country, or, if hey have, it is only one with a large pike-head at the end of it; and therefore they freely goad, and bully, and menace, in the earnest hope and expectation that they may drive the landlords to withdraw all fostering care and kindness from the peasantry. The priests probably make a cat's-paw of the orators themselves, for a deeper purpose. They justly anticipate, that in a few years more, the forty-shilling freeholds will have ceased to exist on the estates of Protestant proprietors, as they will get rid of them in indignation and disgust, as fast as they possibly can. Meanwhile, the Romanists will split the little land they possess, into as many freeholds as it can possibly afford, and thus, by a simple process, and apparently by the act of the Protestants themselves, the great preponderance of the elective franchise will be thrown into the hands of Roman Catholics, while they are as nothing in wealth and respecta bility. I see no possible remedy against this absurd, as well as fatal anomaly, but the legislative abolition of that sink of iniquity and corruption, the forty-shilling franchise system. What possible motive can be assigned for Sheil's fiendish vituperation of Sir Edward O'Brien,-his loathsome description, gloating over the worms creeping in, and the worms creeping out, of Sir Edward's body in the church-yard, unless it were with the insidious and detestable design to which I have alluded? Aggravated, no doubt, but certainly not altogether produced, by that insane malignity which meanness and insignificance so often cherish against every thing ancient and respectable. Sir Edward is the representative of an old and honourable, and purely Milesian line; he is a resident and most kind landlord; he is, and his family has ever been, the strenuous advocate of Catholic Emancipation. Every conceivable tie that could bind dependents to their protector, existed to knit the hearts of his tenantry to that man, above all others. But no: Mr Sheil would see Sir Edward, and every other Sir in Christendom, to the d-1, before he would give up an opportunity of laying on a little more rhetorical colouring, (the Association periphrasis for uttering malignant falsehoods,) and accordingly a little hypothesis is gratuitously cooked up, on the spur of the moment, that Sir Edward is to withdraw his protection from his renegade tenantry, actually to demand his rents and arrears, and no longer to shower down kindness on the miscreants who have insulted him; and thereupon he is denounced as an "infamous tyrant," and the sickening revels of the maggots in his dead corpse are jauntily detailed. I can answer for Sir Edward O'Brien, that he is as incapable of committing any act unworthy of a gentleman and a christian, as Mr Sheil is incapable of appreciating or conceiving the mo tives which actuate his conduct; but Í CANNOT answer for Sir Edward, nor for any gentleman, that he may not become somewhat indifferent about the wel fare of men who have deserted their master, of whose house their forefathers have been dependents for centuries, to enlist under the banners of an itinerant upstart. Truly these strolling vagabonds of the Association will do well to beware in time. The cup of bitterness has gone on filling to the brim; a drop may overflow it: hitherto, we have opposed to them only the vis inertia of silent scorn; but if they once rouse us to a pitch of excitement corresponding to that in which they themselves indulge, with law and power on our side, they will find us fearful adversaries to cope withal. The feeling which exists among the gentlemen (emphatically speaking) of Clare, is well and simply expressed in the first resolution entered into at the county meeting held by them-the Right Hon. Mr Vandaleur, formerly member for the county, in the chair. The resolution was moved by the Hon. Baronet above-mentioned, also formerly a member, and father of the present member, Mr L. O'Brien. Resolved, "That we have witness. ed with surprise and indignation the attempts which have been made through strange and unconstitutional channels, to dissolve the connexion and good feeling which have hitherto subsisted between the landed proprietors and the tenantry under their protection." Men are not always least determi ned in their actions, when most moderate in their language. One word in conclusion to the conscientious supporters of Catholic Emancipation in the Commons House of Parliament:-You are gentlemen of England, and as such, I approach you with the profound deference and re spect due to men who bear the proudest title in the world. Once I thought as you do. Mournful experience has made me a sadder and a wiser man. The question now comes before you in a light in which it never presented itself before. It is no longer whether Roman Catholics are to be admitted, by the will of the Legislature, to sit and vote in Parliament, but whether they are to take that privilege by storm, in the Legislature's despite: Whether the House of Commons, like the kingdom of Heaven in the days of John the Baptist, is to suffer violence, and the violent to take it by force. When the Act of Union is pleaded by the assailants of decency and order, remember that one of the things to which that Union pledged you in reality and truth, was to maintain the Protestant religion, and the Church of Ireland in full possession of her rights, privileges, and dignities. I ask you to look into your own hearts, and say, can you, consistently with the letter and the spirit of that Union, strengthen the hands of the vile and now insig nificant party of radical reformers? Can you swell the ranks of London shopkeepers and Scotch apothecaries, by drafting in a supplement of association demagogues, who ground their claims to support, upon their avowed advocacy of the reversal of that Union, the spoliation of that Church, and the overthrow of the existing constitution in both State and Church, couched under the idle name of radical reform? Gentlemen of England! you have estates, and common sense to wish to keep them. Do you believe, that if rotten-hearted