for their countries, as they did in 1799; but "no power on earth can make laws to bind the people of Ireland, but the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland;" and every honest judge upon the bench would, if the Imperial Parliament continued to sit in defiance of all law, be bound by his oath to reject, and refuse to be influenced in his decision by any statutes they might pass. Has the opinion of the law officers been taken upon this point-whether by the very provisions of the act of union, that act does not cease and determine as soon as the Church of Ireland, as an establishment, is subverted? But of one thing the British government may rest assured, that whether or not the union will be legally repealed by such a measure-which, from our souls, we believe it will-its maintenance, for any length of time, will be virtually impossible. They need not, they cannot, entertain the dream of coercing a nation of opposing force to the energies of a people united in disaffection. The agitation for repeal is now harmless and ineffectual, because the Protestants are attached to British connexion ; but we tell the British government, that if the Irish Church be sacrificed to the clamour of the agitators and the intrigues of the priests, the mass of the Protestants will become the advocates not of repeal, but of separation; and separation will inevitably take place. We know well, we are proud that we know, the manly determination-the moral confidencethe undaunted bravery of the Orangemen of Ireland; and we know also, that it needs but a little more of faithless oppression, of unprincipled ingratitude, on the part of the British government, to cause all that determination, all that confidence, and all that bravery, to be employed against British connexion as energetically, aye, and as successfully, as it ever was in its behalf. When the moral energy of the Protestant is united with the physical force of the Roman Catholic population, the combination will be irresistible; and the Imperial Parliament, with all its resolutions, and its addresses-its eloquent debates, and its triumphant majorities-and the imperial government, with all its ordinances and its coercion bills-all its fleets and its armies, may postpone, but cannot avert, the separation of the countries. God grant that a sad experience may never establish, by its melancholy test, our character as prophets! But if the English nation desire to preserve the existence in maintaining the integrity of the empire, and, by retaining Ireland, to prevent Britain from being swept from the chart of nations-let them know, and be assured, that in deciding the principle of the Church Commission, they are, in reality, determining the fate of repeal. We are not singular in our opinion that the Church Establishment is the bond of union between the two countries. We certainly have high authority for the assertion that its subversion will inevitably lead to their separation. Lord Chancellor-we beg pardon, Mr. Attorney-General-Plunkett, has left on record his eloquent testimony to its truth. We do not wish to be understood as falling into the absurdity of supposing for one moment that it is possible, from any statement, or even vow of the noble and learned lord, made at any period, to infer what his opinion may be at any other period. The noble and learned lord's opinions depend upon "circumstances over which he has no control;" but yet his former declaration is worthy of being preserved for the eloquence of the terms in which it is couched-compared with his future conduct it may be valuable as a curious specimen of political tergiversation. In the year 1824, a little more than ten years from the date at which we write, a Mr. Plunkett spoke thus in the House of Commons: lishment should establishment in Ireland, I think it neces"Sir, with respect to the Protestant sary not only that there should be an established church, but that the estabbe richly endowed. Sir, I wish that the establishment should be richly endowed, to enable the clergy to take their places among the nobles of the land; but, speaking in a political point of view, I have no hesitation in saying that the existing Protestant Establishment in Ireland is the grand bond of union between the two countries. ever the unfortunate moment shall arrive at which the legislature shall rashly lay hands upon the property of the Church, that moment will seal the doom of the union, and terminate, for ever, the connexion between the countries." If Lord Plunkett is beginning to have a conscience, at least he has put on the semblance of possessing one. His name does not appear in the commission. The English Chancellor's name is at its head, but the Irish Chancellor's is unaccountably passed over. This is a noble and a worthy tribute to consistency, from one whose whole political life has set it at defiance. It is something like the penitence of the miser, who, having amassed wealth by all the arts of fraud, and all the instruments of extortion, endeavours, on his death-bed, to square his accounts with heaven, by posting a pitiful charity against enormous iniquity; and imagines that he