and the venerable looks of these old men, who had borne the highest offices of the State, awed the barbarous enemy into reverence: they took them to be the tutelar deities of the place, and began to offer blind adoration, till one more forward than the rest put forth his hand to stroke the beard of Papyrius, who, resenting the supposed insult, lifted up his ivory sceptre and struck the barbarian to the ground. This seemed as a signal for general slaughter: Papyrius fell first, and all the rest shared his fate without mercy or distinction.' If (metaphorically speaking) Mr. Bright were to put forth his hand to profane the Lord Chancellor's wig, it would be more spirited than prudent to knock him down with the mace. A representative assembly, firm in the confidence of the people, can be rough, rude, and pugnacious on occasions, without any perceptible decrease of authority, stability, or power. An hereditary one can never descend into the arena of wordy warfare without an irrecoverable loss of prestige. We will risk a familiar illustration. Roderic Random's friend, Strap, a decent man in his way, took off his coat to engage in a pugilistic encounter with a blacksmith. He got worsted in the fight, and on turning to resume his coat, discovered that it was gone. So will it fare with the Lords if they put off their dignity to hurl foul scorn or haughty defiance at the Commons. They will be beaten; and on turning to resume their dignity, they will find that it has vanished like the coat. In announcing the final settlement to the Commons, Mr. Gladstone gracefully withdrew, with an expression of regret, the words which had given offence to the Lords, and paid their Lordships a compliment of the kind which, according to Rochefoucauld, is particularly acceptable to elderly ladies on the wane. He praised them for qualities they no longer possessed. He acknowledged with satisfaction and thankfulness not only the ability, which I grant to be a great ornament and glory of the other House as displayed in debate, but that comprehensive sagacity and forethought, that power of realising the future and of preparing for it, which done, I think, has brought about on their part the recommendation of the settlement which I am now authorised to urge on the House.' Then rising to the situation, he began a striking peroration with these words: Sir, we have arrived, indeed, at a great period. When this Bill receives-as I trust it will receive, within a very few days-the assent of the Crown, every man must be conscious that a change has begun to pass over the moral atmosphere of Ireland.' The peculiar nature of this measure, which has been called a revolution, is here correctly indicated. Considering the noise that has been made about it, its operation will be singularly noiseless. At this moment, it is little more than a recognition of equality, a declaration of justice, a sentimental remedy for a sentimental wrong. No one is bodily expelled or reinstated. There is no material or pecuniary ground for mourning or rejoicing-no severing of local or family ties, no forced abandonment of home or country. No sentient being gains or loses by it: the only sufferer is that abstraction called the Church. 'I think, too' (Mr. Gladstone proceeded), 'that quite apart from the differing views which we have taken on this measure, every man will feel that at the introduction of this new period it is a solemn duty for each of us, in his sphere, to labour to accomplish his own prophecies if they have been sanguine, and to defeat his own predictions if they have been gloomy and un Would rather that the man should die, and there is one class or faction, at 'At the time when the late Ministry inaugurated the fatal attack upon the Irish Church by Lord Mayo's notorious speech, a sarcastic member of the present Cabinet-himself no mean judge of the negative value of a journeyman politician's honour-was heard to remark, "Well, I thought if there was anything Cairns would not sell, it was the Irish Church." Our readers will see in our Parliamentary report this morning abundant proof that Cairns has sold the Church, and the Peers, independent and Conservative who are friends of the Church; and, we most sincerely hope and believe, has thrown himself into the bargain.' What else did they expect? A Tory leader is simply labouring in his vocation when he sells his party. Have they already forgotten When such slaves presume Cairns and Mr. Disraeli had succeeded in upsetting Mr. Gladstone by throwing out the Bill, their first step on succeeding him would have been to pass it, as they passed the Reform Bill, in a harsher and more trenchant form, without limitation or reserve? In the same article we find::'The political result of the contemptible transaction of yesterday we hail with entire satisfaction. It puts an end, we trust for ever, to the delusion under which the Protestants of Ireland have now for more than seventy years allowed themselves to be dragged at the tail of an English Tory and Jacobite faction. The natural alliance of the English settlers in this country was ever with the Whigs of England. From the epoch of the Great Rebellion, through the Great Revolution, through the short independent life of Ireland from '82 down to the Union, it subsisted. The new and fatal league then formed with the Tories of England was ever disastrous to Ireland as a nation-to Protestant Ireland as an English military colony. It is now, we trust, broken, never to be renewed.' This readiness to transfer themselves, their rotten cause, and their grievances to the Whigs (when they can find them) is quite in the regular mock-heroic vein : Begone, cares, doubts, and fears, I make you all a present to the winds; Should the laity refuse to come was a FRASER'S MAGAZINE FOR AUGUST 1869 CONTAINS PRIMARY EDUCATION. A VISIT TO MY DISCONTENTED COUSIN. CHAPTERS XVI. TO XIX. TWO IRISH TOURISTS. A MAY RAMBLE.-BY A. K. H. B. CREDIT AND CRISES.-BY BONAMY PRICE. JABEZ OLIPHANT; OR, THE MODERN PRINCE.-BOOK III. CHAPTERS I. TO III. SHAKESPEARE'S VOCABULARY AND STYLE. A FEW WORDS ON UTILITARIANISM.-BY ROBERT WILLIAMS. CAST-AWAY! THE IRISH CHURCH BILL. NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. Correspondents are desired to observe, that all Communications must le addressed direct to the Editor. Rejected Contributions cannot be returned. |