country whose spirit can produce, and whose institutions can admit, of such a result. Of his guilt no one doubts, but guilty men must be hung technically and according to established rules; upon a statutable gibbet, with parliament rope, and a legal hangman, sheriff, and chaplain on the scaffold, and the mob in the foreground. Irishman (if there be a wise Irishman) | of Bordeaux, whether all this be worth should be slow in separating from a while. What is the object of all government? The object of all government is roast mutton, potatoes, claret, a stout constable, an honest justice, a clear highway, a free chapel. What trash to be bawling in the streets about the Green Isle, the Isle of the Ocean; the bold anthem of Erin go bragh! A far better anthem would be Erin go bread and cheese, Erin go cabins that will keep out the rain, Erin go pantaloons without holes in them! What folly to be making eternal declamations about governing yourselves! If laws are good and well administered, is it worth while to rush into war and rebellion in order that no better laws may be made in another place? Are you an Eton boy, who has just come out, full of Plutarch's Lives, and considering in every case how Epaminondas or Philopomen would have acted, or are you our own dear Daniel, drilled in all the business and bustle of life? I am with you heart and soul in my detestation of all injustice done to Ireland. Your priests shall be fed and paid, the liberties of your Church be scrupulously guarded, and in civil affairs the most even justice be preserved between Catholic and Protestant. Thus far I am a thorough rebel as well as yourself; but when you come to the perilous nonsense of Repeal, in common with every honest man who has five grains of common sense, I take my leave." But, after all, I have no desire my dear Daniel should come to any harm, for I believe there is a great deal of virtue and excellent meaning in him, and I must now beg a few minutes' conversation with him. "After all, my dear Daniel, what is it you want? -a separation of the two countries? for what purpose?-for your own aggrandisement?- for the gratification of your personal vanity? You don't know yourself; you are much too honourable and moral a man, and too clear-sighted a person for such a business as this: the empire will be twisted out of your hands by a set of cut-throat villains, and you will die secretly by a poisoned potato, or be pistolled in the streets. You have too much sense and taste and openness to endure for a session the stupid and audacious wickedness and nonsense of your associates. If you want fame, you must be insatiable! Who is so much known in all Europe, or so much admired by honest men for the real good you had done to your country, before this insane cry of Repeal? And don't imagine you can intimidate this Government; whatever be their faults or merits, you may take my word for it, you will not intimidate them. They will prosecute you again, and put down your Clontarf meetings, and they will be quite right in doing so. They may make concessions, and I think they will; but they would fall into utter contempt if they allowed themselves to be terrified into a dissolution of the Union. They know full well that the English nation are unan-lord-lieutenants are placed in every imous and resolute upon this point, and that they would prefer war to a Repeal. And now, dear Daniel, sit down quietly at Derrynane, and tell me, when the bodily frame is refreshed with the wine It is entertaining enough, that although the Irish are beginning to be so clamorous about making their own laws, the wisest and the best statutes in the books have been made since their union with England. All Catholic disabilities have been abolished; a good police has been established all over the kingdom; public courts of petty sessions have been instituted; free trade between Great Britain and Ireland has been completely carried into effect; county; church rates are taken off Catholic shoulders; the County Grand Jury Rooms are flung open to the public; county surveyors are of great service; a noble provision is made for satisfactory answer to this, to a shrewd man who is starving to death. Of course, in talking of a government payment to the Catholic priest, I mean it should be done with the utmost fairness and good faith; no attempt to gain patronage, or to make use of the Pope as a stalking-horse for playing tricks. Leave the patronage exactly as you find it; and take the greatest possible care that the Catholic clergy have no reason to suspect you in this particular; do it like gentlemen, without shuffling and prevarication, or leave it alone altogether. The first thing to be done is to pay the priests, and after a little time they will take the money. One man wants to repair his cottage; another wants a buggy; a third cannot shut his eyes to the dilapidations of a cassock. The draft is payable at sight in Dublin, or The most important step in improveby agents in the next market town ment which mankind ever made was dependent upon the Commission in the secession from the see of Rome, and Dublin. The housekeeper of the holy the establishment of the Protestant man is importunate for money, and if religion; but though I have the sinit be not procured by drawing for the cerest admiration of the Protestant salary, it must be extorted by curses faith, I have no admiration of Protesand comminations from the ragged tant hassocks on which there are no worshippers, slowly, sorrowfully, and knees, nor of seats on which there is sadly. There will be some opposition no superincumbent Protestant pressure, at first, but the facility of getting the nor of whole acres of tenantless Prosalary without the violence they are testant pews, in which no human being now forced to use, and the difficulties of the 500 sects of Christians is ever to which they are exposed in procuring seen. I have no passion for sacred the payment of those emoluments to emptiness, or pious vacuity. The which they are fairly entitled, will, in emoluments of those livings in which the end, overcome all obstacles. And there are few or no Protestants ought, if it do not succeed, what harm is done after the death of the present incumby the attempt? It evinces on