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extend it still farther-there would be more chance of honesty and right feeling even in a selection by the whole mass of the population, than in one governed by such a class as this Bill would confer the franchise upon. English gentlemen do not know what they are doing, in giving to such people as the shopkeepers in the Irish towns, the right of returning a number of members to Parliament equal to the whole amount of the present representation for Scotland.

The Irish peasant is a wild, headlong, fierce, frolicsome fellow, whose nature is capable of good, in spite of his extreme imprudence and love of mischief; but the low Irish shopkeeper is, for the most part, a compound of knavish cunning and bigotry, fierce and obstinate, in proportion to his ignorance. Ireland is not a place where fair, straight-forward, honest dealing will bring a man on in a small way of business, and those who succeed in this way, do so by obsequiousness and cunning. The first object is to make a friend of the priest, and, interest and superstition joining together, they submit themselves to him with a desperate idolatry, which almost excludes all love and reverence for any thing else. They look upon their temporal and eternal welfare as placed in his hands, and consider it a merit to hate with unrelenting hatred, whatever is, or seems to be, inimical to his interest. Such are the people to whom the Irish Reform Bill proposes to give more than forty representatives. As yet, the towns of Ireland have returned but one Roman Catholic member, a gentleman who is not of the Romish faction in politics, Mr Callaghan, of Cork. Were this bill to be passed, it is probable the circumstances would be very nearly reversed, and no more than two or three Protestants (except in Ulster) would be returned for the towns. Á greater blow, therefore, could not be given to the Protestant interest in Ireland, than the bill would inflict. With regard to the alteration of the franchise proposed by the Reform Bill to be effected in counties, it would, so far as it goes, do good. It proposes to give leaseholders for 21 years of property, paying a rent of L.50 a-year, a right to vote; and as these are almost all people of a respectable class in society, Mr O'Con

nell is extremely angry with the arrangement, though "having no kind of inclination to assist in playing the game of the Tories, he refrained from tracing out the defect until after the elections shall have terminated." He would much rather give the franchise to those who have a profit rent of L.10 a-year out of leaseholds-that is, he would rather give the county franchise also to his friends the shopkeepers in the towns, who are in the habit of taking leases of land in their neighbourhood, laying out upon it a little capital, and then re-letting it in lots, at an enormous profit, to the poor farmer, whom they grind, to obtain the uttermost farthing beyond what will support him, or rather keep him alive, in the most miserable condition that can be conceived. These petty landlords, the "middle men," are the greatest curse and scourge of the Irish small farmer; they know exactly what may be screwed out of him, beyond what will afford him potatoes, and they exact it without pity, and without even the remotest notion of the wrong they are doing. To these O'Connell wishes to give the franchise, merely because it would give him more power; but happily in this matter the bill does not serve his purpose. For the same reason, he roars out yet more lustily against the provision which takes away from the L.10 voters in towns, the right of voting for the counties in which the towns are situate. A hundred of the voters for the county of Kerry, are, as he says, residents in the town of Tralee, and would be disfranchised, as relates to the county elections, if the bill were to pass. Such a state of things as this, he adds, "cannot be;" and "he hopes he may add, it shall not be." Certainly if it cannot be, he is quite justified in entertaining a very lively hope that it shall not be; but if it were to be, it would be a very important improvement. In brief, the faults of the Irish Reform Bill consist in the extension of the number of representatives, and in giving the representation of the towns into the hands of the L.10 householders. The other arrangements are improvements upon the present system, and the change they would effect would be that of strengthening the interest of the gentry. The forty-shilling franchise

which was the great plague, is already done away with; and let it not be said that this measure is a valid precedent for the wholesale disfranchisement of the boroughs in England. To take away the privilege of returning members to Parliament from an enormous multitude of shoeless, shirtless, priest-driven creatures, as wild and ignorant as the cattle upon the hills, is surely a very different sort of policy from that of taking away the same privilege from ancient corporations, or from moneyed interests of vast importance in the country.

O'Connell's nonsense about the different and more favourable treat ment which England and Scotland receive by their Reform Bills, is really not worth following. It is such absolute trash in writing and in reasoning, as to be fit only for laughing at in conversation. What can one say to a man who, in a letter professing to be a grave dissertation upon a proposed act of the legislature, falls into such silly rant as this?"Justice, I exclaim-justice for Ireland! Real justice-no mockeryno delusion! Above all, no hypo

critical pretences! Justice for Ireland is my motto!"

How piteous that the population of Ireland should be so much under the dominion of a man possessing so little common sense, whenever he rises above common affairs! Alas, for Ireland! she does indeed want reform, very different from Parliamentary Reform; but where or how shall we look for it, in such a time of public madness as the present? The cry in England at present is, "Give Ireland poor laws." Even "The Standard," whose knowledge of Ireland is as certain as the ignorance of others, calls for poor laws. But for myself, I doubt the practicability of a system any thing like that of England, or at all so extensive in its operation. But this-this it is that should occupy the attention of Ministers with regard to Ireland, and not the senseless project miscalled Reform. If the Bill should pass, it will be the first part of a three-act political drama, of which the second act will be Repeal of the Union," and the third, "Rebellion in Ireland."

