trampled on, one part of the population robs and oppresses the other, and a band of incendiaries exercises despotic authority, can incite the mass of the people to commit guilt, and at its pleasure, can light the flame of rebellion; but nevertheless I am determined to protect all this to the utmost, unless you consent to make a mighty change in the fundamental laws of the realm." We cannot, we say, conceive how any such Member could do this ; we must assume it to be impossible. If, however, it should be witnessed, it would render the revision and amendment of the laws for protecting the State a matter of great necessity.

It has always been, and still is, the duty of the House of Commons, to punish crime, correct evil, avert dan ger, and protect the laws, without making it conditional on other matters. That monstrous principle is alien to the British constitution and laws, which makes guilt, outrage, insubordination, violation of law, and national calamity, mere things of expediency, to be cherished or prevented, as theoretic experiments on the constitution and laws may be resisted or submitted to. If the House adopt the principle in some things, let it be consistent, and adopt it in all. Let it be solemnly voted that murder and theft shall not be punished, that debts shall not be recovered, that the army and navy shall no longer exist, and that the laws generally shall be deprived of operation, if Catholic Emancipation, Parliamentary Reform, and other measures of like nature, are not sanctioned. Whether the disabilities ought or ought not to be removed, it is certain that the question ought to be decided by the proper authorities on its own merits; and that the House of Commons has no more right to compel the Crown and the Peers to sanction, than it has to compel them to oppose, the removal. If this House labour to gain the sanction of the other Estates of the realm, by refusing to apply a remedy to the evils of Ire land, it will employ compulsion of the most iniquitous character. It will act the part of an open enemy to the empire. It will in effect say-" If you will not obey our dictation, we will destroy your authority in Ireland, annul your laws, overwhelm you with evils, array your subjects against you, involve you in civil war, and place

your empire in danger of being rent to pieces.' What practical difference would there be between this, and the threat of France, or any other foreign power, that if the disabilities were not removed, war should be commenced against us? There would be none. The House would be just as much the enemy of this country, as the foreign power, and it would fight with more unhallowed and dangerous weapons.

But whatever course the House of Commons may adopt, the Executive has a duty to perform which it is not for this House to define. We do not know what could well be more gross violation of duty in a Minister, than his declaring, that, because one of the Estates of the realm decides that a vital change in the constitution and laws is needed, the other two Estates ought to sanction the change, in flat opposition to their own conviction. If this have been done, it was directly subversive of the constitution; and it will be so, if it be done again. What can any Englishman think of the doctrine which in reality holds, that the Peers, in petty matters, may be suf fered to exercise their deliberative functions, and reject the bills of the Commons; but in grave and essential ones which involve the existence of the Constitution, and all the best interests of the empire, they shall, in despite of their own judgment, sanetion whatever the Commons may desire; and the Crown shall never exercise its right of rejection? This, in reality, makes the House of Commons, in essential things, not only the sole Legislature, but likewise the sole Executive. If it is still to be acted on, it will be better to get rid at once of the deceptive incumbrances, the Crown, the Peers, and even the Cabinet; and to replace them with the clerks paid by, and bound by the commands of, the House of Commons. With regard to the removal of the disabilities, the Crown, the Peers, and the great majority of the community, are opposed to it. Will therefore any Minister venture to say, in contradiction to his solemnly recorded conviction, — If this be not consented to, the House of Commons will not pass the laws required by the state of Ireland, therefore it ought to be consented to? We cannot tell what in these days any Minister will venture to say; but we can easily know what the saying of this

would render him. It is clearly the constitutional duty of Ministers to introduce into the Legislature the laws required in Ireland on their own merits, and, without any reference to the sentiments of the House of Commons, to support them to the utmost, and if they be defeated, to dissolve Parliament, or to resign. They are bound to this by honour, as well as by duty.

It is time for the system commenced by former Ministers, which is called one of compromise, but which deserves a much worse name, to be terminated. If there be such matters as principles, does not this system compromise them? If there be such a thing as consistency, does it not sacrifice it? A Minister declares that he is on principle decidedly opposed to a change of law or institution; the majority of the House of Commons is against him, and in consequence he declares, he will bow to this majority; he makes himself the instrument for carrying the change into effect, and he causes the Crown and Peers to sanction it; he becomes in reality its parent. Now, we protest, the utmost stretch of charity cannot prevent us from thinking that there is in this the reverse of principle and consistency. We can see no practical difference between it, and a change of sides made by a man out of office.

