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for ever than the conjuncture of Eighty-eight presented to the peo-
ple of Great Britain. But the disgraceful reigns of Charles and
James had weakened and degraded the national character. The
bold notions of popular right, which had arisen out of the struggles
between Charles the First and his Parliament, were gradually sup-
planted by those slavish doctrines for which Lord Hawkesbury
eulogizes the churchmen of that period; and as the Reformation
had happened too soon for the purity of religion, so the Revolution
came too late for the spirit of liberty. Its advantages accordingly
were for the most part specious and transitory, while the evils
which it entailed are still felt and still increasing. By rendering
unnecessary the frequent exercise of Prerogative, that unwieldy
power which cannot move a step without alarm,-it diminished the
only interference of the Crown which is singly and independently
exposed before the people, and whose abuses therefore are obvious
to their senses and capacities; like the myrtle over a celebrated
statue in Minerva's temple at Athens, it skilfully veiled from the
public eye the only obtrusive feature of royalty. At the same time,
however, that the Revolution abridged this unpopular attribute, it
amply compensated by the substitution of a new power, as much
more potent in its effect as it is more secret in its operations. In
the disposal of an immense revenue and the extensive patronage
annexed to it, the first foundations of this power of the Crown were
laid;
the innovation of a standing army at once increased and
strengthened it, and the few slight barriers which the Act of Settle-
ment opposed to its progress have all been gradually removed during
the Whiggish reigns that succeeded; till at length this spirit of in-
fluence has become the vital principle of the State, an agency,
subtle and unseen, which pervades every part of the Constitution,
lurks under all its forms, and regulates all its movements, and, like
the invisible sylph or grace which presides over the motions of
beauty,

"Illam, quicquid agit, quoquo vestigia flectit,
Componit furtim subsequiturque.”

The cause of Liberty and the Revolution are so habitually associated
in the minds of Englishmen, that probably in objecting to the latter,
I may be thought hostile or indifferent to the former; but assuredly
nothing could be more unjust than such a suspicion.
The very
object, indeed, which my humble animadversions would attain is
that in the crisis to which I think England is now hastening, and
between which and foreign subjugation she may soon be compelled
to choose, the errors and omissions of 1688 may be remedied; and,
as it was then her fate to experience a Revolution without Reform,
she may now seek a Reform without Revolution.

In speaking of the parties which have so long agitated England, it will be observed that I lean as little to the Whigs as to their adversaries. Both factions have been equally cruel to Ireland, and perhaps equally insincere in their efforts for the liberties of England. There is one name, indeed, connected with Whiggism, of which I can never think but with veneration and tenderness. As justly, however, might the light of the sun be claimed by any particular nation, as the sanction of that name be monopolized by any

Taints by degrees, and ruins without noise.
While parliaments, no more those sacred things
Which make and rule the destiny of kings,
Like loaded dice by ministers are thrown,
And each new set of sharpers cog their own.
Hench the rich oil that from the Treasury steais,
And drips o'er all the Constitution's wheels,
Giving the old machine such pliant play
That Court and Commons jog one joltless way
While Wisdom trembles for the crazy car,
So gilt, so rotten, carrying fools so far;
And the duped people, hourly doomed to pay
The sums that bribe their liberties away,-
Like a young eagle, who has lent his plume
To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom
See their own feathers plucked, to wing the dart
Which rank corruption destines for their heart:
But soft! my friend, I hear thee proudly say
"What! shall I listen to the impious lay
That dares, with Tory licence, to profane
The bright bequests of William's glorious reign?
Shall the great wisdom of our patriot sires,

Whom Hawkesbury quotes and savoury B-rch admires,
Be slandered thus? Shall honest Steele agree
With virtuous R-se to call us pure and free,
Yet fail to prove it? Shall our patent pair
Of wise state-poets waste their words in air,
And Pye unheeded breathe his prosperous strain
And Canning take the people's sense in vain?"

