is always, if not synonymous with a man's interest, quite inseparable from it. "The Major" was the name by which he was known in Dublin, and the designation was enough to make many a lover of "Ould Ireland" thrill at the sound. Sanctity, ascendancy, and magistracy, all combined to render him one of the great props of what are called the institutions, and "the Major" would a little time ago as readily have anticipated his being called on to "eat a crocodile," as Hamlet says, as to swallow and digest the proposal of what is called a Popish candidate for the representation of the city of Dublin. It was, however, suggested to him by the Castle, and though it must have cost him many a straining and stretching of his political conscience, he stomached the mandate of His Excellency at last. It was a sight to behold the Major upon this occasion. His friends gathered to see him go through the operation, and as he went through it, the public face wore one universal grin. His example was of no mean use. The other dependants on authority were desired to look on the Major as a pattern, and the model was immediately copied. A fierce contest ensued, and Sir Robert Harty and Mr. Perrin were, after a strenuous struggle, returned members for the city of Dublin. The pride of the Corporation was levelled to the earth, and the proud ascendancy that had so long trampled on the head of Ireland, was compelled, although with gnashing teeth, to bite the dust. Than Sir Robert Harty and Mr. Perrin there can scarcely be two persons more dissimilar. The former was originally in trade, but having acquired a large fortune, retired from business. He is a good-humoured, rosy-faced, blue-eyed person, with a prompt and ready smile, accompanied, however, with a consciousness of that dignity which fifty thousand pounds and a baronetcy, the reward of his honourable services as Lord Mayor, are calculated to impart. He has always been a liberal man, and was wont to express his advocacy of emancipation in good set terms in that convivial rhetoric in which the aldermen of Dublin are admitted to excel. Mr. Perrin is a re

markable man. He is of French origin, and has the peculiar Huguenot expression observable in almost all French Calvinists strongly impressed on his face. A democratic character is stamped upon it. Yet it is free from any acerbity, which indeed is no ingredient of his nature, but has a directness and spirit of plain dealing which indicates that he would not give himself the trouble of disguising his opinions, and a recklessness of the judgments and estimate of other men. It is singularly thoughtful, and in the paleness which is suffused over its expanse, the evidences of long and laborious mental occupation are readily to be discerned. The brows are dark and massive, and overhang eyes, in which there are no flashes of imagination, but which are occupied by a thinking and reflective spirit, and combine frankness and boldness of character with the intimation of high intellectual endowment. The manners of Mr. Perrin are well suited to his aspect and bearing. They are independent, abrupt, and honest a little curt, perhaps, but never purposely uncivil. He is evidently a man as incapable of offering as of brooking an offence, and would as much disdain to treat his inferiors with indignity, as those above with abjectness and servility. He came to the bar without any patron, except his high personal merit, and under no

other auspices has he made his way. He has attained the highest place in his profession as a most expert and erudite advocate, and has never stooped to a judge, or offered adulation to authority in all that time. It is a most creditable circumstance in his conduct, that when almost the whole Bar concurred in offering incense to Lord Manners in an address on his departure, Mr. Perrin refused to put his hand to a document expressing opinions which not a single barrister entertained. But I go into details too minute for the compass within which I ought to confine myself. I pass, without regard to the order in which I select the localities, to the county of Clare.

Alas! for O'Gorman Mahon. How has he declined from the high, although it was a somewhat fantastical station on which he stood not long ago, when he lighted on the tops of parliamentary eminence like Mercury on a heaven-kissing hill! There he remained poised in a posture peculiar indeed, and sufficiently strange; but it was much, after all, to have had all eyes directed on him, and by his dress, his attitude, his deportment, and an eloquence which is entirely his own, to have attracted the regards and occupied the ear of London. He is hurled down from the peaks of fashion, and instead of alternately figuring in Regent-Street and St. Stephen's Chapel, and astounding the one with his rhetoric, and the other with his attire, he is condemned to wander through the solitudes of Clare, and to gaze on those mountains which his friend Steele has associated with the immortal name of O'Connel, and given an eternity to their fame as doubtless as that of the foundations on which they stand. I own it grieves me to see this change in his political fortunes, and the incident which pains me most is the separation which took place between him and Thomas Steele. They were wont to call each other by vocatives of fraternal friendship, and Tom Steele would end every sentence by a panegyric on the virtues and services of his brother O'Gorman Mahon. At the late Clare election the passion of Tom Steele for his country, or what he considers as equivalent, his admiration of Daniel O'Connel, overcame his enthusiasm for his friend, and they who would have gladly perished for each other's sake but a little while ago, were animated by the most deadly resentment. public are too well aware of all the gladiatorial interchanges of messages, and appointments, and "moving accidents by flood and field," which prevented any rencounter between the bands of belligerents on that memorable occasion. It would, however, be preposterous to throw any doubt on the courage of any of the parties. They are all men approved in their vocation, but fortunately for them and for their country, their O'Trigger propensities were disappointed by a series of events which cannot be considered fortuitous, but in which the finger of a guardian Providence can be distinctly traced. Why go through the half-melancholy, half-ridiculous narrative of the incidents of that election? It terminated, however, with a circumstance so honourable to both parties, that it ought not to be kept back. O'Gorman Mahon was assailed in Limerick by an infuriated rabble. He defended himself with a valour which was really heroic. When he was on the point of being overpowered, his former friend Steele, perceiving his danger, forgetting all their recent animosities in the remembrance of their ancient friendship, rushed forward, and

