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Thus reasoned the peasant, and in a paroxysm of courage burst the fetter of his fief, exalted himself into a freeman, and advanced another degree nearer to the sun. The liberation of seven counties from hereditary representation, attests the magnanimity of such an exertion. The value of the triumph was not known until it had been accomplished. From considering themselves as non-entities in the state, the freeholders, now that they have learned their own strength, wonder at their importance. Converse with them on the subject of their conduct, and they speak of it with an enthusiastic pride. They seem like men let loose from a dungeon into the light of heaven, or freed from the horrors of a night-mare. Their minds are enlivened by a new impulse; a ray of hope has shot across the darkness of their soul; and in this shadow which freedom has cast before it, they almost enjoy the substance.

It were well, however, if their heroism had not raised them to the dignity of martyrdom, by subjecting them to the remorseless persecutions of their landlords. The plea set up to defend this odious practice is founded on the sentimental cant of " a natural tie existing between landlord and tenant," a something which has been called, "An understanding that the one contracts to give his vote to the other for two pounds a year." Admitting that such a tie exists, and that such an argument has been entered into, which of the parties is the more criminal-the premeditated guilt of a proprietor in forestalling the freedom of election, or the submission of the occupant to a compact extorted by necessity? Land the latter must have, or he perishes; is his poverty to subject him to move in a circle of eternal slavery? This is but the pretext; the real object of the persecution is to secure future compliance by present castigation; rather a fatuous sort of speculation, by the bye, as to punish now instead of intimidating into obedience is but to insure a more deadly hostility on the next occasion. Indeed, a penal provision of this kind seems to be quite a supererogatory display of cruelty, as no candidate of illiberal principles, after what has recently occurred, need ever attempt to represent a county in Ireland.

It is not one of the least features in this crusade against the freedom of election, that those who have persecuted most should be also most remarkable for their sanctity; men who traverse the country with a Bible in one hand and an ejectment in the other; rather an equivocal species of comment, no doubt, on the sacred volume. Their conduct exhibits a curious contrast to that of the Catholic priesthood of Ireland. "Liberty of conscience, and emancipation from priestcraft," exclaims Lord Roden; "Pay up the May-rent, or to the road," cries his law agent, by way of parenthesis to his Lordship's denunciations of Popery. Thus, while the Noble Lord is inflicting all the horrors of distraint on his tenantry, the poor pittance of the priest is generally given up to relieve the distresses of the peasant.

Much has been said and written on the propriety of the lay and clerical influence, by which this bloodless revolution has been achieved, and even a portion of the liberal press of England indulges occasionally in invective against priests and agitators, and represents their proceedings as offensive to the English people. These Journalists, however, should recollect, that the conciliation of their countrymen,

great as that object must be, is not the only one which the agitators have to secure. They have to rouse the spirit of their own countrymen to action, which cannot be otherwise effected than by the exposition of those grievances under which they labour, in bold and energetic language. If England chooses to bury past recollections in oblivion; if she wishes that her repose be not disturbed by the clamour of demagogues, she can readily purchase an honourable exemption from the din of Irish eloquence at the cheap price of one act of justice. For men placed in the situation of the Catholic boders, as they have been ridiculously called, great allowances are to be made; and those at least embarked with them in the same great cause of giving the blessings of equal government to man, might, with a better grace, leave their faults to be discovered by the common enemies of both. That they have acted and spoken indiscreetly cannot be denied ; but is perfection to be expected from them alone, or are their errors the only items which should be reckoned up in the account of their public acts? The arguments which apply to the part taken by laymen in this national struggle, apply with equal force to the case of the priesthood. They saw their flocks excluded from political power for adhering to a religion which they taught them to believe true; they saw them compelled to violate their consciences at the hustings, as often as such a sacrifice to immorality and slavery was required of them by their taskmasters; they saw them walking in the paths of political turpitude, sitting in the shades of civil death; and was the sacredness of the clerical character to prevent these priests from directing their misguided flocks into the road of political salvation? The necessity which extorted their reluctant interference in such proceedings will more than justify them in the heart of every honest man.

