582° Ireland in 1826. [Dee 
its “uttermost, and has again separated the ‘Catholics’ ahi "thé | Prov 
testants “far’as the poles asunder.” The signal ‘defeat ‘of’ the agit é 
candidates, even in their strongest holds of the north, has’ ¢ tel 
soured the temper of a party, unused to control, and inhalant P wit 
disappointment : and, as impotence is always ‘ungovernable of tongte, 
and pays in railing what it cannot discharge in action, nothing cdn exceed 
the explosion of party wrath. In the case of Mr. Brownlow, this irri- 
tability has been especially demonstrated. Not even the purlieus'of the’ 
church, nor the sacred act of prayer, could put a bridle upow'the popular 
feeling : for when the name of Judas occurred in the lesson of the day, 
in the parish of Tartaragan (county of Armagh), its application to’ the 
members who had disappointed the hopes of the Orangemen’ ‘was 
buzzed irrev erently from pew to pew, to the scandalous interruption of 
the holy service. An amusing and instructive episode in’ the’ year's 
proceedings was the series of consolatory dinners, in which the deféated 
members and their friends poured forth the vials of their wrath, and’* went 
up and down the country,” concealing their weakness under the eénerey 
of their impatient vituperations of all that had been opposed to them. 
While the particular theme of animadversion was the interference of the 
Catholic priests, the principal speakers were themselves priests of the 
Protestant Church; and it is lamentable to add, that the tenor of those 
speeches, from beginning to end, was an invocation of blood” and 
slaughter, and a triumphant anticipation of a millenium of ascendancy, 
to be purchased by a military crusade against their opponents. Oh! 
father Abraham, what these parsons are! Close upon these events 
followed the Ballinasloe Bible meeting, the dispersion of a peaceable 
assembly of Catholics by the police at the point of the bayonet, and ‘an 
ineffectual appeal to Mr. Goulburn, to make the’ matter’ a’ subject of 
ministerial investigation. To what purpose this gratuitous outrage to 
Catholic feeling is encouraged, amidst so many other elements of strife 
and Contention: it would puzzle Machiavelli himself to” unriddle. 
Without attempting the enigma, I must give one instance of the’ inge- 
nuous modes of saintly conversion which fell within’ my own knowledge’: 
it was an address from a Protestant rector to his parishioners, announc- 
ing himself as a conyert to Catholic emancipation and the Catholic rent: 
The “ mot de l’énigme”—the pith of this miserable and insulting jest— 
was developed i in the course of the address, that the author intended 
emancipation from the Pope and the Devil, and a rent for distributing 
missionary tracts! Mais revenons a& nos moutons. The state of social 
feeling induced by these various transactions is not a little curious. The 
public mind exalted by contending hopes and fears, every party is on the 
watch for fresh indications of the turn and temper of the times, and of 
coming events. Every one is in search of these floating straws, which 
determine the points whence the wind is blowing. The tebynned Diniz ros 
of the Athenians is daily and hourly repeated, in every accent of exulta- 
tion or of despair, in its application to the ill-health of the Duke of 
York. The filling up of places as they become vacant is taken as a 
sign of the relative strength of parties; and even the Corn laws ar “con- 
sidered in no higher point of view, than as they may tend to embarras: 
the liberals, and cripple their exertions in favour of Ireland, Nay, the \ very 
hospitality of the Lord-Lieutenant is made matter of augury,; and con- 
clusions are drawn from the colour of the birds which are pecking | at the 
vice-regal board. In: the society of Dublin, there exists a small (very 
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