much due to me as will pay for it. I don't feel the slightest inconvenience from this privation; and though it looks a little awkward to sit at table while others are taking their glass, yet my fellow-prisoners cannot but esteem me the more for the motive; indeed I feel a good deal pinched about the usual expenses of mending, washing, paper, quills, &c. &c., not having, at present, a crown in the world. But then I do not owe a farthing to any person, and I have learned to make a little go very far. If my liberation were once accomplished, I am not at all afraid of being soon out of these difficulties, provided my health continues. Whenever I turn my eyes to this subject, my feelings are all for you, not for myself."

On

The arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald was a blow at the heart of the Union, which it never recovered. For that, traitors of every grade have never ceased to execrate the memory of the late Major Sirr; as he it was, to whose vigilance and intrepidity the government were indebted for that service. Mr. Madden, of course, is unsparing in his vituperation of him. But, it is very remarkable, that by no one of the state prisoners, with many of whom he was almost constantly in contact, is any complaint made, which would lead to the supposition that he was the monster which he is described. the contrary, they all acknowledge, that, as prisoners, they were treated Mr. with lenity and consideration. Madden takes the speech of counsel in the case of "Hevey versus Sirr," as damning evidence of the major's delinquency. This is sufficiently absurd; but he does not state, perhaps he did not know that Hevey subsequently acknowledged the major as his benefactor; and that he was a pensioner upon his bounty at the very time when Lord Brougham, in the House of Commons, was repeating all Curran's exaggerated statements to his prejudice, in the debate on the sheriff of Dublin inquiry. The poor man died, we believe, about a week after.

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Lady Louisa Conolly, having her niece, Miss Emily Napier, with her, went to Lord Camden, and prayed him long and earnestly, in vain, to let her visit Lord Edward Fitzgerald in his prison. When she came back to her carriage, she said, with a violence of feeling the more remarkable from its contrast with the sedate and tranquil dignity which belonged to her character, I, who never before kneeled to aught but my God, grovelled at that man's feet in vain!' From the Castle she drove to Lord Clare's house. He was at dinner; it was a sort of a cabinet dinner, but he came out instantly to her carriage, having his napkin in his hand. She asked him for an order to see Lord Edward. He said he could not give her one, it had been so settled,' but seeing the strong emotion excited by this answer, he added abruptly, but I can go with you, and let you into the jail;' then jumping into the carriage, having his napkin still in his hand, he drove to the jail, introduced her, and, after some time, came out to Miss Napier, and said 'Lady Louisa will be a long time, it is not fitting you should remain here; I will stop with her;' and then, placing a police officer behind the carriage to protect it, he sent Miss Napier home, retired to the outer room of Lord Edward's prison, and remained for three or four hours, waiting Lady Louisa's time of departure."

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quite sufficient to stamp upon it the value to which it is entitled. Can any gentleman, for one moment, believe that Lord Camden could have acted in the manner described? If there be such a one, he must be one who would himself so act under such circumstances. The plain facts were these: The lord lieutenant told Lady Louisa that the privy council had come to a resolution which rendered it impossible for him to comply with her request. This he conveyed with every feeling of sympathy, and in language the gentlest and the most respectful; and he then referred her to Lord Clare. We believe the writer is perfectly correct in his statement of what subsequently occurred, when the latter nobleman was applied to. The afflicted lady did not affect to think that her nephew was dying; she desired, she said, chiefly, to confer with him respecting his defence. What the precise import of the communications were, which passed between them during their long and private interview, has not transpired; and it were, perhaps, better for all parties that they should be buried in a charitable oblivion.

Of Lord Clare we will not permit ourselves to say much at present, as we hope, in a subsequent number, to do justice to his character, when he comes to take his place, as shortly, we trust, he will do, in the gallery of illustrious Irishmen. But this much it is our bounden duty to declare, that to his firmness and determination, at this period, the loyal party in this country were indebted for the timely and effectual suppression of the late rebellion. By the prompt arrest and the summary disposal of the few leaders who were capitally convicted, he struck terror into the hearts of the disaffected, by which the right arm of treason became paralysed. The penetrating vigour of his intellect enabled him to see with an almost intuitive sagacity into their designs; and the manly and intelligible course of action upon which he resolved, avoiding alike the extremes of a maudlin sentimentalism and a ruthless severity, was just that which was calculated to meet the crisis, and the only one by which the machinations of the United Irishmen could have been defeated without shedding an ocean of blood. This, we know, is not the opinion of Mr. Madden, and of a vast number of

unexecuted patriots who have survived these disastrous times; but they, themselves, are living evidences of the clemency of that abused executive which they attempt to disparage by their calumnious misrepresentations.

When Arthur O'Connor visited this country, which he was permitted to do in 1834, for the purpose of arranging his affairs, he was present at some of O'Connell's gatherings. Dining with a friend on the day of one of these meetings, he admitted the great improvement which had taken place in the country during his absence. "You have," he said, "better houses, the people are better clothed and fed; in all the material of prosperity you are greatly in advance of what you were;-but, my dear sir, the mind of the country,-how sadly is that deteriorated! Where is now the spirit, and the energy, and the intelligence, which marked the public proceedings in my day? Where? Any where and every where rather than in The Repeal Association." It certainly was not to be found there. The mind of the country has now better employment. If the expatriated rebel would find it, he should have looked for it at the bar, in the church, in the medical profession, amongst the race of quiet and unobtrusive country gentlemen and merchants, who bless God for the enjoyment of that equal constitutional liberty, under the protection of which they can prosecute their lawful industry, or enjoy their honourable independence. We would have supposed that Arthur O'Connor's common sense would have taught him the dif ference between agitators of the present day, and those who flourished when he was an active political character in Ireland. Then, men of education and intellect were to be found struggling for the attainment of those visionary objects which experience has proved to be impracticable and vain. Now all such pursuits are abandoned to a few designing knaves and the ignoble vulgar. The distemper is now passing off at the extremities, which formerly attacked the more noble members. O'Connell represents, in his own person, a forty-horse power of fraud and cunning, out of which five hundred village attorneys might be furnished. He is favoured

