being allowed to leap over the benches, and demolish the peers.'

As for demolishing the peers,' said my uncle, who seemed to have caught only such words as chimed in with his excited feelings, I defy them to do it. No, no; the country is not yet sufficiently demoralized, the spirit of old England has not yet so totally evaporated-the word of truth is not so utterly cast behind our backs-as to admit of the outrages on all decency, all constitutional laws, all the requirements of the divine sanction, which these shameless anarchists are openly driving at. The House of Peers demolished, and, forsooth, by Mr. Joseph Hume! Pshaw!--But, my dear child, what were you saying of the young Princess, just now?'

I thought it better to let my uncle's mistake pass unnoticed, as he had paused in his career, waiting my reply. So I said, 'Sit down a while, dear sir, and let us look quietly over the past session, with a view to its influence on the future.'

He complied, with that awakened animated look which always bodes me a nice confab; when, to my utter dismay, in popped some morning visitors. These were succeeded by people on business, who detained my uncle until all hope of renewing our discussion was at an end. He had then to visit town: then Sunday intervened, on which we never talk politics: and it was not until the middle of Monday that in marched my uncle, to take his accustomed seat in my study. I soon perceived that he was even more animated than when Friday's interruption took place; and the smile with which he drew forth the newspaper, partook of droll consciousness, high indignation and ineffable scorn.

'What have you got there, uncle? Is not the campaign fully ended yet?'

'Yes; and the commander in chief of the ministerial forces has published an extraordinary gazette, which details, in a style quite peculiar to that talented individual, the operations of his enemies, and their probable effect upon his tactics, during the recess.' He then read to me O'Connell's letter to the Duke of Wellington, and seemed greatly to enjoy my astonishment at the immeasurable impudence of the

man.

"Why, uncle, how can the noblemen whom he enumerates allow themselves to be so blackguarded by such a really I can't find a name for the fellow.'

'I'll tell you, my dear, how and why they suffer it. When I was a spruce naval beau, going one day to an official dinner, as smart as you please in the handsome uniform of an old-fashioned British sailor, I was met, near Charing-Cross, by a mischievous dog of a sweep enveloped in soot, with a bag of the same precious article on his shoulder. In passing, he contrived to give me a touch with his shovel, which was meant, no doubt, for the whitest part of my uniform; but which only left a speck on the body of my blue coat, brushed off in a moment, by the handkerchief of a good-natured passer-by. The sweep laughed, the rabble echoed it, and I, full wroth at the affront, prepared to give the vagabond a good drubbing. However, the person who had just assisted me, laid his hand on my arm, whispering, 'My good young Sir, you are in no way the worse for the fellow's futile impertinence: but if you descend to bestow on him the chastisement that

he merits, though you may and must succeed in rolling him through the kennel, remember you'll be defiled from head to foot by the contact with his filthy person and habiliments.' I felt the justice of his remark, thanked him, walked on, and rejoiced that I had not made a sweep of myself, by condescending to thrash a sweep. Now, in a similar predicament behold the objects of O'Connell's vituperation, while he stands secure in a sooty immunity from that retaliation which, in fact they cannot render; for I am not aware of any GENTLEMAN who carries similar weapons.'

'True, uncle; but it is so irritating to read his scurrilous abuse of a man who never ceased effectually to serve his country, until he was induced to serve the cause of O'Connell, and his ungrateful, unprincipled party.'

'Well; the duke and his brother minister of 1829 must be content to receive the overflowings of Popish gratitude, so characteristically meted out to them by this professor of blackguardism. I wish he may have no worse employment in view, during the recess, than that of flinging mud at Apsley house.'

Now, uncle, give me your opinion, as to the present position, and future prospects of this country.'

'My feelings vary so much on the subject, my dear child, that what I might say to day, would, perhaps, be unsaid to-morrow. However, I look upon it as a token for good, that the House of Lords were enabled to make this bold, temperate stand against the progress of disorganization. Their position was one of extraordinary difficulty; and the dignity, the forbearance, the firmness and moderation

displayed by them, is making a silent but forcible appeal to the right feeling of all who have not touched the outer circle of that vortex whereof O'Connell is the revolving centre, while Satan sucks it down. As to the ostensible ministry, they perform in a puppet-show so clumsily managed, that the silliest child amid the gaping crowd may discern the man who pulls the wires, and comprehend how Punch and company are enabled to perform their seeming feats. I really do not remember any period of our Parliamentary history, since a constitutional check was imposed on the absolute power of monarchs, when the nominal government of our country was such a complete non-entity as at present. They cannot act, they cannot speak, they cannot think, it would seem, but at the dictum of that party whom it was a national sin, and is now our national shame, to have admitted within the walls of the senate. Whether the ancient spirit of the English nation is so far lost as to submit its neck yet further to the trampling heels of these intruders--whether God, in righteous judgment will deliver up the bulk of the people to judicial blindness, and the rest to their mercy-we cannot venture to predict: but this is certain, that a check has been given, an interval is permitted, and these things, if rightly improved to their full extent, by all those who acknowledge their value, may yet prove a means of moral and political redemption.'

My uncle's wish that O'Connell might have no worse holiday work in view, than that of bespattering the men who have curbed his beadlong career, was soon proved abortive, by the news of his incendiary progress towards the north. I have not often seen my dear uncle so thoroughly angry as this ren

dered him. Bad enough, and disgusting enough it was,' he observed, when a man bearing the badge of nobility, and elevated to the summit of his profession, undertook a tour of this kind, and uttered speeches sadly inconsistent with both the one and the other of his acquired honours. Nevertheless, he was an Englishman; one who had worked his way to eminence through a course of personal efforts, and by dint of cultivated talents that once promised to reflect a lustre on his native land; perverted, as, alas! they now are, by the frenzy of party, and the debasing spirit of that infidelity which, aspiring to the rank of decent deism, sets at nought the revelation of the God whom it professes to acknowledge. The man of whom I speak is "a wandering star," drawn downwards, as it were, by the earthward attraction of base and sordid things; and to such, in the page of their country's history, must attach "the blackness of darkness for ever." But O'Connell!' (here my uncle jumped up; and I should have trembled had I not taken care, since his last course, to clear a path for him across the room.) O'Connell is an ignis futuus, gendered by the foul vapour of an un-reclaimed Irish bog, and rising no higher from his native pool of black stagnation than is requisite for the accursed work, of leading all who follow his false glare into such destruction as the father of lies has prepared for them.'

Now, uncle, you have made a very naughty speech; if I had said as much, you would have shaken your head at me. You ought not to reflect so harshly upon the innocent bogs of poor Ireland.'

'I cast no reflection upon the bogs, child. In their natural state they yield a valuable material, in the