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much more than most people can have any notion, to the diffusion of friendly and benignant feelings between the inhabitants of the two countries. Look to Germany for an example. Surely there are more natural ties between us and our American cousins, than between the subjects of the different states of that country. Yet their literature is considered as a common property, which it were sin and shame to leave unprotected; and the poet who writes and publishes in Berlin, draws as much profit from the copies of his book sold in Dresden, Munich, or Hanover, as if these were the capitals, not of other kingdoms, but of other counties. Why should it not be so with those who have the same Shakespeare, and the same Franklin ?

The proposal would certainly come with the best grace at present from

the other side of the Atlantic: but they must hope that the benefit would ere long be quite reciprocal; and far be it from us to hope otherwise. As things are, they have the mortification to see their best writers publishing here rather than at home; and in fact, even at this moment the thing tells much more against American genius, than it does for American purses.

There would be something very delightful in the spectacle of two great nations, whose blood is the same, and the far best part of whose feelings and manners must be the same also, thus recognizing the rights of that genius, which, whatever may be the course of external events, nothing can prevent from being and continuing to be a common property,-and, we should fain believe, an equal pride.

LETTER TO CHRISTOPHER.NORTH, ESQ. CONCERNING MR TICKLER'S LAST APPEARANCE IN MAGA.

DEAR NORTH,

How is Tickler? I have not had the pleasure of seeing him these some months, but have vast fears for his sanity. Did you observe him at his last potation at Ambrose's look any way rabid, and manifest a stupendous horror at the vision of a tumbler of punch? Does he froth at the mouth, and make articulate noises, very much resembling the barking of a dog? Does he imagine his posteriors transmogrified into flint-glass, and his head sprouting out into the configuration of a cabbage? Answer me, my dear friend, by return of post, for I love the senior in my inmost heart, and feel an interest in his welfare. I think his last letter on Lawless decidedly insane. Not at all that I object to his badgering the Irishman to his heart's content he may growl at the gormandizer until he bursts; but I am truly sorry to see him dragging in the cursed question of Emancipation, and talking in the fashion of Sir Harcourt Lees, Bart.

In short, Kit, let that question and all belonging to it be far from your pages. Let it furnish quaking for the Quarterly, and elegiacs for the Edinburgh; but let it not be manufactured into Balaam for Blackwood. I agree with Tickler, of course, in his reprobation of the Whig people, and am

sorry that we have ever suffered the Roman Catholics to fall into the hands of that fanatic faction; but let Tim rave as he pleases about the ingratitude of the Roman Catholics, it would be contrary to all the plain dictates of human nature, if they did not cling to that body of men by whose agency they imagine they will be able to accomplish their admission to what every one of every sect must be anxious for-rights equal to those enjoyed by their fellow-subjects. Now, the bulk of us Tory folk are ram-stam, right-a-head against that; and what wonder is it, let me ask you, that they should flee into the bosom of Whiggery, and lie among the pots? If I had no other reason of wishing for Catholic Emancipation, than the certainty that the carrying of that measure would make the Roman Catholic party come over to us without delay,

would make them quit the colours of the ungodly-that one consideration would make me wish for it. At present, a Roman Catholic gentleman is much to be pitied. Being a gentleman, of course he hates whiggery as he does swindling-but is nevertheless obliged to look to it as the pass for him into the citadel of the Constitution. He is obliged to butter Brougham, magnify Mackintosh, ay, and even knuckle to Newport! Turpe et miserabile! His

stomach is beyond doubt turning, and his gorge rising; but what will you have him to do, as long as we are determined to keep him away from us, except catch hold of any implement, however filthy, which will buoy him up? Tickler, I am sorry to say, has used some very disingenuous arguments. For example, he says, the peasantry are murdering, burning, brain-battering, crowbar-twisting, et cætera, et cæterorum, in the south of Ireland-the peasantry are Catholics therefore the Catholics should not be emancipated. Now, this is not fair, Timotheus. It is not their Catholicism, but their ignorance, their want, their oppressed state, that sets them in mischievous motion. Make them as comfortable as your fat Yorkshire clown, ay, or as the snug shepherds round your own snug cottage at Southside, and you will soon see that their religion will not excite them to the deeds of arms which you so pathetically deprecate. Your bantling is, I am sorry to hear, of a sickly temperament, cross, of course, inclined to squall eternally -most destructive of your peace of mind, and, in fact, the complete bane of every domestic enjoyment. I shall not easily forget the scene that was going forward, on that memorable evening, when I had the misfortune to drop in unexpectedly on you. I need but barely hint at it, Tim, to make all the facts at once present to your mind. If I might venture to intrude on domestic privacy, and to interfere with family arrangements, I would beg leave to recommend you and Mrs T. to put young Timothy out at nurse instanter, especially if you intend to see your friends occasionally, as I am sure you do. I suspect that your infant's unevenness of temper is the cause of your late increasing bitterness, and, very probably, of your last month's indignation against the Irish. Now, the heir of Southside is a staunch member of the kirk, and still, neither you nor your beloved spouse ever thought of attributing his unhappy disposition to his connection with that body, which had for its founder the sourest of all the polemical gentlemen of his time. No, my old boy, contrive to make the child as fat and fair as the young sons of Erin, and your cot will once more be the scene of quiet and content.