the bents, to be appropriated in part to the part of this country the strongest dis-uses of the predominant religion, or position to do what is just, and to some arrangements made for superapply the best remedy to the greatest seding such utterly useless ministers evil; but the very attempt would do immediately, securing to them the good, and would be felt in the great emoluments they possess. Catholic insurrection, come when it will. All rebellions and disaffections are general and terrible in proportion as one party has suffered, and the other inflicted; -any great measure of conciliation, proposed in the spirit of kindness, is remembered, and renders war less terrible, and opens avenues to peace. The Roman Catholic priest could not refuse to draw his salary from the State without incurring the indignation of his flock. "Why are you to come upon us for all this money, when you can ride over to Sligo or Belfast, and draw a draft upon Government for the amount?" It is not easy to give a Can any honest man say, that in parishes (as is the case frequently in Ireland) containing 3000 or 4000 Catholics and 40 or 50 Protestants, there is the smallest chance of the majority being converted? Are not the Catholics (except in the North of Ireland, where the great mass are Presbyterians) gaining everywhere on the Protestants? The tithes were originally possessed by the Catholic Church of Ireland. Not one shilling of them is now devoted to that purpose. An immense majority of the common people are Catholics; they see a church richly supported by the spoils of their own church establish ments, in whose tenets not one tenth part of the people believe. Is it possible to believe this can endure?that a light, irritable, priest-ridden left in its present state; but I am afraid France and England can now afford to fight: and having saved a little money, they will, of course, spend it in fight people will not, under such circum-ing. That puppy of the waves, young stances, always remain at the very Joinville, will steam over in a higheve of rebellion, always ready to ex- pressure fleet!-and then comes an plode when the finger of Daniel touches immense twenty per cent. income-tax the hair trigger?-for Daniel, be it war, an universal insurrection in Iresaid, though he hates shedding blood land, and a crisis of misery and distress, in small quantities, has no objection in which life will hardly be worth to provoking kindred nations to war. having. The struggle may end in our He very properly objects to killing or favour, but it may not; and the object being killed by Lord Alvanley; but of political wisdom is to avoid these would urge on ten thousand Pats in struggles. I want to see jolly Roman civil combat against ten thousand Catholic priests secure of their income, Bulls. His objections are to small without any motive for sedition or homicides; and his vow that he has turbulence. I want to see Patricks at registered in Heaven is only against the loom; cotton and silk factories retail destruction, and murder by piecemeal. He does not like to tease Satan by driblets; but to earn eternal torments by persuading eight million Irish and twelve million Britons no longer to buy and sell oats and salt meat, but to butcher each other in God's name to extermination. And what if Daniel dies,-of what use his death? Does Daniel make the occasion, or does the occasion make Daniel? -Daniels are made by the bigotry and insolence of England to Ireland; and till the monstrous abuses of the Protestant Church in that country are rectified, there will always be Daniels, and they will always come out of their dens more powerful and more popular than when you cast them in. I do not mean by this, unjustly and cowardly to run down O'Connell. He has been of eminent service to his country in the question of Catholic Emancipation, and I am by no means satisfied that with the gratification of vanity there are not mingled genuine feelings of patriotism, and a deep sense of the injustice done to his country. His first success, however, flung him off his guard; and perhaps he trusted too much in the timidity of the present Government, who are by no means composed of irresolute or weak men. If I thought Ireland quite safe, I should still object to injustice. I could never endure in silence that the Catholic Church of Ireland should be VOL. II. springing up in the bogs; Ireland a rich, happy, quiet country!-scribbling, carding, cleaning, and making calico, as if mankind had only a few days more allotted to them for making clothes, and were ever after to remain stark naked. Remember that between your impending and your past wars with Ireland, there is this remarkable difference. You have given up your Protestant auxiliaries; the Protestants enjoyed in former disputes all the patronage of Ireland; they fought not only from religious hatred, but to preserve their monopoly;-that monopoly is gone; you have been candid and just for thirty years, and have lost those friends whose swords were always ready to defend the partiality of the Government, and to stifle the cry of justice. The next war will not be between Catholic and Protestant, but between Ireland and England. I have some belief in Sir Robert. He is a man of great understanding, and must see that this eternal O'Connelling will never do, that it is impossible it can last. We are in a transition state, and the Tories may be assured that the Baronet will not go too fast. If Peel tells them that the thing must be done, they may be sure it is high time to do it; they may retreat mournfully and sullenly before common justice and common sense, but retreat they must when Ꮓ and birth, and education. But it is who pretend to foresee all the consemadness to make laws of society quences to which they would give birth. which attempt to shake off the great When I speak of the tolerable state of laws of nature. As long as men love happiness in which we live in England, bread, and mutton, and broad cloth, I do not speak merely of nobles, squires, wealth, in a long series of years, must and canons of St. Paul's, but of drivers have enormous effects upon human of coaches, clerks in offices, carpenters, affairs, and the strong box will beat blacksmiths, butchers, and