in' you company, and every now and then they'll be puttin' their comether an you, and callin' you brother,' but don't let on to know them at all, for they'll be mislaydin' you, and just do you keep quite (quiet) and you'll see the ind iv it." Well, just at that minit little Fairly heerd big Fairly comin,' and away he runs and hid inside iv a churn was dhryin' at the ind o' the house; and big Fairly lifted the sack was standin' at the door, and feelin' it more weighty nor it was before, he said, "throth, I think you're growin' heavy with grief; but here goes, any how," and, with that, he hoist it up on the horse's back, an' away he wint to the bog iv Allen.

Now, you see, big Fairly, like every blackguard that has the bad blood in him, the minit he had the sup o' dhrink in, the dirty turn kem out; and so, as he wint along he began to wollop the poor baste, and the sack where his little brother was (as he thought, the big fool,) and to gibe and jeer him for his divarshin. But the poor farmer did as little Fairly towld him, an' never a word he said at all, though he could'nt help roaring out every now and thin, whin he felt the soft ind of big Fairly's shillelah across his backbone; and sure the poor innocent thought it was his bad conscience and the seven deadly sins was tazin' him; but he would'nt answer a word for all that, though the big savage was aggravatin' him every fut o' the road antil they kem to the bog; and whin he had him there, faix he wasn't long in choosin' a bog hole for him-and, my jew'l, in he popp'd the poor farmer neck and heels, sack and all; and as the soft bog stuff and muddy wather closed over him, "I wish you a safe journey to the bottom, young man," says the big brute, grinnin' like a cat at a cheese, "and as clever a chap as you are, I don't think you'll come back out o' that in a hurry; and its throubled I was wid you long enough, yon little go-the-ground skamer, but I'll have a quiet life for the futhur." And wid that he got up an his horse, and away he wint home; but he had not gone over a mile, or there-away, whin who should he see but little Fairly mounted on the farmer's horse, dhrivin' the biggest dhrove o' black cattle you ever seen; and, by dad, big Fairly grewn as white as asheet whin he clapt his eyes

an him, for he thought it was not himself at all was in it, but his ghost; and he was goin' to turn and gallop off, whin little Fairly called out to him to stay, for that he wanted to speak to him. So whin he seen it was himself he wondhered, to be sure, and small blame to him-and says he, "well as cute as I knew you wor, by gor, this last turn o' your's bates Bannagherand how the devil are you here at all, whin I thought you wor cuttin' turf wid your sharp little nose, in the bog of Allen, for I'll take my affiydowndavy I put you into the deepest hole in it,head foremost not half an hour agon." Throth you did, sure enough," says little Fairly, "and you wor ever and always the good brother to me, as I often said before, but by dad, you never done rightly for me antil today, but you made me up now in airnest."

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"How do you mane?" says big Fairly. Why, do you see all this cattle here I'm dhrivin?" says little Fairly. "Yes I do, and whose cattle are they?"

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They're all my own-every head o' them."

"An' how did you come by them ?" "Why you see, when you threwn me into the boghole, I felt it mighty cowld at first, and it was mortial dark, and I felt myself goin' down and down, that I thought I'd never stop sinking, and wondhered if there was any bottom to it at all, and at last I began to feel it growin' warm, and pleasant, and light, and whin I kem to the bottom, there was the loveliest green field you ever clapt your eyes on, and thousands upon thousands o' cattle feedin, and the grass so heavy that they wor up to their ears in it-it's thruth I'm tellin' you—o, divil sitch meadows I ever seen, and whin I kem to myself, for indeed I was rather surprised, and thought it was dhramin I was when I kem to myself, I was welkim'd by a very ginteel spoken little man, the dawnshiest craythur you ever seen, by dad I'd have made six iv him, myself, and says he, "your welkim to the undher story o' the Bog iv Allen, Fairly." "Thank you kindly sir," says I." And how is all wid you?" says he-" hearty indeed," says I. "And what brought you here?" says he--"my big brother," says I. good iv him," says he thrue for you sir," says I." He is always doin' me a good turn," says I. "Oh then he never

"That was very

done you half so good a turn as this," says he ; "for you'll be the richest man in Ireland soon." "Thank you sir," says I; "but I dont see how." "Do you see all them cattle grazin there?" says he. To be sure I do," says I, “Well,” says he,“ take as many o'them as your heart desires, and bring them home wid you." "Why, sure," says I, "how could I get back myself up out of the boghole, let alone dhraggin' bullocks afther me?" Oh," says he," the way is aisy enough, for you have nothin' to do but dhrive them out the back way over there," says he, pointin to a gate, "and sure enough, my darlint, I got all the bastes you see here, and dhruv them out, and here I am goin' home wid 'em, and maybe I wont be the rich man av coorse I gev the best o' thanks to the little owld man, and gev him the hoight o'good language for his behavor," and with that, says he, "you may come back again, and take the rest o' them," says he and faix sure enough I'll go back the minit I get these bastes home, and have another turn out o' the boghole."

