tended.

Now, against this usurpation of the popular will upon the rights and privileges of the House of Commons, it behoves the government of this great empire to be especially upon its guard. If the members of a reformed parliament are to be the mere organs of popular volition, we hesitate not to say that Watt or Arkwright could furnish a kind of machinery that would answer that purpose quite as well, and spare the country the expense and the inconveniences of contested elections. It should, therefore, be solemnly resolved, that parliament is a deliberative assembly; and that, when individuals are elected not for the purpose of governing the country, but that they themselves may be governed by the dictation of their respective constituencies, the very object for which parliament assembles is defeated.

This being resolved, it will follow as a matter of course that all elections in which members have been fettered by unconstitutional pledges, are null and void; that the cajolery of deceitful promises should vitiate the proceedings at the hustings, quite as much as bribery and corruption. We may be told all this is very right in the abstract; but what is to be the criterion for ascertaining this new ground of disqualification? A natural, and a startling question; to which we will only reply, at present, by asking another, what is the criterion for ascertaining the disqualification of the juror whose conscience has been tampered with by one or other of the parties whose case he was selected well and truly to try? First, let the principle be laid down, and a determination to act upon it evinced, and men of business will soon discover a mode of rendering it, for all practical purposes, sufficiently available. It would, at all events, set the character of parliament in its true light; and proclaim, with a distinctness not to be mistaken, and an authority not to be withstood, that its members must be free agents; and that none can be considered such, whose judgments are fettered by pledges, which are taken as the condition of their election, and which render it morally impossible that they should profit by that collected wisdom, by which alone the national

If this were done, wisely and resolutely, much would be accomplished towards correcting the monstrous anomaly that at present exists, (most particularly in Ireland,) of members of parliament hired, as it were, not to guide, but to follow; not to instruct, but to be instructed by the people; not exhibiting a wary vigilance in guarding their interests, but an anxious solicitude to discover their inclinations, and comply with their most capricious desires even by anticipation.

If it be not done, the House of Commons must speedily become both inefficient and contemptible. Its proceedings will be but the hollow echo of the more important proceedings out of doors. Its members will resemble captives bound to the chariot wheels of an insulting rabble, seeking to derive a miserable importance by stimulating the violence which they cannot controul, and consenting to the wickedness of which they themselves will be amongst the first victims.

We may be asked, where the use of thus making war against pledges? Will not the individuals by whom they would be taken be elected, even if they were declared unconstitutional, as certainly as the individuals by whom they are taken, now that they are considered fair? Would not the ochlocracy thus be enabled to secure an equal number of repealing members? This may be a plausible, but it is an unsound objection: it may have a smack of smartness in theory; but, in a practical consideration of the matter at issue, it is without any force at all. We too much respect the common sense of our readers, to give it any lengthened refutation. It is obvious, that the exactors of pledges do not consider them of no importance. If they did, why should they be required? And is it not equally obvious, that the withholding of them must be adverse to that absolute controul which the popular constituencies exercise over their creatures? We do not say, that, by denouncing pledges, the members, who are at present bond slaves, would be completely emancipated. Assuredly, they would not. But their condition would be considerably improved.They would be somewhat like free agents. They would feel it their pri

vilege to exercise a certain latitude of thought upon the subjects which come before them in the legislature, that is at present denied. They would be enabled, in some degree, to breast and buffet the surges of popular turbulence, upon which they are at present so helplessly drifted; and be far less available, in the hands of the mob, as instruments for the accomplishment of those frantic acts of folly and violence which threaten such a speedy destruction to whatever remains of the constitution.

barians, he does so by representing the Orontes as mingling its filthy waters with the Tiber. When we compare the representatives of Great Britain with the representatives who are sent from Ireland, are we not struck by a contrast which suggests some resemblance to the picture which the satirist has presented? And may we, not unreasonably, entertain the apprehension that similar causes must produce similar effects; and that the dry rot, which undermined the greatness of Imperial Rome, may weaken the stability of the British empire?