But to what purpose, it may be asked, has this enthusiasm been excited in the minds of the people. Will the collection of a " Rent,” the petitions from every parish in Ireland, the speeches of demagogues, or the return of sixty or seventy liberal members to Parliament, expedite the concession of Catholic Emancipation? True, these manifestations of discontent may have no immediate effect on the question at issue; but it nothing that this excitement has taught millions of men that they are the only arbiters of their own destinies; that these petitions pro aim to the world their painful sense of the degradation in which they are held; that these speeches refute the calumnies which have been heaped on the country for centuries; that this "Rent" screens poverty from the oppressor; and that these members of Parliament, whom they have returned, will go into the House of Commons armed with the wishes, and supported by the voice, of an injured nation? If this be not the way which Catholics are to pursue in the attainment of their object, those who agree with them on the justice of their claims should either point out a shorter road to freedom, or cease to embarrass their progress by petty objections, and agree with the poet, "Est quoddam prodire tenus, si non datur ultrà." J. C. F.

BUTLERIANA.

FROM UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS.

No. IV.

CHARACTERS.

A BUFFOON

Is a tavern-terræfilius, a pudding impropriate without cure of puppets. He pretends to the long-robe, a fool's coat, and enjoys the privileges of it, to say what he pleases. He stains his impudence with scurrility, and a very little wit, that makes it sparkle briskly, and pass well enough with those that want judgment. He is a land-pug, that has common places of ribaldry for all persons and occasions, and has something to say to every one he meets to please the face he carries in his skull. His calling is to play upon somebody in the company, where he is like a fiddler; but his greatest skill consists in the right choice of his instrument, for if he chance to mistake, he has his fiddle knock'd about his pate, and is kick'd down stairs. He vaults upon a man like a wooden horse to shew tricks and the activity of his insolence and ill-nature. His business is to gain ill-will, and his pleasure to displease any man that he dares. He is a mortal enemy to all those, that have less, or more impudence than himself; as if his own forehead were the only sealed measure that had the mark burnt in it. His calling is to be rude and barbarous, and he is free of all companies where he comes. He is bound to his ill behaviour, and if he should be civil it is more than he can answer. He spares nothing that comes in his way; but whether it be true or false, right or wrong, sacred or profane, he is very impartial. Sometimes he meets with those, that break his privilege and his head, and then he is put out of his play, but never out of countenance, for his impudence is impenetrable. He is commonly a coward, but his want of shame supplies his want of courage, and makes him run himself into perpetual darrers, without considering how he shall get off. He will sometimes hi to the purpose; for as all great wits are said to have madness, so that all great madnesses have something tongue runs before his courage, as well as his wit, and betrays him into quarrels before he is aware, which he is glad to undergo with much passive valour, or compound with miserable and wretched submissions. He will often take occasion to abuse himself for want of a better. He breaks jests as men do glasses, by mischance, and before he is aware, and many times pays for them against his will. He is like Harry the 8th, spares no man in his railing, nor woman in his ribaldry, for which he frequently incurs the curse of the devil, and has his head

broken.

A CRUEL MAN

pon things mething of wit. His

Has nothing of a man but the outside, as Perillus's bull had of a beast; the insides of both are fill'd with horror, torture, and destruction. He is a creature of all species; for man and beast are all one to him, and he has as much compassion for the one as the other. He approves of no law but the forest law, and would make Ост. 1826.

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all men feræ naturæ, because he is one himself. He is a renegade to humanity, and being a proselyte . . . . is very cruel to those of his former persuasion. He has no sympathy with mankind, but that their afflictions are his delight, and he endures his own pleasures with less patience than they do their pains. He loves a widow of his own making better than a virgin, to whom he professes love as he does friendship to men, only to destroy them. He is more delighted with ruins, like an antiquary, than a standing fabric, and, like a zealous catholic, worships the reliques more than the saint. He is a kind of a leech, that relishes no part of a man but his blood. He is a rebel against the law of nature; for he always does what he would not be done unto, which is the privilege both of a saint and the devil, as iron in the extremities of cold or heat does equally burn those that touch it. Nothing enables him more in his cruelty than religion; for the fire of his zeal and dull coldness of his ignorance renders his temper, like a piece of iron, proof against humanity, and that's the true reason why he's said to be hardhearted. The worse condition he can put any man into, the better he thinks of his own; flatters himself with other men's miseries, and will endure no parasites but hangmen and torturers. He is very humble in one thing, and desires men should take place of him and go out of the world before him, and he cares not how far he comes behind.

