1

and bless, to destroy and curse. Through the adventurous energy of this principle it is that nations have been raised to fame and dominion; but the same agency, when it could no longer expand, has, by its unchequered violence, shattered the fabric it reared, and left but a ruin to attest its power. From it spring the arts of Greece, the arms of Rome, the sway of Britain; but also the factions of Athens, the civil wars of Rome, the bloody reign of the Directory ;-while the true caloric, that animates within the national bosom the sleeping germs of future glory, it also generates those volcanic elements, whose mighty and unresisted heavings have crumbled empires to dust. In every state that groans not beneath a tyrant's yoke, its operation is incessant, and when not enlisted in the cause of patriotism, becomes an engine potent to destroy, if not itself destroyed. Promptitude in detecting, and determination in resisting the first workings of this evil leaven, display the statesman's power and genius. When zeal for national freedom betrays the first symptoms of the morbid change, as it gradually advances to the fever of democratic ambition-when, not the pain of experienced evils, but the cravings of anticipated power, become the incentive to action-when, not the reason of the legislator, but the passions of the multitude are appealed to-when popular triumph, and not national weal is the motive that impels-then to hesitate is to fall. This is the moment to shew the determined front to the spirit of change, and that restless passion, which

Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo, Parva metu primo, mox sese attolet in auras, Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit, will, when the anticipations on which it lives are blasted, of itself expire. But delay is death-a few moments can swell the ripple that murmurs to the surge that overwhelms.

The vigilance of the magistrate in detecting and guarding against this danger can never for a moment be relaxed, since materials are never wanting wherewith a sordid ambition can gratify its lust. Even in the highest

state of national prosperity, the ery of want and impatience will still be heard; and though the philanthropist may lament, the philosopher will admit the fact, that in the most perfect of our institutions, as the scale of society descends, causes of complaint will niultiply. In the straitness of increasing numbers, and the proportionate increase of pauperism in the unequal distribution of wealth, and the consequent limitation of civil privileges in the advance of science and civilization, by whose increasing light constitutional errors will ever be observed-and in other evils inseparable from human society-the fruitful seeds of commotion will ever be found. And in addition to those antagonist influences which ever exist to threaten and perturb, there are others, less frequent in their occurrence, but more perilous in their results. States, like individuals, have their peculiar periods, wher there is an increased degree of susceptibility to irritation-when the poison of disaffection is more easily infused. Varied and numerous are the causes which may originate this morbid state. The reactions of newly wakened energies after the thraldom of a moral despotism* the works of some perverted genius, which, flowing through the souls of men, sap the foundations of truth and purityf-the efforts of an ambitious hierarchy to extend their iron sway, or other causes more inscrutable, but not less potent-may rouse a nation to violent and increasing fervour; but whatever be the source of excitement-whatever be the character it assumes,. or the aspect it displays whether fanaticism, super stition, or infidelity-the channel it finally flows in has ever been the same

hostility to existing government, and organization to effect its overthrow. Every age of civil dissension has witnessed the unholy alliance between democratic passion and, fanatic or infidel zeal-religion or scepticism being first the wateh-word, but soon becoming the war,cry to revolt and revolution. The language of virtue may be prostituted to its service-the mantle of patriotism may be worn, but it cannot long conceal the dagger

+ Voltaire and the French Revolution.

The Irish Rebellion of 1798.

that lurks beneath, nor prevent the character and designs of the wearer from being soon revealed; and bloodbought experience at last attests, that from such polluted fountains the streams of freedom can never flow, nor aught but the corrupt and corrupting license of ochlocratic tyranny. At such periods as these, when popular excitement is stung to frenzy by superstitious zeal-when civil strife dips its dagger in the venom of religious hate the democrat is flung to the surface from the filth which gave him birth-his depraved lust obtaining a theatre on which it may expatiate—and he soon enacts his part. To expand the mephitic vapours of faction, and ripen them into deadlier pestilence to foster the brooding elements of revolution in the popular mind-to foment the troubles which are at once the source and condition of his existence becomes the great end and object of every effort, and experience abundantly proves how successfully the task may be accomplished. At such periods prompt resistance is more imperatively called for-deference to the popular will becomes a crime-concession, then, instead of allaying, pours oil on the kindling embers of disaffection. If vacillating weakness then characterize the ruling power, the nation's doom is sealed-as at such a time the genial influence of a timid policy swells discontent to sedition, sedition to rebellion, rebellion to revolution and iron despotism-each step in the fatal series being at once the offspring of the past, and the parent of the future.

These reflections have been suggested by the contemplation of the occurrences of the past year-a retrospect, every glance of which curdles the blood with indignation. One sentence may epitomize the character of its policy-passive imbecility in the ruler, unequalled but by the daring ambition of the subject an unvarying reiteration of concessions, measured only by the insatiable lust to which they ministered-a scene of incessant rivalry between the legislator and the people, to try whether the one could yield or the other encroach to the more fatal degree. And behold the result-never since the days of Emmet and Fitzgerald has our situation been so precarious-all the elements which then gloomingly mingled and gathered as a thunder-cloud to burst upon us being now in motion, and lowering more portentously over us. Ireland, all but under a foreign

yoke, is at this moment without any legislature but the will of a demagogue, one of the slaves of a hostile power, dependant on that will for peace or revolt, expecting each moment the boding stillness of a treacherous tranquillity to be broken by the drunken roar of an insurgent populace. A mindless crowd, harmonized by agency, potent as subtle, cemented by infernal rites in a brotherhood of sedition, have become the arbiters of a nation's destines. The mask of moderation which was assumed and retained until power was accumulated, has been flung away-the language of solicitation abandoned-and while the most daring demands are made, the means of enforcing them are paraded-physical force becoming the final tribunal of appeal. While yet neophites in sedition, enlargement of privilege was the extent and limit of their desires; but rash concession to their demands has at once stimulated the cravings of their lust, and multiplied the instruments of its gratification. They have in their progress through the phases of incipient revolution-(a succession, uniform as a law of nature,) discovered the difference between privilege and spoliation, and the former is now valued only as subservient to the latter. With power has experience been acquired, and the sphere of action enlarged. The question is not now one of franchise, but property-not of equality of rights, but encroachment on vested property not of religious liberty, but of sacrilege and extirpation-every new concession being made the incentive to a fresh and more daring assault, and paraded forth as the triumph of indignant patriotism over a tyrannic and debilitated oligarchy.

And no marvel that such is the state of things. In the policy our rulers have adopted may be found a specimen of misgovernment, wholly without example, destructive in its influence on the present, and opening out a future of strife and horror. If their object from the outset had been to scourge our countrymen to discord and convulsion-to fill Ireland with the flames of civil war-to extirpate every vestige of our church-and to sever the British empire - the ingenuity of infernal malice could not have succeeded better-while a lawless faction, drunk with the intoxication of fancied triumph, are clamouring for our destruction, they regard their advance with passive acquiescence; or worse, they