state ANY INSTANCE in which the Riband Society was used for any purpose in reference to an election! Major Warburton, however, says (673 to 676) that he thought some use was made of the Society at the great Clare election, at which Mr. O'Connell was returned in 1828; but added, that he could not mention any other instance where it was supposed to have occurred. These two statements contain, as we believe, every syllable of evidence to which the Quarterly could appeal in support of the statement that Catholic priests had applied to Ribandmen for their assistance in contested elections. The first thing to be observed about these passages is, that not a syllable is contained in either statement about the Catholic clergy at all. In reference to the general assertions of Mr. Rowan, we need only say that his gullibility was so prodigious as to be indeed incredible. Mr. Kemmis, who is a pretty staunch Conservative, who has been for nine-and-thirty years the crown solicitor of the Leinster circuit and of the county and city of Dublin, and who has for the same period been solicitor to the Treasury in Ireland, this gentleman examined, with a view to prosecution, all the rigmarole "information" sent up from time to time by Mr. Rowan, and concluded the enquiry by deciding that there was nothing tangible about the statements, and that it was impossible to decide whether the whole was not a fabrication. (Quest. 6779.) The commissioners of police in the city of Dublin had for some time daily interviews with Mr. Rowan upon the subject of Ribandism, but never could get from him any information, except a statement that the Riband Societies now expected to make O'Connell king of Ireland, and to overthrow the Protestant religion, WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF THE DUKE OF LEINSTER! (Q.4777.) With regard to Major Warburton, the grounds upon which his opinion was founded are truly ridiculous. "The mode," says he, "in which IT APPEARED to me to work was, that as soon as the persons came up to the court-house, they received some sign, some signal, and immediately upon that they voted directly contrary to what appeared to be their intention to do." (676.) He does not even profess to say that he sai any signal, much less that he knew anything about the person from whom it was imagined to proceed. Mr. Mitchell, speaking of his translation of a part of Aristophanes, informs us that he has occasionally translated nods and gestures, as well as mere words.* If Major Warburton should happen to

* ΣΦΗΚΕΣ, ν. 943.

be inferior to Mr. Mitchell in the fidelity of a translator, he is at least much superior to him in the inventive imagination of a poet. Mr. Mitchell translated only nods that were nodded, and gestures that were gesticulated; but Major Warburton devises the gesticulation first, and translates it afterwards. Somebody appearing to have some intention to vote for some candidate, comes to the court-house, and there appears to receive from somebody some sign, of which the consequence appears to be that he votes in some way different from some other way in which he had appeared to have intended to vote;-argal, says the major, some use appears to have been made of the Riband Society at the great election for Clare in 1828! Such is the extent of the case, upon the major's own showing;-such the premises, and such the conclusions, of the Roden committee, and their literary assistants. Let us now see how the matter stands upon the other side of the question.

Major Brown, the commissioner of police in Dublin, who has had great experience as a magistrate in all parts of Ireland, says that he never heard of any interference by Ribandmen at any election. (5061-2.) Captain Despard says (3213) that Ribandism had not extended at all into the south, where Clare is situated. Major Brown says (5081 to 5089) that no Ribandism exists in several counties which he mentions, including Clare; whilst Mr. Barrington, who has for nearly thirty years been crown solicitor of the Munster circuit, which includes the county of Clare, says:

"I never could trace upon my circuit such a society as Ribandism is described to be, and I believe that no such societies have existed there during my time. We never had a case of Ribandism on my circuit; in fact, I hardly KNOW WHAT IT Is.” (7540, 7541, 7514.) "I hardly think it could be upon the circuit without my knowing it." (7516.)

"I have never even heard that any papers requiring investigation were found there." (7542.)

"I think it highly improbable that any system of combination or of premeditated mischief to any considerable extent could prevail in my circuit without my knowledge, as I have been for years anxious to find out the cause of every outrage, in order to discover what would be the appropriate remedy to prevent the recurrence of disturbance." (7442.)

Such evidence from such a man disposes pretty effectually of the subject-matter in controversy. Before we conclude, however, we may as well produce an extract from another part of the evidence of Major Warburton himself, who says:

(976) " that he does not think he can state any circumstance of outrage or breach of the law connected with the operation of the Riband Societies. There is nothing of that kind on his recollection." He adds: (721) "I know no instance in which Ribandmen have intimidated a juror, and know no object of any kind which they have been the means of effecting."

Upon turning over the index to the report of the Roden committee, under the separate heads of "Ribandmen," "Elections," and "Roman Catholic Priests," we find not the slightest allusion to such an event having been stated by any body, as that any priest had, according to the statement of the Quarterly, applied to any Ribandmen for assistance at a contested election. Under the head of "Roman Catholic Priests," we find the following statements:-" They oppose Ribandmen,"-" refuse confession to Ribandmen," and "denounce Ribandism wherever it has existed"! Such is the evidence given before the Lords' committee upon a subject, in reference to which the Professor of Morality at Oxford has the effrontery to state that it was proved before the Lords' committee, that priests were in the habit of applying to Ribandmen for their assistance at contested elections!