In fact, North, between you and

me, the old fellow is gulled, bammed, humbugged, bamboozled, and bit. I forget who it is that says, "Nullum est magnum ingenium sine mixturâ dementia." Whoever said it, was a sensible fellow, and I now feel the full force of it. You know I have my own mad fits now and then ; but I never set them down to the cause of my great genius, until I beheld Timothy's wonderful aberration from common sense. Now, indeed, I have reason to feel proud of them, and I am confirmed in my opinion when I look about me. Byron's affection is evident to the whole world-it has certainly lasted an alarming length of time. Coleridge too, is, I think, pretty generally allowed to be rather frequently a fit subject for St Luke's. Southey's Vision is in itself evidence sufficient as to his state of mind at no distant period; and Shelley must have been insane, when bemoaning his friend Johnny as Adonais, and roaring forth his horrors in the Cenci. Leigh Hunt, I must confess, is a favourite of mine-there is something ingenuous and jaunty about him that pleases, and I shall therefore admit him into my list of mad geniuses. I pronounce his madness to be something like Ophelia's, who, like him, sung "hey, nonny nonny" songs, and adorned her head with flowers, blue, red, and yellow, as he does his thighs with inexpressibles of the last-mentioned colour. Perhaps, however, more strictly speaking, his malady is a nervous affection, arising from his being too much addicted to tea.

Be this as it may, it is no wonder that Tickler should share in the weakness of his contemporaries, but it is very ridiculous to behold the old cock, who has been crowing so vociferously over the remains of detected and vanquished humbug in the Quarterly, in the Edinburgh, in everywhere, in fact, where it existed, shewing in his own person that human nature will still ever be liable to its inroads. He talks of Ireland, and of Irish affairs, with as much earnestness and gravity, as if he were Secretary for that country, and gives as dismal a picture of priests and of their doings, as if he were the Laureate himself, holding forth on Spain and the Inquisition in the Quarterly. This is very foolish. I will not feel at all surprised if in your next Number he gives an equally luminous dissertation on the Sibalams and Lisators of

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Tombuctoo, who, I am grieved to learn, are the two parties who at present distract that fine country. He raves, too, about Orangeism, and Irish papers, and such small deer, as if he were one of the herd, and most deeply interested in the subject; but he just knows as much of the politics of the sister kingdom, as a very different character, (but equally ancient as Timothy, if not more so, being a grandfather,) M. Jay, does of its geography. This worthy Liberal, in that very silly work, "L'Hermit en Prison,” introduces a young gentleman, saying with all the appearance of vraisemblance, "I proceeded to Cork, and took lodgings in a tavern near the harbour." Now, M. Jay, knowing that Cork had a harbour, never thought of inquiring how far distant it might be from the city, but clapped down the above, chuckling, no doubt, at his knowledge, and in no danger of being detected by his Parisian admirers. As well might your friend Dr Scott declare, in his forthcoming tour to France, "I put up at an hotel in Paris, within a few doors of Versailles." Tickler acts just as oddly, and with as great an air of absurdity, as Monsieur; but who has been quizzing him, I can't conceive. Sir Harcourt Lees has, I find, had the sense to give up scribbling, seeing, I suppose, the folly of the thing; but is it possible that he has transmitted his materials to Tim? It is, at least, the only probable supposition that occurs to me at present, and certainly my friend's effusion has all the appearance of being half-brother to some of the Reverend Baronet's lucubrations.

Grieved to behold such prostration of intellect, I shall pick out, and dismiss with a few words, some of the most prominent fooleries to be found in the "Fragment," for Tim's benefit, and that of the public, as my friendship for both parties will not permit me to remain silent. I hope to be able to convince the one, of the prudence of remaining taciturn, until his faculties be perfectly restored; and to prevent the other from unwarily adopting his last insane imaginings as the sentiments of THE Tickler, for whom, in common with myself, it must ever entertain the most profound affection and esteem.