"Faix and I'll be before hand wid you," says big Fairly.

"Oh but you shan't," says little Fairly; it was I discovered the place, and why should'nt I have the good iv it."

"You greedy little hound," says the big fellow, "I'll have my share of them as well as you," and with that he turned about his horse, and away he galloped to the bog hole, and the little fellow galloped afther him purtendin' to be in a desperate fright afeard the other would get there first, and he cried 'stop the robber,' afther him, and whin he kem to the soft place in the bog they

both lit, and little Fairly got before the big fellow, and purtended to be makin' for the bog hole in a powerful hurry, cryin' out as he passed him, "I'll win the day! I'll win the day!" and the big fellow pulled fut afther him as hard as he could, and hardly a puff left in him he run to that degree, and he was afeared that little Fairly would bate him and get all the cattle, and he was wishin' for a gun that he might shoot him, whin the cute little divil, just as he kem close to the edge o' the bog hole, let an that his fut slipped and he fell down, crying out, "fair play! fair play!-wait till I rise!" but the words wasn't well out of his mouth, when the big fellow kem up. "Oh, the divil a wait," says he, and he made one desperate dart at the bog hole, and jumped into the middle of it. "Hurroo!!" says little Fairly, gettin' an his legs agin and runnin' over to the edge o' the bog hole, and just as he seen the great splaw feet o' the big savage sinkin' into the sludge, he called afther him, and says he, "I say, big Fairly, don't take all the cattle, but lave a thrifle for me. I'll wait however 'till you come back," says the little rogue, laughin' at his own cute conthrivance," and I think now I'll lade a quite life," says he, and with that he wint home, and from that day out he grewn richer and richer every day, and was the greatest man in the whole country side; and all the neighbours gev in to him that he was the most knowledgable man in thim parts, but they all thought it was quare that his name should be Fairly, for it was agreed, one and all, that he was the biggest rogue out,-barrin' Balfe, the robber.

3 G

VOL. I.

We but lately watched, with deep anxiety, the fate of Antwerp. We traced the details of its short, but glorious career, from diplomatic negociations, to open violence, and manfully resisted destruction; and this, with an intense and more sacred interest, than any event of modern times, except our own Catholic emancipation, elicited from us. Every destructive shot jarred upon our feelingsevery tottering bulwark, or demolished tower, buried a corresponding hope in our bosoms. We thus sympathized with Antwerp, as our ancient Protestant ally; and with its rightful sovereign, because, throughout this disgraceful struggle, he had proved himself a man in firmness of principle, a Protestant in religion, and a Christian in conduct, and because he was crushed by the unholy alliance of Popery and infidelity. And we confess, that it was only by spiritualizing its meaning, and diverting its application, and by considering that the real foes of "our most gracious Sovereign, Lord, King William," were nearer to him, and more formidable than were the martyrs of Antwerp, that we could, in sincerity of heart, offer, in his behalf, the petition of our litany, for "victory over all his enemies." We confess, that as Protestants, and, therefore, patriots, we felt, with pain, the conviction, that the union between our loyalty and affections was now, for the first time, divorced.

But if we thus, in common with every British Protestant, except our rulers, sympathised in the fate of Antwerp, it will scarcely be thought that we can look with indifference upon similar acts perpetrated by the same agents upon the theatre of our own land, and upon the persons and properties of our own brethren. It will scarcely be thought, that we are passive and indifferent spectators of the battery now opened to accomplish the demolition of our church establishment. It is true, that the fortresses of our Alma Mater are, as yet, unassailed—her fences yet unbrokenher possessions yet undisturbed.

