Mr. Pigot Chief Baron? We believe it was not. Again, we may ask, was it his superior eminence over all competitors at the bar made Mr. Monahan Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, or his religious profession? We do not deny Mr. Monahan's legal acquirements, and we are willing to believe he will discharge his duties efficiently. We only venture to put the question, was he the best man for his office? We have a leaning towards this gentleman, also, because he was a University man, and distinguished himself in mathematics, and has not exhibited any ill-will towards his Protestant brethren. But if he had not been a Roman Catholic, would he have been a Chief Justice? We are certain he would not; and it is of this we, for the sake of the public, complain. English members of the House of Commons who read these pages may, from recollection and observation, realise the truth of what we state, when we Lord Clarendon of favouritism in his legal appointments. Messrs. Pigot, Stock, Monahan, and Hatchell, have shown their parliamentary abilities; let them be not unkindly, but fairly, judged; and if the public is not well served by their high perferment, let not the men be censured, but the factious politician who favoured and preferred them.

accuse

We conclude our remarks by an apt quotation from the Times of the 17th December, which we recommend to the notice of Lord Clarendon, as expressive of an indisputable truth, of which his Lordship has been utterly insensible, and we shall only premise we are not so intolerant, or so unjust, as to wish for any advantage for Protestants, beyond what is here so well and so forcibly stated, and that is the appointment of the ablest man for the service of the public:

"The minister who, from political motives, appoints to the bench any man short of the very ablest that can be found, inflicts an incalculable evil on the liberties and property of the whole nation, and weakens the authority of the law itself."

In reference to his political allies or nominees in the offices of State, Lord Clarendon is singularly blessed. Do the gentlemen in the House of Commons expect ever to receive from Messrs. Somerville, Redington, and

Hatchell, vigorous and splendid measures for the good of Ireland; or do they not expect that this triumvirate of wits will dodge on from day to day, till they can escape to a snug and permanent preferment? If these statesmen of a degenerate and higgling age ever do, in a moment of excitement, raise our expectations, it is only the more lamentably to disappoint them. But such officials, legal and political, are of inestimable value to a viceroy of Lord Clarendon's genius. Confident in his own wisdom, restless in his temper, intriguing in his politics, he is thus, by having nobody to contradict him, enabled to intermeddle in everything, and to spoil everything. The noble lord is great on law, great on flax, great on Popery, great on the art of managing everybody, and satisfying nobody. He dabbles in all matters, and dictates where he should not be listened to, simply because he wants a Saurin or a Plunket to curb and to resist him. The state of our parliamentary representation, the low character of our public opinion, the distractions of our country, its parties, and the inferior intellectual caste of the persons who surround Lord Clarendon, have enabled him to usurp and to exercise this unconstitutional authority. In truth, the noble lord, now that he has crowned himself with glory by his maladministration of Ireland, ought to retire to some colony, stripped of liberty, where he may give full scope to his natural disposition, and govern despotically those who must not murmur and dare not resist.

We deny that Lord Clarendon is a statesman of honesty or of real ability, or fit to rule a country enjoying freedom and the privilege of self-government, under the influence of opinion. Lord Clarendon's administration has been highly praised by a portion of the press, and this recent discoveries have satisfactorily explained. When a man writes criticisms on himself, he is not apt to be very severe. When a politician discusses his own acts in the pages of a newspaper, he is likely to view them somewhat in a favourable light. Lord Clarendon has been his own censor. Brutus could not have exhibited a more stern purpose of self-dissection than our literary Viceroy, when he assumed the pen to write about himself. We have here the

author and the statesman in delightful combination, and we are equally surprised at discovering the variety and elegance of Lord Clarendon's acquirements. We find he has been a rival of our humble selves, and that, while we were labouring at our vocation, Lord Clarendon, seated in his viceregal chair, was our competitor for fame. We, however, deny emphatically that he has ever written one line in our Magazine. He may have written at us never for us. The noble Viceroy devoted his literary contributions to adorn the pages of the weekly newspaper called the World. For the edification of our English readers, we must describe in a sentence the character of this favoured journal. It resembles the Satirist of London, and the proprietor has been equally unfortunate, having been sentenced to a severe punishment by the Queen's Bench, for a libel with intent to extort money, of which offence he had been convicted by a jury.

Whatevertalent the World may have exhibited in satirising character, we believe it is excluded from the clubs, and rejected from the counting-houses of the respectable merchants of the city, of all parties. An action was lately brought by the proprietor of such a journal for work performed and services rendered to our accomplished Viceroy. The declaration was actually filed last term against Lord Clarendon, in the Court of Exchequer; and that the cause of action was either for publishing Lord Clarendon's own written compositions in this newspaper, or for printing what was written by his Excellency's direction, or under his dictation, there can be no manner of doubt. The exposure of a trial would have been fatal to Lord Clarendon's character, not merely as a statesman, but as a gentleman, and so the matter was hushed up thus: A sum of money -as we have heard, a large sum-was paid to the exulting plaintiff; and by consent between the partiesplaintiff and defendant, i. e., Birch and Clarendon-the declaration was taken off the file, in order that no record might remain of so discreditable a transaction. But the pleadings and the consent were seen by many; and thus does it appear that a connexion existed between Lord Clarendon and this notorious journal.

"Protestants, perhaps, may differ from us, and be surprised at our proceedings, but their surprise will cease, if they reflect for a moment on our doctrines. For what, indeed, is our belief? What does the Catholic Church teach us in regard to the authority of the Roman Pontiff? Let us call to mind the words of the General Council of Fiorence. 'We define,' say the Fathers of that Council, that the holy Apostolic See and Roman Pontiff holds the primacy throughout the entire world, and that the said Roman Pontiff is the successor of the blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and the true Vicar of Christ, and the head of the whole Church, and father and teacher of all Christians, and that to him, in the person of blessed Peter, full power was given by our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, rule, and govern the universal Church.""

Again (page 16), speaking of the Roman Pontiff

"He is the bond of union in the Holy Catholic Church, the centre of power. He speaks, and his words resound to the remotest regions of the earth."

Again (page 17)—

"Such is the sublimity of the pontifical power, that it affects not only the things of