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T. W. H.

THE PLAINT OF ABSENCE.

BY DELTA.

I THINK of thee at morning, when the shades
Fly off like spectres from the blessed sun;
I think of thee, when twilight's march pervades
The world, and wraps it in her mantle dun;
Beneath the moon, and when the midnight skies
Sparkle o'er earth, with their bright myriad eyes :-
Life seems a wilderness; I look around

In vain for thee, who spake to me of heaven:

My thoughts are mantled in a gloom profound,

And o'er my heart Grief's furrowing plough hath driven; see no beauty in the shining day,

But peak in loneliness, and pine away:

Wrapt in the past, mine ardent longings flee
To dwell with thee!

I think of thee in Spring-time, when the flowers
Expand in beauty to the wooing sun,

When sing the small birds 'mid the greening bowers,
And from the hills the ice-freed waters run;

Amid the summer's wealth, and when the hues

Of Autumn gentlest pensiveness infuse;

And when is howling the tempestuous gale
Of Winter o'er the desolated heath;

When floods the rain-shower, or the rattling hail
Mantles the mountain in a robe of death;

From the bleak pasture and the leafless tree
I turn my weary gaze-and think of thee-
I think of thee-and lo! before my sight
Thou comest in beauty bright!

I think of thee-I muse on thee-and then
Thou stand'st before me, idol of my heart,
In thy subduing loveliness, as when,

Though link'd in spirit, Fortune bade us part:
On thy sweet presence Hope and Peace await,
And in thy melting eyes I read my fate;
Thy voice comes o'er me like the lulling sound
Of desert fountains to the traveller's ear;
Again this dim earth grows enchanted ground,
I cling to life, and feel that thou art near;
The present disappears, the past returns,
And with the light of love my bosom burns,
But when I name thee, the illusions fade
To silence and to shade!

I think of thee-of all thy beauty's glow,
Such as, when flashing on my raptured sight,
With bright brown hair and alabaster brow,
With cheek of roses, and with eyes of light,
Thou stood'st before me in thy cloudless prime,
An angel pilgrim, sanctifying time!

And then I think, since we are sunder'd, pass
How languidly the listless hours away!
While Memory comes, in slumber, with her glass,
When hush'd to peace is all the strife of day,
To pour upon my visions richly bright

Joys that have been, and hopes that set in night;
And in the virgin glory of thy charms,

I clasp thee in mine arms.

I think of thee, as when, in happier hours,

Thou stood'st in smiles, a heaven-descended guest, When life seem'd like a garden strewn with flowers, And sorrow fled at thy benign behest.

Alas! we little dreamt how soon the cloud

Of disappointment pleasure's sky may shroud. Oh Fortune! wilt thou ever take delight

To tear asunder heart that grows to heart

In mutual faith-Affection's blooms to blight--
To step between link'd souls and bid them part,
Hope's Eden-tinted landscapes to destroy,
And mingle poison in Love's cup of joy :--
Alas! when shall the flowers of Pleasure's tree
Unshaken pass by thee?

I think of thee at morn,-at noon,-at eve,-
'Mid cities and in solitude-I call

Thine image up, while Hope delights to weave Love's rainbow hues, and clothes thee in them all;

Of thee I think upon the shore and sea

Awake and in my dreams I pine for thee!
For 'mid the changes of this changeful world
Thou hast been steadfast as the lucid star

Duly on Evening's radiant map unfurl'd
The first, and shining through the dusk afar.

I gaze from out the deep abyss of care

To greet that ray-and ever it is there;

Then bow, renewed in faith, to Heaven's decree, The Heaven, which gave me thee!

PASSAGES FROM THE DIARY OF A LATE PHYSICIAN.

CHAP. XI.

The Ruined Merchant.

It is a common saying, that sorrows never come alone that "it never rains, but it pours;"* and it has been verified by experience, even from the days of that prince of the wretched-the man "whose name was Job." Now-a-days, directly a sudden accumulation of ills befalls a man, he utters some rash exclamation like the one in question, and too often submits to the inflictions of Providence with sullen indifference-like a brute to a blowor resorts, possibly, to suicide. Poor stupid unobserving man, in such a case, cannot conceive how it comes to pass that all the evils under the sun are showered down upon his head at once! There is no attempt to account for it on reasonable grounds-no reference to probable, nay, obvious causes-his own misconduct, possibly, or imprudence. In a word, he fancies that the only thing they resemble is Epicurus' fortuitous concourse of atoms. It is undoubtedly true that people are occasionally assailed by misfortunes so numerous, sudden, and simultaneous, as is really unaccountable. In the majority, however, of what are reputed such cases, a ready solution may be found, by any one of observation. Take a simple illustration. A passenger suddenly falls down in a crowded thoroughfare; and, when down and unable to rise, the one following stumbles over him-the next, over him, and so on-all unable to resist the on-pressing crowd behind; and so the first-fallen lies nearly crushed and smothered. Now, is not this frequently the case with a man mid the cares and troubles of life? One solitary disaster-one unexpect ed calamity befalls him; the sudden shock stuns him out of his self-possession; he is dispirited, confounded, paralysed-and down he falls, in the very throng of all the pressing cares

