up a galleryrow into a capital crime-the vindictive thirsting after the blood of the rioters-the venomous speeches-the insult to juries-the whole ex officio business, to which there has been no approximation since the days of Jefferies, and which have transferred his mantle over the shoulders of Plunkett -were construed into a following up of a system of warfare against the Protestants, and the theory was completed, which held that Catholicity was to enjoy a speedy and a bloody triumph in Ireland.

But how is all this to end? Is there never to be peace in that unhappy island? I must decline hazarding any answer to that question just now. The skein of Irish politics is too ravelled to be untwisted by me in a hasty review of the shallow prate of a shallow spouter over his second bottle. Besides, I think you told me that you had a series of papers either in esse or posse, on Irish affairs exclusively, written by one of the cleverest men in that country-and to him I leave it. Certain I am, that, as long as the mass of the population continues in its present state of degrading ignorance, no granting of Emancipation will be followed by quiet. How this ignorance is to be conquered, is a question of importance. It is very easy to say, "Educate-Educate,"-very easy indeed to say it; but when we have the veto of the priests against it, it is not quite so easy to put your proposal in7

to effect. He will honestly tell you that he fears proselytism would be the consequence, and throws coolly into the fire any book denounced in his Index Expurgaterius. I beg leave to ask Mr Lawless, is this fact or fiction? What must be thought of this state of society? What would be said in England, if any Rector, Vicar, or Prebend of the pack, were to walk into the house of a parishioner, and lay violent hands on any tract or any book obnoxious to his ideas of orthodoxy? I rather think his reverence would be saluted by the roughest but most convincing of arguments, that he had made a mistake. It is an every day occurrence in Ireland. But, indeed, to compare Great Britain and Ireland in this respect, is truly absurd. I beg leave to ask Mr Lawless, who spouts in favour of civil liberty, and total abhorrence of oppression of all kinds, whether, if it so pleased a priest to exercise his horse-whip on the shoulders of his congregation, male and female, one of them would dare to resist? Does he not know, that denouncing from altars, and threatening ecclesiastical pains, is a very usual mode of keeping the refractory in order? Does he not know, that the priesthood claims the privilege of refusing to give testimony even in cases of the most wanton murders, of which they may happen to be eye-witnesses -Mr L. will know the peculiar case I allude to-for fear of lessening their influence over the murderers? By mere accident, while writing this, a file of American newspapers came into my hands, in one of which I perceive a letter from a Romish Bishop in America-an Irishman-who is endeavouring to palliate the enormities of his countrymen. In this letter the writer asserts, that, from having been chaplain to a jail, he had excellent opportunities of knowing the designs of the insurgents. "I enjoyed their confidence," he says; "from them I received all the information which could be given me-I was enabled by their instructions to see and converse with their leaders-these leaders gave

me the most minute details;" and with their consent, he adds, he entered into some negotiation with the Lord Lieutenant. On certain conditions pardon was offered to the murderous miscreants; and will it be believed-" the conditions put it out of my power to act without betraying the confidence reposed in me!!" There is a state of society! What would have been said here to any clergyman of any sect, who could venture on such a course of proceeding?

These, however, are facts kept out of sight by the Whig reasoners, on this side of the water, through ignorance chiefly; by those from Ireland, out of dishonesty. But I have wasted too much time on such a man as Lawless. I shall proceed after observing, that in these remarks on the unhappy system of things in Ireland, I mean no personal offence to any man. I am ready to acknowledge that men of talent, of virtue, of learning, of the kindest hearts and the clearest heads, are to be found among the Irish Catholics, lay and ecclesiastic; but the argument as to the millions, as long as the millions remain as they are, I scout. Of one thing I am certain, that the Protestants of Ireland have a strong claim to our support. It is laughable to hear such men as this poor tavern spouter accusing them of disloyalty them who have stuck by the cause of England and of Europe, through good report and evil. But there is an immensity of mushroom loyalty in Ireland, as far as the mouth is concerned. There are men there, who, as Mr J. North said, in his admirable speech on the trial of the bottleand-rattle conspirators, who "imagine they can compensate for the turbulence of one day by the crawling sycophancy of the next;" a crawling sycophancy, displayed in pretending to honour the King, and covering with abuse those to whom we must look, as we have looked, for the continuation of the connection of the countries under his sceptre.