bakers, and the ballot box. Mr. Grote has both, most men who do not marry upon nobut he miscalculates their respective thing, and become burdened with large powers. Mr. Grote knows the relative families before they have arrived at values of gold and silver; but by what years of maturity. The earth is not moral rate of exchange is he able to sufficiently fertile for this: tell us the relative values of liberty Difficilem victum fundit durissima tellus. and truth? It is hardly necessary to say anything about universal suffrage, as there is no act of folly or madness which it may not in the beginning produce. There would be the greatest risk that the monarchy, as at present constituted, the funded debt, the established church, titles, and hereditary peerage, would give way before it. Many really honest men may wish for these changes; I know, or at least believe, that wheat and barley would grow if there were no Archbishop of Canterbury, and domestic fowls would breed if our Viscount Melbourne was again called Mr. Lamb; but they have stronger nerves than I have who would venture to bring these changes about. So few unhappy. They are the best judges nations have been free, it is so difficult to guard freedom from kings, and mobs, and patriotic gentlemen; and we are in such a very tolerable state of happiness in England, that I think such changes would be very rash; and I have an utter mistrust in the sagacity and penetration of political reasoners After all, the great art in politics and war is to choose a good position for making a stand. The Duke of Wellington examined and fortified the lines of Torres Vedras a year before he had any occasion to make use of them, and he had previously marked out Waterloo as the probable scene of some future exploit. The people seem to be hurrying on through all the well known steps to anarchy; they must be stopped at some pass or another: the first is the best and the most easily defended, The people have a right to ballot or to anything else which will make them happy; and they have a right to nothing which will make them of their immediate gratifications, and SYDNEY SMITH. He selects in every neighbourhood one | but by setting a high price on their or two houses, in which he holds sta- theological labours, and using every tions of confession. Very disagreeable incentive of fear and superstition to scenes take place when additional extort from six millions of beggars the money is demanded, or when additional little payments wanted for the bodies time for payment is craved. The first of the poor, and the support of life! I thing done when there is a question of maintain that it is shocking and wicked marrying a couple is, to make a bargain to leave the religious guides of six about the marriage money. The wary millions of people in such a state of minister watches the palpitations, puts destitution! -to bestow no more on a shilling for every sigh, and two-thought upon them than upon the pence on every tear, and maddens the clergy of the Sandwich Islands! If I impetuosity of the young lovers up to a were a member of the Cabinet, and pound sterling. The remuneration met my colleagues once a week to eat prescribed by the diocesan statutes is birds and beasts, and to talk over the never thought of for a moment; the state of the world, I should begin upon priest makes as hard a bargain as he Ireland before the soup was finished, can, and the bed the poor peasants are go on through fish, turkey, and saddle to lie upon is sold, to make their con- of mutton, and never end till the last cubinage lawful;- but every one pre- thimbleful of claret had passed down sent at the marriage is to contribute; the throat of the incredulous Hadding-the minister, after begging and en-ton: but there they sit, week after treating some time to little purpose, week; there they come, week after gets into a violent rage, abuses and is abused;-and in this way is celebrated one of the sacraments of the Catholic Church!-The same scenes of altercation take place when gossip-money is refused at baptisms; but the most painful scenes take place at extreme unction, a ceremony to which the common people in Ireland attach the utmost importance. "Pay me beforehand this is not enough. I insist upon more, I know you can afford it, I insist upon a larger fee!"—and all this before the dying man, who feels he has not an hour to live! and believes that salvation depends upon the timely application of this sacred grease. Other bad consequences arise out of the present system of Irish Church support. Many of the clergy are constantly endeavouring to overreach and undermine one another. Every man looks to his own private emolument, regardless of all covenants, expressed or implied. The curate does not make a fair return to the parish priest, nor the parish priest to the curate. There is an universal scramble; every one If I were a Bishop, living beautifully gets what he can, and seems to think in a state of serene plenitude, I don't he would be almost justified in appro- think I could endure the thought of so priating the whole to himself. And many honest, pious, and laborious how can all this be otherwise? How clergymen of another faith, placed in are the poor wretched clergy to live | such disgraceful circumstances! week; the Piccadilly Mars, the Scotch Neptune, Themis Lyndhurst, the Tamworth Baronet, dear Goody, and dearer Gladdy, and think no more of paying the Catholic clergy, than a man of real fashion docs of paying his tailor! And there is no excuse for this in fanaticism. There is only one man in the Cabinet who objects from reasons purely fanatical, because the Pope is the Scarlet Lady, or the Seventh Vial, or the Little Horn. All the rest are entirely of opinion that it ought to be done-that it is the one thing needful; but they are afraid of bishops, and county meetings, newspapers, and pamphlets, and reviews; all fair enough objects of apprehension, but they must be met, and encountered, and put down. It is impossible that the subject can be much longer avoided, and that every year is to produce a deadly struggle with the people, and a long trial in time of peace with O' somebody, the patriot for the time being, or the general, perhaps, in time of a foreign war. I |