The people!-ah, that Freedom's form should stay
Where Freedom's spirit long hath passed away.
That a false smile should play around the dead,
And flush the features where the soul hath fled!
When Rome had lost her virtue with her rights
When her foul tyrant sat on Capree's heights
Amid his ruffian spies, and doomed to death
Each noble name they blasted with their breath-
E'en then (in mockery of that golden time
When the Republic rose revered, sublime,
And her free sons, diffused from zone to zone,
Gave kings to every country but their own),-
E'en then the senate and the tribunes stood,
Insulting marks, to show how Freedom's flood
Had dared to flow, in glory's radiant day,
And how it ebbed,-for ever ebbed away!

Oh look around-though yet a tyrant's sword
Nor haunts our sleep nor trembles o'er our board,
Though blood be better drawn by modern quacks
With Treasury leeches than with sword or axe;
Yet say, could e'en a prostrate tribune's power,
Or a mock senate, in Rome's servile hour,

Insult so much the claims, the rights of man,
As doth that fettered mob, that free divan,
Of noble tools and honourable knaves,
Of pensioned patriots and privileged slaves!
That party-coloured mass, which nought can warm
But quick corruption's heat-whose ready swarm
Spread their light wings in Bribery's golden sky,
Buzz for a period, lay their eggs, and die ;—
That greedy vampire which from Freedom's tomb
Comes forth, with all the mimicry of bloom
Upon its lifeless cheek, and sucks and drains
A people's blood to feed its putrid veins !

Heavens, what a picture! yes, my friend, 'tis dark;
"But can no light be found, no genuine spark
Of former fire to warm us? Is there none,
To act a Marvell's part ?" *-I fear not one.
To place and power all public spirit tends,
In place and power all public spirit ends;
Like hardy plants, that love the air and sky,
When out, 'twill thrive-but taken in, 'twill die i

Not bolder truths of sacred Freedom hung
From Sidney's pen or burned on Fox's tongue
Than upstart Whigs produce each market night,
While yet their conscience, as their purse, is light;
While debts at home excite their care for those
Which, dire to tell, their much-loved country owes,
And loud and upright, till their prize be known,
They thwart the King's supplies to raise their own.
But bees, on flowers alighting, cease their hum—
So, settling upon places, Whigs grow dumb.
And though I feel as if indignant Heaven
Must think that wretch too foul to be forgiven
Who basely hangs the bright protecting shade
Of Freedom's ensign o'er Corruption's trade,
And makes the sacred flag he dares to show
His passport to the market of her foe,
Yet, yet, I own, so venerably dear

Are Freedom's grave old anthems to my ear
That I enjoy them, though by rascals sung,

And reverence Scripture e'en from Satan's tongue.

Nay, when the constitution has expired,

I'll have such men, like Irish wakers, hired
To sing old "Habeas Corpus" by its side,
And ask, in purchased ditties, why it died?

Andrew Marvell, the honest opposer of the Court during the reign of Charles the Second, and the last member of parliament who, according to the ancient mode, took wages from his constituents. The Commons have, since then, much changed their paymasters.-See the State Poems for some rude but spirited effusions of Andrew Marvell.

See that smooth lord, whom nature's plastic pains
Seem to have destined for those Eastern reigns
When eunuchs flourished, and when nerveless things
That men rejected were the chosen of Kings ;-
E'en he, forsooth, (oh, mockery accurst!)
Dared to assume the patriot's name at first.
Thus Pitt began, and thus begin his apes;
Thus devils, when first raised, take pleasing shapes.
But oh, poor Ireland! if revenge be sweet
For centuries of wrong, for dark deceit
And withering insult-for the Union thrown
Into thy bitter cup,* when that alone