It

is true, that the bill for throwing open her fellowships to Papists, and curtailing her revenues, has not been, yet, flung or forced, by agitation, into the hands of our government; still, we cannot but look with holy indignation, upon the impious design of immolating our venerable church upon the altar of political expediency; and this, too, in order to make room for modern Popery, that monstrous and incestuous offspring of infidelity and superstition. We cannot but look with unselfish commiseration upon the persecutions and sufferings of our brethren, the parochial clergy; and with selfish misgivings upon our own probable destiny, when these outworks, unmanned and demolished, shall have permitted the enemy to concentrate his forces against our own citadel.

We trust, that all our anxieties have reference to the interests of vital godliness, and the furtherance of Christ's kingdom in our land; we trust, that we should be ready, nay, anxious, to offer up the temporalities of our Church upon the sacrifice and service of her faith, and in that sacrifice to joy and rejoice, though in a far different spirit, and from far different motives, with the most desperate radical reformer could we but see a reasonable ground for supposing, that the offering would be acceptable to, and thus blessed of God. But though we firmly believe that the gates of hell cannot prevail against our church, in all which is essential to her; though we know that the children whom persecution has begotten her, and who are baptized in the place of the dead, are far more numerous, and more devoted, than those of her more prosperous days; so that she may now exclaim, with her illustrious prototype, in delighted surprise, "Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children and am desolate-a captive, and removing to and fro! And who hath brought up these! behold, I was left alone these, where had they been !" Though we are convinced, that however the deluge of Popery may be suffered to flood the land,

not only, as now, to inundate its vallies, but to submerge its hills and overtop its mountains, yet the ark of true Religion will float above the wreck, a life boat to rescue every sincere convert. Still we believe, that the impious hand which signs the death warrant of Protestantism, and the establishment of Popery, in Ireland, and which by public and solemn contract, weds the nation to the mother of harlots, drunk with the blood of saints; will, by the same act, sign the death warrant of Great Britain's prosperity and happiness; abandon her to misery and degradation, and, as a nation unfaithful to her vows, divorce her from God. That the only principle of our rulers, is to deny all principle save expediency; and, like the philosophers of Pagan Rome, to treat all religions as alike false, and alike convenient, is but too evident from all their measures. That they are about to place on the same level, Christianity, and that creed which they, but lately, abjured, with all the solemnity of an oath, as damnable idolatry-to deal out evenhanded justice and equal measure to God and Satan; and, gradually, but yet rapidly, to substitute the Religion of the many for the Religion of the Bible and the truth of God, Lord Althorp's bill proves. It is not merely to the enormous, partial, and consequently unjust impost upon the clergy. It is not merely to the confiscation of Bishops' lands, or the extinction of Bishops' sees, to which we would refer in proof of this, though these were convincing evidence. Nearly half of our mitres swept away in the first fell swoop of the reformers arm, it may well be feared, threatens the axe to the root of the tree, and warns the remaining half-in the scriptural phraseology of our premier -to set their house in order. The estates, too, of the bishops converted into heavily taxed annuities. A graduated tax upon the parochial clergy, amounting in two of its items, to nearly one-third of all the larger preferments, that is, fifteen per cent direct tax to the ecclesiastical commissioners and fifteen per cent bonus, to bribe the tithe payer to comply with the law, and not to "extinguish tithe," until Mr. Stanley, who, by the way, has done nothing in the church reform bill, towards effecting a commutation, can quietly redeem his pledge to extinguish it? These

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clauses might well justify us in attributing to our rulers the most hostile feelings and impious designs against the church. But Lord Althorp's bill contains, to adopt Mr. O'Connell's language, a principle of future amelioration," in other words, of destruction, which brings with it more damning proof. Why are bishops to be removed from the most prominent and important stations in the South and buried in insignificant villages and rural places? Why is the bishop of Cork to be removed to Cloyne? Of Waterford, to Cashel? Of Ossory, to Ferns? Is it that the incomes of the former are derived, almost exclusively, from land; of the latter, in a great measure, from tithe also; a property likely to be settled without legislative aid? Or is it to give ample scope and verge enough to their Popish lordships, whose number, observe, is maintained in undiminished integrity, to strut in unrivalled importance, and run riot, unchecked, in those influential stations; and thus, to secure for popery, on the Godly principle of even-handed justice, its due importance in popish districts, and consequently an increased facility of entangling souls, in, what our statesmen have designated upon oath, as "damnable idolatry ?" Why is the Archiepiscopal mitre-the ornament and title, surely, were no expense to our political economists-to be removed from the see of Cashel, unless that the Archbishop of Cashel should be a Papist, and that he and his brethren of Cork, Waterford, and Kilkenny, should hereafter take precedence at our viceregal court, of their degraded Protestant brethren? We confess that we cannot but view the mechanism and animus of this bill with unmitigated alarm. If government be sincere in the wish it expresses, for the security of the dismembered trunk of the Church establishment, it exhibits the most hopeless infatuation and incompetency. If it be not sincere in those wishes, it exhibits the most insidious and consummate treachery. We can choose for it but between want of honesty and want of sense. And, in either case, we cannot but fear, that our deserted episcopal palaces will be, soon, tenanted by Popish bishops-that our confiscated bishops lands will, soon, endow a Popish hierarchy-that its surplus revenues, after the fair claims of the