temple-robbers be allowed to crowd the benches of Saint Stephens, and mouth at you to your beards, any sane man can deem his own property a whit more secure than that of an ecclesiastical corporation? In addition to the foregoing communication, which is written with the heat and lively indignation natural to one writing from the scene of such actions as disgraced the Clare Election, we subjoin a notice from a London correspondent on the same subject. The storm of "agitation" which shook Ireland during the Clare election, was slightly felt for a few days even here, where we have happily something better and more important to do, than to trouble ourselves much about the wholesale madness which it has pleased the Irish to display upon the present occasion. We were at first a little startled at the new and imposing form which the audacity and absurdity of the Irish Papists had assumed; but a very brief consideration was sufficient to change our feelings into disgust at the ferocious folly, and pity for the miserable and slavish bigotry, which were the most prominent features of the scene presented by the Clare election. It is really an afflicting thing to behold in a part of the United Kingdom, within a few hundred miles of us, thousands of people driven along like cattle by Popish priests, thousands of men so destitute of knowledge, so abandoned of reason, so lost to principle and decency, that they turn their backs upon all natural ties and connexions, insult those to whose protection they owe their existence, and yoke themselves like beasts, to the chariot wheels of a noisy bully, and an utter stranger, merely because the Popish priests tell them it is the cause of God and of religion, and denounce damnation as the penalty of their disobedience. The English look at this with disgust and pity, and turn with pride and confidence to the state of their own island, where the law alone is paramount, and no priest dares to assert more influence over his fellow men, than his character and property may give him a claim to, in common with the rest of society. This confidence in our law, and its strength, has the pleasant effect of rendering us very indifferent about the proceedings of this O'Connell, who makes so great a fuss where he has the priests at his back, who again have the necks of the common people under their feet. We no doubt regret, that the law not happening to contemplate such monstrous folly as that of a man seeking to be returned to Parliament, who was disqualified from sitting in either of the houses, did not provide against such a one being elected; but we see clearly the point where his folly and presumption must be stopped, because the law will check him, and he will have no rabble, with priests at their head, to carry things by brute force. Mr O'Connell may swagger about, and listen to the shouts of his Irish mob, and exercise with a childish delight the petty privilege of franking, by which his correspondents will have to pay for his letters only exactly what they are worth-these things he may do for a little time; and if he can enjoy any pleasure from things so paltry, he is very welcome to it; but we de spise him here as heartily as we ever did-and if he should come to presume to take his seat in Parliament, without taking the oaths, which our law says he shall take, or not sit, we shall laugh at his impudence, read the account of his dismissal from the House, in the morning papers at our breakfast, and presently forget him, as we turn to the next paragraph about some other "new monster just arrived." As to the Catholic question, I have not the least doubt that it has great ly lost ground in England, by this exploit in Clareshire; and the reason is, that it has opened the eyes of the people in this country to the real state of the case. When the people here judge erroneously about any thing, it is generally because they are misled about the facts, either of the case itself, or the circumstances which bear upon it. It has been incessantly preached up by certain orators, chiefly Irish, who were either deceived themselves, or wished to deceive others, that the Roman Catholics were very enlightened and liberal in their politics, very anxious to unite with their Protestant friends, if the Constitution would put them on an equality, and particularly abounding in gratitude; so that if power were granted them, they would be most happy to use it for the benefit of those who had been so kind as to give it to them. "Talk of securities," said the orators; "what better security can you have than the lively gratitude of those millions, whose chains you have struck off?" Such was the metaphorical flourish; but what is the truth? What do the English people now sce to be the truth? They see an example of base ingratitude, the like of which a whole people has scarcely exhibited since the days of Themistocles and the fickle Athenians. They see a people mani festly without sense or discretion to use with prudence or decency any. power which might be conceded to them, and totally enslaved to Popish priests, a description of persons for whom the English certainly have no particular respect, and in whom they have not such confidence as to place that additional power in their hands, which they might yield, if they believed it would be fairly and discreetly exercised by the people. They see, in fact, that there is no such thing in Ireland, as what we in England emphatically call" The people." There are brawling demagogues and Popish priests-the rest of the Romanists are mere mobmere ignorant bigoted slaves, that may be either goaded into terrific fury, or driven peaceably along the road, even as bullocks may be. They have nothing but mere animal force, and animal passions, and these are completely at the disposal of their drivers, the above said demagogues and Popish priests. Is this a state of society to which more political power is to be given? Is our constitution to be altered to enable these demagogues and Popish priests to send some seventy of their body into the Lower House of Parliament, and to qualify some