We are now at the commencement of a new era. The late changes in the character of parliament, by rendering it more democratic, have proportionably diminished the power of those influences by which it was steadied and directed, and under the guidance of which, England was enabled to attain a degree of happiness and prosperity unexampled in the history of the world. As yet we have had but little experience of the working of the new system; but if any prognosis of what is to happen may be presumed from what has already taken place, our chief danger will arise from the characters and the disposition of the Irish members and that, not merely because of the antipathy of many of them to British connection, their hatred of the church, their determination to prosecute measures at war with the fundamental principles of the monarchy; but because they enter the House of Commons under a compact which compels them to regard Irish passions and prejudices as of more importance than English interests, and to sacrifice the latter whenever they stand in the way of those ultimate objects, for the attainment of which they have been elected.

:

When Juvenal describes the corruption of Rome which arose from an overwhelming influx of slaves and bar

our preservation, to examine the signs of the times, and to shape our course so as to avoid the quicksands, upon which, if we should strike, our ruin will be irretrievable.

If Lord Brougham and Mr. Stanley, together with such other members of the cabinet as are disposed to consider the reform bill a final measure, and who, therefore, may be truly called conservative, only entertained a just notion of the nature and extent of the dangers which threaten us, we should not despair of seeing the proper remedy promptly applied.

There is one error against which the government should be particularly on their guard; namely, the delusion of half measures. Such would never do. Nay, they would only serve to aggravate every symptom of the malady for the removal of which they might be prescribed. Either O'Connell and his faction must be put down, or they will put down the government of the country-either their machinations must be defeated, or British connection must be given to the winds. And any measures which should not effectually curb, would only serve to exasperate the public disturbers. No. Let not the agitators be prosecuted, unless they can be convicted; and let them not be convicted, unless, upon conviction, they receive the due reward of their deeds. There is no edification in the unsightly spectacle of a government

courting defeat in its contests with a demagogue, and reaping no other advantage from its feeble and dastardly temerity than discomfiture and humiliation!

To us it seems perfectly certain that some such measures as those which we have indicated must, sooner or later, be adopted. The only question is, as to the point of time-whether they are to precede, and, perhaps, prevent rebellion; or to follow and avenge it.

But, if rebellion be suffered to surprise us, its suppression may not, by any means, be as easy as it would be desirable. In the first place, it would be different from all former Irish rebellions. It would be the rebellion of an almost united people. In the second place, we have been too busy of late in affording our assistance to settle the questions which have arisen between the sovereigns and the subjects of other countries, to entertain the hope that we will be permitted to confine the arbitrement of our own internal differences to ourselves. Let Ireland be enabled to keep the standard of rebellion unfurled but for two years, and my Lord Palmerston's talents for negotiation, which have been so happily signalized in the voluminous protocols respecting the conflicting claims of Holland and Belgium, will find occupation nearer home. Mediators will appear, like the fox in the fable, who will undertake the adjudication of the matters at issue, much less with a view to our peace than to their own advantage; and high contracting parties, who are now seasoned in the work of dismemberment, will use their political dissecting knives in separating Ireland from the British crown, with the same professional expertness and nonchalance which characterised their exploits at Antwerp and Navarino!

We have now stated what, in our view of the matter, are the evils of, and what the remedies for, the present disastrous state of things in this country. Our case is not yet so bad as to be utterly hopeless, if the government but do their duty. The Protestant mind, though offended and disgusted, has not yet been alienated from what may be called its instinctive attachment to British connection; and as long as that is the case, there yet remains a hope of making an effectual stand against the powerful

