proached, legislative nostrums were hastily prescribed, but it took so long a time to compound the ingredients that the rapid decay which had so suddenly set in, proved fatal before the relief arrived. All the Stanley-stimulants which are now in progress will be applied to a lifeless corse-and their effect will be as unavailing to restore vigour to the carcase of sacerdotal oppression, as they will also fail in smarting the PEACEABLE INVINCIBLES of Ireland into the frenzy of a revolt.

Ireland at the present moment presents all the signs and consequences of a province which is consigned to the rule of a military government-the only feature which is wanting to complete the keeping of the picture is to have the members of the judicial tribunals habited in glittering uniforms. Trials are held under all the pride, pomp and circumstance of war, and executions have taken place where the scaffold was encircled with shotted artillery. The circulars of ignorant military men expound the laws by which the dearest and most sacred rights of the citizen were hitherto preserved, and acting under the arbitrary dictates of which those rights have been outraged, and personal liberty abridged. An audacious disdain for public opinion has been displayed by those who are called "in power;" but they ought to recollect that the pedestals upon which they are placed have not a foundation of adamant-that they rest upon a sandy soil, and depend for their perpendicular position upon an equilibrium which may be easily overturned.

The legality of the anti-tithe conventions is only questioned by those who have no other excuse to offer in defence of their own conduct in dispersing them by the direction of brute force. It is not in the sentiments which may be wrung from them or their partisans that the truth is to be found, and the indecent warmth which the judges have betrayed in their charges to grand juries is sufficient reason to deter us from depending upon their expositions to ascertain whether the sacred line of demarcation has been transgressed or not. Now the question must be decided as in an emergency, when man is deprived of the assistance of those to whom, in the pure and conscientious discharge of their duties, he ought to appeal for guidance; but he now must trust in the strength of his own conceptions, and the rectitude of his own conclusions, to direct him in the course he is to pursue. It would be wasting a serious comment upon a senseless text to undertake the task of exposing the silly charges of conspiracy and even of rebellion, which have been fulminated against the Irish people both in the Senate and from the Bench-in the Court and the Camp-from Sir Edward Sugden the lawyer, down to the sapient Sir George Bingham the soldier, who, constituting himself into a mounted court-martial, passed sentence at sight on Mr. Hodnett, as a rebel and a traitor! Mr. Stanley ascertains the presence of sedition amongst 150,000 persons by an analysis of the colours and devices of their banners. Green and white, he says, strongly indicate that the separation of the kingdoms is the object of those who rally round such a standard, for white not being a colour, is purposely placed in contrast with green, which is a colour of a very peculiar and dangerous tint; therefore the want of harmony between both is held

up to the multitude as a direct intimation that the two kingdoms should be disconnected! "The people are the stronger," is a discovery, which, in audacity, surpasses all the mechanical inventions of those ambitious times. "Ireland as she ought to be" could not be expected to meet the sanction of one who, if he can help it, will never allow her to reach that point of prosperity; but the climax of all is a flag which bore the figure of a harp with a crown detached. "This," said the Right Honorable Secretary, "is typical of a repeal of the union." Monstrous emblem, a decapitated harp! it is infinitely worse than the favourite sign over the doors of the inns in the United States, which represents LIBERTY trampling upon a Royal diadem! The rebellion raging in Ireland at the present proves the great advance of improvement in our days, when even that dreadful convulsion can take place, and extend itself all over the kingdom, and yet is deprived of all the old-fashioned horrors and calamities which attended it in former times. The introduction of steam was certainly a great step in the advance of navigation; but the new system of agitation has done much more for the improvement of politics, for CONSPIRACY may be entered into for the sake of sociability, and even REBELLION may now be enjoyed as a harmless recreation.

It requires not an unusual share of foresight to see how these proceedings will end. The people will be triumphant by obeying the reverse of that belief which formerly led them to the onset.

"Who spills the foremost foeman's life,

His party conquers in the strife."

No longer has this delusion a power over their actions: they will be peaceable, for they are resolved to be free. They laugh at the gambols of General Bombastes and his heroic band. "The war of opinion" is not to be decided by the rules of carnage; and Ireland, which has been for centuries the haunt of the eagle, shall in future be known as the tranquil home of the dove. The fiery spirit of the former failed to accomplish what the peaceable perseverance of the latter has now nearly attained.

THE SENTINEL.

Behind a clump of stunted trees,
A scanty shelter from the breeze,
A sentry paced with measured tread,

And crossed half-way the watch-fire red,

His sleeping comrades round it lying;

And upward oft his eye he cast

To mark before the chilling blast

The light clouds o'er the pale moon flying;
Then turned a quick a watchful glance,

Where stretched before the warming ray,

Buried in sleep a captive lay,

The object of his vigilance.

Oh! who that knows the fleecy cloud

Of morn will hover o'er his shroud,

Yet sleeps as soft as deep as he,

Yon slumb'rer 'midst the soldiery?

Oh! who that knows a few hours hence,

And words of scorn and death of shame
End all his hopes of meed and fame,
Yet finds repose so calm, intense,
Save him who's steeled in innocence ?
So thought the wearied sentinel.
He stopped midway, his musket fell
Clattering on the frozen ground,
And starting at the unmeant sound,
With folded arms, and steadfast gaze
On captive's form, or watch-fires blaze,
He sank in thought profound.

'Tis true the sentry's stare,

His unmoved eye, his look intent,
Upon that form or flame are bent,

But, ah! they rest not there.

His is that deep gaze, fixed, full, and warm, Which, turned on things of dull and earthy form, Yet heeds them not,

But thro' the vista of reality,

Conjures the objects of its fantasy

The acts and actors of some well-loved spot.