Of slavery's draught was wanting-if for this
Revenge be sweet, thou hast that demon's bliss •
For, oh! 'tis more than hell's revenge to see
That England trusts the men who've ruined thee ;-
That, in these awful days, when every hour
Creates some new or blasts some ancient power,
When proud Napoleon, like the burning shield
Whose light compelled each wondering foe to yield,
With baleful lustre blinds the brave and free,
And dazzles Europe into slavery,—

That, in this hour, when patriot zeal should guide,
When Mind should rule, and--Fox should not have died,
All that devoted England can oppose

To enemies made fiends, and friends made foes,

Is the rank refuse, the despised remains

Of that unpitying power whose whips and chains

Made Ireland first, in wild, adulterous trance,

Turn false to England's bed, and whore with France.
Those hacked and tainted tools, so foully fit

For the grand artizan of mischief, Pitt,

So useless ever, but in vile employ,

So weak to save, so vigorous to destroy!

Such are the men that guard thy threatened shore!
O England! sinking England! boast no more.

INTOLERANCE.

A SATIRE.

"This clamour, which pretends to be raised for the safety of religion, has almost worn out the very appearance of it, and rendered us not only the most divided but the most immoral people upon the face of the earth."-Addison, Freeholder, No. 37.

"And in the cup an Union shall be thrown."-Hamlet. †The magician's shield in Ariosto:

"E tolto per virtù dello splendore

La libertate a loro."-Canto 2.

We are told that Caesar's code of morality was contained in the following lines of Euripides, which that great man frequently repeated :

Είπερ γαρ αδικειν χρη τυραννίδος περι

Καλλιστον αδικειν τάλλα δ ̓ εὐσεβειν χρεων. This is also, as it appears, the moral code of Napoleon.

NA

START not, my friend, nor think the muse will stain
Her classic fingers with the dust profane

Of Bulls, Decrees, and all those thundering scrolls
That took such freedom once with royal souls,
When heaven was yet the pope's exclusive trade,
And kings were damned as fast as now they're made.
No, no-let D-gen-n search the papal chair *
For fragrant treasures long forgotten there :
And, as the witch of sunless Lapland thinks
That little swarthy gnomes delight in stinks,
Let sallow Perceval snuff up the gale

Which wizard D-gen-n's gathered sweets exhale.
Enough for me, whose heart has learned to scorn
Bigots alike in Rome or England born,
Who loathe the venom, whencesoe'er it springs,
From popes or lawyers, pastry-cooks or kings,
Enough for me to laugh and weep by turns,
As mirth provokes, or indignation burns,
As Canning vapours, or as France succeeds,
As Hawkesbury proses, or as Ireland bleeds!

And thou, my friend, if, in these headlong days,
When bigot zeal her drunken antics plays

So near a precipice that men the while

Look breathless on and shudder while they smile-
If, in such fearful days, thou'lt dare to look

To hapless Ireland, to this rankling nook

Which Heaven hath freed from poisonous things in vain,
While Gifford's tongue and M-sgr-ve's pen remain-
If thou hast yet no golden blinkers got

To shade thine eyes from this devoted spot,

Whose wrongs, though blazoned o'er the world they be,
Placemen alone are privileged not to see-

Oh! turn awhile, and, though the shamrock wreathes
My homely harp, yet shall the song it breathes
Of Ireland's slavery, and of Ireland's woes,
Live, when the memory of her tyrant foes
Shall but exist all future knaves to warn,
Embalmed in hate and canonized by scorn;
When Castlereagh, in sleep still more profound
Than his own opiate tongue now deals around,
Shall wait the impeachment of that awful day
Which even his practised hand can't bribe away.

And oh my friend, wert thou but near me now,
To see the spring diffuse o'er Erin's brow
Smiles that shine out, unconquerably fair,

The "Stella Stercoraria" of the popes. The Right Honourauie and earned Doctor will find an engraving of this chair in Spanheim's "Disquisitio Historica de Papâ Fœminâ" (p. 118); and I recommend it as a model for the fashion of that seat which the Doctor is about to take in the privy-council of Ireland.

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