A CUTPURSE

Puts his life in his hand, and both into another man's pocket, out of which he picks his living, or his death. He quarters all his members upon his neck, and when he is surpriz'd that pays for all. The hangman is his landlord, of whom he holds in chief, and, when he fails, is served with a distringas, by virtue whereof he seizes upon all his moveables. He ventures choaking for his meat before he eats, and the outside of his throat stands engaged for all that goes down the inside. He runs the very same fate with a seaman, that is said to be remov'd but three fingers from drowing, and just so many is he from hanging; for upon those his life and death perpetually depend. Every man he deals with carries his destiny in his pocket, out of which, like a lottery, he draws his chance, either to live, or dangle. His chiefest qualifications are the same with those of a surgeon, to have the hand of a lady, and the heart of a lion; for if either fails, his life lyes at stake, and he swings out of one world into another, as seamen use to do from ship to ship. The sign is with him always in Taurus neck and throat; and Mercury is his ascendant with Saturn, which, argues that he will in time be burnt in the hand, or mount a cart, which, if the Sun interpose, is inevitable, for he thrives best in the dark. He differs from a highwayman as a thief does from a cheat; for the one does the same thing privately, which the other does openly in the face of the king's authority and his highway, and both in the end meet in the same hemp. He gives himself a commission of treasure-trove, to sound for hidden money in the bottoms of pockets, and when he lights upon his prey he handles it very gently, that it may go quietly along without making any noise; otherwise as spirits are said to keep hidden treasure, and hurt those that attempt to take it way, that dreadful hobgoblin the hangman takes possession of him.

A FENCER

Is a fighting master, that expounds upon a foyl, and instructs his pupils in the rudiments of blows, thrusts, and broken heads, and reads upon the subtlest point of a rapier. He teaches the theory of killing, wounding, and running through, and with the privilege of a doctor professes murder and sudden death. His calling is previous to a surgeon's, and he tutors his pupils to make wounds, that the other may cure them, and sometimes to the hangman's, when they venture to break the laws of the land (instead of breaking heads) which he breaks your necks for. He wears a parapet upon his breast, to which he directs the points of their weapons, till by often repeating their lessons upon it, they can hit him where he pleases, and never miss a button, at least that on the end of the foyl. He instructs them, as the professors of liberal arts do in schools, to practise that which is only useful upon the place, and no where else, as to stamp when they make a thrust, which makes a noise sufficient to terrify the foe upon boards, but is of no service at all in the field. He presses his documents npon his pupils with all vehemence, and they improve wind and limb. He infuses his precepts into them till they are quite out of breath, and their lungs profit more than their brains: but as no art can improve a man beyond his natural capacity, so no practise can raise his skill above his courage. He lays about him like another Orbilius in his school, where his disciples con nothing but blows, and cuts, and bruises. He instructs them how to carve men, as they do wooden fowl, with a good grace, to slay in mood and figure, without any illogical inferences, and to run a man through correctly and accurately, which he calls masterly strokes. He teaches the discipline of duels, to beat up quarters back and sides, charge a body through and through, and dispute a pass with the greatest advantage. He is a duel doctor, and professes to help nature by art, and his prescriptions, like those of other doctors, destroy as many as they preserve.

A FORGER

Is a master of the pen, that professes to write any man's usual hand, and draws and engrosses all sorts of business with such admirable care and secresie, that he does it without the knowledge of those, that he undertakes for. He has an art to bloat parchment, and make a spick and span new deed look old before its time. His chief dealing consists in importing men's last wills and testaments out of other worlds, and raising apparitions of hand and seal out of the grave, that shall walk and appear in the likeness of the deceased so perfectly, that their nearest friends shall hardly be able to distinguish. He has as many tricks to cheat the devil and his own conscience, as he has to abuse the world, as by writing with a pen in a dead man's hand, or putting a scroll of written paper in a dead man's mouth, and swearing those were the last words that came out of it, as if plain downright perjury were not more pardonable than that, which is meditated and prepar'd with tricks and finesses. He will bind a man's hand behind his back in a bond before he is aware, and make him pay before he is loose again. He endeavours to oblige as many as he can by giving their names as much credit as he is able, though without their knowledge. He does all his feats with other men's hands, like the monkey that scratch'd with the cat's paw. As soon as he is detected all his

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