redeems the oppression by which thousands have been amassed, when he sends a donation of five pounds to the parish poor. But no! we are estimating the noble and learned lord's consistency too highly. Paltry as is the donation of the dying miser, it takes something from his hoarded store. Lord Plunkett's consistency has not subtracted one single farthing from the perquisites or the salary upon which he has closed a determined and tenacious grasp. Political pliancy of principle has already borne him through all the demoralizing grades of a subservient elevation; and, for himself, political baseness has no object, as political delinquency can obtain no further reward; and then the Hannibals-the dear, the precious little Hannibals-they too are all comfortably provided for. Lord Plunkett has trafficked in tergiversation until he has made his fortune, and he is now, perhaps, about to retire from the trade. His lordship can now afford to keep a conscience. His lordship will perceive that we are ready to allow every merit to his new-born consistency, when we say that we have discovered (and we confess we were surprised at the discovery) that he will not gratuitously put himself forward as the violator of a pledge. We do not believe that ministers wished for his name, or they could have had it. But the time is gone by when that name could add respectability to any thing in the eyes of any. Political venality would be the most permanent as well as the most lucrative of trades, if it were not that it destroys itself. Character is the capital which it employs, and this capital perishes in its occupation. The hackneyed slave of power is too de based to be worth his purchase; and in the multitude of transfers the commodity is so injured, as at length to become unmarketable. Happy they who make to themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when bankrupt in character they may not be without resource-happy they who bargain well for their price in the hour of their political prostitution; for the time must come when they will be discarded, and they will be compelled to enact the late learned chastity of the female who ceases at length to yield, because she is no longer wooed; and having outlived her attractions, becomes virtuous of necessity, and not of choice. Had Lord Plunkett resigned anything for the sake of his consistency, our language would be different. Had he joined the righteous and the honest men who have seceded on the church question from the spoliation cabinet, we would give him credit for purity of intention, and have respected it even in him. But we cannot understand the absence of his name from the Commission. If his lordship approves of the measures of his colleagues, why has he not the courage to give them the sanetion of his name? If he disapproves of those measures, why does he continue to act with the men who are adopting principles of robbery as the ground of their treatment of the church? We believe the solution of the problem is to be found in the declaration we have quoted. Lord Plunkett cares not for the principle, and therefore he retains his place. He dreads the infamy of an open contravention of his recorded opinions, and therefore he will not permit his name to appear in the Commission. From our soul we despise the man who does wrong by halves, and has all the responsibility without any of the boldness of guilt-still more do we despise the man who can disregard the sanctions of rectitude, but dreads the censure of opinion. Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name; And free from conscience is a slave to fame. What is the amount of his lordship's concession to his principles, or rather to his declaration? He will not join in the Commission, but he aids and abets the act. He is too honest to be a principal, but no inconvenient conscientiousness prevents him from being an accessory. He reminds us of the tenderhearted assassin who could not bring himself to stab his sleeping friend; "I cannot stab him-I once swore to be his friend; but We must have done. Dark as is Before we conclude, we wish to call attention to one mischief that is sure to result from the working of the Commission-a mischief which all who mourn over the religious feuds of Ireland will at once understand and lament. In a country such as this, where religious animosity has embittered every feeling, and intrudes its baneful influence into all that concerns the interests of Ireland, it is madness— it is wickedness in the government, to send round to every parish to number the population by their religious profession-to marshal them into two great religious parties, and establish a muster roll of dissension by recording individually their differences as to creed. Could any system of policy be devised better calculated to perpetuate that spirit of religious partizanship which the government affect to deplore? is not this setting the Protestant against the Roman Catholic, and the Roman Catholic against the Protestant; and making broad and distinct the line of demarcation between the two classes? When the commissioners are to take their evidence in each parish, will no