We should have been silent on this, if it had not the most fatal effects on the interests of the empire. When the Liverpool Ministry was broken up, Mr Peel questioned Mr Canning touching his sentiments on the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts; and intimated, that it would depend on the answer whether he should not go into opposition. What he said implied that he was strongly opposed to the repeal. The repeal was carried in the House of Commons against all the efforts of Ministers, and then the lat ter gained for it the sanction of the other Estates of the Realm. A member of the Cabinet, Mr V. Fitzgerald, lately boasted in Ireland that the Canning Ministry could not have carried it, and it has been universally proclaimed, that no Ministry but the Wellington one could have done so. While the Duke of Wellington, Mr Peel, and their friends, were out of office, they represented themselves to be decidedly opposed to the removal

of the Catholic disabilities; it was from the belief that they were sincere that the country supported them as it did, and enabled them to regain office. Well, now it is asserted that they mean to remove the disabilities, and it is unanimously declared, that no Ministry but the Wellington one could accomplish the removal. We, of course, at present treat the asser tion touching their change of principle as a foul libel; but if it prove true, it must be taken for granted that they will follow the same system in all controverted matters. We must naturally expect that they will next concede Parliamentary Reform, the remodelling of the Irish Church, &c. &c. We must see all the Whig and Radical schemes carried into effect by the Wellington Ministry-the only one that could do so.

Now, what can any honest man think of such a system? The part of the community which places Ministers in office, does so from the belief that they will adhere firmly to its principles. They immediately act on the opposite of these principles, and carry its parliamentary representatives along with them. They thus, in effect, deprive it of all representation and influence in the Cabinet and Le gislature, and render the other part despotic. They made Whig and Radical changes which no other Ministers could make. This must make a Tory Ministry infinitely more dangerous and destructive than a low Whig, or even a Radical one, would be. The newfangled nonsense touching" settling the question," is below contempt. A Minister believes, whe ther erroneously or not is of no consequence, that if a change be made, it will produce baleful evils; and is he, merely to "settle" a controverted question, to sanction it? That man, whether he be in office or out of it, is not an honest one, who will assist in carrying a measure which he believes is a pernicious one; and his declaration, that he does this from the pressure of circumstances, against his conviction, does not palliate in the least his dishonesty. If we be told that Ministers must act on this system to retain office, our reply isThey are under no such compulsion, and they will retain it, as the farfamed Vicar of Bray retained his preferment. Ministers may change their

principles like other men; but they should do it openly, and they should so do it in mode and time, that it may not utterly disarm and throw out of the political balance the mass of the community which raised them to of fice. As we have said, we hold the assertion, that the Duke of Welling ton and Mr Peel intend to proceed farther on the system, to be a foul libel; but the confidence with which it is put forth in some quarters, renders it our duty to say what we have said. It was confidently expected that the appointment of the Wellington Ministry would be the death-blow of the system. The assurance was entertained, that such a man as the Duke would disdain to employ this disgraceful invention of former Ministers, to bolster up their weakness and gratify their thirst of power.

Our belief, as we have stated, is, that the House of Commons cannot refuse to do its duty in regard to Ireland. If then the necessary laws be enacted, is there danger that it will produce disturbances in the sister island? There is none. What it will produce are, tranquillity and order.

As to what will be done, we of course know nothing. In this uncertainty, we earnestly implore all ranks and conditions to do their duty amidst the ap palling dangers which surround them. The Aristocracy stands among the things which these dangers more es pecially threaten. It is already strip ped of its rights and trampled in the dust in Ireland; and in this state it must remain if the disabilities be removed. It must be brought to this in England, in proportion as Catholicism may extend itself among the free holders and burgesses. The Catholics avow their determination to do their utmost to destroy not only its influence over its tenantry, but likewise its borough influence to expel it wholly from the political system. This determination they will adhere to; and in proportion as their power shall in crease, the Aristocracy of the United Kingdom will be rendered that powerless,degraded, contemptible body, which the Aristocracy is in Spain, Portugal, and other Catholic countries.

We devoutly hope that the Church judges correctly of its awful situation. Already it is in a minority. The object of eternal attack, it is no longer successfully defended. A part of its

bulwarks were destroyed in the last session, and the removal of the disabilities will destroy the remainder. Let it not blindly hope to find protection in oaths and declarations. Its enemies declare that every thing they attempt to do will benefit it. The abolition of the Corporation and Test Acts was to benefit it-the removal of the Catholic disabilities is to benefit it-the_robbing it of its possessions in Ireland is to benefit it-a Catholic or other Dissenter may, notwithstanding any oath or declaration, do any thing for its overthrow, on the pretext that he is labouring to benefit it. And let it not blindly hope that the war against it will cease when the disabilities are removed. The removal will add to the political war which rages against it in Parliament, a religious one, which will speedily extend to the Cabinet. The undivided fury of its enemies will be directed against its possessions and existence in Ireland. A rival Hierarchy will be established by the State, which will possess the most potent means for seducing the Irish nobility and gentry from their faith, and which will be far more powerful than itself in the Legislature. The removal must be its destruction in Ireland; and when so much of its strength is, not only taken from it, but transferred to an overpowering enemy, how can it hope to preserve what it possesses in England? If it be possible for it to be in danger, the Church is now in danger. If there ever can be a moment when the Church ought to exert all its energies for its own preservation, this is that moment.

