584 Ireland in 1826. [Dec.. 
Pw as 
testant ascendancy. The Williamite toast is the Shiboleth of its free- 
masonry , and jobbing is the great object and end of its political and 
corporate being. It was at the Lord Mayor's table that the toast was 
given which lost Lord Talbot his place. It was an alderman who boasted 
of having an Orange jury in his pocket ; and it was at a civic orgie that 
another alderman threw off the surtout of his political hypocrisy... When 
this body is tranquil, when this volcano slumbers,.we may. be certain 
that all is right withthe moderate party in the cabinet: for, ever in 
extremes, and ever certain that he who makes most noise is surest 
of being heard, a very little encouragement suffices. to renew their 
clamourings. Such are the principal features in the physiognomy 
of Ireland for the current year—such the agitation of its political 
waters—such the extent of its social and economic disorganization. 
For such a condition, it is not easy to propose a remedy. One is almost 
tempted to exclaim with Plautus, 
ipsa si cupiat solus 
Servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam. : 
In politics and in patriotism, however, despair is especially sinful ; 
and were not my space exhausted, it would not be difficult to shew that, 
even for Ireland, there is gound for hope, when time shall have blunted 
the passions and prejudices of Englishmen, and removed‘ from public 
life those who have so long laboured to bring things to their present 
complexion. “Au bout du conte,” the whole is an affair of pounds, 
shillings, and pence, and John Bull cannot for ever continue to blunder 
in his calculations. TT. 
VILLAGE SKETCHES. 
No. IV. 
A New-Married Couple. 
THERE js no pleasanter country sound than that of a péal of village 
bells, as they come vibrating through the air, giving token of marriage 
and merriment; nor ever was that pleasant sound more welcome than on’ 
this still foggy gloomy November morning, when all naturestood as if at 
pause ; the large dreps hanging on the. thatch without falling; the sere 
leaves dangling on the trees; the birds mute and motionless on the 
boughs ; turkies, children, geese and pigs unnaturally silent ; the whole: 
world quiet and melancholy as some of the enchanted places in the: 
Arabian tales. That merry peal seemed at once to break the spell, and 
to awaken sound, and life, and motion. It had a peculiar welcome too, as” 
stirring up one of the most active passions in woman or in man, and~ 
rousing the rational part of creation from: the torpor induced by» the 
season and the weather at the thrilling touch of curiosity.. Neverwasa_ 
completer puzzle. Nobody in our village had heard that a wedding was» 
expected ; no unaccustomed conveyance, from a coach to a wheel-barrow,;” 
had been observed passing up the vicarage lane; no banns-had:beeny 
published in church—no marriage of gentility; that is to say, of license,” 
talked of, or thought of; none of our village beaux had been seen, as” 
village beaux are apt to be on such occasions, smirking and. fidgetty ;/ 
