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the Boyne; too dastardly to share their death, he excused his cowardice by assassinating their memories. Even in Ireland's highest noon" of indignation, however, there is something humorous, as there is sometimes a mixture of bitterness in her jocularity, her revenge on the tourist Twiss will not easily be forgotten; and she has given James a Milesian cognomen very likely to rival that of Jefferies in the nostrils of posterity. In her orator's words there certainly is not "a sweetness in the odour of his memory." His conqueror, William, remained behind in Ireland, to blight a hero's laurels and a statesman's wisdom with the crimes of vengeance. She felt again, that though friendship could not restore, hostility could ruin, and William added largely to the confiscations which Charles's ingratitude had suffered to remain. With him departed the royal visitor of Ireland up to the present day. Happy for the country if with him could have departed also the humiliation of defeat and the insolence of triumph. They have lived at least up to the memorable twelfth of August dies creta notandus, if upon it their epitaph has been written; but I fear her fields are still too furrowed to afford space smooth enough for the inscrip

tion.

Such were the specimens which Ireland had, before the present reign of royal visitations; and it is little to be wondered at if she received the novelty of a monarch's friendship with something of even more than enthusiasm. There was much, however, of personal affection in the welcome, and, as far as regarded the King, it was altogether free from any taint of inconsistency. George the Fourth was always a favourite with the Irish. Whether it resulted from his long exclusion from power which attracted the sympathies of a people who thought they unjustly participated in that exclusion, or from those early whims and gaieties which were not either entirely without their sympathies, or from that mixture of hope and hatred with which an oppressed people turn from the possessor to the heirwhether it was from any of those feelings, or from an union of them all, cer

tain it is the present monarch has long received rather a devotion of the heart, than an allegiance from the lips of Ireland. She evinced this often, but more especially on a most momentous occasion-I allude to the period of the late King's first unfortunate mental aberration. At that time it will be recollected with what violence the Whig and Tory parties disputed on the subject of the Regency. The genius of Mr. Pitt ruled the ascendant in this country; but Mr. Grattan, at the head of the popular party in Ireland, counterbalanced his triumph, and called upon the Prince, by address, to assume the reins of government. The King happily recovered just as it was presented, but the Prince, by his answer, pledged his eternal gratitude to the Irish people. From that moment, it is said, Mr. Pitt, exasperated and perhaps alarmed at this clashing of the legislatures, determined on their amalgamation. If this be true, surely the country which lost her parliament through an affection for his Majesty, has a peculiar claim on him, for at least the compensation of an occasional visit. He seems to have so felt it; and, to do him justice, he has acknowledged it, while the mark of the crown was still fresh upon his forehead. Indeed of this personal sentiment he had given an early proof by the selec tion of his more intimate companions. Burke and Sheridan were the lights of his youth; Lord Moira the companion of his manhood; Londonderry and Wellington are the elect of his cabinet, and to those offices in which perhaps confidence is most necessary and most unequivocally expressed, Sir Benjamin Bloomfield has succeeded to General Macmahon. This favouritism, it may be supposed, was felt through their respective families in the sister kingdom. As a proof of this, I need only mention that the high office of Master of the Rolls is filled, and to say the truth, very satisfactorily, by a brother of the latter gentleman. That Ireland felt and returned these demonstrations requires no further proof than her conduct upon a late melancholy occasion. When England and many parts of Scotland testified their partizanship by the eternal addresses which almost wore

the threshold of Brandenburgh-house, the incarnation of all evil, and his adIreland remained not only passive but herents as so many attendant dæmons," indifferent. One solitary address from who are ever warmed by the original a few radicals at Belfast rather insulted principle, no matter how distant may than consoled the Queen by the suspi- be the orbit in which they circle round it. This is innate bigotry in some, cious peculiarity of its homage. mere pretence in others, affected for the purposes of interest; in all, however, it is the essence of their creed-the bond of their union-the sine qua non of their loyal fraternity. They may transfer to their porch the motto which adorned the gate of one of their chosen cities, the genius which fabricated its rhyme, consorting well with the Christianity which propagated its principle"Jew, Turk, or Atheist may enter here, But not a Papist.”

