182 
amend certain acts relating to unlawful 
associations in Ireland.” 
Upon this said subject of amendment— 
we do not know whether Mr. Goulburn 
ever heard the classical anecdote of the 
school-boy, who said to his school-master, 
“« Sir, every time I mends my pen, I makes 
it worse ;”” hut to us, it appears, that this is 
another of those wise measures introduced 
by our sagacious government “for the bene- 
fit of the Family of Captain Rock.” The 
Catholic Association seem to us (whatever 
little ebullitions of eccentricity, Hibernian 
vivacity may occasionally have manifested in 
their discussions) to have successfully em- 
ployed their influence in suppressing disorder 
and violence among the not very remarkably 
quiescent or logical peasantry of Ireland, 
by shewing them that they had better friends 
than themselves to depend upon; and that 
a row, and the burning of a hay-stack, and 
hamstringing a cow, with now and then a 
little bit of murder or so, in a midnight or 
peep-o’-day frolic, were not quite such effi- 
cient redresses of grievances as to be worth 
hanging for, in scores or dozens, like ropes 
of onions ; how much more formidable they 
may, therefore, haye become in the eyes of 
the government and orange-coloured Corpo- 
ration factions, is another question—(for 
nothing is so formidable to mis-government 
as that which at once congregates the voice 
of remonstrance and suppresses disorder) : 
but the fact seems to have slipped out even 
in the shape of a state document (as Wol- 
sey’s correspondence with the Pope did, 
unawares), that the Lord Lieutenant him- 
self ascribes to them that merit. But the 
present Bill, if the wisdom of our two houses 
should happen to pass it into a Jaw, and 
ministers should procure the royal assent to 
its enactment, we very much suspect, by 
depriving them of their moderating guides, 
will have a tendency to throw them back 
into their old habits; and Captain Rock 
may reign again in all his glory. 
As even the motion for leave to bring 
in the bill [February 10th] was warmly and 
eloquently debated for three successive 
nights, it would be absurd, even to inanity, 
for us to attempt, in our contracted space, 
to give even an outline of the arguments, or 
the declamation pro. and con. We shall 
satisfy ourselves, therefore, with stating, 
that those who would understand the par- 
liamentary view of the subject, must read, 
at least, the details‘of Mr. Goulburn, and 
the speeches of Sir James Mackintosh, Sir 
Marriages and Deaths in and near London. 
[ Mar. 1, 
Francis Burdett and Mr. Canning ; beyond 
which, perhaps, they may go just as far as 
their thirst of curiosity, or taste for senato- 
rial eloquence, may lead them. : 
In the mean time, a committee of the | 
Lords, in conformity with the motion and 
suggestions of the Marquis of Lansdown 
and Lord Holland, is sitting almost daily 
on an inquiry into the State of Ireland; to 
which we look with some expectation. 
For our own parts, we have a project, 
also, for putting down the Catholic Asso- 
ciation, and abolishing their most Irishly 
denominated Rent. [A rent of so much 
from each individual, as he himself chooses 
to pay !—Our farmers, we have no doubt, 
would like to hold their meadows and ara~ 
bles upon such rents, amazingly. } 
Our project is simply this—to eman- 
cipate entirely, and without delay, our Irish 
brethren from all stigmas and all disquali- 
fications connected with their adherence to 
the faith of their ancestors. The paths of 
ambition would then be freely open to those 
who are capable of /eading the people ; and 
they would be looking for better things than 
Presidentships and Secretaryships of a Ca- 
tholic board—which soon, indeed, would 
not have a green cloth to cover it; and the 
stalking-horse of discontent would, at the 
same time, be taken away, by means of 
which, alone, the merely factious are enabled 
to lead the people, or to render themselves: 
of any importance in their eyes. 
On the continent nothing presents itself 
which seems to stand in need of immediate 
animadyersion. 
The cause of GREECE seems upon: the 
whole to be going on prosperously. _ Colo- 
cotroni and the factions of the Capitani ap-.. 
pear to be completely broken down, the 
-Morea to be pacified, the revolutionary 
government to be consolidating ; Patras to: 
be vigorously besieged ; and Turkish arma- 
ments to be operative only on paper. 
In what was once SPANISH AMERICA, the 
cause of independence seems to be going 
on still more successfully. It should seem 
from the last authentic arrivals, that Boli- 
var (after having been routed and annihi- 
lated by the army of Stock-jobbing Reporters 
in ’Change-alley) has. carried every thing 
before him so triumphantly, that it is more 
than probable that Peru has, by this time, 
become as eligible for acknowledgment by 
the British cabinet as the empire of Brazil, 
and the Republics of Colombia and Mexico. 
INCIDENTS, MARRIAGES, ann DEATHS, rw anv near LONDON, 
With Biographical Memoirs of distinguished Characters recently deceased. 
a 
CHRONOLOGY OF THE MONTH. 
AN. 22.—A fire broke out in Pine-street, Saffron- 
hill, by which one house was totally destroyed, 
and two others much damaged. 
Jan. 26.—About half-past nine o'clock in the 
morning, a portion of the floor, of about forty feet 
in breadth and about twenty in length, at the east 
end of the long room at the Custom-house, gave 
way, and was precipitated into the King’s ware~ 
houses, which lie immediately under it. 
Jan. 29.—Was launched, from the dock-yard of 
Messrs. 
