1831.] My New Lodgings. 627 



security against bores of all descriptions, but particularly politicians. 

 While in this " durance vile/' I was solicited to give " my candid 

 opinion on the affairs of Poland." As you may conjecture, the request 

 was only pro forma, and intended not to extract my sentiments, but to 

 introduce his own. <f If I may presume to offer the opinion of so hum- 

 ble an individual as myself/' he proceeded, lowering his voice almost to a 

 whisper, and looking oracular, (< the Poles would never have taken up 

 arms against Russia, if they had not had some hopes of success /" In 

 his triumph at being delivered of so sagacious a remark, he forgot him- 

 self so far as to let go my unfortunate button. The advantage was not 

 to be lost ; I gained two steps more upon my political persecutor, and 

 this brought him within a few inches of the door ; I then opened it 

 myself, and growling a good morning, left him no alternative but to 

 evacuate the apartment. My ferocity, however, seemed only to excite 

 his good-nature. As he withdrew a movement he performed as reluc- 

 tantly as a hunted wolf retires from his prey he expressed his determi- 

 nation to avail himself often of the pleasure of my conversation ; drop- 

 ped something about kindred spirits ; and intimated he had several other 

 literary works on which he would take leave to solicit my opinion not, 

 however (he was considerate enough to add), until I had read and 

 digested the " Political Panorama !" 



I had endured the tailor's family, and even the flute-player, without 

 ever once thinking of delivering myself from my troubles by suicide. 

 Now, however, that dreadful idea rushed into my mind ; and I tremble 

 to confess how long it occupied it. A literary landlord is certainly the 

 climax of human miseries. The next thought was a country curacy, 

 and this was succeeded by a determination to take my passage for Ame- 

 rica in the course of the evening. In the silent and pathless forests of 

 the new world, I would be in no danger from bores at least of the 

 human species. How many more wild projects chased each other 

 through my agonized brain, I cannot recollect for I was in a state of 

 desperation, pacing the room with the gait of a maniac, cursing the day 

 I was born, and the folly of my friends, who had induced me to come to 

 London, assuring me it was the only place for an author. Yet who 

 could have supposed that there is no such thing as a quiet lodging in all 

 this vast metropolis ? 



FATHER MURPHY S SERMON ON THE ELECTIONS AND PROSPECTS 



OF IRELAND. 



THAT we are in the confidence of the Irish priesthood, our readers 

 will long since have taken for granted. The revelations we have made 

 from time to time touching their habits, character, and individual 

 merits, will have abundantly shewn the trust they repose in us. But 

 since we have thrown sturdy Old Mag. into the scale against Mal- 

 thus, the Irish priests are actually in ecstacies with us. They are to a 

 man anti-Malthusians. For many years they have opposed themselves 

 in modest obscurity to the " preventive check/' and laboured all they 

 could, within the sphere of their local influence, to arrest the progress 

 of that unsocial theory. Indeed, the population in the Catholic dis- 

 tricts of Ireland affords prolific proofs of the active effects of the priestly 

 office. We think we may boldly assert, without fear of contradiction, 



4 L 2 