Amongst other silly matters, then, he gravely expresses his suspicions that some person or persons, friends

of John Lawless, Esq. the Irishman, hope, or make efforts, to have the Roman Catholic Church predominant in Ireland. What idea does the senior endeavour to convey by this awful hint? Is it that these mysterious persons are sighing to have their religion the general religion of the country? If so, let me tell him, that they are taking trouble at interest, since such has been the case for more years than even Timotheus, in all the pride of his seniority, can remember. Or is it that they entertain an expectation of seeing theirs the Church established, and loaded with the riches and honours which now adorn the Protestant? I will scarcely suspect him, with all his insanity, to be guilty of such stupidity. No-the greatest blockhead in Great Britain would not be ass enough to imagine, that such a thought could ever enter into the head of the most inveterate fool in the whole Emerald Isle. I will lay any wager, that, upon the strictest examination, there would not be found, from North to South, three old women, (even extending the phrase to its metaphorical sense,) who, in the course of their long career, bestowed one thought on the matter. I believe Sir Harcourt was the first to make the discovery, and even he had sense enough to perceive, that eighty thousand pilgrims, each with a piece of artillery on his back, were to be landed from Loretto in the south, before the business began. If this be thy meaning, Tim, to what art thou reduced? WHO HATH BEEN BAMMING THEE?

This, too, I am ashamed to say, is Tim's chief weapon. He brandishes it in superior style in three different places, and even says, that if we were convinced of the futility of this argument against emancipation, all our opposition would be at an end! This is surely reducing the question to a point, and if the present were the only objection, we should not be long getting over it. I shall only say, that if it be his great resting-point, his intellect must verily be in a most deplorably shattered condition.

Indeed, shocked as I must be to declare it, I fear that this is indubitably the case. In a lucid interval, evidently, he wrote some good sense about the appearance of the Shiels, O'Connells, &c. in Parliament, but in less than half a page afterwards, he raves most

emphatically about surrendering one of the bulwarks of the Constitution. This is certainly the most decided piece of BAM to be found in the whole fragment, and I shall therefore beg leave to say a word or two concern ing it. In the first place, the "Bulwarks of the Constitution" is a fine, full-mouthed, imposing uphoßo of a phrase, and is consequently caught at most greedily, and hackneyed most grievously, by the humbuggers at both sides of the water. This being the case, it has, of course, lost all definite meaning, and Tickler, if called on candidly by a friend, could no more explain what he meant by the expression, than could his own most interesting babe. To make use of it, therefore, is BAM of the most pellucid description-and that is to say enough about it. But supposing it to have a signification, what does it amount to? That by allowing the possibility of the sages above-mentioned obtaining a seat in the House, the British Constitution would lose one of its chief protections!!! Yes, Tim-stare at me as much as you please with your great protruded eye-balls, and exclaim, Stop there, my man. Have I not proved most satisfactorily in the very same paragraph, that nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see these gentlemen drawn out, as it were, for decimation, in the parliamentary ranks of Whiggism?" I allow you have, most excellent Timotheus, is my reply; and, therefore, does your marvellous incoherence afford another melancholy proof of your humbug or insanity. Take which cap you choose. I think the former, on the whole, will fit you better.

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Another insanity of frequent recurrence in the "Fragment," is some blustering about" millions." It appears to me, on mature consideration, that a very probable cause of my friend's unhappy state of mind, has been the prospect of providing for an increasing family, which has brought into action the avariciousness of disposition, natural to old age, that would otherwise have withered beneath the noble and ardent imaginings of his soul. That I have some ground for the supposition, will seem clear to any one who casts his eyes over the pages of which I am speaking. He will there see the word millions" staring him in the face at every corner, as if Tim othy

were burning to be a Nabob, and found pleasure even in writing down the meɛsure of his wished-for wealth. Tim! Tim! I fear thine is a broken spirit; but even in its fall, it may do mischief to unreflecting minds; and I shall therefore say a few words about the dazzling argument against the "millions." I deny then, flatly, that it is the same thing whether the Penal Code affects a thousand or a "million." If the omnipotence of Parliament had enacted, that whoever presumed to wear yellow silk breeches, should be subject to certain penalties, it would be of very litthe consequence at the present moment. Leigh Hunt would be the only person affected by it, and the injustice would not be very material. But if some "millions" of the population imagined, truly, or otherwise, that such inexpressibles became them, and shewed their figures to advantage, and therefore adopted them, I stoutly maintain that such a statute would then be most oppressive, and most worthy to be repealed. I, of course, agree most cordially with Tim, that if it weighed heavy on L. H. alone, or affected not a single member of the community, it should not for a moment disgrace our statute-book, but be abolished as effectually, as was the act against witchcraft some time ago. Every one, not actually non compos, will side with me in this point, and admit that it is therefore perfectly fair for the friends of emancipation to bring forward as an argument the number of the injured ;-as to its being an argument to our fears, the eighty thousand pilgrims stand up most imposingly to deny the fact. I will not be so mad in my turn as to advance the position that emancipation would directly and immediately affect the "millions." Most certainly not ; but * it is in the nature of things, that by raising the political condition of the few thousands who compose the head of that immense mass, the Catholics of Ireland, it would also help, by slow and certain degrees, to drag the whole body from the depth into which political degradation, in union, it is true, with many other causes, has contributed to plunge it. I could say more on this subject, if I were not writing, not on that eternal question, but on the woeful insanity of Tickler.