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and troubles of life, one implicating and dragging after it another-till all is uproar and consternation. Then it is, that we hear passionate lamentations, and cries of sorrows never coming alone"-of all this being against him;" and he either stupidly lies still, till he is crushed and trampled on, or, it may be, succeeds in scrambling to the first temporary resting-place he can espy, when he resigns himself to stupified inaction, staring vacantly at the throng of mishaps following in the wake of that one which bore him down. Whereas the first thought of one in such a situation should surely be, "let me be up and doing,' and I may yet recover myself." Directly a man determines to think," says an eminent writer, "he is wellnigh sure of bettering his condition."

It is to the operation of such causes as these, that is to be traced, in a great majority of cases, the necessity for medical interference. Within the sphere of my own practice, I have witnessed, in such circumstances, the display of heroism and fortitude ennobling to human nature; and I have also seen instances of the most contemptible pusillanimity. I have marked a brave spirit succeed in buffeting its way out of its adversities; and I have seen as brave a one overcome by them, and falling vanquished, even with the sword of resolution gleaming in its grasp; for there are combinations of evil, against which no human energies can make a stand. Of this, I think the ensuing melancholy narrative will afford an illustration. What its effect on the mind of the reader may be, I cannot presume to speculate. Mine it has oppressed to recall the painful scenes with which it abounds, and convinced of the peculiar perils incident to rapidly acquired fortune, which too

And now behold, O Gertrude, GertrudeWhen sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions !"-SHAKSPEARE,

often lifts its possessor into an element for which he is totally unfitted, and from which he falls exhausted, lower far than the sphere he had left! Mr Dudleigh's career afforded a striking illustration of the splendid but fluctuating fortunes of a great English merchant-of the magnificent results ensured by persevering industry, economy, prudence, and enterprise. Early in life he was cast upon the world, to do as he would, or rather could, with himself; for his guardian proved a swindler, and robbed his deceased friend's child of every penny that was left him. On hearing of the disastrous event, young Dudleigh instantly ran away from school, in his sixteenth year, and entered himself on board a vessel trading to the West Indies, as cabinboy. As soon as his relatives, few in number, distant in degree, and colder in affection, heard of this step, they told him, after a little languid expostulation, that as he had made his bed, so he must lie upon it; and never came near him again, till he had become ten times richer than all of them put together.

The first three or four years of young Dudleigh's novitiate at sea, were years of fearful, but not unusual hardship. I have heard him state that he was frequently flogged by the captain and mate, till the blood ran down his back like water; and kicked and cuffed about by the common sailors with infamous impunity. One cause of all this was obvious; his evident superiority over every one on board in learning and acquirements. To such an extent did his tormentors carry their tyranny, that poor Dudleigh's life became intolerable; and one evening, on leaving the vessel after its arrival in port from the West Indies, he ran to a public-house in Wapping, called for pen and ink, and wrote a letter to the chief owner of the vessel, acquainting him with the cruel usage he had suffered, and imploring his interference; adding, that if that application failed, he was determined to drown himself when they next went to sea. This letter, which was signed "Henry Dudleigh, cabin-boy," astonished and interested the person to whom it was addressed; for it was accurately, and even 'eloquently worded. Young Dudleigh was sent for, and after a

thorough examination into the nature of his pretensions, engaged as a clerk in the counting-house of the shipowners, at a small salary. He conducted himself with so much ability and integrity, and displayed such a zealous interest in his employers' concerns, that in a few years' time he was raised to the head of their large establishment, and received a salary of L.500 a-year, as their senior and confidential clerk. The experience he gained in this situation, enabled him, on the unexpected bankruptcy of his employers, to dispose most successfully of the greater proportion of what he had saved in their service. He purchased shares in two vessels, which made fortunate voyages; and the result determined him henceforth to conduct business on his own account, notwithstanding the offer of a most lucrative situation similar to his last. In a word, he went on conducting his speculations with as much prudence, as he undertook them with energy and enterprise.

The period I am alluding to may be considered as the golden age of the shipping interest; and it will occasion surprise to no one acquainted with the commercial history of those days, to hear that in little more than five years time, Mr Dudleigh could "write himself worth" L.20,000. He practised a parsimony of the most excruciating kind. Though every one on 'Change was familiar with his name, and cited him as one of the most "rising young men there," he never associated with any of them but on occasions of strict business. He was content with the humblest fare; and trudged cheerfully to and from the city to his quiet quarters near Hackney, as if he had been but a clerk luxuriating on an income of L.50 per annum. Matters went on thus prospering with him, till his thirty-second year, when he married the wealthy widow of a ship-builder. The influence which she had in his future fortunes, warrants me in pausing to describe her. She was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old; of passable person, as far as figure went, for her face was rather bloated and vulgar; somewhat of a dowdy in dress; insufferably vain, and fond of extravagant display; a termagant; with little or no intellect.

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