Such was the relative situation of Ireland and the King at the time he determined upon his personal excursion. It was a determination hazardous in the extreme, and required much delicacy in its execution. Never, perhaps did man enter into an atmosphere of more discordant elements; he not only trod on embers, but walked amid lightnings like the explorer of a volcano it was impossible to say at what moment the mere pressure of his foot might have raised a flame around him. Happily his appearance reconciled, at least temporarily, the contending factions. Whether that coalition is to be more than temporary, whether the golden age of unanimity and concord is likely to continue and produce those results which Irish ardour pictures to itself in prospect, perhaps a review of those factions, as they exist, will be more likely to decide than any visionary speculation. For myself I have no hesitation in saying, I more than doubt either the permanency or the sincerity of that coalition, and I doubt it still more from contemplating the indiscriminate blandishments which it so suddenly squandered, not only upon the King but upon every one of the dramatis person who stooped to solicit it. If it was indeed sincere, I have only to say that Ireland is the very cradle of forgiveness, or that public virtue is nothing but a shadow. The least numerous, but perhaps the most opulent and powerful, is the ORANGE PARTY-a relic of the pale, re-baptized at the revolution. This is composed of friendly brother, and occasionally of Masonic societies, with a thick sprinkling of Tory peers, absentee agents, village drunkards, and corporation expectants. At the head of this decidedly is Abraham, now Sir Abraham Bradley King, who added to the profit of being crown-stationer, the dignity of having been twice Lord Mayor of Dublin. The warwhoop, or rather the password of this party, is "No Popery." They consider the Pope as

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At the Revolution this body, though not created, was regenerated. It had, in some degree, existed since the pale. It was an association extra the indigenous Irish, formed at first for the purposes of defence, and cemented afterwards by forfeiture and confiscations. During the period to which I have referred it took its new and religious, or rather bigoted, character; still opposed to the native population it joined King William against the Stuarts, abjured James, Pope and popery, wooden shoes and brass money, as their standing toast expresses it, and borrowed from the Dutch lily an emblem and designation. This party is dif fused throughout the country in select associations, but the north is their grand scene of rendezvous: they have their lodges, their meetings, their signs and secrets-they are stedfast in their principles both of friendship and hostility, and so rooted in their tenets that they have been accused of holding even a conditional allegiance. Be this as it may, however, they have hitherto had no reason to complain of royal disregard. During the late reign they were almost the monopolists of office, and of course Mr. Pitt and the Pope constituted the antipodes of their political world. Since the last Irish rebellion the gradual pacification of the interior has in a great measure contracted their operations. But their zeal, though sleeping, is not dead. The only difference is, that the 12th of July, their

had it not been for the sulky reaction which religious persecution uniformly produces. By degrees it has become considerable-it was always respectable. When the penal enactments were so far relaxed as to permit the purchase of estates and the acquisition of knowledge, the Catholics participated both in profession and property, and the educated naturally joined the aristocracy of their creed. I say naturally; the rich Catholic looked to parliament

grand aniversary, in place of exhibiting the Orange pageant and the armed procession, is now merely closed by them in copious libations, during which "the glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great King William"(I believe, in despite of Glenco, they sometimes add the "good") floats in whiskey-punch triumphant above their own. It was difficult for such a party, formed on such principles, cordially to hail a monarch who had once warmed in his bosom Burke, Fox, and Sheri--the professional Catholic looked to dan, the three great foster-fathers of Catholic emancipation; but their minds had long associated the sounds of king and office,-if prejudice was strong, place was stronger, and perhaps they compromised with their consciences by fancying that the experience which selected Sidmouth and Liverpool atoned for the youthful indiscretion which squandered a smile upon the imps of popery. Thus perplexed, with William in their hearts and George on their lips, they startled the hill of Howth with their jubilatè upon the 12th of August, and scarcely credited their ears when they heard the echo of their loyal chorus, and found it wasDoctor Troy! The Cerberus of Orangeism, however, has had its sop, and Abraham Bradley King is now a baronet of Great Britain.