The next proof of his lunacy, shall be derived from what he says of

Orangeism and Orangemen. Rational men have been sickened of late with hearing of them and their politics; so I shall say as little as possible of the folk. Tickler declares, that the much misrepresented and unoffending gentlemen composing the society, have been driven into union by their fears -that they do not like visits from Captain Rock; and that therefore they flock together-that their secret signs are convincing evidence of their shrinking timidity and apprehension; something, I suppose, like yous of the primitive and persecuted Christians. This is a pitiable description of the association; but, from first to last, it only shews that Tim is insane, or quizzed. In the first place, Captain Rock holds his court about two hundred miles from the seat of Orangeism; so that to depict their fears of a visit from the gallant leader of the Dahallow forces, is quite in the M. Jay style-nothing can be more so. In the next place, instead of their modest and retiring habits, which the author of " Lights and Shadows" could not touch more tenderly than Tickler, there is not a body of men in the empire, at least from the specimens which I know of it, which comes up, in any degree, like this band of lily-of-the-valley-like gentlemen, to the beau ideal of ranting, roaring Irishmen. If anything, they are too savage for the character. To speak seriously, the Orange system, with all its secret, and timid, and cautionary signs, and symbols, and regulations, is an engine, which, if at present merely ridiculous, may, in the twinkling of an eye, be come most perilous to the state-an institution, in fine, of which no man of Tickler's late good sense, would have ever brought himself to speak in the manner he has done. Poor distressed beings! What an extinguisher of their comforts must it be to refrain in public and mixed assemblies from huzzaing to a toast which fivesixths of the kingdom think an insult, -whether prudently or not, is no consideration, but, on the other hand, how must they be consoled to see Tories on your side of the water most consistently bewailing their misfortunes! The plebeians concerned in the play-house riot have also found commiseration from Timothy. If the Pais ley radicals, some years ago, had done an action of the same nature, and if the like importance had been attached

to it, would we have seen him distilling such tears of sorrow over the men of the loom?

The last assification I shall notice, is one that would settle the business in the most scrupulous court de Lunatico inquirendo; I mean what is said of the non-resistance of the people to a sacerdotal horse-whipping. This is so extraordinarily frappant, that the celebrated controversial baronet I have so often alluded to, only ventured to put it forth once, to the great delight of his fellow-mortals! As Tim takes such an interest in Hibernian affairs, he cannot do better than reside for a summer among the bogs; and, as he is of a venerable and portly appearance, he may easily pass himself for a priest, by making the necessary alteration in his habiliments. Provided with a horse-whip, let him stalk forth to experimentalize on the non-resistant Milesians; and if he returns to his expectant spouse with a whole head and an unbroken shank, he may serenely pass the remainder of his days in penning most piquant papers against the prostrating power of popery, and the pernicious popularity of the priesthood. Ah! TIM, WHO HATH BEEN

BAMMING THEE?

Sorry am I to find that all he has written is most destitute of originality -Not a single invention of his own is to be discerned-all is copied and borrowed, without acknowledgment, from the most stupid sources, so that there is even no pleasure in perusing it. John Bull acts differently; for John invents most indefatigably, and sports an evervarying stock of novel circumstances, for the entertainment of his subscribers, which is certainly highly praiseworthy. Tickler, on the other hand, is not ashamed to derive dulness from the Morning Chronicle! nor even (what is still more atrocious, and in "vile bad taste") to call the Pope an "old woman," having borrowed this exquisite bijou from an old, foolish, forgotten oration of-of-of-Sir Francis Burdett!!!" Quantum mutatus ab illo," &c.

In writing the above, I have been merely proving Tickler's non-composity, (which, I fear, I have done too satisfactorily,) not writing on Catholic emancipation. This is a subject on which you well know my opinion. I think the measure a measure of justice, and, being so, of policy. You

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