you may extinguish, but parliament you can not extinguish. It is enthroned in the hearts of the people. It is enshrined in the sanctuary of the constitution. It is immortal as the island which it protects. As well might the frantic suicide hope that the act, which destroys his miserable body should extinguish his eternal soul. Again, I therefore warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on the constitution. It is above your power.

I do not say that the parliament and the people, by mutual consent and coöperation, may not change the form of the constitution. Whenever such a case arises, it must be decided on its own merits. But that is not this case. If government considers this a season peculiarly fitted for experiments on the constitution, they may call on the people. I ask you, are you ready to do so?

Are you ready to abide the event of such an appeal? What is it you must, in that event, submit to the people? Not this particular project, for if you dissolve the present form of government, they become free to choose any other. You fling them to the fury of the tempest. You must call on them to unhouse themselves of the established constitution, and to fashion to themselves another. I ask again, is this the time for an experiment of that nature?

Thank God, the people have manifested no such wish. So far as they have spoken, their voice is decidedly against this daring innovation. You know that no voice has been uttered in its favor. You can not be infatuated enough to take confidence from the silence which prevails in some parts of the kingdom. If you know how to appreciate that silence, it is more formidable than the most clamorous opposition. You may be rived and shivered by the lightning, before you hear the peal of the thunder!

FROM PLUNKET.

XLVI. LEGISLATURE OF IRELAND.-No. II.

LET me ask you, how was the late rebellion put down? By the zeal and loyalty of the gentlemen of Ireland rallying around-what? A reed shaken by the winds, a wretched apology for a minister who never knew how to give or where to seek protection? No! but round the laws, and constitution, and independence of the country. What were the affections and motives that called us into action? To protect our families, our properties, and our liberties.

I thank the administration for attempting this measure. They are, without intending it, putting an end to our dissensions. Through this black cloud which they have collected over us, I see the light breaking in upon this unfortunate country. They have composed our dissension; not by fomenting the embers of a lingering and subdued rebellion not by hallooing the Protestant against the Catholic, and the Catholic against the Protestant: not by committing the North against the South: not by inconsistent appeals to local or to party prejudices. No! but by the avowal of this atrocious conspiracy against the liberties of Ireland, they have subdued every petty and subordinate distinction.

They have united every rank and description of men by the pressure of this grand and momentous subject. And I tell them, that they will see every honest and independent man in Ireland rally around her constitution, and merge every consideration in his opposition to this ungenerous and odious measure.

For my own part, I will resist it to the last gasp of my existence, and with the last drop of my blood. When I feel the hour of my dissolution approaching, I will, like the father of Hannibal, take my children to the altar, and swear them to eternal hostility against the invaders of their country's freedom. I shall be proud to think my name may be handed down to posterity in the same roll with those disinterested patriots, who have successfully resisted the enemies of their country.

I shall bear in my heart the consciousness of having done my duty, and in the hour of death I shall not be haunted by the reflection of having basely sold, or meanly abandoned, the liberties of my native land. Can every man who gives his vote on the other side, this night lay his hand upon his heart and make the same declaration?

I hope so! It will be well for his peace. But if he can not, the indignation and abhorrence of his countrymen will accompany him through life, and the curses of his children will follow him to the grave. FROM PLUNKET.

XLVII.-AMERICA.

IF, as a man, I venerate the mention of America, what must be my feelings toward her as an Irishman. Never, oh, never, while memory remains, can Ireland forget the home of her emigrant, and the asylum of her exile. No matter whether their sorrows sprung from the errors of enthusiasm, or the realities of suffering; from fancy or infliction. That must be reserved for the scrutiny of those whom the lapse of time shall acquit of partiality. It is for the men of other ages to investigate and record it. But surely it is for the men of every age to hail the hospitality that received the shelterless, and love the feeling that befriended the unfortunate.

Search creation round, where can you find a country that presents so sublime a view, so interesting an anticipation? What noble institutions! What a comprehensive policy! What a wise equalization of every political advantage! The oppressed of all countries, the martyrs of every creed, the innocent victim of despotic arrogance or superstitious frenzy, may there find refuge: his industry encouraged, his piety respected, his ambition animated: with no restraint, but those laws which are the same to all, and no distinction but that which his merit may originate.

Who can deny that the existence of such a country presents a subject for human congratulation? Who can deny, that its gigantic advancement offers a field for the most

rational conjecture? At the end of the very next century, if she proceeds as she seems to promise, what a wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit! Who shall say for what purpose a mysterious Providence may not have designed her?

Who shall say, that when, in its follies or its crimes, the old world may have interred all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the new? For myself, I have no doubt of it. I have not the least doubt, that when our temples and our trophies shall have moldered into dust; when the glories of our name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of our achievements live only in song; philosophy will rise again in the sky of her Franklin, and glory rekindle at the urn of her Washington.

FROM PHILLIPS.

XLVIII.-FAMINE IN IRELAND.

FELLOW-CITIZENS: It is no ordinary cause that has brought together this vast assemblage, on the present occasion. We have met, not to prepare ourselves for political contests. We have met, not to celebrate the achievements of those gallant men who have planted our victorious standards in the heart of an enemy's country. We have assembled, not to respond to shouts of triumph from the West, but to answer the cry of want and suffering which comes from the East. The Old World stretches out her arms to the new. The starving parent supplicates the young and vigorous child for bread.

ness.

There lies, upon the other side of the wide Atlantic, a beautiful island, famous in story and in song. It has given to the world more than its share of genius and of greatIt has been prolific in statesmen, warriors, and poets. Its brave and generous sons have fought successfully all battles but their own. In wit and humor it has no equal; while its harp, like its history, moves to tears by its sweet but melancholy pathos.

Into this fair region, God has seen fit to send the most

terrible of all those fearful ministers who fulfill his inscrutable decrees. The earth has failed to give her increase. The common mother has forgotten her offspring, and she no longer affords them their accustomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, has seized a nation with its strangling grasp. Unhappy Ireland, in the sad woes of the present, forgets, for a moment, the gloomy history of the past.

Oh! it is terrible, that, in this beautiful world, which the good God has given us, and in which there is plenty for us all, men should die of starvation! When a man dies of disease, he alone endures the pain. Around his pillow are gathered sympathizing friends, who, if they can not keep back the deadly messenger, cover his face, and conceal the horrors of his visage, as he delivers his stern mandate. In battle, in the fullness of his pride and strength, little recks the soldier whether the hissing bullet sings his sudden requiem, or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel.

But he who dies of hunger, wrestles alone, day after day, with his grim and unrelenting enemy. He has no friends. to cheer him in the terrible conflict; for, if he had friends, how could he die of hunger? He has not the hot blood of the soldier to maintain him; for his foe, vampire-like, has exhausted his veins. Famine comes not up, like a brave enemy, storming, by a sudden onset, the fortress that resists. Famine besieges. He draws his lines around the doomed garrison. He cuts off all supplies. He never summons to surrender; for he gives no quarter.

Alas! for poor human nature, how can it sustain this fearful warfare? Day by day, the blood recedes; the flesh deserts; the muscles relax, and the sinews grow powerless. At last the mind, which, at first, had bravely nerved itself for the contest, gives way, under the mysterious influences which govern its union with the body. Then the victim begins to doubt the existence of an overruling Providence. He hates his fellow-men, and glares upon them with the longings of a cannibal, and, it may be, dies blaspheming.

This is one of those cases, in which we may, without