Transeant Hiberni. Let me get out of the bogs.

the state, not of the pot-house." The Turks may be the worst people in the world, and the Greeks the best-but are we to be the judges?-ay, are we to be the executioners? Who has called us to this office?-Where is our right? Are we, private men, we humble individuals, sitting each man with his legs under his own mahogany here in England, are we invested with any title to meddle between the Grand Seignior and the PrinceMaurocordato? Are we all so many Sovereign Powers here over our port ?-If so, what is the use of all this humbug of a King, and a Parliament, and a Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and all the rest of it? What is the use of such idle names as International Law,' and so forth? "-Am not I a Nation-I, myself, I, with this five-pound note in my breeches pocket? I can buy five pounds worth of spherical case shot, and send them out to Greece-I therefore can go to war with this Turkand why not?"

This nonsense must be put a stop to. If these people send over any supplies that can do the least good to the Greeks, they must send a great deal, for, according to their own pamphlet, the Greek government has never yet been able to pay their soldiers at all, or to clothe above one-third of them at a time. If" the Greek Committee" supply all these deficiencies—if they equip and pay the Greek army, pray who are the real belligerents?—The Greek Committee, on the one side, evidently, and the Grand Seignor on the other. Can this be, without creating a war between England and the Porte? Most certainly not. In short, it is only the utter imbecility of these well-meaning people that protects them for a moment. If they could do anything worth thinking of, we should soon hear more of it. They have done, and they can do nothing; and therefore they are allowed to make just what speeches, and publish just what pamphlets, they please.

We have not been talking of the Greck cause, be it observed, but of the Greek Committee. To see a liberal enlightened Christian government established in Greece, would be to us, and to all the European world, the most delightful of spectacles. We hope such a government may be established there and most happy should we be to hear that the Christian governments of Europe had been able to find any

proper opportunity for assisting the Greeks by their interference and mediation. But we are satisfied that no interference even of that kind will be of any use, unless the measure be a general one. And we are most sincerely of opinion, that the greatest disservice any one individual can at this moment do to the Greeks, is to assist in any way whatever in increasing the importance of these officious Associations, the meddling of which, it is but too manifest, can have no substantial effect whatever, except that of creating much unhappy suspicion and distrust in those high and responsible quarters from which alone the Greeks have any right to expect or to receive assist

ance.

Mr Blaquiere's pamphlet contains no information at all worthy of the name-and the few facts he does produce have any tendency rather than to confirm the conclusions he appears so eager to draw from them. The Greek Congress of this year, he says, met in an orange grove and deliberated on three great subjects-first," the best mode of introducing trial by jury, and a regular system of education, on the principles of Bell and Lancaster ;" secondly, "on the state of their finances, public accounts, and national resources;" and thirdly and LASTLY, "on the extent of the naval and military forces, and the most effectual plan for repelling every future attempt of the enemy."-Now, if this be not putting the cart before the horse, we should be glad to hear what it is. Pretty legislators indeed! Bell and Lancaster's education taking place there and then of the inquiry into their military resources, and the means of repelling the enemy!

Once more we devoutly hope the termination of this struggle will be the establishment of an independent Greek Government in Greece. The course of events, so far as we can understand matters, seems to render this consummation every day more probable; but it certainly will not be hastened by the Greek Committee, although we think it very probable it may be deferred.

These agitators, when they simply, avowedly, and distinctly, in their pri vate capacities, meddle with such matters, do what we humbly conceive they have no right to do-usurp the privilege of the government under whose protection they exist; and eventually, if their exertions are of any conse