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In his "dreamy state of imagination," Mr. O'Connell has wholly forgotten, that the Catholic Relief Bill, the Reform Bill, the Tithe Relief, and the Municipal Reform Bill, which enabled him to gratify his senile vanity, by" strutting his hour upon the stage" as Lord Mayor of Dublin, and to exhibit himself to crowds of stupid starers at Mullaghmast, dressed in an aldermanic gown of red, with the bauble of a gold chain round his neck, were all acts of the imperial Legislature. Forgetting this, he there made the following declaration :-" I declare solemnly my thorough conviction, that the Union is totally void in point of principle and constitutional force. Take it from me, that the Union is void. The Union, in my conviction is thoroughly void" If absurdity did not crowd so fast upon absurdity, we might cursorily remark, that none but an Irishman, would dream of compassing the repeal of a law, which was "totally void." We are therefore entitled to ask the blindest of his dupes,-Is Mr. O'Connell really serious? He has fortunately enabled us also to answer this question from his own lips," I hurraed," said he, at Birmingham," for the Repeal of the Union. It was a good, stirring, lively flapper;" and his following declaration in Parliament is decisive:" I beg to say, that I have always considered the Repeal of the Union as a means, not an end." An admirable "means" has it proved to him of gathering money. The rent and the sedition moved in a circle, mutually producing and produced; until at length the money flowed in so fast, that it almost bribed him into rebellion.

Such have been the means, let us contemplate the "end" Mr. O'Connell had in view. Those means have enabled him to become a great proprietor of funded property, all standing in his own name alone. Should the course of nature close his earthly career, all this accumulation, bound by no trust, would become the property of his family. Should the strong arm of retributive justice disperse the association, by whom, and where, can he be called on to account for its appropriation? The destruction of evidence is the vulgar tranquiliser of conscience. It screens alike, the misdeeds of minor peculation and wholesale pillage. Can it be true, that of all the financial accounts of bygone associations, not a trace is to be found?—that scattered even are the very ashes ?"Eadem semper causa, libido et avaritia, et mutandarum rerum amor.”

There is but one point of cohesion in this agitation, the blind subserviency of the people to their leader. If the spell of his imagined invincibility be once broken, the whole fabric shivers into fragments. What will after ages say of this man

and his dupes?" At the conclusion of the life of Mahomet," said Gibbon, "it may perhaps be expected, that I should balance his faults and virtues, that I should decide, whether the title of enthusiast or impostor most properly belongs to that extraordinary man. * * * From enthusiasm to imposture, the step is perilous and slippery; the demon of Socrates affords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himself how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state, between self-illusion and voluntary fraud.* Of his last years, ambition was the ruling passion and a politician will suspect that he secretly smiled, the vic torious impostor, at the enthusiasm of his life, and the credulity of his proselytes. The silence and death of the prophet restored the liberty of the people." This sketch is extracted from the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in the hope, that when the people of Ireland see the resemblance, they may recognise it. Stafford, whom Mr. O'Connell, in his Memoir, styles "a consummate political villain," was impeached, and lost his head upon the scaffold, "for his inten tions and endeavours to alienate and withdraw the hearts of the king's liege subjects of Ireland, and to set a division between them, and to ruin and destroy the kingdoms."†

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"In reading the history of nations," observes Mr. Mackay, "we find that communities suddenly fix their mind upon one object, and go mad in the pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, until their attention is caught by some new folly, more captivating than the first." Again," Every age has its peculiar folly, some scheme, project, or phantasy, into which it plunges, spurred either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation; *** some madness, to which it is goaded by political or religious causes, or both combined."§ The atmosphere of Ireland has always been a most buoyant medium for the flights of political aeronauts; and it would be strange, if we were to be now exempt from the general order of nature. It has been ever the characteristic of our countrymen, to form impru dent attachments, and to cling to them with desperate fidelity. "Although James II. had abandoned the Irish, the Irish did not abandon James. Against his undisturbed predecessors they had maintained desultory but implacable war. To him, expelled and outlawed, they exhibited, as was their character, a perverse loyalty.' Even James appears to have studied

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*Note 14,-Appendix. † Articles of Impeachment.-State Trials. History of Popular Delusions, vol. i., p. 1. § Ibid, vol. ii., p. 1.

their character," "Tis not safe," said he, in his will," to let any of the natives of Ireland be governors of these abovenamed places, Kinsale, Dungannon, &c., nor to have any troops in them but English, Scots, and strangers; nor to tempt the natives to rebel, they being of a very uncertain temper, and easily led by their chiefs and clergy, and bear with great impatience the English yoke; and one cannot beat it into their heads, that several of the O's and Macs, whose estates were forfeited in King James I.'s time, and before, ought to be kept out of their estates; and will always be ready to rise against the English, and endeavour to bring in strangers to support them." Every intelligent observer perusing the above passage, must recognise in the repealers of the present day, the lineal descendants of the deluded adherents of James.