Another party, which cheered the King with equal ardour, because with more of hope though less of possession, was the party of Lord Fingal-in other words, the Roman Catholic aristocracy. Proud and poor, the ages which diminished their incomes gave dignity to their birth, and the loss of an estate was more than counterbalanced by the addition of an ancestor. While the Penal Code was unrepealed, or rather unmitigated, these men sought a bitter consolation in looking backwardsthey caught a kind of disturbed comfort in contemplating the shadowy glories of their forefathers. The policy of the late reign, however, by lessening the mound between them and power, induced them to look forward; and so inviting was even the prospect of the land of promise, that it is believed this party would have regenerated themselves into Orangemen long ago,

office and they both of course attach-
ed themselves to those whose religious
scruples interfered least with their tem-
poral prospects. Yet this party are
now, nevertheless, devoutly rigid in
their faith;-intolerance has rooted
what conciliation might have eradicat-
ed: their moderation, verging as it
now does almost upon servility, is as-
sumed for the purposes of ambition,
and those purposes once obtained,
Catholic prosperity will not fail to ex-
act full indemnity for Catholic degra-
dation. With these sentiments, it is
little to be wondered at that they were
not the most lingering or the least loud
amid the worshippers at Howth ;-
they shouted welcome till the very
echoes became hoarse, and almost fan-
cied themselves in St. Stephen's Cha-
pel, when they saw Lord Fingal in the
collar of St. Patrick.
ment conferred, however, upon this
heterodox nobleman was certainly well
merited: he was always remarkable
for a moderate demeanour, and in
perilous times gave many proofs of the
most steadfast loyalty. As a Catholic
his aggrandizement has been consider-
ed complimentary by all of that body
who have any consideration, and per-
haps he was of the entire sect the only
person upon whom a favour conferred
was not likely to exasperate the Pro-

testants.

The compli

Opposed to this party-opposed to the Orange party-opposed to every party which either seeks power, respects power, or possesses power, is the popular faction-that is the faction of the Irish Catholic radicals. At the head of this is to be found, whoever happens to be the ephemeral favourite of the day-in other words, the man

very verge of the scaffold :-he dared power-he defied danger—he lavished health and prospects in their cause, and poured upon their darkness and their discomfiture the full blaze of his resplendent intellect. But in his age they discovered he could be no longer serviceable, and they affected to deride the judgment, which naturally revolted at their impolitic and radical denunciations of all orders in the state from the King downwards. Invective soon followed desertion, and the most gifted and consistent patriot Ireland ever possessed, was driven from the land, for whose glory he would have died amid the most cruel, groundless, and ungrateful calumnies. His noble heart felt this treatment deeply, but still the consciousness of integrity consoled it, and in an unpublished letter, one of the last he wrote, he foretels, (oh vain prophecy!) that in the grave his country would do him justice-Extinctus amabitur idem. Alas, poor Curran ! how little did he think that even for that grave he should be indebted to England, while the hollow blusterers of his native land were weeping away their "Irish hearts" over the failure of a half-crown subscription for his bust! But happy is he that his resting place was distant-it did not reverberate the apostate shout which cheered the destroyers of Ireland's independence.

who combines most talent and most his fearless and confiding spirit to the turbulence with the least principle. Its ranks are recruited by all whom poverty makes desperate, or nature discontented, or laziness seditious. Yelling for toleration, they are the most inveterate bigots,-declaiming against slavery, they are the most remorseless tyrants. They are the most numerous, and the most dangerous faction in the country; for they are willing instruments in the hands of any one, whose perverted ambition confounds notoriety with fame, and who is unprincipled enough to throw society into a ferment, that he and his scum may float upon the surface. There is nothing which they dread so much as those concessions which they make the pretence for their mischievous activity; because, once granted, their "occupation" ceases. Hence, whenever the genius of Grattan (who was alternately the god of their idolatry and the dæmon of their hate) appeared likely to achieve the prayer of their petitions, they uniformly started some objection to his details, and gave his opponents an irresistible weapon in their boisterous, but affected, indignation. Even during the last session, when his political antagonists were struck mute by the magnificence of Mr. Plunket's advocacy, they raised their horrid din, and burst, with their uplifted fetters, on his domestic calamity. Indeed this heartless ingratitude, ever more or less a characteristic of the mob, never flourished with more poisonous vigour than in the faction I am describing; because, in addition to its native virus, it has the taint of bigotry. Thus, if they meet a young man, warm from the contemplation of ancient liberty, or a matured man, whose simplicity subdues suspicion, by every artifice and every fraud, by servility, by adulation, by promises and chimeras, they seduce him into their den; and when his powers are exhausted, they invariably discover either that he is a protestant, and not sincere, or only a liberal, and so not to be trusted. A better instance of this heartless ingratitude cannot be selected than the late Mr. Curran for many years he was almost their idol, and in 1798 they shouted