He sees the little group once more

Around him on his native shore

He sees again the tear-drops chase
Their torrents down each pallid face,
And thinks of when in boyish pride

The cockade to his hat he tied,

And saw his full-trapped comrades round,
And heard the summ'ning trumpets sound
To gain the ships last boat,

Why burst the wild heart-rending cry
Upon the joyous note?

Why stopped his mother's farewell sigh
Convulsive in her throat?

And when his father grasped his hand

Why felt it like a blazing brand?
The knew-alas! they knew too well
The toils their soldier-boy must brave,

And as they sighed their last farewell,

Ah! where, they thought, will be his grave.
Yet see 'tis past-what thoughts now swell
The bosom of the sentinel ?

Why flash his eyes? why waves his arm?
What means the deep flush on his cheek?
Where lies the wonder-working charm?

What mystic fires around him break?
'Tis hope of fame-the beacon-light,
That cheers the soldier in the fight,
The rainbow of an eve of sorrow
Promising a glorious morrow.

He sees his comrades round him throng,
Charging with their battle song-
He sees the foe before him fly-

He hears the shout of victory.

They run, the foemen run-c'en now
He feels the laurel wreathe his brow-
E'en now he leaves the foreign strand-
E'en now he treads his native land,
And sees his valley's tap'ring spire
Rise o'er yon tree, and now the fire
Round which the legendary tale

Of days long past has oft been told-
And turned the maiden's cheek more pale,
Or fired the young, or warmed the old.
Home-once more the magic thought
Its train of wild affections brought
Around the sentry's heart, and then
He sank in musing deep again.

In memory or fancy lost,

With arms upon his musket crost,

And eye turned on the watch-fire brands,
While yet the soldier pensive stands.
Across the snow-clad mountain side
With swift, yet soft and stealthy, stride-
With step lost in the torrents gush-
With form concealed by scattered bush,
Or shade from prec'pice beetling high,
Or light cloud passing o'er the sky,
Near and more near a figure steals,
Running now, and now it kneels→→

with a scrap of barbarian French. Orpheus could not furnish too I ask pardon of my larned countrymen for heading such an article

an

nor Menander one too grave, for an essay con

cerning Trinity College, Dublin. But as my library is not stocked with the writings of those famous ancients, this quotation from Theophrastes of Gaul must stand where it is, until some "learned The

College, is a royal foundation, and was erected by Queen Elizabeth Trinity-or, as our Thetaizing christians pronounce it, Thrinity on a plot of marshy land eastward of Dublin, from which city it was then distant about half the length of an English mile.

That fact is

tant in the gilded stamp of its premium-books. On the cover of each plainly indicated by the geographical title of the University, still exquiddam honorarium of this description, the College is styled, "Coll. Sancta Individæ Trinitatis juxta, Dublin." And there is in the unwritten traditions of the place, an authentic document of that eminent Black-letter-man, the late Doctor Barrett, which bears witrous to the same effect. Finding himself one morning most unaccountably perambulating the flags of Dame-street-I suppose he steps to the venerable precincts, with every paving-stone of which they were familiar, he thus accosted a sturdy citizen: "Pray, Surr,

dee ye see me, which is the way to Thrinity College, near Dublin ?” "Follow your nose," replied the uncivilised Dubliner, who apparently imagined that the Vice-Provost wanted to take what we others call"a rise" out of him. But the Doctor was quite in earnest; and luckily for himself, he considered his informant to be so too; for by following his leading feature as he was bid, he walked straightway under the dingy gate by the dirty porter's lodge, Dame-street and Trinity College near Dublin holding the same relative position as Ludgate Hill and St. Paul's. But whatever may have been the original situation of our University with respect to the city of Dublin, she now stands-thanks to the march of brick and mortar-in the very bowels of the town, and is surrounded on all sides, except where her own park and gardens intervene, by streets, lanes, alleys, stables, coal-yards, and other haunts of men.

As I said awhile ago, and now repeat, Trinity College is a royal foundation, and being royal, doth confer, with its other honors and graduations, a degree of gentility unknown to the Step-sister Establishment of Maynooth. The Literati of Cork, with the Earl of Mountcashel at their head, have been moving heaven and earth to obtain a charter for a College on the banks of the Lee. They were jealous, no doubt, for the purity of their brogue, which a four years' residence with the Silent Sister is thought to impair; but had they succeeded even to their utmost wishes, it would be many a long day before any thing like a rivalry could be attempted. Men's ears should be very well inured to such a Cacophonous title as Blackpool College, Cork, before they would lose their taste and respect for T. C. D. Those neat and elegant capitals which run so trippingly along the tongue have a talismanic power. Engrave them on a gentleman's card and they are the open sessame to which all doors of consideration freely expand themselves. Put an F before them, and they are passe partout. The bearer himself is often astonished at the good company they bring him into.

*

For example, there is my quondam class-fellow, Myles O'Flynn. Little did he dream, twenty years ago, when he lay castle building on the sunny side of Slieunaman, that a great man's gentleman would ever sing out his name at the door of a crowded drawing-room. I believe I was present the first time he found himself in that awkward predicament. He stared around him in perfect amazement, thrust his nose into every body's face but the right one, tugged at his Limerick gloves till he pushed his dirty nails clean out through the fingers' ends of them, and rubbed up his curly pate with both hands into a living image of that phenomenon in cookery, a calf's head surprised.

Myles was a mighty rough, uncivilized, queer-looking fellow, the day he took possession of that comfortable garret which adjoins the Library in the Brick-square. Five pounds would have paid for his entire furniture and wardrobe. If he had two shirts it was the utmost; and it is recorded, upon what I would deem sufficient evi

* A Mountain in Tipperary.