The

raising him with his vigorous arm, snatched him from the grasp of a sanguinary mob, and bore him in safety off. That two men, both full of worth and of high personal as well as public merit, have shaken hands, with "hearts in them," is the sincere wish of all those who are aware of all the good which they accomplished when they were honourably emulous for the service of their country, and left it matter of difficulty to arbitrate between their comparative claims on the gratitude of Ireland.

Mr. Maurice O'Connel, the son of "the Liberator," defeated O'Gorman Mahon. He has spoken but once in the House of Commons, and on that occasion spoke with success. His demeanour was modest and unaffected, and won the praises of those who were least disposed to allow him merit. He is singularly improved in every particular, and instead of endeavouring to obtain distinction (a pardonable frivolity) by any peculiarity of dress and deportment, he has begun to seek the acquisition of a genuine reputation. He has many of his father's attributes-a fine memory, quickness, and facility. It is certainly an injury, in many regards, to bear the name of a distinguished person, by creating a perpetual comparison; but it is also in many respects serviceable by opening to the display of talent a career already formed.

The Waterford election (for I proceed to it) was attended with a striking circumstance. The Beresford family-that family which had been so long absolute in Ireland, and which held a pre-eminence in its politics as lofty as the tall hills which crown the demesne of their splendid mansion-did not venture to enter the field for the contest of an honour on which they had expended thousands upon thousands, and which they not only considered as an appurtenance to their rank, but as a constituent of their political being. Here was, indeed, the triumph of Reform! Before its spirit the ancient aristocracy, attended with all the power which boundless opulence could give, was obliged to retreat, and to hide itself in the recesses of the fine woods of Curraghmore. The two gentlemen elected are, the brother of the late member, Mr. Robert Power, and Sir Richard Musgrave. The former is a sharp, active, quick-sighted man, with shrewd sense and good faculties, and likely to be a very useful member of parliament. Sir Richard Musgrave is remarkable for having inherited the estate and baronetcy of the celebrated partisan and Irish historian of that name, whose wild volumes purport to be a history of the Rebellion, and contain little else than the visions of an imagination ridden by a bloody incubus. His nephew, Sir Richard Musgrave, is in every political respect his exact opposite. He is a man of views as enlightened as his manners are bland, and who possesses an understanding as clear and vigorous as his purpose is pure and sound. He is beloved by the people-respected by the gentry-the model of a countrygentleman a kind neighbour—a faithful friend, and, in the largest and most honourable sense of that noble designation-" an honest man !"

In the City of Waterford, Sir John Newport was elected without opposition. The Nestor of the Irish Whigs is too well known to require a description. He is seventy-five, but his heart still beats with a vigorous passion for his country, though I am sorry to perceive

that his hand has begun to tremble and his fine eyes have lost their lustre.