seventeen to sit in the Upper? I am persuaded the English people will now pretty unanimously reply in the negative. They see that by doing so they would give the people nothing, and the demagogues and the priests every thing. It is in Ireland a notorious truth, that five-sixths of the mob called forty-shilling freeholders, are not freeholders at all, at least, not bona fide freeholders. So far from having any freehold interest, they are unable to pay the rent, and in many cases the land could not possibly pay the rent, to which they are bound. The men who voted in the teeth of their landlords at Clare, almost all owe a year's rent, and have grossly insulted the gentlemen to whose forbearance they are indebted for a house to shelter themselves, and their wives and children. The punishment which follows in such a case must cause great misery, and if the legislature be not disposed to abolish the forty-shilling franchise altogether in Ireland, it would be a charity to the poor priestridden people, to enact that their votes should not be valid, unless they could produce a receipt for the last gale of the rent reserved in the lease under which they claim to vote. Some people expect that Lord John Russell's motion respecting Ireland, will draw from the Government a declaration of their sentiments respect ing the late affair in Clareshire. Others say the motion will not be brought on at all. Even if it should, the report can hardly reach you in time to be noticed in your next Number. London, July 13, 1828. THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. [The Ancients entertained an idea, that the Celestial Bodies emitted melodious sounds on their passage through the Heavens every Planet and Star, according to this strange fiction, being accompanied with Music of its own creating.] VOL. XXIV. SOFT are your voices, O! ye spheres, Whose echo lingers long behind, Their echoing streams of sound can hear; But never, tuneful orbs, to me Your spirit floats-a holy hymn. Methinks the South wind bears your song, Her viewless realm, is fill'd with sound. Roll on, roll on, majestic spheres, To sing your glorious path through heaven; A MODERN PYTHAGOREAN. 2 F RESIDENCES OF OUR LIVING POETS. No. I. BREMHILL PARSONAGE. A VERY delightful series of Articles might, we think, be written with some such title as "Residences of our Living Poets." We know of nobody else so well qualified to write such a delightful series of articles as ourself; so suppose we begin with Bremhill Parsonage, the residence of the Rev. William Lisle Bowles. Mr Bowles has, fortunately for us, published The Parochial History of Bremhill, in the county of Wilts; containing a particular account, from authentic and unpublished documents, of the Cistercian Abbey of Stanley, in that parish, with Observations and Reflections on the Origin and Establishment of Parochial Clergy, and other circumstances of General Parochial interest, including Illustrations of the Origin and Designation of the stupendous Monuments of Antiquity in the neighbourhood, Avebury, Silbury, and Wansdike. It is a book the most interesting of the kind we ever read; and therefore, before giving our readers a peep of the Parsonage, let us all take a stroll together, Mr Bowles, Christopher North, and a reasonable number of our subscribers, through the parish, feeling at every step the truth of the motto to this volume : "Nor rude nor barren are the winding ways Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers." Before we go farther, indulge us in one little remark; namely, that we wonder why clergymen do not oftener write accounts of their parishes; not mere statistical accounts, though these are most valuable, as witness the contributions of the Scottish Clergy to the truly patriotic Sir John Sinclair's work; but accounts comprehending every thing interesting to all human beings, whatever be their political or religious creed. A description of a church that has principally ceased to exist, is in general very, very, very dry; inscriptions on tomb-stones, with out comment, or moral, are hard reading; an old pan dug up among rubbish proves a sore affliction in the hands of the antiquary, and twenty pages quarto, with plates, about a rusty spur without a rowel, is, in our humble opinion, an abuse of the art of printing. But how easy-how pleasant, to mix up together all sorts of information in due proportions into one whole, in the shape of an octavoepitomizing every kind of history be◄ longing to the parish, from peer's palace to peasant's hut! What are clergymen perpetually about? Not always preaching and praying; or mar◄ rying, christening, and burying people. They ought to tell us all about it; to moralize, to poetize, to philosophize; to paint the manners living as they rise, or dead as they fall; to take Time by the forelock, and ineasure the marks of his footsteps; to shew us the smoke curling up from embowered chimneys; or, since woods must go down, to record the conquests of the biting axe; to celebrate the raising of every considerable roof-tree, to lament all dilapidations and crumbling away of ivied walls; to inform us how many fathoms deep is the lake with its abbeyed island-why the pool below the aged bridge gets shallower and shallower every year, so that it can no more shelter a salmon-what are the sports, and games, and pas◄ they read, if any-if the punishment times of the parishioners-what books of the stocks be obsolete or the stang or the jougs-if the bowels of the people yearn after strange doctrineif the parish has produced any good or great murderer, incendiary, or other criminal. In short, why might not the history of each of the twenty or thirty thousand parishes of Great Britain-we speak at random-be each a history of human nature, at once entertaining and instructive? How infinitely better such books than pamphlets on political economy, for example, now encumbering the whole land! Nay, even than single sermons, or bundles of sermons, all like so many sticks-strong when tied all together, but when taken separately weak and frush. We have no great opinion of |