- The future historian of the Repeal delusion will have to deplore the attitude assumed by the Roman Catholic clergy, as well prelates as priests, during the prevalence of that epidemic. They exhibited religion to ignorant and gaping crowds, not veiled in her pure and saintly guise, but debauched by ambition, preaching sedition and discord. Their tones, their threats, and their defiance, almost palliate, nay vindicate, the pages of our mournful history, in which the persecuting spirit of Protestant ascendancy is displayed. When measures of toleration were contemplated by James I., the Commons of England thus remonstrated on the tendency of the Roman Catholic religion:-" It hath a restless spirit, and will strive by these gradations. If it once get but a connivance, it will press for a toleration; if that should be obtained, they must have an equality; from thence they will aspire to superiority, and never will rest till they get a subversion of our religion.' Can any man doubt, but that this language illustrates the hopes and designs of many of the reverend incendiaries, who have recently figured at the Repeal demonstrations?

It is only in the hour of adversity, that the clergy of that faith have as yet, in Ireland, been objects of peculiar admiration. Referring to the darkest era in our annals, that of the domination of Cromwell, Godwin observes,-" In this, we are presented with one of the peculiar excellencies of the ancient Roman Catholic faith. None of the priests in Munster or Leinster had the baseness to forsake their flocks. In the days of their prosperity, they had shown themselves ambitious and arrogant, deeply engaged in the troubled sea of politics, and

*Past and Present State of Ireland.

† The Will is published in Clarke's Life of James II.

instigating their followers to all the aggressions and all the obstinacy which had produced an eleven years' war, and had involved Ireland in miseries incalculable. In the hour of trial, they stood forth superior to human infirmity. With resolution inflexible, they encountered every possible calamity, suffered the utmost hardships and privations, and counted nothing worthy their attention but the glory of God and the salvation of souls."*

In the career the militant members of the church have recently run, they forgot altogether the admonition of the Roman Catholic bishops, assembled at Dublin, on the 28th of January, 1834, when they recommended their clergy, "most earnestly to avoid, in future, any allusion at their altars to political subjects; and carefully to refrain from connecting themselves with political clubs, acting as chairmen or secretaries at political meetings, or moving or seconding resolutions; in order that we exhibit ourselves in all things in the character of our sacred calling as ministers of Christ, and dispensers of the mysteries of God." Instead of fulfilling the first ordinance of Christian discipline, obedience to superiors, we have had the ministers of religion associated with mercenary demagogues. In alliance together, they console the people for the ignorance and wretchedness, in which they labour to keep them, by assuring them, they are the finest peasantry in the world. In order to improve the kindly relations between landlord and tenant, they attach to the proprietory of every estate, a pedigree of crimes, when not all imaginary, grossly exaggerated. When endeavouring to crush agricultural advancement, by interfering with its pursuits, they descant on the fertility of our fields. Whilst they strive to banish industry from amongst our operatives, by making them politicians; and trade and commerce from our shores, by insulting and excluding strangers, they declaim on the unrivalled magnificence of our harbours; and whilst they excite to deeds of blood, by inflammatory and seditious harangues, they proclaim themselves messengers of peace. "That a little learning is a dangerous thing," said Dr. Doyle," was in no country, perhaps, more fully felt than in ours. For here, a little superficial learning, acting upon the passions, by means of the press and public meetings, is one of the great causes of the incessant agitation in which the public mind is kept." "By teaching us," said Burke, "to consider our fellow-citizens in a hostile light, the whole body of the nation becomes gradually less dear to us. The very names of affection and kindred, which * History of the Commonwealth, vol iv., p. 445.

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were the bond of charity whilst we agreed, become new incentives to hatred and rage, when the communion of our country is dissolved. God forbid that England should ever read this lesson, written in the blood of her own offspring." The great political hierarch, Dr. M'Hale, has, in a letter addressed by him to the Earl of Shrewsbury, and read by that noble lord in the House of Peers, on the 24th of June, 1831, given us the following consolatory commentary on Irish agitation:-"Whoever," observes the mighty lion of the fold, as he is now styled, "is well acquainted with the condition of this country and its people, cannot be surprised at the avidity with which they listen to any project of future good which may be set before them. They will agitate for the Repeal of the Union, or any other repeal, or any project whatever, that promises hope of relief; which, if once obtained, they would be as indifferent to any of those political measures by which they are now stirred up, as they would be to the discovery of the longitude." Such being the real sentiments of his heart, this prelate ought to have paused before he unrobed and descended from the altar, to blow the pestilential blast of Repeal agitation. He ought to have remembered the profound wisdom of Burke,-" Great distress has never taught, and whilst the world lasts, it will never teach wise lessons to any part of mankind. Men are as much blinded by the extremes of misery, as by the extremes of prosperity."

What have the people gained by this agitation? It has converted their country into a camp; it has distracted their minds from their ordinary and peaceful pursuits; it has engendered in their hearts rankling hatred towards their natural protectors; it has excited in their breasts delusive hopes, destined only to be blasted; and "wrung from their hard hands" "their vile trash," by the idlest of all "indirections." And for what? In order that the Whigs may find the disturbed condition of the country, a convenient viaduct to slide back into office; taking care to accommodate Mr. O'Connell and his money-bags, with as many places as he chooses to stipulate for, in the train !!

We must anticipate, that the disappointed expectations of the people will result in awful re-action. "In no part," observes Archbishop Wheatley, "was the record of past times more instructive, than in what relates to the history of re-action. They found an alternate movement, from nearly opposite directions, taking place, proportionate in its character to that which preceded it, even as the highest flood-tide was