efforts which priests and demagogues are making for its destruction. O'Connell well knows that it is only by the misdirection of Protestant might and energy that a repeal of the union can be achieved. And, to do him but common justice, he has left nothing undone which could be accomplished by the most plausible craft and subtlety to effect a reconciliation between all classes of the people. He has applied himself with great address to the fears, the hopes, the resentments, and the prejudices of the Protestants, and has, we fear, been in too many instances successful in persuading them that their interest lay in making common cause with the disturbers. While, on the one hand, his influence within the walls of parliament has compelled the government to deprive them of a church, he has taken good care, on the other hand, to lose no opportunity out of parliament of reminding them that they have still a country. Events are in progress, which will, probably, give still greater plausibility to his antiAnglican views; and those who may be made to feel that they are treated as a neglected colony, will have but little scruple in falling in with projects which hold out to them a prospect of national prosperity and independence. It is not enough to say, that all such prospects, in the present case, are delusive. When have large bodies of men been ever yet influenced by any thing but delusions? The misfortune in all such cases is, that the delusion is not discovered until it is too late. When the King of France consented to double the number of the Tiers Etat, he very soon discovered that he acted under a delusion. When Neckar effected the union of the chambers, he very soon was made to feel that he acted under a delusion. But, what of that? Their tardy repentance could not undo the acts by which the flood-gates of popular tyranny were opened upon the monarchy; and the events which flashed upon them the conviction of their folly, brought the one from a throne to a scaffold, and drove the other into exile. If we, therefore, would be saved, we must anticipate the course of events, and take the only measures by which the progress of an anti-British feeling can be arrested. We have indicated, to the best of our ability, the course

which should be pursued. What we have written has been written under a strong sense of duty, and with a full knowledge of the obloquy which it will bring upon us. We know not the party by whom the entire of what we have stated will be well received, and we are well acquainted with many parties by whom much, if not the whole of it, will be resented. Nor shall we conclude without an acknowledgment of the very great ability dis played by the advocates of repeal. The Pilot and the Freeman's Journal, the former with vast, the latter with transcendent talent, have availed them selves of every argument by which the

We

measure could be recommended. sincerely believe, that the writers are actuated by a laudable, though mistaken zeal for the honour of their native land, and, as long as that conviction rests upon our minds, we will not be more ready to oppose their views, than to do justice to their motives. But our persuasions of the ultimate consequences of repeal are very dif ferent ;-and if we have not lent ourselves to the advocacy of temporis. ing projects, nor spoken smooth words, it is only because we could not stifle our belief that by so doing we should be conspiring the destruction of this great empire.

One evening in the beginning of the eighteenth century,-as nearly as we can conjecture the year might be

that of 1720-sometime about the end of April, a young man named Lamh Laudker O'Rorke, or strong-handed O'Rorke, was proceeding from his father's house, with a stout oaken cudgel in his hand, towards an orchard that stood at the skirt of a County town, in a part of the kingdom which, for the present, shall be nameless. Though known by the epithet of Lamh Laudher, his Christian name was John; but in these times Irish families of the same name were distinguished from each other by some term indicative of their natural disposition, physical power, complexion, or figure. One, for instance, was called Parra Ghastha, or swift Paddy, from his fleetness of foot; another Shaun buie, or yellow Jack, from his bilious look; a third, Micaul More, or big Michael, from his uncommon size; and a fourth, Sheemus Ruah, or red James, from the colour of his hair. These epithets, to be sure, still occur in Ireland, but far less frequently now than in the times of which we write, when Irish was the vernacular language of the country. It was for a reason similar to those just alledged, that John O'Rorke was known as Lamh Laudher O'Rorke; he, as well as his forefathers for two or three generations, having been remarkable or prodigious bodily strength and

VOL. II.

courage. The evening was far advanced as O'Rorke bent his steps to the orchard. The pale, but cloudless sun hung over the western hills, and shed upon the quiet grey fields that kind of tranquil radiance which, in the opening of Summer, causes many a silent impulse of delight to steal into the heart. Lamh Laudher felt this; his step was slow, like that of a man who, without being capable of tracing those sources of enjoyment which the spirit absorbs from the beauties of external nature, has yet enough of uneducated taste and feeling within him, to partake of the varied feast which she presents. As he sauntered thus leisurely along, he was met by a woman rather advanced in years, but still unusually stout and muscular, considering her age. She was habited in a red woollen petticoat that reached but a short distance below the knee, leaving visible two stout legs, from which dangled a pair of red garters that bound up her coarse blue hose. Her gown of blue worsted was pinned up, for it did not meet around her person, though it sat closely about her neck. Her grizzly red hair, turned up in front, was bound by a dowd cap without any border, a circumstance which, in addition to a red kerchief, tied over it, and streaming about nine inches down the back, gave to her tout ensemble a wild and striking expression. A short oaken staff, hooked under the hand, completed the descrip

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