to pay. Of late, however, England has been sitting at her sister's back, has, as the playful put it, been getting up behind her in several financial transactions. Some millions have thus been got and spent, a sum which, however, is a long way on the sunny side of two-seventeenths of the English Debt. Ireland, however, will make great strides to overtake her swifter sister now that the money-lenders look more kindly on her proposals. Every year there will be special Irish loans until her two-seventeenths is achieved, and the separate debts are rolled into one.

ARTICLE VIII.—All Irish Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts to remain as at present, but writs of error and appeals must be heard in future by the Peers of the United Kingdom.

Ireland's 100 commoners are to be returned as follows: By every county 2, 64 in all; Dublin 2, Cork 2, Trinity College, Dublin, 1; and one each by the following boroughs: Waterford, Limerick, Belfast, Drogheda, Carrigfergus, and Newry; Kilkenny, Londonderry, Galway, and Clonmel; Wexford, Youghal, and Banbridge (Bandon Bridge, now Bandon); Armagh, Dundalk, and Kinsale; Lisburne, Sligow, Catherlow (now Carlow), Ennis, Dungarvan, Downpatrick, and Mallow; Coleraine, Athlone, Newross, and Tralee; Cashel, Portarlington, Enniskillen, and Dungannon.

The present members for the counties, and for

Dublin and Cork, are to proceed to the Imperial. Parliament; members for the live boroughs to be chosen by lot from the sitting members for the dead ones. Thus Ireland's 100 members of the Imperial House of Commons, without the inconvenience and danger of a new general election, considered perilous by Lord Clare. Grattan remains behind plunged in gloom, having assisted in the obsequies of his country, "followed her to the grave," not, however, without hope of a happy resurrection.

Thou art not dead, my country,
Beauty's ensign still

Is colour on thy cheeks and on thy lips,

And death's pale flag is not advanced there.

But Grattan's heroics were powerless against, the march of strong men armed, not to mention the asses laden with gold, which Philip found more useful than the phalanx in the reduction of cities; so he sits at home glooming, or mutters something about Ireland's revenge when a century of the greatest blackguards in Europe have ensconced themselves in the Imperial Senate. It may be, too, that he expects some Irish counterstroke against the Union. There is at the present moment a rebel party amongst the aristocracy in communication with the French Government, soliciting French aid,

and requiring a guarantee that the present owners of property in Ireland shall not be disturbed.. Were a French army, giving such a guarantee, to land in the present year, the combination of classes which carried the Declaration of Independence would do it again. Outside the bribed Parliament there is no class in the country which is in love with the Union. In the House itself the men who stood out against the Minister brought to the contest a degree of fury and fanaticism almost incredible. Of these men the attitude of "Millennium Dobbs" is the strangest. According to that good officer, if bad theologian, the second coming of the Messiah is even now imminent. He will appear in Ireland, and, gathering to himself 114,000 Irish saints, first break from Ireland's neck the English yoke, and, at the head of his army of Irish warrior saints, issue forth for the subjugation of the world and the establishment of the millennium. His sons he has directed to submit to the Union, in anticipation of that great time, when the stone cut out without hands, i. e. Ireland, shall smite to pieces the great image of gold, silver, brass, iron, and clay. Dobbs is one of the many examples which prove that religious enthusiasm, even the maddest, is compatible with high practical and executive ability. He was exercising master of the three great reviews of the Ulster Volunteers, held in

Belfast by Lord Charlemont, in 1780, 1781, and 1782.

On the whole, however, in the absence of natural or supernatural assistance, Ireland gradually settles down into a reluctant submission to the inevitable.

CHAPTER II.

DELIRANT REGES.

JANUARY 1, 1801-first of the Union and first of the century-the swearing in, agreeably to the Act of Union, of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council. At a quarter-past three, the Most Honourable having been duly sworn in the presence of the King, from the gardens of the palace, the Park guns, on a signal given, announce in thunder that the Britannic Isles are this day one country and their peoples one nation. The union between Great Britain and Ireland is complete, the marriage consummated for better, for worse. The churches break out with glad chimes, joy bells merrily ringing. On the Tower the Royal Union Standard is unfurled, the Union flag on St. Martin's steeple, the Union Jack on the parade in front of the Horse Guards, while a "new" standard flaunts its freshness in the courtyard at St. James's. A proclamation follows that it is His Majesty's pleasure