Tipperary conferred a second time an honour on itself by re-electing Mr. Wyse. It was apprehended that the death of Mr. Lanigen, an attorney, who, by his talents and influence over the public mind, has before so essentially contributed to the triumph of Mr. Wyse, would strip him of all likelihood of success. But the merits of Mr. Wyse were too well appreciated by the people; they justly felt, that however a man unknown and undistinguished might be well repudiated as an alien, genius and integrity should every where find a domicile. There was, accordingly, no contest. Mr. Wyse has been so much before the public that a description of him is almost superfluous; yet to those who have not seen him, it is as well to say what manner of man he is. His person is small and rather below the middle size; he has, however, an exceedingly-gentlemanlike bearing, which takes away any impression of diminutiveness. He holds himself erect, and seems a little animated by a consciousness that he belongs to an ancient family and is owner of the manor of St. John. He is exceedingly graceful in his manners, and at once conveys the conviction of his having lived in the best society. His countenance is more refined than marked and expressive, and indicates gracefulness and elegance of thought and feeling rather than any strong and broad traits of character. Mr. Wyse is eminently accomplished; a master of several languages; a poet, a painter; versed in antiquities, and a traveller in the East, he presents a rare combination of personal merits and adventitious advantages. His eloquence is, perhaps, a little too rotund and full, and he is too wholesale a dealer in abstractions, and too lofty an intonator of high-sounding diction; but it flows out of a copious and abundant fountain, and runs through a broad channel, amidst all the rich divestings of highly-decorated phrase. What he mainly wants is simplicity and directness in position and in argument. He gives his hearer credit for more velocity in following him than he is entitled to, and forgets that when he arrives himself per saltum at a conclusion, full many an auditor may not be able to leap with the same agility to his consequences as himself.

The associate of Mr. Wyse is Mr. Hutchinson. He is generally known by the name of Lavalette, from his having, in conjunction with Mr. Bruce, performed a signal feat of courage, with which the world are too familiar to make a more distinct reference to it appropriate. Mr. Hutchinson had incurred, notwithstanding the long advocacy of the Catholic Question by his family, a good deal of popular disrelish by writing what was certainly a very incautious letter of admonition, in reply to an invitation to dine at a public dinner at Clonmel. This imprudence cost him the county at a former election. He did not regret it, but it grieved old Lord Donoughmore to the heart. He is now again elected, and it is pleasurable to think that the animosities between him and the people are at an end. He is what is commonly called "a good fellow," who does not set up any claims to eminent faculty, but whose title to good sense is beyond dispute.

The City of Kilkenny has again sent Mr. Leader to Parliament. Mr. Leader is a most useful member of the House. He has a minute

knowledge of Ireland, and possesses perhaps more acquaintance with its statistics, than any other of its representatives. I understand he never speaks without conveying information, and on that account is always attended to, although it must be owned, that he sometimes displays so much vivacity, and animates his oratorical physique with so much impetuosity of emotion, that he gives the Saxon temperaments of his hearers a start. But these imperfections ought not to be mentioned in any comparison with his most valuable qualities. He has a clear vigorous mind, amply stored with facts, and possesses a perspicuous, full, and simple diction, which from its freedom from the false brilliancy of that Irish eloquence which is held in about as much value as Irish diamonds, is a good deal prized in the House of Commons, as the most appropriate vehicle of sound reasoning and illustrative fact.

Daniel O'Connel is at last Member for Kerry, and has refuted the sacred aphorism, by becoming a prophet in a country where his claims to inspiration had been hitherto the subject of incredulity. In the county of Kerry he had less influence than in any other part of Ireland, from causes which I have not heard explained-I presume on account of the pre-eminence which the Kenmare family have for generations enjoyed in that district. It appeared singular to Englishmen, that when he started, after his unfortunate exclusion from the benefits of the Relief Bill, for any Irish county, he should not have selected his native one. Some imagined that it was in order to give evidence of his power that he wandered through the country, leaving it to put its counties into emulation for the honour of selecting him. The truth was, however, that he had not at that period any hold over Kerry. His recent election there gives the best proof of his increased popularity, and of the extent to which "the Repeal" has possessed itself of the national mind. Mr. O'Connel has substituted it for the Catholic Question, and turned it to even a more exciting account. It has effected for him in Kerry what the former measure could not accomplish, and from the summits of the mountains of Ivra he beheld the Lords of Kenmare, if not tributary to his dominion, subject, at all events, to his ascendancy. With him, Mr. Mullins, the son of a clergyman, and a relation of Lord Ventry, was returned. The brother of Lord Kenmare (Mr. Brown) did not venture to come to the poll. Neither did the Knight of Kerry, Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald. The exclusion of the latter is a source of regret to those who know him. However opposed to his late proceedings in Parliament, they recollect his services to Ireland, and his inflexible adherence, in the midst of temptations the most trying, to the cause of his countrymen. In an unhappy moment he joined the Duke of Wellington. For this union much allowance should be made; he was the Duke's early friend; they both lived together in the dissipation of the Irish Court, and formed that ligature of friendship which circumstances are least likely to snap or time to wear away. The Duke, in his splendid prosperity, always reverted to the social hours of his youth with pleasure, and honoured the Knight of Kerry with testimonies of his undiminished regard. When he came into power, he tendered him office. It was