and me in particular, it often gratified highly to see persons of historical names,- names, I mean, historically connected with the great events of Elizabeth's or Cromwell's era, attending at the Phoenix Park. But the persons whom I remember most distinctly of all whom I was then in the habit of seeing, were Lord Clare, the Chancellor, the late Lord Londonderry, (then Castlereagh,) at that time the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, (since, I believe, created Lord Oriel.) With the Speaker, indeed, Lord Ahad more intimate connections than with any other public man; both being devoted to the encouragement and personal superintendence of great agricultural improvements. Both were bent on patronizing and promoting, by examples diffused extensively on their own estates, the introduction of English husbandry, - English improved breeds of cattle, and, when it was possible, English capital and skill, into the rural economy of Ireland. Amongst the splendid spectacles I witnessed, as the most splendid I may mention an Installation of the Knights of St. Patrick. There were six knights installed on this occasion: one of the six was Lord A———, my friend's father. He had no doubt received his ribbon as a reward for his parliamentary votes, and especially in the matter of the Union; yet, from all his conversation upon that question, and the general conscientiousness of his private life, I am convinced that he acted all along upon patriotic motives, and his real views (whether right or wrong) of the Irish interests. One chief reason,

indeed, which detained us in Dublin, was the necessity of attending this particular Installation. At one time he designed to take his son and myself for the two esquires who attend the new made knight, according to the ritual of this ceremony; but that plan was subsequently laid

aside, on learning that the other five knights were to be attended by adults: and thus, from being partakers as actors, my friend and I became simple spectators of this splendid scene, which took place in the cathedral of St. Patrick. So easily does mere external pomp slip out of the memory, as to all its circumstantial items, leaving behind nothing beyond the general impression, that at this moment I remember no one incident of the whole cere monial, except that some foolish person laughed aloud as the knights went up with their offerings to the altar, apparently at Lord A-, who happened to be lame: a singular instance of levity to exhibit within the walls of such a building, and at the most solemn part of the whole ceremony. Lord W. and I sat with Lord and Lady Castlereagh. They were then both young, and both wore an impressive appearance of youthful happiness; neither, fortunately for their peace of mind, able to pierce that cloud of years, not much more than twenty, which divided them from the day destined in one hour to wreck the happiness of both. We had met both, on other occasions; and their conversation, through the course of that day's pomps, was the most interesting circumstance to me, and the one I remember with most distinctness, of all that belonged to the Installation. By the way, I remember that one morning at breakfast, on occasion of some conversation arising about Irish Bulls, I made an agreement with Lord A to note down in a memorandum-book every thing throughout my stay in Ireland, which, to my feeling as an Englishman, should seem to be, or to approach to a bull. And this day, at dinner, I reported from Lady Castlereagh's conversation, what struck me as a bull. Lord A laughed, and said, My dear X. Y. Z., I am sorry that it should so happen:

your bull is certainly a bull: but as certainly Lady C. is your countrywoman, and not an Irish woman at all. This was a bad beginning certainly but was Lord A quite accurate? Lady C. was a daughter of Lord Buckinghamshire; and her maiden name was Lady E. Hobart.

One other public scene there was about this time in Dublin, to the eye less captivating, but far more so in a moral sense. This was the final ratification of the Bill which united Ireland to Great Britain. I do not know that any one public act, or celebration, or solemnity, in my time, did, or could so much engage my profoundest sympathies. Wordsworth's fine sonnet on the extinction of the Venetian Republic had not then been published, else the last two lines would have expressed my feelings. After admitting that changes had taken place in Venice, which in a manner challenged and presumed this last and mortal change, the poet closes thus —

'Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade
Of that which once was great has pass'd away.'

But here the previous circumstances were far different from those of Venice, nay opposite. There we saw a superannuated and paralytic State, sinking at any rate

* The idea of a Bull is even yet undefined; which is most extraordinary, considering that Miss Edgeworth has applied all her tact and illustrative power, to furnish the matter for such a definition; and Mr. Coleridge, all his philosophic subtlety, to furnish its form. But hoth have been too fastidious in their admission of bulls. Thus, for example, Miss Edgeworth rejects, as no true bull, the common Joe Miller story, that, upon two Irishmen reaching Barnet, and being told that it was still twelve miles to London, one of them replied, 'Ah! just six miles apac.' This, says Miss E, is no bull, but a sentimental remark on the maxim, that friendship divides our pains. Nothing of the kind : Miss Edgeworth cannot have understood it. The bull is a true, perfect, and almost ideal specimen of the genus.

into the grave, and yielding, to the touch of military violence, that only which a short lapse of years must inevitably have yielded to internal decay. Here, on the contrary, we saw a young eagle, rising into power, and robbed prematurely of her natural titles of honor, only because she did not comprehend their value, and because at this great crisis she had no champion. Ireland, in a political sense, was surely then in her youth, considering the prodigious development she has since experienced in population, and in resources of all kinds.

The day, the important day, had been long looked forward to by me: no doubt also by my young friend; for he was a keen lover of Ireland, and jealous of whatever appeared to touch her honor. But it was not for him to say anything which should seem to impeach his father's patriotism in voting for the Union, and promoting it through his borough influence. Yet oftentimes it seemed to me, when I introduced the subject, and sought to learn from Lord A- the main grounds which had reconciled him and other men, anxious for the welfare of Ireland, to a measure which at least robbed her of some splendor, and, above all, robbed her of a name and place amongst the independent States of Europe, that both father and son would not have been displeased, had some great popular violence put force upon the recorded will of Parliament, and compelled the two Houses to perpetuate themselves. Dolorous they must of course have looked, in mere consistency; but I fancied that internally they would have laughed. Lord A-, I am certain, believed (as multitudes believed) that Ireland would be bettered by the commercial advantages conceded to her as an integral province of the empire, and would have benefits which, as an independent kingdom, she had not. I doubt not that this expectation was realized. But let us ask, Could

not a large part of these benefits have been secured to Ireland, remaining as she was? were they, in any sense, dependent on the sacrifice of her separate Parliament ? For my part I believe that Mr. Pitt's motive for insisting on a legislative union was, in a small proportion perhaps, the somewhat elevated desire to connect his own name with the historical changes of the empire; to have it stamped, not on events so fugitive as those of war and peace, liable to oblivion; but on the permanent relations of its integral parts. In a still larger proportion I believe his motive to have been one of pure convenience, the wish to exonerate himself from the intolerable vexation of a double Cabinet and a double Parliament. In a government such as ours, so care-laden at any rate, it is certainly most harassing to have the task of soliciting a measure by management and influence twice over, and two refractory gangs to discipline, instead of one. It must also be conceded that, neither management nor treasury influence could always avail to prevent injurious collisions between acts of the Irish and the British Parliaments. In Dublin, as in London, the government must lay its account with being occasionally out-voted; this would be likely to happen peculiarly upon Irish questions. And acts of favor or protection, would, at times, pass, on behalf of Irish interests, not only clashing with more general ones of the central government, but indirectly also, [from the virtual consolidation of the Irish territory with the larger island since the æra of steam,] opening endless means for evading British acts, even within their own acknowledged sphere of operation. On these considerations, even an Irishman must grant that public convenience called for the absorption of all local or provincial supremacies into the central supremacy. And there were two brief arguments which gave weight to