To the middle classes, we will say Look at Ireland! If you wish to preserve yourselves from the baleful effects of spiritual tyranny-to prevent such tyranny from taking from you your trade, arraying your servants against you, robbing you of your votes and other rights, making you the victims of the incendiary, and banishing you from society at its pleasure,—if you wish to do this, rally round your Church and Constitution, and prevent that monstrous spiritual tyranny which desolates Ireland from passing the threshold of your Legislature!

And we will say to the lower orders -Look at Ireland! If you wish to prevent a savage religious despotism from depriving you of all right of judgment in religious matters-prohibiting you from reading the Scriptures, and send

"OLD-fashioned sticks! Rational sticks! Sticks for sober citizens!" exclaimed an old woman, standing with a bundle of sticks before her, on that pleasant public walk in Hamburg, called the Jungfern-stieg. Her stock in trade comprised canes and walkingsticks in endless variety, and many of them were adorned with knobs of ivory and bone carved into grotesque heads and animal forms, abounding in grimace and absurdity. It was early in the day, the passengers were all hurrying in the eager pursuit of business, and for a long time the old woman found no customers.

At length, she observed a pedes trian, of a different and more promising class, striding along the avenue. He was a tall and well-grown youth, and attired in that old Teutonic costume which it has pleased the enthusiastic students of Germany to revive in the nineteenth century. His step was the light bound of youth and happiness, and there was a kindling glance in his deep blue eye, and an involuntary smile at play upon his lip and cheek, which indicated that the cares of life were yet unknown to him, and that he was enjoying the brief and delicious interval between the close of academical studies and the commencement of professional labours and anxieties. Soon as the keen orbs of the old woman discerned him, she screamed, with renewed energy, "Rare sticks! Noble sticks! Knob and club-sticks for students! Canes for loungers! Fancy sticks! Poetical sticks! Romantic sticks! Mad sticks! and sticks possessed with a devil!"

"The devil, you have, Mother Hecate!" exclaimed our student, as he approached her; "then I must have one of them; so look out the maddest stick in your infernal collection."

"If you choose the maddest stick in my stock, you must pay a mad price for it," said the old woman. "Here is one with a devil in it, and mad enough to turn the brain of any one who buys it; but the lowest price is a dollar."

With these words, she held up to his inspection a knotted stick, on which was carved in bone the withered and skinny VOL. XXIV.

visage of an old woman, with hollow eyes and cheeks, a hook-nose, and chin as sharp as hatchets, and tending towards each other like a pair of pincers in short, the very image of the old hag before him.

"Buy that stick, I'll warrant it a good one," whispered a friendly and musical voice in his ear. Arnold turned quickly round, and saw a youth of fifteen, of slender and graceful figure, and clad in the fancy costume of an English jockey, who nodded to him smilingly, and disappeared in the crowd. While Arnold was gazing in silent wonder at the stranger youth, the old woman, who had also observed him, renewed her vociferations, with "Sticks à-la mode! Whips for jockeys! Canes for fops and dandies, fools and monkeys!"

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed the startled student; " this poor creature must be madder than her whole collection. "Twill be charity to purchase."

With mingled feelings of pity and disgust, he threw down a dollar, seized the stick, and hastened from her unpleasant vicinity. Soon as his back was turned, she saluted him with piercing screams of " Spick-and-span new sticks! Rods for treasure-seekers! Wands for harlequins and conjurors! Sticks for beggars to ride to the devil on! Broomsticks for witches and warlocks! Crutches for the devil and his grandmother!" and concluded with a laugh so horribly unnatural, that the astonished youth turned round in dismay, and beheld the gaunt features of the old woman distorted with scorn and laughter, and her small grey eyes, protruding like fiery meteors from their sockets, glared upon him with an expression so truly maniacal, that he sprung forward in alarm, and was on the point of throwing away his stick to banish the hateful resemblance from his thoughts, when raising his hand for the purpose, instead of that horrid mask, he beheld with astonishment the smiling features of a nymph. Looking more intently, he discovered that the knob represented a Sphinx carved in the purest ivory. The pouting and beautiful lips were

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