occasions, been forced into an intimate consideration of that code of laws, distinguished by the name of popery laws; by which means I became enabled to form, and am, I think, now not altogether incompetent to deliver, a tolerably adequate opinion of their nature and their character. Sir, I never read them but with horror, nor reflected upon them but with a mingled sensation of sorrow and of shame. I hailed the relaxation of them as the auspicious dawn, and I looked, and do look, to their utter and final abrogation, as to the meridian glory of my country's welfare and prosperity.

"Impressed with these sentiments, I could not but rejoice when the honorable baronet, who first moved this bill, introduced it into the house; and I instantly determined, if necessary, to give it my feeble, though best support; while at the same time I fondly hoped, that being, as I deemed it, in its nature highly expedient, in its concessions extremely moderate, and in its consequences likely to be eminently salutary, it would not only escape every thing like angry opposition, but pass into a law in all the dignity of unanimous and universal approbation.

The objects which this bill embraces are but few: it proposes to admit our Roman catholic brethren into the profession and practice of the law, in all its various departments; to enable them, also, to establish literary seminaries and academies, for the instruction and education of their own youth; and to permit intermarriages of Protestants and Roman Catholics, with some sub

ordinate provisions, on which I mean not at present to trouble the house with my observations. As to the first and second of these measures, justice and humanity, as well as sound policy, forbid all resistance to them. We all know, that arts and sciences, like soils, are best improved by culture; nor is the prosperity of a nation more marked by the number and industry of its citizens, than the perfection of science is ensured by the multitude and competition of its students and votaries. Just Heaven, Sir, is the "ample page of knowledge" to be withheld for ever from our Roman Catholic fellow citizens? As to them, are the sacred fountains of science and of truth to be for ever dried up? Is more, much more than half the genius of the land, to be condemned to pine and languish in obscurity for ever? for ever to "Blush unseen,

"And waste its sweetness on the desert air?" Or is it to be for ever banished from our hospitable shores, to seek a wretched asylum in some distant land, until happily at length impelled and elevated, by its native energy, it may serve to dignify some foreign court, or to illuminate some other hemisphere? Forbid it,, Heaven! forbid it, the justice and humanity of my country! forbid it, every motive, and every principle, that ought to sway the human heart, or guide the human intellect! No, Sir, we will admit our Roman Catholic brethren into the profession of the law; we will receive them with open arms; we will enable and encourage them to qualify for that important station; we will contend and struggle

with them in the honest and honourable pursuits of fortune and of fame; and, if vanquished in the strife, we will join with the surrounding world in admiring those talents, which, though we could not equal, we dared to emulate.

"With respect to the intermarriages of Protestants and Roman Catholics, I feel assured it is a measure, that can never meet resistance within those walls. In a country, eminently distinguished by the beauty of its women, and the gallantry of its men, shall it be adjudged criminal to admire that, from whose

"Every step is grace,

"And every gesture dignity and love!" Shall it be deemed a breach of allegiance, to pay homage to beauty? Shall loyalty be set at variance with nature? Shall our gracious sovereign be forced to dispute titles with the "mighty monarch of the human heart?" And shall love, in Ireland, shall love be made little less than high-treason by law? Why, Sir, the punishment of Tantalus was mercy to this. Such horrid laws find their remedy in their impotence; their cruelty defeats and destroys their effect, and they become inoperative, because they are unnatural. Where God and nature enjoin admiration and esteem, it is vain, as well as sinful, in law, to prohibit union. The instinctive passions of the human heart will force their way, in spite of every cruel effort to check or to subdue them; and when indulged, when virtuously and honourably indulged, gracious Heaven, shall all their holy joys, shall all their sacred and mysterious raptures, be, by a merciless

law, converted into pains and penalties? Shall the nuptial torch serve only to light its unoffending, yet unhappy votaries, to their temporal undoing? And shall the doating husband be forced to contemplate, in the person of his lovely wife, the fatal drag cast upon his honest ambition; the beauteous, innocent, pitiable burthen, that is to weigh him down in life, and mar his fortune and his fame for ever?

Away with such abominable laws! away with such savage legislation; and away, for ever away with such mischievous and such merciless policy. Let us, I conjure the house by the sacred names of charity and benevolence! let us maintain the cause, and assert the honest, virtuous claims of nature. Let us adjure all tyranny over the human heart, and vindicate and protect these amiable and irresistible attachments, which are the prime sources, not only of all domestic happiness, but also of all national strength, prosperity and glory. Let us once more throw wide the golden gates of hallowed love, and let hymeneal songs, and the sympathetic murmurs of united hearts, render "our groves harmonious."

"I fear I have trespassed on the attention of the house too long, and shall therefore hasten to conclude; but before I resume my seat, let me, in the most solemn, yet in the most suppliant manner, entreat of those gentlemen, who may be apprehensive of the consequence of the present bill, that while they regard, with a steady eye, the Protestant interest, they do not overlook the Roman catholic virtue; that is, in their anxiety

to preserve what is called the Protestant ascendancy, they forget not to alleviate the Roman Catholic grievances; so that while one party shall be happy in the possession of prerogative, the other may be contented in the participation of privilege; always remembering, that kindness on the one hand will not, cannot fail of producing gratitude on the other; until, after a lengthened period of mutual harmony, cordiality and affection, that happy moment, so much, so devoutly to be wished for, by every real friend of this country, shall arrive, when the divided names of Protestant and Roman Catholic shall be heard no more, but, mellowed and melted away, shall finally lose themselves, in the more endearing, glorious and divine appellations, of friend, brother and fellow christian."

To open the trade to India, from which Ireland was debarred by the revenue laws, Mr. Ponsonby moved for leave to bring in a bill, to repeal every law which prohibited a trade from Ireland with every country lying eastward of the Cape of Good Hope; which was refused by a great majority, and Ireland shut out from the commerce of the East, by her own corrupt parliament. A pension. bill, place-bill, and the repeal of the police-bill, met the same fate. A bill, denominated to prevent combination, rendering the labouring classes liable to the severest penalties, passed the commons without opposition; a petition from the master-carpenters prayed its enactment in the house of lords; the journeymen assembled in the Phenix-park, proceeded thence to College-green;