church on its own property, have been first satisfied-upon the appropriation of which, as well as upon the time when those fair claims shall have been fully satisfied, it will be for parliament, Lord Althorp tells us, to decide; for he frankly tells us, that, as it is unnecessary to consider it now-he does not risk the bill, by mooting, for the present, this desperate principle-that its surplus revenues will soon endow a Popish establishment, and that our proscribed rectories, to which the appointment of a Protestant rector has been suspended-a soft and soothing term-will, soon be permanently filled by, in its civil, as well as ecclesiastical sense, the Roman Catholic Rector of Rath and the other rectors of the people.

Nothing, short of a political convulsion, which would shake the kingdom to its very centre, could overturn, by a single shock, a fabrick so deeply founded and widely ramified as our ecclesiastical establishment. The first shock, however, in its execution, has surprised even the miners; and, in prostrating nearly half of our episcopal palaces, and mulcting the establishment in nearly a fourth of its revenues, has worked to the " delight and satisfaction" of Mr. O'Connell himself. These are his own words drawn from him in an unguarded moment, by amazement at the sweeping range of this bill. But, while we confine our view to what is immediate and palpable, we take but a partial and inadequate view, indeed, of the ruinous effects of this measure. It has shaken the establishment to its very foundation and introduced into it a principle of decomposition and ruin. The clause which empowers the commissioners, to suspend the reappointment of parochial clergy, to parishes in which duty has not been done for three years; when combined with the power of dissolving unions, and changing bounds of parishes, if liberally interpreted and actively worked by the commissioners and demagogues, will effect the extinction of the Protestant church in all country parishes where there is not a resident gentry. And that this clause will be so interpreted and worked, the spirit and tendency of the age, and still more, Lord Althorp's concise description of the commissioners, may convince us. It is true, that for the present at least, the

commissioners must be Protestant ; but, to use Lord Althorp's indefinite and equivocal expression," though Protestant, they will be as independent as possible." Independent of whom, or of what? Not of parliament, which is to audit their accounts, and control their proceedings; but of the church, though they are members of it. To give meaning to the vague and guarded phraseology of a diplomatic communication-to give any force to the word though, we must view this sentence as announcing, that although the commissioners are Protestant, yet care will be taken that they shall be such as are perfectly independent, not only of ecclesiastical influence, that might be quite proper, but of what would be styled church prejudice, also. In fact, that they shall be of that mongrel breed, between truckling, lukewarm, nominal protestantism and political popery; or even such Protestants as he, of whom one of our representatives truly said, "that in candour to members of the Roman Catholic religion, he must allow, that the honorable member exceeded them all, in the bitterness of his invective, against clergy of his own persuasion." Such men will not have a quick eye, or a tender conscience, to perceive the necessity for a christian pastor and christian ordinances, in a parish, where there are but a few souls to be saved or lost. They will feel but little remorse, at withholding from a scattered flock of poor Protestants, who cannot afford to subscribe towards the building of a church-for such subscription is rendered, by the bill, an essential preliminary-the shepherd, who would stand between these few sheep in the wilderness and the prowling wolf of persecuting popery. By the clause empowering to dissolve unions, they can, when so disposed, lop off all the parishes which would come under the suspension clause from the centre parish, or corps of the union which contains the Protestant population, the Church, and perhaps a village.

The demagogues and rabble will give their aid to the Commissioners, and it will be powerful, in reducing the establishment to its minimum of cost and extent. And we are convinced, that this bill puts the most powerful weapon which government has yet bestowed, into the hands of priests, demagogues, and rabble, to prevent conversions from