Such is the evidence upon which an Anglican minister, a professor of ethics, and an instructor of youth in an university, founds a declaration that the Irish Catholic priests encourage Ribandism and outrage,-a declaration which is as nakedly and flatly BELIED by every sentence of the evidence as it is indeed by every existing fact connected with the subject. If such infamous falsehoods had been asserted of any private family or individual in a respectable position in life in England, all the salaries of all the professors in Oxford would not be sufficient to pay the damages which an honest and enlightened jury of Englishmen would award as a compensation for so diabolical an injury.

But we must do the professor the justice to say that the baseness we have been describing is not peculiar to him, and that the conduct of Mr. Colquhoun in the House of Commons, upon moving for leave to bring in a bill upon the subject of the College of Maynooth, was perfectly worthy of his collaborateur in the Quarterly. After having stated at great length his objections to the principles which were taught at Maynooth, he proceeded to allege as a matter of fact, that the persons who had been so instructed at college, became afterwards the inciters to Ribandism and outrage, in their character of priests. Being called upon for his authority for so monstrous a falsehood, he cited the evidence of whom

does the reader suppose?-the identical Captain Despard, from whose testimony we have taken the first fourteen of the extracts which have been just presented to the reader. But when Mr. Colquhoun was called upon for a reference to the place where the evidence was to be found, he said that he forgot it. Whether Captain Despard ever gave such testimony as that represented by Mr. Colquhoun, is a fact concerning the probability of which the reader will not have much difficulty in coming to a conclusion, after having perused the fourteen extracts which we have above inserted from the testimony given by the same gentleman before the Roden committee of 1839. But Mr. Colquhoun seems to be a privileged individual. On the 2d of April he wrote a letter to the Times, declaring that the editor of that paper had committed a great mistake in calling him a "conscientious Presbyterian.' He goes on to say that he has been from his infancy a member of the Church of England, to which he is extremely devoted: that however he formerly, and whilst a member of the Church of England, became an elder of the Church of Scotland, and communicated according to its forms: that, however, this connexion, which he calls ostensible and abusive, has now ceased altogether, but that he still will continue to give his "most earnest support to the Church of Scotland," believing such to be his duty "as a landed proprietor in Scotland, and as the representative of a Scotch constituency. Upon this principle, if Mr. Colquhoun had been so fortunate as to obtain the fair hand of Miss O., the celebrated Irish heiress, he would be obliged, as a landed proprietor in Tipperary, and as the representative of an Irish Popish constituency, to "give his most earnest support" to the Church of Rome. This kind of topographical and territorial, conforming, contingent, or as the conveyancers would call it, resulting orthodoxy, which arises out of the elective franchise, and is "based upon landed property," is as great a convenience in its way as Mr. Gladstone's late application of algebra to theology. But the drollest part of the whole matter is Mr. Colquhoun's method of "backing his friends;" for he concludes the letter to which we have already alluded, by expressing his determination to oppose any law whereby the state should be authorised to give to the ministers of other sect, any part of the provisions, which he trusted would be reserved for ever to the exclusive use of the clergy of the English Established Church. He consents, however, in the particular case under consideration-- that of the union

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poor-houses-to the clergy of the other persuasions having access, and rendering all sorts of spiritual assistance to the members of their separate communities, "but without receiving any pay." Whether this original, and not very Scottish method of "giving the most earnest support" to the clergy of the Scottish Church in England, will be considered perfectly satisfactory to that practical body of divines, is a matter upon which we shall not pretend to deliver any opinion; one thing only is perfectly clear upon the whole subject, namely, that the writer of such a letter as that of the 2d of April, must be entirely above the ordinary principles of morality and religion, and be, in fact, "a law unto himself." He may, therefore, perhaps, consider himself at liberty to quote evidence which does not exist; or out of a thousand statements to select one which is contradicted by the other nine hundred and ninety-nine, and to represent that one as a fair sample of the whole. These courses are also as much open to a professor of ethics, as to a Prelatico-Calvinistico-Luthero-Presbyterian. But whatever other privileges the professor may claim in right of any Church to which he may belong, whichever that Church at present may be, one thing is perfectly clear, namely, that he cannot pretend to be ignorant of the evidence of Captain Despard, seeing that it is not only contained in one of the books at the head of the article in the Quarterly, but has been actually referred to by himself, in the course of that very article, and in the very middle of that part of it in which he especially charges the Catholic priests with encouraging Ribandism, sedition, and outrage.

With regard to the other portions of the evidence which we have cited: a few passages of it are taken from books perfectly well known and of established authority, and all the rest from the very documents upon which the article in the Quarterly professes to be founded. Thirty-one of our preceding extracts are from the very latest parliamentary report to which the professor himself refers, and the name of which he has placed at the head of his article. Did he really read these documents with which he professes to be so familiar? If he did not, what adequate idea can we form of the effrontery of quackery with which he speaks, "like the oracle of old," concerning matters in respect to which the only oracular qualities which he possesses are darkness, imposture, and an incapability of expressing himself in the vernacular dialect. If he were truly acquainted with the subject in question, our readers will agree with us in deciding that his "moral philo