Attached to this faction, in a great degree, is the Catholic priesthood-not as participating in their political opinions, but as looking up to them for the continuance of a spiritual despotism. The priesthood and this party depend mutually on each other. The priest possesses an unlimited dominion over his flock, which it has been the invariable policy of every projected reliefbill to undermine-the "leader" makes such clause the, at least, nominal motive for his dissent; talks of his holy Church and his unbroken hierarchy; and calls upon the clergy to unfurl the "oriflame," beneath which he invokes the double crown of a patriot and a martyr! The call echoes through the "holy of holies;" the man of God and the man of the people loudly reciprocate the most nauseous adulation—

while the first is only struggling for his saintly despotism, and the last for that bad and frail ascendancy which has been raised by the storm, and must sink at its subsiding. It is amusing enough, to one who is in the secret, to read the eulogiums of the Catholic leader upon his ecclesiastical co-partner. They are in the finest strain of Hibernian hyperbole. According to them, he has all the simplicity of a saint, the fortitude of a martyr, the temperance of an anchorite, and the self-devotion of an apostle! Job's patience, Solomon's wisdom, David's inspiration, Paul's eloquence, and Peter's orthodoxy, combine in the titular descendants of Saint Patrick, according to the rank of a Popish radical. If they do, however, most assuredly, in the phrase of a learned professor of chemistry in Dublin, "they mutually dewour one another." The truth is, the Irish priesthood of the present day is divided into two classes; those who graduated in the Continental nurseries, and those to whom the policy of later times has given a domestic education at Maynooth. The latter are by no means an improvement. Gloomy, fanatic, and intolerant, they have all the pride, without the learning, of the cloister--the pedantry of the schools contracts their understanding, and the discipline of the Church formalizes their manners. They are, however, certainly zealous in their vocation, and their dictatorial solemnity sustains the rank which a kindred vulgarity might otherwise diminish in the minds of their congregation. The old school, of whom, however, but few now remain, were equally zealous, and much less repulsive. A foreign education sweetened their brogue and softened their manners, and gave them an air of the world unimagined even by their successors. It was from this class of the priesthood that the dramatist borrowed the character of Father Luke, and most faithfully has he adhered to his original. Social, but mysterious convivial, but authoritative-and per

fectly impartial where his interests are not concerned, he still rigidly supports his spiritual ascendancy, and to this he makes, by a sort of prescription, every thing temporal pay tribute. The dairy and the barn-door furnish his table; the hen-roost makes his breakfast an ovation; and the produce of the mountain still pays willing duty to his reverence's cellar. But, notwithstanding all this, even in his liveliest “jobations," he never for a moment forgets the secret of his supremacy. Whether over the "brown jug" negociating a marriage, or in his black satin breeches and bright top-boots, waddling forth to hold the village "station," every turn seems to announce to the conceding crowd, "you know I'm your priest, and your conscience is mine," an intimation never either denied or doubted. His very horse (and he requires a good one) shares his master's sleekness-shining under the potentate of modern Rome, he need not envy even the consular dignities which its ancient liberality destined for his ancestor. It is not to be wondered at that this body, at present actually despotic in their parishes, should loudly declaim against any emancipatory innovation in any way affecting their authority. They do accordingly, and with all their lungs; but they are, of course, too cunning to place it on any ground of individual interest-quite the contrary. They resort to the first ages of the Church, invoke their holy saints and fathers, supplicate, in preference, the penal re-enactments, refer to their "unbroken hierarchy," their mountainvigils, their bog-masses, their unknown fasts, and invoke the pains of martyr. dom,

"Luke's iron erown, and Damien's bed of steel," rather than so heathenish and impious an emancipation. The poor peasant, alarmed at dangers which he does not understand, and proud of the submis sion which is the purchase of heaven, echoes his pastor with an accordant howl, which is instantly reverberated by the radical leader in the name of

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