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 diffused 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 steadfast 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 grand anniversary, 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 Sheridan, 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 jubilate upon the 12th of August, and scarcely credited their ears when they heard the echo of their loyal chorus, and found it was-Doctor 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 backwards-they 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, 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-the professional Catholic looked to office-and they both of course attached themselves to those whose religious scruples interfered least with their temporal prospects. Yet this party are now, nevertheless, devoutly rigid in their faith ;-intolerance has rooted what conciliation might have eradicated: their moderation, verging as it now does almost upon servility, is assumed for the purposes of ambition, and those purposes once obtained, Catholic prosperity will not fail to exact full indemnity for Catholic degradation. 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 fancied themselves in St. Stephen's Chapel, when they saw Lord Fingal in the collar of St. Patrick. The compliment 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 considered complimentary by all of that body who have any consideration, and perhaps he was of the entire sect the only person upon whom a favour conferred was not likely to exasperate the Protestants.

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 who combines most talent and most 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 his fearless and confiding spirit to the 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.

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 relief-bill to underminethe "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 "oriflamme," 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 copartner. They are in the finest

See the Speech of a Mr. Drumgoole, some years ago delivered to "the Board."

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 rant 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 perfectly 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," negotiating 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 mountain-vigils, their bog-masses, their unknown fasts, and invoke the pains of martyrdom,

"Luke's iron crown, 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 submission 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 the true church and the majesty of the people! This faction, the reader must see, however contemptible in their individual capacities, are yet most formidable in the aggregate. Agitation is the element in which they thrive, and they are perpetually on the watch for grievances;-like sea-birds in a storm, they see them in the wind, and try to outshriek its roaring. However, with the selfishness of the priesthood, and the ignorance of the people for their instruments, they can never be at a loss to excite the country, so long as civil discontent and religious bigotry will ferment together. To this party the King paid no particular attention, though by every ostentation of loyalty, and in every key of vociferous servility, they incessantly implored it. The King has the reputation of much natural sagacity, and doubtless appreciated these new-born professions at their proper value; but the slight has sunk barbed into the nature that never forgives, where it will fester and rankle until time shall give its poison an opportunity of being infectious. It gives one, however, but a poor opinion of humanity to see the very same persons who, without having done her any service, persecuted the Queen for her official favours, bellowing, before her corpse was cold, in the train of her antagonists.

Such were the parties who alternately misgoverned and disturbed Ireland at the moment of his Majesty's arrival; and it requires but little skill to foresee that their suspension of hostilities, or rather their sudden and miraculous unanimity, is not to be calculated on for any great duration. The interests of some, and the personal affection of others, for the King, produced the demonstration; but it is at best only the "mala sarta amicitia." If a stranger to Ireland requires any proof of this, he will find it in the hollow and heartless acclamations which have hailed the arrival of some of the King's attendants. If there ever was a measure which before temporarily united the opposing factions, it was the measure of the UNION. They poured upon it their unanimous execration, denounced it as a calamity which laid their independence in the dust, and through each succeeding year have held it up as the bane of their prosperity, and the annihilation of their name. And yet, in twenty years after it passed-even in that very city which it had chiefly prostrated, whose mansions it had untenanted, whose merchants it had impoverished, whose streets it had depopulated, and whose splendour, as the seat of legislation, it had eclipsed for ever-even there, the reviled author of that measure was so hailed by the plaudits of radical consistency, that if he did not altogether supersede the Sovereign, he may, at least, now with truth exclaim

"Divisum imperium cum Jove-habui!—”

It is scarcely possible to conceive this adulation to be sincere, and its offering is an omen of no auspicious import. When a people become either so desperate, or so shameless, as to fling off the prin