by the co-operation of the Romish priests, who have, indeed, entered with a degree of heartiness and zeal into the designs of the agitator, greater than his mercenary purposes require; and by whom he has been frequently alarmed lest they should make the caldron, which he only requires to be kept up to the boiling point, boil over. There is such a thing as fishing profitably in troubled waters; but well the old deceiver knows, that when they are agitated by hurricane violence there can be little pastime, while there is much danger. But let us present our readers with a brief and graphic sketch, by a recent German visitor, of the liberal school, of one of those assemblies in which poor Arthur O'Connor saw nothing but a contrast to those with which, in the more stirring period preceding 1798, he had been acquainted. Thus writes M. Kohl:

Such is a sample of the canaille gatherings by which, with the aid of a very powerful press, O'Connell has hitherto been able to do so much mischief. All the rank, all the property, all the respectability of the country, with exceptions so inconsiderable as only to establish the rule, are on the other side. In one respect, indeed, the present movement differs from that of 1798. The Romish priesthood did not, at the latter period, make themselves conspicuous as disturbers. Where they did appear conspicuously, they rather appeared to discountenance than to encourage those who were labouring to mislead the people. Now they are, heart and soul, identified with the cause of repeal. They are, of all classes, those who have thrown themselves most prominently forward; and made it clearly manifest that every power, every faculty, and every particle of influence which they possess, will be devoted to the attainment of an object, compared with which all other objects are, in their regards, but mean and worthless; an object which, if once attained, all other objects which they could desire must be easily In 1798 brought within their reach. Maynooth had been too short a time established to produce its proper fruits-a vulgar, bigoted, agitating clergy. Thanks to the munificent liberality of the government, that is not now the case. Instead of leaving the Romish system to crumble away under those influences which, in a country like ours, must have ensured its gradual decay, by means of a state endowment it has been buckramed, as it were, into an unnatural erectness and vigour; and we see, accordingly, a race of demagogue priests, who are well qualified to second O'Connell in all his designs, and by whom the people will be drilled into a subordination to his views and purposes, which may enable him to inflict upon his country incalculable evils.

The government have at length aroused themselves. By one bold act of vigour, the career of the mendicant

WE say it thankfully, we have as yet no feuilleton in England. We do not draw a line across our newspaper columns; the upper portion devoted to the serious news, the grave discussions, the important events of Europe-the lower yielded up to a hasty criticism or scandalous story, making of the journal a very mermaid, with a fair head and foul termination. The feuilleton has not invaded our literature, to inspire dread of its decline; it does not stare us in the face, like a malady under its several forms; either as the weakness which breaks down a sane constitution, or a vile disease, showing its blots and stains in the glare of midday, so that the same page, divided for the purpose, may minister to the parent's studies, and darken the mind of his young daughter. It is only of late years, that the feuilleton has attained its increased vogue, even through its defects; less obtrusive, and more important formerly, it was the medium of sounder criticism-it did not admit nine volumes of a novel to " drag their slow length along," eked out with biographies of thieves and prostitutes. Treating this kind of literature as what it is, a trade, and looking on its sale as on that of ribbons and artificial flowers, which are worn a day and thrown by, and never expected to be valuable or natural, it would require no further notice than do these, proIvided it were harmless; we might merely say that the supply exceeded the demand, (a common inconvenience with machines,) as there will always exist the keen eye and true ear, which distinguish the page amid the heapthe low voice amid the noise-which should be pondered on and obeyed. To do the great majority of these writers justice, they are incapable of inflicting injury-the thousand small tales which float over our breakfast tables, will leave no memory for good or for evil, when they fall from our hands; those who put them forth are on the tread-mill of authorship; the

foot always in motion has not advanced when night comes-it is only weary. But the clever writer is seldom passive: if not useful he is dangerous, and the pages, dangerous beneath the cover of their octavo volume, are far more so consigned to the morning papers in choice morsels, which lie within the grasp of the uneducated, discontented, and very poor.

It is difficult to believe that the writer who takes for his theme the worst phases of humanity, can imagine that, having accustomed his readers' minds to vice and crime, through a work which seems composed to educate a malefactor, he administers the antidote, by noting their punishment in the closing chapters. Supposing his sincerity, his method resembles that of a surgeon, who would urge his pupil over a precipice, in order that, when he lay at the bottom, with broken bones, he might explain, scientifically, how the fracture happened.

This sort of literature has not even the merit of originality; the vain and cynical Restif de la Bretonne, who died in 1806, having lived and written through the old revolution, was perhaps the responsible parent of this numerous progeny. We do not mean to say that his productions appeared at the foot of a daily paper, though it is possible the " Dames Nationales" may have been brought out as they were dated, day by day, each having its own tale, and, for heroine, a female of Paris, or the provinces. Every anecdote of vice-every revolting crime noted down by Restif de la Bretonne, served to swell these volumes. He was in the habit of stopping in the street any poor girl he met, and paying her to tell him her story; and was indeed so little scrupulous, that the shameless conduct of his wife supplied him with a tale, as did his own with a drama. Devoid of talent as of edu cation-though he affirmed he had outdone Newton, and called Buffon a mole-he compiled, in this manner,