heartburnings be engendered by its collection? when conflicting testimonies are presented-and most assuredly there will-will no malice remain on the minds of the party whose evidence is set aside? If ministers choose to deal as they have said, with the Established Church, let them, as they value the peace of the country, act on the information they have already-information which it has cost the country thousands to procure; but never let them venture on a measure that will bring dissension home to every man's door; that will drag every man to be a sharer in religious feuds, and aggravate those feuds by all the animosity of local associations, and particularize them by all the individuality of local quarrels. Their commissioners will be itinerant incendiaries: like Samson's foxes, they will be sent forth two and two; and like Samson's foxes, each couple will have a firebrand between their tails. 66 while in the majesty of venerated antiquity it looks down upon another generation of a free and peaceable, because a Christian people. IMPROMPTU. SUGGESTED BY THE PERUSAL OF AN AFFECTIONATE LETTER FROM ONE DEAR TO THE WRITER. Thee EVERLASTING! let me praise, Not for the boon of life alone; But that the heart whence came those thoughts, Grant then, good Lord, this soul-sent pray'r- Whether care-soil'd or joy-illum'd, Still by my hearth-stone may she be ! Sorrow, with her, I could not deem And gilded state, where she was not! Ah! let me, then, contented be, Though fortune never o'er me shine- Is one fond heart, my love like thine. SONNET. C. X. R. 'Twas at the breaking of a summer morn, And heaven first blushed her welcome to the day, So sad, it seemed as if some bird forlorn, Hid the night through beneath th' o'erarching spray, And called upon the darkness to return. I too, (though far less eloquent my strain,) SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF EDWARD LASCELLES, GENT. "Suave, mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis, HAVING despatches for the governor, and a variety of other business to transact in Cape Town, we stood into Table Bay, previously to proceeding to Simons Bay, which is the regular naval station of the Cape. Table Bay is well known to be extremely liable to sudden squalls, which frequently make tremendous havoc among the shipping, tearing them from their moorings, and drifting them with awful violence on the shore. It is generally admitted, however, that much of the danger attendant on these storms might be avoided by using the precaution of mooring the vessels firmly with strong cables and heavy anchors. Ships so secured have been known to ride out the most tremendous gales, while such as neglect this precaution almost invariably suffer. Accordingly, although the weather was extremely fine when we arrived, Captain Morley directed the best and smail bowers to be dropped with nearly an hundred fathom of cable to each, in order to preclude the possibility of accident. It was evening when we came to our moorings, and in the morning the captain proceeded on shore, taking Strangway and myself along with him. We landed opposite the custom-house, and proceeded immediately to the residence of the governor. Our way lay through the Heergraft; and certainly the appearance of this elegant street was well calculated to make on us an agreeable first impression. In length it extends fully a quarter of a mile, and its breadth is in proportion. The houses are regularly built; generally two stories high, with flat roofs and flights of steps up to the doors. VOL. IV. The carriage-way is lined on each side by rows of handsome trees, betwixt which and the houses are trottoirs. For the first half of its extent, only one side of the street is occupied by buildings, the other being a large open space, lined with trees, and used as a military parade. The shade of the overhanging branches affords a grateful shelter from the heat of the sun; and their full and verdant foliage tends to promote an agreeable circulation of air when the weather is sultry. Altogether I have not seen a place where I should be better contented to drop anchor for life than the Heergraft of Cape Town. The day was remarkably fine; and the bright rays of the sun imparted an agreeable air of cheerfulness to the the scene. The captain having delivered his dispatches, and transacted some other slight business in the town, we determined to take a peep at the environs before returning on board. Accordingly, having repassed the Heergraft, we took the road to Green Point, which is an extensive tract of meadow land running between the sea and the foot of the Lion's Rump. The scenery here was delightful, especially to men just arrived from a voyage. Before us were stretched the placid waters of the expanded bay, bounded on the one hand by a range of azure mountains, and extending on the other far away into the horizon-bounded Atlantic. Numerous merchant ships-the jolly old Hesperus peering proudly above them all-were riding at anchor; most of them with their white sails, unfurled to dry, flapping loosely in the breeze. Boats and lighters of all sizes were plying to and from the shore, or lying L |