Notes of the Month on [APRIL, 



them so pleasing a recompense. One thousand pounds a year for the 

 pin-money of three fair ladies since 1806! or four and twenty thousand 

 pounds sterling, bestowed, we must presume, on the score of public 

 merit on the Courtenays. Well may they rejoice in our power to pay 

 the interest of the national debt. But as if the merits of this distinguished 

 family were not yet sufficiently rewarded, we have another 300. per 

 annum assigned to another of their family circle ; and, as we must take 

 it for granted that this additional personage was not in existence at the 

 time of the original grant, or she would have enjoyed the same reward, 

 having naturally the same claims ; we may look to the discharge of the 

 public gratitude in the shape of this 300. a year for the next half cen- 

 tury, or whole century. 



Our politicians are puzzled to conceive how it happens that Ireland, 

 constantly craving, and constantly receiving as she is from England, is 

 never the richer ; constantly conciliated, is never the nearer quiet ; and 

 constantly packing off its people to Canada, and all the world besides, is 

 never without matter enough for orations on yearly famine. Let this 

 statement solve the problem : 



" The Irish Bar and the Union. The Dublin Mail states, that the number 

 of practising barristers, ascertained from the library books, \sfour hundred and 

 twelve. Of those, three hundred and thirty have signed the Anti-Repeal Decla- 

 ration. The number of king's counsel, including the attorney and solicitor 

 generals, and the sergeants, is forty-seven of those, thirty-eight have affixed 

 their names." 



Four hundred and twelve practising barristers ! Four hundred and 

 twelve keen hunters after human prey let loose upon one luckless land ! 

 Four hundred and twelve death-dealers to the peace and the pocket of 

 mankind, raving through the country, and not merely seeking whom 

 they may devour, but giving fangs and talons to every minor devourer. 

 What a host of scriveners, black as their own ink ; of special pleaders, 

 sallow as their own parchment ; and of attorneys, fierce as their own 

 fieri faciases, must follow at the heels of those stuff and silk-gowned 

 devourers ; the small proportion of ten for every barrister would give 

 four thousand, to whom litigation is dear as the light that visits their 

 grim eyes, the bread they eat, the condition of their existence ; and can 

 we wonder that Pharaoh's lean kine were the Devonshire ox compared 

 to lean Ireland ? 



It is to be expected that the West India Interests, the most neglected, 

 where they are not the most insulted, of all national interests, will find 

 a firm friend in his Majesty. We have always thought it a strong feature 

 in favour of the conduct of the settlers and owners in our Colonies, 

 that they have uniformly obtained the most favourable opinion from the 

 military and naval officers stationed in the islands. And the nature of 

 their antagonists is scarcely less in their favour. For who have been the agi* 

 tutors on the subject, but half-mad missionaries, three-fourths of them with- 

 out any pretence to education ; or cunning rogues of traders, who wished 

 to extinguish commerce in the West, that they might drive some petty 

 traffic in the East ; or a junto of sectarians at home, who attempted to 

 gain public strength by clinging together in public, and to whom the 

 West India Question served as the most convenient link. 



His Majesty must to his feelings on this topic, arising from his general 



